and on Miscellaneous Inventions at the Birmingham Show. 291 
boiler near the fire-box through a 1^-inch pipe into the smoke- 
box, and the end opens upward into the chimney nearly on a 
level with the mouth of the pipe which issues the exhaust steam 
from the cylinder. When it is desired to cleanse out the tubes, 
the jet is turned on, a powerful blast is sent up the chimney,, 
inducing: a current through the tubes of such suddenness and 
force that the soot is cleared out and for the most part deposited 
in the bottom of the smoke-box. The action may take place 
at any time while the engine is at work, and this facility for 
frequently cleansing the tubes must secure a greater economy 
of fuel. 
Henderson's Patent Mechanical Stoker, exhibited by Messrs. 
Piercy and Co., of Broad Street, Birmingham (No. 5785), pre- 
sented an improvement in the mode of crushing the coal before 
it drops upon the rotating fans which cant the comminuted fuel 
upon the fire in evenly distributed portions. 
In the Disintegrator of Messrs. Carter Brothers, of 82, Mark 
Lane, London (No. 5048), blades or beaters, sometimes rotating 
with a speed of 3300 revolutions per minute, shatter and pulverise 
the material to be ground in a case so formed that the meal is acted 
upon by repeated contact with the beaters. It is adapted for 
grinding, crushing, shredding, and pulping all kinds of feeding 
materials, grain, gorse, bean-haulm, oil-seeds, oilcake, and locust- 
beans ; also bones and artificial manures. The Judges did not 
make a trial of this mill in comparison with others ; but the 
drawback to its various advantages is the obviously large amount 
of power required to drive it in proportion to the work efficiently 
done. 
Messrs. Clayton and Shuttleworth, of Lincoln, exhibited a 
Combined Threshing, Dressing, Straw-cutting, and Chaff-riddling 
Machine (Perkins's Patent), No. 5789. A chaff-cutter with five 
knives is fixed athwart one end of the threshing machine to catch 
the straw as it falls from the shakers, one man being employed 
to feed. Four blades upon the arms of the chaffcutter- wheel 
toss the cut chaff up to a perforated riddle placed under the col- 
lecting board and above the pulse riddle. The rough stuff is 
delivered among the pulse, and the cut-straw chaff bagged at 
the side of the machine. It is made for cutting three different 
lengths. 
