at the Southampton Meeting, 1844. 
389 
ported upon by the judges of the department^ three of which were 
worked by hand, and one by horse-power. It appears that the 
other nine " were not prepared for trial," and one of the four be- 
ing "in an unfinished state," our attention is confined, as was the 
case with the judges, to the performance of three of them. Of 
these, two are catalogued as the invention of Mr. F. W. Etheredge, 
of 11, Furnival's Inn, London, and manufactured by Messrs. Ran- 
soms; and the third as the invention of Mr. H. Clayton, of 21, 
Upper Park Place, Dorset Square, London, manufactured by 
himself. 
The judges first noticed the performance of Mr. Etheredge's 
horse-machine, of which a pretty full account is given in the 
' Report on Drain-Tiles and Drainage' (Journal, vol. iv. p. 370). 
It appears that during six minutes — the duration of the trial — 96 
tiles of different shapes and denominations were produced, ave- 
raging 165 inches Iong=16 articles per minute, or 960 per hour. 
Among these articles no pipes are mentioned. 
Secondly, we have the performance of a very recently-invented 
hand-tile machine, by Mr. Etheredge, which produced during five 
minutes 67 articles 13^ inciies long, of which 33 were full inch- 
bore pipes, and 17 tiles with soles, and double tiles =13^^ articles 
per minute, or 804 per hour. 
Tliirdly, Mr. Clayton's performance is stated to have been, 
during five minutes, 43 pipe-tiles of various lengths, " not so 
sound as the last, and, being of irregular lengths, not fit to set in a 
kiln." This performance equals S-/^ pipes per minute, or 516 per 
hour : but the clay was in too moist a state for Mr. Clayton's ma- 
chine, and only one-third of the time mentioned was applied to 
the actual making of tiles. 
The judges further observe, that " all the machines were sup- 
plied with clay from the same heap, and the exhibitors made 
tiles in any way they pleased." " We considered the hand- 
machine (Mr. Etheredge's) would be most generally useful; that 
it made better tiles than the horse-machine, or than Mr. Clayton's, 
and was the oidy hand-machine which made tiles that would 
stand well in the kiln." 
In conformity with the discoveries resulting from these trials, the 
judges awarded the Society's prize of 20/. and the silver medal to 
Messrs. Ransome as the exliibitors of Mr. Etheredge's implement. 
It is the writer's duty to throw such light as his knowledge may 
enable him to do on points which seem to have escaped the judges' 
observation, or not to have been illustrated by them. The con- 
ditions of the Society's offered prize, required that " the price at 
which tiles or pipes have been sold, be taken into consideration. ' 
Of this no mention is made by the judges. 
The writer has ascei-tained that at ihe period of the South- 
2 n 2 
