Report on the Trials of Implements at Oxford. 463 
employed is of very great importance in the question of determining the merit 
of dift'crent horse gears, it is by no means the sole question. We had in 
addition to determine whether the gear was well made, well proportioned, and 
formed of enduring materials, also to take into consideration how fixr the design 
is one which conduces to the safety of the animals and men engaged in working 
it, or who may be in its neighbourhood, and further whether it is provided 
with a clutch, with a break, and with other useful adjuncts. (See Table III., 
Section II., Class 2.) 
The prizes, it will be seen, did not follow the order of merit in relation to 
the useful jjower developed, we having, as already explained, to take other 
points into consideration. 
It must also be borne in mind that the mere useful results shown by 
column 15, if taken by themselves, might lead to an erroneous conclusion, 
because the multiple of gearing, it will be seen by column varies from as 
little as 15 J to 1 to as much as 95 to 1 ; and when it is recollected that the 
power absorbed in friction is so absorbed in consequence of its being trans- 
mitted through the shafting and gearing by which this multiplication is made, 
it is clear that in those cases where a high speed is developed a less amount 
of useful effect should be obtained than when only a low speed is reached, 
although the machines in the two cases may be equal in merit as regards their 
design and construction. The Exhibitor, therefore, who by only obtaining 
a lower speed with his driving-shaft, obtains also a higher effective result, is 
in truth throwing upon the user of his horse gear the loss of power in getting 
up the speed from the point where the exhibitor leaves it, while in another 
horse gear working at a higher speed, but with less apparent economy, no 
such further loss would be incurred by the user of it. 
The table enters with so much minuteness into the details of the gearing of 
the different machines, that very little room is left for comment in this Report. 
We, liowever, call attention to the fact of the great necessity there is for 
having well-designed forms of teeth for the gearing, and point to the apparatus, 
No. 4834, exhibited by Messrs. Turner of Ipswich, which afforded, although 
its gearing multijilied as much as 41 times, the high percentage of 78"8. 
Looking at the machine, however, as a whole, we did not consider it 
equal in point of general completeness of design and excellence of parts to 
that exhibited by Messrs. Woods, Cocksedge, and Warner, to which we 
awarded the First Prize ; but on an examination of the toothed wheels of 
Messrs. Turner's apparatus we found them so arranged as to run with an ease 
and freedom which fully accounted for the extremely favourable results in 
point of effective duty exhibited by this machine. 
The modern horse gears which have come under our notice at the Oxford 
Show possess, owing to their being self-contained, portable, and easily fixed in 
any desired spot, merits which do not belong to the old-fashioned horse gears, 
with the large overhead first-motion wheels, but the authors of this Eeport 
believe that, owing to the use of these large wheels, the old-fashioned gear is 
one by which horse-power maybe transmitted and converted into quick motion 
with less loss in friction and less wear of the parts than it can be by the modern 
gears ; and it is believed that any one intending to employ horse-power always 
in one locality upon his property, would do well to thoroughly consider whether 
he should not erect in a building an overhead gear with large first-motion 
wheel, rather than avail himself of even the best of the portable foims of gear 
that have been exhibited at this Show. 
The one-horse gears were not tried by the break. Owing to their having only 
one pole there was not any ready means of fastening the drum to them, and it 
would have been impossible, had these machines been put upon the break, 
to get the trials completed much before the close of the show. We 
therefore felt that we could, by applying the information wliich the trials 
