Report on Steam Cultivation at Newcastle. 409 
Clayton and Shuttleworth's engines consuming more than double the coal used 
by Fowler's 7-horse engine. 
We award as follows : — 
First Prize, 50?., to John Fowler, for 7-horsc Engine, Anchor, &c. (1541). 
Second Prize, 251., to J. and F. Howard, for Apparatus (1008). 
In concluding this portion of our Report we would remark that, whilst the 
result of these trials proves incontestably that steam power cau economically 
compete with horse labour, it is not so much in the mere saving of cost as in 
the superior quality of the work, and consequent influence on produce, that 
steam asserts its superiority over animal power for strong soils. 
Class III. 
Ploughs for Steam Tower. 
Messrs. Fowler, Howard, and Stccvens entered in this class. The trials 
took place on Friday, July 15th, in a portion of Mr. Jamicson's stubble field. 
Messrs. Savory's Double Windlass was used, and one of Messrs. Howard's 
Anchors. The draft was tested by a new and very beautiful Dynamometer, 
designed by Messrs. Easton and Amos specially for the Newcastle Show. 
Mr. Amos has kindly forwarded us the following description of this ingenious 
piece of machinery : " In testing the traction force required to move culti- 
vating implements drawn by steam power, the ordinary dynamometer, which 
travels over the land, is incapable of registering results correctly, owing to the 
ever varying resistance caused by irregularities of the surface. It therefore 
appeared desirable that a fixed dynamometer should be constructed, capable of 
correctly registering the tractive force W strain caused by the resistance of the 
cultivating implement on the wire rope, and giving the total amount of power used 
in an experiment to overcome resistance, however variable that resistance might 
be, as regards time or intensity. These ideas were matured, and the result was 
the Newcastle Dynamometer. The train of reasoning used in the invention of 
the instrument was in conformity with the law of statics ; thus, if a rope be 
passed over two pulleys placed some distance apart, and weights of unknown 
amount be fastened to each end of the rope, it is no difficult task to ascertain 
the amount of the weights so placed. For if upon the rope, midway between 
the two pulleys, we bang a known weight of any amount, it wilL^cause the 
rope to be deflected from a straight line ; then all that is required is to multiply 
the central weight in lbs. by the distance from the central weight to one of the 
pulleys, upon which the rope rests, in inches; divide the product by twice the 
deflexion of the rope, the quotient is the weight in lbs. of either of the weights 
which tend to tighten the rope over the pulleys, or in other words, is the 
measure of the strain on the rope. The instrument consists of a strong 
wooden frame, mounted upon carriage-wheels, having on its centre a strong 
cast-iron vertical socket. A cast-iron screw column, fitted with a fly nut, drops 
into this socket and moves freely in it, and the column cau be raised or 
lowered by the fly nut. To the top of the column is fitted a long arm of wood 
by a joint at the centre, so that either end can be raised or depressed. The 
arm thus possesses a movement both horizontal and Vertical, like that of a 
transit instrument. At eacl} extremity of the arm a pulley is placed, which 
turns freely on vertical pins, the centres of these pulleys being 18 feet apart. 
At the centre of the arm is a central pulley witb vertical spindle, carried by 
two strong springs. These springs are so placed that they deflect the central 
pulley twelve inches out of a straight line between the other two. The rope 
passes over the end pulleys and under the central one, so that the deflexion of 
the unloaded rope is twelve inches. The instrument being fixed in a position 
between the engine and the Cultivator, the tractive force on the rope is shown 
