PROCEEDINGS 1849 — 1858. 
277 
immense volumes of flames wliich illuminate the country near large 
iron manufactories. These gases should be collected and applied to 
heating and illuminating the various buildings connected with the 
works. Chevalier Bunsen and Dr. Lyon Playfair clearly demonstrated 
in a report prepared by them on the gases existing in iron furnaces 
that one of the largest resources of the country is wasted by the 
neglect of these important considerations. Mr. Simpson had no 
hesitation in saying that the expense of fuel to produce steam power 
for the blast and otlier mechanical operations miglit be wholly econo- 
mised from the application of such combustible gases in the place of 
it. In manufacturing processes we are too apt to attend solely to 
the production of one commercial article and to neglect others which 
necessarily arise during its formation. ''But in these days when a 
vast struggle for superiority in commerce and in agriculture, in manu- 
facture and in science, is shaking all European nations to their 
foundations, the importance of any, even the smallest bj^'e-product 
cannot be over-rated, and it should be the object of the manufacturer 
to discover the whole compounds eliminated, and to apply each to its 
respective purpose ; equalising the expense of the generation of all. 
I might enlarge on the necessity of every manufacturer possessing 
such a general education in all sciences and all arts as to enable him 
to observe what the uneducated and consequently prejudiced man 
would allow to pass by him every day unnoticed." 
Mr. James Xasmyth gave a description of an Improved Safety 
Valve for Steam Boilers, which would open and allow the steam to 
escape on a certain pressure being reached without the interference 
of the engine driver. It consisted of a sphere which fit in a circle 
in the boiler, to which was attached a direct weight placed inside the 
boiler, so that the engine man would be unable to tamper with it, there 
being no machinery exposed outside the boiler. Some time after- 
wards Mr. W. H. Bartholomew, C.E., engineer to the Aire and Calder 
Navigation Co., explained an improvement in pressure guages. He 
stated that the engine drivers frequently tampered with the safety 
valves, and worked the engines at pressures much higher than they 
ought, thereby endangering not only the boiler, but the lives of the 
passengers. To ob\aate this it was proposed to add to the ordinary 
