THE EXHIBITION OE 1862. 
413 
vertical axis descending from the crank-shaft. In order to 
pull a heavy implement, like a four-furrow plough, by means of 
an endless rope, which only embraces, but is not attached to a 
cyhnder, it is clear that some ingenious arrangement is needed 
to prevent the rope from slipping under great strain. We 
have seen how this difficulty has been provided for; but we 
have yet to notice a better contrivance than those described. 
It had been found in practice that when the plough was in 
severe work the rope could not obtain sufficient hold of the 
drum-surface to overcome the opposing resistance, and thus, 
while the drum revolved, it ceased to afford motion to the rope. 
Instead of requiring a turn of the rope in grooves, this new 
drum grasps the rope in a single groove, the rope making but 
one half-turn round it (fig. 7). A common groove somewhat 
resembles the letter V in form. The power of such a groove to 
hold the rope against a heavy strain depends upon its nipping 
it. With this view, the drum consists of two iron disks bolted 
together — see section (fig. 8) — and the Y groove is formed of 
pairs of knuckle-jointed nipping-pieces, so placed, in pairs, 
round their peripheries as to collapse upon the rope when it 
presses upon them. The anchorage has been described. No- 
thing more need be described with respect to the four-furrow 
plough save the ingenious method of keeping the rope always 
tight. (See fig. 2.) The advantage of such a contrivance will 
at once be seen by those who consider the difficulties that 
would continually arise from the varying lengths of furrows 
where hedgerows are not parallel. 
We believe there are about one hundred of these steam- 
ploughs now at work in England, some tilling the fight lands ; 
but most of them rending the solid hoof-pressed pavement, 
which, beneath the cultivated surface of our clays, impedes 
alike the entrance of air, rain, and rootlet. In France there 
are several. Upon one farm in Hungary there are eight at 
work. Russia is employing them to bring her thinly-populated 
plains into cultivation. Our colonies possess them ; in Algeria 
they are preparing a seed-bed for the cotton-plant, and even 
now two of them on the banks of the Nile stand face to face 
■with the common parent of all ploughs. Here, it is displacing 
horse-labour, heralding improved methods of culture, and 
making provision for the demands of increasing population; 
abroad, it is fertilizing the waste, subduing prejudice, befriending 
the ardent and enterprising, and lending its shoulder to poli- 
tical revolution and national regeneration wherever they may be 
wanted. 
It is no uncommon thing to find oneself rung out of the 
Kensington Exhibition before a tithe of the appointed work 
