627 
THE TWENTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING, 
t'or short distances between stations nothing further will be required, so that 
carriages may be added to, or taken from the train without delay. For long 
distances, an electric wire fixed underneath the carriages, and joined by the 
coupling chains, can be used to ring a bell in the guard’s brake, the contact 
being completed by the “ disc ” of the signal going out. One pull of the handle 
opens the communication with the adjoining compartment, exhibits the u disc 
and rings the bell in the carriage, and also in the guard’s brake. 
Leuoir’s patent prize-medal gas engine, of half-horse power (from the London 
depot, Cranbourn Street, Leicester Square), was at work during the evening. 
The motive power in this engine is a mixture of one part of coal-gas and eleven 
parts of air, which is exploded by the spark from an induction coil. It is in ap¬ 
pearance very much like a horizontal steam-engine, having a cylinder, piston, 
crank-shaft, and fly-wheel; the cylinder has the necessary slide arrangements 
for the admission of coal gas and atmospheric air in due proportions, which at 
the proper moment is ignited by the electric spark—the connection being made 
and detached by the rotary action of the crank shaft—the expansive force, con¬ 
sequent on the ignition, gives motion to the piston on each side alternately. 
The cylinder has a water jacket surrounding it, through which a stream of hot 
or cold water is kept gradually flowing, to absorb any excess of heat. It is 
found that its consumption of gas is about 70 feet per horse power per hour of 
actual work, giving a cost, with gas at 4s. 6d. per 1000 feet, of about 4d., and 
no better practical proof of its safety can be offered than the following, viz. 
that Lenoir’s gas engine was the only prime mover permitted by the Commis¬ 
sioners of the International Exhibition, 1862, to generate its own power within 
the building. 
At intervals during the evening the lecture theatre was crowded to witness 
the exhibition of Mr. Stewart Harrison’s self-acting preserver valve for the ex¬ 
tinguishing of fires. This consists of a peculiarly-constructed water-valve, 
which is kept closed by a ring of fusible metal. We will suppose that a ware¬ 
house has a number of these valves fixed in different parts of the ceiling ; a fire 
breaks out in the goods piled up upon the floor, and the heat ascending impinges 
on the valve in that part of the ceiling which is over the ignited goods; when 
the valve acquires a temperature of about 212° F. the fusible metal melts, the 
valve is opened, and a stream of water is poured down upon the precise spot 
where the fire originated, while the passage of the water causes the ringing of 
an alarm bell, and completes an electric circuit which may be made to ring 
another bell at any distance off, say, at the residence of the superintendent of 
the warehouse. For purposes of demonstration the inventor used a model 
house in which a fire of shavings was lighted ; in less than a minute from the 
time of applying the light, the valve was opened, the water poured down, the 
fire extinguished, and two alarm bells set ringing, one on the top of the house, 
and the other at some distance from it. 
THE TWENTY-FOURTH ANNIVERSARY MEETING 
OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY. 
Wednesday, May 11th, 1865. 
MR. G. W. SANDFORD, PRESIDENT, IN THE CHAIR. 
The President opened the Meeting with the following Address :— 
Gentlemen,—It was the will of the Council to which you entrusted the 
affairs of our Society last year that I should again occupy the President’s chair. 
The period has been critical, big with the fate of Pharmacy, and the duties 
of my office have necessarily been onerous ; but the labour of fulfilling them 
has been lightened by the privilege they afforded of working in a good cause, 
