The " Automatic Megass Firemen." 353 
pound of megass than nature put into it ; just as good 
results can be obtained from careful hand-firing, as from 
my Automatic firemen. In the first instance, good men 
are expensive; in the latter the very principle of the 
invention necessitates its fufillingthe two most important 
functions of preventing air entering at the furnace 
mouth, and giving the furnace a regular supply of megass 
in order that it may be dried before entering into com- 
bustion. I refrain from saying more on this now, but I 
hope ere long to have the honour of laying before you 
some interesting observations on furnaces. 
It is just as essential to good economy that the boilers 
should have the very highest initial or furnace tempera- 
ture, the highest possible steam pressure, and the lowest 
possible chimney temperature, as it is for the engine to 
be economical u* der similar conditions of high initial 
pressure, and low terminal temperature. 
I do not care to use my privileges as a committee 
man of this society to advertise the apparatus I have 
recently invented and carried out with the assistance of 
Mr. DAWSON, but I may state, that though simplicity 
itself, it is none the less effective, and, that there is not 
a megass platform in the colony where this invention 
would not save from 50 to 90 per cent of labour. 
