446 
PROCEEDINGS OF 
most extended limits, smaller than was the State of New York ten years since. 
Steam cars have been moved, as an experiment, both here and abroad, many hun¬ 
dred miles, at the rate of sixty miles an hour; but what will be the highest velocity 
ultimately attained in common use, either upon the water or the land, is a most 
important problem, as yet entirely unsolved. Our respected citizens, Morey and 
Drake, have endeavored to substitute the force of explosion of gaseous compounds 
for steam. The first was the pioneer, and the second has shown that the problem 
is still worth pursuing to solution. An energetic western mechanic made a bold 
but unsuccessful effort to put in operation an engine acting by the expansion of air 
by heat; and a similar most ingenious attempt was made by Mr. Walter Byrnes, of 
Concordia, Louisiana ; as also to substitute compressed air, and air compressed and 
Expanded, as a locomotive power. All attempts to use air as a motive power, 
except the baloon, the sail vessel, the air gun, and the windmill, have thus far 
failed; but what inventive genius may yet accomplish in this respect, remains yet 
undetermined. There is, it is true, a mile or more of pneumatic railway used between 
Dublin and Kingston. An air pump driven by steam exhausts the air from a 
cylinder in which a piston moves; this cylinder is laid the whole length of the 
road, and the piston is connected to a car above, so that, as the piston moves for¬ 
ward on the exhaustion of the air in front of it, the car is also carried forward. 
The original idea of this pneumatic railway was derived from the contrivance of 
an American, quite unknown to fame, who, as his sign expressed it, showed to 
visitors a new mode of carrying the mail, more simple, and quite as valuable, prac¬ 
tically, as this atmospheric railway. The submerged propeller of Ericsson, and 
the submerged paddle wheel, the rival experiments of our two distinguished naval 
officers, Stockton and Hunter, are now candidates for public favor; and the Prince¬ 
ton on the ocean as she moves in noiseless majesty, at a speed never before attain¬ 
ed at sea, seems to attest the value of one of these experiments, whilst the other is 
yet to be determined. The impenetrable iron steam vessel of Mr. Stevens is not 
yet completed, nor have those terrific engines of war, his explosive shells, yet been 
brought to the test of actual conflict. Success to these great efforts of our gallant 
navy and patriotic mechanics, to increase our comforts in peace and augment our 
power and resources in war; and may the West soon participate more largely in 
these great enterprises, by the establishment of naval depots upon their waters, as 
first suggested by the vigorous and original mind of Capt. John Sanders, of the 
Engineer Corps, and sustained and advocated by the patriotic and accomplished 
Maury. 
In curious and useful mechanical inventions, our countrymen are unsurpassed, 
and a visit to our new and beautiful Patent Office will convince the close observer 
that the inventive genius of America never was more active than at the present, 
moment. The machines for working up cotton, hemp, and wool, from their most 
crude state to the finest and most useful fabrics, have all been improved among us. 
The cotton gin of Eli Whitney has altered tno destinies of one-third of our coun¬ 
try, and doubled the exports of the Union. The ingenious improvements for imita¬ 
ting medals, by parallel lines upon a plain surface, which, by the distances between 
them, give all the effects of light and shade that belong to a raised or depressed sur¬ 
face, invented by Gobrecht and perfected by Spencer, has been rendered entirely 
automatic by Saxton, so that it not only rules its lines at proper distances and of 
suitable lengths, but when its work is done it stops. In hydraulics, we have suc¬ 
ceeded well; and the great aqueduct over the Potomac at Georgetown, constructed 
