Experiments in Canal Steam Navigation. of the wheel L vibrates the tongue or ham mer k, and the alarm is given. When the water rises, the float will necessarily raise with it, and the distance be denoted by the figures 1, 2, 3, &c. on the dial plate. A spring, or rack and pinion, can be substituted for the weight H, should either be preferred. [Of the utility of Mr. Torrey's invention there cannot exist a doubt in the mind of any reasonable person. Most of the accidents that have occurred in steamboats have been occasioned by the bursting of the boilers, and to find an effectual remedy for preventing a recurrence of similar disasters, has engaged the attention of practical and scientific men for a series of years. Mr. Torrey's plan, it appears to us, is an effectual one-it is so simple that it is almost incredible that it has hitherto escaped the notice of those whose avocations must bring the subject daily and hourly under their immediate notice. -The invention has been deemed of sufficient importance by several gentlemen to form a joint stock company for carrying into effectual operation the plan. The apparatus as above described has been placed by them on the Delaware, steamboat, plying between this city and Providence, and experiments have been made in the river, that leaves no doubt of the complete success of the undertaking. In a few days she will make her first trip, and we trust that in our next we shall be enabled to give a satisfactory account of its practical operation.-ED. M. M.] Experiments in Canal Steam Navigation. By R. G. M. [From the London Mechanics' Magazine.] MR. EDITOR, It may be deemed very imprudent for an individual with small means to attempt propelling a canal boat by steam, especially when there are many persons in his neighborhood more competent to the undertaking, having more money and better conveniences for the purpose. I well knew, however, that though their means and appli. ances were ample, they had more lucrative and agreeable channels wherein to apply both. With this impression on my mind, and having no employment for a small steam engine which I had by me, I commenced the experiment which I beg now to relate. Selecting an old heavy-sailing canal boat, I tried several kinds of paddles placed in va. rious situations of the boat, repeatedly altered the machinery, and travelled several voya. 155 ges with her myself, the last of which was the same rate, since passing the lines of the "education of the working classes," is other boats, and thus letting down the boat's really excellent; it is couched in eloquent nermomentum, would cause this difference. vous language, and will well repay an attentive perusal. At some cost, and much labor, I have enabled myself to state these facts, but at present I must lay my boat and engine aside, from necessity, however, not choice. If there be any thing in my experience acceptable to a more competent adventurer than my. self in so laudable an undertaking (for it wants only competence), so as not to leave it in the hands of monopoly, I would gladly af. ford every information in my power. December 13, 1832. THE CHIRAGON, OR GUIDE FOR THE HAND. -Mr. Wm. Stidolph, a schoolmaster at Blackheath, has invented an apparatus to which the name of Chiragon is given; by the assistance of which, a person who has become blind after learning the art of writing, may continue his practice without the risk of confounding words or lines together. It consists of a frame, with a raised margin, upon which margin is placed a narrow piece of wood, having a groove to receive a corres. ponding key that is attached to a collar or bracelet for the wrist. In the sides of the frame series of notches are cut, into which the grooved piece of wood is placed successively so as to form the regular intervals between the lines, whilst the hand is permitted by the collar to pass freely from the left to the right, but is confined to certain limits in its action up and down, or in the direction of the length of the paper used. The writing is effected with Mordan's patent pencils; and we have proved the efficiency of the invention, by writing a letter with its guidance while our eyes were bandaged so as to exclude the sight of every object.-[Athenæum.] MONTHLY ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS OF SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS. Mr. Baddeley's letter on Martin's improved Frictionless Pump, for which Mr. Shalders has obtained another patent, is good-as indeed are all communications from the pen of that gentleman. Mr. B. contends that the new patentee can claim no exclusive right to his invention, and in that opinion " Mr. Hebert, the talented Editor of the Register of Patent Inventions," concurs. He observes, "this new invention is one of the oldest contrivances we ever met with in the specification of a patent. The patentee has, we hope, found it to answer his purpose, and we dare say has felt infinite satisfaction in his discovery; but in attempting to secure to himself, by patent right, the exclusive privilege of using the machine, we fear he has expressed more money out of his pocket than will ever gravitate into it again from the same source.' Another claimant for the merit of making some of the first British experiments in Steam Navigation, has come forth in the person of Mr. W. Symington, Jun., (for his father.) Mr. S. states that the "first public trial of steam for a useful purpose in navigation" was made by his father on Dalswinton Lake, in Dumfreeshire, in 1788-and repeated on the Clyde in 1789. An engraving of the boat accompanies his letter. Mr. John Bate, the celebrated Mathematical Instrument Marker, of Cornhill, London, has obtained a patent for what he calls "an improvement, or improvements, on machinery applicable to the imitation of medals, sculpture, and other works of art executed in relief." This in fact is no more nor less than a revival of Mr. Asa Spenser's invention, (of the firm of Draper & Co., Bank Note Engravers,) of Philadelphia. The engravings with an excellent description by Mr. Hebert, from the Register of Arts, we shall give in our next; as also, Mr. Robert Mudie's really Philosophical Treatise on Dry-Rot-which is written in that singular original style which pervades all his writings. The London Mechanics' Magazine, for De. cember, contains much valuable mattersome of which we shall insert in our next number. There are no less than six attacks in it on the publications of the Society for diffusing Useful Knowledge," from various correspondents of the work; and added to these the Editor has inserted his remarks, on what he calls the "one sided treatises on Sciences," put The rest of the number is mostly made up forth under their sanction. The communication of accounts of American patents and inven. signed Samuel Downing, Cabinet-Maker, on tions. Among them is a description of an The London Repertory of Patent Inventions, for February,, contains an excellent account of an improvement in the construction of Iron Railways with plates, which we shall publish in our next number. Analysis of the Contents of Scientific Periodicals. alarm to be applied to the interior flues of steam boilers, by Dr. Bache, of Philadelphia. It is very ingenious, but we think Mr. Torrey's invention (described at page 153 of this Mag. azine) is more simple, and will prove more efficacious. The Journal of the Franklin Institute, for February, contains the Report of the Franklin Institute for the year ending January 17, with a list of managers and other office bearers. It consists principally of an account of the changes made in their Hall, but leaves the public in ignorance of the total number of members of which the Institute consists. It ap. pears, however, that it is in a prosperous state. It also contains an excellent report made to the Washington City Lyceum, by the learned editor Dr. Jones, on the question, "Are there any trades so injurious to health, or so hazardous to morals, that they ought, for that reason, to be discouraged or abandoned?" The Doctor enumerates the pernicious effects arising from several employments-among the most striking of them we will select that of the needle pointer: "Of the persons engaged in the pointing of needles, very few indeed reach the age of forty years, by far the greater number dying under that of thirty-two. The fine particles of steel which are ground off are so light as to float in the air, and are so copiously deposited upon the mouth and nostrils as completely to blacken them; much irritation is produced by them in the lining membrane of the nose, and at first a copious mucous discharge is produced from it; but afterwards, the irritability of the parts is exhausted, and they become perfectly dry. The trachea, or wind-pipe, is next affected; respiration becomes difficult, and an habitual, exhausting cough is produced. Soon, nearly all the animal functions are disturbed, the digestive organs refuse to perform their offices, and the lungs, in particular, become the main seat of that total derangement of the whole system which must soon terminate in death. To find a man who has followed this trade for twenty years is almost impossible. "I have introduced the pointing of needles as an example of the deleterious effects of the fine dust of steel, but the like evils are experienced in the making of a great number of other instruments of iron as well as of steel. Forks, for example, are finished by what is called dry grinding; that is, by grinding them upon a stone without water. Numerous utensils, also, of cast iron, when finished on the 157 dry stone, or by fine files, give out a dust producing all the effects which I have described, and in an equal degree. To put a youth to these businesses, therefore, is to bespeak for him an early grave; yet, society wants and must have the articles, and there is no more difficulty in inducing men to fol. low these trades than there is in enlisting them for the purpose of being killed, secundum artem, in the army or the navy; espe cially if they are to receive a few pence per diem more for this than for some other species of labor." The concluding remarks will shew the view of the question Dr. Jones has taken : "In a despotic government, where human life is held cheap, a tyrant may compel an individual to wear an iron mask, without offering a reason why, but in a free government, where the life of every citizen ought to be accounted of inestimable value, the only mode of inducing a man to wear one for his own benefit, as well as to do many other desirable and proper things, is to give to him that degree of education which shall elevate him in his own opinion, and induce him to act from motives more worthy his intellectual nature than those which usually govern persons in walks of life accounted much more exalted than that of the great body of work. men in our manufactories: this is the only remedy upon which I can found any hope; but, were I standing upon the threshold of life, just about to enter upon its duties, and possessing in the commencement of my career the benefit of the few observations which I have made, the little truth I have gleaned in the years which I have numbered, I should even then consider the hope as utopian that I should live to witness the dawn of such a state of things in the humbler walks of life; for, warmly as I now feel in favor of a system of universal education, and great as I believe the benefits which are to be derived from it, I do not entertain a hope that by any effort, merely human, the great body of any commu. nity can be so far elevated above the level at which they now stand, as to induce them to act the philosopher in cases of this description. At all events, I am fully of opinion that so far as governments are concerned in the regulation of trades and callings, they ought to be, as they generally have been, confined in their action to the prevention of nuisances; that artisans and manufacturers should be allowed to pursue their own business in their own way; and that Laninez nous faire, should be their motto."-[Ed. M. M.] FALL, IN THE PRICE OF MEN IN FRANCE. Towards the close of the Imperial regime in France as high as £500 sterling ($2200) was, it is stated in the London Spectator, "frequently paid for a substitute in the Conscription. At present, straight, healthy, apt young fellows cost under £10 st. ($44) each.”—The reason assigned for this fall in the price of man is, that "such men as have no other property than their sinews, are far more numerous than twenty years ago, and wages are reduced in the same proportion." This comes of what Shakspeare expressively calls "the cankers of a calm world and a long peace." Compensating Pendulums.-Mr. Henry Robert, pupil of Breguet, has, by availing himself of the well known quality possessed by the wood of the fir tree of preserving its length unaltered in all changes of temperature, and confining a rod of this wood in a metal box, the expansion of the bob correcting that of the tube, succeeded perfectly in making a pendulum, uniting all the requisites of a good compensa. tor, and at the same time simple in its construction. and form. [Acad. des Sciences.] M. Latreille, the celebrated French naturalist, died Feb. 6th at Paris. His death creates a vacancy in the Academy of Sciences, and the professorship at the Museum of Natural History. AVOYLLE FERRY, ON RED RIVER, LOUISIANA. Latitude 31:10 N. longitude 91:59 W, from Greenwich, nearly. [Communicated for the American Railroad Journal.] Date. 1833. 59 56 cloudy mora'g-clear er'g foggy morn.-cloudy alid. clear-calm evening cloudy-clear evening cloudy clear -very much rain -high wind cloudy cloudy cloudy and rain Tuesd, Jan. 1 63 67 69 calm ..-cloudy night cloudy, and rain all night jcloudy, rain and thunder cloudy in even'g-high w. clear [wind |