Various

“ It is hardly probable that any one would lay down a complete plant, consisting of a steam or gas engine and dynamo, for the sole purpose of charging the boat cells, unless such a boat were in almost daily use, or unless several boats were to be supplied with electrical power from one station. In order that electric launches may prove useful, it will be desirable that charging stations should be established, and on many of the British and Irish rivers and lakes there is abundance of motive power, in the shape of steam or gas engines, or water-wheels. ”

“ It has also this advantage, that with a blast of air it will burn and work equally well any side up, and the flames can therefore be directed straight on their work without loss. It is, in one form or another, almost a universal burner, as it can be readily adapted to almost any purpose, from tempering a row of needles to making steam for a 200 horse power steam engine. It is easy to make, easy to manage, practically indestructible, and for commercial purposes has, I think, a general adaptability which will bring it, in one form or another, into almost universal use. ”

“ But the work increases as the weight. In springing, walking, swimming, or any other activity, the force employed has first to overcome the weight of the body. A man can easily bound a height of two feet, and he weighs as much as a hundred thousand grasshoppers, while a hundred thousand grasshoppers could leap no higher than one--say a foot. This shows that the vertebrate has the advantage. A man represents the volume of fifteen millions of ants, yet can easily move more than three hundred feet a minute, a comparison which gives him forty times more power, bulk for bulk, than the ant possesses. ”

“ It is a common practice to diminish or make conical-shaped tubes. All my experience goes to prove that, excepting a very trifling allowance for friction, the area of the smallest part of the tube rules the power, the value of the mixing-tube being no more than that of the smallest part. If the mixing-tube is upright, new sources of interference comes in; notably the varying specific gravity of the mixture. Except with one definite gas supply, the result is always more or less imperfect, and regular proportions cannot be obtained. ”

“ Assuming that the weight raised is 1,000 lb., and that we could make and break the current two hundred times a minute, then the work done by the falling mass could, under no circumstances, equal 1/75 of a horse-power, or 440 foot-pounds; that is, 1,000 lb. lifted 2.27 feet high in a minute, or about one-eighth of an inch for each operation: hence the mere statical pull, or power of the magnet, does in no way tend to increase the energy furnished by the battery or generator, for the instant we wish to do work we must have motion--work being the product of mass and distance. ”

“ A very slight variation makes an imperfect flame. Not only does the gas jet require to be adjusted with great precision, but it also needs more or less adjustment for different qualities of gas. An ordinary hollow or divided flame is able to take up on its surface any deficiency of air supply; but with the high power solid flames the outside surface is small, and the consequence is that one of these burners, adjusted for gas of poor quality, may, when used with rich gas, give a long hollow or smoky flame, unless the gas jet be reduced in size. ”

“ In cases where a sudden rise in temperature is required in a furnace, or where the power is deficient, this method of supplementing and increasing the heat will be found of very great service, and processes liable to be checked by making up a fire with fresh fuel can be carried on without check, even after the solid fuel has almost entirely disappeared.
That a solid fuel is quite unnecessary, I will prove in a very simple manner, by burning a mixture of coal gas and air without a flame, in a bundle of iron wire. ”

“ A small beetle can escape from under a piece of cardboard a hundred times its weight. Pushing its head under the edge and using it as a lever, it straightens itself on its legs and moves the board just a little, but enough to escape. Of course, we know a horse would be powerless to escape from a load a hundred times its own weight. His head cannot be made into a lever. Give him a lever that will make the time he takes equal to that taken by the insect, and he will throw off the load at a touch. The fact is that in small creatures the lack of muscular energy is replaced by time. ”

“ For instance, if a bright red heat is required, it is not possible to obtain this temperature economically with any burner working without an artificial blast of air; the difference between the temperature of the flame and that of the object heated is too little to enable the heat to be taken up freely or quickly, and the result is a large loss of costly fuel. If we want to obtain high temperatures economically, an artificial blast of air is necessary, and the heavier the pressure of air, the greater the economy. ”

“ Reckenzaun, said he rejoiced to find that that gentleman had proved, to one man at least, that his views had been mistaken. He found in these days of the practical applications of electricity, that the ideas of most practical men were gradually being proved to be mistaken, and every day new facts were being discovered, which led them to imagine that as yet they were only on the shore of an enormous ocean of knowledge. ”

“ Much of the force of a moving man is lost from the inequalities of the way. His body, supported on two points only when at rest, oscillates like a pendulum from one to the other as he moves. The ant crawls close to the ground, and has only a small part of the body unsupported at once. ”

“ By applying a blast of air at the ordinary gas jets, and supplying the gas by a separate pipe, or series of pipes, below the open end of the burner, this can be converted into a furnace of extraordinary power. It is quite possible to burn as much as 2,000 cubic feet of gas per hour per square foot of burner surface, producing a heat sufficient to fuse any ordinary crucible. You see its power when I place a bundle of iron wire in the flame; it is, in fact, a concentration of hundreds or thousands of powerful blowpipe flames in one mass. ”

“ A further convenience arising from electromotive power is the absence of combustibles and the absence of the products of combustion-matters of great importance; and for the milder seasons, when inland navigation is principally enjoyed, the absence of heat, smell, and noise, and, finally, the dispensing with one attendant on board, whose wages, in most cases, amount to as much or more than the cost of fuel, besides the inconvenience of carrying an additional individual. ”

“ With a given energy expressed in watts, we can arrange a quantity of wire and iron to produce a certain quantity of work; the smaller the quantity of material employed, and the larger the return for the energy put in, the greater is the total efficiency of the machine.
Powerful electro-magnets, judiciously arranged, must make powerful motors. The ease with which powerful electro-magnets can be constructed has led many to believe that the power of an electro-motor can be increased almost infinitely, without a corresponding increase of energy spent. ”

“ The experience of modern steam navigation points to the exclusive use and advantage of the screw propeller where great speed of shaft is obtainable, and the electric engine is pre-eminently a high-speed engine, consequently the screw appears to be most suitable to the requirements of electric boats. By simply fixing the propeller to the prolonged motor shaft, we complete the whole system, which, when correctly made, will do its duty in perfect order, with an efficiency approaching theory to a high degree. ”

“ In cooking, this limit of ventilation may be exceeded, as most things are better cooked with a free ventilation, the extra cost of fuel being well compensated for by the better quality of the result.
The air in an oven or inclosed space heated by flames inside is similar in character to highly superheated steam. It contains a large proportion of moisture, and yet has the power of drying any substance which is heated to near its own temperature. A mass of cold metal placed in the oven is instantly bedewed with moisture, which dries up as the temperature of the metal rises. ”

“ The dimensions of the first will be practical, and those of the second will give too cumbersome and too fragile an apparatus. But why must the aperture be larger than the diaphragm employed? This is what we are going to demonstrate. Let us make the aperture equal to the diameter of the objective, and see what occurs at the different periods of the exposure. For the sake of clearness, we shall suppose the velocity uniform.
It is evident, a priori, that a perfect apparatus will be the one that will allow the light to act during the entire exposure with a maximum of intensity. ”

“ He had found out that by means of the oil forming carbon constantly in the furnace, the hydrogen of the steam was burned, and that it was a fallacy to suppose that an equal quantity of heat was used in raising steam, at a pressure of, say, 120 lb. to the square inch, as the hydrogen was capable of developing when properly burned. There were, however, conditions under which alone that combustion could take place--one being that the heat of the chamber must be 3,700°, and that carbon must be constantly formed. ”

“ For heating book finishers' tools, a ring-flame is the simplest, the tools being supported a little distance above the flame; the usual plan of heating a plate, and placing the ends of the tools on this, necessitates at least double the gas consumption as compared with an open flame. For type-founding machines, bullet moulding, stereotype metal melting, solder making, lead melting, etc., one burner, or rather one flame, should be used of a suitable power for the work, and this should be as perfect and of as high a temperature as possible to insure economy. ”

“ By what peculiarity of our minds do we seem to expect the speed of an animal to be in proportion to its size? We do not expect a caravan to move faster than a single horseman, nor an eight hundred pound shot to move twelve thousand eight hundred times farther than an ounce ball. ”

“ With electric launches we are bound to employ a battery current, and battery currents are perfectly continuous--there are no sudden changes; it is consequently a question as to how small a mass of iron we may employ in our dynamo as a motor without sacrificing efficiency. The intensity of the magnetic field must be got by saturating the iron, and the energy being fixed, this saturation determines the limit of the weight of the iron. Soft wrought iron, divided into the largest possible number of pieces, will serve our purpose best. ”

“ Where the contact of air with the heated articles is injurious, many plans have been tried to keep the ends closed as much as possible, but I believe no more perfect and simple seal against the admission of air can be devised than to turn a jet of pure gas, unmixed with air, into each end of the tube. This is an absolute seal against the entry of oxygen in an uncombined state; free oxygen cannot exist at a very high temperature in the presence of coal gas. ”

“ It is often used in the crudest and most costly way; a burner may be perfect for one purpose, yet exceedingly wasteful for another, and however good it may be, an error of judgment in its application may lead to its total condemnation. An excess of chimney draught, in cases where a flue is necessary, may pull in sufficient excess of cold air to almost neutralize the whole power of the burner, unless a damper is used with judgment. With solid fuel, an excess of draught causes more fuel to be burnt, but with gas the fuel is adjusted and limited ”