connected with chambers or lead from pipes placed within the furnace, which are supplied with air by means of blowing apparatus. The air becoming heated in the chamber in passing through the tubes, gives off its heat to the surrounding fluid intended to be evaporated, and after having proceeded through the boiler, is conducted to a tank where it may give off the remaining portion of its caloric to prepare the water contained in the tank for being fed into the boiler.

The Patentee claims the application of tubes or other such channels for conducting hot air unmixed with the gases given off by the combustion of the fuel employed through evaporating vessels, such air being heated by the furnace of the boiler.-[Inrolled in the Inrolment Office, November, 1837.]

TO THOMAS BAY LIS, of Tamworth, in the county of Stafford, civil engineer, for certain improvements in heating and evaporating fluids, being a communication from a foreigner residing abroad.-[Sealed 6th May, 1837.]

THESE improvements in heating and evaporating fluids, consist in the employment of vertical steam chambers protruding up from the bottom of an ordinary evaporating pan, whereby brine or other saline solutions may be evaporated with increased facility. Plate XIII., fig. 1, represents a vertical section of this apparatus: a, a, is the ordinary evaporating pan; b, b, are hollow steam chambers placed transversely therein, for the purpose of heating the fluid intended to be evaporated; c, is a channel extending along the side of the vessel for conducting steam to the chambers b, the pan being 2 P

VOL. XI.

provided at the opposite side with a similar channel for the purpose of carrying off the condensation.

The proposed advantage of this apparatus is, that on the evaporation of the solution the salt will fall on to the bottom of the pan d, d, d, and the heating surface will be acting at the tops of the chamber above the crystallized matter, and, therefore, the free conduction of heat will not be impeded as in the ordinary construction of evaporating pans.

Fig. 2, shows a variation of the above, in which the protruding chambers are affixed to a pan furnished with a false bottom of the usual construction. The Patentee only claims the employment of vertically projecting steam chambers in evaporating pans when used for the purpose of evaporating brine or other saline solutions. -[Inrolled in the Inrolment Office, November, 1837.]

TO JOHN ERICSSON, of Liverpool, in the county palatine of Lancaster, civil engineer, for his invention of an improved engine for communicating power for mechanical purposes.-[Sealed 9th February, 1832.]

THIS is a sort of rotary engine to be worked by the elastic force of steam, or by the weight or pressure of water. The working parts are endorsed within an hemispherical box, and the piston, if so we may call it, consists of two parts which roll round the interior of the box upon a ball and socket joint, forming something like wedge-shaped apertures for the elastic force of the steam or pressure of the water to act against the sides, and thereby giving rotary motion to a central shaft, from which, by means of toothed gear, machinery is to be driven.

Plate XIII., fig. 3, represents the apparatus partly in section; a, a, a, is the hemispherical box taken in vertical section through the middle; b, is a disc wheel formed on its inner face as a frustrum of a cone c, affixed to the centre, of which, in front, is a ball d; and from the back part of this disc wheel, the shaft e, extends, which communicates the power for driving other machinery.

Another disc wheelf, having an hemispherical hollow or socket as in its shaft shown by dots, turns upon the ball d, as one of its centres of rotation, and its other pivot is at g, in the periphery of the hemispherical case. Extending from the cone c, there are two wings, the one seen at h, the other in dots, and as the disc f, rolls round, bearing against the face of the cone c, these wings slide through narrow apertures in the disc ƒ, as shown at i.

Openings are made on each side of the hemispherical box, with which tubes communicate, the one for the admission of steam into the machine, the other for its exit.

The working parts or edges being all properly packed to render them steam tight, it will be understood that on steam being admitted into the hemispherical box from one side, and occupying the apparently wedgeformed space k, between the discs, that its elastic force will press against the wing h, and force it with both the disc wheels b, and ƒ, round the interior of the hemispherical box, the steam chamber enlarging, and the wing h, sliding out from the disc f, as it rises, and sliding in again, contracting the chamber as it descends, thereby allowing the other wing, shown by dots, to come round and assume the same positions. By these means, when one wing has passed a certain point of the rotation, the exit steam-way becomes open for the

cscape of the eduction steam on the farther side of the box, and the rising wing with its expanding chamber receives the induction steam on this side of the box, thereby continuing the rotary movement of the discs and the wings.

There are some minor particulars set out in the specification as to the detail of the construction of the packing and some other parts of the machine, but enough, we trust, is here given to show the Patentee's intention, and also to show the inferiority of this plan (however ingenious) to the ordinary construction of reciprocating steam engines.-[Inrolled in the Inrolment Office, August, 1832.]

TO COLLIN SMITH, of Great St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, in the city of London, merchant, in consequence of a communication made to him by a certain foreigner residing abroad, for an invention of an apparalus or machine for regulating the course and action of fluids and liquors, which apparatus or machine is applicable to various purposes. [Sealed 31st January, 1832.]

THE Patentee states that this invention is founded upon a strict and mathematical application of the law of equilibrium, and a new mechanical arrangement susceptible of sure and convenient use. The descriptive part of the specification is framed in a very high-flown style of diction, but we shall endeavour to make the subject understood by a few simple words, accompanied by a diagram such as we find appended to the original document.

In Plate XIII., fig. 4, may be considered to repre

sent a vertical section of a tauk a, a, a, containing water, from the lower part of which a bent tube b, forms a communication with a vessel c. At the lower part of this vessel c, a diaphragm d, is fixed, through an aperture, in the centre of which the water is intended to flow from the tank a, into the vessel c, and in the side of this vessel the discharge cock e, is inserted. Within the vessel c, a float f, is placed, fixed upon a perpendicular rod g, which passes down through the aperture; and at the lower end of this rod there is a conical plug h, intended to act as a valve.

It will now be perceived that the pressure of the water in the tank will cause it to flow through the bent pipe and through the aperture into the vessel c, and in so doing will necessarily raise the float ƒ, upon its surface, which, in rising, will draw up the conical plug h, and close the water-way. Hence, the weight of the column of water contained in the small vessel c, will be all the pressure that can be exerted upon the discharging aperture or cock e, for as the water from the tank can only flow into this vessel when the float descends and opens the valve, it follows that the column in the vessel c, will be always the same, whatever may be the height of the water in the tank.

There are a variety of modifications of this simple principle proposed, which it will not be necessary for us to describe, as the leading feature is expressed in the above; mathematical proportion is to be observed between the dimensions of the float and of the valve, and also between these figures, that is, the float may be cylindrical, conical, or spherical, and the valve conical, spherical, or elliptical.

One modification of this contrivance is pointed out as applicable to lamps, for the purpose of equallizing