"Roofs and Floors.-Fig. 6 represents a roof made according to this improved method; A A are two principal spars, so called because they are made stronger than the other spars, calculated to bear according to the weight to be carried, and generally about double the depth of the other spars; these are seen in the drawing, with the segmental hoop attached to them, and the stays as before described. The purlins B B are made in like manner, and stretch from one principal spar to another, which are placed at proper intervals in the roof, say about every eleventh; the stays underneath these purlins are fixed with most advantage underneath each spar. In some cases we have found that instead of a piece of timber (the present purlin) stretching from one principal spar to another principal spar, short pieces of wood of the same dimensions as the spars themselves are quite sufficient from spar to spar, i.e. between each spar. The stay-pieces in this case must be direct against and underneath the spars, with their feet resting upon the segmental hoop. Some little timber is thus saved, and an opportunity afforded for using up the small pieces that are always to be found about a building. CC are rods of iron carried across the building at the foot of the roof, and through each wall-plate to tie the roof togetheir, their longitudinal pull being calculated at about 6 tons per square inch.

، It will be evident, that by such arrangements the main beam, king-posts, and other cumbrous appendages in ordinary roofs, may be wholly dispensed with. There will be found power sufficient to carry any weight, whether the roof be of slate, tiles, lead, or iron. The dimensions of the spars need only be sufficiently wide to give space to drive the nails without fear of splitting them; all other purposes for bearing weight being supplied by the segmental hoops. We beg to refer our readers to our drawings and calculations upon roofs, the mode of fitting up the spars, hoops, &c. they will be found most simple and effective. All questions required, in order that these particulars may be furnished at any time, may be summed up as follows, viz.:

“ 1. The length and thickness of the wallplate or of the building.

"2. The leugth of the spar and the width of the building.

"3. Whether to be covered with tiles or slates.

Fig. 7 will lead us to the plan for fitting up floors; this mode consists of two parts, differing much in their manner, but producing the same result; the one adopting part of the present system to procure the same appearances in a room as by common construction; the other a novel invention, thereby giving scope for further improvement, and out of the common wearied and beaten track of centuries for constructing ceilings. Great ornamental effect, combined with great simplicity, may be produced at much less expense than by lath and plaster ceilings. AA are the walls of the building; BB, the joists; CC, the segmental hoop carried through and underneath the joints; DD, the floor. In looking into the nature of such constructions, the following may be seen as some of the advantages to gain superior strength, and the mode of applying this patent. Suppose a floor 20 feet square is to be laid, let the spars be placed at the usual distances of 1 foot 6 inches from each other, let them be 5 inches deep, but of such a width, that, with the assistance of the segmental hoops, they may bear an equal burden in all parts of the floor; the hoops shall be placed every 5 feet asunder, thus requiring three hoops of very slight width and thickness, having their ends passing through the walls, or placed within them. If this floor had been made upon the ordinary plan for common purposes, spars 11 inch x 3 inch X 20 feet must have been used: the difference in timber, therefore, is manifest, while the extra expense of some 1 cwt. or 1 cwt. of iron will effect all the rest. It will be proper to strut the joists from one to another by any scrap pieces of timber that may be found about the building, as it will be seen that the straps go cross-wise or through the spars, and contrary to the plan before laid down for the beams, an ordinary floor may now be fitted on, and our work is completed; with this one difference, that we have a power to sustain permanently and securely a much greater weight than the timber named above could sustain, nor is it subject to the same undulating motion when walked upon. proper firmness and rigidity being obtained, which can be procured only with great difficulty and expense, when the spars are made of wood entirely.

A

"Fig. 8 represents a compound floor constructed according to our improved method, but without joists for either floor or ceiling, and partaking of the nature and application of the laminated beam, but being used hori

zontally instead of vertically. A is the floor, the boards being arranged some diagonally and some at right angles upon each other, and nailed together; B is one of a series of segmental hoops stretching underneath the floor and fastened to and through the wall plates CC; DD are stays, stretching from the floor to the hoops; thus it will be seen that with the addition of a little extra wood for the floor board, joists, &c. are useless. A floor 20 feet square would require four straps, as named in fig. 7, instead of three, and an additional half inch of timber, or three boards of half inch each would make a floor equally as sound for bearing weight as the one planned under No. 7, the ceiling would at once be made, avoiding the necessity of lath and plaister, and might be ornamented with reeding round the hoops and in place of the usual cornice. In some floors we would recommend an interior layer of brown paper between the ranges of the boards; the whole is then to be nailed together with strong sprigs and well turned."

*

* * * * "Galleries.-A laminated beam of a suffieient depth to form the front of the gallery and resting upon the end walls would require neither beam nor pillars to support it. Upon the foot of this beam, spars might be placed, stretching from it to the back wall for the foundation of the gallery, and thus the other rows of the pews may be projected.

“ This plan may be varied by doing away the spars above spoken of, and each row of the pews in the gallery may be supported by laminated beams, placed and affixed from wall to wall as in the instance of the front of the gallery; but underneath and as high as the seat in the back of each pew, aiding in part the erection and formation of the pew, and being not only a support for the seat in one pew, but giving a support for the floor of the pew behind it (see fig. 9). Much greater head-room will thus be given underneath the gallery, and a great saving effected."

MODE DISCOVERED OF PROPELLING BALLOONS IN ANY DIRECTION.

Sir,-It is really a matter of no small surprise, that, after all the investigations and experiments made in aerostation, since Albert first asserted, and Montgolfier afterwards demonstrated, the practicability of floating in the upper regions of the atmosphere, that balloons should remain to this day the same unwieldy and ungovernable toys as at first constructed. After the first principle, or rather the first power of balloons-that of ascension had been satisfactorily established,

both by calculation and experiment, the next thing that became desirable was the power of propelling and guiding them at will.

Various attempts have at different times been made to accomplish this eminently desirable object; but being for the most part made without judgment, they were unattended with successful results. Sufficient has been done, however, to prove beyond all question, that propellers will act upon a balloon, with an effect proportionate to their size, and to the manner in which they are placed and worked. It is also equally evident, that so soon as ae onauts can, by any means, cause their balloon to move with a velocity differing from that of the current of air in which they are floating, a rudder will become efficient, and the balloon will answer to the helm.

People frequently confuse themselves in their application of the simple price ciples of navigation in a denser medium to aerial navigation.

So long as a boat, barge, &c. moves with the same velocity as the stream, a rudder is wholly useless; but, if the boat or barge is made to move with a different velocity-i. e. either faster or slower than the stream-the rudder becomes an efficient agent in directing the movements of the vessel. With balloons, precisely the same law obtains; the moment they can be propelled, they will become capable of being guided.

In a recent Number of your Magazine, Mr. Mackintosh very justly observed, with respect to the difficulty of propul sion, that "the difficulty consists simply in this: The resistance is greater than any power that has been hitherto applied to overcome it." He further adds, meet this difficulty we must increase the power, and decrease the resistance."

To

Mr. Mackintoshi's reasoning upon this subject is perfectly correct; and I have now to state, that following out precisely the same principle, I have succeeded in contriving a balloon of an entirely new description, possessing all the requisites for efficient aerial navigation, and capa ble of being propelled and guided at the pleasure of the aeronauts. The few scientific friends to whom I have submitted my plans, have expressed themselves perfectly convinced of their feasi bility, and feel satisfied that the time has

now arrived when balloons will cease to be scientific toys, and assume a new and useful character.

It would not be consistent with my own personal interest, at this time, to develop the nature of my invention, but your readers will hereafter have an opportunity of becoming acquainted with it. I should wish no person to suppose for one moment that balloons will ever be guided in the teeth of opposing currents; but I am now prepared to assert, and all who have examined my scheme will support my position-that in balloons upon my construction, the power is so much increased and the resistance so much diminished, as to enable them to be propelled and guided through the air with as much facility as boats at present are upon the surface of our river Thames.

By the same means, an upward or downward direction can be given to a balloon, without in any way varying the quantity of gas or of ballast-and the machine brought under a degree of control hardly before anticipated.

I remain, Sir, yours respectfully,
WM. BAUDELEY.

For the sake of brevity, I will skip over electricity, which is a mere artificial excitation and exhibition of the base of all things, to say a word on galvanism. The galvanic action is an excitation communicated to certain substances, through which they are provoked to an energy of expansion, that is, of separation, which produces phenomena more apparent to our senses than such action would be without such superposition or arrangement. If we place together two pieces of copper, for instance (the degree of action of the two being equal), the product only induces an equilibrium of mixture, that is to say, two pieces of a given substance are just as though there were only one. But if we place in juxta-position two bodies of analogous natures, but of different capabilities of internal expansion, the one of these bodies which is the most active in expansive force will give

out a major, the other a minor fluid. A plate of copper placed upon a plate of zinc, it follows that all the molecules of the major order (the North Pole) flow to one of the two, that is, to the most dilated and active, and, expelled by the internal expansion, they are accumulated on the surface of that plate, as they cannot be contained within it. On the other hand, all the molecules of the minor order, contained in the two plates, are thronged upon the more condensed plate, and remain in abeyance on its exterior. We here have the complete magnet-the face of the zinc is the major pole, that of the copper the minor. The space between them is the neutral ground, or region of indifference. The addition of water increases the expansion, separation, circulation, and escape of the molecules of the metals, by acting as a conductor and stimulant. If you wish to increase the exit of galvanic fluid, i. e. the emanations of the substance of the metals, submit the pile to mechanical pressureand just as you would force water out of a sponge, so will you expel a greater quantity of organic fluid (the galvanic) out of the metals. The water and salt, or acid, not only serves as an excitant and a conductor to the expansive products of the couple of metals, but, by its decomposition, furnishes molecules of a perfectly similar nature to those of the metals. If the pile be isolated, the centre of it is neutral, and in equilibrium of mixture; but if the lower extremity communicate with the earth, the intensity of action is very greatly increased; because the expansive fluid is received from an indefinite extent of surface, that is, from the earth itself. A double flow now takes place; from the earth to the column, and from the column to the earth. minor fluid now flows from the superior extremity of the column into the earth. The major fluid ascends from the earth into the column with great intensity, so that it is now at the superior extremity only that a great accumulation of electric fluid is established. In this state of things, the pile resembles the Leyden bottle, as at its upper extremity it will give out sparks; and if with the hauds you touch, at one and the same time, the two extremities, a commotion will be felt. That the emanations, or expansive perspiration of the earth, is identical with

The

the galvanic fluid, that is, with the expansive emanations of the intimate substance of the metals composing the pile, is evident, because the mere fact of effecting a communication with the earth produces a vast increase in the quantity of one and the same identical fluid.

Disks or plates of all bodies, not in a state of decomposition or death, such as flesh, orange-peel, potatoes, fish, apples, &c. will, placed in alternate layers, give forth their substance in the way we call galvanic. Thus we see that the same expansive products are derived from the metals, salt and water, the acids, the magnetic bar, all other bodies, and the emanations of the globe, and that therefore they are identical.

Another point to which I would wish to call attention, though this is not the proper moment for introducing it, is the identity of the matter of cosmolithes with that of which our earth is formed. For these many years past I have attended to, and thought upon, that subject with increasing interest. The usual explanation of the nature of what are called falling stars, could never give me any satisfaction, even when a school-boy. I was told that they were caused by inflammable exhalations, or gases, which suddenly took fire in the upper regions, &c. But in what sort of bags or bottles these gases were collected and retained, separate from the surrounding atmosphere, deponents did not, nor do they say. In the midst of the ocean, on a clear, star-light night, many an hour have I laid upon my back -on deck, watching the motions of these minor "heavenly" bodies-these sprats of space, that serve as food for stars and globes of whale-like magnitude. During the first series of ages which followed the formation of this globe, it is evident that the internal expansive agitation was with much difficulty confined by the surrounding compressing forces. Volcanic explosions, on a scale of enormous magnitude, at various periods rent the surface of the globe, and gave a temporary vent to the strife within. The evidences of these early outbreakings of the expansive action of our globe are on a scale that leave those of more recent times in the comparison of "Ossa to a wart.' Many of the most ancient volcanic craters occupied an area of several hundred square miles, and have sent forth torrents of basaltic, tuffic, and other lavas, amounting to the

mass of entire continents. If from the comparatively puny, squib-like craters of Chimborazzo, Etna, and Vesuvius, we see the liquid incandescent matter of this earth's interior, thrown to the height of 20,000 feet, what may not have been the distance from the surface of the globe to which these first volcanoes did project their emanations? The stars, or suns, which people universal space, are also subject to the same universal law of internal expansion-external compression -to the periods of infancy or flaccidity; increasing solidity, external density; internal agitation and impatience of compression; irruptions, at first more violent, but which become in time less frequent and less powerful.

Modern astronomers inform⚫us, that many of the stars are to be seen in a state of great agitation. Others have been seen to wane and then revive, and then disappear. What may be the power of the first irruption from a globe a million of times the size of this our earth? Such was the power, which hurling from the bowels of "our" sun, the products of one of those convulsive efforts of his internal expansive action in the period of his youth, which formed our globe and all our sister planets. The ejected matter, at first, existing in a fluid, pulverulent and gaseous state, was, in its progress through the regions of space, seized and on all points compressed by the universal stellar emanations, so as to become compacted into the globe, as we see occur to a drop of water, an isolated portion of mercury, or of any other substance in a Anid state. The larger ejections, of course, were propelled the furthest, and formed the planets Jupiter and Saturn, which being accompanied by some smaller fragments and nebulous matter, satellites were formed, and the rapid rotation of the nebulous substance caused it to revolve around the planet, as those rings of smoke we often see projected to a great distance from the mouth of a cannon, or from a common tobacco-pipe. Besides, the masses proceeding from these irruptions of the innumerable globes and 'suns, which are of a size sufficient to form a planet of permanent visibility to us, there must needs be countless millions of others of every variety of dimensions, all traversing the realms of space in every direction. Such of these as are not of a mass sufficient to contain electrical repulsive

power competent to their repulsion from the globes which they approach, must fall on to the surface of such globes, and become integral parts thereof. A body projected from the surface of a sphere, itself in rapid revolution round its axis, describes a curve, which increases in its flexure as it recedes from whence it came. The orbicular rotation of our earth, and of all our sister planets, is in the sense of the sun's rotation on its axis; so is the rotation of the planets on their axes, and the rotation of their satellites is the same.

Be

I have already observed, that the expansive force of all globes is in proportion to their mass. The smaller the globe, the greater is its extent of surface in proportion to the mass. So that, at last, the ininute particles, even of the heaviest metals, becoming, as it were, all surface, the action of the internal parts is greatly overbalanced by the resistance of the proportionately vast surface. The matter cast from the irruption of a star or planet, at first, is fluid even to its centre. Its outer parts are still more dilated, and thus it occupies a space immeasurably greater than that to which the stellar pressure will by degrees reduce it. The electric expansive action of its interior substance is also, in regular and sure progression, on the wane. Hence that power which, for a period, enabled the little cosmolithe to play, in some degree, the part of a comet or a planet, dies away. coming more and more condensed and powerless, it falls on to the surface of the globe the nearest to it. On Mount Jura there lays a cosmolithe weighing upwards of 80 tons; it is principally of iron, in some parts perfectly soft and malleable. The far greater number of aerolithes or cosmolithes, which are apparent on the surface of our globe, are found towards the poles; and this, again, is indicative of those parts being less repulsive to approaching bodies than those of the equator, from which proceeds with greater energy the electric products of the earth's expansive intestine action. I know of a spot in Kent, on which, in the compass of a few acres, there are as many cosmolithes as would fill 50 carts. They are very minute, that is, not bigger than an egg. The identity of all the matter of which the universe is composed is evident, from stellar and solar emanations which our earth receives, being identical with that which it projects from its most

interior recesses, in the shape of insensible perspiration, that is, heat or galvanic fluid. We further see that the solid bodies proceeding from the sun, or some other globe, are perfectly identical with the condensed substance of our globe.

To return to the subject of the ONE primitive elementary constituent of all things-the TO PAN, commonly, and I say, indifferently, named light, calorie, the galvanic, electric, or magnetic fluidI proceed to observe, that if we attach two wires, one to the major, the other to the minor pole of a Voltaic pile or battery, and pass those wires into the interior of a glass tube not quite full of water; and if we approach the ends of the wires towards each other, so that there shall be but a short interval between them, the following familiar phenomenon will take place. From the extremity of one of the wires proceeds a current of the major fluid, from the other a current of the minor fluid. Before they can combine, they are forced to pass through the water. Small bubbles of air gas are seen rapidly to collect upon the ends of the wires, and the water in the tube sensibly diminishes in quantity. The gas thus produced is found to be of two different natures; the major pole has produced Oxygen gas; the minor has furnished hydrogen; and the volume of the latter is just double that of the former. It is important to remark, that this mutation will not take place if the tube is quite full of water, as in such case it is not at liberty to expand. This operation is erroneously called the decomposition of water. By the "decomposition " of a body, either fluid or solid, is meant the separation of the two, three, or more substances of which that body is composed; but then we must show what has become of the substance which we employed to effect the operation. Tartaric acid, for instance, added to a solution of carbonate of soda, having a greater affinity for the soda than has the carbonic acid gas, forms the tartaret of soda, and sets free the gas, which bubbles over the edges of our goblet. Thus, as in other chemical cases, we see what has become of the whole party. But in the case of the streams of galvanic fluid introduced into the water, confined in a close cylinder of glass, what becomes of that? What is the modus operandi? Why, I think it will be allowed, on further investigation,