and which should be furnished with good ventilation to allow the vapour to escape, is to be heated by any artificial means to a temperature gradually increasing from seventy to one hundred and fifty degrees of Fahrenheit. This heat is to be maintained until the hides become firmer and harder in all parts, and when they begin to assume in different parts a blackness of appearance, and the tan liquor in the bag exhibits little progressive diminution in quantity, and the hides are found to be tanned, the liquor is to be let off from the bag by opening a small aperture in the stitches at the bottom or butt end of the bag, which when emptied, is to be removed from the racks.

The outer edges of the hides or skins so far as they were sewn together, are to be pared off or rounded, and then they are to be dried and finished in the usual way. Particular care being taken during the time the hides are inclosed between the racks, that they be at different times moved or shifted a little to the right or left from the position in which they are at first placed, in order that the liquor and heated atmosphere may operate on all parts alike; and as it will be seen that the inner edges of the bars of the racks will leave corresponding indentations in the exterior surface of the hides, the shifting or varying of the positions of the hides will be found to have a very useful effect in preventing the indentations from being so firmly imprinted, as to render them incapable of obliteration.

The time required to finish this process from the time the hides or skins are hung up or inclosed between the racks, will vary according to the thickness of the hides or skins, the strength of the liquor used, and the attention paid to the management of the heat, and the shifting of the hides between the bars, together with the other general management which any practitioner of ordinary skill will easily understand.

Fig. 14, represents a sectional plan of the barred rack b,b, being the bottom rails, and the parts marked c, the bars, which it will be seen, are not placed exactly opposite to each other, but occupy alternate spaces.-[Inrolled in the Inrolment Office, April, 1831.]

TO MELVIL WILSON, of Wamford Court, Throgmorton Street, in the City of London, Merchant, in consequence of a communication made to him by a certain foreigner residing abroad, for an improved method of preparing and cleansing paddy or rough rice.-[Sealed 6th February, 1830.]

THE subject of this Patent is a machine for beating paddy or rough rice for the purpose of cleansing it from its shells or husks. A front elevation of the machine is shown in Plate II, at fig. 17, consisting of four vase shaped sieves a, a, a, a, fixed upon pedestals. These sieves are made of gauze wire, for the purpose of sifting the rice from the husks. The vases are held by bent arms, fixed into a rim at the top of each, which keeps them firm.

Perpendicular standards b, b, form a frame work, in which guides c, c, slide up and down, for the purpose of directing the pestles or beaters on to the central block in each sieve. The upper part of each pestle is connected by a jointed arm to the horizontal crank shaft b, and this being driven round by a band and rigger, or by a winch, and its action regulated by the fly wheel, the pestles will be made to rise and fall, and beat the paddy or rough rice in the vases; which operation is to be continued until the husks or shells are all entirely broken, and beaten off from the rice.

but

The Patentee does not claim the machinery as new, only the "lateral sieves," as applied to the purpose of preparing and clearing rough rice.--[Inrolled in the Inrolment Office, August, 1830.]

TO WILLIAM PARR, of Union Place, City Road, in the county of Middlesex, gentleman, for his having invented or found out a new method of producing a reciprocating action by means of rotary motion to be applied to the working of all kinds of pumps, mungles, and all other machinery, in which reciprocating action is required, or may be applied.--[Sealed 18th January, 1830.]

THIS invention is simply a modification of the well known contrivance for producing a reciprocating motion called “the mangle wheel," which consists of a circular series of pegs, placed round the face of a wheel, into which a tooth or pinion works, and when the pinion has travelled round the series of pegs on their outer circumference, it moves inwards through an opening in the range, and takes into the pegs again on their inner circumference, consequently producing by a continued rotation of the pinion, rotary movements of the wheel in opposite directions, which give reciprocating or to and fro movements to the machinery.

The contrivance which is claimed as the subject of this Patent, consists in forming the series of pegs in a straight line, and causing the axle of the driving pinion to work in an endless groove which extends along each side of the row of pegs round its ends. The pinion being put in rotary motion, and its teeth taking in between the pegs, causes the sliding rack or frame of pegs to be driven along until

the pinion has reached the end of the range, when it works round the extreme peg, and then coming into operation on the opposite side of the pegs, works the rack or frame of pegs back again, thus producing a reciprocating movement, which is applicable to various kinds of machinery.

This contrivance is so well known as a mechanical agent, and has been modified and applied in such a multitude of ways, that we feel surprised at seeing it now proposed as a new invention.-[Inrolled in the Inrolment Office, May, 1830.]

TO JOHN GRAY, of Beaumauris, in the county of Anglesea, gentleman, for his invention of a new and improved method of preparing and putting on copper sheathing for shipping.-[Sealed 4th February, 1830.]

THIS is merely an apparatus for punching holes in the plates or sheets of copper or other metal intended to be placed on the bottoms of ships, for sheathing. The particular object of the Patentee appears to be to counter-sink the holes in the plates or sheets of metal, so as to admit a portion of the heads of the nails or bolts by which they are fastened to the ship's bottom, and thereby to prevent the uneven surface which the heads of the nails or bolts would present to the water when the sheathing has been attached.

Plate II, fig. 15, shows an apparatus to be fixed by screws or pins to a bench a, a, which consist of a bridge b, b, carrying a screw punch c, c. The lower part of this punch is egg shaped, in order to produce the counter-sunk form of the hole on the upper or outer side of the plate or sheet of metal.

The bench is to have a stout plate of steel, with a hole in it, to receive the end of the punch, and the sheet of copper or other metal having the points at which the holes are to be pierced, carefully marked out, is to be placed upon the bench under the punch; the screw being thus depressed, by means of the winch or lever, at its upper end, a hole is pierced through the sheet of copper, and the upper side of it pressed into a counter-sunk recess by the egg shaped form of the punch.

Another modification of the apparatus is shown at fig. 16, having a lower plate a, instead of the bench, which plate is affixed to the upper piece answering to the bridge b, in the previous figure; in the middle is the screw punch c, and at d is the winch or lever for depressing the punch. There are two pieces e, e, formed like the punch, having egg shaped points, these are made to slide loosely through the bridge, and are raised by small levers. These points e, are designed to be inserted into one or more of the holes previously pierced in the sheet, in order to keep it steady, and in its place, while another hole is being punched; which will render the holes all at equal distances.

Plates of copper or other metal having been prepared, by rolling in a mill as usual, and cut to the proper sizes for sheathing, are thus to be punched with series of countersunk holes, and when put on the ship's bottom the heads of the nails or bolts by which they are attached will be nearly embedded in the surface of the sheathing, and render it nearly smooth. [Inrolled at the Inrolment Office, April, 1830.]