fitable addition to bread. I directed one ounce of the powder to be dissolved in a quart of water, and the mucilage to be mixed with a sufficient quantity of flour, salt, and yeast. The flour amounted to two pounds, the yeast to two ounces, and the salt to eighty grains. The loaf when baked was remarkably well fermented, and weighed three pounds two ounces. Another loaf, made with the same quantity of flour, &c. weighed two pounds and twelve ounces: from which it appears that the salep, though used in so small a proportion, increased the gravity of the loaf six ounces, by absorbing and retaining more water than the flour alone was capable of. Half a pound of flour and an ounce of salep were mixed together, and the water added according to the usual method of preparing bread. The loaf, when baked, weighed thirteen ounces and a half; and would probably have been heavier, if the salep had been previously dissolved in about a pint of water. But it should be remarked, that the quantity of flour used in this trial was not sufficient to conceal the peculiar taste of the salep.

The restorative, mucilaginous, and demulcent qualities of the Orchis-root render it of considerable use in various diseases. In the sea-scurvy it powerfully obtunds the acrimony of the fluids, and at the same time is easily assimulated into a mild and nutritious chyle. In diarrhoeas and the dysentery, it is highly serviceable, by sheathing the internal coat of the intestines, by abating irritation, and gently correcting putrefaction. In the symptomatic fever, which arises from the absorption of pus, from ulcers in the lungs, from wounds, or from amputation, salep, used plentifully, is an admirable demulcent, and well adapted to resist that dissolution of the crasis of the blood, which is so evident in these cases,

And

And by the same mucilaginous quality, it is equally efficacious in the strangury and dysury; especially in the latter, when arising from a venereal cause; because the discharge of urine is then attended with the most exquisite pain, from the ulcerations about the neck of the bladder, and through the course of the urethra. I have found it also an useful aliment for patients who labour under the stone or gravel *.

From these observations, short and imperfect as they are, I hope it will sufficiently appear that the culture of the Orchis root is an object of considerable importance to the public, and highly worthy of encouragement from all the patrons of agriculture. That taste for experiment, which characterises the present age, and which has so amazingly enlarged the boundaries of science, now animates the RATIONAL FARMER, who fears not to deviate from the beaten tract whenever improvements are suggested, or useful projects pointed out to him. Much has been already done for the advancement of agriculture; but the earth still teems with treasures which remain to be explored. The bounties of Nature are inexhaustible, and will for ever employ the art, and reward the industry of man.»

*The ancient chymists seem to have entertained a very high opinion of the virtues of the Orchis root, of which the following quotation from the SECRETA SECRETORUM of Raymund Lully affords a diverting proof. The work is dated 1565.

SEXTA HERBA.

Satirion.

"Satirion herba est pluribus nota, hujus radicis collecta ad pondus lib. 4. die 20 mensis Januarij, contunde fortiter et massam contusam pone in ollam de aurichalco habente in cooperculo 20 foramina minuta sicut athomi, & pone intus cù prædicta messa lactis vaccini calidi sicut mulgetur de vacca lb. 3. et mellis libram 1. vini aromatici lb. 2. et repone per dies 20. ad solem et conserva et uiere."

"Istius itaq; dosis ad pondus 3. 4. et hora diei decima exhibita mulieri post ipsius menstrua eadem nocte còcipiet si vir cum ea agat."

Description

Description of an Apparatus for extinguishing Fires which may happen in Cotton Factories, &c. to be attached to Steam-Engines or Water-Mills.

Communicated by the Author, in a Letter to the Editors.

THE

With a Plate.

HE great fires which frequently happen in cotton factories have made me (who live adjoining to one) very uneasy, and caused me to turn my thoughts to a plan for the extinguishing of them at the beginning. Various are the methods made use of by different manufacturers, which are all of them very proper precautions. In some factories, tubs of water, with wet blankets in them, are placed in each room, ready to throw on the place where the accident may happen. In other factories, besides this precaution, cisterns are placed at the top of the building, with pipes and cocks into every room, by which the floors may be covered with water almost instantaneously. If these or similar methods should fail of the desired effect, and if extinguishing-engines cannot be brought in time, the building must inevitably be consumed. Those persons who work the machinery with steam-engines or a water-wheel, might attach to some part of the work an extinguishing-engine, which of course would have prodigious power. Mr. Peter Marsland, of Stockport, has attached ane to his water-wheel, which is placed in the centre of a square, surrounded with cotton factories. In the same manner an extinguishing-engine might be attached to the working beam of a steam-engine; but as these methods are attended with considerable expense, few persons choose to have them.

The plan which I propose would be attended with little expense, would nearly answer the same end, and VOL. IV.-SECOND SERIES.

would

282 Apparatus for extinguishing Fires in Cotton Factories.

would sooner be set to work; which, at the beginning of a fire, is of very great importance.

The annexed plan is suited for those who work with Boulton and Watts's patent engines.

Fig. 1 is the plan of a cistern, &c. in the common mode of working.

Fig. 2 is the same plan, with the addition of the air vessel or fire-engine.

REFERENCES TO PLATE XI.

Fig. 1, A, the cold water cistern.

B, the pump which brings the air and water out of the condenser, commonly called the air-pump.

C, the piston-rod, which works in the air-pump through a stuffing-box.

D, the communication between the air-pump and the hot water cistern.

E, a valve through which the water passes into the hot water cistern.

F, the hot water cistern.

G, the hot water pump.

Fig. 2, H, the communication between the air-pump and the air vessel or engine for extinguishing fire, with a valve at the end K, through which the water passes into the air-vessel.

K, the air-vessel.

L, the pipe through which the water is forced by the compression of the air.

M, an elbow joint to which the leather pipes are attached.

N, the leather pipes, which may be lengthened so as to play into any room of the building, which is worked by the steam-engine.

O, the branch-pipe.

P,

P, a cock, which is opened into the hot water cistern, through which the water passes when the steam-engine is at work.

When the fire-engine is wanted to work, this cock is shut, and the water having no other way to escape is forced, by the compression of the air, up the tube, at a very considerable velocity. All the water which is pumped up by the jack-pump may by this machine be forced through the branch-pipe, which must in all proba bility extinguish any fire at the beginning, when the quantity of water brought up by the jack-pump is from thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy gallons per minute, according to the power of the engine.

Method of converting into Ether almost the Whole of any Quantity of Alkohol, by mixing three Parts of that Liquid with one Part of Sulphuric Acid.

I

By M. VAN MONS.

From the JOURNAL DE CHIMIE.

DISCOVERED by accident a method of converting into ether almost the whole of any quantity of alkohol without employing above one part of sulphuric acid to three parts of the former liquid. I was led to this discovery by the following circumstance.

I had mixed at three times, in a stone pan, four pounds of sulphuric acid with nine pounds of alkohol, intending to make ethercous alkohol with sulphuric acid (the mineral anodyne liquor of Hoffman). The alkohol marked thirty-four degrees on Baumé's areometer. The retort which I had at hand not being large enough to contain the whole of the mixture, I at first submitted only half of it to distillation. The operation was performed by a 002

heat