densed, trickle or run down the upright sides of the spiral passages or channels, in the vessel or apparatus E, and either return wholly or in part, as may be most desirable into the body of the still; the spirituous vapours passing into the worm tub, become condensed in the usual manner, or the spirituous vapour may pass into an apparatus similarly constructed to that marked E, on the drawing, and thus render a worm tub unnecessary.

Having thus, in pursuance of the conditions in which His Majesty was graciously pleased to grant me and my heirs and assigns his Royal Letters Patent, particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, I do in conclusion desire it to be understood, that I claim as herein before set forth in my description and drawings, and as parts of my invention, the employment of apparatus whatever may be its form, for causing a current of air, gas or vapour, to abstract heat from vapour generated in boilers, stills, or other vessels used in raising substances, by means of heat to a gaseous, vaporous or elastic state, and making use of such air, gas or vapour (when and after it shall have thus abstracted heat) for the purposes of evaporation. But although I claim as above certain improvements as applicable to the purposes of evaporation, including those hereinbefore described, by which the aforesaid improvements may be applied in a novel and useful manner to boats and other machinery through and by the agency of steam, yet I do not confine my claim to any given form of apparatus, as the form may be varied in the construction of the steam engine or the boilers, or vessels of the brewer, chymist, distiller, rectifier, salt or soap manufacturers, or refiners of sugar, and so forth, as may be found most convenient in their different processes of vaporisation. To make the nature

of my invention clearly and particularly known, I have given drawings and descriptions of the steam engine and the still, as most easily understood and most practically useful, while at the same time they afford every facility for the applicaction of the principles of my invention.[Inrolled in the Rolls Chapel Office, May, 1831.]

Specification drawn by the Patentee.

The Specification of this Patent embraces some features of a very curious and novel character, which appear to emanate from a careful study of philosophical principles, and an ingenious adaptation of those principles to practical uses; and if on trial they should be found to effect the objects which the Patentee anticipates (of which we see no reason to express a doubt), they certainly will lead to some of the most important results connected with modern science.

In the application of these principles, either to the steam engine or to any process of distilling or evaporating, they will be found, we have reason to think, of great practical utility, and lead to results that have hitherto been looked upon as wholly unattainable. The late Dr. Young, in treating of the steam engine, gives a useful caution to those who are preparing to appreciate the various improvements made in it from time to time, viz. to discriminate between the effects which are the results of newly discovered philosophical principles, and those which are only attained solely from a high perfection of mechanical execution.

Great as the ingenuity of the mechanical part of this invention unquestionably is, we consider it very subordinate to the novel and scientific principle on which the steam is generated with such rapidity and safety; but the most extraordinary part is, after the steam has done its

work, paradoxical as it may seem, it is made to return the greater part of its heat again to the boiler, without employing any fuel whatever, or any portion of the power of the engine for conducting the heat so returned.

Since the whole of the heat thus returned to the boiler costs nothing for fuel, it produces, of course, an essential reduction in the weight and bulk of the coals, that have hitherto been indispensably necessary for steam boats.

One of the best articles on this subject that has fallen under our observation, is that contained in the last supplement to the Enclyclopædia Britannica, from which we have made the following extract:—

"The prodigious consumption of coals by the furnaces of the boilers, proves a great hinderance to the extension of steam navigation. The store of this ponderous species of fuel required for the supply of the engine on a distant voyage, would occupy the whole tonnage, even of a large vessel. The Rapid steam vessel, of 130 tons burden, and 60 horse power, required nearly a ton of coals every two hours, and could not, therefore, continue at sea above eleven days, and unless some great discovery indeed be made on the concentration of heat, we shall never dispatch steam packets directly to the East or West Indies."

By means of Dr. Church's method of returning the greatest portion of the heat of the steam, after it has acted upon the piston back again to the boiler, there is no doubt that steam packets may be dispatched with perfect safety to the West Indies, at an average rate of from two to three hundred miles a day, and to this application of his engines we would recommend his attention, rather than employing them in impelling carriages on common turnpike roads, as we understand he is about doing between Liverpool and Birmingham.

We have repeatedly expressed our scepticism as to

the practicability of carrying heavy weights for long distances, by locomotive engines, on common roads; we have never sayed that it could not be effected, but we have said, and do still say confidently, that it has not yet been done. In Dr. Church's engines great power is concentrated within a very narrow compass, and this certainly lessons our scepticism. It by no means removes it however altogether; and we shall cling to our doubts respecting the employment of steam carriages on ordinary roads, until we see one perform a distance of one hundred consecutive miles, with something like uniformity of progress, and without stopping every few minutes to replenish.

In a steam engine of fifty horse power, on Dr .Church's construction, we understand that no one portion of the engine or boiler weighs more than two hundred weight, and every part of it may be easily taken to pieces, and transported on the backs of mules, and put together and set to work in any place immediately, and without any support but its own frame. It is to be regretted that this ingenious modification of the steam engine was not known five or six years ago, when such enormous sums of money were wasted upon the mines of South America, most of which might have been readily freed from water and kept at work, with the small supply of fuel usually found around them.

To the distillers and West India planters, we think that this new method of evaporating will prove of incalculable value, by enabling them to run off at one operation a spirit of any required strength or purity, with far less fuel than the quantity hitherto employed, and without the possibility of the still running foul, or of its exposure to the various accidents attending the usual modes of distilling and rectifying.

To JAMES RAMSAY AND ANDREW RAMSAY, both of Greenoch, in North Britain, cordage and sailcloth manufacturers, and MATTHEW ORR, of Greenoch, aforesaid, sailmaker, for their having invented or found out an improvement in the manufacture of canvas and sailcloth for the making of sails.—[Sealed 20th March, 1830.]

IT has been found that sails made with the selvages and seams of the canvas running down parallel to their edges, are very apt to bag and become torn in the middle, from the strain to which the sails are subjected by the pressure of the wind. To obviate this inconvenience a mode of making sails with the seams and selvages running diagonally, was proposed by Admiral Brooking, and a patent granted to him for the same on 4th September, 1828, (see the 7th Vol. 2nd Series of our Journal, p. 85.) The invention of Messrs. Ramsay and Orr, which we are about to describe, has a similar object, viz. that of giving additional strength to sails by a peculiar manner of weaving the canvas of which they are made.

The improvement proposed under the present patent, consists in weaving the canvas with diagonal threads; that is, placing the weft yarn or shoot in weaving at an oblique angle to the warp yarns, instead of making the intervention of the warp or weft threads or yarns at right angles to each other, as in the ordinary mode of weaving.

To accomplish this object, the loom must be particularly constructed; that is, its warp and work beams must stand at an oblique angle with the sides of the loom, and the batten and slay must be hung in a particular manner, in order to beat up the weft or shoot in lines ranging diagonally with the warp. No drawing is shewn of the method by which this arrangement of the loom is to be