Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1885 — MECHANICAL. [ARTICLE]

MECHANICAL.

The “Hock motor,” a new Vienna invention, consists of an air-tight furnace, whose fire is fed by compressed air; water is injected into the resulting gases of combustion, and the resulting mixture of steam and combustion products—called “air steam”—is led directly into the engine. There is thus presented the fact of machinery without a boiler, and the results of trials made with this arrangement are pronounced in the highest degree satisfactory. The machine, of six normal horse power, developed 12.23 effective horse power, with a consumption of coal of 2.2 pounds per hour for each effective horse power. ‘ By this process, which is in general use in France, two pieces of horn can be joined together so pefectly that they will appear as one piece. The pieces of horn are first heated before a fire, and the edges where they are to be joined carefully scraped until they fit together exactly. The workman then takes a pah- of pincers, previously heated quite hot, and, after moistening the edges which are to be joined, presses them together firmly and quickly. If the operation is skillfully performed, a perfect joint will result, and after the edges have been dressed smooth with a fine file and polished with tripoli and water, it will be hard to tell where the two pieces are joined together. By means of electricity the most attractive leather surfaces are now completely imitated. The leather which it is desired to imitate is first well cleaned and coated with graphite, as in electroplating a smaller article. It is then placed in a copper bath, the tank of which is large enough to easily receive a skin of . any size. A dynamo-electric machine generating a powerful current furnishes the electricity. The copper is deposited upon the coated surface of the hide to a thickness of one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch. The plate thus formed reproduces, but reversed, every mark and minute vein of the leather, so that a print taken from it is an exact copy of the original in every detail.

Investigation shows that by mixing the vapors of water and of naphtha, at the temperature at which steam is produced, the hydrogen in both is set iree, ready to be used in producing the most intensely hot flame known to science. The degree of this heat, as asserted, is shown by the fact that while one pound of alcohol has a heat-making power, say equal to nine, hydrogen has a heating power equal to forty-seven—more than five times that of alcohol. While it is admitted that as much energy is rerequired to separate the hydrogen and oxygen in steam as is produced by their combustion, it is claimed that a large part of this energy manifests itself in a different form from that of heat. An improved kind of belting band is now made in Russia of the best quality of flax, the cost of production being from twenty-five to sixty per cent, lower than that of leather belting. It is said to be unaffected by changes of temperature, stretches but very little, is thoroughly waterproof, is as durable as leather, and, being without the ob--s’ectionable joints and splicings of a eather belt, it runs straighter and truer. The unusual strength claimed for this belting is said to result from its being folded in a peculiar manner, this fact also accounting for its stretching so little. It is rendered waterproof by an entirely new process, known only to the itussian Government—the peculiar character of this process giving it, it appears, a most effective grip of the pulley, and, however > long it may be used, this quality still remains.— Fx.