To the Editor of the

GLASGOW MECHANICS' MAGAZINE.

SIR,-I am a Mechanic, and beg leave to congratulate you on commencing a work so much needed, and likely to be so useful, as a Mechanics' Magazine. It is what has been long wanted in Glasgow, and will, I hope, meet with the success it deserves.

I am engaged in the Machine Work of a Mill, near Glasgow, and if I thought they would be acceptable for your work, I would send you accounts of several improvements I have made in our machines, during the last five years. I have them written out, and, should you wish them, will send them in to you. Wishing you every success, I am, SIR,

Dec. 30, 1823.

Your's respectfully,

A LOOKER-on.

We cannot sufficiently thank our worthy Correspondent, both for his good wishes respecting our success, and the handsome offer he has made, to send us accounts of his improvements in machinery. We beg to assure him that his communications will be highly acceptable; and we have no doubt but they will be very suitable for our Magazine. We are glad, indeed, to find that our undertaking has every prospect of success, from the contributions of several able and liberal Correspondents; and we trust that their number will daily increase, to the credit both of the city in which we dwell, and the happy and enlightened country in which Providence has kindly cast our lot.

There cannot exist a more ennobling desire in the mind of man than that of communicating knowledge to one another, without any other view than that of instructing

the ignorant, and adding our mite to the great mass of science, which already confers an honour upon our race. Nor, on the other hand, can there be a more reprehensible feeling than that which leads an individual to keep up from the sight of his fellow-creatures any discovery or invention, which he is conscious would be of infinite advantage to them, merely because it is his own, or because he expects to reap some advantage from it, which perhaps he may never realize. Knowledge is the common property of mankind, and every one who adds to it a single item which was unknown before, must be considered as a benefactor to his species.

Mr. EDITOR,—It gives me great pleasure to see a MECHANICS' MAGAZINE established in Glasgow. I think such a publication was much wanted. At the outset, I would beg leave to advise your Correspondents to give their communications in as few words as possible;-it serves no good purpose to take up paper and print with long preambles and conclusions. This made me dislike the London Mechanics' Magazine.

I am a working Mechanic, and have for some years kept a small book, in which I occasionally mark down whatever appears to me to be useful or curious, and also questions, to which I cannot give, or get satisfactory answers. From among my yet unanswered questions, I send you the following, and shall be very much gratified by receiving, through your Magazine, a satisfactory solution, to any, or all of them, by some of your more learned Correspondents.

1. Why does the sun, shining strongly on a common fire, extinguish it?

2. Why does thunder, or lightning, spoil beer, porter, milk, &c.?

3. When a straight-edge is set level, at any height, upon land, why does it point exactly to the surface of the sea (if in sight of the sea)?

I once heard a respectable Millwright very earnestly endeavouring to prove to his neighbour, from this last, that the sea is fully as high as any land.

SIR, your's respectfully,
AN OBSERVER.

Tradeston, Jan. 6, 1824.

Mechanism applicable to Instruments for measuring Time, named a Vertical Regulator, or Regulateur a Tourbillon. BY M. BREGUET.

[From Description des Brevets d'Invention.] THIS regulator may be adapted to every possible kind of escapement, on which it will uniformly produce its peculiar effect. This effect tends to correct all the anomalies due to the changes of position, of what nature soever they may be; for all the pieces to which the anomalies are due, passing in the space of every minute through all possible positions, a compensation necessarily takes place and annuls the errors.

The machinery being so arranged that the frame which carries the moveable system, shall make one turn in a minute, it is possible to make the axis of this frame carry the seconds' hand.

The peculiar and distinguishing character of this invention essentially consists in this ;-the case of the watch being supposed fixed, the balance has, besides its oscillations, or its motions backwards and forwards, (occasioned by the action of the impulsion-wheel, and elastic force of the spiral-spring), a continued rotary motion round a fixed axis, in respect to the case, proceeding from the moving power; so that the commencement of the oscillation of the balance is found at a given instant; noon, for example, to correspond with a certain point of the circumference of the fixed

case; at one second, two seconds, &c. past noon, the commencement of the oscillations will correspond with the different points. This is the principle of the compensations which the author wished to obtain.

A Machine for rendering the Variations of Temperature useful as a Moving Power

BY M. WOISARD.

The

[From Memoirs of the Society of Metz.] THIS machine is composed of two vessels communicating by a vertical tube. lower vessel is immersed in water. The upper vessel, exposed to the action of the solar rays, incloses a balloon, made of a flexible material, into which air, with a small quantity of a very expansible liquid, such as ether, has been introduced.

It is obvious, that if the atmospheric temperature falls, the balloon will diminish in bulk, the air surrounding it will become rarer, and the water will introduce itself into the lower vessels through a valve. If the temperature rises, the pressure exerted within the machine, by the increase of volume of the balloon, will cause the excess of water to flow out.

According to the calculations of M, Woisard, if sulphuric-ether be employed, and all parts of the machine be of suitable proportions, it will raise to the height

of one metre, as many times 500 littres (=30,514 English cubic inches) as there are cubic metres in the capacity of the upper vessel, whenever the temperature varies from 15 to 35 degrees of the centigrade thermometer, or from 59 to 77 degrees of Fahrenheit*.

GENERAL WOLFE.

AN anecdote is told of General Wolfe, when he was out with a party of friends in a boat, the day before the battle of Quebec. It was a beautiful summer's evening, and the conversation turned

The different ethers are produced by the action of different acids upon alcohol. Gay-Lussac found the specific gravity of sulphuric ether 0.71192, at the temperature of 56.4 degrees of Fahrenheit. Under a pressure of 19.92 barom. it begins to boil at 96 F. Placed in contact with air, in a closed flask, it at length undergoes alteration, and changes in part, according to M. Planche, into acetic acid. At the common pressure and temperature, water dissolves a tenth part of its weight of ether. Ether also dissolves a small quantity of water. No salifiable base combines with ether, except potash and ammonia. It unites with alcohol, forming a colourless, clear liquid, decomposable by water, which unites with the alcohol, while the ether rises to the surface in small bubbles. Ether dissolves oils, resins, and India-rubber. It has but little action upon salts. Ether (ather rectificates) is principally used in medicine, as a stimulant, diaphoretic, and antispasmodic. It is mentioned as early as 1540. -See Thenard's Analysis, pp. 94, 287, and 314.

to Gray's Elegy in a Country Church Yard, which was just then published. Wolfe repeated the lines-"For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey," &c. with enthusiasm, and said, "I would rather be the author of these lines than beat the French to-morrow!" He did beat the French, and was killed in the action, next day. Perhaps it was more glorious to be capable of uttering a sentiment like this, than to gain a battle, or to write a poem.

NICE CALCULATIONS. CHEVREAU, in his History of the World, tells us that it was created on the 6th of September, on a Friday, a little after four o'clock in the afternoon. Dean Swift counted the number of steps he took from London to Chelsea. Bishop Wren calculated that he walked round the earth while a prisoner in the tower. In the Preceptor's Assistant we find:

"Query.-What quantity of blood is contained in the human body?

"Answer.-Thirty pounds. "Query.-How many bones are there in the human frame?

"Answer. Two hundred and fortyeight."

The Gold Vulcan Medal, or Thirty Guineas, for inventing an earthenware crucible to endure greater heat than those now in use; and for making crown or window-glass as transparent and free from blue or green colour, as the best German sheet.

The Gold Medal or Fifty Guineas, for a black dye for silk or wool, superior to any in use. For the best mode of staining cotton cloth with a red colour, by an immediate application of the colouring matter, and equal to the red colours now procured from decoctions of madder. The same, of a green colour, equal to the colours now formed from decoctions of weld, and solutions of Indigo. For a mode of preparing red pigment, fit for use in oil or water, and equal in tone and brilliancy to the best lake and car

mine. For publishing the best mineralogical and geological map of any county in the United Kingdom, on a scale of not less than one inch to a mile. And for publishing an accurate similar map of Ireland, on a scale of not less than five miles to an inch.

The Gold Medal or One Hundred Guineas, for the best substitute for the basis of white paint, equally proper as the white lead now employed. For the best substitute for Stockholm tar, equal to the best of that kind, and the produce of Great Britain and the colonies. And for discovering, within Great Britain or Ireland, a quarry of White Marble, equally fit for the purposes of statuary as that imported from Italy.

(To be continued.)