RAILROAD SPEED FORTY MILES AN HOUR.

A correspondent of the Albany Journal, in an article under the title of "Railroad Accidents and Legislation thereon," gives the following statistical analysis of speed on railroads, at forty miles an hour. He says:

Men who are used to the railroad, and to the working of the rolling stock, know what such a rate of speed is and how wonderful is the operation. Let us examine it. An engine, tender, and train of four passenger cars and one baggage car, when properly loaded will not be much less than eighty tons weight. This body, at the rate of forty miles an hour, moves about sixty feet in a second. That is, between two beats of a clock, it flies across a common street. The driving-wheels, if six feet in diameter, revolve three times in a second. The common wheels of the cars revolve about eight times in a second. The revolutions of the driving-wheels are produced by the motion of the piston in the cylinder. To each revolution of this wheel there are two motions of the piston. Thus there are six motions of the piston to the second, and at each of these motions a valve is opened or closed, for the taking or exhausting steam from the cylinder. This must be a complete and perfect operation, each time, to produce the speed. But there are two cylinders, working at opposite sides of the engine, and at different points on the crank of the wheel, or axle, as may be, and they do not move at the same instant, or, rather, they alternate, and thus, each performing the same office, they divide a second into twelve equal parts or periods, in each of which the perfect and complete operation of taking or exhausting steam is performed, and at the end of each motion the piston actually stops and turns the other way. Now, the eye could not count or comprehend these motions. The ear could not distinguish the exhausts though each is as perfect and distinct as when the engine is drawing a heavy load four or five miles an hour, when it seems to labor and to cough as if struggling with its load. This is a speed of forty miles an hour analyzed. Now must there not be very greatly increased liability to accident at such a rate of speed? Who can see the strains upon parts of machinery that may result in a fracture when moving at this rate ?

CONSUMPTION OF OIL ON RAILROADS IN MASSACHUSETTS.

1

The subjoined table, furnished by a writer in the New Bedford Mercury, gives the cost of sperm oil used on several railroads in 1851, as follows:

The total length of the roads enumerated is 1,012 miles, and the total cost of oil used by them in 1851, $77,293 80. The number of miles of railroad in operation in in the United States, is 10,814. Reckoning the cost of oil on all the roads in the same ratio as that paid by the Massachusetts railroads, we have the snug little sum of $825,943 82, as the amount paid by all the railroads in the United States for oil in 1851.

BRITISH REGULATIONS FOR STEAMBOATS.

The British Board of Trade have issued a notice that the provisions of the amended Steam Navigation Act, 14 and 15 Vic., c. 79, would be strictly enforced on and after the 31st inst. On the 31st inst. all steamers will be required to display in a conspicuous part of the vessel their certificate to run, and the number of passengers they

are allowed to carry; each vessel will now be furnished with a safety valve, free from the control of the engineer. Penalties will be enforced on masters and owners for carrying more than their number, and on passengers for forcing their way on board, or traveling beyond the distance for which they have paid. The customs' officers, on and after the 31st inst., will not grant transire or permit any vessels to put to sea unless they are properly found in life-boats, fire-engines, signal lights, and the other requirements for the preservation of life at sea.

THE WESTERN ROUTES OF NEW YORK.

The business of three of the great routes of western travel in 1850 and 1851, was as follows:

This is a remarkable result, showing gross earnings of 15 per cent on the aggregate cost of the works. Within ten years the increase of traffic upon the leading public works of this country has been immense, no less than $8,410,214. The revenues of the Northern Line, Erie Canal, Pennsylvania Canal, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad were $3,924.987, in 1841. The revenues of the same routes of travel, together with the Erie Railroad, were $12,335,001 in 1851.

JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES.

CONSUMPTION OF COTTON IN MANUFACTURING COUNTRIES.

COMPARATIVE ESTIMATE OF THE QUANTITIES OF RAW COTTON CONSUMED IN THE CHIEF

MANUFACTURING COUNTRIES, FROM 1886 TO 1851, INCLUSIVE, (IN MILLIONS OF POUNDS WEIGHT,) AS DERIVED FROM DU FAY & CO'S CIRcular.

Total........

...

26

39

...

29 34

11 12

45

158 11

31 29 47 45 143 158 175 175 209 205 188

914 1,047 1,074 862 1,068 1,225 1,182 1,175

Notwithstanding the high price of cotton during the first half of the past year, Great Britain worked up 55 per cent of all cotton consumed in the chief manufactoring countries of the world; while the United States of America consumed considerably

less in 1851 than in any one of the preceding four years; the quantity consumed amounting to only 134 per cent on the total consumption of 1,175 millions of pounds. Although the number of spindles at work in Great Britain has been increased by several hundred thousands since 1850, and is estimated now at 21,400,000, a disproportion still exists between the spinning and the weaving power, which, however, will speedily be rectified if the former continue to offer a so much more profitable investment than the latter. The reverse has been the case, if a number of years be taken as a criterion, and hence the disinclination to build new spinning mills, notwithstanding the present abundance of capital.

THE CLIFF COPPER MINE OF LAKE SUPERIOR.

A correspondent of the Lake Superior Journal furnishes the following statistical view of the Cliff Mine for the year commencing December 1st, 1850, and ending with November 30th, 1851:

Number of men employed 220, of which 90 are miners, and the remainder surface men, number of stump heads 12.

STEEL PEN MAKING AT BIRMINGHAM.

The special correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, whose well considered and judiciously prepared sketches of various commercial and industrial operations, we have on several occasions transferred to the pages of the Merchants' Magazine, furnishes us with the subjoined sketch of Gillott's celebrated steel pen manufactory at Birmingham:

Mr. Gillott, of Birmingham, who has done so much to improve it, considers the manufacture to be yet in its infancy. The first operations are performed by steam power. The sheets of steel, after they are received from Sheffield, are reduced to the requisite tenuity by successive transits through the rolling mill-operations which are tended by men and boys. When reduced in this manner to the thinness of a steel pen, and to the length of about two feet, and the breadth of two inches and a half or three inches, the sheets of steel are ready for the next processes, which are entirely performed by women and girls. Describing the rooms according to the order of the processes, and not according to the arrangement of the building, the first to be entered is that where the "blanks" are punched out. Ranged in double rows along a large and roomy workshop, with windows at both sides, and scrupulously white and clean in floor, roof, and walls, are seated from fifty to a hundred girls and women, from the age of fourteen to that of forty and upwards. The only sounds to be heard are, the working of the hand press, and the clinking of the small pieces of metal as they fall from the block into the receptacle prepared for them. This process is performed with great rapidity, one girl, of average industry and dexterity, being able to punch or cut out about a hundred gross per day. Each livision of the workshop is superintended by a tool-maker, whose business it is to keep the punches and presses in good working condition, to superintend the work generally, and to keep order among the workpeople. The next operation is to place the blank in a concave die, on which a slight touch from a convex punch produces the requisite shape-that of a semi-tube. The slits and apertures, which increase the elasticity of the pen, and the maker's or vendor's

name or mark, are produced by a similar tool. The last operation is that of slitting. which is also performed by girls and women. Previously to this, however, the pen undergoes a variety of processes in a different part of the factory, and under the hands of a different class of workpeople. When complete all but the slit, the pen is soft and pliable, and may be bent or twisted in the hand like a piece of thin lead. Being collected in "grosses" or "great grosses "the former containing 144, and the great gross twelve times that number-the pens are thrown into little iron square boxes by men, who perform all the work in this department, and they are placed in a furnace, where they remain till box and pens are of a white heat. They are then taken out, and thrown hissing hot in pails or tanks of oil-a process which cures them of their softness by making them brittle. When taken out of the oil, they may be broken by the fingers with as much ease as if they were so many wafers. As a great deal of oil adheres to them, they are put into a seive to drain. There they remain until no more oil will run from them; but, notwithstanding all the draining which they have received, the oil is not effectually removed. To cleanse them thoroughly, they were formerly thrown into pits or heaps of sawdust, and stirred about; but as, by this process, the sawdust became clotted into oil cakes, and was rendered unserviceable, the ingenuity of Mr. Gillott was taxed to discover some means by which a saving both of oil and sawdust could be effected. He was not long before the thought struck him, that, if the pens were made to revolve in a perforated cylinder, the last drop of oil might be forced out of them—in fact, that the oil might be twirled from the pens like moisture from a mop.

The experiment was tried, and succeeded admirably. The pens, after being allowed to drain in the seive until no more oil would run off them, were placed, apparently dry, but greasy looking, in the cylinder, and twirled round with great rapidity, until the oil ran off in a copious stream. The mingled oil and sawdust formerly constituted a nuisance, and it was necessary to change the sawdust and burn it three or four times a day. It now lasts for a week. By this means-a remarkable instance of the economy of manufacturers-Mr. Gillott has diminished his oil account about £200 to £300 per annum. This operation once completed, the pens are once more placed in revolving cylinders, where their friction against each other produces the necessary polish. Each pen is thus made to clean and polish its neighbor. The next process is to roast or anneal these brittle articles, and give them the flexibility of the quill, and produce upon them, at the same time, the color which may be desired, whether bronze or blue. The flexibility and color are both produced by heat, and it becomes a delicate matter so to arrange and regulate it as to attain the exact results desired. From this department they are once more consigned to the female part of the establishment, where, by the operation of the cutting tool, each pen receives the required slit. One girl, with a quick and practiced finger, can slit by this means as many as two hundred gross, or twenty-eight thousand in a day. They are now ready for counting and packing, in boxes or grosses, for the wholesale market. This last stage of the business is wholly performed by young girls.

THE DEAN COTTON OF TEXAS.

The Galveston (Texas) News mentions this extraordinary description of cotton, remarking that among the sales for the previous week were seven bales of this cotton at ten and a-half cents. All who have tried this cotton find it to possess such superior advantages that they now plant no other. In July last, a letter from a merchant in Boston says this cotton was then worth eighteen cents a pound in that market.— Last year, when cotton commanded a higher price, sixty bales of this were sold in Boston for twenty-four cents a pound. A manufacturing house of Massachusetts, by whom this cotton has been thoroughly tested, has sent an agent to the State, who is now in the interior, endeavoring to buy all he can find. The staple of this cotton is said to resemble that of Sea Island, and the fabric made of it is probably often mistaken for Sea Island. This cotton possesses the following advantages in addition to its superior quality-The product per acre is full as much or more; the bolls are larger, each boll having five divisions, while other cotton has but four; the quantity of cotton in each boll is more in proportion to its superior size; a hand can pick about one-third more of it in the same time. This last advantage is one of great importance, and has been fully established, as we learn, from experiment. This is owing to the large amount of cotton to the boll, and to the greater length of the staple, making it quicker to be handled by the picker. There is a great demand for the seed of this cotton, which will probably supersede the ordinary kind throughout Texas.

MACHINE FOR PRINTING CALICO.

We learn from the Boston Atlas that a new calico machine has been invented which will print on calico twelve different colors at one operation, and has been built at the extensive machine works of Messrs. Goddard, Rice & Co., of Worcester, for one of the largest print works in this country. The model was designed by Dr. R. L. Hawes, of Worcester, the inventor of an ingenious letter envelope machine. The Boston Transcript says:-"It was but quite recently-within five years, we believe-that it was not thought practicable to print calico with the use of more than six colors at one operation. If additional colors were required to complete the design, they were given by hand blocks. Latterly, however, the English inventors have produced machines that will print eight and ten colors, but it has remained for an American to outstrip them all in this important branch of mechanic art.The principal improvements introduced into this machine (for which application for a patent has been made) consists in the mode of applying pressure to the print rollers, by which a yielding pressure of several tons may be given to each roller with great ease; also in the construction of the frame work in a peculiar manner, so that either print roller may be removed from the machine without disturbing the others. By means of these improvements, this machine is made to operate with nearly the same facility and ease as any six-color machines hitherto constructed. The weight of the machine is eight or ten tons, standing some nine or ten feet high, and as a specimen of workmanship reflects great credit to the manufacturers, Messrs. Goddard, Rice & Co., for it will readily be perceived that it must not only have great strength, but a very nice adjustment of its parts to enable the operator to print twelve colors on the cloth, so that each shall be exactly in its place, and this, too, when cloth is passing through the machine at the rate of a mile per hour."

LAKE SUPERIOR COPPER MINES.

The National Intelligencer publishes a few facts to show the advantage of a judicious prosecution of the copper mining business. The Intelligencer says:—

The mine which has thus far been the most productive is called the Boston and Pittsburg Mining Company. Work was commenced in 1848. A capital of $110,000 was paid in, or about $18 50 per share on 6,000 shares. In 1849, $60,000 was divided among the shareholders; in 1850, $84,000; in 1851, $60,000, and in 1852, $60,000 more will be divided. In another view, shares which cost $18 have received back in dividends $34, and are worth $100 in the market.

The Northwest Mining Company ranks next in value. Mining was here commenced in earnest in 1849. About $80,000 have been paid in. In 1849 the net proceeds from the sale of copper amounted to some $5,000; in 1850 to about $32,000; and in 1851 to something over $50,000. This company owns a large tract of mineral territory, upon which two valuable veins have been opened, and a number of others discovered. The property owned by this company is of immense value, and magnificent fortunes will in a few years doubtless be realized from it.

The Minnesota Mining Company is located near the Ontonogon River, some forty miles westward of the two preceding. Immense blocks of pure copper are taken from this mine. It commenced in the autumn of 1848, and has a capital paid in of some $90,000, or $30 on a share-there being but three thousand shares. They command $150 in the market. A large dividend will, we think, be paid from the earnings this year.

The gain reaped from the workings of a successful mine is frequently 500 per cent. Shares in the Boston and Pittsburg Company, which cost $18 50, sell for $100. In the Minnesota for $30 the owner can now receive $150. The Northwest shares will probably increase 100 per cent in value in a year.

THE ADVANTAGES OF MODERN INVENTIONS.

THE HON. HORACE MANN thus sums up a few of the advantages of modern inventions: "One boy with a Foudrinier machine will make more paper in a twelvemonth than all Egypt could have made in a hundred years during the reign of the Ptolemies. One girl with a power-press will strike off books faster than a million scribes could copy them before the invention of printing. One man with an iron foundry will turn out more utensils than Tubal Cain could have forged had he worked diligently to this time."