The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-07-20 00:00:00

THE VERMIN ASPHYXIATOR.

The following explanation of the above apparently useful
Invention is from The Times'

case,

began

Such ix the title of a machine of ingenious but simple
construction recently invented by Mr. Samuel Bate-
son—a well-known snorteman—and commending itself
at once by its name to the notice of farmers, gardeners,
and others who suffer from the depredations of the
dangerous classts of the animal and insect world.
The machine, which can also, as we shall presently
explain, fumigate a hospital, cool a drawing room, and
be put to a variety of sanitary and other noes even
more important than the destruction of rata and
moles, is easily cars ied in the hand, and consists
merely of a small iron furnace or crucible, con-
nected by a pipe with a circular chamber in which
a fan revolves. The lower part of this chamber
is shaped into an aperture or nozzle, to which
indiarubber tubing of any required length can be fixed,
and the machine is put in action by turning a handle;
this sets the fan in motion, and expels through the !
tubing with great velocity and regularity, and in a
condensed volume, the vapour, be it sweet or foul,
health-giving or life-destroying, of the compound
, burning in the crucible. The expulsion of vapour by
means of a fan is of course an old and well-known
method, already employed in a great variety of pro-
cesses, and the novelty of the Asphyxiator txmosta,
firstly, in several contrivances rendering its action and
construction simple and durable and the whole machine
handy and portable; and, secondly, in the idea of
utilizing for so many purposes from one machine a
forcibly propelled stream of vapour which may be
poisonous or sweet-scented, sulphurous or merely
smoky, according 88 it is required to stifle a snake in
its hole, to pertvme a lady's boudoir, to disinfect a
sewer and exterminate its rats, or to give the sports-
man a fair shot at a rabbit wmttline from its burrow.
On Thursday afternoon, in the waste ground behind
the wt at wing of the International Exhibition, and near
to his own moat interesting museum of fish culturs. Mr.
Frank Buckland explainsd the action of the Asphyxit
ator to an invited company of gentkmen interested in

its operation, and • short account of the series of experi-
ments with which Mr. Bucklandillustratod the VWIO,IOO
uses to which the machine can be put, will beet demon-
strate its value.
Mr. Buckland, having explained the details as d
action of the Asphyxiator, reminded his Masora of
ravages of snakes in India, of rabbits in Australia, of a
dozen different noxious animals and insects at home,
and of vermin generally all over the world, and justly
obaerved that a machine which could check these would
be a boon to mankind. The Asphyxiator, he also
pointed out, was most valuable as a fut.' itor for sani-
tary purposes, and. indeed, we almost t '; that this
will turn out to be its chief use. It is infinitely mom
handy than the old system of fumigating by means .4
burning sulphur pots, since it can be need from with-
out, the nozzle of the tube being inserted through a
hole in the door or hatchway of the infected woad or
vessel.
Mr. Buckland's first experiment was upon two plants
covered with aphides. I hose were placed in a glass
case, to which was tix,sl the nozzle of the tube leading
from the fan chamber of the Asphyxiator, the furnace
being tilled with a specially prepared "insect deatriy•
ing, paper." The glass case was soon clouded with im-
penetrable fumes, and when, after a few minutes, the
reeking plants were removed, it was shown that the
aphides were no more, while the plants, Mr. Buckland
assured his hearers, were no worse for their vapour
bath.
For the next experiment the furnace was tilled with
a deadly snake and reptile destroying compound,"
and Mr. Buckland put into the glass case two non-
venomous snakes, which coiled themselves lovingly
round his baud as he took them from the moss. A
veil of fumes soon hid them from sight, but the deadly
vapour had to be maintained at its blackest intensity
for a full quarter of an hour. for snakes die hard.
When at last the glass case was lifted, and the noisome
gas, making the bystanders sneeze and cough, had
.ated away, the poor snakes were dead enough, but,
strange to say, were different in their deaths, for the
larger lay, like the Indian in Bret liarte's
" quite loose on the sand," while the mmeles of the
smaller were unrelaseed and its body in a stiff semi.
spiral
The next experiment was tried upon a glass jar of
very weevillesl wheat. The little beetle like Maects
took a great amount of sulphurous acid gas to kill
them, and there were still some of them alive after a
very severe fumigation; but they were in such a state
that they fell from the grain with their dead brothers
and sisters when it was shaken in a sieve, leasing it
perfectly clean, and this is all that is wanted. The
corn was inspected, and then Mr. Buckland took a
piece of meat, so evil-smelling that it needed not tote
passed round, and well smoked it with sulphurous acid
gas, when the taint was found to bas-e premed away.
Of course it is nothing new to know that sulphur is an
excellent deodorizer, the novelty is in the ready appli-
cation of its fumes by a cheap and handy machine.
This piece of housewifery was to have been imme-
diately succeeded by a destruction of rata in an el.
tempore drain of tile-pipes, but the rats provided for
the occasion had, after a variety of adventures, met
their deaths too soon; they had, in fact, been
asphyxiated without the Asphyxiator in an air-tight
glass case, in which they were placed for security n
recapture after a most exciting hunt, for they had
squeezed themselves through the bars of the birdcage
in which they were brought on to the ground. A new
batch of rats had no sooner arrived than they also
began with one accord to escape, occasioning some very
lively hunts. At last, however, some were placed in
the tile gutter, where, deadly as a "whiff of grape-
shot," a puff or two of sulphurous smoke very ex-
peditiously suffocated them.
Other experiments with rats followed, and the ten-
dency of them all, as well as of the positive testimony
of Mr. Buckland and persons who had themselves used
the Asphyxiator, was that it would prove mart in-
valuable for the destroying of vermin, and for every
purpose of disinfection and fumigation. In these
days, wheu people are beginning to think what reason ,
there is for them to die of foul smells and impure air,
such an engine as this is likely to be appreciated, and
our own opinion is that it is not only cheap and handy,
but a very effectual application of mechanical power
for driving with great force a stream of vapour into
any enclosed space.