Saturday press. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1880-1885, 1881-02-05
Mechanical Notes.
NJ. b. c. S.

A new gun, which can fire 5000 shots in
thirteen minutes, was recently tested in
Washington. The Gardner is machine
gun like the Calling. II has two barrels
made of steel encased in brass.
Wooden vessels are declining, steamers
increasing in number. Three hundred and
thirty-three new steamers were last year
built against Isl broken up; but only 10
new sailing ships against 82l lost or broken
up.
An electrical stone-breaker" is the
lntest American invention. An electro
magnetic chopper delivers from 1000 to
ZOO blows per minute the power being
supplied by a dynamo-eectric machine.
The railway up Mount Vesuvus is now
lighted with electricity, eleven Semens
and Halske lamps being arranged along
the line itself. Three other lamps are dis.
posed so as to illuminate the sides and
crater of the volcano. The effect is said to
be magnificent.
Minneapolis will soon boast what will
be, without doubt, the largest Touring mill
in the world. The new Pillsbury mill, it
has been decided by the proprietors, is to
have capacity of 1000 barrels per day,
which will make it the king of mills. 1t
will require half million bushels of wheat
per month to keep this monster busy.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works, Penn
sylvania, during one week recently entered
orders for about 100 first-class locomotives.
Thirty-two are for the Denver and Rio
Grando railway; thirty are for the Phila-
dolphia and Reading, and twenty for the
Chicago and Northwestern Railway Com
pany. They are at the same time working
on orders for Australia, Brazil, Peru, Cuba,
Yucatan and Mexico, and for many lead
ing roads in the United States.
The largest casting ever made in the
United States was cast Mt the Black Dia-
mond steel.works Of Park, Brother d Co.,
of Pittsburg. 1t was solid anvil block,
eleven feet high and eight by ten wide,
intended for seventeen-ton steam ham,
mer, and weighed one hundred and sixty
tons. Seven hours were consumed in run
ming the metal into the mould, and it will
be four months before the casting is cool
enough to move. The hammer will stand
thirty four feet high, and will strike blow
of twenty tons. Its total cost was $50, 900.
The largest hammer at present in the
United States is OF Nashua, N. H., and
weighs ten tons.
Some see in the partial success achieved
by the New Rapid Telegraph Company the
doom of the present system Of teegraphy.
They profess to be able to send an I'M
limited number of words per minute by
their method, while other companies cannot
do better than forty or fifty words per
minute. The Rapid Company does not
telegraph words painfully spelled out by
the operator at a low rate of speed it re-
duces messages to few dots perforated on
n piece of paper; this paper is put into q
machine and sent to the destination and re-
produced there at the rate of a Thousand
words minute. 1t is claimed that with
one wire they can do as much work as
older companies with dozen. One wire
between New York and Chicago will be al
that is wanted for any possible amount o
business. The difference between it ant
the other companies is that in the rapit
system the difficulties are met at either enc
of the line, viz, in reducing message t,
dots at one end and deciphering it at thu
other, while under the old plan the Difficult
ties are in the transmitting of the message
and that, too, at such slow rate that
multiplicity of wires is needed to keep NJ
with the business. In the rapid system
the transmission is nothing in the other
it is everything. The thing was pooh
poohed at first, but the company is to-da,
operating lines between New York AM
Boston successfully, and its extension bid
fair to revolutionize the whole business
and render competition by the present sys
tenn impossible.