The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-07-26
IMPROVING THE OLD.
CONTRARlETY IN INVENTION AND
HOW THE RULE WORKS.

The Irreverent Inventor Scorns Not to Find
New Way of Doing "a Thing-sometimes
He Fails to Find n Better Way, Often He
stumbies Upon Great Iden.
There is apt to be fine irreverence
about the inventor which leads him to
suspect that any old way of doing q
thing is for that very reason not the best
way. Often he observes some time hon
ored plan of working, audaciously makes
| up his mind to do the exact opposite and
hits upon success. Guns were loaded ut
the muzzle for ages, until one day man
of originality thought of loading them
at the other end, the preferable end OH
! many accounts besides that of manifest
convenience. The same path was -od-
| den by the Frenchman who first put :.
eye of n needle near its point instead
| away from its point. He little kne
that he was doing great deal to make
the sewing machine possibility.
One of the notions of the pioneer rail
way engineers in England was that their
rails must be Hanged SO that the wheels
of locomotives and carriages should not
get off the track. But some one of skep-
teal mind inquired, "Why not leave the
top of the rail fiat, or nearly fiat, and put
the flange OH the wheel, an easier thing
to dor" Accordingly the fange was taken
from the rail to the wheel and remains
there to this day to remind the traveller
that an eastern philosopher said long
ago. 'To him that is we'll shod it is as
if the whole earth were covered with
| 1nntbnr ,,
It is a good many years now since
steam was first used for heating build
ings, and as air when warmed ascends
what more natural than that steam coils
should hug the floors just as the stoves
before them had done? But in some of
the largest factories in this country the
coils are fastened not to the floor, but to
| the ceiling, which proves to be better
| place for them. AS everybody knows
who ever sat before an open fire, radia-
ton is a peasanter means of Warmth
than convection, than heat carried along
by currents of air. Floor space is Incl
dentally saved and the risk of gathering
combustible rubbish about the coils is
avoided.
! In the ages of simplicity, which came
down to Watts time and the invention
| of the steam engine, when kettle was
to be heated the proper place for the fire
was thought to be outside. But when
big boilers came in, with pressing need
that their contents be heated in the short
est time possible, it was found gainful
| to put the fire inside. Stephensons loco
motive, the Rocket, derived no small
| part of its efficiency from his knowledge
to which side of the boiler to apply
flame.
On somewhat the same principle Lord
| Dundonald, one of the early improvers
of the steam engine, forced the hot air
currents under his boiler from above
downward, against their natural tend
ency to move from below upward. In
this way he made available much heat
that otherwise would have been wasted.
The steam engine, whether mounted on
wheels or not, always keeps its fuel out
side-furnace and cylinder are distinct.
Today the steam engines primacy is
challenged by motor which uses its
fuel inside, the furnace being no other
than the cylinder, precisely as in the
barrel of gun. So much more work
does gas engine yield than steam en-
CINE, i'll comparison with the heat ap-
piled. that only the dearness of heat rs
supplied by gas prevents the speedy SUI
procedure of steam for motive power.
AS gas engines grow steadily larger,
their margin of economy becomes SO de-
cided that it begins to pay to make gas
on purpose to burn in them.
In the reduction of bauxite. the re-
fractory ore of aluminium, it is neces-
sary to maintain an extreme Temporal
ture. The melting point of the mineral
Is high. and only so much of the heat as
ranges above that temperature does
work. In the mining department of the
Worlds fair is an exhibit showing how
the modern metallurgist reduces alumni
lum with new economy. Instead of en-
] ploying the old crucible method and an
plying the fire from without, he incloses
the ore i'll Il nonconducting bed. and bv
means of a powerful electric current ap-
plies the heat from within. Electric
furnaces of this type now produce bronze
and other alloys at prices which steadily
fall as their market enlarges.
Not far from the mining exhibit at
Chicago stands Machinery hall When
its visitors sec one of the largest steam
engines driving machinery with a slack
belt, they are wont to express surprise.
Ordinary folks today think just what
machinists thought few years ago
that tightness is the effective and indeed
the only feasible condition for belts.
But i'll this case, as in good many 9th
ers, the rule of contraries has come, and
with profit.
Architects as well as engineers and
metallurgists have found it profitable to