The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1893-07-26
The Rules Of Contrariety In InYen.
ti0ns,

| lions.
There is apt to be fine irreverence
about the inventor which leads him to
suspect that any old way Of doing a
thing is for that very reason not the
best way. Often he observes some
| time -honored plan of working, auda-
ciously makes up his mind to do the
exact opposite, and hits upon success.
Guns were loaded at the muzzle for
ages, until one day man Of originali
ty thought Of loading them at the
other end, the preferable end on many
accounts besides that Of manifest con-
venience. The same path was trod-
den by the Frenchman who first put
the eye Of needle near its point in
stead of away from its point. He
little knew that he was doing a great
deal to make the sewing machine a
possibility. One Of the notions Of the
pioneer railway engineers in England
was that their rails must be Aanged so
that the wheels of locomotives and
carriages should not get off the track.
But some one of skeptical mind in
quired: Why not leave the top of the
rail fat, or nearly fat, and put the
Hange on the wheel, an easier thing to
do? Accordinly the fange was taken
from the rail to the wheel and remains
there to this day, to remind the
traveller that an Eastern philosopher
once said: ''To him that is well shod
it is as if the whole earth is covered
with leather.
It is 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 the ceiling, which proves
to be better place for them. AS ev-
erybody knows who ever sat before an
open fire, radiation is a pleasanter
means Of warmth than convection,
than heat carried along by currents of
air; floor space is incidentally saved,
and the risk of gathering combustible
rubbish about the coils is avoided. In
the ages of simplicity which came
down to Watts time am the inven.
tion Of the steam engine, when ket-
tie 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 shortest time possible
it was found gainful to put the fire in.
side. Stephenson's locomotive, the
Rocket, derived no small part Of its
efficiency from his knowledge tt
which side of the boiler to apply the
| flame.
| On somewhat the same principle
Lord Dundonald. one of the early i'm.
plovers of the steam engine, forced
the hot-air currents under his boiler
from above downward, against their
natural tendency to move from below
upward. In this way he made availa.
BILE much heat, that otherwise woulc
have been wasted. The steam engine
whether mounted on wheels or not
keeps its fuel outside; furnace and
cylinder are distinct. To-day 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
a gun. So much more work does
gas engine yield than a steam engine,
in comparison with the heat applied
that only the dearness of the heat ap-
1 piled by gas prevents the speedy su.
persedure 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 tempera-
ture. The melting point Of the min
eral is high, and only so much heat as
ranges above that temperature does
the work. In the Mining Department
of the Worlds Fair is an exhibit
showing how the modern metallur'
gist reduces aluminium with new
economy. Instead Of employing the
old crucible method, and applying the
fire from without, he incloses the ore
in Q. non-conducting bed, and by means
Of powerful electric current applies
the heat from within. Electric furna'
ces of this type now produce bronze
and other alloys at prices which stead
ily fall as their market enlarges.
Not far from the mining exhibit
at Chicago stands Machinery Hall.
When its visitors see one Of the lar
gest steam engines driving machinery
with slack belt, they are wont to
express surprise. Ordinary folks to-
day think just what machinists
thought few. years ago that tight
ness is the effective and, indeed, the
only feasible condition for belts
But in this case, as in good
many others, the rule Of contraries
has come, and with profit.
Architects, as well as engineers ano
metallurgists, have found it profitable
to go into opposition where some an
cient practices have been concerned
In ATTITUDES of much fall of rain o.
snow, the form of roof which most OBJ
viously suggests itself is the common
pitched roof, resembling an A, more
or less broadened. Vexed by burst
ing rain conductors, by impromptr
object lessons as to the force Of ava
lanches, Northern architects take
not "A, but V, duly widened, for thei
roof type. In winter, ice and snow
caught as in a basin, cannot fall to tn
street. Icicles are banished, and IL
conductors carried through the hear
of the building, and kept warm by tn
building, ice is gradually melted
without chance to do damage. Z
Sun.
= An Irish sergeant was drilling
squad of militia recruits, whose ideas
Of marching in line were altogethe
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