Russ' Improved Wood Molding Machine.

A comprehensive description of this excellent machine was given upon page 230, Vol. XVIII., of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. We now present our readers with an engraving of it and a summary of its important features, which doubtless render it equal if not superior to any machine of the kind in market. The frame in which the feed rollers are arranged is so hung to the frame-work of the molding machine, that it can be raised or lowered at pleasure, in order to properly adjust the feed rollers for action upon the "stuff," and it is also so constructed as to permit the feed rollers to yield in case of variations in the thickness of the "stuff" pa.s.sing under them. The spindle of the side cutter-heads is hung in a vertical frame arranged to be moved up and down, and laterally, to adjust the cutter-head for action, and is provided at its upper end with a box or bearing, whereby the bearing of the box is always kept upon the spindle instead of at different points of the same as in other machines, and this without interfering with the adjustability of the side cutter-head. Thus uneven wear is avoided.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RUSS' MONITOR MOLDING MACHINE.]

The bed of the machine is formed with a series of slots or openings provided with bridge bars so that the cutters may act upon the edges of the stuff without danger of injury from striking the bed. The presser shoe is also made adjustable for different thicknesses of the "stuff"

and self-yielding to variations in thickness, by a peculiar method of hanging the bar, which carries the presser shoe, to the framework of the machine.

The clamp which holds the press block which acts upon the "stuff" after it has pa.s.sed through the cutter, is of novel construction, and the spindle of the side cutter-heads is so arranged in connection with a loose pulley and the pulley-drums, that both cutter-heads are driven by one belt and in the same direction.

The bed plate is provided with springs through which the side cutter-heads are arranged, to move laterally or transversely with a bridge-plate or plates, susceptible of adjustment independent of the cutter-heads, whereby an adjustable support to the "stuff" is given as it pa.s.ses over the line of the openings in the bed.

Most machines have weighted pressure feed, but this having steel springs adjustable by a screw and hand wheel, a heavy or light pressure can be applied according to the work done or size of molding. The cutter-heads are square and slotted so that any style of molding can be stuck by putting cutters on all sides of the head, thus equalizing the cost and lessening the power. The pressure shoe is arranged to hold the "stuff"

at the very point of contact with the cutters, and, as we have shown, is readily adjusted to a long or short cutter, so that a small molding can be made as smooth as a large one, and so as not to require any finishing with sandpaper or a hand tool.

The machine has also a bevel track very useful for picture frame molding, and a patent cap of great value for the cutters, and readily applied to any slotted head or common head. The wrenches that go with the machine, and the common malleable iron caps for the top cylinder, are shown in detail. These machines are now running in Worcester, Boston, and Fitchburg, Ma.s.s.; Chicago, Ill.: Philadelphia, Pa.; Brattleboro, Vt.; Whitesboro, N. Y.; Charleston, S. C., and other places, and, it is claimed, are capable of doing better work and more of it than any machine now in use.

This machine is covered by several patents taken through the Scientific American Patent Agency. It is manufactured by R. Ball & Co., of Worcester, Ma.s.s, to whom write for further information.

A Lost Civilization.

At the last regular meeting of the American Geographical and Statistical Society at its rooms in the Cooper Inst.i.tute, Professor Newberry, of Columbia College, delivered an address on the subject of his explorations in Utah and Arizona Territories. The speaker commenced by giving a short history of the circ.u.mstances under which the two government expeditions to which he was attached were organized. He then confined his remarks to the subject of the latter expedition, no account of which has yet been published. Its aim was princ.i.p.ally to explore the region embraced by what is known as the old Spanish trail from Santa Fe to California. After giving an interesting account of the topography of the region traversed, he proceeded to speak of the traces which were found on every hand of a former occupancy by a numerous population now extinct. These were most numerous near the course of the San Juan river.

There were found ruins of immense structures, a view of one of which he exhibited, built regularly of bricks, a foot in thickness, and about eighteen inches in length, with the joints properly broken, and as regularly laid and as smooth as any in a Fifth Avenue mansion. This structure he said was as large as the Croton reservoir. Inside were rooms nicely plastered as the walls of a modern house. There were also traces of extensive ca.n.a.ls, which had been constructed to bring water to these towns, which were received into large cisterns. The lecturer also exhibited pieces of pottery which he said abounded everywhere, showing that in a former age all this vast region had been inhabited. He gave it as his opinion that the depopulation of this region was attributable to the fact that both to the north and the south were warlike hordes, and from the incursions of one and the other of these, the peaceable Aztecs, who had been the former denizens of the country, had been gradually wiped out. The only people left here now were the Mokies, who lived in towns inclosed within high, thick walls, and who were almost inaccessible. These people were visited, and the explorers were received by them with great hospitality. The speaker concluded by giving a short account of the manners of the people and their customs, as far as an opportunity was had to observe them.

GIRARD'S "PALIER GLISSANT."

The term "_palier glissant_," which does not admit of being very happily translated into an English term of equal brevity, is the name given by the inventor, Mr. Girard, to a frictionless support, or socket, designed to sustain the axes of heavy wheels in machinery. Since it is a contrivance deriving its efficacy from hydraulic pressure, it may, without impropriety, be considered here. The friction of axles in their supports is the occasion of a considerable loss of power in every machine.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The loss of power itself, though a real disadvantage, is nevertheless a matter of secondary consequence compared with the attendant elevation of temperature, which, were not means carefully provided for reducing friction to the lowest point possible, might soon be so great as to arrest the operation of the machine itself. It was stated in a public lecture delivered in May, 1867, before the Scientific a.s.sociation of France, that, in a certain instance within the lecturer's knowledge, the screw shaft of a French naval propeller became absolutely welded to its support, though surrounded by the water of the sea, in consequence of the great heat developed by its revolution.

The ordinary means of reducing friction is to apply oil, or some other unctuous substance, to the parts which move upon each other. Some disadvantages attend this expedient, but till a better is suggested they have to be endured. The cost of the oil expended in maintaining in proper condition the axles of the machinery in a foundery, or of the rolling stock of a railroad, amounts to a large sum annually; while the want of neatness which its use makes, to a certain extent, inevitable, and the labor which must be constantly employed to prevent this want of neatness from becoming much greater than it is, are serious items to be set off against its positive usefulness.

The object of Mr. Girard is to get rid of all these drawbacks by the simple expedient of subst.i.tuting water for oil. It would not avail to apply water precisely as oil is applied. Though any one's experience may tell him that two smooth pieces of metal will slide more smoothly on each other when they are wet than when they are dry, yet every one knows also that oil facilitates the movement much more perceptibly than water; and also, that in the case of oil there is no difficulty in maintaining the lubricating film, whereas water easily evaporates, and in case of the accident of even a moderate elevation of temperature, it would be expelled from the joint entirely. Mr. Girard proposes, therefore, to employ the water to act, first, by its pressure, to lift the Journal to be lubricated; and secondly, by its fluidity, to form a liquid bed or cushion between the journal and its box, on which the journal may rest in its revolution, without touching the metal of the box at all.

The construction will be understood by referring to the figure. One of the journals is represented as removed, and in the cylindrical surface of the socket are seen grooves occupying a considerable part of the area exposed. These grooves communicate, by an aperture in the middle, with a tube which is represented externally, and which sends a branch to the other journal, through which water under a heavy pressure is introduced into the box beneath the journal. The effect of the hydraulic pressure is to lift the axle, opening a pa.s.sage for the escape of the compressed water, which at the same time, because of its release from compression, loses the power to sustain the weight. If, therefore, by the first impulse, the axle is thrown upward to any sensible distance, it will immediately fall back again, once more confining more or less completely the water. After one or two oscillations, therefore, the axle will settle itself at length in a position in which, while the water will escape, it will escape but as a film of inappreciable thickness. In this condition the journal turns upon a liquid bed, and the resistance to its revolution is so excessively small that a slow rotation given by hand to a wheel sustained by it will be maintained for many minutes without perceptible r.e.t.a.r.dation. In fact, the most striking ill.u.s.tration which can be given of the immense superiority of the _palier glissant_ over a support lubricated in in any other way, is furnished by placing two precisely similar wheels or disks side by side, weighing five or six pounds each, with a diameter of seven or eight inches, and journals of half an inch in diameter; one of them furnished with _paliers glissants_, and the other with boxes lubricated with fine oil. Give each of them a velocity of rotation of about one revolution in a second; the one lubricated with oil will come to rest before the other begins to give evidence of any sensible r.e.t.a.r.dation; but if at any moment the stop-c.o.c.k which supplies the water to the second be turned, this one will also stop, and its stopping will be instantaneous.

It might be supposed that a journal supported in the manner above described would be unsteady and liable to injurious vibrations. This is not the case, and it is easy to see why not. When the journal is truly in the middle of the socket, that is to say when there is an equal distance between it and the wall of the socket on either side, it will be equally pressed from both sides. But if it is in the least displaced laterally, the pressure on the side toward which it moves will instantly increase, while that on the other side will correspondingly diminish: both causes transpiring to resist the displacement, and to maintain the journal in the position of true equilibrium.

The water pressure by which these "slippery supports" are supplied must be created by a force pump worked by the machine itself. The reservoir need not be large as the expenditure of water is very minute in volume.

To the objection which may naturally be made, that the working of the pump must be a tax on the motive power without return, a reply at once simple and satisfactory is found in the experience of Mr. Girard, that the working of the pump does not consume so much as half, and sometimes not more than one one quarter, of the power which is lost in friction when the ordinary modes of lubrication are employed; so that by the adoption of this expedient the available power of the machine is very sensibly increased after deducting all that is expended in the performance of this additional work.

BEES BENEFICIAL TO FRUIT.--Dr. A. Packard, editor of the _American Naturalist_, replies to a query in regard to the effects produced upon fruit by the agency of honey bees, that all the evidence given by botanists and zoologists who have specially studied the subject, shows that bees improve the quality and tend to increase the quant.i.ty of fruit. They aid in the fertilization of flowers, thus preventing the occurrence of sterile flowers, and, by more thoroughly fertilizing flowers already perfect, render the production of sound and well developed fruit more sure. Many botanists think if it were not for bees, and other insects, many plants would not bear fruit at all.

Steamboats on the American plan are to be introduced on Lake Geneva, Switzerland. This will add very greatly to the comfort and pleasure of tourists on that beautiful lake.

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

MUNN & COMPANY, Editors and Proprietors.

PUBLISHED WEEKLY AT NO. 37 PARK ROW (PARK BUILDING), NEW YORK.

O.D. MUNN. S.H. WALES. A.E. BEACH.

"The American News Company," Agents, 121 Na.s.sau street, New York

"The New York News Company," 8 Spruce street

VOL. XVII., No. 1....[NEW SERIES.]...._Twenty-fifth Year_.

NEW YORK, SAt.u.r.dAY, JANUARY, 1, 1870.