Chapter 1

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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN SUPPLEMENT NO. 497

NEW YORK, JULY 11, 1885

Scientific American Supplement. Vol. XX, No. 497.

Scientific American established 1845

Scientific American Supplement, $5 a year.

Scientific American and Supplement, $7 a year.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS.

I. CHEMISTRY AND METALLURGY.--Making Sea Water Potable. --By THOS. KAY

The Acids of Wool Oil

The New Absorbent for Oxygen

Depositing Nickel upon Zinc.--By H.B. SLATER

II. ENGINEERING AND MECHANICS.--Foundations in Quicksand, Lift Bridge over the Ourcq Canal.--3 figures

St. Petersburg a Seaport.--A canal cut from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg.--Opening of same by the Emperor and Empress.--With full page engraving

The New French Dispatch Boat Milan.--With engraving

The Launching and Docking of Ships Sidewise.--4 figures

Improved High Speed Engine.--12 figures

The National Transit Co.'s Pipe Lines for the Transportation of Oil to the Seaboard.--With map and diagram

The Fuel of the Future.--History of natural gas.--Relation to petroleum.--Duration of gas, etc.--With table of analyses Closing Leakages for Packing.--Use of asbestos in stuffing boxes

III. TECHNOLOGY.--Luminous Paint.--Processes of manufacture Boxwood and its Substitutes.--Preparation of same for market, etc.--A paper written by J.A. JACKSON for the International Forestry Exhibition

IV. ARCHAEOLOGY.--An Assyrian Bass-Relief 2,700 years old

V. NATURAL HISTORY.-The Flight of the Buzzard.--By R.A. PROCTOR

VI. BOTANY, ETC.--Convallaria.--A stemless perennial.--By OTTO A. WALL, M.D.--Several figures

VII. MEDICINE, HYGIENE, ETC.--Gaiffe's New Medical Galvanometer.--1 figure

The Suspension of Life in Plants and Animals

VIII. MISCELLANEOUS.--Composite Portraits.--6 illustrations Hand-Craft and Rede-Craft.--A plea for the first named.--By D.G. GILMAN

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FOUNDATIONS IN QUICKSAND.

Foundations in quicksand often have to be built in places where least expected, and sometimes the writer has been able to conveniently span the vein with an arch and avoid trouble; but where it cannot be conveniently arched over, it will be necessary to sheath pile for a trench and lay in broad sections of concrete until the space is crossed, the sheath piling being drawn and reset in sections as fast as the trenches are leveled up. The piling is left in permanently if it is not wanted again for use.

Sometimes these bottoms are too soft to be treated in this manner; in that case boxes or caissons are formed, loaded with stone and sunk into place with pig iron until the weight they are to carry is approximated. When settled, the weights are removed and building begins.

Foundations on shifting sand are met with in banks of streams, which swell and become rapids as each winter breaks up. This kind is most troublesome and dangerous to rest upon if not properly treated.

Retaining walls are frequently built season after season, and as regularly become undermined by the scouring of the water. Regular docking with piles and timbers is resorted to, but it is so expensive for small works that it is not often tried.

Foundations are formed often with rock well planted out; and again success has attended the use of bags of sand where rough rock was not convenient or too expensive.

In such cases it is well to try a mattress foundation, which may be formed of brushwood and small saplings with butts from 1/2 inch to 21/2 inches in diameter, compressed into bundles from 8 to 12 inches diameter, and from 12 to 16 feet long, and well tied with ropes every four feet. Other bundles, from 4 to 6 inches diameter and 16 feet long, are used as binders, and these bundles are now cross-woven and make a good network, the long parts protruding and making whip ends. One or more sets of netting are used as necessity seems to require. This kind of foundation may be filled in with a concrete of hydraulic cement and sand, and the walls built on them with usual footings, and it is very durable, suiting the purpose as well as anything we have seen or heard of.--_Inland Architect_.

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LIFT BRIDGE OVER THE OURCQ CANAL.

This bridge, which was inaugurated in 1868, was constructed under the direction of Mr. Mantion, then engineer-in-chief of the Belt Railway. Fig. 1 shows the bridge raised.

The solution adopted in this case was the only feasible one that presented itself, in view of the slight difference between the level of the railway tracks and the maximum plane of the canal water. This circumstance did not even permit of a thought of an ordinary revolving bridge, since this, on a space of 10 inches being reserved between the level of the water and the bottom of the bridge, and on giving the latter a minimum thickness of 33 inches up to the level of the rails, would have required the introduction into the profile of the railroad of approaches of at least one-quarter inch gradient, that would have interfered with operations at the station close by.

Besides, in the case of a revolving bridge, since the bottom of the latter would be but ten inches above the water level, and the rollers would have to be of larger diameter than that, it would have been necessary to suppose the roller channel placed beneath the level of the water, and it would consequently have been necessary to isolate this channel from the canal by a tight wall. The least fissure in the latter would have inundated the channel.

As the Ourcq Canal had no regular period of closing, it was necessary to construct the bridge without hinderance to navigation. The idea of altering the canal's course could not be thought of, for the proximity of the fortifications and of the bridge over the military road was opposed to it. Moreover, the canal administration insisted upon a free width of 26 feet, which is that of the sluices of the St. Denis Canal, and which would have led to the projection of a revolving bridge of 28 feet actual opening in order to permit of building foundations with caissons in such a way as to leave a passageway of 26 feet during operations.

For these reasons it was decided to construct a metallic bridge that should be lifted by means of counterpoises and balanced after the manner of gasometers.

The free width secured to navigation is 28 feet. The bridge is usually kept raised to a height of 16 feet above the level of the water in order to allow boats to pass (Fig. 2). In this position it is balanced by four counterpoises suspended from the extremities of chains that pass over pulleys. These counterpoises are of cast iron, and weigh, altogether, 44,000 pounds--the weight of the bridge to be balanced, say 11,000 pounds per counterpoise. Moreover, each of the four chains is prolonged beneath the corresponding counterpoise by a chain of the same weight, called a compensating chain.

The pulleys, B and C, that support the suspension chains have projections in their channels which engage with the links and thus prevent the chains from slipping. They are mounted at the extremity of four latticed girders that likewise carry girder pulleys, D. The pulleys that are situated at the side of the bridge are provided laterally with a conical toothing which gears with a pinion connected with the maneuvering apparatus.

The two pinions of the same side of the bridge are keyed to a longitudinal shaft which is set in motion at one point of its length by a system of gearings. The winch upon which is exerted the stress that is to effect the lifting or the descent of the bridge is fixed upon the shaft of the pinion of the said gearing, which is also provided with a flywheel, c. The longitudinal shafts are connected by a transverse one. e, which renders the two motions interdependent. This transverse shaft is provided with collars, against which bear stiff rods that give it the aspect of an elongated spindle, and that permit it to resist twisting stresses.

The windlasses that lift the bridge are actuated by manual power. Two men (or even one) suffice to do the maneuvering.

This entire collection of pulleys and mechanism is established upon two brick foot bridges between which the bridge moves. These arched bridges offer no obstruction to navigation. Moreover, they always allow free passage to foot passengers, whatever be the position of the bridge. They are provided with four vertical apertures to the right of the suspension chains, in order to allow of the passage of the latter. The girders that support the pulleys rest at one extremity upon the upper part of the bridges, and at the other upon solid brick pillars with stone caps.

Finally, in order to render the descent of the bridge easier, there are added to it two water tanks that are filled from the station reservoir when the bridge is in its upper position, and that empty themselves automatically as soon as it reaches the level of the railroad tracks.

A very simple system of fastening has been devised for keeping the bridge in a stationary position when raised. When it reaches the end of its upward travel, four bolts engage with an aperture in the suspension rod and prevent it from descending. These bolts are set in motion by two connecting rods carried by a longitudinal shaft and maneuvered by a lever at the end of the windlass.

At the lower part the bridge rests upon iron plates set into sills. It is guided in its descent longitudinally by iron plates that have an inclination which is reproduced at the extremities of the bridge girders, and transversely by two inclined angle irons into which fit the external edges of the bottoms of the extreme girders.

The total weight of the bridge is, as we have said, 44,000 pounds, which is much less than would have been that of a revolving bridge of the same span. The maneuvering of the bridge is performed with the greatest ease and requires about two minutes.

This system has been in operation at the market station of La Vilette since the year 1868, and has required but insignificant repairs. We think the adoption of it might be recommended for all cases in which a slight difference between the level of a railroad and that of a water course would not permit of the establishment of a revolving bridge.--_Le Genie Civil_.

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ST. PETERSBURG A SEAPORT.

The Emperor and Empress of Russia, on Wednesday, May 27. 1885, the second anniversary of their coronation at Moscow, opened the Maritime Canal, in the Bay of Cronstadt, the shallow upper extremity of the Gulf of Finland, by which great work the city of St. Petersburg is made a seaport as much as London. St. Petersburg, indeed, stands almost on the sea shore, at the very mouth of the Neva, though behind several low islands which crowd the head of the Gulf; and though this is an inland sea without saltness or tides, it is closed by ice in winter. Seventeen miles to the west is the island of Cronstadt, a great fortress, with naval dockyards and arsenals for the imperial fleet, and with a spacious harbor for ships of commerce. The navigable entrance channel up the Bay of Cronstadt to the mouth of the Neva lies under the south side of Cronstadt, and is commanded by its batteries. As the bay eastward has a depth not exceeding 12 ft., and the depth of the Neva at its bar is but 9 ft., all large vessels have been obliged hitherto to discharge their cargoes at Cronstadt, to be there transferred to lighters and barges which brought the goods up to the capital. "The delay and expense of this process," says Mr. William Simpson, our special artist, "will be understood by stating that a cargo might be brought from England by a steamer in a week, but it would take three weeks at least to transport the same cargo from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. Of course, much of this time was lost by custom house formalities. Sometimes it has taken even longer than is here stated, which made the delivery of goods at St. Petersburg a matter of great uncertainty, thus rendering time contracts almost an impossibility. This state of things had continued from the time of Peter the Great, and his great scheme had never been fully realized. The increase of commerce and shipping had long made this a crying evil; but even with all these difficulties, the trade here has been rapidly growing. A scheme to bring the shipping direct to the capital had thus become almost a necessity. As Manchester wishes to bring the ocean traffic to her doors without the intervention of Liverpool, so St. Petersburg desired to have its steamers sailing up to the city, delivering and loading their cargoes direct at the stores and warehouses in her streets. If Glasgow had not improved the Clyde, and had up to the present day to bring up all goods carried by her ocean going steamers from Port Glasgow--a place constructed for that purpose last century, and which is twenty miles from Glasgow--she would have been handicapped exactly as St. Petersburg has been till now in the commercial race.

"For some years the subject was discussed at St. Petersburg, and more than one scheme was proposed; at last the project of General N. Pooteeloff was adopted. According to this plan, a canal has been cut through the shallow bottom of the Gulf of Finland, all the way from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg. The line of this canal is from northwest to southeast; it may be said to run very nearly parallel to the coast line on the south side of the Gulf, and about three miles distant from it. This line brings the canal to the southwest end of St. Petersburg, where there are a number of islands, which have formed themselves, in the course of ages, where the Bolshaya, or Great Neva, flows into the Gulf. It is on these islands that the new port is to be formed. It is a very large harbor, and capable of almost any amount of extension. It will be in connection with the whole railway system of Russia. One part of the scheme is that of a new canal, on the south side of the city, to connect the maritime canal, as well as the new harbor, with the Neva, so that the large barges may pass, by a short route, to the river on the east, and thus avoid the bridges and traffic of the city.

"The whole length of the canal is about eighteen miles. The longer portion of it is an open channel, which is made 350 feet wide at bottom. Its course will be marked by large iron floating buoys; these it is proposed to light with gas by a new self-acting process which has been very successful in other parts of the world; by this means the canal will be navigable by night as well as by day. The original plan was to have made the canal 20 feet deep, but this has been increased to 22 feet. The Gulf of Finland gradually deepens toward Cronstadt, so that the dredging was less at the western end. This part was all done by dredgers, and the earth brought up was removed to a safe distance by means of steam hopper barges. The contract for this part of the work was sublet to an American firm--Morris and Cummings, of New York. The eastern portion of the work on the canal is by far the most important, and about six miles of it is protected by large and strong embankments on each side. These embankments were formed by the output of the dredgers, and are all faced with granite bowlders brought from Finland; at their outer termination the work is of a more durable kind, the facing is made of squared blocks of granite, so that it may stand the heavy surf which at times is raised by a west wind in the Gulf. These embankments, as already stated, extend over a space of nearly six miles, and represent a mass of work to which there is no counterpart in the Suez Canal; nor does the plan of the new Manchester Canal present anything equivalent to it. The width of this canal also far exceeds any of those notable undertakings. The open channel is, as stated above, 350 ft. wide; within the embankments the full depth of 22 ft. extends to 280 ft., and the surface between the embankments is 700 ft. This is nearly twice the size of the Suez Canal at the surface, which is 100 meters, or about 320 ft., while it is only about 75 ft. at the bottom; the Amsterdam Canal is 78 ft. wide. The new Manchester Canal is to be 100 ft. of full depth, and it boasts of this superiority over the great work of Lesseps. The figures given above will show how far short it comes of the dimensions of the St. Petersburg Canal. The Manchester Canal is to be 24 ft. in depth; in that it has the advantage of 2 ft. more than the St. Petersburg Canal; but with the ample width this one possesses, this, or even a greater depth, can be given if it should be found necessary. Most probably this will have ultimately to be done, for ocean going steamers are rapidly increasing in size since the St. Petersburg Canal was planned, and in a very few years the larger class of steamers might have to deliver their cargoes at Cronstadt, as before, if the waterway to St. Petersburg be not adapted to their growing dimensions.

"The dredging between the embankments of the canal was done by an improved process, which may interest those connected with such works. It may be remembered that the Suez Canal was mostly made by dredging, and that the dredgers had attached to them what the French called 'long couloirs' or spouts, into which water was pumped, and by this means the stuff brought up by the dredgers was carried to the sides of the canal, and there deposited. The great width of the St. Petersburg Canal was too much for the long couloirs, hence some other plan had to be found. The plan adopted was that invented by Mr. James Burt, and which had been used with the greatest success on the New Amsterdam Canal. Instead of the couloir, floating pipes, made of wood, are in this system employed; the earth or mud brought up has a copious stream of water poured on it, which mixes in the process of descending, and the whole becomes a thick liquid. This, by means of a centrifugal pump, is propelled through the floating pipes to any point required, where it can be deposited. The couloir can only run the output a comparatively short distance, while this system can send it a quarter of a mile, or even further, if necessary. Its power is not limited to the level surface of the water. I saw on my visit to the canal one of the dredgers at work, and the floating pipes lay on the water like a veritable sea-serpent, extending to a long distance where the stuff had to be carried. At that point the pipe emerged from the water, and what looked very much like a vertebra or two of the serpent crossed the embankment, went down the other side, and there the muddy deposit was pouring out in a steady flow. Mr. Burt pointed out to me one part of the works where his pump had sent the stuff nearly half a mile away, and over undulating ground. This system will not suit all soils. Hard clay, for instance, will not mix with the water; but where the matter brought up is soft and easily diluted, this plan possesses many advantages, and its success here affords ample evidence of its merits.

"About five miles below St. Petersburg, a basin had been already finished, with landing quays, sheds, and offices; and there is an embankment connecting it with the railways of St. Petersburg, all ready for ships to arrive. When the ships of all nations sail up to the capital, then the ideas of Peter the Great, when he laid the foundations of St. Petersburg, will be realized. St. Petersburg will be no longer an inland port. It will, with its ample harbor and numerous canals among its streets, become the Venice of the North. Its era of commercial greatness is now about to commence. The ceremony of letting the waters of the canal into the new docks was performed by the Emperor in October, 1883. The Empress and heir apparent, with a large number of the Court, were present on the occasion. The works on the canal, costing about a million and a half sterling, were begun in 1876, and have been carried out under the direction of a committee appointed by the Government, presided over by his Excellency, N. Sarloff. The resident engineer is M. Phofiesky; and the contractors are Messrs. Maximovitch and Boreysha."

We heartily congratulate the Russian government and the Russian nation upon the accomplishment of this great and useful work of peace. It will certainly benefit English trade. The value of British imports from the northern ports of Russia for the year 1883 was L13,799,033; British exports, L6,459,993; while from the southern ports of Russia our trade was: British imports, L7,177,149; British exports, L1,169,890--making a total British commerce with European Russia of L20,976,182 imports from Russia and L7,629,883 exports to Russia. It cannot be to the interest of nations which are such large customers of each other to go to war about a few miles of Afguhan frontier. The London _Chamber of Commerce Journal_, ably edited by Mr. Kenric B. Murray, Secretary to the Chamber, has in its May number an article upon this subject well deserving of perusal. It points out that in case of war most of the British export trade to Russia would go through Germany, and might possibly never again return under British control. In spite of Russian protective duties, this trade has been well maintained, even while the British import of Russian commodities, wheat, flax, hemp, tallow, and timber, was declining 40 per cent. from 1883 to 1884. The St. Petersburg Maritime Canal will evidently give much improved facilities to the direct export of English goods to Russia. Without reference to our own manufactures, it should be observed that the Russian cotton mills, including those of Poland, consume yearly 264 million pounds of cotton, most of which comes through England. The importation of English coal to Russia has afforded a noteworthy instance of the disadvantage hitherto occasioned by the want of direct navigation to St. Petersburg; the freight of a ton of coal from Newcastle to Cronstadt was six shillings and sixpence, but from Cronstadt to St. Petersburg it cost two shillings more. It is often said, in a tone of alarm and reproach, that Russia is very eager to get to the sea. The more Russia gets to the sea everywhere, the better it will be for British trade with Russia; and friendly intercourse with an empire containing nearly a hundred millions of people is not to be lightly rejected.--_Illustrated London News_.

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THE NEW FRENCH DISPATCH BOAT MILAN.

The Milan, a new dispatch boat, has recently been making trial trips at Brest. It was constructed at Saint Nazaire, by the "Societe des Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire," and is the fastest man-of-war afloat. It has registered 17 knots with ordinary pressure, and with increase of pressure can make 18 knots, but to attain such high speed a very powerful engine is necessary. In fact, a vessel 303 ft. long, 33 ft. wide, and drawing 12 ft. of water, requires an engine which can develop 4,000 H.P.

The hull of the Milan is of steel, and is distinguished for its extreme lightness. The vessel has two screws, actuated by four engines arranged two by two on each shaft.

The armament consists of five three inch cannons, eight revolvers, and four tubes for throwing torpedoes.