riders, I should feel ‘obliged if Mr. C. would
point out- any better mode than the one I have
proposed. The better to illustrate what he has
conceived the absurdity of my proposition, Mr.
C. has introduced the story of the Spanish
mule; but it has proved a failure, and has serv-
ed? to evidence two things against himself: first,
that he has not studied the philosophy of mule
loading; and, next, that he is guilty of the ‘ un-
plractised thinking’ with which he charges me.

ad the spirit of lMr. C. ever inhabited the ho-
dy of a mule, after the fashion of the transmi-
gration doctrine, or had he served any time as

an arriero, he would know that the most es-

sentialthing totlie orderly travelling of a load-
ed mule ..is, that the cargo should be as nearly
‘equal in weight and bulk as possible, on either
side the pack-saddle. A good niule will carry
four hundred pounds weight, two hundred on
a side. Now, were two hundred and ﬁfty
placed on one side and two hundred on the
‘other, and the mule could speak, like ’Balaani’s
ass, he or she would say to Mr. Chcverton, sup-
posing him to be the muleteer, ‘ Be so good as
either to take away the odd ﬁfty from my right
side, or if that cannot be done, as the next best
thing, add another ﬁfty to the left side, because
the heat of the pack-saddle and the cloths be»

‘neathl it has stewed my hide almost to a jelly,

and the unequal strain across my back-boiie
will burst it when the cargo begins to jolt.’
Now, with an inanimate cargo there is soine-

‘times a chance of reduction; but as Mr.’C.

laughs at the in uleteer’s plan in the case of the live
cargo, he is bound to show what better plan he
would have adopted, or forfeit his reputation as
an engineer skilled in resources. Would he
have eschewed the ‘load of stones,’ and then
have gravely _purposed to pare away the super-
ﬂuous weight froin the biggest traveller, after
the Procrustean recipe C‘ I suspect that the An-
dalusian knife, or the four-square blade of the
matador, would have been brought forward in
arrestpf judgment. There is a saying amongst
the mountain muleteers of some parts of
Southern America, La‘ mula sabe raciocinar
major que dlgunos Cliristianos. The mule

‘knows how to reason better than some Chris-

tians. . s .
I With regard to the repeating air-gun I pro-
posed, Mr. C. has taken ‘ an incomplete and su-
perﬁcial view’ of my letter. If he .reads it
again, he may discover that there was no pro-
position therein to ‘ multiply power by compli-
cation,’ but simply the substitution of com-
pressed air, which would not destroy the gun,
instead of the steam and intense fire which
does‘ destroy the gun. The power is to be
communicated to the air byineans of the steam,
because; the steam itself cannot well be applied.
Voila tout! Really Mr. C. would seem to be
anﬁunpractised thinker.’ Ere he so triumph-
iantly quoted my words, to the intent of my
‘ mere confusion,’ as Cloten says in the play, it

surelywou-ld have been but a very small por.

tion of wisdom to endeavor to understand the
tendency of the air-gun letter, notwithstanding
the obscurity of my mode of writing. _

7 Mr. 0., at the conclusion of his letter, again
hopes that his ‘ observations will _be taken‘ in
‘good part.’ . They are so, and replied to iii the
"same spirit, andl have to thank him in_ a(I(lll'.lOl1~
for having thus given me an opportunity to ex-
plain myself more fully.
I h I am! 311': y

«

ours, &;c.
Jiiiuus REDIVIVUS.

' ;m,.-..-

.o

 Aplrvil 22, 1833.

Mgf._‘Badnall’s Treatise on Railway Improve-

ments, and in particular the Undulating

Rqilu_:ay.*

[From the London Mechanics’
lVlagazine.] ‘I

M " The principal subject of the treatise beforhe
us is introduced by a preliminary exposition of

 

* A Treatise on Railway Improvements, explanatory of
the chief Difﬁculties and Inconveniences which at present
attend the General Adoption of Railways, and the means
by which these objections may be overcome; as proved
by ii Series of Interesting ~ExperimeriIs, &c. By Ricmiiin
BADNALL, Esq. 142 pp. Bvo. Sherwood] & Co.

Anvoogirrn 0FlINTi’i3.Rl‘N*AIl IMPROVEMENTS.

the advanta es of railwa conve ance, and an
examination of the obstacles to their immediate
general establishment. Among these obstacles,
the “difficult of asceiidin inclined ilanes b
. VY .g . 1

locomotive power” occupies a foremost place.
The employment of “stationary engines,” or

come this diﬂiculty, is brieﬂy adverted to, but
justly pronounced to be attended “ with serious
if not insuperable inconveniences.” Mr. Bad.
nall’s attention having been “particularly di-
rected" to the discovery of some better renied y,
the idea at length occurred to him that a suf-
ﬁcient power might be gained by the descent of
a body down one inclined plane, to compen-
sate for the opposition from gravity in ascend.
ing another; and if so, that a railway uniformly
constructed in such an up and down, or undu-
lating plan, might be economically substituted
for the partly horizontal and partly inclined rail-
ways at present in use.

“ The improvement occurred to me on the
7th of June, 1932. The impressions on my
mind, before the trial of any experiments, were,
that by an undulating railway a greater resist-
ance would be opposed to the power of steam,
or any other locomotive power, than upon a
level railway; but that much would be gained
by the power of gravity, multiplied by active
power, down a descent; and that, consequently,
a locomotive engine of any given power would
travel at a greater speed, or drag a greater
weight, than upon a horizontal riiilway. I
was also of opinion that the increased resist-
ance or fulcrum, offered by the descending part
of each curve, and the advantage gained by the
power of gravity inultiplied by active power,
would be sufficiently great to render locomotive:
engines more effective than they have at pre-
sent proved to be upon inclined plaiies.”——p. 31.
Mr. Badiiall, after some explanatory remarks
on the subject of friction and gravity, proceeds
to describe the different experiments which
have, in his opinion, full established the
soundness of these his precdnceivcd opinions.
Some of the more striking of these we shall
here lay before our readers. .

“I ordered a small engine to be manufac-
tured, on clock-work principles, with a strong
spring in a barrel, and a fusee sufliciently large
to admit of travelling the length of 50 or 60 feet,
being also particularly anxious‘ that the power
of the spring should be sufficient to overcome
the pressure of the engine wheels on the plane,

“ locomotive engines with cog-wheels,” to over- ‘

627

“Accordingly. I had the railways placed

ﬁ““]Y (IOWII; and upon as exact a level as cir-
cuinstaiices _would permit. The distance be-
tween the lines on each railway was eight
inches; the width at the surface of the rails
was half an inch; the distance between the
wheels of the engine governed, of course, the
width between the lines; and care was taken to
give the carriages suﬂieient play to prevent.
them being bound by friction against the sides
of the rails. I s i
“ Having ascertained that . both railways
were level, the spring was wound up, by draw-
ing the engine backwards from the end of the
line to the commencement. It was started
without any weight attached, and the following
was the result: Curved railway, 6 seconds;
horizontal railway, 7 seconds.
“ I then placed 7 lbs. weight upon the engine
itself, which had a platform for such purpose :
the result was, curved railway, 8 seconds ; ho-
rizontal railway, 9 seconds.

engine, and, without load, I found the speed of
travelling along either line was in the same
proportion as ‘before.
“ I then tried various weights in the carriage,
and invariably found a decided advantage in
the curved railway. This advantage was, how.
ever, more evident in the following experi-
ments: Witli 17 lbs. weight in «the carriage,
from north to south, curved railway, 15 se-
ooiids; horizontal railway, 205. seconds. rom
south to north, curved railway, 17 seconds; ho-
rigoiital railway, 2 seconds. .
“ Now, oiiiittingt efhalf-seconds, and taking
the averages, the diﬁerence of space which the
11 inc would have travelledover on the curve,
in t it‘ time required to travel 32 feet on the ho-
rizontal plane, is as follows-16 : 32 : : 21 : 42
feet; shewing a difference of nearly one-third
in the speed. V _ '
“ Thinking it probable that, by the variation
in the time occupied in traversing the lines
from different sides of the room, that they
might not be perfectly level, I had them again
exainined and adjusted with particular cau-
tion; after which, on again trying with the
same weight, viz. l7’lbs., the result was as fol-
lows: From north to south, and south to north,
on the curve, 16 seconds ; on the level, 22 se-
conds.
'“ This last experiment was repeately tried,
and without any distinct variation; the time

when kept from progressing. Wishing to try
these experiments as privately as possible, du-
ring the time which the maiiufacture of the en-
gine occupied, I was engaged at Douglass, in
the Isle of Man, in superintending the making
of ‘two railways, the one curved, the other ho.
rizontal. These were each 32 feet in length
(the length of the most spacious room’I could
find unoccupied) ; the length of the ascent and
descent of each curve, or undulation, was one
foot, and the height and depth of each curve
from the centre was half an inch, or one inch
from the summit of the convex to the base of
the concave of the curve. Ihad also ordered
a small carriage to be made, to be attachedto
the engine, when necessary, and to run upon
four wheels of the same diameter as the Wheels
of the engine. A T

"‘ On the 23d J uly I received the engine and
carriage from Liverpool; their weights were as
follows-—-Weight of engine, 9 lbs. 6 oz. : weight
of carriage, 3 lbs. 10 oz.: diameter of wheels,
3 inches: width of the periphery of the wheels,
5;} of an inch. A

“ On trying the strength of the spring, I was
sorry to observe that it was not suflicient, when
I placed the carriage on a smooth surface and
prevented its progression, to [turn the wheels ;
that is, it had not power, as I wished it to have,
to overcome the adhesion, or friction, between
the wheels of the carriage and the surface of
the plane. a ~ g '

“I, however, resolved to try a series of ex-
periments with it, and afierwardsto return it
to Liverpool, to have a stronger spring attached
to it.

was ascertained by a second-hand watch, and
carefully noted by Mr. J. L. Gardener, of Man-
chester, who witnessed the experiments, as
well as myself. I
“Although I perceived. that 17 lbs. was as
great a weight as the engine could well convey
upon the horizontal railway, I was anxious to
try the result of greater, and increased the
load to 22 lbs. The result was, from north to
south, on the curve, :17’seconds ; on the hori-
zontal line, 30 seconds. From south to north,
on the curve, 18 seconds; on the horizontal,
28 seconds. ,

“ It was here quite obvious, that the curve
produced a far more decided advantage; and
this advantage was evident at starting ; as, on
the horizontal road, the engine moved very
slowly at first, and traversed 12 or 13 feet be-
fore it attained its average speed, whereas,
upon the curved line, its motion was apparent-
ly regular throughout. l
“Although these experiments were in ever
point of view so satisfactory in regard to spec ,
I was surprized to find that the advantage
was not so great as I anticipated in regard to
the difference of load the, engine was capable-
of dragging on the two lines. I, however,
clearly proved that we could convey amuclr.
greater weight upon the curve ‘line than upon.
the plane ; forﬁwhen the engine W.9u1d not
move at all upon the horizontal road, it would‘:
travel without difficulty upon the curve ; and it-
is extraordinary, that in conveying any _weight.
from 15 lbs. upwards on the latter, theptime oc...
cirpied in doing so varied in a very triﬂing dc.-
Eree ”

“I then attached the small carriage to the