up

fit for sowing, to require security to be given that the same should not be sown or sold for sowing, but be made into oil, or exported from the said kingdom; and if any person shall refuse or prevent any flax-seed or hempseed from being so examined, or should after such requisition made, and until security should be given, sell or dispose of, or suffer to be sold or disposed of in any way, any part of such seed, and should be convicted thereof upon oath before any magistrate, he or she shall forfeit the sum of twenty shillings for every bushel or part of a bushel so sold or disposed, or permitted to be sold or disposed of, and all the seed remaining, touching which such requisition shall have been made; and the cask or casks wherein the same is contained shall be forfeited.

It is stated by Mr. Charles Duffin, inspector-general of linen manufacture in Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, in his evidence, annexed to the report, that it is his duty to go round the three Provinces once a year, and as often as the Board requests, to make his report upon the growth of flax, and to inspect into the conduct of the county inspectors; that he has frequently found flax-seed, which had been branded on the quay of Dublin, and which had been imported from the Northern ports of America, very unsound and unfit for sowing, but that previous to the Act of 1797, he possessed no power to prevent its being sold for that purpose, and could only warn the people from buying it; and that he suggested this defect in 1796 to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, in consequence of which suggestion the Act was passed. He states that, whenever unsound seed be sown, the crops are uniformly defective, and that this was more especially apparent in 1798, when some flaxseed was sown in Ireland, before he discovered the circumstance, which had been rejected by the inspectors of Scotland. He gives it as the result of his experience,

that

that the fresher the flax-seed is, the more oil there is in it, and therefore the better calculated for vegetation; the older being in general dry, and less fit for vegetating; and that when the seed is mixed, part old and part new, the crop will consequently be unequal in height, and the shorter part will in general be lost. He remarks that it not unfrequently happens that bad seed is put into hogsheads in the interior of the country, which have been branded and contained good seed on importation, and he thinks seed frequently injured by being kept four or five months in a damp storehouse. The average quantity of flax-seed imported into Ireland between 1792 and 1802, is said to be between 41 and 42,000 hogsheads annually; and he observes that every hogshead of flax-seed will sow one acre and three roods Irish measure (which is equal to one acre, one rood, and twenty-four perches English); if good seed, it will produce 84 stone on an average of rough flax fit for the hatchel, which at a moderate price would sell for 427.; but in the hands of a manufacturer is of much greater value, as it employs the women and children in the autumn months preparing it for spinning, and the remainder of the year working it up into yarn. After descanting on the important difference in the crop between good and bad seed, Mr, Duffin conceives the best mode of preventing the evil arising from sowing bad or damaged seed, to be a rigid inspection on importation in the first instance, and afterwards by inspecting, in the months of January and February of every year, all the. seed remaining from the importation of the preceding season; for, though American seed of the former year may produce a good crop if kept in a dry store, yet Dutch will not, unless started out of the hogshead, as the. hogsheads in which Dutch seed is imported are old wine vessels, the lees of which destroy the vegetative quality of the seed; and that from Memel is even inferior to Dutch,

Specification of the Patent granted to WILLIAM CHAPMAN, of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Civil Engineer; for a Method or Methods of reducing the Wear, and prolonging the Duration of Ropes used in drawing of Coals or other Minerals from Pits or Shafts of Mines.

Dated April 8, 1807.

With a Plate;

To all to whom these presents shall come, &c. NOW KNOW YE, that my method or methods of reducing the wear and prolonging the duration of ropes used in drawing coals or other minerals from pits or shafts of mines, are principally of use where great quantities are to be drawn from deep pits in a short period of time, and where steamengines are made use of. The methods are independent of each other, and may be used either together or separately; they are simply as follows; that is to say: first, the reducing the shock arising from suddenly putting the basket or tub of coals or minerals in motion, and diminishing the VOL. XII.-SECOND SERIES. effect

I i

effect of any other shocks which may be received during the ascent or descent of the coals or other minerals, or of the empty baskets or vessels in which they are or may be contained; and secondly, in causing the rope to wear more equally throughout from end to end, preventing its fibres being torn or deprived of their elasticity, by the rope being kept in full stretch round the winding barrel after ceasing to suspend the weight raised.

In the deep coal-mines of Northumberland and Durham, baskets of about eight hundred weight of coals are frequently drawn up with a mean velocity exceeding ten feet per second, and the lifting of the coals and baskets is almost instantaneous; the shock is therefore considerable in starting the loaded basket or corf, as it is technically called, and it is also great when the loaded corf chances to strike underneath the light one, which from its size and the quantity of iron in it, generally weighs near two hundred weight; consequently as they approach each other with a velocity frequently exceeding twenty feet per second, the shocks they give by striking each other shorten the duration of the

ropes. My method of remedying the evil arising from these or any other sudden tensions of the rope, is to cause the pullies over which the rope passes immediately above the pit, or any pulley in the approach to it, to recede and slack out the rope on its receiving increased tension, and to return when the tension is lessened.

If pullies in the approach be used as by Figs. 4 and 5, or by any other mode, then those over the pit may be stationary as they are at present, and the moving pulley may progressively lift or lower a chain or series of weights, the whole of them equal to or exceeding the greatest gravitating resist ance. On this principle various modes may be used to answer the end; but these examples are sufficient for any mechanic where the pullies suspending the ropes over the

pits

pits are made to descend or ascend according to circumstances, they may be suspended from or sustained on any thing elastic, either of metal or wood; or they may be counterpoised by a weight on a spiral, or by a series of weights capable of resisting the varying pressure on 'the pulley, and of giving way or receding on receiving a sudden impulse, so as to divide and reduce the effect of the shock; or the springs and weights may be combined in these and in other instances.

The explanation of Figs. 1, 2, and 3, will be sufficient to shew any mechanic the means of carrying this method into effect, and enable him to vary it according to his plea

sure.

Another method of reducing the sudden shock on the ropes, and which may either be used separately or combined with the preceding, is to give motion to the ropewheel or barrel by the intervention of strong springs, either by the axis being in two parts connected by springs and coupling bar, or by the wheel or barrel turning on an axis, and being held by springs fixed to it, which on any sudden shock will suffer the wheel momentarily to have its motion retarded, or to move, through a lesser arc or portion of a circle than the axis which follows the uniform motion of the engine. These methods are explained in Figs. 6 and 7.

My method of causing ropes to wear more equally throughout from end to end, when employed in raising minerals up a pit or shaft where they are drawǹ over a sheave or pulley, to which case only it extends, differs from the ordinary method in which two separate ropes attached to the rope-barrel pass each of them over a pul ley, one winding upon the rope barrel whilst the other is unwinding from it; in place of which I pass the twợ ends of the same rope each over its separate pulley, so that one end is at the top whilst the other is at the bottom of li 2

the