cited such a work shows the widespread mischief done among people not versed in engineering lore by the admirably written romance of Smiles, who as Edward C. Knight, in his Mechanical Dictionary, truly declares, has “pettifogged the whole case.”  If, as Prof.  Renwick intimates, “conflicting national pride” has led the major part of British writers to suppress the truth as to the origin of the high pressure steam engine, the locomotive, and the steam railway system, surely true national pride should induce the countrymen of Oliver Evans to assert it.  In closing this paper the writer will say, for the information of the so-called “practical” men of the country, or, in other words, those men whose judgment of an invention is mainly guided by its money value, that Poor’s Manual of Railroads in the United States for 1886 puts their capital stock and their debts at over $8,162,000,000.  The value of the steamships and steamboats actuated by the high pressure steam engine the writer has no means of ascertaining.  Neither can he appraise the factories and other plants in the United States—­to say nothing of the rest of the world—­in which the high pressure steam engine forms the motive power.

* * * * *

AUGUSTE’S ENDLESS STONE SAW.

It does not seem as if the band or endless saw should render the same services in sawing stone as in working wood and metals, for the reason that quite a great stress is necessary to cause the advance of the stone (which is in most cases very heavy) against the blade.  Mr. A. Auguste, however, has not stopped at such a consideration, or, better, he has got round the difficulty by holding the block stationary and making the blade act horizontally.  Fig. 1 gives a general view of the apparatus; Fig. 2 gives a plan view; Fig. 3 is a transverse section; Fig. 4 is an end view; Figs. 5, 6, and 7 show details of the water and sand distributer; and Figs. 8, 9, and 10 show the pulleys arranged for obtaining several slabs at once.

[Illustration:  Fig. 1 Auguste’s stone saw.]

[Illustration:  Fig. 2 Auguste’s stone saw.]

[Illustration:  Figs. 3 and 4 Auguste’s stone saw.]

[Illustration:  Figs. 5 through 10 Auguste’s stone saw.]

The machine is wholly of cast iron.  The frame consists of four columns, A, bolted to a rectangular bed plate, A’, and connected above by a frame, B, that forms a table for the support of the transmission pieces, as well as the iron ladders, a, and the platform, b, that supports the water reservoirs, C, and sand receptacles, C’.

Between the two columns at the ends of the machine there are two crosspieces, D and D’, so arranged that they can move vertically, like carriages.  These pieces carry the axles of the pulleys, P and P’, around which the band saw, S, passes.  In the center of the bed plate, A’, which is cast in two pieces connected by bolts, there are ties to which are screwed iron rails, e, which form a railway over which the platform car, E, carrying the stone is made to advance beneath the saw.