REGISTRATION OF DESIGNS.

THE calico-printers have made a present of three thousand ounces of plate to Mr. Emerson Tennant, M.P., for his successful exertions in procuring the passing of the last Copyright of Designs Act. At a public dinner, given on the occasion at Manchester, Mr. Tennant stated, "that, during the five months previous to the enactment of the New Bill for the more effectual protection of Designs, the number of patterns of all kinds for carpets, silks, shawls, and paper-hanging, amounted to but 53, but that the number of the same description of designs, registered in the five months since, had been no less than 425. But, in addition to goods of this class, printed designs upon cotton had now, for the first time, been admitted to register; and of these alone there had been deposited, since the passing of the Act, no fewer than 2,356. Its success, however, was still more apparent in the remarkable fact, that, whilst during the three years' existence of the former law, there were registered of every description of articles, metals included, but 1,421 designs, there had already been registered, within four months and three weeks since the passing of the measure, no fewer than 2,934 under the system which he had had the honour to introduce."

MI-TYPE.

AMONGST the fanciful novelties of the day is a patent, which has been taken out for a mode of printing called Mi-type, by means of which the expenses of printing, paper, and binding, would, according to the patentee, be diminished by half. The mi-type may be thus shown:-Take a flat rule, and place it on a line of print, so as to cover the lower half of the letters, and the line may be read with ease. The reason is, says the inventor, that we never look at the lower part of printed letters, but always the upper part. This, however, is not the case, if we cover the upper half. The patentee, therefore, only proposes to have a type composed of the upper half of the letters.Galignani's Messenger.

OIL FOR MACHINERY.

MR. J. HAWKINS has described to the British Association, a practice which has lately been adopted in some parts of the United States, of procuring oil and spermaceti from pigs. The pigs are driven into the woods to feed, and after some months they are brought back and fattened with Indian corn. The animals are then killed and boiled altogether, for the purpose of extracting all the lard, which is then converted into stearine and elain. The oil thus procured is of a remarkably fine quality, and well adapted for lubricating machinery.

NEW ROASTING JACK.

Ar the Senior United Service Club is a novel apparatus, used in the kitchen of that club, which is invented by the Secretary to the establishment, Mr. J. H. Willis. The fire-place or grate is so constructed as to diffuse the greatest possible extent of surface heat; and over it

projects a light iron frame, upon which a series of clock-wheels worked by a spindle, moved by the smoke as in the common smokejack, revolve upon a disk. To the machinery connected with these the joints are suspended vertically in any number, according to the extent of the fire-place, and by the uniform motion of the wheels they are properly roasted, requiring, however, but little attention on the part of the attendants. The advantages thus obtained are, that the joints of meat are not disfigured by the marks of the spits, or cradlespits; the meat swells more gradually; the rich juices are retained to the extent of 50 per cent. more than by the ordinary method, and no parts of the joints are exposed to undue heat; and several may be roasted at one time, each joint being basted with its own dripping. There is a great economy in fuel, and the cooking can be retarded or advanced, by a key which regulates the distance required to obtain any degree of heat. This invention is one of a very ingenious character, and is a vast improvement upon the common smoke-jack, to which the machinery is admirably adapted.

IMPROVED CARPET-LOOM.

THE Committee of the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania, to whom was referred for examination an improvement in the Loom for Weaving Carpets, &c. invented by Mr. Alexander Calderhead, of Philadelphia, report this improvement to be a material modification and simplification of the Jacquard and other draw looms for weaving Carpets and other figured cloths. It dispenses with all machinery above the working parts of the common loom, and is thereby so reduced in height, that it may readily be placed in a common apartment without requiring the removal of the ceiling. The harness consists simply of heddles, or heilds, made of wires about twenty-four inches long; and each pierced with an eye, for a thread of the warp to pass through, in place of the mails, twine, and leads, of the Jacquard harness. The heddles work vertically, in holes through two boards, or plates, resembling cumber-boards, the upper of which may be called the rest-board, and the lower the guide-board. The heddles have each a head at the top, which prevents their falling through the restboard, and enables it to raise them when raised itself. The cylinder, or trunk, is a four or six-sided long and slender box, with pivots at the ends, and it extends horizontally across the whole width of the loom directly beneath the heddles; it is pierced on each side with holes corresponding to those of the cumber-boards; and the pattern-cards or apron rest upon it, and revolve with it-so that when the cylinder is raised and the rest-board lowered, the blanks of the card raise the proper heddles, while the remaining ones drop through the holes of the card, and of the cylinder beneath it, to form the sheed, or opening, for the shuttle to pass through. Thus the width of the sheed is equal to the distance which the heddles penetrate into the cylinder, and the upper and under threads of the warp are stretched alike. The cylinder turns on bushes, in a frame which slides vertically, and which, being raised by levers connected with the treadle, raises the cylinder. But

the cumber-boards slide vertically and separately in the same frame, and the cylinder as it rises lifts the guide-board, with a part of the heddles; the sliding frame acts upon two levers supported from the cross-beam above, and thereby lowers the rest-board, and allows the proper heddles to descend into the cylinder. The guide-board is suspended from the rest-board, so that it cannot fall too far below it when the cylinder descends; and by means of a wheel at the end of the cylinder-having as many inclined teeth as the cylinder has sides, and these teeth acted upon by a kind of ratchet hooking against them— the cylinder as it descends is turned, so as to bring the next side uppermost, and bring the next figure of the pattern cards into operation when the cylinder is raised again. By means of a like wheel on the other end of the cylinder, its motion may be reversed, and the pattern moved in the opposite direction.

The Committee believe the whole contrivance above described to be original, and exceedingly simple, ingenious, and effective; costing less than the machinery for which it is proposed as a substitute in the outset, and producing a considerable saving in subsequent repairs of the twine required in other harnesses. The inconvenience arising from the stretching of the twine is in this loom entirely avoided. It is alike adapted for cumber-work, where the figure varies throughout the whole width; and point-work, where the figure is-symmetrical. It may be used for fabrics of two or more piles or thicknesses, and requires for them merely a single pattern.

PROCESSES FOR ORNAMENTING GLASS.

MESSRS. CARR AND RYLES, of North Shields, have patented the following invention :-First, for staining glass: instead of mixing the staining materials now employed for that operation, when levigated finely and dried with oil of turpentine, or other volatile oils, or water, as usual, the patentees mix them with boiled linseed or other oil, such as is now used to mix with enamel colours when printing on glass; and, instead of floating the staining materials over the glass in a liquid state, as now practised, the patentees print them on, or transfer them as impressions from metal plates, in the manner now adopted in printing enamel colours; and proceed, after the material transferred has been well dried, to fire it for the colour required, in the usual way. In operating with these staining materials on pot metal, or on pieces of glass, which are flashed, opaque and transparent shades are produced, leaving the surface of the glass quite smooth, and not raised in the parts, as in the common mode of applying body colour for shading.

Secondly, for stopping out, the patentees also mix the materials with boiled oil, and transfer printed impressions on to the glass with it, covering such parts as are not to be acted upon; and then float over the whole surface, including the parts so stopped out, with liquid staining composition, and fire it as usual to produce the stain: after which, the glass being cleaned, the printed pattern is exhibited in the original colour of the glass, and distinct from the stained ground; or

a printed impression being transferred to the glass in stopping out, the remainder of the ground may be obscured in the usual manner, thus producing transparent patterns on obscured ground.

Thirdly, for obscuring glass, they also mix the materials with boiled oil, and transfer impressions from engraved metal plates on to the glass, thus producing obscured patterns on transparent grounds. By the above processes, the patentees obtain the power of greatly improving, perfecting, diversifying, and multiplying patterns, grounds, and devices, while the aid of enamel colours to add to that diversity is not lost.

NEW SHOE MACHINE.

THE New York Evening Post gives the following description of a mode of making Shoes, by a machine owned by Mr. Ruggles, of 60, Gold-street, in that city:-The sole leather is first pressed between wooden rollers, which makes it extremely firm and compact, much more so than hammering can do. It is then placed under a cutting machine, which at one operation cuts it into the proper shape; meanwhile another machine is busy making steel wire into screws of about three feet in length, all of which is done with surprising celerity. A fourth machine punches the sole with holes, inserts the screw, and cuts it off at its proper length. All that is then necessary is to rivet the screws by a few blows with a hammer on an anvil.-Mechanics' Magazine, No. 1057.

PAPER CLOTH.

MR. H. CHAPMAN, of Arundel-street, Strand, engineer, has patented this new fabric for maps, charts, prints, drawings, &c. It consists of linen or calico, or any similar fabric, cemented to paper, either on one or both surfaces, the compound fabric being consolidated by passing it through rollers, and then steam-drying it. The cement employed is then prepared: 9 parts of yellow resin are dissolved by heat in a solution formed of 4 parts of soda and 15 of water; the mixture is then boiled for an hour, and 1 part of glue added; it is next diluted with one and a half times its weight of water, and strained; after which 1 part of flour paste, and 6 of paper pulp, are added to every 30 parts of the other ingredients. The mixture is used in a hot state.-Mechanics' Magazine, No. 1052.

THE LITHOTINT PROCESS OF HULLMANDEL.

THE drawing, having been finished by the artist on the stone with lithographic ink mixed with water to produce the various shades, is covered with gum-water, and weak nitric acid to fix it; after waiting a sufficient time to dry, a solution of resin and spirits of wine is poured over the stone, and, as this ground contracts by drying, it cracks into millions of reticulations, which can only be discovered by the use of a microscope: very strong acid is then poured over the aquatint coating, which, entering all the fissures, produces the same effect on the stone as the granulations of the chalk by the ordinary

process. The resin protects the drawing everywhere but in the cracks, and having remained a sufficient time to act on the unprotected parts of the drawing, the ground is washed off, and all appearance of the subject on the stone vanishes, until ink being applied by the roller in the ordinary way, it is reproduced, and ready for taking off the required number of impressions, which, in some cases, have extended to the number of two thousand.-The Builder.

A SHEET OF PAPER.

MR. LIMBIRD, of the Strand, has a sheet of paper 4 feet 7 inches wide, 600 yards long, and weighs 137 lbs. It is of fine texture, and has been made for the purpose of taking impressions of monumental brasses.

PRESERVATION OF MEAT.

A MEMOIR has been received by the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, from M. Dussourde, "On the Preservation of Meats by a syrup which undergoes no deterioration by keeping." Meat which has been steeped in this syrup dries with only a slight diminution of volume, and is not affected by putrefaction. When required for use, the meat is put into cold water, and it soon assumes its original size. Its colour and odour are then like those of fresh meat, of which it has all the properties. The syrup is made by boiling iron in an impalpable powder with common syrup, until the latter becomes impregnated with the iron.

CARSON'S INSTRUMENT FOR CURING MEAT.

THIS instrument is a species of syringe, or small force-pump, for salting meat under the most adverse circumstances, and in a few minutes' time, by forcing the brine into its pores. The plunger of the pump is very small-not of much larger diameter than a black-lead pencil, and around the barrel, in which the plunger works, a cylindrical reservoir is situated for containing the brine. Into this reservoir the brine is poured, and a few strokes of the pump send it from thence into the meat.

There are three great advantages afforded by the use of this instrument. 1st. The meat is very effectually cured, as the pressure forces the brine into the minutest pores. 2nd. The operation of curing is effected in a few minutes, instead of occupying days or weeks; and, 3rd. The curing must be successful under the most adverse circumstances. We hear thrifty housewives lament, that in hot weather meat will not take salt, but with this instrument it has no option: it must take it, for the pressure overcomes all opposition.

It is obvious that, by the use of this instrument, the meat may be impregnated with a variety of flavours, besides that of salt. Thus, by the injection of a suitable liquid, we might have smoked Yorkshire hams made in five minutes, or any other flavour imparted to the meat, which is due to the absorption of an adventitious material. Altogether, the instrument is a most sensible and useful one, and must, when known, come into very extensive use.