REVIEW.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5825, 29 November 1879, Page 2

REVIEW.

International Exhibition at Paris, 1878.Report of the Commissioners for Victoria to his Excellency the. Governor.

We have received a copy of the above voluminous work, which contains 556 pages of quarto size, letter-press. It is a most excellently got-up work, containing clear aud concise descriptions of exhibits of all classes ; it is profusely illustrated with well-executed woodcuts ; the drawings of the. machinery being models of clearness and accuracy of detail, so far as we are able to judge. There are between eighty and ninety pages devoted to drawings and descriptions of agricultural machinery, 56 pages to engines, 140 pages to general machinery, and 30 pages to vine-grow-ing and wine-making. The scope of the work may be partly gathered from the space devoted to these subjects alone. As a sample of the kind of descriptions vouchsafed to their readers by the Commiss oners, we make the following extract from a description of a steam excavator manufactured by Ruston, Proctor, and Co., Lincoln, which one would think might be very useful in Wellington for reclamation work : “ The steam excavator or ‘navvy,’ consists of a wrought-iron rectangular frame, supported on four double-flanged wheels, and provided on each side with three screw-jacks for taking the entire weight of the machine when it is at work. The engine is of the vertical type, of 10 horse power, with two steam-jacketed cylinders, each 7Jin. diameter by 12in. stroke.

About forty of these machines have now been constructed ; they are working successfully in railway, dock, and canal cuttings, each taking the place of fifty or sixty navvies, excavating and delivering into waggons material of- the most varied description, from sand, shale, gravel, to clays of the very hardest and toughest kind, in many cases interspersed with boulders, stumps of trees, &c. To work the machine'but two men and a boy are required; and, including tbe hands necessary for preparing * road/ trimming the slopes of the embankment, and removing the waggons into the siding ready to be removed by ihe ballast engine, a total of eight or nine men with a horse form tbe full complement. With this number of hands and the machine, as much as 500 or 600 cubic yards of material can be shifted per day, the amount of course varying according to the nature of the stuff excavated. “ Tbe machines are fitted with ‘ buckets* of different capacities, from one cubic yard for working in heavy soil, to 1J and even If yards for very light sand. “ Under favorable conditions the bucket can be filled, swung round over the waggon, emptied, and swung back again, and lowered ready for refilling, once every minute ; indeed stuff can bd delivered quite as fast as the waggons can be brought up, the limited space available for this purpose in a cutting often causing delay. Some time is evidently occupied in moving the machine forward, in order to maintain the correct distance from the face of the cutting, which of course recedes as the material Is excavated. The delay occasioned by this operation amounts to but a few minutes, and affords a good opportunity for bringing up and removing waggons, especially in cuttings for single lines of railway, or face cuttings ; that is, where the machine, instead of excavating a gullet, works longitudinally along a face. “ The * navvy* works most favorably when engaged in excavating a cutting for a double line of railway, the width required allowing of two lines of waggon road being formed, one on each side of the machine, enabling a continuous succession of empty waggons to be brought up for filling, and preventing any loss of time arising from.standing for waggons. “The machine will cut a gullet from 20 to 25 feet deep, 30 to 34 feet wide at the bottom, and 60 or more feet wide at the top. Where the greater depths have to be attained, the work can be carried out by setting the ‘ navvy’ to excavate in two or more stages, until the correct level is reached.

“ The machines can easily be put together, or taken to pieces for removal from one catting to another. By introducing a few slight alterations, it forms, when mounted on a barge, a most efficient dredger, and can be successfully employed as such where the ordinary dredger with its chain of buckets is of little use from the hardness and toughness of the soil ; the spoil likewise can be delivered directly on the banks of a river or canal when required.” It appears that the total cost of one of these machines used on the West Lancashire Railway when set up ready for work was £I3OO, From July 17th to December 31st, 1877, it did 93 days work--excavated 24,000 cubic yards in the time, at a cost of per cubic yard. The cost per cubic yard by hand labor it was calculated would have been 10Jd. In this case the daily average was 190, cubic yards ; in other instances quoted the average went up aa high as 338 cubic yards per day, the average for the more favorable cases being 278 cubic yards per day. The price of the “navvy” complete is £llsO. On page 419 an interesting description of a steam tree-feller, manufactured by Ransome and Co. is given. Judging by the description and drawing it is a very simple arrangement, by. which a saw is worked by high-pressure machinery. The Commissioners* report is aa follows : “The machine is supplied with steam at a high pressure from a small portable boiler through a strong flexible steam pipe, and as this may be of considerable length, the boiler may remain in one place until the machine has cut down all the trees within a radius which is determined by the length of the steam pipe. “ As the pressure of steam is high, it works with great rapidity, and under ordinary circumstances it will fell from four to six trees, averaging 30in. in diameter, in an hour ; and as it cuts nearly close to the ground it saves a considerable amount of timber which is lost when felling with the axe. The prices of these machines vary according to the size No. 1, to fell trees up to 24in, diameter, £6O ; No. 3, to fe’l trees up to 48in. diameter, £9O. Boilers for above, with wheels and shafts complete—for No. 1 tree feller, £BS ; for No. 3 tree feller, £l2o.’* There is a very excellent table of contents at the beginning of the volume, and a full and particular general index is also appended. There are, in addition to the descriptions of exhibits, short on oyster culture, sericulture, olive ~ cc. There is also quite a history of tud.ji .u- de Piece in Fiance, which are, in point of fact, national pawn shops, the interest charged on sums lent on the security of the goods pawned being limited to 9 per coat. The value of the system w as recognised by

Bonaparte, and he issued a proclamation abolishing private pawabroking. V-e have not space at our disposal to enter upon this subject at any length at present, but hope to recur to it again siior'ly. Wo consider that the Commissioners are to be sincerely congratulated on the very practical nature of the report which they have presented. The only omission which we notice is that no mention is made of the price at which a copy of the volume can be procured It is published by authority by John Ferres, Government Printer, Melbourne. The following are the nam-** of the Royal Commissioners :—The Hod. James Joseph Casey, M.P., C.M.G., president, the Hen. Peter Lalor, M.P., the Hon. William Wilson, M.L.0., the Hon. James Muuro, M.P., the Hon. Samuel Henry Hindoo, James Paterson, Ksq, Mayor of Melbourne, John Dank*, Esq, J.P., K. Richardson, Esq, M.P., J. Busisto, Esq., M.P., J. IvAranis, Esq., M.P., Mens. L. Caubet, Acting French Consul, David Munro, Esq., J. Zevenboora, Esq., A. K. Smith, Esq., M.P., W. McCulloch, Esq., T. P. F*Hon, Esq., Henry U. Alcock, Esq., James Alfred Roberts, Esq., George Collins Levey, Esq., C.M.G., secretary.