motive power, and the construction of a rail-known to the proprietor of an establishment, way to London-completed in 1838-it became the centre of an immense traffic, and has since rapidly advanced in wealth and population. is regarded with suspicion, and in most cases excluded. But for my commission under the seal of the State, which I could fall back upon Among the many fine public buildings, the when my face failed to make the necessary town hall is the most remarkable. It has the impression, I am satisfied that my visit would the form and appearance of a beautiful Gre- have been, to a considerable extent, fruitless. cian temple, is 166 feet in length and one hun- These statements ore made as a warning to dred in width, completely surrounded by rows other travelers who may be inclined to trust of Corinthian pillars, 40 feet high. At one ex- too much to good looks. More than any other tremity of the hall stands the great organ, by people in the world, we Americans are regardHill, one of the finest in Europe, containing ed with jealous anxiety by English inventors. four thousand pipes. It is here that those The reason is obvious; In all those manufacgreat musical festivals are held which draw tures in which the English excel other Eurotogether the most distinguished artists of the pean inventors and artisans, the Americans world. It was here, indeed, that Mendelssohn are rivals, in many classes of manufactures presided at the first performance of his "Eli- more than rivaling their transatlantic competjah," in 1846. Hospitals, colleges, asylums itors. Then it is well known, the world over, and churches are numerous and elegantly built. that the Yankee intellect is quicker in those But all these things interest me less because matters than any other, and that one of our they are common to all great cities. It was to real mechanical or scientific geniuses only get some correct idea of the different branches needs to pass carelessly through an immense of manufacture carried on here that brought establishment to get most, if not all, its valume to Birmingham. I have neglected to pro-able secrets! No wonder they are afraid of a vide myself with letters of introduction, and gentleman wearing a soft, slouch hat, and so must rely upon myself and the accustomed speaking the English language in its purity! courtesy of the English manufacturer. I don't blame them. 3 O'CLOCK, P. M. The day is two-thirds gone, and although I have been on the wing ever since sunrise, I have, of course, as yet only an inkling of the immense number and extent of the mammoth manufactories which have made Birmingham a name familiar and famous in all countries. ELECTRO-PLATING THAT BEATS THE WORLD. The moments are precious, and I find it difficult to wait with patience for the business hours to arrive. John Bull is an case-loving, independent fellow, and will take his own time. The workmen are at their posts soon after the American hour, but none of them have authority to admit strangers, and the proprietors are as late as nine or ten o'clock in getting out to their offices. This is not pecu liar to Birmingham. Everywhere in England Elkington, Mason & Co.s' great electro-platbusiness begins later than in America. The ing establishment, in Newhall street, and said Yankee is greatly more nervous and restless. to be the largest in the world, first received Breakfast must be early; and grace, if said at my attention. The proprietors received me all, must be very quickly said. Jonathan with great kindness, and deputed an intellimaketh haste to be rich; John, being rich gent messenger to show me around. already, is content with slower gains. I have long been familiar with the process of Another thing I have discovered: English electro-plating, having, in the laboratory, conmanufacturers have much less confidence in ducted it myself; but I will confess that I the superiority of their inventive genius than have hitherto had only a very partial idea of our Yankee manufacturers have. Every visit- the magnitude of the scale ou which the busior, unless introduced by some one favorably ness is here carried on. Buildings covering ter, without using some chemical or mechanical test, has no means of knowing whether the plating is as thick as desired, or whether it is only a mere film. In France, electro-plating is regulated by law; every manufacturer being required to weigh each article when ready for plating in the presence of a comptroller appointed by the government, and to report the same articles for weighing again when the plating has been done. In this way the comptroller knows to the fraction of a grain the amount of the precious metal that has been added, and puts his mark upon the wares accordingly, so that every purchaser may know at a glance just what he is buying. In America it is not so, and I have not learned that there is such a law in force in this country. many acres of ground and magificent show rooms filled witn every description of wares plated with copper, bronze, silver and gold. The casting, polishing, electro plating and final polishing each has its distinct department. The plating department occupies a very large area filled with the chemical vats in which hundreds of articles, from the simplest to the most elaborate and costly, are receiving their deposits of the precious metals. The method and the philosophy are as follows: The surface of the article to be plated is first thoroughly cleansed by boiling in an alkaline solution, then dipping in nitric acid, and finally scouring and again immersing in nitric acid just previous to commencing the process of electro-plating. When ready, the article is suspended in a trough of cyanide of potassium by a copper wire to a metrlic rod connected with the zinc plate of a galvanic battery; a silver plate connected with the other pole of the battery by a similar rod being suspended in the solution of the cyanide on the opposite side of the trough. The article to be silvered being the negative pole, the current passes the moment that it and the silver plate are both immersed in the solution, and in its passing bears along with it millions of invisible particles of, silver, depositing them upon the sur-coating as thick as common writing paper. face of the article to be plated. In a few seconds the entire surface is covered with a film of silver, when the article is taken out and rubbed with a hard brush and a little very fine sand. It is then put back in the solution and there left for several hours, at the expiration of which it will have acquired a coating of dead white silver, as thick as tissue paper. If a thicker coating is desired, it only requires to be left longer in the solution. Beautifully simple, and so much better than the slow, old fashioned washing and hand plating. The hardness and evenness of the plating depend upon the strength of the battery and the motion given the article when receiving the plating; a weak current leaving the silver quite soft, and the motion causing the silver to be more evenly deposited A battery may be used so strong as the make the plate as hard as silver coin. As to the amount of silver consumed in ordinary plating, a word: An ounce and a half of silver will give to a surface a foot square a And since silver is worth $1,25 per ounce, the value of the silver covering a foot square would be about $1,87. At this rate a well plated tea pot or coffee pot is plated at a cost in silver of not more than $1,50 to $2,CO. The other expenses, including labor, would hardly be more than half that amount. Electro-gilding is done in like manner. The gold is desolved in nitro-hydrochloric acid, washed with boiling nitric acid and then digested with calcined magnesia. The gold is deposited in the form of an oxide, which, after When a coating sufficiently thick has been being washed in boiling nitric acid, is dissolved given, the article is then polished with a hard in cyanide of potassium, in which solution the brush and whiting, or burnished. This puts articles to be plated with gold, after due prepon the mirror-like lustre of the finished silver. aration, are placed. Iron, steel, lead and some From the foregoing it must be apparent that other metals that do not readily receive the the manufacturer has an excellent opportunity gold deposit, require to be first lightly plated to swindle the purchaser, inasmuch as the lat-with copper. The positive plate of the battery must be of gold, the other plate of iron or copper. The process is the same as that above described. steads, worth from four dollars to fifty. Mr. Winfield told me that the Pacha of Egypt, who likes elegant things, and is a good deal inclined to indulge his taste, offered $2,500 for it, but shook his head when told that the figures first mentioned were the lowest. OSLER'S GREAT GLASS MANUFACTORY, The popular notion is, that genuine electrogilding must necessarily add a good deal to the cost of the article plated. This is erroneous. A silver thimble may be so handsomely plated as to have the appearance of being all gold for five cents, a pencil case for twenty cents, and a watch case for one dollar. An estimate of establishments of that sort. the relative value of electro-gilding, as com-ager showed me about, and seemed to take pared with silver plating, considering the cost great pleasure in explaining how the finest as of material alone, is about as 15 to 1. A MAGNIFICENT BRASS FOUNDRY. On Cambridge street I found the far-famed 'Cambridge Works," conducted by Messrs. Windfield & Son, extensive manufacturers of tube, gas fittings, metallic bedsteads, &c. The Messrs. Elkington & Mason were kind enough to give me an introduction, and I spent an hour very pleasantly and profitably. The gas fittings, chandeliers, condelabras, &c., were, some of them, duplicates of those that I had seen at the Great Exhibition, and as beautiful as the best cultivated taste could desire. Bedsteads in great number and variety-iron and brass. Wood is fast going out of date in all parts of Europe. The metallic bedstead is not much more expensive, lasts forever and is not subject to that odoriferous pest so trublesome where wood is used. The cheap,' plain, painted iron is not so handsome, I think, as blackwalnut, but my taste has not yet been sufficiently educated in that particular, I suppose. The bedsteads with hollow posts, moulded in fancy forms, are better looking and more expensive. The finely polished hollow-post brass bedsteads are, some of them, magnificent. One, with posts eight or nine feet high, and with head, foot and canopy richly ornamented, was made at an actual expense of £1,000, ($5,000,) and shown at the first World's Exhibition. Everybody admired but no one felt able to buy it! Even kings and princes are now and then compelled to acknowledge a limit to their A sort of comforting thought to those who are compelled to sleep on wooden bed means. On Broad street, stands at the head of all The head man well as the common work was done. At Pitsburgh and at other places I had seen moulded and blown ware manufactured, but here the finest cut glass is made that finds its way into the best markets of the world. In the cutting department there was much to interest me. In a long room, in the form of an ell, and probably two hundred feet from end to end, are numerous grindstones and metallic and wooden wheels driven by steam. Some are kept moist and made sharp by dripping sand and water; others are coated with emery. The first do the coarse, the latter the fine kind of work. Some of the wheels are flat on the edge, and some are bevelled off to an edge more or less sharp according to the fineness of the work to be done. The operator takes the pitcher, the decanter, wine glass or other article to be cut in his hand, and applies it to the wheel just so as to give it the finish required. Wine glasses, worth from two to four dollars each were cut in my presence. The delicate vine, flower, or other more difficult design, being cut thereon with as much ease and apparent carelessness on the part of the workmen as that with which I now scribble these hasty notes. A single touch suffices for a grape; a moment's touch and turning of the hand makes the delicate spiral tendril of the vine. The extra value of the cut glass is not, therefore, all in the cutting. Some of it consists in the superior quality of the glass used. Button factories, gun factories and steel-pen tactories have also been visited, but I am only the more weary on that account, and must make ready for my journey to Manchester, the great heart of the cotton manufacturing business. I would like to stay here a week to visit the mines and many noted places in the suburbs and vicinity, but time flies and I must be off. Good bye to Birmingham. Get ready for the State Fair! [ADVERTISEMENT.] That Report of the Sorghum Convention. EDITOR WIS. FARMER :-My attention has been called to an article in the advertising columns of the June number of the FARMER, from Mr. O. S. Willey, one of the secretaries of the late State Sorghum Convention, referring to a caution I published in my Sorghum Machinery Circular, denying the truth of my allegations therein set forth, &c. In that article I made no reference to any other member of the publishing committee except the chairman, Mr. Willey; nor do I suppose that the other members of said committee had any knowledge of, or participation in the charges that I alleged. I am quite sure they are gentlemen above so improper an act. Hence it was wholly unnecessary for Mr. W. to bring in their names, except for the purpose of dodging the responsibility himself. What I did in substance allege and still repeat, is, that the report of the committee on machinery, was changed after it was made up and signed by all the members of said committee, and delivered over to the said secretary of the Convention or chairman of the pulishing committee, as the case may be, and new matter introduced of an advertising character. their attention to said charges, soon after the appearance of the report of the Sorghum Convention, they denied having authorized such changes, and condemned the act on the part of Mr. Willey in severe terms. This I can prove by witnesses then present. What reasons they have had for since modifying their views upon the subject, I know not. If such eleventh hour changes were desired, why was not the chairman of the committee, Hon. Wm. Blair, then sitting in the senate, in the city, consulted on the subject. He had signed the original report as chairman, and considered it finished. It strikes me that it would have been extremely proper to also have submitted it to him, if changes were to be made. It will be observed, that the mechanical description I made of my machinery, at the request of the committee, was before the preparation of their report and not after. With the foregoing explanations I have noth ing further to say upon the subject at present; the public are left to form their own conclusions upon the matter, and to place the wrong where they deem it to belong. Most respectfully yours, MADISON, June 20, 1864. [ADVERTISEMEET.] D. J. POWERS. SLANDEROUS STATEMENT REFUTED. EDITOR WISCONSIN FARMER:-In a pamphlet recently published by Mr. D. J. Powers in the interest of certain Sugar Cane mills and other machinery, manufactured and sold by him, under the head of "Caution," the charge is conspicuously and boldly made that the Proceedings of the late State Sorghum Convention, held at Madison on the 3d, 4th and 5th of February, were so perverted by the Publishing Committee as to give unwarrantable prominence and advantage to certain other sorghum machinery. This is a grave charge, After said report was made and submitted, it was shown me by the secretary as a final report of said committee, as it was going to the printer, after which the changes were made, without the knowledge of parties generally interested, or of the machinery committee as a committee. Now I am prepared to show by conclusive and, since I was myself not only a member of evidence, that such is the fact, notwithstand-the Publishing Committee referred to, but ing any denials or gainsayings from any source. likewise the secretary of the Convention, havAnd as to the statements of the two subordi-ing care of the records and of their publicanate members of the committee, excusatory of tion, I deem it my duty to say, as publicly as the charges, I would say, that when I called 'possible, that it is utterly false and without foundation, except in the fertile imagination the committee, if I had any objection to his of its too reckless author. The other members of the Publishing Committee were Hon. M. K. Young, of Grant, Hon. E. Wilcox, of Fond du Lac, and Hon. W. W. Field, late Speaker of the Assembly-all gentlemen above reproach, and each of them ready to substantiate the correctness of the statement here made. But I am competert to produce yet other testimony, as will appear from the accompanying statements made by members of the Committee on Machinery, whose reports are alleged by Mr. Powers to have been perverted. Please give them a place in your forthcoming number of the FARMER, and oblige Your Obedient Servant. MADISON, May 31, 1864. O. S. WILLEY. MADISON, MAY 30, 1864. making a change in the wording of the paragraph on page 28, (of a pamphlet published by the State, called "Proceedings of the Wisconsin Sugar Cane Growers' Convention," commencing with "The adjustable principle of these mills is a new and distinctive feature," &c. In reply I stated that I saw nothing objectionable, and at once gave my consent. I see nothing objectionable in the description of Cook's Evaporator. Whatever changes, aside from this paragraph, if any, were made I had no knowledge of it at the time. [Advertisement.] THE KIDDER HIVE. NORTON. In reply to queries of L. L. F. and others, I will say that I have used the Kidder Hive for the past season, and am fully satisfied that it comes up to the recommenda. tions of the inventor, both as a summer and winter hive. As the hive is made in double form it secures the most GEN. DAVID ATWOOD, Chn. State Sorgo Con- perfect ventilation, always under the control of the bee master. Although last season was censidered one of the poorest for bees, and the past winter one of the most destructive, yet my bees did well, and I lost only one stock in this kind of a hive out of ten which I commenced the winter with, and they were left out in an open bee-house. I have never used the separators, as I have no difficulty in making them build stray combs without them; and by using nine frames in a hive they have no room for dove combs. At least I find it so in mine, and this is all that is sought by the use of the separators. I should be happy to answer any communication, either through the columns of the FARMER or by letter, that can be of benefit to the bee-keeper, and hope to receive their experience in return. B. 8. HOXIE. vention.-Dear Sir:-We have recently been shown a pamphlet published by D. J. Powers, in which he accuses a member of the Publishing Committe of the Sorghum Convention, held at Madison last spring, with materially altering the Report on Machinery after it left our hands. It is no more than justice to Mr. Willey, the gentlemen referred to, to publicly say that Mr. Powers and Mr. Skinner were both allowed by the committee to describe their own machinery on exhibition in their own language, and that Mr. Powers handed me a lengthy description of his machinery before we wrote out our report, and after the report was written we handed it over. Mr. Skinner made a slight addition to the description of his machinery, which we assented to. The description of Clarke's and Utter's maFor the best twenty-five acres of cane grown in the same chinery was copied from their own work; al-neighborhood, by one or more parties, so the description of other machinery was A complete set of our most improved Two Horse Sepacopied from descriptions from the manufac-rate, Geared Sorghum Machinery, with Bagasse carrier, COOKVILLE, Rock Co., Wis, [Advertisement.] SPECIAL PREMIUM. Believing the Sorghum interest to be a great and important one to this State and the Northwest, and wishing to do what we can to develope it, we offer the following premium to all, who are disposed to compete for it, in the State. evaporator, heater, smoke pipe, skimmers, and all the fixtures complete for setting up and operating, worth at the shop $260, cash, and capable of making from 150 to 200 gallons of syrup per day. Parties proposing to compete for the foregoing premi. am will need to send to me for entry blanks and circular of instructions, &c. The earlier attended to the better. D. J. POWERS. Madison, Wis., Feb. 20, 1864. |