If we allow that the motor has a velocity of 70 revolutions per minute, the decorticating cylinder will run at the rate of 50, and the sugar-cane will move forward at the rate of 12 meters per minute.
This new machine is a very simple and powerful one. The decortication is effected with wonderful rapidity, and the canes, opened throughout their entire length and at all points of their circumference, leave the apparatus in a state that allows of no doubt as to what the result of the pressure will be that they have to undergo. There is no tearing, no trituration, no loss of juice, but merely a simple preparation for a rational pressure effected under most favorable conditions.
The apparatus, which is made in several sizes, has already received numerous applications in Martinique, Trinidad, Cuba, Antigua, St. Domingo, Peru, Australia, the Mauritius Islands, and Brazil.—Publication Industrielle.
* * * * *
MOVING A BRIDGE.
An interesting piece of engineering work has recently been accomplished at Bristol, England, which consisted in the moving of a foot-bridge 134 feet in length, bodily, down the river a considerable distance. The pontoons by means of which the bridge was floated to its new position consisted of four 80-ton barges, braced together so as to form one solid structure 64 feet in width, and were placed in position soon after the tide commenced to rise. At six o’clock A.M. the top of the stages, which was 24 feet above the water, touched the under part of the bridge, and in a quarter of an hour later both ends rose from their foundations. When the tide had risen 4 ft. the stage and bridge were floated to the new position, when at 8.30 the girders dropped on to their beds.
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: Lecture delivered
at the Institution of Civil
Engineers, session 1883-84. For the illustrations we are indebted
to the courtesy of Mr. J. Forrest, the secretary.]
By Mr. WILLIAM ANDERSON, M.I.C.E.