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The following is the description of a new paddle wheel, copied from the " N. Y. Tribune"' which copied it from the " Detroit (Mich.) Advertizer." The wheel is the invention of Capt. W. A. Bury : " The wheel which he has invented is formed, in all its parts, exactly like the paddle- wheels of a steamboat, with the exception of the paddles or buckets. In the common paddle wheel the paddle or bucket is a solid oblong board, fastened firmly across the two parallel arms. In this new wheel a paddle or bucket is affixed to each arm by a stronghinge in the inside corner of the arm. The two pad dies being equivalent to one common one. The paddle itselt is an oblong piece of wood, shaped like a wedge and hung in the arm, so that the heavy end is between the arms, and the light end is outside. But the lightest division of the paddle has the most surface, and it is upon this fact the utility ot the invention depends. For instance, the wheel revolves, the paddle strikes the water, but it is so hung on the arm at a certain angle, that the outside corner gradually sinks in, and as the wheel revolves, the surface of the paddle meets the water gradually, but so as to press it back against the arm, where it is firmly held by the pressure caused by its own motion through the water ; as the paddle rises to the surface, the angle at which it comes out of the wate. permits the heavy end to fly back against the inside of the arm, and it thus comes out edgeways, exactly on the principle of feathering an oar. The paddle, by the simple operation of the principle of gravitation, remains with its edge directly in the line of the revolution of the wheel till the arm passes the perpendicular, when the paddle falls into its place ready to meet the pressure of the water again." [Paddles with wedge-shaped extremities are not new; neither is the hinging of them; we have seen a number of models with hinged paddles. They will not answer ; they may do very well on a model, but on a large scale will soon go to pieces. The water lift, to obviate which so many paddle wheels have invented, is obviated making the wheels large diameter, or on the Galloway feathering principle. In Vol. 2, page 169, Scientic American, there is an illustrated feathering wheel of Mr. D. G. Smith, of Pennsylvania, and on page 249, same volume, there is a paddle- wheel with jointed paddles the invention of Mr. McCarthy, of Saugerties, N. Y.
