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This invention illustrates the fact that even in articles of common and universal use there yet remains opportunity for improvement. W ho would have thought there could yet be a useful modification of the form of the bucket. Improved machines for its manufacture, for cutting staves, heading, etc., might well be expected ; but the thing itself was generally supposed as perfect as it was possible to make it. Nevertheless, here we have a real improvement, the object being to enable two persons to comfortably and easily carry a large bucket when filled with a heavy fluid, when the labor of one is not adequate to the purpose. The invention is simply a combination of handles with the ordinary bail, and is equally applicable to all sort3 of bailed vessels, as pots, kettles, etc., which have hitherto required the use of the bail. By reference to the engraving it will be seen that when the bail is in use the handles are turned down out of the way, and when the handles are employed the bail is turned down. The device is extremely simple and cannot fail to be useful. Patented through the Scientific American Patent Agency, June 1, 1869, by John H. Tomlinson, of Chicago, 111. Hell Gate Obstructions. We learn from the Brooklyn Daily Times that, as the Shel-burne plan of drilling and blasting the rocks at Hell Gate has failed, there are capitalists ready and willing to risk large sums upon the success of the apparatus invented by Mr. Samuel Lewis, illustrated and described on page 385, Vol. XX, of tne Scientific American. That paper has no doubt that Mr. Lewis and his supporters will guarantee the removal of tlie obstructions for half the estimate made by General Newton on the tunneling project, which, it asserts, is a pet scheme of General Newton's. If these statements are correct, it would seem only reasonable that the invention of Mr. Lewis should be tried, and, if found to answer the expectations formed in regard to it, al-owed to proceed with the work. The Times charges that General Newton is so in love with his own project that he is incapable of forming an impartial judgment on the merits of Mr. Lewis' plan. We are sorry that this should have been said, or even thought, as we believe it is unjust to General Newton, and may be injurious to the interests of Mr. Lewis, who, we are confident, does not entertain the opinion expressed by the Times. We trust that for the satisfaction of all parties, a trial of Mr. Lewis' inven tion will be permitted. Application of Lelchtenlberg's Experiment to tne Mlneraloglcal Analysis of Rocks. M. S. Meunier proposes to make use of the well-known experiment of Leichtenberg's electric figures to separate from each other the divers mineralogical constituents of some kinds of rock. We briefly remind our readers that the experiment alluded to consists in charging with electricity a cake of resin or sealing wax, by means of a previously-charged Leyden jar; it is thus possible to charge certain portions of the cake with positive, others with negative electricity. In order to exhibit this to sight it is usual to blow, by means of a small pair of bellows, on to the cake of the resin, a mixture of very finely powdered red lead and sulphur ; the friction, on leaving the nozzle, causes the powders to become electrified, and the sulphur being negatively electric is attracted by the curved figures positively eleetric on the cake, while the red leau follows the opposite course. M. Meunier has tried thus to separate sulphur-bearing trachite into its mineral constituents, and succeeded perfectly in getting the sulphide and feldspar from each other ; he states that he has equally well succeeded with rocks made up of two different silicates.— Cosmos. IN England a huge steam hammer, weighing 1,000 tuns, is being made for the Russian Government. The hammer head weighs 42 tuns, the anvil block 500 tuns, and it is to be used in forging steel guns.
