My dreams are all gone by! Gone as the cloud that mingles with the skies- In shoreless ocean lost, when midnight foam And therefore, on my soul, Green leaves! no more a balmy light ye shed- And crown the mantling bowl, When Manhood kneels in Passion's early trance, Be ye where Revel waits Amid the circling throng in stately halls, Flash the fierce torchlight in the wanderer's face, Be mine, sere Autumn leaves ! Be mine to teach my heart man's solemn doom- ELECTRO-MAGNETIC RAILWAY LOCOMOTIVE. (From the Edinburgh Evening Journal.) A trial of this very ingenious machine, constructed by Mr. Davidson, was made on Thursday on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, in presence of a number of gentlemen, many of whom were eminent for their scientific knowledge. The construction of the carriage is the first attempt which has been made in this country to apply the powers of electro-magnetism to railway traffic, and from the success which attended this trial sanguine hopes may be entertained that the period is not distant when it will either supersede, in many cases, the employment of steam, or lend a powerful aid to this mighty instrument in all the operations for which it is at present employed. The carriage was impelled along the railway about a mile and a half, and travelled at the rate of upwards of four miles an hour, a rate which might be increased by giving greater power to the batteries, and enlarging the diameter of the wheels. We understand that the carriage was built at the expense of the Railway Company, and we cannot but congratulate them in having the discernment to employ Mr. Davidson, a gentleman of much practical knowledge and talent, by whose genius great discoveries have been made in electro-magnetism, by whom the carriage was projected, and by whose unwearied exertions the practicability of the scheme is almost placed beyond a doubt. The dimensions of the carriage are 16 feet long by 7 feet wide, and is propelled by eight powerful electro-magnets. The carriage is supported by four wheels of 3 feet diameter. On each of the two axles there is a wooden cylinder, on which are fastened three bars of iron at equal distances from each other, and extending from end to end of the cylinder. On each side of the cylinder, and resting on the carriage, there are two powerful electro-magnets. When the first bar on the cylinder has passed the faces of two of these magnets, they immediately pull the second bar until it comes opposite them. The current is then cut off from these two magnets, and is let on to the other two. Again they pull the third bar until it comes opposite, and so on-the current of galvanism being always cut off from the one pair of magnets when it is let on to the other. The manner in which the current is cut off and let on is simply thus-At each end of the axles there is a small wooden cylinder, one-half of which is covered by a hoop of copper; the other is divided alternately with copper and wood (three parts of wood and three of copper.) One end of the coil of wire which surrounds the four electro-magnets, presses on one of these cylinders, on the part which is divided with copper and wood; the other end of the coil presses on the other cylinder in the same manner. One end of the wires or conductors which comes from the battery, presses constantly on the undivided part of the copper on each cylinder. When one of the iron bars on the wooden cylinder has passed the faces of two magnets, the current of galvanism is let on to the other two magnets, by one end of the coil which surrounds the magnets, passing from the wood to the copper, and thereby forming a connexion with the battery. This wire continues to press on the copper until the iron bar bas come opposite the faces of the two magnets, which were thus charged with galvanism. On its coming into that position, the current is cut off from these two magnets, by the wire or rod of copper passing from the copper to the wood, and thereby breaking the connexion with the battery. But when the wire or rod of copper leaves the copper on the one cylinder, it leaves the wood, and passes to the copper on the other cy linder at the other end of the axle, and in so doing connects the other two magnets with the battery, and they pull the next iron bar in the same manner. At the other end of the carriage there are other four magnets, and wooden cylinder, with iron bars arranged in the same manner. The battery which is used for propelling the machine is composed of iron and zinc plates immersed in dilute sulphuric acid, the iron plates being fluted so as to expose greater surface in the same space. The weight propelled was about six tons. (We are glad to see that the value of the electro-magnetic agency, as a moving power, is at length likely to have a fair trial. The plan of Mr. Davidson is precisely the same as that of Captain Taylor, described in vol. xxxii. page 694; but it will no doubt be in the recollection of our readers, that Mr. Davidson claims to have adopted that plan before it was patented by Captain Taylor.-See Mech. Mag. vol. 33, pp. 53, 92.-ED. M. M.) MISCELLANEA. PUFFING. Some may have imagined, in their simplicity, that Sheridan in the « Critic, had exhausted all the varieties of this multiform art, but experience shows that we had formerly much more imaginative puffers than the modern dramatists. Richard Brinsley never dreamed of a paragraph like the following extract from the bookseller's address to the reader, prefixed to the second part of Dr. Echard's Works, published in 1797and dedicated to the then Archbishop of Canterbury. "And now, reader, tell me, art thou so void of all con, science, reason, and thy own benefit, as not to carry home this book? Read but five pages of it, spring and fall, and for that year thou art certainly secured from all fevers, agues, coughs, catarrhs, &c. Champ three or four lines of it in a morning, it scours and clarifies the teeth, it settles and confirms the jaws, and brings a brisk and florid colour into the cheeks. The very sight of the book does so scare all cramps, bone-aches, running gouts, and the like, that they won't come within a stone's-cast of your house. « Hast thou a wife and children, and are they dear to thee? Here's a book for that dear wife and for those dear children, for it does not only sing, dance, play on the lute, and speak French, ride the great horse, &c.; but it performs all family duties. It runs for a midwife, it rocks the cradle, combs the child's head, sweeps the house, milks the cows, turns the hogs out of the corn, whets knives, lays the cloth, grinds corn, beats hemp, winds up the jack, brews, bakes, |