Knight's cyclopædia of the industry of all nations, 1851 / [edited by George Dodd].

Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Knight's cyclopædia of the industry of all nations, 1851 / [edited by George Dodd]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    962/1000
    1761 VIRGINIA. VIKGINIA. [United States.j VITRIOL. [Copper; Iron; Zinc] VITEIFIGATION. lUusti-ations of the process of vitrification will be met mth under Enamel; Glass-Manufacture; Glass-Paint- ing ; Pottery and Porcelain. VOLTAISM; VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY. In so far as this interesting science has a beai'ing on practical results, the reader will find various details under Electric Light, Elec- tro Metallurgy, Electro Motive Force, Electrotype, and Telegraph. VOTING MACHINE. A singular con- trivance has been lately invented in France for registering the votes of dehberative assem- blies. It is primarily intended for taking the votes at the National Assembly; and the As- sembly granted 30,000 francs for its construc- tion ; but if the principle and the action are found to be correct, many useful applications of the machine will present themselves. The mechanism and arrangement are as follow.' Before the commencement of a sitting of the Assembly, the ushers deposit on the desk of each representative a small case, very closely resembling a domino-box, containing ten small oblong plates of polished steel. Six of these, upon which, with the name of the particular member, the word pottr, or aye, is engi-aved, ai-e white in colour: four, which also bear a member's name, ai-e inscribed mth. contre, or no, and are blue. When a division has been demanded and accorded, twelve ushers remove twelve balloting-boxes or urns from the secretaiies' desk, and con- vey them to the difierent parts of the Cham- ber. On the upper surface of each urn are two separate apertures, designed to receive the ballots, signiiyiug aye and no respec- tively. WAFER. 1755 The edges of the steel balloting plates are nulled or grooved, so as to correspond ex- actly with the apertures; and accordingly, neither an affinnative nor a negative ballot can find its way into the receptacle in- tended for votes in the contrary sense. As soon as the ushers have made the round of the whole Assembly, the urns are taken to the president. Up to this time they have not exhibited anything which distinguishes them materially from common balloting boxes ; but the moment a small door is opened in front of them, the full ingenuity of the invention is disclosed. By a delicate mechanical con- trivance, each piece of steel, as it slipped into the compartment proper to it, has been made to fall evenly and horizontally on the top of the ballot inserted immediately before it, so that the whole of the ballots are found to have arranged themselves m two completely regular piles, consisting of white and blue plates respectively. By each pile is a scale of de- grees graduated with nearly as many dirisions as there are members in the Assembly, and from this scale the president proceeds to read off the height of the piles precisely as we read off the height of the mercurial column from the register of a thermometer. Since the thickness of all the steel ballots is exactly the same, the height of each pile, as determined by the scale, denotes accurately the number of votes which have been given for or against a proposition ; and when the results from the several urns have been combined, the general result of a division is known of course imme- diately. Another voting machine, baring many distinctive features, has been patented in England, and a specimen deposited in the Great Exhibition. w WAFER is a small round piece of dried paste, which is used to fasten letters. The piece of consecrated calce which is given by the Roman Catholic priest in extreme unction is also called a wafer ; and thin cake formed into a roll, and called wafers, is still sold by pastrycooks. In fact the word was used in England to signify a thin calce long before wafers for scaUng letters were invented. Wafl'cl is the name given by the Germans to a thin cake made with flour, eggs, sugar, Szc.; the Dutch call such a cake xvaj'vl, and tlie Danes vaffcl. The Anglo-Saxons also had the name waffel. In making common wafers for securmg letters, wheat flom- is mixed with isinglass and white of egg into a paste; the paste is spread evenly over tin plates, several of wliich are piled one on another and put into an oven. The layer becomes thus both baked and polished. Wlien baked, the layers are taken from the tins, piled into a lieap an inch or more in depth, and cut into wafers by means of hollow punches. They are coloured with