THE ARCHARD LEVER POWER.

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Our attention has been invited to an invention of a very remarkable character, which, if realising the claims asserted in its behalf, will fully equal, if it does not far exceed in importance, any discovery of the age. It consists in an entirely new application of the power of the lever, an application capable of being multiplied to an almost unlimited extent. To render our account of this new marvel quite incredible in the outset, we will state on the inventor's authority, that the steam of an ordinary tea-kettle may be made to produce sufficient momentum to propel a steamship of any size across the Atlantic! Or, again, one man may exert a power equal to that of a thousand horses, and that, too, without the aid of steam or any auxiliary other than his own stout arm. It overcomes or disproves the heretofore-received principle in mechanics, of not gaining power without a loss of speed. Archimedes, in declaring his ability to move the world, if he had a suitable position for his fulcrum, conveyed an apt illustration of the measureless power of the lever when exerted to its fullest extent. This fullest extent Mr Archard claims to have attained in the action of a succession of parallel levers—one lever upon a second, the second upon a third, the third upon a fourth, and so on progressively; each succeeding lever of the same length as the first, and all operating simultaneously, the one lever upon, and with all the others. This marvellous property of multiplying leverage, is attained without any diminution in speed, since, to whatever extent the additional levers may be carried, the entire succession is moved as one compact mass, operated upon at the same instant, the last lever moving at the same moment with the first. This simultaneous movement of a succession of parallel levers, acting the one upon the other, with a force successively increasing and in geometrical proportion, is the grand desideratum, the ne plus ultra, in the science of mechanics, which the inventor professes to have achieved. To place this multiplied ad infinitum power in its plainest light, we may observe that a given power—say that of one horse—will impart to a lever of a given dimension a sixteenfold power; that sixteenfold power gives the succeeding lever sixty-fourfold increase; that to the third lever, 256; that gives to the fourth lever an increase of 1024; while this fourth lever, with its largely increased ability, gives to the fifth lever the enormous increase of 4096. If, therefore, this succession of leverage is rightly stated, a single horse is enabled to exert the power of four thousand and ninety-six horses!—American Courier.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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