DRYING MACHINES. A valuable im provement has been made within the last few years in the mode of drying woven cloth which has been bleached or otherwise wetted. In the ordinary mode of drying by exposure to the open air, the moisture gradually evapo rates ; in a hot room this evaporation is expe dited ; but in the drying machine the mechanical principle of centrifugal force is brought into use in a singular way.
A drying machine was brought into use in Paris in 1839, by Messrs. Penzolt and Le vesque. It acted on the centrifugal system. It consisted of two drums or cylinders, one within the other ; the inner one being pierced with holes. The textile goods, wetted by the process of washing, scouring, or bleaching, were placed within the inner cylinder, which was then made to revolve with a rapidity of 4000 turns in a minute ; the cloth was driven forcibly against the perforated surface, and the water driven through the holes with such irresistible force that the cloth became nearly dry in three or four minutes.
In 1844 Messrs. Keeley and Alliot, of Not tingham, patented a very elaborate machine to facilitate the scouring, bleaching, or dyeing of cloth. The same inventors had before in troduced a machine very similar in principle to that of Messrs. Penzolt and Levesque ; but in the new machine, the cloth is put into a certain compartment, the bleaching or dye ing liquid into another compartment, and the machine is made to revolve rapidly ; when the centrifugal force generated by the movement drives the liquid speedily and effectually through every pore of the cloth—leaving the cloth instantly afterwards almost in a state of dryness, and bleached likewise.