The clockwork or the water power is used either to drive a
piston travelling through the vessel containing the carbide so that the
proper quantity of material is dropped over the open mouth of a shoot, or
to upset one after another a series of carbide receptacles, or to perform
some analogous operation. In these cases the pin or other device fitted
to the acetylene apparatus itself has nothing to do beyond releasing the
mechanism in question, and therefore the work required from the bell is
but small. The propriety of employing a generator belonging to these
latter types must depend upon local conditions, _e.g._, whether the
owner of the installation has hydraulic power on a small scale (a
constant supply of water under sufficient pressure) at disposal, or
whether he does not object to the extra labour involved in the periodical
winding up of a train of clockwork.
It must be clear that all these carbide-feed arrangements have the defect
in a more or less serious degree of leaving the carbide in the main
storage vessel exposed to the attack of water vapour rising from the
decomposing chamber, for none of the valves or operating mechanism can be
made quite air-tight.
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