THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Iceland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 1. October 17th, 1895. 
 
 When Professor Smith first mentioned the subject of lectures 
 on " Works Administration," or to use a more familiar term, shop 
 management, the impression was that such a theme could not be 
 treated so as to have interest separately from the regular studies you 
 are pursuing here, but on more reflection it occurred to me, as it had 
 undoubtedly done to Professor Smith, that while it was a part and 
 parcel of technical education it was in the main separate and un- 
 teachable by the usual methods, and that something could be done 
 in the way of relating observations and experience gathered in the 
 practical conduct of works. 
 
 Your studies, such as this institution is to promote, must of 
 necessity relate to particular methods and exact treatment, must 
 come within the domain of computable quantities, and be governed 
 by rules that are constant, or nearly so, while the management or 
 administration of works must be empirically learned by observation, 
 inference and analogy, not from one alone, but from many persons 
 and in many places. 
 
 This being the case, so much as can be presented here in the 
 form of lectures must be the result of experience and observation, 
 and accepted as such. It is true that one may by logical inference 
 
 405570
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 arrive at conclusions and methods of management, and it would be 
 better if more was learned in this way, or that opinions were quali- 
 fied in this manner, and in that view some attempt will be made to 
 analyze certain things as we go along. 
 
 You have an advantage here not enjoyed so far as I know by the 
 students of any similar institution in this country that of an 
 instructor who has himself been a work's manager, and is able to 
 follow the problems here treated to their ultimate application. I 
 may also mention this qualification as a succession, and perhaps to 
 some extent an inspiration from one of the most successful 
 teachers of constructive engineering that this or any other country 
 can boast, Prof. John E. Sweet. "Sweet's boys," as they are 
 called, always found something to do when they "went out into the 
 world," as he termed it, and there is this encouragement in the 
 scheme of lectures on shop management that the reputation of 
 Sweet's boys grew out of his attempt, in a greater degree than ever 
 before or since, to teach application and administrative matters. I 
 say administration, because in most cases an education here, or 
 in other institutions of the kind, is pursued with reference to direct- 
 ing and planning the work of other people, also as a stock in trade, 
 so to speak, to be balanced against money, capital, and in other 
 ways, but always involving management of some kind. 
 
 This art of management is unfortunately a subject that by its 
 nature is personal, and for that reason concealed. A great share of 
 it is confidential in respect to a works or a business. It includes to 
 some extent methods and processes, that is, methods and processes 
 personal to a manager, or peculiar to himself, invented we may call 
 it, or regarded in the light of invention. This is proved by the fact 
 that the power of management is in business in a sense considered 
 separately from skill, or even technical knowledge, and, as every one 
 knows, constitutes a valuable consideration in the hands of any one 
 who has made a success in this way. 
 
 A successful foreman is an example of this. The ideal foreman 
 is a mythical person, who is presumed to be able to do almost any- 
 thing, and to be responsible for everything. He represents the 
 owners, or the head management, and also to some extent the men 
 whose work he directs; thus occupying a position of exceeding diffi- 
 culty, inconsistent and nearly impossible on logical grounds and in 
 fact. Of this matter of foremen more will be said in a future place. 
 It is presented here in illustration of the difference between technical 
 knowledge and administration and the value of the two when 
 combined.
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 A pride in personal or peculiar methods is as wide as mechanic 
 art, and is not to be disparaged, on the contrary is among the 
 strongest incentives to develop the art of management, but such 
 pride and confidence as you may readily infer becomes a bar to com- 
 mon knowledge of the manager's art. Owners, managers, super- 
 intendents and foremen are always ready to converse on general 
 matters connected with their business, and of all that can be com- 
 pared, estimated and written in books, but, as before remarked, 
 there is a conciousness and intent of keeping back a good deal 
 that has arisen out of particular experience, and this is not to be 
 wondered at. 
 
 No one wants to state what they know there is no means of 
 proving, and what has no grounds of conviction in their own minds. 
 Empirical belief is always timid. A man may say, " I bore all holes 
 with bars, do not use involute teeth for wheels, maintain standard 
 sizes by means of turning mandrels, paint my machinery with luster- 
 less paint, and do not indenture apprentices," but he does not regard 
 these things as absolutely right, or expedient in all cases, because 
 others whose practice he must respect do not do these things in his 
 way, so there is a doubt and want of confidence that leads to 
 reticence. 
 
 Pursuing these general or introductory remarks a little farther, 
 the absence of fixed methods, rules and exact knowledge of man- 
 agement must always make it experimental. As in the case of a 
 foreman, an ideal course or plan is impossible, because methods 
 must be adapted to circumstances that exist in a works. The 
 owners, head manager, workmen, and even the public around, have 
 ideas of management and methods, and these ideas are apt to be like 
 a good deal of other assumed knowledge of the kind, inversely as 
 the amount of understanding in the case. 
 
 This is a peculiar trait of human nature. The person who 
 has acquired barely the rudiments of any skilled operation is sure to 
 imagine himself an adept. Bigoted people are almost sure to be 
 unskilled, and this cannot be helped, so that one of the most diffi- 
 cult parts of shop administration is in understanding and carefully 
 dealing with existing methods. I will relate a circumstance to 
 illustrate this. 
 
 Some years ago I was called out to England, partly to assist in 
 preparing plans for some special machine tools required at the Els- 
 wick Works of Sir Willliam Armstrong & Co., at New Castle on 
 Tyne. On g6ing to New Castle I found a great strike going on at
 
 U'OIIKS ADM1NISTRA TION. 
 
 the Elswick Works. More than a thousand men had quit work by 
 reason of a disagreement in the forging department a very import- 
 ant branch in these great works, which occupy in all one mile in 
 length, on the bank of the River Tyne. 
 
 There was good opportunity to study this strike, which arose 
 from a change of managers in the forging department, a Mr. 
 O'Donnel, of Dublin, with whom I was well acquainted, having been 
 recently installed in charge of the forges and connected operations. 
 
 Mr. O'Donnel had been in a high position before, as locomotive 
 superintendent of the Great Southern and Western Railway, of 
 Ireland. The railway works are situated at Inchicore, Dublin, and 
 some explanation must be given for the reason of his being appointed 
 at the Elswick Works. 
 
 Inchicore is a kind of normal training school for mechanical 
 managers in Great Britain. From there comes a great many of the 
 railway mechanical superintendents, because nowhere else has there 
 been so much attention given to shop methods; besides, the men 
 trained there are of high natural ability. 
 
 Inchicore is a kind of retired place out of Dublin some distance, 
 where the pick of young men in the city find their way. There are 
 wonderful cooperative and other provisions there that will come up 
 to be more fully explained in a future section of these lectures. 
 
 In the forging shop there has been a development of ' 'die forging' ' 
 more elaborate perhaps than in any other works of the kind in the 
 world. The dies, most of them, are merely matrices of cast iron or 
 cast steel, two parts connected by a bar of spring steel bent into U 
 form and attached to the two dies to hold them in " register," and 
 permits the dies to open by the springing of this bow handle, to so 
 call it. The blanks when heated are laid within these dies, which 
 may be likened to waffle irons, and are placed beneath a powerful 
 steam hammer that comes down and closes the dies by one blow, 
 shaping the iron or steel just as any soft material, like putty, would 
 be pressed into form. The surplus metal flows out in a fin, to be 
 trimmed off around the edges. 
 
 Sir William Armstrong, or the Directors of the Elswick company, 
 were aware of the economic effect of this " spring die " forging sys- 
 tem, as it was called, and employed Mr. O'Donnel to carry out this 
 with various other improvements at the Armstrong works. 
 
 For a generation at least the " hammermen" at New Castle had 
 gone on in a routine of method supposed to be perfect, or at least 
 traditional, which is sometimes construed as the same thing in those
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TI ON. 
 
 old countries, and no one dreamed that a change was expedient or 
 possible. 
 
 The leading men made large wages, more than you will suppose 
 possible in that country, They had inherited the business from 
 their fathers, and were amazed at a proposition to introduce changes, 
 consequently " went out," as they called it, with a large number of 
 men in other connected departments, amounting to more than one 
 thousand, and at one time nearly two thousand. 
 
 The strike was in a sense friendly, that is, conferences were held 
 with the men, and Mr. O'Donnel found himself in a difficult and 
 trying position. The directors of the works had their faith shaken 
 by the views of the striking hammermen, but a ruse set the whole 
 thing right. 
 
 On reaching New Castle I called at Mr. O'Donnel's office, and 
 he explained the situation, at the end of his remarks pointing to a 
 table near by, covered with a cloth, and said: " there is the argu- 
 ment that will sustain or defeat me." 
 
 He removed the cloth, showing a collection of small forgings of 
 various standard patterns used in the works. On each was a ticket 
 giving its weight, the price of forging at Elswick, and another 
 unexplained figure alongside. These forgings had been made at 
 Inchicore. 
 
 He had the table moved to the director's room, where a meeting 
 was held that day, and when he was called to be consulted he 
 requested that the examples be examined. They were pronounced 
 marvelous and perfect by every one, and on inquiry as to what this 
 meant, Mr. O'Donnel said: " I am authorized to say, on behalf of 
 the directors of the Great Southern and Western Railway of Ireland, 
 that the'y will furnish and deliver here at your works as many of 
 these forgings as you require, at the prices marked on the tickets." 
 
 This settled the matter there. The prices were only half as 
 much in some cases, and much less in all than was being paid at 
 the Elswick works. Mr. O'Donnel called the men together, told 
 them just what he had done: explained the methods, also that his 
 object was to cheapen production and not to reduce wages; that 
 under the present methods, if persisted in, there would soon be 
 neither work nor wages. The men went to work on the new meth- 
 ods, and a year later, as I have heard, presented Mr, O'Donnel with 
 a friendly testimonial of their confidence and regard. 
 
 This dispute was much wider and more important than this sin- 
 gle circumstance indicates. There were many other things to man-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 age besides die forging, but by proper management all was in the 
 end settled amicably and profitably. 
 
 The purpose of this story, related at some length, is to show that 
 the new manager's knowledge of forging processes, or other techni- 
 cal knowledge of his, was not the main element in the case. He 
 had to prove his position, gain confidence, both of the owners and 
 the workmen, arouse emulation and establish good will, which 
 was a great deal more difficult of accomplishment than the die 
 processes. 
 
 MANUFACTURES ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 As this first section of the proposed lectures will be of an intro- 
 ductory nature, dealing mainly with the nature and objects of the 
 subject to be treated, it will be proper to say something further of 
 the importance of administration and its relation to active industry. 
 
 On this Coast has been founded or projected at some time almost 
 every industry known to the technical arts. Some of these attempts 
 logical, some otherwise, and of all only a few have succeeded well. 
 This remark is true of most any other place, but not in the same 
 degree or under the same circumstances as on this Coast. People 
 come here from the Eastern States, and from all parts of the world, 
 attracted by the promise and opportunities that are supposed to 
 exist in a new country, but mainly because of the climate and phy- 
 sical peculiarities of the Coast that have rendered it famous. At 
 first they came to mine gold, or to participate in the circumstances 
 which gold mining produced. These people brought with them 
 knowledge and experience in nearly every art known to human skill, 
 and when here, and the period of speculation passed away, they 
 naturally looked about for permanent pursuits. 
 
 A great, many come now for their health, or to avoid the rigor of 
 winters at the East. They cannot remain idle, and naturally set 
 about the business with which they were acquainted in their former 
 homes. This, as before remarked, has led to the founding at various 
 periods, of nearly every kind of skilled industry, from making 
 watches and jewelry to steamships, and from silk fabric to gunny 
 bags. 
 
 Some of these industries have succeeded, more of them have 
 failed, and when the cause of the failure is inquired into, a long 
 train of causes is set up, some of them reasonable and sufficient, but 
 in most cases neither. Among these reasons of failure, which need 
 not be enumerated, one rarely ever hears of management or admin-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 istration, still among all causes of failure this is undoubtedly the 
 most common one, either alone or associated with others of less 
 import. 
 
 Some years ago I asked Mr. Calvin Brown, the well-known civil 
 engineer of San Francisco, why the 300,000 barrels of hydraulic 
 cement used on this Coast were not made here, and if the natural 
 elements did not exist ? His answer was that the required elements 
 did exist here, except one, which was management of the manu- 
 facture, that the material and processes of production permitted a 
 reasonable profit, but there was no regularity in the cement pro- 
 duced, and a want of confidence in its uniformity. Mr. Brown was 
 the first engineer on this Coast to erect concrete work, when he was 
 in the employ of the General Government, and was also, as I believe, 
 the superintending engineer who constructed some of the cement 
 works founded near Santa Cruz, in this State. He is a recognized 
 authority on this subject, and his calculations were, no doubt, made 
 to include all the economical conditions involved in the manufacture. 
 
 Not satisfied with this explanation I submitted the matter to 
 Prof. Louis Falkenau, an analytical chemist of San Francisco, a 
 man able in his profession and thoroughly acquainted by both edu- 
 cation and experience with the resources of the Coast, all of its 
 minerals and the economy of manufactures. His views corresponded 
 with those of Mr. Brown, and he also claimed that the failure of 
 this important industry was due to a want of a technical and com- 
 mercial management of the works founded. 
 
 Now assuming these views of the matter to be correct, and even 
 that the impediment is now removed, the misfortune of the matter 
 comes up in another form. Capital is frightened off, and no one 
 with this history before them will engage in the manufacture of 
 hydraulic cement. 
 
 The force of this illustration would be greatly increased by add- 
 ing various facts that have been related to me in connection with 
 cement manufacture on this Coast, but as no new ventures of the 
 kind have been made in the fifteen years I have been here, these 
 facts are not reliable enough for recountal at this time. Every one, 
 so far as I know, admits that good cement was made, but as one 
 man expressed it, "no barrel had two ends alike," meaning that there 
 was no uniformity in the process, and no exercise of the intelligent: 
 painstaking care required in what is an intricate process, demanding 
 not only complete chemical and technological knowledge of the art, 
 bnt an intense application of these, and the handling of men unused 
 to any work requiring precision.
 
 WORKS A D MINIS TRA Tl ON. 
 
 Any one desiring to investigate this matter further will find some 
 account of it in a paper on the subject, by Mr. Calvin Brown, read 
 before the Technical Society of the Pacific Coast about five years 
 ago, and published in the Transactions of that Society. Some time, 
 let us hope soon, this manufacture will be founded again, and prose- 
 cuted to a successful issue. 
 
 I happened to be in Sweden when this same manufacture was 
 founded there, and many times have thought of the difference in 
 methods. It is not to draw invidious comparisons, but is relevant 
 to the subject under discussion. Sweden had been importing a good 
 deal of Portland cement, and when the subject of local manufacture 
 came up, the best-informed chemists in the country examined the 
 natural material existing there. Experiment and careful calculations 
 were made respecting fuel, transportation, labor, and every thing of 
 an economic nature was considered by merchants and engineers. A 
 cement works was erected near Gothenberg, and the King of Sweden, 
 Oscar II, came down to attend the opening of the cement works. 
 
 This monarch, unlike most others, thought it worth his while to 
 learn industrial as well as military science, and enjoys, as I believe, 
 the distinction of being the most learned man that occupies a throne 
 at this day. He mounted an improvised platform in the works at 
 Gothenberg, to address the people, and in addition to reviewing the 
 commercial importance of the scheme, gave a history of the manufac- 
 ture, describing the whole technical details of elements, processes 
 and uses. Capable and careful men were put in charge, and I have no 
 doubt the industry is going on now in a prosperous manner. From 
 the inception of the scheme there was complete administration, and 
 unless there were errors in the original computations there was no 
 chance of failure. The circumstances related happened nearly 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 In the older countries, where trained skill is more highly esti- 
 mated, and where consulting engineers are more commonly called in, 
 and, I may add, where all the conditions of manufacture and con- 
 struction are more cautiously considered, the failure of enterprises is 
 rare and also is serious. We have many lessons to learn from their 
 longer experience, especially as our future must in many respects lie 
 along the same road. 
 
 ESTIMATES FOR WORK. 
 
 Proceeding now to a more practical consideration of the subject 
 of works administration, the first thing to be considered in this, as 
 in all human activities, is, what are the main objects in view? This
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 lets us down from the ideal to sordid ground, and the answer must 
 be "commercial gain." It is a most unromantic conclusion, and is 
 perhaps not quite true, because human pursuits, besides providing 
 for our physical and material wants, also provides an agreeable field 
 for the cultivation of our faculties and the pleasures of accomplish- 
 ment, but construed in the abstract, the primal object of industrial 
 pursuits is commercial gain, or, to reduce it to lower terms, is an 
 attempt to produce commodities at a cost less than the price they will 
 sell for. 
 
 This is a bald qualification, but it must be kept in mind as an 
 objective point in each and every operation that we call productive 
 industry. This being the case, and as the cost of commodities 
 comes before their sale price, we will first consider cost. In this 
 little term of four letters lies a potency that consumes the highest 
 ability of our ablest engineers and mechanics. 
 
 It will be difficult to realize what this includes in a works; 
 and you will no doubt be surprised when I say that a principal work 
 of Mr. Dickie, Manager of the Union Iron Works, who recently 
 lectured before you, is to ascertain and inform his company of the 
 cost of producing work. This work of estimates compasses the 
 whole range of constructive engineering work, the natural proper- 
 ties and adaptation of material, its cost, all the methods of manipula- 
 tion, the expense account, engineering service, risks of all kinds, 
 and contemprrary values. 
 
 I have known Mr. Dickie, who is an engineer of the highest 
 standing, and with a charge as responsible and difficult as is filled by 
 any one in his profession, to shut himself up for months in his pri- 
 vate office to find out the cost of producing a warship. When done 
 this cost, set forth in thousands of items, filled a book as large as a 
 merchant's ledger, and a hundred times more intricate, because the 
 work involved to a great extent both methods and design. 
 
 This work is called estimating, and is the first process in under- 
 taking work, or, as we may say, the first step in the practical con- 
 duct of a going works. There are usually in the corps or staff of a 
 works plenty of men who know how things are made, how sold, and 
 how collected for; how material is bought, stored, handled and cared 
 for; how drawings are made, weights ascertained, and all this, but the 
 prime cost derived from the assembling of all these things, with the 
 " allowances," margins for error, changes of prices, the facilities for 
 production and so on, calls for the highest ability. 
 
 Twenty years of experience has in the case of Mr. Dickie, and
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Iceland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 9. October 24th, 1895. 
 
 EXPENSE AS A COMPONENT OF COST. 
 
 (CONTINVED.) 
 
 The expense element is a flexible one. It includes rent, light, 
 heat, water, insurance, travelling, drawings, accounts and records, 
 office service and management other than immediately in the con- 
 structive departments. Expense may be classified by the rule that 
 it includes whatever disappears, and has to be continually replaced 
 or reproduced; also as whatever is not sold. Or to qualify it more 
 plainly still, whatever is not converted into merchandise and is not 
 sold. In the works, sand, oil and files are expense, but paint, pack- 
 ing and screws are merchandise, and I will here mention that the 
 separation and classification of the various supplies for a works into 
 merchandise, expense, implements, and so on, is a very interesting 
 and useful exercise. 
 
 As accounts are commonly kept in machine works, and they are 
 typical of all kinds of manufactories, the charges to expense are 
 from 15 to 30 per cent. It is, as has been said, an indeterminate 
 quantity, depending in a great measure on the means employed to 
 sell the product. For estimates it is commonly assumed from pre- 
 cedent or former records, an average being taken over previous years, 
 or by analogy to similar business of like nature and extent. 
 
 Expense varies with the volume of business, but not directly. 
 It is least in a very large and in a very small business. A very 
 small business *is sometimes carried on with the expense account
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TEA I ION. 
 
 almost eliminated. To extend a large business does not call for 
 a proportionate amount of highly-paid service, and the expense of 
 all elements fall off in greater or less proportion with an increase of 
 volume. Material is purchased cheaper in proportion to quantity. 
 A cargo of coal, iron or timber is bought cheaper than a car load, 
 and a good deal cheaper than a wagon load; besides the handling 
 and storing of a large quantity is cheaper than for a small quantity 
 if charged against the volume or amount. 
 
 Steam power does not occupy room and require attention in pro- 
 portion to horse power, but it costs less in both of these and in 
 other respects as the capacity is increased. It will require the 
 work of one skilled man to manage an engine of twenty-five horse 
 power. Sometimes one man will manage and care for an engine and 
 steam plant of one hundred horse power, but it does not require four 
 men for four hundred horse power, or ten men for a thousand horse 
 power. 
 
 It costs nearly the same to advertise a business of fifty men as 
 it does for one of five hundred men. For example, if we assume 
 that the expense element in production follows inversely as volume 
 or amount of product, small shops could not exist. They would be 
 eaten up by the expense account. But small shops do exist, as we 
 all know, and sometimes persist in existing when the larger ones 
 fail, and it will be almost an anomalous proposition to say that this 
 very expense account gives them a tenure of existence and a chance 
 of success. 
 
 While it follows upward in some proportion as before named, it 
 does not do so from the beginning or from a small shop, but from an 
 aggregation that may be called a works. The unit is of course the 
 work of one man, and, as we all know, one man makes up the 
 working force in many kinds of operations, as in watch and clock 
 repairing shops, dentist offices and country blacksmiths. Some- 
 times in a small machine shop one man may carry on a small busi- 
 ness with his own work. 
 
 The dividing line from which an expense account seems to 
 diminish each way is where the division of labor and processes begin; 
 in a machine business when a clerk, draughtsman, smith and fore- 
 man are required, or, as we may say, for most kinds of manufactur- 
 ing operations when twenty or more men are engaged. 
 
 With a small business, tapering downward, so to speak, from 
 twenty men or so, the expense account begins to drop off. Adver- 
 tising, draughting, superintendence and other expense elements are
 
 WORKS A DMINIS TEA TION. 
 
 avoided, picked up, or added to other service, often contributed out- 
 side of working hours. All of our industries were once carried on 
 in this small manner, and however impractical and inexpedient it 
 may be now there was much to commend it in respect to certain 
 social relations it brought about. 
 
 In the older countries the system of segregated industry, watch 
 making in Switzerland, for example, many industries at Birming- 
 ham, Kngland, and in the northern cities of France, certainly led to 
 many features of social life that are impossible under the factory 
 system. These results are to a great extent exemplified in the agri- 
 cultural pursuits of our own and all other countries at this day. 
 
 As, however, ethical matters do not belong in the present con- 
 nection their discussion can be left to a future place, when methods 
 of discipline and the social relations between owners and the work- 
 men will be considered. But without wholly leaving the present 
 subject of the expense element in manufactures we may proceed to 
 inquire a little into the causes that have so completely changed the 
 methods of industry to the factory system. 
 
 THE FACTORY SYSTEM. 
 
 Chief among these is motive power. When operations of all 
 kinds were performed by hand, a few men, or even one man, could 
 work independently, but when power operations were introduced it 
 required a considerable volume of business to warrant the mainte- 
 nance of a steam engine or water power, so it became necessary to 
 increase the size of works, and when increased from this cause up to 
 what might be called a full works a further increase was demanded 
 to diminish the expense account and other elements of production. 
 
 Another cause of aggregation was in implements. An expensive 
 machine or tool may be required for some operation, and to provide 
 such a tool without loss it requires to be kept at work. This is true 
 of a great many implements, and unless kept at work they slide over 
 into the expense account and eat up profits at an alarming rate. It 
 was this fact more than any other that brought about tool combina- 
 tion and combined machines, which is to form an important part of 
 these lectures when we come to manipulative processes. 
 
 Another and principal cause of aggregation in industry, or the 
 factory system, as it is sometimes called, may be noticed here,. 
 especially as it has a direct bearing upon the expense element in 
 manufactures, that of the division of skill on the grounds of 
 dexterity. This matter will never be better or more ably presented
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 than it was a century and a quarter ago by that remarkable man, 
 Adam Smith, who, in his Inquiry Into the Wealth of Nations, used 
 the manufacture of common pins, as then carried on, to show the 
 effect produced by a division of skill. 
 
 At that time pins were cut from wire, the points were formed by 
 hand, and the heads made by means of open collars bent to a circle 
 and forced on to form a head. One man performing all these differ- 
 ent operations could make only a few dozen pins in a day, but when 
 one man cut off the wire, another pointed the pieces, a third coiled 
 the heads, and a fourth put the heads on, the average production by 
 reason of special skill was increased five fold, and the cost was 
 wonderfully reduced in this way. 
 
 There are, however, many reasons for the aggregation of indus- 
 try, too many to be mentioned even, but at this day one of a potent 
 nature, quite unknown a quarter of a century ago, is that of 
 extensive combination between works of one kind or class with a 
 view to monopoly, but generally under the pretense of reducing the 
 expense element in manufacture. 
 
 I have merely touched upon some of the conditions that affect 
 expense, but have presented enough no doubt to show its com- 
 plexity. The rest must be left to your own investigation, with the 
 assurance, however, that while the expense account in a particular 
 business or establishment may be very nearly determined, there is 
 no set rule that will cover all or even many cases. 
 
 There is a rough rule for determining expense and profit together, 
 followed in a large number of cases, that applies in machine shops 
 making a miscellaneous line of work, a kind of lazy man's rule, 
 but convenient withal, and much better than no rule at all. It is 
 that of adding a percentage to the labor account to cover profit and 
 expense. A common way is to double the wages account, and add 
 it to the material to make up prime cost and profit. Material bearing 
 what we call a fixed component, and labor bearing a very constant 
 proportion to expense, it is evident that a rule of the kind above 
 named will answer tolerably well in average works, but for any kind 
 of regular manufacture in which commodities are duplicated, and this 
 is the only kind of work to which the term manufacture applies, 
 the amount set off for expense and profit by this rule is too great. 
 
 When there is kept a net or specific expense account to cover 
 certain things, estimating the cost of work becomes more difficult, 
 or rather is more extensive, but is more exact. In some works, 
 especially large works, the expense account falls as low as fifteen
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 per cent, of prime cost, that is, the components included in this 
 account do not exceed fifteen per cent., and a good many things 
 properly expense are charged under other heads. Among such 
 items, and especially in this country, is the use and maintenance of 
 capital. Use meaning the interest on investment, and maintenance 
 the assurance against risk. Both these things will be considered 
 under the head of capital in a future place. 
 
 One reason for lumping labor, expense and profit in one 
 account for the purpose of estimating, is the difficulty of determin- 
 ing what net labor cost or wages amount to. It is customary, as 
 you all know, to furnish workmen with what are called time tickets, 
 on which are entered each day the hours and fractions of hours the 
 men have been engaged on certain jobs in the works. 
 
 The sum of time on these tickets is made up by the clerks and 
 charged to the different jobs, also compared with the time roll 
 or general time account and wages account, so that when any work 
 is completed it is easy to make up the exact amount of wages paid 
 out for the work, but the amount thus found will not do to enter in a 
 prime cost account. There are a good many things to add to it. 
 Among these are management or superintendence, accidents and 
 mistakes, inefficiency, apprentice work, holiday privileges, and 
 other things that properly belong to the labor element, but may be, 
 as before explained, included in an expense account. 
 
 THE RELATIONS OF SKILLED LABOR. 
 
 The labor component in skilled production presents at this time 
 the greatest social problem that has ever confronted the world. 
 Previous social problems that have led to the slaughter of thousands 
 or even of millions of people, and have destroyed and upraised 
 States and Empires, have always had their root in oppression that 
 denied physical comforts and rights to laboring people, but now the 
 problem has assumed a new phase, and is argued upon the rights 
 and relations of labor compared to the rights of investment, com- 
 mercial skill, and the division of profits. 
 
 It will not be proper to include in these lectures a consideration 
 of the social and economic relations of skilled labor. The subject is 
 too broad, and far beyond the powers of any one to discern and 
 explain at this time, but it will be proper to treat upon the technical 
 causes, they may be called, that lie at the bottom of labor disturb- 
 ance in skilled industry the world over. 
 
 These causes lie mainly in the works, or in the working rela-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 tions of men, we may call it, and rise out of the labor component in 
 production, how it is managed and paid for. In the first place, and as 
 the main fact of all, must be considered the altered relations that 
 workmen bear to the processes of production and to their employers. 
 It is not very long ago that skill meant manual dexterity and empir- 
 ical knowledge. The consideration returned for wages was manual 
 skill, qualified by experience. A man was much like a machine, 
 capable of higher powers to be sure, but his main functions were 
 those of a machine. 
 
 This placed the workmen in the social scale next to the slave, 
 where he remained for centuries. The master did not own his per- 
 son, but owned his time, which was paid for by the day, week or 
 month, without any defined or definable measure of what the work- 
 man should do for his wages. The incentives to work were his 
 sense of honor, necessity of his wages and the fear of losing his 
 employment. Not very high incentives one may say, but all that 
 exist in a time-pay system, yet prevalent all over the world, but no 
 doubt to end before very long in a more equitable and logical relation 
 between skilled labor, capital and community. 
 
 Time labor, or the employment of men's time in productive 
 work, or in work determinable in the terms of production, is an 
 anomaly. The things employed are not only manual and empirical 
 knowledge, but also, and in many cases mainly, inductive and 
 deductive mental skill ranking with or above the commercial conduct 
 of a business. 
 
 Men are no longer machines. We have the machines separate 
 from the men, and employ the latter to contrive and direct the 
 machines. This in skilled industry places workmen in a new and 
 higher position socially, or should so place them. But there is one 
 impediment to this, one that is not commonly known or recognized, 
 that of the slowness with which all social changes take place. 
 
 A period of fifty years has been enough to change nearly all the 
 processes and methods of manufacture, calling for an entirely new 
 relation of workmen to their employers and to community; but fifty 
 years can work but little change in social relations. It is not two 
 generations, and there are men living now and working who were 
 reared and learned their art under circumstances that have passed 
 away. The progress made by science and in the mechanic arts has 
 no such limit of time. In ten years "the change is more than a 
 century can produce in the social relations of men. Science and 
 discovery outrun social change in such degree as to prevent compari- 
 son, hence the unrest and disturbance abroad in the land.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Looking at the problem practically it may be observed that each 
 year, each essay, and each investigation brings us nearer to the fact 
 that time work must cease in our skilled industries. Down to a few 
 years ago no one had perceived this. The existence of some dis- 
 turbing cause was plain enough in the discontent and demands of 
 labor, but the real cause was not suspected. Various schemes of a 
 paternal nature, such as profit sharing, were and are still urged as a 
 remedy for labor disaffection, and in some cases, when carried out in 
 good faith, have been successful in so far as preventing strikes, but 
 such means are only palliative so long as labor is paid by time and 
 workmen are not made responsible. 
 
 In this term " responsible " lies the secret of the whole matter, 
 the distinction between slavery, time service, and contract service. I 
 will attempt to make it clear by means of the internal relations of a 
 work shop, and must remind you that it is a very practical question 
 that you will find is one to be dealt with in a serious manner, and 
 very soon in this and all other countries where skilled industry is 
 carried on. 
 
 To prove the pressing nature of this problem, I need only refer 
 you to the department in the principal technical journals of 
 England, embracing from one- to three pages in each issue, under 
 the head of ' ' Industrial News, ' ' and to the existence of labor 
 bureaus in at least a dozen States in this country, and a National 
 Bureau, at Washington, devoted to the same subject; also to societies 
 formed to promote means for the avoidance of labor dissensions, and 
 the publication of a journal directed to profit sharing with many other 
 panaceas for labor disturbance. 
 
 As before remarked, we cannot enter into the ethical, social and 
 economic phases of the labor problem, further than it is connected 
 with works administration and the practical conduct of industry ( 
 but this will be a good way, because it is to be questioned if all the 
 writing, speaking and philosophizing about labor relations for the 
 past ten years has done so much toward a solution and settlement of 
 the problem as a single one out of a number of shop experiments 
 made in this and other countries. 
 
 Of particular cases we will speak farther on when some previous 
 consideration of the subject will prepare us to understand the nature 
 of the experiments made. To begin with, we may classify skilled 
 service under four heads: 
 
 First. slave/y, where the workman is wholly irresponsible. 
 
 Second. time service, where he is partially responsible.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Third. piece work, where he is responsible for his own work 
 alone. 
 
 Fourth. contract work, where the whole working force is 
 collectively responsible. 
 
 Now these four methods or systems of service have the measure 
 of responsibilty named, from nothing to all. Responsibility is the 
 key to all human actions that are voluntary and not a sequence of 
 necessity. This proposition may seem a strange one, but it is 
 certainly true. Whether it be a cause or sequence, or both, we need 
 not stop to inquire so long as we find it the constant characteristic 
 of contented and efficient effort on the part of those employed. 
 
 In respect to slavery, that no longer exists as a provision of law 
 in any country where skilled industry is extensively carried on, 
 and we need only to refer to it in illustration. The slave is not 
 responsible for the product of his labor. It may be more or less in 
 proportion to what his master gives in return, but personally the 
 slave is not responsible, because not a free agent. Emulation, 
 respect, and a sense of duty may in a limited degree enter into his 
 incentives, but the subordination of his will and fear of punishment, 
 are the main causes that enforce service. The system has happily 
 passed out of the world in so far as pursuits involving skill, not as 
 a deliberate policy so much as by the force of circumstances. I am 
 old enough to have seen a good deal of it in this country, and 
 learned some lessons that may unconsciously enter into views now 
 being laid before you. 
 
 Time work, wherein the workman is paid for a term of service, 
 yet the most common form of employment, stands next to slavery. 
 Not near to it perhaps, but next in the movement toward responsi- 
 bility, and is practicable only because of a sense of personal honor 
 and of justice due to the high degree of civilization existing in 
 countries where skilled industries are carried on. 
 
 Workmen under this system are responsible so far as their sense 
 of honor and emulative pride produces responsibility, but no farther. 
 A man is hired by the hour, day, week, or month, but the contract 
 is indeterminate. If he spoils his work or fails to render such 
 service as common custom demands, he can be discharged and 
 nothing more. If he spoils work or fails by incompetence to earn 
 his wages and a profit for his employer, it makes no difference, the 
 law will give him his wages irrespective of everything but wilful 
 negligence and the malicious destruction of his employer's property. 
 
 What a remarkable compliment to the integrity and good faith
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 of the skilled workmen of our time ! Contrast it with the usages of 
 common trade. If exchanges were to the same extent based on 
 good faith and manly honor, would a like result follow ? I am not 
 claiming that faithful service is always rendered from honorable and 
 unselfish motives. The penalty of discharge is always present, and 
 the sentiments engendered by unions or trade organizations are often 
 independent of any interest in employers or of community outside of 
 the union, but we can only wonder that the circumstances are not 
 worse when the nature and manner of controlling service by time 
 pay are considered. 
 
 EXISTING METHODS OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 The present extent of time work in skilled industries is a strong 
 argument as to its necessity under modern circumstances, but it 
 is not universal, and is constantly becoming less so. Greater pro- 
 gress would have been made toward a better system long ago had it 
 not been for the strong efforts that have been made toward paternal 
 systems, such as profit sharing, by earnest and philanthropic men in 
 most cases, but mistakenly in so far as meeting the real causes that 
 lie at the bottom of labor dissension. 
 
 Such a proposition as this needs some defense, and in that way 
 one may ask, what have workmen to do with profits not earned by 
 their efforts and skill ? Only a part of the profits in an establish- 
 ment are thus earned. They depend on a good many things beside 
 faithful and efficient labor, and if profits not so earned are divided 
 with workmen, it is a gift or bribe that destroys independence and 
 responsibility. Workmen of our day do not want such favors. 
 What they want and need is justice, fair dealing and responsibility 
 for what they themselves perform and produce. They have as much 
 reason to risk their labor as an employer has to risk his capital, 
 service, management and implements, and all that is wanted is to 
 segregate the labor component, and let it rest upon its own responsi- 
 bility, and do away so far as possible with a time system of service. 
 It is degrading in the skilled industries of our time, and while it 
 cannot be at once removed, a beginning can be made, and above all 
 we can study its nature and effects in the labor problems now con- 
 vulsing the industrial world. 
 
 Next we will consider the piece work system, by which is meant 
 personal contracts with particular workmen a mixed system in 
 which a part of he working force is made responsible, and the rest 
 is employed on the time method. This is a bad system in many
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 ways, condemned by the trade unions for many reasons. In the first 
 place it is discriminating and unequal, and secondly there is no im- 
 partial standard from which prices can be determined. The rate is 
 a matter of chance, depending on the whim, choice or conscience of 
 the employer. .It is a provincial idea, so to speak, and is a crude 
 effort toward a contract system. It increases the responsibility of 
 workmen without adding to their independence, does not succeed 
 unless very carefully adjusted, and is unnecessary. 
 
 We are well aware of the extent to which it has been carried out 
 in various shops, especially in New England, but if one will look 
 into the matter carefully it will be found that wherever successful, 
 there has been some features of a contract system involved that 
 modified discrimination among the men, and that rates were not 
 fixed by accident or independently in each shop. It is an undemo- 
 cratic idea, not consistent with the spirit of our times, and will, no 
 doubt, pass away for something better in the future; not very soon, 
 perhaps, because these customs are tenacious. 
 
 The next system of service, if that term applies, is what has 
 been called the contract system, or as we may call it, the responsible 
 system, in which labor is set off as an independent element in pro- 
 duction. This will consume some time, and is well worthy of it, 
 because there is no one here who will go out into the activities of 
 the industrial world without having to face and deal with the labor 
 problem. It will be discussed widely, and press more and more for 
 solution, as education and competition goes on. 
 
 The conflict between capital and labor, that many prophesy, has 
 no grounds in fair inference, if reason and fairness are permitted to 
 enter into the controversy. To assume anything else is to accuse 
 skilled men of being vicious, unfair and ignorant; also is to accuse 
 employers of being dishonest and illogical. There is no need of a 
 labor war in the sense of violence, or even of disturbance of our 
 manufacturing industries, to which labor dissensions are now princi- 
 pally confined. 
 
 To make clear what is meant by a contract system of labor, the 
 best way will be to illustrate it by an assumed example, and as one 
 class of manufactures is as good as another, one of the most familiar, 
 a joiner works, will answer the purpose. 
 
 In a factory of this kind is prepared all kinds of timber, house 
 furnishing material, such as flooring, ceiling, doors, sash, frames, 
 mouldings, and so on. All these things have regular prices, because 
 made very uniform for average houses, and there are price lists pub-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 lished that apply over wide districts, and for some things, like doors, 
 sash mouldings and flooring, the lists apply to the whole country 
 within reasonable distances of transportation. The work, when not 
 included in the price lists, is made to estimates in which the labor is 
 always made up as a separate item, and the labor in listed articles is 
 either known or ascertainable in all establishments; is better known 
 indeed than the other elements of material and expense that must be 
 included in estimates. 
 
 Suppose then that a joiner works is to be established, and the 
 owners instead of hiring men by time to do the work, establish a con- 
 tract system for the labor. The men are employed as in any other 
 case, and are permitted to draw a certain amount of money each 
 week in proportion to the usual wages paid in such establishments, 
 but are informed that work is all contracted to the men, or to the 
 shop, as we would say, and whatever money was advanced for wages 
 would be deducted from the sum due at the end of the week or 
 month for work turned out. The men being apprised of or already 
 knowing the rate for making standard work, no difficulty would 
 arise from this, and as all irregular or special work would have to 
 be estimated and include the element of labor, that amount could be 
 posted in the works, or entered in a book kept by the foreman and 
 accessible to the workmen. Bach man would, as is the present 
 custom, enter each day on his time card the number of hours 
 engaged on different jobs, which would, as is also the custom in 
 most places, have a catalogue or order number, that would be 
 entered on the tickets, with the time given to that number or order. 
 
 The whole shop is now working on the contract system. Every 
 man, boy and apprentice is included, and at the end of a month, 
 a week, or at any other time convenient, the completed work is 
 made up and compared with the amount paid out in advances to the 
 men. If there is a balance due them it is divided pro rata among 
 all in proportion to their rank as indicated by the weekly or daily 
 wages on which the advances are made. If there is a deficit the men 
 must make it good by a corresponding reduction. 
 
 All losses by accident, carelessness or inefficiency of the men 
 should be made good to the firm or company, and all losses charge- 
 able to the owners by detention, want of material or implements, or 
 accidents due the plant, would have to be made good to the men. 
 If a man seeking work represents himself falsely as to his skill or 
 rank, the owners need not concern themselves about that. The men 
 in the works wifl attend to that matter, because if rated above his
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 capacity he would be imposing on all the rest, and lowering their 
 wages. 
 
 The establishment would be cooperative, divided into two depart- 
 ments or interests closely allied and interdependent. The workmen 
 would have nothing to do with profits, risks or capital, except to 
 help sustain these as a foundation for their own part, the labor, and 
 their profits would depend on their own efforts and skill. No fore- 
 man to watch the men would be required. They would do the 
 watching themselves, and do it in an effective manner. Drones 
 would be weeded out, or what is more likely, they would be 
 reformed, or not exist at all under such a system. The working 
 force would be independent, interested and responsible. If a man 
 needed assistance or favor, the whole force could extend it by giving 
 him easy work, or in other ways. It is an ideal system, but would 
 be pronounced by a good many impracticable, and as some answer 
 must be made to objections I will begin by an illustration. 
 
 Many years ago I had the misfortune of attending a political 
 convention composed of all kinds of people, all of whom were pre- 
 sumed to understand laws, legislation and the general conduct of 
 the Nation. The chairman, as now remembered, was the keeper of 
 a livery stable, a loud, positive man, who was emphatic and final in 
 his rulings. Some one moved the previous question and cut off 
 debate in some motion that was passed, but a member arose and pro- 
 tested that under the circumstances this could not be done. The 
 chairman arose in his wrath, and said: " Why, you ass, it has been 
 done. ' ' 
 
 This applies to the contract system of labor. It has been done, 
 not in one instance, but in hundreds of cases, and thousands of men 
 are working on this method at this time. Not only this, other sys- 
 tems with a similar object infinitely more intricate and difficult have 
 been in use for years, as witness the paper of Mr. F. W. Taylor, of 
 Philadelphia, on "A Piece Rate System of Labor, " read before the 
 American Society of Mechanical Engineers, at the Detroit meeting 
 in June of the present year. 
 
 I may also refer to an essay of my own, prepared some months 
 ago for the editor of the American Machinist, and republished in 
 "INDUSTRY " for January and February, 1895. In this article are 
 a number of facts bearing upon the contract system of labor, also 
 an explanation of it much fuller than the plan of these lectures will 
 permit. 
 
 It must be admitted that a good deal of time and education would
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION, 13 
 
 be required to introduce the system. All changes that affect the 
 social and economic conditions of people come about very slowly 
 but certainly if founded in expediency, justice and proper objects. 
 The impediments are many, and not to consume more time here it is 
 suggested that objections handed in will be answered as well as pos- 
 sible at a future lecture. 
 
 One more thing in this connection ; the most important of all, 
 indeed. What would be the effect of a contract system on- strikes 
 and labor dissensions ? The answer will be found by searching for 
 causes of dissension in such a system, and the circumstances under 
 which a strike or quarrel could occur, and it will be hard to find or 
 imagine. There has to be various things settled, as experience has 
 proved, but there is no difficulty in that, and here again I must 
 quote the chairman of the political convention. I have had the 
 honor to sit as judge in cases of dispute under the contract system, 
 and must admit that the duty was congenial and easy. The thing 
 has been done. No class of men in the world are so amenable to 
 reason, logic and common fairness as mechanics. Their calling 
 demands the continual exercise of reasoning powers, and is devoid 
 of sophistry, deceit and cunning, common in many other callings, 
 such as small trading and trade soliciting as carried on at this day. 
 This I assert on the authority of an experience of thirty years in 
 the works, all the time in charge of men, and an inability now to 
 recall in all that experience a single case of unreasonable demands, 
 a strike even, or other trouble that led to the loss of so much as one 
 dollar. 
 
 MATERIAL AS A COMPONENT. 
 
 It may seem tedious that in all this time we have got no farther 
 than estimating and prime cost, but these are very important mat- 
 ters, are indeed the very foundation of successful administration of 
 a works, hence must be carefully gone into. 
 
 The third component, material, need not detain us long. It is 
 an element that is to a great degree determinable by simple means 
 in so far as value or price, the two qualifying conditions being cost 
 and waste. There is also in the matter of material wide problems 
 of an engineering nature, but these have been so ably treated here 
 by Prof. Smith, and laid down in his writings on the subject, that 
 in so far as metals it is only necessary to refer to his treatise on 
 " The Materials of Construction," published here in 1893. 
 
 The economic problems are quality and waste, and the first is 
 so nearly the same as adaptability that we may assume that this too
 
 14 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 is included in Professor Smith's lectures. Wastes are determinate 
 by records. By waste is meant what is cut away by cold shaping, 
 by oxidation, and other losses, also in moulding; is the difference, 
 so to speak, between the stock-room and warehouse weights. 
 
 The wastes in wood, iron and steel are between ten and twenty 
 per cent, in machine construction, when there are fitted and finished 
 parts, but as estimating is usually done on gross weights, or 
 should be so done, there are no allowances except for spoiled 
 or broken parts. By no allowance is meant special allowance, 
 because in estimating, the weight of a shaft for example, the con- 
 tour or rough dimensions are assumed, but if the shaft is ten feet 
 long, and if the bar from which it must be cut is twelve feet long, 
 there is a waste of one sixth, less the scrap value of what is cut off. 
 The piece may be used for some other purpose, but it must be 
 stored, remembered and probably cut again. To weld snch pieces 
 will cost the difference between their value in a bar and as scrap, so 
 it is waste at any rate, and should be so regarded. 
 
 These remarks, which are only in illustration, are preliminary to 
 suggesting that in estimating for common machinery there should 
 be added about five per cent, for the waste of material, counting 
 from prepared castings, from metal in bars, and other material in 
 corresponding condition. 
 
 The methods of arriving at the amount of material consumed in 
 work are various. A common one is to weigh in all kinds of ma- 
 terial as it is used; another is to weigh the completed work, add for 
 waste, and then make up separately the brass, screws, lining metal 
 and so on, and deduct these to find the weight of frames, but on the 
 whole it may be doubted if any rules that could be given here 
 will have much value. The matter should be left to the judgment 
 and ingenuity of each person to work out in their own way. One 
 thing, however, may be noticed, that is the method of computing 
 weights, or rather the " habit " of computing weights, because the 
 method is a kind of mental mensuration that enables one to guess 
 very closely the weight of a structure of any kind. 
 
 In England this work of taking out weights has become a special 
 calling, done by what are called " quantity clerks," who become so 
 expert by the use of rules, tables, implements and memory that 
 weights are arrived at with great rapidity; so also other things, such 
 as the amount of work involved, computed from the surfaces turned, 
 bored, planed or finished, the number of screws, nuts, tapped holes, 
 rough drilling, and so on.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 15 
 
 I was present same years ago when Prof. Hesse, of the Uni- 
 versity of California, was called in to examine the armature of one 
 of the first alternating dynamos sent to this Coast, which went to 
 pieces, cutting off beams, going through walls, and smashing vari- 
 ous things in the plane of its rotation. The parts were hunted up 
 as far as possible, some of them being found in an adjoining 
 enclosure across the street. The manager of the works proposed to 
 weigh them, but Prof. Hesse said: "That is useles, the weights 
 arise out of dimensions, and will be found easier in that way." 
 
 A good way to manage for rough weights is to have castings 
 and forgings weighed and marked as they leave the smith shop and 
 foundry, and the weights charged to the work in process. This is 
 essential in a works where the labor is performed under a contract 
 system, because the machine-shop weights must correspond to the 
 foundry weights, which are paid for by the ton, with a division into 
 classes. 
 
 In the management of a works of any kind the principal thing 
 about materials is to have them at hand ready. It is hard to 
 impress any one, not experienced, with the importance of this, and 
 it would be incredible if there was some way of showing the losses 
 that actually occur from a failure to have material and stores ready 
 when required. In a shop experience of some years on this Coast, 
 this of all things caused the greatest annoyance. Perhaps some 
 account of this will offer a suggestion. 
 
 It was at first a daily if not an hourly occurrence for the tool and 
 store keeper to report : " We are out of half-inch washers; there is 
 no emery cloth; the twelve-inch bastard files are out; there is no 
 waste; certain sizes of tool steel are all used up," and so on. 
 Inquiry and scolding did no good. The thing went on with con- 
 siderable loss each day, and was clearly a fault of management. 
 The store keeper, who was a very conscientious man, came in one 
 day to report that some stores were wanting. "Go and procure 
 them," was the instruction, " and mark off your time card, now and 
 in future, all the time down to minutes that you spend in going after 
 things in working hours, and as soon as your cards are clear of such 
 charges your wages can be raised, because of the saving effected in 
 the shop." The entries for lost time soon disappeared.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 3. October 31st, 1895. 
 
 It was foreseen at the beginning that there would be much 
 difficulty in arranging these lectures in sections that would each 
 embrace one subject. This would be desirable on many grounds, 
 but is found impossible, because of the diversity of the topics and 
 the different amount of attention they require. 
 
 In the present lecture and supplementary to the last one, will be 
 a short essay on capital, as an element in skilled industry, and then 
 will follow the first of the practical sections, dealing with plant, 
 implements and processes. This second section will relate to what 
 is technically called handling. 
 
 THE RELATIONS OF CAPITA!,. 
 
 It has been shown that under a contract system of skilled work 
 the men do not deal directly with capital, that being the care of 
 owners, but everyone in a works, no matter what their position may 
 be, is interested in capital indirectly, because without this there can 
 be no works' either in organization or implements; besides, the
 
 WOR KS A DM IN IS TRA 2 ION. 
 
 students here may stand in the relation of owners, managers, 
 draughtsmen, clerks, or workmen, and in all these positions it is 
 desirable if not essential, to have some intelligent views of capital, 
 the same as of material, implements arid management, that is, of the 
 relations of capital. 
 
 This is especially desirable in this country, where it is common 
 to balance the use ofcapital against other considerations, making 
 that a permanent element instead of an employed one. 
 
 In the first place we will inquire what the term capital implies or 
 includes in a manufacturing business, and here we may say as to 
 the nature of capital, most of the explanations handed down by 
 economists are not very complimentary to their understanding of the 
 subject. In this remark, however, must be omitted Dr. Adam 
 Smith. 
 
 Smith, as before mentioned, who in his great work, An Inquiry 
 Into the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, says that "capital is 
 the productive investment in a business; that part which is actively 
 employed to earn profit." These are not the words, but the sub- 
 stance of his definition, and it is quite correct, but as before 
 intimated, there have been long dissertations on the subject, in 
 which men differed, down to the time of Mr. Henry George, who 
 set this matter at rest forever in a single sentence. " Capital," said 
 he, "is what is written in the capital account." 
 
 The whole mass of literature on this subject beside, does not 
 afford the light that these few words do. In the abstract, such a 
 simple statement as this would seem trivial, but in the light of what 
 preceded by other economists, the words are a revelation. 
 
 People engaged in business have an interest in this problem, and 
 it is necessary to know in the accounts what is capital and what is 
 not. It is common to segregate this element from others and write 
 it in a "Capital Account." This is what Henry George meant, 
 not that the capital account included what was used as capital^ 
 which is self evident, but that the things included or listed in this 
 account are such as have been disputed over. As remarked, every 
 business has, or ought to have, a capital account covering invest- 
 ment in buildings, implements, and all the agencies of production 
 owned, but not merchandise, material or wages. 
 
 This later statement may appear puzzling to those who have not 
 given previous attention to the subject, because, as all know, it 
 requires a fund to purchase and hold material, also to advance wages 
 for a time, or during the progress of constructing some work, but
 
 WORKS A DMINI8 TRA TION. 
 
 neither of these things are capital. In some cases there is no 
 material to provide. The mineral reduction mills at Virginia City, 
 Nevada, and custom mills of this kind elsewhere, are an example. 
 The material is furnished by others, and the mill owners provide 
 only implements, labor and expense. The same is true of custom 
 grinding wheat, and many other operations that will occur to you, 
 where the material is sent in to be treated and returned in kind or 
 in results. 
 
 If the owner of a works purchases material he does not pass the 
 purchase to the capital account, but to the merchandise account, 
 which is debited to the amount of the purchase, and credited again 
 when the material enters into work made and sold, so the use of the 
 capital or the material is more in the form of a loan or credit, the 
 real manufacture relating to changes made in the material, such as 
 converting 'cotton or wool into cloth; or iron, steel or brass into 
 machinery. What the manufacturer employs is the use of the 
 money so invested for the time between the purchase of material and 
 its sale again as a product of the works. 
 
 This use of capital, if there has been no change in the price of 
 material, is chargeable with interest for the time, but the investment, 
 or use of capital as we are now terming it, may be a source of profit 
 or of loss by reason of fluctuations in the price of material held. If, 
 for example, a machine-making firm or company purchases iron at 
 fifteen dollars per ton, and during the time of its conversion the 
 price of iron rises to twenty dollars a ton, the gain of five dollars on 
 each ton is not the result of manufacturing, but a profit of trading 
 in merchandise, and conversely, if there is loss by reason of a fall in 
 prices, the loss should go either to loss, or to expense as an element 
 of risk. 
 
 These things will be made more plain by noticing the methods 
 of use, or in other words, the organization of a business in respect to 
 capital. In this country the shares or interests in a business are 
 commonly based on capital, that is, the ownership of a business and 
 a division of profits is as the capital provided by the partners in a 
 firm. This is not always the case, but is common, and the usual 
 idea of business ventures in skilled industries in this country. The 
 reasons for this are no doubt the risks involved in such business 
 owing to fluctuations in prices and in other ways, and on that 
 ground may be fair and equitable. 
 
 It is easy to perceive that logical!}' considered, and aside from 
 special risk, that is, risk not covered by the rate of interest, capital
 
 WORKS A DM I N 1ST R A T10N. 
 
 is an element that has nothing directly to do with personal interests 
 in a skilled manufacture, and this is very nearly the case in founding 
 an engineering business in England. 
 
 The partners or owners are expected to contribute skill, service 
 and connection, and on this the business is founded. If the partners 
 own capital, they can invest it or not. It is hired from the partners, 
 some one else, or from a bank; standing in the same relation as 
 implements, buildings, and so on. 
 
 It is easy to perceive the effect of this. Chemists, shoemakers 
 and farmers do not engage in engineering manufactures, as they 
 may and sometimes do in this country. In great firms like Mauds- 
 ley's, Penn's, Tangyes, composed of many members, there will be no 
 one not a mechanic or engineer. 
 
 This is proper and desirable in every way, and will become the 
 rule in this country before long. Circumstances are fast tending in 
 that direction for that class of industry called engineering manu- 
 factures. 
 
 If the technical education sought in this and other institutions of 
 the kind cannot be balanced against capital or commercial skill, its 
 value is doubtful. It is common for men to say " I can hire all the 
 skill I need," but this is not true of the present, and certainly will 
 not be true of the future. 
 
 A man may inherit or purchase an interest in a business already 
 founded, of which he has no technical knowledge, and such business 
 may go on successfully with accession of this kind, but the chances 
 of failure are increased accordingly. 
 
 Before leaving what may be called the economic part of the sub- 
 ject, and supplementary to what has been explained in respect to the 
 four components of production, I wish to point out these com- 
 ponents; material, labor, expense and profit constitute price, or the 
 amount that is paid for commodities. The price for staple commo- 
 dities, such as manufactures of iron, wood, leather, and so on, is 
 fixed in the neutral markets of the world, and not controllable in 
 any one country, except so far as taxed to the people of that coun- 
 try, or as a bounty is paid for production. Thus it will be seen that 
 the whole assumes a mathematical form, that of an equation, in 
 which the price equals the four components named. 
 
 Now it is obvious that these components can be varied relatively 
 without affecting the equation. The price of labor can be increased
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 if a like amount is taken from material, expense or profit, or the 
 price of material can be increased if the increment is taken from 
 labor expense or profit, but change the matter as we may, the aggre- 
 gate must remain the same to balance price. 
 
 It is also obvious that no nation or people have the power to con- 
 trol or much alter the price of staple commodities, and whatever 
 enters the world's markets must be sold at the world's price. The 
 country having the cheapest material, labor and expense will 
 successfully export their products, but when I say cheap labor I 
 do not mean low wages. 
 
 Fifteen years ago wages in the Geneva watch-making industry 
 were in francs about the same as wages were in dollars at Waltham, 
 but the American labor was the cheapest, and watches made at 
 Waltham were sold all over Europe. In England wages are, and 
 have been for a century past, much higher than on the continent of 
 Europe, but the cost of labor was less in England, so that in a divi- 
 sion of these elements or components of skilled production, labor 
 must be considered at its cost, and this has but little to do with a 
 rate of wages. 
 
 HANDLING OPERATIONS. 
 
 Thus far in these lectures on Works Administration the subjects 
 dealt with have been mainly the conditions that attend on adminis- 
 tration, and no doubt less interesting than what we may call practi- 
 cal matters, or the manipulative process of performance. We will 
 now turn to this branch of the subject, and commence with some of 
 the conditions that affect buildings. 
 
 General rules that apply to the arrangement of factories and 
 workshops are not many, as may be inferred from the extreme 
 diversity that exists, but such rules as do apply have no attention to 
 speak of, and it would be hard to name any other thing that is so 
 much lacking in uniformity and design as buildings for industrial 
 purposes. 
 
 There are certain industries, uniform in nature and old in prac- 
 tice, such as cotton spinning and weaving, that one finds housed and 
 arranged in a tolerably uniform manner, especially in Europe, 
 where cotton mills are sometimes torn down and rebuilt to gain a 
 few feet in width demanded by modern machinery for spinning and 
 weaving, but were it not for this obvious condition of fitting the 
 buildings around the machinery it is doubtful if there would be two 
 mills alike even there. .
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Grinding grain is an uniform operation the world over, if we 
 except roller and buhr grinding, yet the mills are built in all con- 
 ceivable forms externally and internally. The causes for this are 
 the absence of rules and information respecting designs, the method 
 of receiving and discharging material, the configuration of ground 
 and its value, and the extension of industries from a small begin- 
 ning by patching on, as it is called. 
 
 With this many reasons, and a good many more not mentioned, 
 diversity is not to be wondered at, but there is at this day some 
 approach to uniform plans for machine fitting shops, that had its 
 origin in England, so far as I know, that of an open central gantry, 
 spanned by overhead traversing cranes, and stages at the sides occu- 
 pied by v machines and fitting conveniences. 
 
 Omitting architecture, the strength of buildings and their founda- 
 tions, the beginning part in planning a works is the handling of 
 material and the completed product, also material during the 
 successive stages of conversion. This is the foundation, so to speak, 
 that must always in a considerable degree affect an expense account 
 and also determine the amount of room required. 
 
 Handling is of two kinds, horizontal and vertical, and it will be 
 new no doubt to claim that vertical handling is not only more con- 
 venient but much less expensive than horizontal handling. As an 
 example, the ore from deep mines is raised at the rate of two to three 
 thousand feet per minute, and in some exceptional cases at a rate of 
 four thousand feet a minute, or a speed exceeding that of common 
 railway trains. Now we all know that material cannot be moved at 
 this rate horizontally, or at less than three times as much expense if 
 loading and discharging are included, and the same thing applies, but 
 in less degree, in a machine works or factory of any kind. 
 
 This fact has become so apparent, in England especially, where 
 room is restricted, that there is but little horizontal moving of 
 machines or material in a works, and the effect of this is much wider 
 than will at first be supposed. For example, whenever material or 
 work has to be moved horizontally on floors, there must be a clear 
 path for such movement, and it is found that in fitting and erecting 
 shops the amount of work produced on a given area can be twice as 
 much as can be done on the same area if the work has to be moved 
 on floors horizontally. 
 
 I have in mind now a works in Salford, England, where the 
 erecting floor is nearly impassible, and where there are left only nar- 
 row passages for the workmen to get out and in. If a machine is to
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 be moved it is lifted vertically over the top of whatever lies in the 
 way, moved to its new position and lowered. If a piece is wanted 
 of a weight exceeding what one man can conveniently carry, the 
 crane attendant is signalled, and he does the handling, not only 
 bringing the piece to where it is wanted, but placing while in sus- 
 pension. 
 
 This matter once made a great impression on my mind at the 
 works referred to. I was being shown over the place by one of the 
 owners, with whom I was well acquainted, and when midway on the 
 erecting floor, where we had made our way with much difficulty, he 
 stopped at the end of a planing machine that stood under the gantry 
 and said: " Now I will show you how we handle things here." He 
 signalled the crane man, toward the cleaning room between the shop 
 and foundry, who came instantly overhead for orders. " Bring top 
 carriage, No. 3, Order 400," said he, and in less than two minutes 
 the piece was overhead descending in front of us, and was laid 
 gently on the planing machine bed, a saddle that weighed several 
 hundred pounds. "Hold on," said he, "we will not want it at 
 present, you may return it." and away it went again, sailing through 
 the air, no one noticing or regarding the matter except ourselves and 
 the man on the crane. 
 
 The overhead cranes were moving continuously from place to 
 place, picking up and placing pieces from a hundred pounds to 
 thousands. This was at the Gresley Iron Works, at present ex- 
 tended and rearranged, but no doubt just as condensed now as then. 
 
 In these works, it may be remarked, were kept the most accurate 
 system of accounts and records that I have ever known in any 
 machine works. The work made is machine tools of a high class, 
 and by a mental estimate made at the time, twenty years ago, and 
 by comparison with the machine-tool works in Philadelphia, the 
 floor space occupied for a given number of men and product was 
 not half as much as in Philadelphia. 
 
 The main factor in this was vertical handling, and it is easy to 
 imagine the effect by comparing with a works provided with ele- 
 vators, but not cranes. The moving of anything on the floors is a 
 difficult matter until an elevator is reached, then all difficulty is 
 ended, except loading on the platform, and this must be included in 
 the horizontal part, because with overhead traversing tackle no 
 loading has to be done. 
 
 There is one expedient for handling that is commonly considered 
 crude, but is in fact orfe of the most important of all, the outside
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 sling hoist. These are commonly contrasted with an inside hoist or 
 elevator as a makeshift apparatus, but in fact are quite a different 
 thing, and should always when possible be provided, unless a crane 
 gantry can be extended out from the front of a building, and even 
 this is not so convenient or capable of doing the work of an outside 
 sling hoist. 
 
 To introduce here another case of experience, and these I am 
 afraid are turning up too frequently in these lectures, I must 
 mention a building erected in San Francisco about twelve years ago, 
 where a sling hoist was placed over the sidewalk. This was against 
 the ordinances of the City, but being in a street not much used the 
 authorities finally consented to the scheme, and a chain was placed 
 five feet away from the building at the front, winding directly on an 
 overhanging drum geared to raise thirty tons. 
 
 Opposite the hoist was a tier of wide doors to three stories, 
 through which material and machines could be passed. The hoist 
 was much criticised, people inquiring why a convenient elevator was 
 not erected inside, but the first load raised gave some light on this 
 problem. 
 
 Some pattern timber was required, and two thousand feet was 
 hauled to the front of the building on a common wagon. A chain 
 was passed around the load a little to one side of the middle, so it 
 would hang diagonally, and the whole load of timber started for the 
 third story. The lower end was swung around into the lowest front 
 door, and slid up along the front of the building until it passed into 
 the third door, then a roller was placed on the door sill, and on 
 lowering, the whole two thousand feet was landed on the third 
 floor without moving a board from where it had been placed in load- 
 ing the wagon. 
 
 Loads could be picked up twenty feet from the building, or 
 loaded on trucks at the same distance, but this was not the only 
 function of the hoist. When the building was erected heavy curved 
 caps of cast iron were placed over the lower and middle front doors, 
 so a rope or chain could be dragged around these caps without 
 injury, and whenever any heavy machine was to be moved in an y 
 part of the floors it was dragged by means of a snatch block and a 
 rope attachment to the outside hoist. We had a complete elevator 
 inside of the building, but it was not thought of for removing mater- 
 ial, being employed for passengers only. 
 
 Overhead traversing cranes are the ideal method for inside hand- 
 ling in machine works of all kinds. They are elevators with lateral
 
 WORKS A DM INI S TRA TION. 
 
 adjustment, so to speak, reach all portions of a floor, and dispense 
 with a half or more of the laboring work that otherwise must be 
 provided. 
 
 There are some fine examples of apparatus in the Union Iron 
 Works, also of radial cranes in the Risdon Iron Works, in San 
 Francisco, and in recent works built in the Eastern States some of 
 the be.st examples in the world of traversing cranes. 
 
 Before leaving this subject of handling as an element of arrange- 
 ment in works, it will be profitable to analyze the operation in a 
 simple way. 
 
 Handling or moving weights consists mainly in opposing and 
 overcoming gravity, a vigilant force acting downward that takes 
 instant advantage of every posssible fault in apparatus. It is the 
 ingenuity of man pitted against Nature. As soon as gravity is 
 overcome, then horizontal movement of a load in so far as resistance 
 has only machine and air friction to contend with, but there is the 
 impediment of shifting the elements of sustension. 
 
 If a weight is to be raised in one line, then attachment to any 
 permanent part of a building is sufficient, but if lateral movement is 
 also required, this introduces a new set of conditions, and calls for 
 very different apparatus, a girder or projecting beam must be called 
 in. A radial crane is a projecting beam on a vertical axis, around 
 which the beam and load can be revolved, the service being in cir- 
 cles; but the traversing crane, which is of the girder type, moves in 
 two horizontal planes, and serves a rectangular space, and as work- 
 shops are rectangular there is better adaptation. 
 
 There is the further difference that the range or area served by a 
 traversing crane is limited only by the length of the span one way. 
 and the length of the ways in the other direction. I do not say 
 " track," not knowing any authority except that of local custom for 
 substituting the old word "way," from German weg, by "track," 
 which means properly the imprint of the foot of an animal. 
 
 A radial crane is, however, limited by the strains, deflection and 
 other, that permit but a short range, and to serve a floor of any con- 
 siderable area requires a system of such cranes so placed that the 
 circles swept will intersect, and loads can be transferred from one 
 crane to another. This was the method in this country down to 
 a very recent time, and is now the most common, but is destined to 
 soon disappear because of inconvenience and the lateral strains 
 upon buildings. It is obvious that the top fulcrum of any pillar or 
 swing crane must bear^lateral strain as the horizontal and vertical 
 
 4055W
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 components, often equalling the whole load, and if a load is swung 
 the direction of this strain follows the gib, radial from the axis of 
 revolution, pulling the framing and walls of a building in all 
 directions. 
 
 In the travelling or traversing type of cranes the strains are ver- 
 tical, and there is no requirement for the great lateral stability of 
 buildings that raidial or swing cranes demand, a very important 
 matter that may amount to a difference of a quarter or more in the 
 cost of such buildings. 
 
 There is no longer any good reason for erecting fixed radial 
 cranes. Their cost, even without provision to support them, is at 
 this day nearly as much as for traversing cranes, and if there is 
 added the expense of provision for lateral support, the radial cranes 
 then cost a good deal more. 
 
 A portable derrick crane deriving its stability from its foothold, 
 to so term it, is a different matter, because the function of travers- 
 ing is added, and the lateral range in one direction is increased 
 indefinitely so that cranes of this kind are the most common of all, 
 and if we include kinds of service such a crane becomes a hybred 
 between the radial and traversing types. Such cranes are not suited 
 for use in a works, because their stability being derived from their 
 foothold they require a wide path on the floor that cannot be spared, 
 hence we see cranes of this kind commonly called into use for all 
 kinds of out-door service. 
 
 ' It will be proper in this connection to say something of the 
 handling faculty, that is, the inception or preception of means and 
 methods. 
 
 We have heard a good deal recently of the "inventive faculty," 
 and discussion of the problem whether the ability to invent new 
 things is an intuitive faculty or merely the methodical exercise of 
 skill and experience. I am much inclined to the latter view of the 
 matter, but always in thinking of the thing connect it with the 
 handling faculty. Any one of experience in a works will bear out 
 the proposition that some men seem to know intuitively how to 
 handle and move heavy things and others do not. The best work- 
 men, those skilled in all other matters, are often less capable of 
 handling than a laborer who has this peculiar faculty, and what is 
 more strange, the unsafe men never seem to learn. 
 
 In a works at San Francisco, where I had charge some years ago, 
 we had a line of work that severely taxed our handling facilities. 
 We constructed the main part of one machine tool that weighed 119
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 tons, and made many more of large weight. A portion of the work 
 had to be raised to the . fourth floor, and the handling was a source 
 of constant anxiety. The mechanics were called in sometimes to 
 help, and among the rest a young man who operated a planing 
 machine. He was selected because of his deliberate manner and 
 good judgment. He seemed to peceive at once when he glanced at 
 a mass where its center of gravity was, and where to hitch on with 
 the most convenience and safety. The strength of sling chains and 
 ropes, the kind of knots and fastening, the danger of corners cutting 
 through slings and obstructions, all seemed clear to him, and in a 
 week from the first experiment he was put in charge of all the 
 handling, and moved all the heavy weights for years while engaged 
 as a planer. 
 
 A main thing in handling by power is to keep men out of the 
 way. Mr. Gilbride, the man I have been speaking of, never wanted 
 but one man to assist him, and often no one at all. He wanted no 
 risks he said, and every man added increased the risk. 
 
 It will not be hard to understand this. Each man is in a sense an 
 independent machine, controlled to some extent by his own judg- 
 ment. His muscular power, except for adjustment, is of no impor- 
 tance whatever in machine handling. The point is to direct the 
 piece of machinery, and the fewer men for this purpose the better. 
 It is true there are a long train of expedients, thousands in number, 
 that must be either invented or learned by observation, many of 
 them simple, and some of them intricate. One I will describe in 
 illustration. 
 
 In former times a great deal of timber was sawn in the forests by 
 hand with what are called whip saws, yet employed in Asiatic coun- 
 tries, and sometimes for very long timber in this country. Among 
 other things thus prepared are boat gunwales for floating or flat- 
 boats, often eighty to one hundred feet long. The balk or beam 
 from which the gunwales are made is from eighteen to twenty-two 
 inches square. This balk has to be raised about seven feet above 
 the ground, so the pit-sawyer or under man could stand clear and 
 have a sweep above his head, the other sawyer standing on top. 
 
 These balks are raised easily by "cribbing," it is called, build- 
 ing up a rectangular pen of short pieces about three feet long, and 
 then rocking and raising one end of the beam at a time. If this 
 crib is three feet square, and the balk is balanced across it, the mid- 
 dle section over the crib will contain only five or six cubic feet, 
 which at fifty pounds to* a cubic foot would require but 250 to 300
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 pounds to tip the beam either way, so that two men by walking on 
 the top to either end would depress it so that a new piece or stick 
 can be inserted at the opposite side of the crib, and thus by tipping 
 the beam first one way and then the other the crib is built up 
 rapidly to the required height, after which a proper truss is put 
 under each end and the crib removed. 
 
 I once saw the root framing of a tunnel raised by a system of 
 compound levers, plain pieces of scantling one behind the other, 
 that exerted a force of not less than twenty tons in a space three by 
 five feet in cross section. Of course a hydraulic jack would have 
 been much more simple and easy to use, but there was no one there 
 except myself who had ever heard of such an implement as this, 
 and perhaps none who had ever seen a lifting screw of any kind. 
 It was not at a mine, but in a water tunnel in the country. 
 
 There are a great many different ways of raising and lowering 
 weights, but their fall is on an uniform method, and the difference 
 between a man who can handle successfully and one who cannot is 
 in forseeing what is going to happen. 
 
 Prof. Sweet once wrote an essay that gave a new and expressive 
 phrase to the world: " It is always the unexpected that happens." 
 This is a truism in one sense, because a thing to " happen " must be 
 unexpected, but we all know what the Professor meant, and the 
 remark has no doubt saved a great many lives and accidents. 
 
 The economic effect of handling apparatus in a shop, such as 
 cranes or running ways over machine tools, small railways in 
 foundries, iron works and factories, is too obvious for comment. 
 Run ways, which is a good name for them, consist of rails overhead 
 for suspension, also on narrow railways on the ground or floor. 
 Both systems are the subject of special manufacture at this day, and 
 the cost of works handling, we may term it, has certainly been 
 diminished by one half in twenty years. There are conveyors for 
 fuel, grain, wheat, ore, and every kind of merchandise, and 
 especially for people, so that, as remarked at the beginning, a 
 foundation or first condition in arranging a works of any kind is to 
 determine the mode of conveyance and handling outside and inside 
 the buildings. 
 
 The cheapest method of all for handling and conveying material 
 is by gravity, and the problem of distribution in a works is very 
 often dependent on the elevation at which material can be received. 
 A common quartz mill is an example of this. Such mills are nearly 
 always built on a hillside, so the ore can be received at the top and
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 13 
 
 descend through the grizzly, bins, breakers, stamps and concentra- 
 tors, by its gravity, nearly all the handling being dispensed with. 
 The consequence is that in proportion to the amount and weight of 
 material, the power applied, and the number of processes, no other 
 kind of works are operated with so little expense for attendance. 
 
 The same thing applies to any works or factory operating on 
 heavy material, and the first care in making plans should be to see 
 if the material and fuel can be received at a height sufficient to per- 
 mit distribution by gravity. Some kinds of material received in 
 packages, like cotton bales, or barrels, carj be rapidly and cheaply 
 picked up, and handled from a. train or boat by hoisting tackle, but 
 the average supplies, including fuel, cannot be handled in this man- 
 ner. 
 
 Of course water carriage ends at the ground level, but railway 
 carriage, which is more common, 'can often be so managed as to 
 deliver at a point high enough for distribution by gravity, and there 
 has of late years been a good deal of attention paid to this matter in 
 the arrangement of plants where there was room for a railway 
 incline. 
 
 The Pond Machine Tool Works, at Plainfield, N. J., is a gcod 
 example. By arranging an inclined way to their works, iron, coal, 
 sand, timber, also supplies that are required on the upper floors, can 
 be handled by gravity, being received twenty feet or more above the 
 ground level. 
 
 It requires some room to do this if trains have to be driven by 
 traction, but if hauled up by simple apparatus driven from the 
 works the grade can be ten to fifteen per cent., and not extend 
 beyond the usual yard room required. This, it must be remem- 
 bered, is not to attain elevation or hoisting alone, but also horizontal 
 movement in one plane at least, because a train or car can be moved 
 to any point along the line for discharge. 
 
 There is in England a method of handling by means of a gantry, 
 as it is called, that will not be without suggestion in connection with 
 the present subject. Timber is not in England, or in any other 
 country but this one, so far as I know, sawed to sizes in the forest, 
 but is cut out to dimensions as wanted, partly from logs or balks 
 and partly from deals, the latter being an unit cut in the forest to be 
 re-sawed to order at the trade mills, so that a timber merchant's 
 stock consists of logs and deals instead of a great number of pre- 
 pared sizes as in this country. 
 
 The logs are piled -In a yard, over which passes a gantry, an
 
 14 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 immense trestle, the legs of which are on trucks running on iron 
 ways. It is a travelling crane with legs to reach down to the 
 ground instead of being supported on walls. This gantry, which 
 may be fifty feet wide, straddles the logs in the yard, picks them 
 up and carries them to the mill, or when received piles them to any 
 height the gantry will admit. 
 
 In this way one man, or at most two men, can handle any kind 
 of timber, including the great squared logs of walnut and tulip 
 wood sent from this country, or the still heavier woods from South 
 and Central America. Sawn timber is taken out from the mill and 
 piled up. if that be necessary, which is seldom, because the timber is 
 sawed as it is required for use. ,
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Iceland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 4. November 31st, 
 
 IvOoking at the subject of handling generally, it is one that 
 always engages the attention of skilled people. Its history forms a 
 most interesting subject, and some problems that will perhaps never 
 be solved. I will call attention to a few facts, first mentioning the 
 vast structures on the Nile, in Egypt, the great stones at Carnac, 
 and the old walls in Central America, involving the handling of 
 great masses by means that are as inconceivable as they are 
 unknown. It is true that some inscriptions and diagrams furnish a 
 clue to the methods, but these involved an element no longer at the 
 control of engineers, that of thousands of men almost without 
 wages. 
 
 It may be difficult at first thought to conceive of how the rate 
 of wages should be converted into a dynamic problem, but it is pos- 
 sible, and has a direct application in the general subject now under 
 discussion. 
 
 When Dr. Layard discovered the great stone bulls at Ninevah, 
 and undertook to transport them to the British Museum in London, 
 there was no handling tackle available, not even a roller, or timber 
 to make a sled, but there were hundreds of men without wages. 
 There were also hides from slaughtered animals, and the Doctor had 
 made a great cable of rawhide, which he attached to the bulls,
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 weighing several tons each, and then invited the population to come 
 and drag the bulls to the coast, through the sand, cutting a great 
 furrow such as would be made with a huge plow. This waste of 
 power made no difference, because there were plenty of people with 
 nothing else to do, and the draught of a locomotive represented a 
 mere trifle when paid for in some trifling presents or food. 
 
 When travelling on a steamer one time we had among our pas- 
 sengers a gentleman who had recently heard the celebrated lecture 
 of Wendell Phillips on "The Lost Arts." It made a great impres- 
 sion on this man's mind, as it has done on the minds of many peo- 
 ple, and he was continually discussing the amazing knowledge 
 possessed by the ancient people of Egypt and India. " Look at the 
 pyramids of Gizeh," said he, "what could man do at this day in 
 raising those vast stones with his puny tackle ? " 
 
 His enthusiasm was crushed out by a Scotchman who was listen- 
 ing, and said, " What do you know about lifting stones? A coun- 
 tryman of mine, Mr. Rankine, says that all the stones in the great 
 pyramids could be lifted with four hundred and fifty tons of coal, and 
 I believe him far before yourself." 
 
 The lost arts need not engage attention here. The present fact 
 is that a man exerting a puny muscular power, costing from one to 
 two dollars a day. is not available for handling heavy weights. 
 Ancient ships with four banks of oars and four hundred rowers, are 
 replaced by steamships, and live only as a tradition. 
 
 It was remarked in the last lecture that the arrangement of 
 buildings and what we call plant had to be first considered with 
 reference to handling material, its ingress, egress, and movement 
 while in process. 
 
 This is a practical fact that would hardly be reached by infer- 
 ence, but is certainly true of nearly all kinds of business, yet it is 
 hardly amenable to any rules that can be laid down. There are, 
 however, a number of constructive details relating to buildings that 
 may be considered with profit, especially buildings intended for 
 manufactures in wood and iron. 
 
 One of these things is the heighth, or number of floors, as we 
 say in speaking of factories. Height is a condition depending 
 mainly on the value of land. Where land is dear the fixed charges 
 for rent or interest on investment being as the area occupied, there 
 is a strong incentive to construct high buildings and numerous 
 floors. This is obvious in all large American cities at this day,
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 where buildings are towering to a point that mats the appearance of 
 everything in their vicinity, reaching in some cases twelve or more 
 stories. 
 
 I have mentioned the price of land as a cause of this, which is 
 correct as an economic proposition, but such construction is enabled 
 by the work of the mechanical engineers, who have rendered high 
 buildings possible by apparatus for hoisting and lowering that 
 almost eliminates height, and has equalized and increased rents to 
 the extent of many millions of dollars each year. This belongs 
 with handling. 
 
 It would be an agreeable theme to enter upon the evolution of 
 modern elevators as they are now operated by steam, water, air and 
 electrical apparatus, but these things will no doubt come up in the 
 course of your studies here, which I do not want to trench upon in 
 these lectures, unless in connection with administrative work, such 
 as making plans for and conducting shops and factories. I will, 
 however, say that the practice is marvellous, and if in the older art 
 of railways we had the same control over the motive power 
 that there is in hoisting and lowering, there would be fewer accidents 
 in the streets or elsewhere. 
 
 This wonderful improvement in the means of vertical travelling 
 has now nearly reached a culmination. The speed is all that com- 
 fort will permit, time is nearly eliminated, and the accidents in pro- 
 portion to the number of people conveyed are I imagine not one in 
 fifty that occur on railways. The speed in buildings, or for public 
 use, is however confined to about one tenth what has been attained 
 in mines. Whether it will be increased as people feel safe remains 
 to be seen, but the present rate of three to five hundred feet per 
 minute, as before remarked, has given to high stories nearly the 
 same value as those near the ground. 
 
 There are, however, many kinds of business that must be 
 conducted on the ground. A foundry should be on the ground, 
 indeed must be in the case of any but for the smaller kinds of work, 
 such as malleable castings. Pits are required for many kinds of 
 moulds, and the heavy weights, the use of water and most of the 
 operations carried on are such as can be performed on the ground only. 
 
 The wheel foundry of the Walker Manufacturing Company, at 
 Cleveland, Ohio, is in one sense an exception to this rule. The 
 foundry floor is set on arches that form sub-story or basement in 
 which is placed the dividing mechanism for operating the gear 
 wheel moulding machines.
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 A foundry can be in almost any shape not too wide to be spanned 
 with cranes and other overhead tackle. Foundries are frequently 
 dark, or imperfectly lighted, which is a most undesirable feature, 
 because moulds being indented or sunk, and of a color and nature to 
 absorb light, their interior cannot be seen without abundant light or 
 by the aid of artificial lights or mirrors, both of which hinder work 
 and should be unnecessary. 
 
 For the last thirty years the trend in foundry practice has been 
 toward a high story, strong walls, of which a third or more are 
 glass, in the lighting plane, which should begin six feet from the 
 floor, and extend to sixteen feet above. 
 
 Walls of a foundry require to be strongly buttressed so as to 
 withstand the strains of radial cranes, or bear the weight of travers- 
 ing cranes, and the roof framing so arranged and tied into the walls 
 as to constitute the whole a connected structure. The roof of a 
 foundry should always be either sloping each way or curved to permit 
 the escape of gases at the top, and fire proof to resist the sparks and 
 coals blown out of cupolas. 
 
 A foundry room nearly always takes the form of a parallelogram, 
 with wings for melting, core making, stores and core ovens. 
 
 These latter are commonly patched on, and cut off the light on 
 one side, which will answer for buildings less than fifty feet wide 
 and double lighted at the other side. These side rooms, reached by 
 wide arches or doors, form a convenient arrangement for narrow- 
 foundries, especially if one or both ends are lighted, but in those of 
 the larger class a lighting space should intervene between the 
 moulding floor and all other rooms, except the melting one. 
 
 Machine and fitting shops, unless narrow and not exceeding 
 forty feet in width, cannot be well lighted from the sides unless the 
 windows and ceiling are high, and this is objectionable on many 
 grounds. Top lighting is almost essential in a well arranged fitting 
 shop. As a rule, one square foot of glass overhead is worth six 
 square feet at the sides of a room. The best of all, for shed or single 
 story buildings is what is technically called saw-tooth roofs, exten- 
 sively employed in England, and well suited for this Coast, but out 
 of the question in any place where heavy snows fall. 
 
 These roofs are made on a method that lights the whole interior 
 of a shop in a very perfect manner. The form is much like that of 
 the teeth of a saw, consisting of a glazed angle of about 60 degrees
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 from horizontal, and a reflecting angle of about 45 degrees, the 
 latter painted white on the inside, facing the glass on the opposite 
 angle, so the light, direct and reflected, is thrown downward toward 
 the opposite lower corner of the room. 
 
 Such roofs are employed for weaving sheds in England, and are 
 sometimes called weaving-shed roofs. We should know a good deal 
 more of them on this Coast, and as there are no doubt published 
 examples of the manner of framing and making them, I commend the 
 subject as one worthy of farther investigation by the students here. 
 
 Of course a saw-tooth or other top light roof can be employed 
 only for one story, or a ground floor, and as you are aware, this is 
 the rule everywhere for shops where heavy work is carried on. 
 
 The subject of floors for machine works is one that must be 
 approached with some caution. If a dozen different skilled men are 
 asked their opinion of this matter the chances are that no two of 
 them would agree. I have never seen but one floor that after being 
 well tried was pronounced satisfactory, and as this was a very 
 exceptional one it may be described. 
 
 This floor was in a fitting shop in the works of the H. B. Smith 
 Company, at Mount Holly, New Jersey, near Philadelphia, and was 
 made of cast iron, composed of plates about two feet square, cross 
 corrugated on top, and laid in hydraulic cement. The scheme was 
 suggested by the proprietor, Mr. H. B. Smith, and when proposed 
 was at once pronounced an absurdity, because it would be cold in 
 winter, and the men could not stand on it; but the floor was laid, 
 about two thousand superficial feet of it, and as remarked, was a 
 success. 
 
 It was laid in the summer, and the iron being a good conductor, 
 the lower temperature of the earth beneath the floor produced a tem- 
 perature several degrees lower than adjoining rooms having wooden 
 floors. When winter came there was a surprise. The iron floored 
 shop was several degrees warmer than the rest, because of the trans- 
 mitted temperature from the earth. 
 
 These facts of temperature were not, however, the only new 
 feature of the metal floor. It was carefully laid and level. The top 
 soon became smooth, and being greasy, as all machine-shop floors 
 are, the work in the shop could be slid about the same as if on ice, and 
 handling became an easy matter. A machine weighing five hun- 
 dred pounds could be* slid about by one man, and except as to the
 
 WORKS A DM IN 18 TRA TION. 
 
 workmen slipping sometimes, this sliding feature proved to be one of 
 much convenience. 
 
 This floor has been in use since 1876, and I have not heard of 
 any fault being found with it since, also suspect the method was 
 farther applied in the works of that Company. 
 
 On the whole it is safest to say that a floor covered with wood, 
 such as pitch pine at the East, and with good Oregon fir here, is the 
 best, but if not treated or saturated with some preservative compound 
 will soon decay. 
 
 I say covered, because all machine shop floors should be covered 
 with a wearing surface of blocks or planks, the latter in pieces of 
 uniform dimensions, so that worn spots can be renewed by patches. 
 Such floors, as remarked, are perishable when made of fir such as 
 we have on this Coast, unless the timber is saturated with tar or 
 other preserving compound, or are ventilated beneath, which latter 
 is seldom possible. 
 
 Floors of brick, or wooden blocks set on end, of bitumen, con- 
 crete, or broken stone, are met with; their merit or endurance 
 depending generally on the thickness and the care with which they 
 are made. As remarked, none of them are satisfactory, for the 
 reason that they are destroyed in use no matter how well made. No 
 substance can long withstand the handling of heavy castings and 
 machines, the use of crowbars and exposure to oil, water, and the 
 continual abrasion of rough use. 
 
 Thickness was mentioned, and for masonry or other composite 
 floors this is the main thing. The streets in London and Paris 
 furnish a lesson in floor making. A street there consists of two 
 elements, the street proper, from one to two feet in thickness, a rigid 
 impervious arc,h of grouted work or masonry, and a renewable cover 
 on top made of bitumen, wood, or other substance. The street, that 
 is the substructure, is not subjected to wear, but remains for ages 
 when properly made, and the covering is varied to suit the grades 
 and weight of the traffic. In London, the hilly portions, or where 
 there are slopes, the streets are covered with wood, set on end; for 
 the heaviest traffic the covering is of granite, and in other cases of 
 asphaltum. In Paris, the covering is mainly of asphaltum, now 
 made into blocks, laid on broken stone filled with mortar or cement, 
 the thickness of the latter being from 11 to 22 inches. 
 
 In this cquntry, I am sorry to say, the substructure is commonly 
 omitted altogether, with a result that need not be described. In 
 Chicago the custom was formerly to level the sand, put on a cover-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 ing of boards one inch thick, and then on top a course of wooden 
 blocks. This did well for a short time, and then ended. 
 
 I am speaking of streets, because the ground floors of works 
 present almost the same problem as shop floors, and as we have not 
 in two thousand years made much progress in street making, rather 
 the reverse, as Professor Marx can tell you, so it is not to be 
 wondered at that one gets into difficulty in recommending methods 
 of making ground floors in works. 
 
 As to the economy or cost of producing work on ground and 
 upper floors, I am of the opinion that for the lighter or a mixed 
 class of work, and where one floor is on the ground, upper floors are 
 as good if not better than those on the ground, when there are proper 
 facilities for handling. 
 
 At the works of J. A. Fay & Co., at Cincinnrti, Ohio, where I 
 was once connected, the work was carried on in a building of four 
 stories. The work done was of miscellaneous kind, principally 
 wood-working machines and their accessories. 
 
 There was an excellent opportunity for determining the effect of 
 the stories, because the work was frequently shifted from one story 
 to another, and was nearly all made by the piece. Records and 
 facts there went to prove that the highest floors were best. The 
 light was better and there was less to observe through doors and 
 windows; less visiting and running about. The piece workmen on 
 certain jobs preferred the fourth floor. For handling there was 
 what has been called an outside sling hoist, an elevator for passen- 
 gers inside, and speaking tubes to the office and other departments 
 from all the upper floors. These works have been much extended, 
 but so far as I know the four stories have been adopted for all work- 
 ing departments. 
 
 Upper floors in works and factories are supported on two different 
 methods in this country, called beam and joist floors. Beam floors 
 are common in New England, and joist floors in the Western coun- 
 try, including this Coast. 
 
 A beam floor is one where a thick covering, usually double, is 
 laid directly on beams placed from four to six feet apart. Joist 
 floors, commonly single, are tongue and grooved, and laid on joist 
 from twelve to eighteen inches apart. 
 
 The beam floors are strong in respect to sustaining static strains, 
 or heavy weights, and weak in so far as vertical rigidity. It is 
 sometimes said you cannot fall through such a floor, but think you 
 will when walking over one.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Joist floors are much more rigid and capable of withstanding jar 
 and vibration, and, as I believe, are preferable in many ways. 
 Analyzed, such a floor is simply one with the beams divided verti- 
 cally into several parts and spread along the floor at closer intervals, 
 but it is commonly estimated that such floors occupy a double space 
 vertically, that is, are twice as thick, and demand a higher building 
 for the same head room in the stories. This is true as such floors 
 are commonly constructed with the joist resting on the top of. the 
 girder beams, but this is not necessary, because the joist can be 
 framed into girders without weakening the bottom chord, so the 
 girders and joist will be flush on top and nearly so on the bottom, 
 and so the whole floor will be no deeper than one made on beams. 
 The Tool Company building, on Stevenson Street, in San Francisco, 
 is an example of this kind of joist-floor work, and I may mention 
 that it met with unqualified condemnation from the architect, but it 
 has never yielded so far as I know. The floors have withstood 
 severe use for twelve years past. 
 
 The roofs, walls, windows, and other elements of industrial 
 buildings not subjected to wear and disturbances by the processes 
 carried on inside, except as to cranes and overhead tackle, can be 
 left to the architect, who at this day is fast becoming an engineer as 
 well as an architect; indeed, our modern buildings, constructed of 
 iron and steel, present in all respects affecting their stability, what 
 are clearly engineering problems. 
 
 In what has been presented in a fragmentary manner, of hand- 
 ling apparatus, lighting, and floors, there may be no doubt useful 
 suggestions that may at some future time aid in conclusions when 
 you have buildings or shops to erect, and while touched upon only 
 here and there, even one little point may well repay the time you 
 have spent in hearing these remarks. 
 
 Every one in charge of works, as an owner or manager, will find 
 more or less to do in dealing with buildings, in their extension or 
 repair, if not in erecting new ones. It is a necessary and inevitable 
 part of administration, a perplexing part sometimes, and one in 
 which the principal aid will be drawn from observing, asking ques- 
 tions, and listening to suggestions such as have been here given. 
 
 This far in these lectures we have gone over the objects of skilled 
 industry; the elements of production, material, labor, expense and
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 profit; the handling of material, and some notes on buildings. The 
 next subject will be the equipment of works, beginning with motive 
 power. 
 
 On this subject the nature and types of motive apparatus operat- 
 ing by steam, air, gas and water, will form a part of the regular 
 studies here, and the only points that fall within the province of 
 these lectures will be a choice of motive apparatus; its disposition in 
 plants and distribution, so far as affecting arrangement and results. 
 
 There never was a time in the history of mechanic arts, since 
 motive power was a prominent element therein, that the matter of 
 determining the kind of power to employ has been so much a pro- 
 blem as it is now. 
 
 This fact was brought to mind in a forcible way a short time ago, 
 when a friend who has a fruit farm near San Diego, in this State, 
 called to inquire what would be the best means of raising a certain 
 amount of water required for irrigation on his farm ? The water, 
 not exceeding three miner's inches, or about thirty gallons a minute, 
 had to be raised two hundred feet out of a canon to the top of a hill 
 where a reservoir was to be constructed. 
 
 The choice of motive power laid between horse power, steam 
 engine, a gas engine, or wind wheel, either of which would do the 
 work, amounting to from one to three horse power according to the 
 time of operation, whether continuous or at intervals. 
 
 With horses there was to be considered their original cost, feed, 
 maintenance, and other useful work they could perform on the land. 
 
 With steam there was the question of fuel, danger, skilled 
 attendance, first cost and maintenance. 
 
 With gas or oil there was to be considered cost and weight of 
 fuel, attendance, first cost, risk, and some doubt of ultimate efficiency 
 under the management of unskilled people. 
 
 With the wind wheel there was the first cost, maintenance, 
 amount and constancy of wind, the periods of wind in relation to the 
 period of irrigation; but most of all, position. The water being in a 
 canon and the wind on the hill top, there was no means of con- 
 nection with the ordinary apparatus. 
 
 These four methods were put into an equation, so to speak, and 
 no conclusion has yet been arrived at, because some of the data, 
 such as the period of winds, was not determinable at the time. 
 
 Now if this simple proposition, involving two or three horse 
 power, includes, as you will see, a large number of technical con-
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 ditions, more perhaps than if there were three hundred instead of 
 three horse power to deal with. There is much risk of not recommend- 
 ing the best apparatus, and a positive certainty of almost every one 
 else claiming that the selection was wrong, no matter what it might 
 be. 
 
 Bearing upon this case, and others of the kind, which include 
 the most of all the small irrigating plants on this Coast, is a recent 
 discovery or method that deserves some mention here. It relates to 
 a means of communicating power from a wind wheel or other motive 
 machine to pumping apparatus placed at the source of the water 
 supply, or within suction distance of twenty-five feet or less. 
 
 In this new system there is a pneumatic expulsion device or 
 pump placed in the well or spring, connected with an air-compress- 
 ing pump at the motive apparatus, so the latter can be set on a hill 
 or in any other convenient place. The flow of water in uptake pipes 
 is from three to five feet per second, while the flow of air under like 
 pressure would be about one hundred times as fast, so that a very 
 small pipe will convey the power from the motor to the pump. The 
 advantages of such an arrangement are obvious, but I am unable at 
 this time to give any data respecting efficiency. 
 
 In preparing or organizing plants of any kind there are always 
 present some or all of the conditions named, generally a good many 
 more, all connected or corelated, some of them variable and some 
 of them not ascertain able. Such problems arise continually in the 
 administration of an engineering or machine works; indeed it would 
 not be far wrong for this Coast to say that a third of all the cases 
 where power is required in the country or in the mountains, most 
 of the conditions named come up for consideration. They are not, 
 however, present in most schemes for founding a factory or works 
 in cities or towns, except as to a choice between steam and gas or oil 
 engines, but the distribution of power beyond the prime mover is 
 always a problem forming a part of preliminary plans and admitting 
 of widely differing methods. 
 
 As before remarked, there are various means of transmission, 
 including shafts, bands, ropes, wheels, motion rods, water, steam 
 and electricity, but the problem in such a case is not one of choice 
 between these methods, but a division between them. A visit to 
 any large works at this day, the Union Iron Works, at San Fran- 
 cisco, for example, will show that nearly all these methods are 
 
 essary or expedient, and that steam, water, air, electricity 
 shafts and ropes are all in use for conveying power, not exception- 
 ally with any one method, but extensively with each.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 There is at this time an increasing amount of transmission by 
 electrical apparatus. It is new, and its future adaptation not yet 
 known, but there is little doubt of its wide and extensive use for 
 rotative motion, not, however, for rectilinear movement, for which 
 there is at present no adaptation, except for such short movements as 
 may be called adjustment. 
 
 At the Union Iron Works, that have been mentioned, ships 'and 
 other heavy loads are raised, and many machine tools, such as 
 shears, presses, and the like, are operated by hydraulic apparatus. 
 Power is distributed by long ropes and shafts, but there are present 
 plans of a wide use of electrical apparatus that will supplant the 
 ropes in nearly all cases, and the shafts and steam in some cases. 
 
 Coming now to particular things, one of the first, and always a 
 matter of some doubt, is first movers or main transmission, now-a- 
 days performed with bands, ropes and tooth wheels. In so far as 
 endurance and results the methods of a century ago have not been 
 much improved; that is, tooth gearing, then extensively employed 
 for first movers, remains the most perfect at this time, with the least 
 loss in friction and the freest from detention by accidents, but as we 
 are told in respect to the conduit system for electrical railways, tooth 
 gearing is "commercially impossible," because of first cost and the 
 skill required in making wheels that are noiseless, safe and durable. 
 
 The cotton mills in England, many of them, are thus geared, so 
 also are rolling mills there and in this country, but for factories bands 
 and ropes are all that need be considered. In the case of large 
 powers and where detention would be serious, as in the case of driv- 
 ing the machinery at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, from one 
 central engine, Mr. Corliss fell back on the practice of Boulton & 
 Watt, and employed beam engines and tooth wheels. 
 
 Sir William Fairbairn never could become reconciled to what he 
 called "wrapping connections," that is, flexible bands and ropes. 
 He looked upon them as cheap expedients, not transmitting posi- 
 tively, and liable to fail at any moment. You will not find warrant 
 for this statement in his writings perhaps, and it may interest you 
 to know that I am quoting in substance remarks made to myself 
 in 18fi9. 
 
 Sir William, the noted Manchester millwright, and an authority 
 yet in many important matters, had then a works at Manphester, 
 and was at the time making some huge iron casemates or forts to be 
 set up on the coast. I had a letter of introduction to him, and, as 
 people often do, made the mistake of presenting it in person, thus
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 dictating the time of his attention to myself. After waiting a time 
 he sent for me, and when he began to rise from his chair I wondered 
 when he would stop, He was a very tall, brawny man, angular 
 and impressive. He gave me his hand, or rather took mine, with a 
 grip that hurt and astonished me. In a long and interesting talk 
 that followed he expressed his views as before noted, but spent most 
 of the time in asking questions about this country. 
 
 If the element of cost is eliminated it would be very difficult 
 indeed to show wherein our modern methods for first transmission 
 are better than the old one of tooth wheels, but cost is a very impor- 
 tant matter in this case. The difference does not lie so much 
 between tooth wheels and " wrapping connection " as it does between 
 the foundations and supports, which are the most expensive part. 
 
 A main part of the duties of an engineer or mechanic at this day 
 is to harmonize and corelate the two elements of cost and quality. 
 This matter is illustrated by a remark once heard in a club discus- 
 sion in lyondon between some English and Ameaican engineers on 
 the subject of American railways. One of the speakers said: " It 
 requires no great engineering skill to make a short railway with a 
 large amount of money, but to build a long railway with very little 
 money is a very different matter." 
 
 In this country, and in all others where the interest on capital is 
 high, and where changes are so rapid as to cause indifference to per- 
 manence, it would not be good practice to adopt tooth gearing for 
 first movers in any but special cases. There are, and always will 
 be, circumstances where such gearing is expedient, as when heavy 
 power is transmitted at a right angle, or when positive motion is 
 necessary. Bands and ropes answer very well, and have the great 
 advantage of operating at various distances, a feature that in itself is 
 of such importance as to determine method in nrost cases. 
 
 LINE SHAFTS. 
 
 Referring next to line shafts for distributing power. It is an 
 object in the case of long shafts to apply the power at the middle, so 
 as to divide the torsional strain each way, and this is usually easy to 
 do in laying down plans for a plant, but when shafts do not exceed 
 200 feet in length there is no objection to driving from one end, and 
 except the first or main section such shafts should be of uniform 
 diameter. A common impression, and error too, is in reducing the 
 diameter of line shafts in proportion as their work diminishes from 
 the driving end. This is done in most cases without knowing or
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 13 
 
 considering the difficulties that result from this method, and also 
 from a mistaken conception of the difference in cost between uniform 
 and tapered shafts. 
 
 It is natural to suppose that the price of a shaft is as its diameter 
 or capacity, but this is not the case. The most expensive elements 
 in line shafting are the couplings and bearings, and as these increase 
 in number for a given length of shafting approximately inverse as 
 its diameter, the difference between a shaft two inches in diam- 
 eter and one three inches in diameter is nearly as the difference in 
 weight of the material, and as the value of the material is only a 
 third or so of the finished cost of a shaft, it will be easy to see that 
 the price of a shaft does not follow as the diameter. 
 
 The cost of couplings, either of the rigid or compression kind, is 
 about five dollars for each inch of diameter of the shafts to which 
 they are applied, and the distance between couplings and bearings 
 is commonly about fifty diameters of the shafts, so that as between 
 a shaft of two inches diameter and one of three inches diameter the 
 fittings will be in number as two to three, and the weight or cost 
 approximately the same. The shafts themselves will cost as their 
 weight, or as the square of their diameter. 
 
 Then again, the torsional and deflective strength of shafts 
 increases as the cube of their diameters, so you can see that select- 
 ing or determining this matter of line shafts is not by any means an 
 easy problem, and is especially so if we set out on the basis of the 
 power to be transmitted. 
 
 In Sweden where mathematical methods are too much followed 
 in some things, I was told by a young engineer that he had been set 
 at work to find out the proper diameter for a shaft, and after he had 
 by careful computations, respecting torsion, deflection, and so on, 
 arrived at the proper size, the manager told him to quadruple the 
 dimensions for safety, int>ther words, assume four as a factor of safety, 
 which was not too much, but it seemed to the draughtsman incon- 
 sistent. 
 
 This matter of selecting and arranging line shafts for distribu- 
 tion in works offers opportunity for a short digression here, and some 
 remarks on proportions that I think will not differ from, or at least 
 not controvert, what Prof. Smith has taught or will teach in respect 
 to factors of safety. 
 
 Rules in this respect apply to the strains in all kinds of static 
 structures and works of all kinds so long as things "stand still," or 
 when they are in motion under normal conditions, but in machinery
 
 14 WORKS % A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 the proportions must arise out of accidental strains, which unfortu- 
 nately lie outside the field of computation. For example, a line 
 shaft should be strong enough transversely to tear in two the double 
 of any band leading to it. 
 
 Now this is not a proper function of a line shaft, but bands will 
 get " wound," as it is called, and unless a shaft will tear them in 
 two the band will tear the shaft down, or bend it, which is nearly as 
 bad, unless we include the effect on what is beneath the shaft when 
 it falls. I once saw a line of more than 100 feet in length lying on 
 the floor or on top of machines and material it had fallen on, but 
 the fault in this cafte was bad attachments by means of lag screws, 
 which are safe when properly put in, but always suspicious, because 
 there is no visible proof of their integrity. 
 
 All this is, however, not bringing us any nearer to the propor- 
 tions of line shafts, at least to any definite rule, but suggests one of 
 a vague kind, namely, to carefully search out the accidental strains 
 and provide for these, always erring on the side of excess in propor- 
 tions. 
 
 The best clue to dimensions is found in deflective strains, con- 
 sidered in respect to bands, tooth gearing and the chances of 
 obstruction from any cause, but these strains are irrespective of 
 speed, consequently are not measurable by horse power transmitted, 
 so we are only getting deeper in the mire as we go on, and to get 
 out of the difficulty I will refer to some of the well-known formulae, 
 such as the diameter of the shaft in inches should equal the cube 
 of sixty-five times the horse power, divided by the number of revo- 
 lutions per minute, written: 
 
 65 H. P. 
 
 N 
 
 and the distance between bearings should "be in feet five times the 
 cube of the square of the shaft's diameter in inches, written thus, L 
 being the distance in feet between bearings : 
 
 Now if these rules are analyzed it will be found that the propor- 
 tions derived have no reference to computed strains, but to acci- 
 dental strains. 
 
 The coefficient 5 in the second formula should, I think, be 4 to 
 4.5 when the belts are led off between the bearings.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 5. November 21st, 1895. 
 
 Continuing the subject of line shafts as an element in laying out 
 and arranging works or factories, it may be well to analyze to some 
 extent their nature and construction. 
 
 John G. Bodmer, in 1848, in a limited way and Wm. Sellers & Co., 
 of Philadelphia, as early as 1860, perhaps 1855, in a complete way, 
 introduced pivoted bearings, and explained their purpose and import- 
 ance, but thirty-five years has been required to attain a general use 
 of such bearings for line shafts in this country and has done little 
 more than begin their introduction in Europe. 
 
 No line shaft runs precisely true, and very few run reasonably 
 true, so that rigid bearings to support such shafts are unsuited, and 
 cannot fit the shafts except at one point, consequently we had the 
 old rule of making such bearings one and three quarters the diam- 
 eter of the shafts in length. In Europe nearly all line shafts aie so 
 mounted, commonly on brass, so the shafts will not be destroyed by 
 the abrasion that is sure to take place when a flexible shaft is 
 mounted in rigid bearirfgs.
 
 WORKS A DM IN 18 TRA TION. 
 
 To convince any one of the importance of pivoted or movable 
 bearings, it is only necessary to have them feel such bearings, when 
 even the truest shafts are in" motion they are never still. The differ- 
 ence between contact and non-contact in bearings is within 
 thousandths of an inch, even if allowance is made for a film of oil, 
 so it is easy to see that a rigid bearing will not be worn parallel, and 
 that adding to its length will only increase the difficulty; hence, as 
 before pointed out, such bearings must be short and of some soft 
 metal or alloy that will not abrade the shafts. 
 
 Messrs. William Sellers & Co. when they pivoted line-shaft bear- 
 ings, increased the length to four diameters, and made them of cast 
 iron, which, under the lighter pressure due to added bearing surface, 
 is an excellent material for such bearings. Messrs. Sellers & Co.'s 
 improvements did not stop here. They made the bearings adjusta- 
 ble vertically, and connected the shafts with clamp or compression 
 couplings, so the parts became interchangeable, and this reduced 
 the making of line shafts to a manufacture instead of special work. 
 
 It is not very easy to realize the effect produced by interchange- 
 able couplings. A shaft fitted up with rigid keyed-on couplings is 
 special machinery, because each coupling has its mate, and each 
 piece of shaft must go to a particular place. A shaft to be extended 
 must be taken down and another piece matched to fit it. The 
 couplings change everything. 
 
 It is sometimes claimed that compression or interchangeable 
 couplings cannot be made strong enough. This is a mistake. I do 
 not say they are made strong enough when fitted with conical 
 bushes, tapering screws, and such contrivances, but when made 
 as an embracing clamp and bolted on, they are quite as strong as the 
 shafts they connect. When a shaft breaks down at sea they do not 
 use conical bushes, which have no adjustment, taper screws, wedges 
 and so oh. They place clamps around the shaft with flanges for 
 bolts, screw up the clamps and go on. 
 
 I once saw some experiments with interchangeable couplings at 
 Manchester, England. Examples were procured of the different 
 kinds made there and in this country, and two steel shafts were 
 mounted so as to be forced out of line at the coupled joint. After 
 the couplings were put on, the shafts were set in motion, and forced 
 out of line until the couplings gave way. Nothing withstood these 
 tests except plain clamp couplings, which broke the shafts, and there 
 is reason to believe that after scores of ingenious inventions no other 
 method of connecting shafts is so good as the very oldest a plain 
 embracing clamp bolted on.
 
 WORKS A DM IN 18 TRA TION. 
 
 In laying out a factory or shop in which line shafting and 
 machines are to be erected there should be a base line made on the 
 floor, preferably in the center, parallel to the line shafting. This 
 score should be made deep enough to remain for years. A good 
 plan of making it is to first strike a chalk line on the floor, then lay a 
 straight edge along this line as a guide, and score the floor with a 
 hook tool, such as wagon makers use in marking out their stuff. 
 Another way is to drive pieces of brass or copper wire along this 
 line at intervals of one or two feet, so these can be found at any 
 time, but a score is preferable. 
 
 This should be the first thing done when a building is completed, 
 or even before it is completed, parallel with the main walls. The 
 uses and importance of a base line of this kind are so obvious that 
 no one who has ever had occasion to refer to one. will forget or 
 neglect such a provision where they have millwright work to do. 
 
 The first use of such a line is generally to set an engine or other 
 motive power at a right angle thereto, and thus insure a correct rela- 
 tion to the building. In erecting shafts in any part of the build- 
 ing parallels can be made from the base line, and marked either on 
 the floor or the ceiling, but one of the greatest conveniences of all 
 is in setting detached machines in any part of a room. They can 
 always be set with definite relation to the building, the line shaft and 
 the motive power. 
 
 I adopted this method in erecting a woolen factory many years 
 ago, and have no doubt scores of other people have done the same 
 thing. In that mill, the owner informed me twenty years later 
 that the old base line had saved him hundreds of dollars, and was 
 constantly referred to when any machinery was changed or added. 
 
 This you will perceive is proceeding in precisely the same way 
 that trigonometrical work is done in surveys. A base line is first 
 laid down from astronomical observations or fixed monuments, and 
 then all map work and surveys are made from this base line. 
 
 THE SELECTION OF IMPLEMENTS. 
 
 In the equipment of works and factories, and their administra- 
 tion, must be included the selection of implements, and this is com- 
 monly a matter of much difficulty, especially if one has nothing to 
 guide except the fulsome literature of the makers. 
 
 While there are no rules that will be of much value, there are a 
 good many circumstances that should qualify selection, and to these 
 some space can be devoted with advantage. As machines and pro-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION, 
 
 cesses become special, now the tendency in nearly all branches of 
 constructive work, the difficulty of selection becomes greater, and 
 such selection a measure of the administrative ability of an owner 
 or manager. 
 
 The first thing that a skilled person observes on entering a works 
 is to note the adaptation of the implements to their several purposes, 
 and from such adaptation is made up a mental estimate of the skill 
 exercised in administration or selection. Few people suspect how 
 much this thing becomes an exponent of capacity. An implement 
 of any kind used out of place, an expensive machine not required, 
 or a special one that has no discernable object, is at once set down 
 as a result of ignorance, sometimes unfairly, but the impression 
 is just the same. 
 
 In selecting implements there are a number of things to be con- 
 sidered besides their efficiency and cost. There is, for example, 
 second-hand value, a thing not often thought of. 
 
 Most machine tools for metal and wood have a period of life in 
 respect to efficiency, or relative efficiency. This life depending on 
 improvements is not long, if an average is taken, certainly not 
 exceeding ten years in this country. A machine may not be 
 replaced at the end of this time, but that does not matter; it is in a 
 sense extinct when an improved one will earn its value in one or 
 two years, but this does not relegate the old machine to the scrap 
 heap. It may have a useful place in another service. 
 
 The second-hand value of a machine depends commonly upon 
 whether it is a standard or special one; that is, whether it be for 
 general use in a class, or for a particular work. These names, 
 "standard" and "special," which will be frequently employed, 
 have this meaning in a technical way, and are very convenient 
 terms, though not strictly relevant. 
 
 There are strong reasons when a choice can be made, for adopt- 
 ing in all cases as far as possible standard machines of good quality, 
 not only because of the second-hand value of such machines when 
 they are superseded by improvements, but in case of failure in a busi- 
 ness. 
 
 It may seem a strange part of Works Administration to provide 
 for failures, but it is a thing not to be neglected. The statistics 
 of manufactures in this country will show an apalling proportion of 
 failures, and a manager who does not keep this in mind neglects a 
 thing that should be well considered. 
 
 I will illustrate what is meant by two cases that have happened
 
 WOJIKS A DMINIS TRA Tl ON. 5 
 
 in San Francisco within a few years past. No other method will 
 so clearly explain this matter of second-hand value, and what it 
 may have to do with administration. 
 
 In the first case it was conceived by some experienced people 
 who had carefully considered the matter, that milled or finished 
 machine screws could be made at a profit in that city. The margin 
 of profit was small. That was known because of the complete 
 organization of this manufacture in the Eastern States, and it was 
 known that sales competition would be great, but that the making 
 of special screws to order, and a partiality for home-made work, 
 also the avoidance of a large stock that merchants had to keep on 
 hand, and the cost of carriage from the East, it was thought would 
 form a basis for a successful manufacture. The scheme was a good 
 one for the circumstances that existed then, and the business was 
 commenced. 
 
 When it came to procuring implements, the foreman, who was 
 skilled in this manufacture, said he could make the required 
 machines cheaper and better than could be procured from the regu- 
 lar makers of such machines at the East. This was done, and here 
 was made a serious mistake. 
 
 The machines were made without finish and in such a manner 
 as could have been expected. They would perform the work, but 
 were imperfect in various ways, and confined to special kinds of 
 work. The work went on, however, successfully for a short time, 
 and then came a change. Previous to that time, in the Eastern 
 factories each workman had operated one screw machine, milling, 
 threading, and cutting off the screws, performing various adjustments 
 and measurements by hand, but some one in the Eastern States 
 began making automatic screw machines, several of which could be 
 attended by one person, and the operations being automatic or self 
 acting were more exact as well as more rapid. 
 
 All at once the discounts on the machine screw lists were 
 increased to such an extent that screws could not be made on the 
 San Francisco machines without loss, and the business had to end. 
 
 Now any one acquainted with the implements employed in screw 
 making knows that most of them are standard rather than special 
 machines, capable of doing a good many different kinds of work in a 
 machine shop, consequently having a definite market value aside 
 from screw manufacture, but no one wanted the special machines 
 provided in this case, and the whole outfit, nearly new, had to be 
 sold for less than a quarter of what it cost, and was a bad bargain at
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 that price. The outfit was pratically lost, but had it consisted of 
 standard machines, by reputable makers, the whole could have been 
 sold for nearly the original cost, and a good share of the investment 
 saved. 
 
 The second case will not detain us so long, it relates to the 
 manufacture of a certain kind of window fittings, that was founded 
 on a local invention. The skilled manager did not, although the 
 processes were mainly of a special nature, set out to devise machines, 
 but selected standard ones from good makers, adapted as nearly as 
 possible to the purpose. 
 
 The business failed, for certain reasons that will be discussed in 
 a future lecture, but the investment in implements, which was the 
 main part, caused but little loss because all the machines were sold 
 at nearly the original cost. 
 
 It is an ambition, laudable in one sense, but a mistake economi- 
 cally, to attempt making special machines when those of a standard 
 kind will answer. It is a common thing for mechanics to imagine 
 they can design and make all kinds of machine tools and implements 
 better than those in common use, even for regular purposes, but it is 
 a mistake, and may result as in the machine tools for screw-making, 
 made at San Francisco. 
 
 Millions of dollars have been sacrificed on this conceit, lost by 
 honest effort but mistaken premises, and by a neglect of second-hand 
 value. Sometimes it succeeds and succeeds well, but more often a 
 shop filled with special implements of some one's devising "comes 
 t<3 grief," as we say, especially on this Coast, where the changes and 
 diversity of work and processes are such that it is dangerous to go 
 far in the direction of special machines, however ingeniously they 
 may be contrived. 
 
 This is very conservative advice that I would not have given 
 twenty years ago, at least did not view the matter then as I do now. 
 The propositions are from observation and experience, not from 
 inference, and the stumbling block pointed out is one that most 
 people with experience have at some time stumbled over. 
 
 It will be fair to point out in this connection, as most of you well 
 know, that a great share, or even the greater share of our regular 
 manufactures have been founded and succeeded by the use of special 
 machines. It is indeed the key to success in this country where 
 emulation in skilled industry rests to a great extent upon special 
 machines and processes, but in a machine works or an engineering 
 establishment doing a miscellaneous line of work the circumstances
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 are wholly different, and as you will find, are substantially as have 
 been pointed out. 
 
 COMBINATION IN MACHINES. 
 
 Next we will consider combined machines, or combination 
 machines as they are commonly called, and in this branch of the 
 subject we need not be confined to machine shops, because the con- 
 ditions apply throughout industries of all kinds where machines are 
 employed. 
 
 A combination machine is one having two or more functions, or 
 is capable of performing more than one operation, and I have some- 
 times thought is of all the ideas or elements that enter into machine 
 construction, the one most likely to lead to mistaken design, and is 
 the farthest from logical determination; one that causes great and 
 serious losses, especially in the rapid change to organized manufac- 
 ture that has taken place in the last twenty-five years. 
 
 As in previous cases, I will attempt to make this matter more 
 clear by an illustration. 
 
 In 1865, thirty years ago, when machine combination was much 
 less understood than it is now, and when there were more reasons 
 for combined machines. I was called in to examine a new machine 
 for making carriage wheels. It was a very ingenious one with a 
 great variety of well-made details that would set and drive the 
 spokes of a wheel, cut them to length and make the tenons, plane, 
 true up and bore the fellies, press the wheel together and then turn 
 it true on the sides and circumference. 
 
 All these .operations were performed in a very perfect manner by 
 the sanguine inventor, who had sent his machine some hundreds of 
 miles to a large manufactory of carriage parts in Columbus, Ohio, 
 where the same industry is very extensively carried on at this time. 
 
 One of the owners, who was a thoughtful and observing man, 
 witnessed the performance of the machine, and at the end went to 
 the office, where he was followed by the inventor, who expected to 
 receive an order from the firm. The owner said: 
 
 "Your machine is ingenious, well made, and performs its work 
 admirably, but we cannot use it profitably. If we were to adopt the 
 method you would have to furnish us not less than fifteen machines 
 to begin with, so the various operations would each be continuous 
 and permit organized work, but if you will separate your machine 
 into six parts, each to perform one operation, I will consider the 
 matter of introducing it here in our works."
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Both the inventor and myself learned a lesson there, not forgotten 
 on ray part, and no doubt well remembered by him. He had been 
 laboriously and expensively at work in a direction just opposite to 
 the requirements, and had mistaken the ingenuity of combination for 
 efficiency. His premises had been drawn from a small shop where 
 a single man instead of fifty, performed the machine work on 
 carriage wheels, and had saved nothing but some machine framing 
 and at the same time hampered and spoiled each function of the 
 machine by interdependence and interference. 
 
 Instead of this illustration of machine combination, I could have 
 employed here one of greater importance, that relates to a massive 
 metal working machine, or machine tool, made in San Francisco at 
 a cost of more than twenty thousand dollars, that after doing duty 
 for some years, one thing at a time, had to do as Mr. Carlyle said 
 of the publication of Sartor Resartus, "take itself to pieces," and 
 perform its functions separately. Examples are not wanting. They 
 are on all sides; less common now than formerly, but to be seen in 
 some degree in almost every shop in the country. 
 
 For a kind of analysis of this combination idea or system in 
 implements, we may consider just what is gained, and this will come 
 down to but little more than the supporting frame on which the 
 working parts are mounted. If, for example, a machine is made for 
 planing, sawing and boring wood, or for milling, drilling and boring 
 metal, the operating elements for each of these operations must be 
 provided much the same as for three separate machines in each 
 case. 
 
 The same spindles and driving band may answer, but the saving 
 thus effected will be many times lost by a strained and incomplete 
 adaptation, cramping and interference, so that, as remarked, the 
 main supporting frames are about all that is saved; but, supposing 
 that three fourths the cost of these machines were saved by combi - 
 nation, what would that weigh against the fact that only one opera- 
 tion could be performed at a time, and that the machine was so con- 
 stituted that only one man at a time could use it ? The floor space 
 occupied would be less than for three machines, but no less in pro- 
 portion to product and workmen, so that in the end nothing is 
 gained, but a great deal is lost. 
 
 The division of labor and of processes has in this country, under 
 our factory system, very nearly destroyed the combination idea in so 
 far as machines, and even in hand implements it is disappearing for 
 organized use, now and then one meets with these wonderful com-
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 bined implements. One of the last I have seen was a machinist's 
 hand apparatus, it might be called, consisting of square, bevel and 
 surface gauge, measuring scale, depth gauge, and so on, all in one 
 implement, convertible by attaching, removing and changing parts. 
 That a practical man would bother himself with such a thing no one 
 can believe, and even the possession of such a contrivance would 
 stamp a workman as either inexperienced or inefficient. 
 
 Notwithstanding all these impediments and objections, there is 
 a place for combination implements and machines, but it is not a 
 large place, and is not in a regular shop or works. At sea, for 
 example, it is proper to have a lathe arranged for turning, drilling, 
 boring and milling. Room is an object, and as these operations are 
 seldom performed, and only one at a time, a combination lathe is 
 expedient. Also in amateur operations, in small repair shops, and 
 perhaps in all cases where one man does all the work, combined 
 machines may be profitably employed. Perhaps this last qualifica- 
 tion of one man, furnishes a constant rule in the case, or is at least 
 as near a rule as any condition that can be named. 
 
 Space and weight may also be reasons for combined hand imple- 
 ments. Any one using a bicycle, for example, cannot carry with 
 them anything having bulk or weight. A combined wrench, screw- 
 driver and hammer is a proper implement, but not for the men who 
 made the same bicycle in a factory. 
 
 Segregation is the rule at this day, and one who separates a 
 machine does a good deal more than one who combines two or more 
 machines. The more separation the better, so long as each element 
 can be kept continuously at work. 
 
 The practical application of these propositions, as you will per- 
 ceive, belongs in the administration of a works. Few people are so 
 wise as not to be entrapped by the idea of " two machines in one," 
 or two machines for one price. It is indeed a most practical problem 
 in arranging a works and providing implements, and I fear is one 
 much neglected in books, lectures and lessons treating upon 
 machine construction. 
 
 ORNAMENT IN ENGINEERING WORK. 
 
 The subject of ornate display in machine construction may well 
 have some place in these lectures. It was formerly a conspicuous 
 element in all kinds of structures, both where it properly belonged 
 and where it did not, also has been a theme for discussion since the 
 time of James Watt, perhaps much longer.
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 There is on record an anecdote of James Watt in this connection 
 that will bear relating. At the Soho Foundry, after James Murdock 
 became a manager there, about the beginning of this century, he 
 was entrusted with the design and construction of some large blow- 
 ing engines for melting or perhaps smelting iron at these works. 
 
 The engines, three in number, were erected in a basement with a 
 steam engine to drive therrt, and from some recent drawings of this 
 work, which has been pulled down during the present year, the 
 plant was a very complete one, and much like one would be made 
 at this day. 
 
 Murdock was much pleased at his achievement, and had it com- 
 pleted before Watt saw it, he having been away from home no doubt. 
 Mr. Murdock managed to keep Watt out of the room until the work 
 was painted in fine style. The columns, of which there were a large 
 number to support the air cylinders, were painted in imitation of 
 marble, and other ornaments of like nature were applied. When 
 Watt saw the work he looked it over carefully, and approved of it, 
 but as soon as he had inspected it, he astounded Murdock by send- 
 ing for a painter to give the whole plant a coat of slate-colored paint. 
 
 Whether Watt originated the idea of painting cast-iron work 
 slate color or not I do not know, but certainly it is a very good one 
 if that includes the steel color that has now become a kind of expo- 
 nent of good work. 
 
 This subject of paint for machine frames is a matter of some 
 importance and well worth attention. One of the objects in view is 
 to attain a harmonious color, one that comports with the material, 
 and that I need hardly say is the color that looks most like material 
 to which the paint is applied. 
 
 Common custom has assigned to cast iron what is called a steel- 
 blue, and this color has become conventional, because the pigment is 
 a permanent one when of good quality, and for some reason, unex- 
 plainable perhaps, brings into strong relief any finished surfaces 
 about a machine. This latter is rather a curious matter. If a ma- 
 chine is painted white, blue, green or red, the finished surfaces seem 
 to be absorbed, and do not "stand out," as it is called, but this is 
 not a result of tint so much as the absorption of light, and this 
 depends on the absence of luster. 
 
 Machine paint should not reflect light. If there is reflection 
 then not only are the finished surfaces obscured or drowned, but 
 every little imperfection in the casting stands out in magnified relief,
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 while if the surfaces are dead or lusterless they look smooth and 
 imperfections do not appear. This luster in machine paint prevents 
 successful photographing to such an extent that at one time Messrs. 
 William Sellers & Co., of Philadelphia, lime washed their machines 
 to attain an opaque surface, and then after photographing them 
 washed off the lime coat and applied the permanent paint, which 
 was of the regulation color, but could not at that time be procured 
 without luster. 
 
 This circumstance caused the paint makers at Philadelphia to 
 enter upon experiments for producing a machine paint without 
 luster that would retain its tint and resist the action of animal oils, 
 the latter a very difficult thing to do, also possessing the quality of 
 extreme hardness. 
 
 Mr. Tully, of that city, succeeded in producing such a paint, 
 which soon came into use there and elsewhere, until the manufacture 
 became a very extensive one, and is yet carried on by Messrs. Raw 
 & Sibley, of that City. This paint requires no preparation, except 
 thinning, it is called, with spirits of turpentine, and can be applied 
 without skill. The surfaces are dead or opaque, and perfect photo- 
 graphs can be made of machines so painted. 
 
 ' As remarked, these dead colors to imitate as nearly as possible 
 the blue tint of scaled cast iron have become conventional all over 
 the world, or at least over that part of it where the subject has had 
 attention, and people have been educated in what may well be called 
 a matter of logical taste. 
 
 The chromatic style of machine painting is now confined mainly 
 to machines made in part or mainly of wood, and such as are for 
 household use, but there are a good many firms in this country who 
 continue to paint engines, machine tools and the like, with rainbow 
 hues, stripes and fresco work, and then to cap all, apply a coat of 
 varnish. It will perhaps be too severe to say that any one competent 
 to understand or do good fitting never finishes a machine in this 
 manner. It is provincial, as they say in England, a very good term 
 for which we have no synonym in use. It means as things are done 
 in the provinces, or, as we sometimes say, in the " back woods." 
 
 This matter of paint is occupying a good deal of time, but one 
 more point in connection must be mentioned, that of what is techni- 
 cally called " filling," meaning paste to fill up the pits or grain on 
 the faces of castings and render them smooth. This is an excusable 
 element of ornamentation or finish, and lends a great deal to the 
 appearance of work. .*
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 There has been a long period of effort to produce a filling com- 
 pound that was hard, impervious to oils, and would adhere to cast- 
 iron surfaces. This has now been accomplished, and it has- become 
 the custom to fill or flush the surfaces of fine machine tools, dynamo 
 frames and other work that is exposed in conspicuous places. 
 
 An old refinement, now nearly gone out of use, was to cut flat 
 surfaces after they were filled, to a perfect plane with pumice stone, 
 which when used with water would abrade the filling material. A 
 proof that such a method of finishing the surfaces of machines is 
 one of good taste is its acceptance with good engineers, who could 
 not without prejudice accord real merits to a machine decorated with 
 colors, stripes or other ornament. It is merely completing what is 
 striven for in the foundry, but is not attainable in the process of 
 moulding and casting. 
 
 The best method of preparing machine castings is to clean them 
 completely when they leave the foundry, the green- sand castings by 
 "pickling" in acid, trimming and then painting them thoroughly 
 before they are worked. This last is a Philadelphia custom, and I 
 am unable to explain the effect it produces, that is, cannot account 
 for the appearance after the castings are handled and worked. They 
 seem smooth all over as if they had been rubbed, and are in a nice 
 condition for subsequent painting, but this is not the only thing 
 gained by painting the castings in a rough state. The surfaces can 
 be accurately " lined " for working. Without painting it is difficult 
 to make visible lines to work to, but is quite easy when the surfaces 
 have been thus treated. 
 
 Pickling, which means immersion in diluted sulphuric acid, is to 
 remove the scale by setting up corrosion on the surface of the iron 
 beneath, causing the burnt scale to fall off, and afterwards washing 
 the castings in water to remove the acid. The means employed are 
 various, from applying the acid liquor with a swab and setting the 
 castings out in the weather to cast the scale, to providing large 
 wooden or lead-lined vats in which a crane load or a large cage full 
 of castings can be lowered and raised out, after which they are 
 washed with a hose, or what is much better, immersed in fresh 
 water. 
 
 With this much in respect to the surfaces of work, we will now 
 turn to the matter of ornament in form, and this in so far as positive 
 ornamentation is soon disposed of, because in the better class of
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 13 
 
 works at this day there is general application of a rule I once saw 
 posted up in a draughting room twenty-five years ago. It read thus: 
 " Not an ounce of iron is to be used for ornament." 
 
 Now that this matter is in mind I will quote some more of the 
 same rules which formed this unique collection. A second was: 
 "No deflecting springs of any kind are to be used on machinery 
 made in these works." Another one: "No screws less than three 
 eighths of an inch are to be used for any purpose whatever, and no 
 screws with slotted heads." Also: " All screws three fourths of an 
 inch and less in diameter shall have square heads, and all screws of 
 larger diameter hexagonal heads." 
 
 These rules were carried out in the works for many years in 
 which I knew them, and probably are to this time. The first rule 
 quoted, the one in respect to ornament, .certainly is, as the published 
 drawings of the company will show. 
 
 This term ornament does not include symmetry, that is, as an 
 integral or, as we may say, an inherent quality, but one capable of 
 different interpretation by different people. For example, a skilled 
 person in looking at a machine recognizes, unconsciously perhaps, 
 the lines of strain, and to his eye the symmetry of framing depends 
 on now nearly the material is disposed along these lines. On the 
 other hand an unskilled observer cannot see a structure in this light. 
 His impressions must arise out of comparison, and a machine seems 
 symmetrical or otherwise as it harmonizes with a house, a plant or 
 an animal. A Grecian or Corinthian entablature is to him a thing 
 of symmetry, only exceeded by a cast iron eagle perched on the top. 
 
 Now it need not take long to decide which of these points of 
 taste should be kept in view, and it is a proper thing to consider 
 here, because design and finish in respect to symmetry and pro- 
 prietry nearly always arise out of the administration of a works. 
 The proportions, material and functions, may be left to the engineer 
 or draughtsman, but the owner or manager manages the paint and 
 ornaments. 
 
 Sir Joseph Whitworth, who is considered the originator of the 
 hollow form for machine frames, used an illustration during a lecture 
 delivered in Glasgow, about forty years ago, that did more to modify 
 this matter of ornament and the design of machine frames than a 
 whole technical treatise would have done at the time. He said, 
 holding up his hand before the audience: " See how nature designs 
 her machinery. The main members, the bones, are hollow, and 
 there is not a particle of material used for ornament. See how the
 
 14 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 corners all have fillets and the contour is smooth and symmetrical." 
 This is quoted from memory, but is substantially his words. At 
 this same meeting was shown for the first time his surface plates that 
 would adhere together when the air was excluded, also his famous 
 gauges that would "slide and drive," that is, the pins would slide 
 loosely in the collars until they were stopped, or held still for a time, 
 and then had to be driven out by force. 
 
 To Messrs. William Sellers & Co., almost as much as to Sir 
 Joseph Whitworth, belongs the credit of dispensing with ornament 
 in machine design. It is true he preceded, but it was in an environ- 
 ment more flexible than that of Messrs. Sellers & Co. The idea has 
 now spread until, as before said, the rule of " not an ounce for orna- 
 ment " will apply in many if not most of our best works.
 
 6 
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 6. December 5th, 1895. 
 SHOP FOREMEN. 
 
 In the first lecture the ideal foreman was mentioned as a mythi- 
 cal person, and is so if he be expected to perform the duties com- 
 monly ascribed to this position, but at this day a good many of the 
 duties once performed by a foreman have disappeared. The 
 draughtsmen have taken his place. I can remember very well when 
 a foreman gave out all kinds of instructions for the work in the 
 smaller machine shops in this country. The drawings, if any at 
 all, for use in the machine shop consisted of general elevations in 
 twa planes, abundantly tinted with colors, but no dimensions 
 marked. These were supplied to the foreman, who laid out the 
 work, and every little thing had to come under his notice. 
 
 He was responsible for the work, the performance of the work- 
 men and for the proprietors also, because the supplies, discipline and 
 everything throughout was under his charge. He alone was 
 responsible in an executive sense, and the man on whom all 
 depended. He got the credit of success, and bore all the odium of 
 mistakes and failures.
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 With detail drawings came new conditions. The foreman 
 interpreted the drawings when they were obscure, but responsibility 
 was shifted to the draughting room and to specifications, but the 
 foreman found still quite enough to do in other ways, and remained 
 an authority for many things that cannot enter into drawings, but 
 under the present system in machine works the general foreman's 
 executive duties have gone over to a manager and special foreman, 
 or leading workmen set over departments. 
 
 I think useful suggestion may arise out of some personal experi- 
 ence in respect to foremen. I had the misfortune to rise to this 
 function at eighteen years of age: not over a great charge, but one 
 of some responsibility, and from then -on for twenty years or more 
 was associated with the methods of a general foreman, and could 
 not help noticing various " hitches " that arose in that system. 
 
 Then occurred some experience in Europe, where the methods 
 of organization were different, and not applicable, as I supposed, in 
 this country, but in 1884 when a business founded in San Francisco 
 had grown up to employ a hundred men, this matter of a foreman 
 began to assume a problem of much difficulty. 
 
 The work made was machine tools, steam engines, hydraulic 
 apparatus and mill gearing or general work, it might be called, con- 
 sisting of shafts, pulleys, special work and repairing; so there were 
 four separate classes of work carried on, besides the shop depart- 
 ments of wood work, pattern making and forging. Several foremen, 
 all of them fairly competent men, were tried, but it was found 
 beyond their powers to manage the different departments. A man 
 conversant with steam engines did not understand hydraulic work, 
 and one who could manage the hydraulic department could not deal 
 with machine tools or steam machinery. 
 
 Finally the shop was divided up into sections under five work- 
 men, selected from each branch of the work because of their skill, 
 and these men were paid extra for acting as the head of their 
 department and being responsible. The shop machine tools so far 
 as possible were set off to these departments, and such tools as could 
 not be segregated operated first for one and then another department, 
 being for the time under the charge of the foreman in that division. 
 
 The men were all young, ambitious, and for many years this 
 went on without a clash, except the first day, when one of the 
 workmen came into the office to find out who he was working for. 
 He was informed that this could not be determined in the office, but 
 his right to ascertain was fully conceded, and as there might be
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TEA TION. 
 
 some difficulty under our system he better go at once to some other 
 shop where there was but one foreman. This was the first and last 
 case of the kind. An arrangement of this kind exists in the case of 
 contract work, or other systems of an analogous nature, both in this 
 country and in Europe, indeed has to exist where workmen are 
 responsible for what is called discipline or authority. 
 
 In a very large works there is commonly a staff, as at the Union 
 Iron Works, in San Francisco. There is a manager over all, then a 
 work's superintendent of the fitting or machine department, a marine 
 superintendent, a shipbuilder, chief draughtsman of the engineer- 
 ing department, and one of the shipbuilding department, an elec- 
 trician, and so on. The division of duties is not often the result of 
 a concerted plan, but follows generally as a matter of evolution in 
 each works, because the division of duties is very different in various 
 kinds or branches of work. The general foreman of former times 
 has disappeared. 
 
 The terms discipline and responsibility have been several times 
 used, and in these is to be found the key to management in a large 
 works of any kind. In a former lecture it was attempted to show 
 that the efficient performance of duty depended on responsibility, 
 and the more the subject is investigated the more will this become 
 apparent. The same rule applies to discipline, which is sometimes 
 a very difficult matter to deal with in a works. 
 
 I doubt if this can be made apparent by words alone, but it will 
 become a very tangible portion of managing duties in future, as you 
 will find, because an aggregation of people all striving to better 
 their condition, improve their skill and position, are necessarily in 
 competition one with another. It is a law of nature, and insepara- 
 ble from aggregated or community life, extending to the brute 
 creation, and even down to insect life. 
 
 Jealousies arise, and to manage so as to maintain harmony 
 among a body of workmen and the staff of a works where there is 
 no defined rules of law to guide, sometimes surpasses human 
 powers. It is an ethical study, which if perused would lead far 
 away from the subject under discussion, but to make it more clear, 
 and to gain suggestions, I will go outside of the industrial field for 
 some illustrations. 
 
 About thirty years ago, Dr. Holbrook established at Lebanon, in 
 Ohio, a normal school, the purpose of which was to prepare teachers 
 for the schools in that State, and the Doctor being quite a student of 
 sociology hit upon a ' happy expedient of avoiding the cares of
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 discipline. The students, who were mainly adults, were assembled 
 at the beginning of each term and informed that the Doctor and his 
 aids had quite enough to do in giving instruction, and the school 
 must govern itself. He recommended the adoption of formulated 
 rules so far as these would apply, to be voted for or signed by the 
 students, which has since been done at the beginning of each new 
 term, and the scheme has, so far as I know, been a complete 
 success. 
 
 The other extreme, that of authority in maintaining discipline, 
 exists at sea, where a commander is clothed with absolute authority 
 over the crew of his vessel, amenable to the laws of his country 
 when he reaches a port, but while at sea he is unrestrained in the 
 exercise of any reasonable or even unreasonable function. By tradi- 
 tion, superstition and necessity the system is successful, but is not 
 one from which suggestion can be drawn for the management of a 
 works. 
 
 One other example can be cited, showing that the natural 
 tendency of people is to order and discipline. In London there are 
 a large number of places of amusement, called music halls, most of 
 them quite respectable, and all of them extensive. The admission 
 fee is small, and the risk of disorder is great even in that city, 
 where order is very rigidly enforced. It was discovered that the 
 best way to maintain order in these public music halls was to make 
 the audience responsible. A chairman, representing the audience, 
 sits in front of the stage facing the people, he announces the plays, 
 criticises the performance, and apparently controls everything on 
 behalf of the audience, to whom he appeals in case of a dispute. 
 The theory of the scheme is correct, the teachers in a college or 
 school, or those who have to conduct a works, should not be taxed 
 with the maintenance of discipline and order among their pupils or 
 workmen. 
 
 In industrial establishments rules relating to discipline should 
 appeal to the self respect and responsibility of those to whom the 
 rules are directed. Posted notices of a paternal or arbitrary form 
 commonly do no good, and frequently a good deal of harm. When 
 such posted rules are required it is easy to put them in the form of an 
 argreement or request, and to say that the owners or management 
 deem such rules expedient for the good and interest of all concerned. 
 
 It must be remembered that at this day in the higher class of 
 skilled industries, workmen occupy a position quite different from 
 former times, and sometimes outrank by education and a fair social
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 standard those who employ and manage, but even if this were not 
 the case there will be found much truth in the old French adage 
 that " courtesy costs nothing and buys a great deal." 
 
 APPRENTICE LABOR. 
 
 Those who have during the past twenty-five years had oppor- 
 tunity of observing the matter of apprentice labor have seen a great 
 change in the relations of apprentice work, amounting to a breaking 
 up of the old system, and it cannot be said that a new one has 
 taken its place. The causes of this are not far to seek. A large 
 share of the skilled endeavor to be dealt with has become a portion 
 of what we call a technical education, and the things to be learned 
 are different, calling for different faculties, and for mental instead of 
 manual skill. 
 
 On the Pacific Coast, where most of you expect to reside and 
 devote your energies, the conditions of apprenticeship differ from 
 the Eastern States and from other countries. Indentures are less 
 required, because there exists a sentiment, and also a kind of rule 
 that prevents apprentices from leaving one shop and going to 
 another one. He will not be employed if it is known that he has 
 not served out his term where he was engaged. This is a very good 
 custom, and its best feature is in the avoidance of regular indenture, 
 which on the grounds of experience I must say is very objection- 
 able, because bound obligations either way do not secure such good 
 results as free service. 
 
 The method of a free apprentice service is presented with some 
 temerity, because I am not aware that it has been tried to any 
 extent outside of a business where I have been connected, but thus 
 far it has proved altogether satisfactory. The method is as follows : 
 Boys to learn a branch of constructive work, that is, machine fitting, 
 pattern making, forging or foundry work, were required to reside 
 in a permanent home, and to have gone through the public schools. 
 
 They were taken for one month on probation, at the end of 
 which if satisfactory their parents were sent for and the rules 
 explained. Apprentices were expected to remain in the works from 
 three to five years, as they might choose, and not to leave unless 
 for reasonable cause. The same rule applied in case of their dis- 
 missal, a reasonable cause had to be given. The wages paid com- 
 menced at fifty cents a day. We had no use for a boy who could 
 not earn that much at the start. From the beginning on to the end 
 we assumed absolute control of wages, and these were made to
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 depend on how long the apprentices remained at one kind of work 
 after they had gone through some months of knocking about, as it 
 is called. In the fitting shop a boy who would remain continuously 
 at a planing machine or a lathe for a year might at the end of that 
 time be receiving six dollars a week, and for a second year nine to 
 ten dollars a week, but if he shifted to a new kind of work his 
 wages would go down again until he caught up in expertness. 
 Such changes were made at the request of the apprentices or their 
 parents, with whom we were careful to keep in communication. 
 
 Difficulties seldom arose, and no apprentice ever, went away 
 whom it was desired to keep. If it became necessary, as it did in a 
 few cases, to discharge the apprentices, this was done in a way to 
 not hurt their feelings or injure their hopes in some other under- 
 taking. The system was one of fairness, kindness and equity, 
 throwing as much responsibility as possible on the apprentice him- 
 self, or on he and his parents. 
 
 This method was tried in Philadelphia and in San Francisco witli 
 a result, or at least a belief, that such apprentice work earned a 
 great deal more than it would have done under an indenture system. 
 It might not answer so well in a large works where personality is 
 nearly eliminated, but it certainly answers in a small works when 
 carried out in the manner described. 
 
 How skilled trades are to be learned in future is not very clear at 
 this time. The opportunities of learning are all the time growing 
 less in the way of acquiring manual skill, and the need of manual 
 skill is at the same time and in the same proportion becoming less. 
 Perhaps the future outfit will be the technically trained apprentice, 
 the machine, and the common laborer. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle in Hero Worship, twenty-five years ago, foretold 
 the influence of tools in the human economy. "Man," said he, 
 "must be defined as a tool-using animal. The true epic of our 
 time is not arms and the man, but tools and the man; an infinitely 
 wider kind of epic." Tools have in a great part substituted human 
 skill; machinery has replaced his muscular power and the appren- 
 tice of the future will stand in new and different relations. 
 
 SHOP PROCESSES. 
 
 This head will lead us into a very wide field, in which there is 
 little or no authority, written or other. It is a subject that must be 
 treated empirically. There are many ways of performing things, 
 some of them good, some better, and one the best. These degrees
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 of comparison are not absolute, they depend on circumstances. To 
 illustrate the difficulty of setting up standards, since the last lecture 
 I had occassion to set a Japanese at work with a hand saw. He 
 made an abortive attempt, and then said: "Teeth are the wrong 
 way, .in Japan saw pull, no push." Of course I laughed at this, 
 and for the moment thought how stupid such a method was, but 
 later on, and now, I am inclined to think the Japanese are right in 
 this matter, and we are wrong. Let us examine it a little. 
 
 In the first.place, if a saw is pulled, instead of pushed, it is in 
 tension, and will not double or buckle as our saws do, and can be 
 made m,uch thinner, perhaps not over half as thick, and be oper- 
 ated with proportionately, less power and waste.,::: The cutting 
 pressure is much less in pulling unless a saw is weighted, but 
 the pressure is uniform, and a saw will not cut unless sharp, as 
 it ought not to do. Again, pushing as a form of manual power is 
 less effective than pulling. The limit in this direction is the leaning 
 weight of the body, but in pulling one braces with their knees, feet 
 or one hand, and attains in addition to the leaning weight a muscular 
 effort of equal or greater force. 
 
 I have seen the Japanese carpenters at work building their place 
 in the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, and remember that the saw- 
 ing was rapid, true and seemingly less tiresome than our pushing 
 method. 
 
 In a former lecture mention was made of the advantage of paint- 
 ing rough castings, so they could be easily lined or laid out for 
 working, and as this matter is directly a problem in shop pro- 
 cesses and of administration it will be a proper one to begin with. 
 
 In England, and, as I believe, in Europe generally, also in Phila- 
 delphia to a greater extent than elsewhere in this country, castings 
 and forgings are lined or laid out by the fitters, and the men who 
 operate machines work to lines instead of drawings. It is easy to 
 see what a wide difference this will make in the division of work 
 and the relations of workmen. The fitter or, as we say in this 
 country, floor hands, vice hands or bench workmen, are by this 
 system made responsible as the leading mechanics, who assume 
 nearly all the responsibility. The machine attendants, those who 
 turn, plane, drill and mill to lines are thus reduced to a. lower grade, 
 because of being relieved of responsibility, and receive less wages 
 accordingly. This is one system. 
 
 The other, which is most common throughout this country, is to
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 distribute drawings to all the machine workmen, and have them lay 
 out their own work to the drawings. If a piece is to be planed, 
 the man at the planing machine examines the drawings and works 
 out the finished forms to the marked dimensions. The same in 
 other operations, while the fitters, which is the shorter and better 
 name, are furnished a general drawing from which they assemble the 
 parts and erect the work. 
 
 As a problem of administration, or of method, the first system is 
 certainly best, as it permits better organization, and leads to various 
 advantages that may be summed up as follows: 
 
 Work is much better laid out by the fitters, who have each part 
 and its relations in mind, also have proper facilities, such as scribing 
 tables, gauges, straight edges and so on. Machine workmen when 
 laying out work must leave their machines idle during the time, and 
 thus reduce the capacity of a shop, or else render more tools 
 necessary. There is ten times the liability to errors, because only a 
 few machine men can understand the completed or assembled work. 
 The other system sets a number of men at work independently, and 
 this diffuses responsibility, also causes it to be shifted from one man 
 to another. The amount of work that can be performed on the dif- 
 fused method is much less than when the fitters lay out and arrange 
 the work in proper sequence. 
 
 The single argument in favor of the diffused method is that it is 
 a democratic one, tending to an equality among workmen and afford- 
 ing advantages to learners, but a works can no more be managed on 
 a democratic plan than a ship or an army can. The sole attempt at 
 this method of administration that has met with success and even 
 that is a question is in framing rules and laws for popular govern- 
 ment, not their execution, because that, even in democratic coun- 
 tries, must be done by authority. 
 
 Any one who has seen a casting or forging lined for working by 
 an expert mechanic, will be convinced of the correctness of the sys- 
 tem. The main implements are a flat table and a set of surface 
 gauges. Sometimes pieces, especially forgings, are bolted to an 
 angle plate, or an angle plate is bolted to the pieces, so they can be 
 turned at will and lined by surface gauges, in two planes. It is a 
 very interesting kind of work. 
 
 Cylindrical forms have within themselves the elements of deter- 
 mining their dimensions, and do not require laying out, except for 
 longitudinal dimensions, hence machine men work from detail draw- 
 ings.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 While speaking of shop processes and methods, such as will fall 
 under or be determined by the management, I will call attention to 
 a curious circumstance in turning operations. 
 
 In this country the invention and wide use of milling or turret 
 lathes, commonly called screw machines, preceded by at least 
 twenty-five years the use of such machines in other countries, and 
 even now there is but a limited use of such machines elsewhere, 
 compared with American practice. These machines can be distin- 
 guished as milling machines for cylindrical work, that is, the 
 milling tools embrace or surround the work and the capstan or 
 turret is set in the axis of the lathe spindle, no rear spindle being 
 employed. In such machines there was a cutting-off slide, but no 
 arrangement for using other tools except those for milling, cutting 
 screw threads, and so on. 
 
 In England a little later on, or about twenty years ago, there was 
 invented and introduced a heavier class of machines, called turret 
 lathes, intended for the same kind of work, but operating with com- 
 mon lathe tools. The turrets that held the tools were set at the side 
 of the work and the line of the spindle, or rather were mounted on a 
 cross slide, so as to be set transversely at any point across the lathe, 
 and this permitted a rear spindle and sliding head like a common 
 lathe. 
 
 The results attained were remarkable, and such that after a time 
 the turret-lathe work, that is, such as could be done on these 
 machines, was drawn on separate cards, and went to a department 
 called the turret-lathe room or shop, where the work was done 
 mainly by boys. The limit of length was not, as in the American 
 machines, what the milling tools could reach over, but was up to 
 two feet in length for the larger machines. In fact there was all the 
 functions of a common engine lathe with turret elements added. 
 
 In this country not much attention was given to these turret 
 lathes until the last three or four years, when the Gisholt Machine 
 Co., of Madison, Wisconsin, began their manufacture in a very 
 improved form, and the results attained are remarkable. I happened 
 on one of these lathes recently in the Union Iron Works, at San 
 Francisco, and was informed that on duplicate work the result was 
 astonishing, both the amount and accuracy far exceeding what could 
 be done on the tools previously in use. 
 
 I have spent some time in this matter to show how slowly 
 methods spread, and how divergent practice is in what may be 
 called standard operations.
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 In machine shops at Philadelphia, where the practice is certainly 
 as advanced as anywhere in this country, work is not chucked on 
 lathes, that is, work to be bored is not mounted on face plates and 
 revolved for boring. This work is done with bars, even when per- 
 formed on lathes, but two hundred miles away, in New England, 
 they make and use chucking lathes for similar purposes. 
 
 STANDARD DIMENSIONS. 
 
 I do not .think ; it necessary to dilate on the 'advantages and 
 economic effect produced in a works by employing a system of stand- 
 ard dimensions. This matter has, no doubt, been or will.be presented 
 here by Prof. Smith, and to argue the expediency of adopting a sys- 
 tem of standard sizes in a works will imply that you, might not do 
 so, and that is not supposable at this day. 
 
 I have used up a good deal of my life's work over this subject, 
 and, as I believe, was the first to. found in the United .States a sys- 
 tem and manufacture of standard gauges, now the American 
 Standard Gauge Works, at Wilmington, Delaware, and by my son- 
 in.-law, Mr. James A. Ta\ lor, who has been identified with this 
 business since 1877. 
 
 The first set of caliper gauges and a corrective cone, it is called, 
 to keep the gauges in adjustment, were made in 1862. The first 
 measuring machines were made in 1878, pin and collar gauges about 
 the same time. A successful manufacture of fixed caliper and 
 internal gauges was finally accomplished about the same time, but a 
 great many American shops had previous to that supplied them- 
 selves with English gauges, made by Whitworth, at Manchester. 
 Now -there are several makers in this country, but much the largest 
 number of gauging implements are made at the American Standard 
 Gauge Works. 
 
 The employment of standard sizes in machine fitting has two 
 objects; one a saving in the cost of construction by the organization 
 it permits, and the other the effect produced on values or prices. 
 The effect on shop manipulation is to permit interchange, and secure 
 good work. If everthing turned or bored had to be trial fitted there 
 could be but little division of processes in a shop, in fact a gauge 
 system is indispensable up to a certain point in any but a very small 
 shop, but the methods of attaining gauge sizes are various and some 
 of them incredible. In San Francisco in former times, and yet, as 
 I believe, in many of the shops there are turning gauges based on 
 the size that round merchant bars of iron or steel will finish, and as
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 these bars are in this country rolled to standard dimensions, as 
 nearly as possible, the finished sizes are something less, awkward 
 dimensions that bear no relation to any standard measure. A reason 
 assigned for this is that it prevented interchange of work made in 
 the different shops, and forced purchasers to have repairing and 
 additions from the same place where the work was originally made. 
 
 It is very singular that the price of machinery has not been 
 much affected in this country by its parts not conforming to 
 standard dimensions. It shows a wonderful neglect on the part of 
 purchasers, who should require this in every case, because, all 
 things considered, there is a great difference in the value of work 
 made to standard sizes and that which is not so made. It is an 
 implied condition in contracts in most parts of the world, and is 
 a sufficient ground for rejecting work made by contract that does 
 not conform to standard dimensions. 
 
 To keep this subject under the head of shop processes, with 
 which we are now dealing, I will say that the first thing provided 
 in the outfit of a machine works should he a set of gauges. They 
 \vill be required even before any work is done to test the dimensions 
 of purchased implements, and the next thing, following gauging 
 implements, are turning mandrels. 
 
 It will no doubt be a new proposition to assume that the founda- 
 tion of a gauge system in a works is the turning mandrels. These 
 are the executive element, so to speak, for maintaining and com- 
 pelling standard dimensions for cylindrical work. Suppose, for 
 example, that in a works where there are no gauging implements of 
 any kind there is introduced a set of turning mandrels, about thirty 
 in number, from % inch to 4 inches, all ground to standard size, 
 and that there are no other mandrels to be used. Every piece 
 requiring to be turned would have to fit these mandrels, otherwise it 
 could not be put into a lathe. 
 
 If there were no standard gauges the mandrels would become 
 such. All kinds of cylindrical work would be turned to the man- 
 drels, which represent in every way pin or internal gauges, and an 
 uniform system of sizes would arise out of the mandrels alone. 
 In fact a set of fixed caliper gauges, and a set of true turning 
 mandrels made from the gauges, represent a tolerably complete set 
 of gauging implements if there is some reference from which the 
 calipers can be tested to see that they remain true. 
 
 Double or even triple sets of the sizes most used should be pro- 
 vided, but there is no loss in this, except a trifling investment, the
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 wear and deterioration by use being the same whether it falls on 
 ten or thirty mandrels, a matter that will be again alluded to in 
 connection with some other implements. 
 
 In respect to the method of preparing mandrels, I will say that 
 up to one and a half inches in diameter they should be of cast steel, 
 hardened all over and ground, reduced at the ends and flatted on 
 the sides for driving clamps. From 1^ to 2^ inches they can be 
 made of shear or machinery steel, the centers made in plugs of cast 
 steel inserted and hardened, or the ends can be well case-hardened. 
 From 2J^ to 4 inches mandrels can be made of soft steel or iron, but 
 in all cases the centers should be inserted. If the mandrels are of 
 iron the center plugs can be welded in and hardened, after which the 
 mandrels can be turned or ground to size. 
 
 It may be considered a severe rule to make holes in which 
 mandrels must drive, and it is so, even with the aid of sizing 
 reamers, but it is practicable and is necessary. Variations of size 
 to one ten thousandth of an inch are clearly preceptible by means of 
 common calipers, and can be felt to much less with rigid calipers or 
 calipering gauges. The necessary fits in a machine shop are far 
 within the thousandth of an inch, that is the difference between 
 loose, driving and shrinking fits come far within the thousandth of 
 an inch, as you have no doubt learned from other sources. 
 
 As difficult as it is to secure fits or diameters, and even the 
 parallelism of holes, these are more easily attained than straight- 
 ness. There seems to be some inherent cause not very well under- 
 stood for deviation in the straightness of holes, and as a means of 
 correcting this, and also the diameter and parallelism, reamers are 
 employed. 
 
 Reamers constitute the third element in gauging implements to 
 maintain standard sizes, that is. in the cycle of adjustment, or prov- 
 ing gauges; calipers come first, then mandrels, and third reamers. 
 
 These are manufactured as an article of trade in three forms, 
 solid, adjustable and shell reamers, with which most of you are 
 familiar, and I will not consume time to point out the difference, 
 because all are analogous in nature, use and objects, but I will here 
 introduce a little heresy by asserting a belief that the reamers as 
 now made are inferior to the very oldest form, the single blade or 
 D reamer that dates back more than fifty years. 
 
 Of course no one is bound to believe or adopt opinions expressed 
 in these lectures, and there may be recommendations and views at
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 13 
 
 variance with common or accepted practice, but such views are 
 honestly entertained, and whenever presented here will be fortified 
 by observation or experience. With this precaution I will venture 
 to say that the old one-blade reamers made by John G. Bodmer, in 
 1840 to 1845, are in both theory and working results better than the 
 multi-blade reamers of our time. 
 
 All true cutting edges require an abutment, a base for guidance 
 or determination, it may be called. In a lathe such guidance is 
 given by the traversing ways. The same in boring with common 
 tools, the abutment or guidance is derived from the axis of bars or 
 other surfaces, and not from the work itself or from the new 
 surfaces being prepared. There is another class of implements, 
 notably all kinds of drilling tools that derive their abutment from 
 the surfaces being cut, and without extraneous support. Such 
 implements never do true work unless the abutment surfaces are 
 large and non-cutting. 
 
 I am afraid this is not very clear, but it will become so if you 
 will observe common implements and apply this rule. A screw top, 
 for example, derives its support or cutting abutment from its cutting 
 edges, and is notoriously a contrary tool that will deviate in any 
 direction, and must be guided by the eye or by some contrivance, 
 such as a tap guide. A fluted reamer with edges only for abutment 
 is not much better in respect to support, and may deviate in the 
 same way, unless the amount to be reamed out amounts to merely 
 scraping. 
 
 The old D reamer had ample guidance around three fourths of its 
 perimeter, was adjustable, so the body when made, as it should be, 
 to a standard size furnished a complete abutment and support for the 
 edge. There was also ample clearance for the chips to fall out, 
 which is not the case with modern reamers when cutting out more 
 than is required to merely true a hole. 
 
 I mentioned these reamers in connection with John G. Bodmer, 
 who no doubt contributed as much to machine-tool discovery and 
 improvement as any one who ever lived, and of whose work I expect 
 to say something more in a future lecture, but the D reamers have 
 come down to our time. 
 
 Some years ago when in the works of J. Morton Poole, at Wil- 
 mington, Delaware, they were pressing the axes into chill rollers 
 about thirty inches long. The shafts were about three and a half 
 inches in diameter, and each went in with nearly the same number 
 of tons pressure, which could be read from a gauge on the hydraulic
 
 14 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 press. I was astonished at this, and asked Mr. Poole how it was 
 possible to bore the rollers so exact. "It is the reamers," said he, 
 " come and I will show you." He went into the tool room, and 
 there, each in a separate box, were single -blade reamers as long as 
 the rollers to be bored. Mr. Poole explained that a jet of water was 
 sent in along the blade, so that all the chips were washed out as fast 
 as made. 
 
 Some years later, when in the works of Mr. William Asquith, at 
 Halifax, in England, I noticed the perfection of the holes made in 
 all kinds of work, and inquired how these holes were finished. He, 
 like Mr. Poole, took me to the tool room, and there again were the 
 old D reamers, which he assured me had survived after various 
 other kinds had been tried. These are two cases now in mind, but 
 there are many more. 
 
 The great gun tubes, bored from solid steel, are finished out with 
 D reamers, or at least this is the case at Sir William Armstrong's 
 works in England. 
 
 Making holes is the main thing of all in machine fitting, 
 external work is done by positively moved tools, and is easily 
 made as true as the guiding ways, but holes or internal work is 
 mainly done either by abutment in the holes, or from extraneous 
 supports that are by no means as rigid and true as in exterior work, 
 and no implement without other guidance than its cutting edges 
 can do true work. 
 
 In making a steam engine, the most difficult operation is to pro- 
 duce a cylinder that is straight, parallel, and smooth in the sense 
 of not having ridges or pits. 
 
 Summing up what has been said of standard dimensions, it will 
 amount to a recommendation, that in equipping a machine fitting 
 shop there is required a set of fixed calipers with internal gauges 
 combined; a corrective standard for these calipers; a set of accurate 
 turning mandrels; and a set of single blade or D reamers. 
 
 With these implements, all of them simple and inexpensive, one 
 can rest assured of work being kept to standard sizes.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 7. December 12th, 
 
 It was at first intended that this lecture should be in a sense 
 separate, or given at the end of the course, but on re-consideration it 
 seemed to be, except the historical part, so intimately connected with 
 shop processes as to be included under that head. It will consist of 
 two parts, the first being some remarks on metrology or standard 
 measures, and the second on gauging implements derived from 
 standard measures. 
 
 It is a curious and even anomalous fact that throughout the 
 realm of nature there is no uniformity except in the element of time. 
 The inevitable laws that govern forces and motion, the endless cycle 
 of causes and results that form the basis of the physical sciences, 
 point to uniformity in matter as a sequence or condition of these 
 invariable phenomena, but this is not the case. There is no uni- 
 formity in the matter. 
 
 No two people are alike. No animal, tree, shrub, plant, leaf, or 
 even a blade of grass, has its precise counterpart in nature. Among
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 a thousand faces that we know, each is distinct, and among the mil- 
 lions that we do not know this distinction goes on without any limit 
 that we can conceive of. It is possible that no two grains of sand 
 are precisely the same. There is no regularity of temperature or 
 weather, no uniformity in matter organized, active or inert, so there is 
 no fixed material basis from which a natural standard for metrology 
 can be derived. Distilled water, we may say, is uniform in weight 
 at some assumed level, the surface of the sea for example, but how 
 are we to determine a specific quantity of distilled water or other 
 liquid, without some means of measurement ? 
 
 Lineal measure must be the base of all. By this is determined 
 weight, capacity, surfaces, solids, and indeed all that is called 
 measures. The metrical system is an illustration of this; the meter, 
 an arbitrary lineal standard, is the base of the whole metrical sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Some centuries ago this difficulty of standards became apparent, 
 and there was a search extending over about two hundred years in 
 attempting to derive from some natural source a lineal measure that 
 could be appealed to in case of doubt, or the loss of standards 
 derived therefrom. 
 
 This search for a natural standard for lineal measure in England 
 and France forms a very interesting history that we need not follow 
 out here, farther than to say that the two nations started out on dif- 
 ferent roads that after long and tedious experiment came together 
 again, because the search was abandoned by both countries. 
 
 The English scheme was to derive a lineal standard from time, 
 or, as we may say, from the motions of the planets Time is a con- 
 stant and uniform element in the great economy of nature, divided 
 with accuracy down from years to seconds, or, as we may say, with 
 present knowledge, from centuries to seconds, and a measure derived 
 from time could always be reproduced. 
 
 The method attempted was by the vibrations of a pendulum in a 
 vacuum or at sea level in an undisturbed atmosphere. This was a 
 very ingenious idea, and came near settling forever a standard for 
 lineal measure. As a pendulum swings in equal time, irrespective 
 of range, it is easy to adjust one to beat to seconds, and if this length 
 could be translated into a measuring implement a similar standard 
 measure could be derived in any part of the world at any time. 
 
 There arose, however, some serious impediments in these experi- 
 ments, one of which you can easily imagine; that of determining the 
 length of the pendulum after it had been adjusted to beat seconds.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 The method was to place fine pivot points at both ends of a 
 symmetrical bar of metal, and then reverse it, to swing first on one 
 end and then on the other, but there remained still the difficulty of 
 transferring this measure, so the scheme was finally given up after 
 half a century of experiment. 
 
 The French people attempted to derive a lineal standard from 
 material nature, the ten millionth part of a quadrant of the earth's 
 meridian. To determine this a degree of longitude was measured 
 between Dunkirk and Barcellona, and the meter was derived from a 
 subdivision of this length, but there arose great contention over the 
 method and results, and the French then, as the English had done 
 long before, abandoned the scheme of a natural standard, and 
 legalized the particular metrical standards then made, and took the 
 required precautions, as in England, to deposit duplicates in differ- 
 ent places, so that their loss could not occur. There was a great 
 ceremony over this event during the reign of Napoleon II, and this 
 arbitrary standard is, as you know, fast becoming that of the whole 
 world, as it ought to do with all possible haste, being decimally 
 divided. 
 
 When standards are arbitrary it is nonsense to talk of a national 
 one. One standard is just as good as another in so far as being an 
 authority. If any nation had succeeded in determining a natural 
 standard, the case would be different, but an arbitrary one may be 
 a yard, a meter or any other unit. There is nothing national about 
 it, and cannot be. 
 
 The English, and to some extent the American idea of a meter 
 is that it is a French measure, because France first adopted this 
 unit, but being an arbitrary measure it is not French any more than 
 it is English or American. It is only a matter of agreement, as the 
 English yard is with its division into inches and feet, with divisors 
 of three and twelve instead of by ten, as we compute in numbers. 
 
 I am sorry that the time at command does not permit more to be 
 said of the curious facts and procedure that are embraced in this 
 history of standards. It is extremely interesting, but not very use- 
 ful in a practical sense, unless to dissipate some notions commonly 
 entertained about natural standards. 
 
 The legal standard in this country is the meter, legalized in July 
 1866, decimally divided downward to the millimeter, and multiplies 
 upward the same, to the myriameter, but by custom, and following 
 the British measures, our machine work is mainly with measures cor- 
 responding to divisions of a yard, with divisions downward of three
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRA 77 (AY. 
 
 and twelve, as before remarked, stopping at an inch, which is twenty 
 times too large for convenience, and going up by factors of 5^, 40 
 and 8 to a mile, all of which is as absurd as il is inconvenient. 
 
 Other measures of weight, capacity, surfaces, solids, and so on, are 
 as bad or worse, because we have two standards for weight and two 
 for capacity, both in common use, divided in a manner that con- 
 forms to no conceivable system of order or relevancy, and explain- 
 able only on the grounds of accident, dating from a time and from 
 circumstances that have nothing to do with modern methods, a tradi- 
 tion that would be out of place in the realms of imagination, to say 
 nothing of the exact arts and sciences of our time. 
 
 The gauging implements now in use in this country, and by 
 means of which the dimensions of machine parts are determined, are 
 derived from the British yard, expressed in inches and fractions of 
 the same, mostly fractions, indeed all fractions, except for four imple- 
 ments out of a set of thirty to forty pieces, as any table of sizes will 
 show. 
 
 These gauging implements consist of movable or adjustable 
 calipering machines, fixed calipers, pins and collars, internal gauges, 
 test rods, reamers, mandrels, and so on, all adjustable to various 
 degrees of accuracy; for example, to a five or twenty thousandth part 
 of an inch in classes that are sold at different prices according to the 
 accuracy guaranteed by the makers, as the published lists will show. 
 
 In 1860, when my connection with this matter began, there were 
 no gauging implements in this country, except Whitworth pins and 
 collars, imported at an expense of $400 to $800 a set, according to 
 the number of sizes embraced, and these gauges were found only in 
 a few of the largest shops. Such gauges are only for reference, 
 from which other implements are made, hence did not meet the real 
 want of gauges that could be given to the men for practical use. 
 Some firms had made forged caliper gauges with round or curved 
 contact points, but there was no manufacture of standard gauges in 
 this country, nor was there in England, except pins and collars, 
 down to 1878, as some future explanations will show. 
 
 With this much in respect to the derivation and nature of gaug- 
 ing implements, I will now revert to the history of their manu- 
 facture in this country, in so far as I had a part in that matter. 
 
 This is done with some diffidence, and the excuse for introducing 
 a matter so personal in nature must be the great interest I once tock
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 in the subject, and a belief that among the few contributions I have 
 been able to make to the advancement of constructive practice, this 
 is by far the most important and the one I especially desire to be 
 known, if any at all, when my work is ended. 
 
 In 1862, when foreman in the works of the Ohio Tool Co., at 
 Columbus, Ohio, I had occasion to make some duplicate work, a'nd 
 not having any means of attaining standard sizes I sent to Jones & 
 L,aughlins, at Pittsburgh, makers of cold rolled shafting, asking 
 them to send a piece of 2-inch shafting that would fit the Whitworth 
 collars they used in their rolling processes. A selected piece of this 
 shaft, about one foot in length, two inches diameter, became a stand- 
 ard, from which was derived a series of sizes from one half to three 
 inches, in the following manner: 
 
 The cross-feed screw of one of the engine lathes was measure*d 
 with a rule, and found to be tolerably accurate, the pitch being 
 eight threads per inch. A conical pin of cast iron corresponding to 
 one end of the cone standard, at the bottom of the sheet of illustra- 
 tions, was put in this lathe and turned in steps by eighths and six- 
 teenths of an inch, the same as in the drawing, but was left a little 
 large. Then a finely tempered square tool was put in the lathe and 
 its edge set true or parallel to the work. The cross-feed screw was 
 provided with a disc divided into four parts, with a. detent that 
 would lock it at these four points. The two-inch step on the cone 
 was thin turned, or scraped until it would caliper the same as the 
 piece of shafting before mentioned. Then the tool was advanced 
 a quarter or half turn and fed over the next step, and so on down to 
 the half-inch size. 
 
 The same process was gone through from the two inch step up- 
 ward to the three-inch one. This cone was mounted in an inclined 
 position on a cast iron base and became a standard for sizes, resting 
 it is true on a very uncertain standard, but much better than no 
 standard 'at all. 
 
 It was soon discovered that fixed calipers were required, and ] 
 proceeded to make these by cutting out lune formed pieces from 
 sheets of cast steel, also had some made from forgings of cast steel. 
 A set of these gauges, about forty in number, was sent to Messrs. 
 Brown & Sharpe, at Providence, Rhode Island, to be ground to size 
 with flat points, and I believe were the first gauges made in this 
 manner. Previously the points were made curved or convex, offer- 
 in- only line contact to withstand wear. A set of these gauges were 
 taken to Messrs. J. A^ Fay & Co.'s works, at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 
 1865 and are no doubt in use there at this time.
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA Tl ON. 
 
 Patents were taken out on the lune formed, flat point calipers, 
 and on the corrective cone, in 1867, but various circumstances pre- 
 vented farther work on gauges until 1869, when I went to Phila- 
 delphia to found if possible the making of my gauges and correc- 
 tive standards. 
 
 ' Everyone regarded the matter of gauges as a mystery, and set 
 small value on the audacity of a young man from Ohio, who pro- 
 posed an innovation on the Whitworth gauges. I learned, as after- 
 wards proved almost true, that the making of gauges was a mystery, 
 and that no one knew how the processes were carried on, but the 
 main impediment was that I proposed a new system. 
 
 I went into various shops to explain how pins and collars were 
 of no use but as a reference, cost too much for common use, and 
 were a foreign product, but no one would aid or join in such an 
 undertaking, and I went on to England, where at the expense of a 
 good deal of time and money, and such information as could be 
 gathered, the conclusion was that the means I had at command 
 would be of no use in founding such a business, and the scheme was 
 reluctantly abandoned until 1872. Then having more means I con- 
 cluded to go on again, and rented one of the front offices in the 
 Franklin Institute building, in Philadelphia, and arranged to have 
 room in the basement to carry on the manufacture of gauges. 
 
 In this office was prepared the designs and detail drawings for 
 ten special machines adapted to the various processes required in 
 making calipers and corrective gauges. These machines I mention 
 with some pride, are all in use today, and in so far as I know, have 
 not been much modified although others of various kinds have been 
 added. 
 
 A contract was made with Baxter D. Whitney, of Winchendon, 
 Massachusetts, to construct these machines, which he did with an 
 accuracy that it would be hard to excel at this day. The work 
 occupied about a year, during which time I was in England, and 
 then came the great panic of 1874, which stopped all productive 
 industry in the way of implements of every kind. No one could 
 conceive of what was to come; shops were closed, and skilled 
 mechanics had to beg for their bread. 
 
 My gauge-making machines were coated with lead and tallow, 
 boxed up carefully, stored away at Winchendon until August 
 1877, when they were sent to Philadelphia, set up, and the gauge 
 works, as we supposed, were founded, fifteen years after the first out- 
 fit of gauges was made at Columbus, Ohio, but the matter had
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 been followed in one way or another all this time, in this country 
 and in England. 
 
 In 1875 or 1870, Prof. John E. Sweet, at Cornell University, 
 began and carried out there some very complete experiments in 
 making standard calipers that deserves notice and commendation in 
 any history of the art in this country. Some very accurate caliper 
 gauges made at the University were exhibited at the Centennial 
 Exhibition of 1876, with much other mechanism designed by Prof. 
 Sweet that attracted wide attention. The first straight line steam 
 engine for one thing. The calipers were remarkably good examples 
 with broad flat points, hard and parallel, but Prof. Sweet in talking 
 of them dropped a remark that became significant some years later, 
 as will appear further on. He said: " We will not make any more 
 of these calipers." 
 
 I will now quote briefly from a paper read before the Franklin 
 Institute, about 1878, when the circumstances were better remem- 
 bered than at this time: 
 
 "It was thought that in a month or so calipers and corrective 
 gauges would be ready for sale, but these expectations were foiled 
 by several circumstances, principal among which was the failure of 
 the measuring machine, fitted with graduating screws made at the 
 Whitworth Co.'s works in England, and guaranteed as to accuracy. 
 
 This matter had before been thought of, but there was scarcely 
 a doubt that the pitch of the screws was correct. Subsequent 
 experiments, however, proved that not only the aggregate pitch was 
 wrong, and the screws not parallel, but the relative pitch in so short 
 a length as seven inches would not do to depend upon. The screws 
 were, no doubt, as the Whitworth Co. afterwards maintained, care- 
 fully made, but the delicacy of measuring tests demands more 
 accuracy than can be attained by the pitch or movement of screws. 
 
 The first experiment in measuring was made by preparing six 
 rods of Stubb's wire, the points nicely finished, and the central part 
 covered with several layers of thick soft paper to prevent induction. 
 These rods were carefully fitted into the machine when set at six 
 inches, temperature and other conditions being carefully observed. 
 The rods were then uncovered and fitted into a groove cut on the 
 side of a bar of pine wood, and taken to Messrs. W. B. Bement & 
 Sons' works, where a Whitworth master screw, with the necessary 
 conveniences for testing the rods were supplied, and even the experi- 
 ments conducted by the firm, who were kind enough to take a great 
 interest in the matter. By careful comparison it was found that the 
 measuring machine in comparison with the screw recorded about one 
 in ten thousand short. This, of course, stopped gauge making for 
 the time. The test rods were then taken to London, and in three 
 separate experiments on different standards, two by myself and one
 
 WORKS A DM IN 1ST R A T10N. 
 
 by Gen. B. C. Tilghman, member of the Institute, it was found that 
 the rods were short, the variation being but little in the three cases, 
 and corresponding very nearly with the less perfect experiment at 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 The next operation was to procure four standard test rods, from 
 Troughton & Sims, of London, adjusted to the imperial yard of 
 Great Britain and its divisions, by which the measuring machine in 
 Philadelphia could be adjusted. Such rods were prepared in Lon- 
 don with great care by those having access to the imperial standard, 
 and my son, Mr. George Richards, then in England, brought them 
 out to Philadelphia, and began the correction of the measuring 
 machine, proving by combinations of the rods comparing with Whit- 
 worth gauges, and other references also by combination. In the 
 mean time another set of test rods were preparing in Manchester, 
 England, and were forwarded to Philadelphia to prove the first set, 
 and also the machine, which had then been tolerably well adjusted." 
 
 The adjustment of this standard machine occupied one month's 
 time. The room was kept at one temperature, as nearly as possible, 
 and thousands of readings were taken off, and when finally done, 
 and the screws calibrated, the profile of error was curious to observe, 
 the profile of one screw was convex, so to speak, and the other con- 
 cave in respect to the axes. 
 
 I will remark here that any screw of reasonably accurate pitch 
 can be made to measure or move for delicate measurements if its 
 errors are translated to the reading scale, that is, if the scale or the 
 index point on the scale, is arranged to vary with the errors of the 
 screw. Suppose, for example, that the pitch of a screw varied iitr 
 of an inch for each convolution, either long or short, this would 
 make no difference if the scale from which readings were made was 
 adjusted forward or back TSTT of an inch at the same time. This is 
 the method of adjustment adopted for all measuring machines that 
 were made at the Philadelphia works. The errors of the screws 
 were compensated by the indices. 
 
 When finally we were prepared to adjust gauging implements 
 there arose another impediment, more formidable still. The contact 
 points of the calipers with flat contact faces could not be ground 
 parallel. The grinding wheels have to rotate parallel 'to these 
 faces, and pass over them, and as the pressure is as the area in 
 contact, the unavoidable elasticity in the wheels and their mount- 
 ings, produced a curved surface. Here was an inherent principle 
 involved, an insuperable difficulty that seemed to set at defiance all 
 known methods of manipulation. 
 
 I remembered then Prof. Sweet's significant remark, and we 
 applied to him for information. It was as expected. This was the
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 9 
 
 difficulty he had met with. He kindly came to Philadelphia to aid 
 us with his own experience and suggestions, but there seemed no 
 way out of this dilemma until one day light came from an unex- 
 pected quarter. 
 
 Mr. J. Morton Poole, Senior, of Messrs. Poole & Sons, Wilming- 
 ton, Delaware, came into the works to examine the gauge-making 
 procesess. At that time I imagine that no one in the world had 
 given so much attention to abrasive grinding as Mr. Poole. He 
 had a laboratory for experiments and the making of grinding 
 wheels. He had collected corundum and other abrasive minerals 
 from all parts of the world, and had an organized and classified cabi- 
 net of such minerals. We thought then, and believe yet, that in 
 that laboratory was collected more knowledge of abrasive grinding 
 material and processes than existed among all the makers of grind- 
 ing wheels in this country, or in the world perhaps. Some of his 
 grinding operations on paper calendering rollers were marvellous, 
 and so intricate as to almost defy explanation. He would grind 
 piles of these rollers eleven in height so as to exclude light between 
 them, and the line of light, as it is called, is commonly estimated at 
 the ten thousandth part of an inch. The guidance to produce this 
 marvellous parallelism and truth was derived from a theoretical axis 
 of rotation, and not from mechanical guides or ways. 
 
 Mr. Poole heard patiently an account of our 'dilemma, and then 
 quietly remarked: "You must grind without pressure; come to Wil- 
 mington, and I will show you how to do this." He had by 
 the selection of certain fine grades of sharp corundum, and 
 by certain methods of cementing, produced wheels that when 
 flooded with a solvent of this cementing material would grind with- 
 out pressure. I do not now remember the composition, and if I did 
 would not feel at liberty to make it known. 
 
 The theory, as explained by Mr. Poole, was this: " A new 
 sharp edge does not repel, on the contrary will draw the material to 
 the edge. Now each time one of my wheels turns around a new set 
 of edges are brought to bear, because the wheels are slowly but con- 
 tinually being dissolved by the liquid solution in which they run, or 
 with which they are flooded." 
 
 The result was remarkable, also will seem incredible. If a file 
 was laid in front of one of these wheels, pivoted at its center so as to 
 swing against the wheel, and a jet of the solvent solution was turned 
 on, the file when swung against the wheel would remain there, and 
 be ground away without any retaining pressure whatever. This
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 may arise from the effect produced by the liquid, or other cause than 
 the extreme sharpness of abrasive edges. I do not claim to under- 
 stand the phenomena, and we were too gratified at the results to 
 press for explanations from Mr. Poole. He prepared wheels suita- 
 ble for grinding the points of calipers, a thing he had never done 
 before for any one, and extended many courtesies and kind acts that 
 will never be forgotten. 
 
 The problem of making fixed calipers was solved, and gauge 
 making rendered possible; first, by Prof. John E Sweet, who dis- 
 covered and pointed out the nature of the difficulty in grinding the 
 contact points, and by J. Morton Poole, who removed this difficulty 
 by his knowledge of abrasive processes. 
 
 As soon as accurate calipers could be ground, orders were taken 
 and the business began, one of the first orders being for a railway 
 works in England, and the second for the Baldwin Locomotive 
 Works, at Philadelphia. It was sixteen years from the time of mak- 
 ing the first set of calipers at Columbus, Ohio, and $18,000 had 
 been spent in implements, experiments and other expense. 
 
 After the business was founded some other firms at the East took 
 it up, and added what Mr. Taylor called the "theatrical part." 
 The Whitworth system of end contact or touch, it may be called, 
 was disparaged, and apparatus for visual divisions was instituted. 
 Prof. Rogers, of Cambridge University, went so far as to forget the 
 courtesy due to Sir Joseph Whitworth and to deride his "millionth 
 measuring machine." 
 
 Sir Joseph Whitworth had made in his works a machine fitted 
 with such accuracy that it would indicate movement to one millionth 
 part of an inch, a thing easily proved and performed hundreds of 
 times, but it was not a measuring machine in the sense of testing or 
 defining dimensions. 
 
 I know more of this machine, which I have often seen, than it is 
 possible for Prof. Rogers to learn. It was made by Mr. John Sin- 
 cock, now of Birmingham, who was for many years in the works of 
 Sir Joseph Whitworth, engaged in the gauge-making department, 
 and who has informed me of the methods of attaining the extraordi- 
 nary fitting done on this plain-looking machine. 
 
 A small bar of metal was poised like a scale beam to vibrate 
 between the contact points of the machine. This bar was set in 
 vibration and the points closed until the friction between them would 
 cause the vibration to cease. Then the pivots were drawn back, the 
 beam set in vibration and the points returned to within one millionth
 
 WORKS ADMINIH TRA T10N. 
 
 of an inch of their former position and the beam again set in vibra- 
 tion, which would continue until the points were advanced a 
 millionth part of an inch when the friction would arrest vibration. 
 The machine is in the Kensington Museum, at London, and is no 
 doubt capable of the same demonstration now. The purpose of the 
 machine is to show that surfaces can be so accurately fitted as to not 
 move in stages when such minute adjustment is made. 
 
 The standard machine at the American Standard Gauge Works, 
 that weighs about 000 pounds, and has a range of six inches, is 
 fully sensitive to the fifty thousandth part of an inch, as was 
 demonstrated before the Franklin Institute in 1879, where I read a 
 paper on the subject of standard measures, illustrated by various 
 implements and machines supplied from the gauge works in Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 The machine is set on balance beams, a necessity discovered in 
 its adjustment. It is covered with a close glazed case, and set where 
 the sun will not shine upon it. This latter matter caused some 
 difficulty during adjustment. The contact points are double, and it 
 was discovered that during the forenoon the rear points facing south- 
 east were loose, and front points were closer. In the afternoon they 
 resumed their normal relation. This was caused by the sun shining 
 through a window at the back of the machine, and is not a matter of 
 wonder at all. 
 
 It is a common supposition that the processes of gauge making 
 require great dexterity and skill, because of minute dimensions 
 dealt with, but in a gauge works there is no more care or concern 
 respecting a ten thousandth of an inch than there is over one 
 hundredth of an inch in common fitting. Workmen deal with these 
 small quantities in the most common-place manner, by numerals 
 which represent thousandths of an inch or tenths of thousandths, 
 these being the units employed for all kinds of work 
 
 To show that our ideas of accuracy are relative only. I once 
 employed a wood turner from the country to turn wooden vice 
 screws. The heads were about four inches diameter, but these 
 began to increase because of wear in a notched piece of board he 
 employed for calipering. He was requested to turn the heads one 
 eigth of an inch less in diameter so they would fit into the screw 
 cutting machine. He stopped his lathe, and with an appealing look 
 said, " Mister, put that in quarters, I never come down to eighths," 
 in evidence of which he showed us his home-made rule, that was 
 divided only to quarters of an inch. That same man might have 
 been taught in a week to deal with thousandths of an inch.
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Nearly all finishing operations in gauge making are performed 
 by succession so as to avoid a rise or change of temperature. If 
 calipers are to be ground, from five to twenty-five are taken at one 
 time, and after a few passes in the grinding machines one is removed 
 and another inserted until a close limit of accuracy is attained. 
 Then the whole are tested by the standards. Each piece after testing 
 is marked with chalk, 2 3 4 and so on, these figures meaning 
 tenths of thousandths of variation from the standards. Those 
 coming within one five thousandths of an inch were taken out as 
 one class and the rest returned to the adjusting room. 
 
 By repeated trials the accuracy would increase, and a second 
 class within one ten thousandth of an inch would be taken out as 
 completed. A still higher class had a limit of one twenty-five 
 thousandth part of an inch. This was the ultimate accuracy aimed 
 at in commercial implements. These latter were sold at a much 
 higher price, and were seldom wanted. The expense of adjustment 
 increased very rapidly with the precision attained, much faster 
 indeed than the difference in price, and gauges beyond the limit of 
 one ten thousandth of an inch, were not very profitable to make. 
 
 You will no doubt wonder how such implements can be removed 
 from a machine and be replaced again so as to have precisely the 
 same position, but this is simple enough. Everything ground is 
 mounted on centers or points like those of a lathe, but very carefully 
 prepared and the center points accurate and kept clean. The 
 centering points are cut away from the gauges seen in the drawings. 
 
 The first use of gauging implements in a systematic way was no 
 doubt by John G. Bodmer, at Manchester, England. Mr. Bodmer 
 was a Swiss engineer, who at his day was perhaps the foremost 
 mechanical engineer in Europe. He was born at Zurich, in 1786, 
 and began his career when young as a millwright, that term mean- 
 ing then, a constructor of all kinds of machinery. He made his 
 way into Germany and Russia, where he held honorable commis- 
 sions, and in 1833 went to Manchester, where he founded a machine 
 works, invented and constructed nearly all the machine tools known 
 to modern practice. 
 
 I will read a short extract from a memoir of Bodmer, from the 
 minutes of the Institution of Civil Enginers, London, dated 1868: 
 
 " Mr. Bodmer approved so highly of the French metrical system 
 of measures that he adopted it, and made use of it in all his draw- 
 ings and constructions. He also, from the first, introduced it into
 
 WORKS ADM IN 1ST RA Tl OA P . 
 
 his workshops in England; and so far from experiencing any diffi- 
 culties in this matter, on the part of the men, they understood it 
 immediately, and liked it, at least, as much as the duodecimal 
 system represented by the old foot-rule, and the subdivision of the 
 inch into 'eighths,' 'sixteenths,' and 'thirty-seconds.' A number 
 of wooden staves of half a metre in length, accurately marked and 
 divided, by a machine made expressly for that purpose, into deci- 
 metres, centimetres and milimetres, were distributed amongst the 
 workmen; and although they would frequently by way of abbre- 
 viation, call a ' milimetre ' a 'metre,' the misnomer did not lead to 
 any errors. For the use of the pattern-makers, the measuring 
 staves were divided so as to include an allowance for the contraction 
 of the metal; that allowance never being left dependent upon the 
 private judgment of the men. Besides, there was in existence, and 
 accessible to the workmen on application to the foreman, a complete 
 system of distinctly marked and accurately executed internal and exter- 
 nal gauges of various kinds, so that any required measure could be 
 tested, either directly, or by means of the calipers, if required." 
 
 It is more than probable that Sir Joseph Whitworth's pin and 
 collar gauges have this origin. He was then a young mechanic of 
 Manchester, and must have known of, if he did not see Mr. Bod- 
 mer's gauges.
 
 8 
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 8. December 19th, 1895. 
 
 MACHINE TOOLS. 
 
 In the first part of the present lecture I propose to offer some 
 criticisms upon modern machine-tool practice, especially standard 
 machines for turning, planing, boring and drilling in metal work. 
 This I feel at privilege to do, having been for many years connected 
 with this branch of constructive work, both in metal and wood- 
 working implements. 
 
 Reasons for such criticism will appear in the fact that in no 
 other manner can your attention be so well directed to the subject, 
 and because a knowledge of implements is an essential or even a 
 qualifying part of one's administrative ability in a works. 
 
 I am aware that the present lecture may if published provoke a 
 good deal of criticism, hence pains will be taken to follow the line of 
 ascertainable facts in as many cases as possible, and in all cases to 
 keep within features open to your own investigation. 
 
 Machine tools as a branch of constructive work is one of exceed- 
 ing interest, because ,such implements are most nearly connected
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 with human effort and skill. They have in nearly all cases sup- 
 planted hand labor, and are directed to processes that not very long 
 ago were carried on by manual effort, and are yet, as remarked, 
 most nearly connected with the personality of workmen. 
 
 Since the earliest time when such implements, especially those 
 for working in iron, became a branch of manufacture, or a separate 
 trade, the best mechanics in all countries have devoted their skill to 
 machine tool making. This arose from a necessity for accurate 
 work, and because unlike other implements they are the agents of 
 their own production, create themselves, so to speak, and this is a 
 very strange and exceptional matter, without a parallel in the whole 
 field of skilled industry. Those who operate machine tools therefore 
 understand their construction, merits and faults, which cannot be 
 said of other implements, and this may be a reason for some of the 
 peculiar features of the business to be pointed out. 
 
 In a wood working or textile manufactory, for example, the 
 machines and implements do not appear in the same light. Those 
 who use them are skilled in a totally different branch of work, and 
 see onl} 7 the functions of the machinery, besides there is not the 
 opportunity for emulation and comparison between machines, 
 because the machines of a class are riot duplicates, or alike. 
 
 In machine work, intricate as it is, the machine processes are 
 very few, consisting mainly in turning, planing, boring and drilling, 
 calling for only three types of standard tools, while in wood working 
 for example, there will be in comparison at least a dozen different 
 standard machines. All these things constitute machine tool mak- 
 ing an attractive and important branch of work, carried on, as 
 before said, by the best mechanics in all countries. 
 
 From these circumstances we would naturally expect that this 
 branch of work would long ago have settled down, upon a scientific 
 basis, attained uniformity, computed dimensions and strains, also 
 measures of capacity and endurance, but this is not the case, and we 
 find that one of the highest branches of constructive art, in so far 
 as exact work and.. careful fitting, is carried on/almost entirely with- 
 out the aid of such information as it is the main object of your 
 studies here to acquire. 
 
 It was not without some thought of this ; that the subject has 
 been selected, and also with a belief that a great deal of good can 
 be done by an attempt to bring machine tool making; more within 
 that class of structures that receive logical and analytical treatment 
 the same as is bestowed upon hydraulic,, steam and electrical 
 apparatus.
 
 WORKS A DM I HIS TRA T10N. 
 
 To support what has been claimed in respect to machine tools, I 
 will now proceed to note various facts in their development and in 
 modern practice, which can be contrasted with other branches of 
 machine work. In the first place attention may be called to the ele- 
 ment of strain, which is commonly the foundation from which is 
 computed the proportion of parts, and it may be asked, what you 
 have met with in the various technical writings you have read relat- 
 ing to the strains in machine tools ? 
 
 I do not include in the remark certain machines that endure 
 direct strains; such as punching and shearing machines, but turning, 
 planing, boring, drilling and milling machines, with the various 
 modifications that may be classed under this head. Except an 
 attempt some years ago at the John Hartrnann Works, in Chemnitz, 
 Saxony, to ascertain tool strain, that is, the cutting stress of certain 
 tools, I have not seen any literature dealing with the strains in 
 machine tools, neither of degree nor distribution. 
 
 It may be said in respect to the degree of strains, that these are 
 variable and not easy to ascertain, and this is certainly true in 
 respect to the actual force applied to cutting edges, but this is an 
 inconstant and unnecessary element in such computations. The 
 best measure for strains is found in the driving power, the tractive 
 force of the driving bands, which falls within plain rules, and can 
 be followed through a machine in a very simple manner in so far as 
 degree. 
 
 Every machine tool is supposed to withstand the power that can 
 be applied to its first movers or driving pulleys, and this is in fact 
 a rule guessed at, and applied by tool makers, but not as in other 
 cases by computation or any rules of general acceptance. Every 
 machine tool is or should be made so it will not be wrecked in case 
 of obstruction, and this condition must of course arise out of three 
 factors, the strain or power of the first movers, the distribution of 
 this force by gearing, and the momentum of running parts; the latter 
 not being an element of much importance in machines for turning, 
 planing, boring and drilling, or any machine wherein the tool stress 
 is constant. 
 
 At the slow speed which the cutting action takes place, and 1 
 facilities for experiment, there are perhaps no other machines as a 
 class in which the strains can be so easily computed or determined. 
 For example, suppose that a bar is bolted to the face plate of a 
 lathe a weight hung thereon and the driving belt is shifted to the 
 fast pulley, and the weight on the lever or bar is moved out or in to
 
 WORKS A DMINIKTRA T10N. 
 
 balance the strain. The torsion on the spindle would at once appear. 
 Such an experiment could be made on any small lathe in a few min- 
 utes.' time. The thrust of a planing machine table or the thrust of a 
 cutter bar in planing, slotting, and shaping machines, is still more 
 simple, because falling in a direct line. 
 
 I mention these things, not as a suitable or necessary way of 
 determining the cutting strain that machine tools should exert, but to 
 show how simple a matter it would be to arrive at some rules in the 
 case, without computation even. The direction and distribution 
 of strains is a more complicated matter, but not very difficult com- 
 pared to problems that are continually computed in other kinds of 
 machinery. In a lathe for example, the lateral strains, those normal 
 to the line of the spindles, fall at a very constant angle, or tangent 
 from the work, downward on the front member or side of the main 
 frame, and for the most part outside the main frame, in lathes that 
 have their spindles set over the center. 
 
 The resultants of this strain, upward or opposite on the spindle 
 supports, torsional on the main frame and so on, are easy to follow 
 out, but it is not done by tool designers, and if it were there would 
 soon arise some changes in their plans. For example, an investi- 
 gation of these strains and their resistance by the various parts 
 would never assign a position for a lathe spindle central over the 
 bed or frame; neither would it indicate a lathe frame made like a 
 ladder with two side members connected by cross girts, which is 
 perhaps that form which more than any other permits torsion in 
 proportion to the amount of material in a section. 
 
 Tool makers do not .seem to care anything about such matters. 
 It must be nearly twenty years ago when Professor John E. Sweet 
 made models of girder frames of the cross girted and tubular forms, 
 and published the results of his experiments, showing as now 
 remembered that the same amount of material, would in resisting 
 torsion be about four times as strong when disposed as a box or 
 hollow section. 
 
 . It is longer ago than that when he pointed out the absurdity of 
 mounting long framed machine tools on four bearing points, when 
 the foundations were not immovable, as no foundation is, he pointed 
 out that a three-leg stool always stood firm, and one with four legs 
 would not. No one disputed that, and I remember about the same 
 time, when in the works of Messrs. Cope & Maxwell, at Cincinnati, 
 Ohio, where a good many lathes were on the upper floors, the rear 
 supports were unfastened and pieces of round iron inserted between
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 the frame and the support or leg so as to secure a central bearing. 
 Mr. Maxwell informed me that if a heavy casting or other weight 
 was placed on the floor near a lathe having four bearing points, the 
 carriages would bind, by reason of the floor yielding, and the expe- 
 dient named had to be adopted. 
 
 This matter never had much attention from machine tool makers, 
 and as you may see they continue to provide the four bearing points 
 the same as before. Had such an obvious improvement been pro- 
 posed in steam, hydraulic, or other machinery, does anyone suppose 
 that it would not have had instant investigation and adoption all 
 over the world, in some form to avoid the unequal bearing of frames ? 
 In European practice the effect of these twisting strains on high 
 mounted machines is partially avoided in another way. The sup- 
 ports or legs of machines are inverted so to call it, made as pedestals 
 with broad permanent attachments at the bottom, and a narrow 
 bearing at the top, in other words the metal is disposed as an 
 immovable vertical standard and to sustain weight, which is correct 
 enough if we assume that the machines are to be set on immovable 
 foundations, as is commonly the case there. 
 
 Professor Sweet is not the only one who has had the discomfort 
 of seeing useful suggestion and improvement ignored by machine 
 tool makers. I will name some more instances of an equally 
 remarkable kind. 
 
 Messrs. William Sellers & Co. , at least thirty years ago discarded 
 the reversing train of wheels for planing machines, and applied two 
 driving bands instead, one for the forward and the other for the 
 backward movement, thereby saving a good deal in the cost of con- 
 struction, avoiding noise and securing a better action in every way. 
 They also made the bands narrower, moved them at a higher rate of 
 speed, and so arranged the shifting apparatus that one band would 
 be off before the other was on, so that one would not be pulling 
 against the other, thus avoiding the screeching and loss of power 
 that was inseparable from the old gearing. They also removed the 
 feeding motions from the tappets that reversed the machines, so the 
 feed could be controlled independently, and to avoid the severe 
 strain that would otherwise fall on the tappets, with various other 
 changes of much utility. 
 
 The useful results attained by these improvements were such 
 that it might be said they created a new machine tool. It was the 
 most original and sweeping departure in standard machine tools in 
 their history for fifty, years past. Had such a change been made
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 in any other kind of machinery it would have led to an immediate 
 revolution, and gone all over the world as fast as descriptive litera- 
 ture would have conveyed the methods, but this was not the case 
 with machine tool makers. 
 
 Some of these features after a time began to find their way out 
 into the practice of this country. The two bands required about 
 twenty years to become generally adopted. The separation of the 
 feeding and reversing apparatus about the same time. The differ- 
 ential shifting apparatus has hardly yet become general in tool 
 practice. 
 
 In England scarcely one of these improvements are yet under- 
 stood or applied. Reversing is done by shifting a wide band three 
 times its width across an idle intermediate pulley to reverse the 
 tables. The feeding is done by the table tappets and acts at each 
 motion of the table, whether the stroke be full or not. The for- 
 ward and backward movements are fixed relatively, and cannot be 
 changed after a machine is once made, and there is little or no 
 understanding of Messers. Sellers & Co.'s improvements, made 
 about thirty years ago. 
 
 Now, it may be asked, how is this possible ? It is not difficult to 
 explain. There is no science or even a literature of machine tools. 
 No one knows or inquires into the movements and functions of 
 planing machines. The makers keep on in a rut, making them over 
 and over in the old way, until some purchaser demands a change. 
 
 Even at this day one may go into any of our machine tool works 
 and ask for an analysis of these improvements made by Messrs. 
 Sellers & Co., more than thirty years ago, and will receive but little 
 information. The improvements may have been adopted, but not in 
 the same way or for the same reason that like improvements are in 
 steam engines. 
 
 In 1870, Mr. Baker, a well known engineer in Philadelphia, had 
 some small engine lathes made to order there, and had the driving 
 wheel on the poppet or wheel train spindle so arranged, that by 
 simply sliding the wheel sidewise on the spindle, it would engage 
 with either the spindle or the cone pulleys. The only change 
 required for this was to make this wheel of the same pitch as the 
 rear back gear wheels, and provide room on the spindle to slide the 
 wheel, which would stay in either position without any fastening. 
 
 The cost of this was trifling, and no charge was made for the 
 alteration which Mr. Baker estimated as adding about two dollars to 
 the cost of making each lathe. The result of this improvement is
 
 WORKS A DM IN 1ST R A TION. 
 
 remarkable. The relative speed of the cone pulleys and the spindle 
 of a lathe when back geared is about as five to one, so this shifting of 
 the poppet spindle pinion changed the speed of the screw gearing in 
 that proportion, so that in cutting screws of course pitch the wheel 
 train was relieved of strain, that on the first mover being as one to 
 five, or as the relative speed of the cones and spindle. 
 
 It is dangerous to the screw train of a common lathe to cut screws 
 of coarse pitch, worm wheels and the like, indeed it cannot be done 
 at all in many cases, and it is common to rig up some contrivance to 
 connect the screw gearing with the back gearing when coarse pitch 
 threads are to be made. Here is a simple little improvement not 
 patented, of much value, and costing almost nothing at all, that has 
 not, I believe, been adopted, even at the works where Mr. Baker's 
 lathes were made, and only in one other shop, so far as I know. 
 
 About the same time Messrs. Harvey Bros., of Glasgow, began 
 fitting their small lathes with a third pair of wheels in the back 
 gearing. The result was such that a good many people who had 
 previously purchased lathes from these works returned the lathes to 
 be provided with this improvement. It adds fifty per cent, to the 
 number of changes for speed, and avoids driving the cone pulleys at 
 high speed when a lathe is back geared, also permits a much wider 
 range of both speed and power. 
 
 This improvement was never patented, and has made its way 
 into one shop in England and one in this country, so far as I know. 
 Drawings and full explanations were published in technical journals 
 and Messrs. Harvey's printed circulars. 
 
 Earlier than this, the same firm, and I think some others in Eng- 
 land, quit applying back or multiplying gearing on the intermediate 
 shafts of machine tools, and I will ask especial attention to this 
 matter. It is one that more than any other will show the lack of 
 analysis in machine tool making. 
 
 On a lathe the back gearing is placed on the spindle, so there is 
 no torsional element between the gearing and the work, at least none 
 that can yield much. In triple-geared lathes the second pinion 
 is geared directly into the face plate, so even the spindle is relieved 
 of torsional strain. No one thinks of any other method of gearing 
 a lathe spindle, or that any other less rigid would answer, but as 
 soon as we turn to drilling and boring machines there is a new 
 arrangement altogether. 
 
 The two machines, lathes and those for drilling and boring, have 
 much in common. They have spindles arranged to revolve at vari-
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TKA TION. 
 
 cms rates, subjected to torsional and lateral strains, and one would 
 naturally look for a similar method of gearing, but this is not so, as 
 you can see by referring to three fourths of the drilling and boring 
 machines made in this country, and nearly all made in other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The back gearing is not placed on the spindles, but on some 
 driving shaft beyond, which becomes subject to the same or greater 
 strain as the spindle, and thus the whole of the power at slow speed 
 is transmitted through a pair of bevel wheels, liable to break, 
 and causing a side thrust on the bearings inversely as the diameter 
 of these wheels. 
 
 In radial drilling machines it is not unusual to find the back 
 gearing placed on a third shaft, away from the spindle, interposing 
 the torsion of ten to twenty feet of shafting between this gearing 
 and the spindle, also through two, and sometimes three pairs of 
 bevel wheels. 
 
 In common drilling machines it is almost an universal custom to 
 place the back gearing on a second shaft, and transmit through a 
 pair of bevel wheels, which answers for light drilling, but not very 
 well for heavy drilling or for boring. 
 
 The faults of such an arrangement will become obvious if we 
 imagine a lathe with its back gearing on the countershaft overhead, 
 and a second shaft extending down to the lathe spindle, with two 
 pair of bevel gear wheels to make the required angles. This would 
 correspond to a common drilling machine, which is subjected to the 
 same torsional strains as a lathe, and to the same or even greater 
 strains in boring. 
 
 Now, it may be said, there must be some reason for this method 
 of arranging drilling and boring machines, but there is none that I 
 can discover, except a want of considering the strains, and proceed- 
 ing in the same manner that other machinery is made. It seems to 
 be simply movement in a rut, ignoring all but precedent and custom, 
 and the proof of this lies in the fact that Messrs. Harvey Bros., of 
 Glasgow, have not in many years made any heavy cutting machine 
 not having the back gearing on its spindle, but we need not go 
 to Glasgow for precedents. Messrs. William Sellers & Co., of Phil- 
 adelphia, have not I think in fifteen years past made a drilling 
 machine in any other manner, and in Prof. Smith's office you will 
 find a drawing of a radial drilling machine, the most difficult of all 
 to arrange in this manner, with the back gearing placed on the 
 spindle. It is a fine example of logical and scientific design, that
 
 WORKS A DMIN1STRA TION. 
 
 you will do well to examine, as it will relieve me of some of the 
 onus of criticising my fellow machine-tool makers. 
 
 I could go on through planing, shaping and other machines, 
 pointing out features of unscientific design, hut think enough has 
 been presented to show that there is a marked want of what we may 
 call logical design in machine tools, and the improvements when 
 made are not understood and are avoided as long as possible. 
 
 This remark applies especially to European countries, although it 
 must be admitted that there is in Germany indications of investiga- 
 tion and change in machine-tool practice and the application of 
 methods that have so niuch advanced many other branches of skilled 
 manufacture there. 
 
 In this country Prof. John E. Sweet has with his usual candor 
 written a good deal upon machine tool making, and is almost alone 
 in being able to look at the subject generally, and not alone from 
 the particular practice around him. His qualification in this branch 
 of work is sufficiently indicated by the fact that he was appointed a 
 judge of the machine-tool exhibits 'at the Chicago Exhibition of 
 1893. 
 
 Prof. Sweet, who when he does a thing, does it as well as he can, 
 and, as I have been informed, spent a good deal of time, amounting 
 to several months, in preparing a report on machine tools' at the 
 Exhibition. He examined over four hundred machines, and is said 
 to have prepared descriptions and criticisms of more than three hun- 
 dred different machine tools. What an invaluable addition this 
 report would be to our technical literature and to the industrial 
 interests of this country, especially to machine tool makers, but I 
 fear it is lost to the world, and will never see the light. The reasons 
 are no doubt wholly inconsistent with the future good of the art. 
 
 It is not the purpose of these remarks to draw invidious compari- 
 sons, or to disparage the general improvement made in standard 
 machine tools during fifty years past, much less to deny that special 
 machine tools have been as progressive in design as many other 
 classes of machinery, but to point out fairly that general practice in 
 the former has not been progressive in the degree that applies to 
 most other kinds of skilled industry, and especially to point out 
 that .in equipping a works one should look beyond the average trade 
 circulars and claims of advertising matter. 
 
 If, for example, a maker of engine lathes says that a pair of 
 metallic clutches on the countershaft are a necessary and commend- 
 able feature of his lathes, it is perfectly proper to consider whether
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 a shifting band is not the most perfect friction clutch ever devised, 
 and if the bands were narrow and their speed sufficient, why the con- 
 trol is not as complete as is possible with a metallic clutch; also if the 
 mechanism to reverse a planing machine continually, is not equally 
 suitable to reverse a lathe only one time in a hundred compared to 
 a planing machine? Such investigation can do no harm, and would 
 if followed up by those who purchase tools soon modify and improve 
 many things evidently faulty in existing practice. 
 
 PATTERN MAKING. 
 
 The term pattern employed in machine work is not quite rele- 
 vant, as it conveys an idea of configuration in one plane. " Model" 
 is a better term, and is employed to some extent in Knglish, as it is 
 in French and German. Pattern is, however, the name in use here, 
 and will be adopted for that reason. In a works it is a department 
 that requires a good deal of administrative attention, because more 
 than anything else admits of wide divergence in cost and quality. 
 
 Patterns are commonly considered to be an expense, not because 
 of their nature and relations so much as their variable cost, which 
 arises out of two opposite circumstances: the frequency of use and 
 the infrequency of their use. 
 
 If a pattern is employed in making ten castings its cost should 
 properly be apportioned between ten castings, one tenth being 
 charged to each, but the number of times a pattern is required is 
 not often known when it is made, so the whole cost is charged to 
 the first casting, and its subsequent use goes to profit or a dimin- 
 ished price for the castings. 
 
 If a pattern is provided for use one time, or a special pattern, 
 it is called, it is made in the cheapest manner. A pattern for the 
 same thing may cost ten dollars or fifty dollars, as it is made for 
 standard or special use. It can be nailed up without fillets, the 
 corners left sharp, and unpainted or unvarnished, leaving a good 
 deal for the moulder to "dig out," as it is called, or it may be 
 a fine finished piece of wood work, filleted, cornered and varnished. 
 In some cases a pattern is no more than a " strike " or sweep, a thin 
 piece of wood or metal to scrape or strike the contour of a mould, 
 then again a pattern may not be a model at all, but to form an 
 envelope or matrix of clay and sand, improperly called a core, that 
 constitutes the mould itself. 
 
 By this time you will have concluded, no doubt, that a machine 
 pattern is a very indefinite kind of thing, which is true, and at the
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 same time will perceive what a range of discretion must be accorded 
 to a pattern maker, who, unless instructed, has to consider all these 
 matters himself, and so determine the form and quality of each pat- 
 tern prepared. 
 
 Pattern making is commonly claimed to be the highest branch of 
 skilled work carried on in a machine works, and it is if we assume 
 that each pattern maker knows how to construct all kinds of pat- 
 terns and adapt them to the circumstances of each case. Pattern 
 making requires a complete knowledge of drawings, that is, how to 
 interpret and make them, because pattern makers have to repro- 
 duce drawings for castings, so as to add for shrinkage and allow for 
 the finished dimensions. 
 
 A pattern maker must of course understand moulding, so as to 
 adapt his patterns to these processes. He is responsible for means 
 of setting and supporting cores, the method of moulding, that is, 
 partings, venting, and so on. He must also understand the amount 
 required for finishing, which is by no means uniform. The cores 
 will swell and the castings will shrink, so there are allowances and 
 conditions of many kinds to be taken into account, and besides all 
 this the work itself is of a kind that demands much skill in the use 
 of tools. 
 
 Patterns when finished with transparent varnish, shellac being 
 the common coating, must be made as carefully as cabinet ware, 
 because every joint shows much plainer than if the wood was bare, 
 but when the varnish is colored with lampblack it is opaque, and 
 hides the wood work. 
 
 The Conventional method was formerly to varnish patterns with 
 clear shellac, and the cores w^ith black varnish, but this custom has 
 nearly gone out. It is expensive and useless, adding a great deal to 
 the cost of patterns by reason of the better and often useless work 
 required. I remember having introduced this revolutionary change 
 in a works at Philadelphia many years ago, by reversing the method 
 of varnishing. The pattern maker thought his shop disgraced, but 
 on coming to this Coast I found the same method in use here. 
 
 Pattern making is in San Francisco one of the most advanced 
 processes in machine work, a matter easy to account for. In the 
 first place nearly all the patterns are special, and not used for a long 
 time, as in the organized and classified work done in the East, con- 
 sequently a good many more are required. They are regarded as an 
 expense, and so treated in the accounts of many of the works, hence 
 there is a continual effort to cheapen and avoid this expense. Pat-
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 tern makers come here from various countries, bringing with them 
 and applying all the expedients they have picked up in former 
 experience. 
 
 Moulding is well done as to methods and to the soundness of 
 castings, but badly done in respect to smoothness. There are as 
 many different ways of moulding a piece as there are ways of mak- 
 ing a pattern. It may be sound, true and smooth, or the opposite 
 of these. In fact, but little can be said or written in respect to 
 either pattern making or moulding that will come under the head of 
 rules. Both things are intensely technical in nature, and have to be 
 absorbed by contact, so to speak. 
 
 A pattern shop requires all the light that can be attained, the 
 more the better, and a great deal of room. Each workman should 
 have 150 square feet of bench room, and as much machine room, in 
 order to work free on miscellaneous work. 
 
 The employment of machinery in pattern making presents great 
 difficulty when compared with other kinds of wood work. The 
 extent to which machines can supplant hand work is dependent 
 upon duplication, and as no two patterns are alike, this greatly 
 restricts machine processes, still a great deal of expense can be saved 
 in addition to planing and sawing, which are always provided for. 
 
 One important machine extensively employed in Europe is for 
 dimension sawing. Its functions are to saw either way, parallel 
 with or across the grain, to finished dimensions, more accurate than 
 pieces can be planed by hand, and smooth enough to sand paper and 
 varnish on the sawn surfaces. 
 
 These machines were 'made for at least a dozen years by the 
 original inventor before any one had the courage to imitate them, 
 and are one of the highest types of wood-cutting machines ever 
 made by any one, and if excelled at all in accuracy it is by other 
 machines by the same maker, Baxter D. Whitney, of Winchendon, 
 Mass. He supplies more of these machines abroad than in this 
 country, at one time a great many more, and they are better known 
 in England than here. There is but one of them on this Coast, and 
 that has by neglect, and the difficulty of dressing the saws, been 
 reduced to a plain sawing machine. 
 
 They are provided with two saws, one to cut across and the other 
 with the grain. These saws have no set, being ground tapering 
 from the teeth inward, so they plane as well as saw, and when in 
 perfect adjustment will cut out a perfect circle of any number of 
 sectors, or any number of cubes, that will build up and make a solid;
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 13 
 
 cut grooves, rebates, mitre, and all such work, and effect quite a 
 saving in a pattern shop. Core-box machines for cylindrical work 
 have made a good deal of progress, and are now recommendable 
 machines; so also jointing machines. The standard machines are 
 a common saw-bench, band-sawing machine, shear and face lathes. 
 
 The many ingenious methods of producing forms in cast iron by 
 the use of patterns is one of the. most interesting studies connected 
 with the construction of machines and iron work. Sometimes the 
 patterns when inspected give hardly a clue to the form of the cast- 
 ing they are to produce, especially if the work is made in or by 
 cores. 
 
 Iron castings, as you are no doubt aware, are made in different 
 kinds of moulds, known as green sand, fired or dried moulds, and 
 loam work, the quality and cost of moulding being in the order 
 named. Sand is used because of its porosity permitting the escape of 
 gases in every direction through the mould, and the amount of vapor 
 and gas that results from the hot iron running into the mould, is as 
 the moisture and combustible material contained in the sand. 
 
 Moisture must be added to produce an adhesive condition of the 
 material, and in green sand, that is with undried moulds, the vapor 
 and gas is excessive and liable to disturb and spoil a casting while 
 fluid, if there is not sufficient vent provided by the porosity of the 
 mould, and by minute holes made with a pointed wire called a vent 
 rod. 
 
 Fired or dried moulds are made of green sand, partially dried on 
 their interior by fires built in the moulds, so as to dry out the moist- 
 ure, and thus prevent the generation of vapor in casting. It is a 
 common process for all large castings. 
 
 Loam moulding is the highest branch of the art, and in general 
 terms means preparing moulds without a pattern, of a material more 
 tenacious than a common sand mould. Such moulds aj-e built from 
 drawings with the aid of "strikes" and like implements. A man may 
 be a good moulder, as the name goes, without any knowledge of 
 loam moulding. 
 
 Such moulds are thoroughly dried by firing, or are baked when 
 it is possible to do so, that is, when the whole mould can be dried 
 throughout. Being dry there is not much vapor, the moulds are 
 strong enough to prevent swelling or distortion, and the iron is not 
 chilled when poured in. 
 
 There is always an economic problem as to where green sand 
 casting should stop an^ loam moulding begin. Against the greater
 
 14 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 expense of loam castings there must be placed the expense of patterns 
 and the. better quality of the castings, and especially the avoidance 
 of inherent strains. In the Industrial Works, at Philadelphia, when 
 Mr. Dougherty, of the old firm of Bement & Dougherty, had charge 
 of the foundry work, nearly all the machine frames were made in 
 loam moulds. He was perhaps the most skilled moulder in this 
 country, a well educated man with experience in several countries. 
 He was at one time a manager in the Royal Foundry, at Mu'nchen, 
 Bavaria. He was a poor boy, raised at Columbia, Pennsylvania. 
 When he went to Philadelphia, he walked barefoot to save his shoes. 
 He is yet living, a patriarch among foundrymen, retiring from busi- 
 ness in 1872. 
 
 These remarks on pattern making and moulding are introduced 
 here, not for instruction in these arts, but to indicate in a brief way 
 some of the intricate problems that arise in the management of a 
 works. Workmen, or even a foreman, may not have a direct inter- 
 est in the manner of preparing patterns or moulds, and a manager 
 should have at least general knowledge of all these matters. Both 
 these things enter into estimates, forming a portion of the compo- 
 nents of cost, to be made up, not from accomplished work, but for 
 work to be done. It is true that both patterns and moulding may 
 be included in a general price of castings, and are frequently dis- 
 posed of in this manner, but this will not answer at all in many 
 cases. 
 
 I will close this lecture with some remarks on the relation 
 between hand and machine processes, because it is in forging, 
 pattern making and moulding, that these relations are most appar- 
 ent, and those in which we can best trace the limitations of machine 
 action. 
 
 The functions of machines can be set forth in the two following 
 propositions: 
 
 Machine action in the conversion of material is confined to true 
 geometric lines. 
 
 Machine action in the conversion of material is by repetition and 
 duplication. 
 
 In respect to the first proposition it is easy to observe that all 
 forms of wood, metal, or other material, can be cut away and shaped 
 by machines when the contour is regular, that is, flat, straight,
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 15 
 
 angular or curved, in lines that admit of guidance. All kinds of 
 circular and true elliptical forms can be turned; straight lines can be 
 sawed and planed, also angular and curved ones if regular; so it is 
 easy to see how a desk can be made by machinery, but a common 
 stove cannot be so made. A pattern for a flange can be turned, but 
 one for a faucet must be cut out by hand. 
 
 Iron not having a grain or lamination like wood, can be disposed 
 in almost any form, and as models or patterns made of wood are like 
 the iron to be produced, it disposes the wood without much respect 
 to its fibre, and as the castings do not as a rule require finishing, 
 except in certain places, there is no need of a regular contour, so 
 every circumstance tends to limit machine action in making wooden 
 patterns for castings. 
 
 The same is true to a greater extent of forgings. There is no 
 regularity of contour in work, except surfaces to be finished, and 
 not in all of these, so that aside from plastic or what we may call 
 flowing treatment, machines cannot accomplish much in forging, 
 because the lines are not true or geometrical. A smith may work 
 all day and riot strike two blows that are precisely alike in effect. 
 Each blow calls for a separate exercise of intelligence. 
 
 It is the second proposition, however, that has most to do with 
 machine limitation, that of duplication. This is an economic limi- 
 tation. If there is but one, or only a few articles to be made, the 
 adaptation of machines for the work is out of the question, no mat- 
 ter how much might be gained in effect. If there are thousands of 
 an article to make, no matter what it may cost, machines can be 
 prepared for the work. I have been informed that the first Water- 
 bury watch cost $15, 000 and the thousandth one cost $2.50, which 
 is probably correct. 
 
 It takes twenty to thirty minutes to make a horse-shoe by hand, 
 and only two seconds by machinery, but if a man has only one hun- 
 dred such shoes to make, or even a thousand, he could not afford to 
 provide machines for the purpose. 
 
 It is therefore in extensive duplication that machinery becomes 
 possible. The actions of a machine must in the nature of things be 
 a succession and uniform. 
 
 Finally, I will say that there is no more interesting subject to 
 consider, and perhaps not many more useful to observe, than the 
 distinctions and relations between hand and machine action in the 
 conversion of material.
 
 9 
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 9. January 16th, 1896. 
 
 The present lecture will be directed to two different topics, inven- 
 tion and the element of cooperation in works. 
 
 It has been found exceedingly difficult to correlate the various 
 topics that can be included under the head assumed for these lec- 
 tures, but there is this excuse. Such fault of diversity here is not a 
 circumstance to what will arise in practical administration, and some 
 foretaste of this fact may not after all be out of place. 
 
 To dispose of an oil agent, a shop row, a charity solicitor, a 
 questionable casting, compute the capacity of a water pipe, order in 
 stock, and check off the dimensions on a drawing, all within thirty 
 minutes' time, is discursive, also is, unfortunately, a fact of 
 management. 
 
 INVENTION. 
 
 Under this head may come the various efforts to improve pro- 
 cesses, and products also, the addition of new ones, and it is a mat- 
 ter of astonishment when we come to think how comprehensive the 
 term is, especially in ks original and wider meaning.
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA Tl ON. 
 
 At the present day, in this country at least, invention is employed 
 to designate discovery, and also by some people to define a kind of 
 peculiar faculty that is peculiar to certain persons, or possessed in a 
 varying degree by different people, a meaning that finds warrant in 
 the terms of the statute and in various decisions of the Federal Courts. 
 
 The word comes from Latin in and venire, to come in, or freely 
 translated, to bring in, and this is practically the meaning imparted 
 to the term in Bngland at this time, because an inventor there is one 
 who "brings in" either by his own efforts and production or by 
 importation from abroad, is in short a person who gives to the citi- 
 zens of the country a new improvement. 
 
 As the subject of patents on inventions will have some interest, 
 and perhaps be of use in future, I will give some space to it here. 
 Our own patent system, about a century old, like the patent laws in 
 most other countries, had its origin in the British Statute of Monopo- 
 lies, enacted in 1623, two hundred and seventy years ago. It is com- 
 monly spoken of as the Statute of Monopolies, but it really was a 
 statute to prevent monopolies, because previous to that time it had 
 been a custom of the Crown to grant patents of monopoly for certain 
 trades irrespective of invention, thus taking away from the public 
 what they already possessed and giving it to one person or a com- 
 pany. 
 
 The statute of 1623 connected invention with such grants, that 
 is, a person to have a monopoly must invent or bring in a new 
 thing not before known to the public or possessed by them, so no 
 harm could be done to any existing right or interest by reason of 
 the monopoly. 
 
 This old law is yet in force, and, as said, is a kind of basis on 
 which rests nearly all the patent laws of our time. It consists of 
 only thirteen lines, as follows: 
 
 " Provided that any delaration before mentioned shall not extend 
 " to any Letters Patent and grants of privilege for the term of four- 
 ' ' teen years or under hereafter to be made of the sole working or mak- 
 " ing of any manner of new manufactures within this realm to the 
 "true and first inventor and inventors of such manufactures, which 
 " others at the time of making such Letters Patent and grants shall 
 " not use. so as also they be not contrary to the law nor mischevious 
 " to the State, by raising prices of commodities at home, or hurt of 
 "trade, or generally inconvenient, the said fourteen years to be 
 "accounted from the date of the first Letters Patent or grants of 
 "such privilege to be hereafter made, but that the same shall be of 
 "such force as they should be if this Act had never been made, and 
 " of none other."
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 As a further matter of curiosity I have brought, and will leave 
 with Prof. Smith for your inspection, a patent on hydraulic appa- 
 ratus, granted under this old law in 1642, two hundred and fifty- 
 four years ago. The patent was first issued in Holland, and then in 
 England to Mr. William Wheeler, as an importation, or as it is called 
 now, a 'communication from abroad." 
 
 The modern acceptance of a patent for invention is that of a con- 
 tract between the inventor and the public, wherein he agrees at the 
 end of a certain time to transfer to them a new and useful discovery, 
 furnishing an accurate description of how to make and use the 
 invention. He to have as a consideration on the other part, the 
 exclusive use of his new creation for a term of years. Letters 
 Patent are considered an act of grace instead of right, this idea 
 coming down from the old statute quoted. 
 
 The idea of an inventive faculty, or a peculiar function of the 
 mind exercised in invention, arises, no doubt, from a fact that, so far 
 as I know, has not been treated upon in any writings on the subject, 
 namely: There can be no inherent or natural right to a new inven- 
 tion or discovery that is not personal to the inventor, in other words 
 cannot be obtained except through him. If such new invention be 
 the result of inductive or deductive reasoning, the application of 
 skill, mathematics or other means common to skilled persons, then 
 there cannot exist a personal right. But if, on the contrary, inven- 
 tion be a faculty personal to the inventor, then he may acquire a 
 personal right to his invention. It will not be necessary to pursue 
 this matter further, it might lead us into the department of law, 
 where mathematics and exact things are not very favorably received. 
 
 I will venture to qualify the term as meaning a habit of mind 
 associated with skill, observation and reasoning power, that enables 
 people to make new and original improvements in implements, pro- 
 cesses and products, such habit of mind being more or less marked 
 in different people, just as other traits are. 
 
 In a works such improvements come from all sources, from 
 owners, managers and workmen, and from various incentives. 
 Very often from a love of novelty, or a habit of mind that may be 
 called curiosity; sometimes by accident, or even from laziness, as we 
 are informed in the case of inventing automatic valve gear for steam 
 engines. It may also come from emulative objects and gain, but I 
 am inclined to think most often from the discovery of a want or a 
 fault which the inventor sets out in a methodical way to supply or 
 remove. *
 
 WORKS A DMINIfi TRA Tl ON. 
 
 This may be called the first step in legitimate and useful inven- 
 tion, the discovery of a want or the lack of something useful that 
 does not exist. It cannot be denied that useful invention is some- 
 times a result of discovery, especially in the field of chemistry, which 
 is mainly an experimental science, but at this day not often in the 
 mechanic arts, except in the pursuit of a definite object. This 
 should be explained to apprentice draughtsmen, who more than any 
 one else are exposed to the wiles of invention. Designing is to them 
 the same thing as inventing, because the powers or faculties brought 
 into play in preparing designs is to the beginner a mystery. He 
 cannot distinguish between what is new and what is old, and com- 
 monly cannot judge of the results, so as to distinguish between the 
 curious and useful. 
 
 In a works there is continual difficulty on the part of a manager 
 to dispose of new propositions of one kind or another that are sure 
 to come up, and a good deal of such trouble can be saved by the 
 application of some rule which every one can understand, for 
 example: 
 
 Any new improvement to have direct commercial value should 
 produce the same thing for less money, or a better thing for the 
 same money. This rule is almost an invariable one in respect to all 
 minor improvements, especially in products. 
 
 Another rule is that the commercial value of all improvements is 
 as the breadth of their use. This is also a good rule, one that is too 
 often overlooked. An improvement in engine valves is likely to be 
 oi more value than an improvement in indicators, because there are 
 a great many valves to each indicator. An improvement in transits 
 is more important than one in theodolites, because more of the 
 former are employed. 
 
 A third rule is that the chances of improving anything depends 
 on the amount of research and ability that has already been applied 
 to the same thing. This is also an important rule that would save 
 thousands, if not millions, of dollars each year if applied to the 
 efforts wasted by those incompetent to deal with subjects under- 
 taken. 
 
 At this time there are a great many contrivers at work inventing 
 and improving impulse steam engines who are wholly ignorant of 
 the thermal and dynamic problems that are involved, and either 
 ignorant of or ignoring the fact that men of the highest scientific 
 attainments and skill have been devoting their best and in some 
 cases exclusive efforts to the improvement of such engines.
 
 WORKS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 The Hon. C. A. Parsons, of England, for one, has in his first 
 engine, and all important changes that have since been made, laid 
 down by computations made in advance what the results should be, 
 and has come very near in each case predicting such results with 
 wonderful precision. 
 
 As these engines present an especially suitable illustration of the 
 subject being considered I will follow them farther and attempt 
 a kind of analysis of invention as applied to them. Impulse 
 engines present four conditions subject to improvement. First, the 
 thermal problems involved; second, the laws that govern the quali- 
 ties or behavior of elastic gases; third, the dynamics of flow, or 
 impact and reaction; fourth, mechanical contrivances and devices or 
 agents to control and utilize the three first-named conditions. 
 
 Now it is evident that the machinery or mechanical devices come 
 in the order named, the last of all, because such devices are only an 
 agent of transmission, and of no use whatever unless the thermal, " 
 physical and dynamical conditions are not all included. These are 
 the generic features, so to speak, and it is to these attention must 
 first be directed in order to make any considerable improvement in 
 impulse engines. This term " impulse " is not wholly relevant, but 
 we have no better word among the hundred thousand in our 
 redundant language, hence is adopted here. 
 
 It will be wrong to claim that mechanical contrivance is not an 
 important, and in a sense an independent element in such engines, 
 involving, as it does, strains on material never before to be dealt 
 with, and velocities that have no parallel in machine practice, but 
 what I want to make plain is that to begin by contriving mechanism 
 is commencing at the wrong end of the cycle, and is not of itself 
 likely to add anything of value in the art. 
 
 The same rule applies in a varying degree to all kinds of inven- 
 tion. A locksmith or a clockmaker may improve a steam engine, 
 but the chances are that he will not do so in any permanent manner. 
 I have neglected the rule of sequence first laid down in going on to 
 discuss the third rule instead of the first one, and must now go 
 back. 
 
 Any invention or improvement to have commercial value should 
 produce the same thing for less money, or a better thing for the same 
 money. This is intensely commercial, repulsively so indeed, but it 
 is unfortunately a fact, one that stands in the path of progress. It 
 is the chief point of attack by advanced mechanics and engineers, 
 whose spirits and efforts are in the line of a better thing for more 
 price. Both are legitimate, and are in a sense the same thing in
 
 WORK IS A DM IN IS TRA TION. 
 
 nature, but subject to very different commercial conditions. 
 
 Buyers are not logical. If they were there would be no adver- 
 tisements appealing to credulity, as will be shown in the next lec- 
 ture. Their idea is that all invention and improvements of every 
 kind should come under the rule first named. There is also the 
 fact, and it is a very important one, that the amount one can pur- 
 chase is inversely as the price. 
 
 A person starting a small machine shop with a small amount of 
 capital should not purchase a very fine engine lathe when he cpuld 
 for the same price buy two cheaper lathes of a serviceable kind, so 
 the matter is not one of sentiment alone, and it should be the aim 
 of a manager as far as possible to increase profits by improvements 
 in implements and processes, instead of raising the price of pro- 
 ducts, an injunction, however, not needed just at this time. 
 
 The second rule, that invention and improvement have value as 
 the extent of use, contains a very useful suggestion, in that efforts 
 to invent and improve should be directed as much as possible to 
 things produced in large quantities and to processes extensively car- 
 ried on. An invention in stop valves is more important than one in 
 surface plates, as five hundred to one, no doubt, but inventors are 
 very apt to overlook this, or at least not take it into account. 
 
 Out of the same rule comes a further one in respect to the sta- 
 bility of trade, which is apt to be as the breadth of use or as the 
 volume of product, ar> economic point that has much to do with plans 
 for founding a business. A cent a yard on plain cotton cloth is more 
 apt to return a profit than a dollar a yard on fine woolen cloth, because 
 the product in volume will be for the cheaper cloth greater than a 
 hundred to one, but there is more than profits to consider in this 
 term of stability. There is the constancy of product. 
 
 This is well illustrated in the case of manufactures in Great 
 Britain compared to this country. They have a population of but 
 little more than half as many people, but their environment 
 furnishes a market around them of 400,000,000, while our market 
 does not include more than one fourth this number of people. 
 Their exports in 1891 were $2,128,000,000, and ours, $825,000,000. 
 The result is that their diversified market or the breadth of use, it 
 may be called, prevents quick and excessive fluctuations in trade. 
 
 In 1885 I went out from here to England in the midst of the 
 business depression of that year, and was told it was the same in 
 England. I found the works in the East, many of them, closed, 
 some operating half time, a good many one fourth time, notably 
 the American Standard Gauge Works, described in the last lecture,
 
 WORKS A DMINJS TRA TfON. 
 
 operating but one day in each week. On reaching England, where 
 I was well acquainted and understood the circumstances, I found 
 no discernable difference in the volume of work, and two 
 thousand men out on a strike at New Castle, but people were com- 
 plaining there just as much over a shrinkage of ten per cent, as they 
 were in this country over one of fifty per cent. 
 
 Inventions and improvements are therefore of commercial value 
 in proportion to the breadth and diversity of use, a very important 
 thing to keep in mind as a matter of business policy. 
 
 What may be called legitimate invention of devices, such as 
 should be encouraged among draughtsmen and workmen, is a result 
 of analysis. I will attempt to illustrate this by a familiar example, 
 that of stop valves for fluids. In common practice these consist for 
 the larger sizes of a wedge or a pair of dies sliding between two 
 faces or seats of non-corrosive metal, capable of stopping flow in 
 both directions, absolutely tight when closed, and leaving a straight 
 through flow when open. Such valves are worth about $4.00 per 
 inch of diameter, from three to six inches bore, and are as you 
 know a familiar and extensive article of manufacture and commerce. 
 
 Here in California, where a great deal of land is irrigated from 
 pipes, there are vertical outlet hydrants, spaced so as to flow the 
 water all over the land by means of training ditches. A fanner 
 sometimes requires a great many stop valves for these hydrants or 
 outlet pipes, frequently hundreds, and to provide the standard fit- 
 tings would be an expensive matter. 
 
 Here then is a want not completely filled in a commercial sense, 
 and a chance for invention. To set about this by contriving 
 mechanism is not the best way to succeed any. more than in the case 
 of the impulse steam engine. The proper way is to first ascertain 
 the various functions of standard stop valves, and see what of these 
 can be omitted for irrigating purposes. These functions, most of 
 which have been named, are: (1), resistance to high pressure; 
 (2), acting on both sides or in both directions; (3), noncorrosive 
 surfaces; (4), straight flow when open; (5), absolute tightness when 
 closed; (6), wearing endurance in use. 
 
 In an irrigating valve there is no need of closing but in one 
 direction, there is rarely much pressure to be resisted, corrosive 
 action can be provided for with a sheet of leather or celluloid, 
 straight flow is not required, absolute tightness is not essential, 
 endurance is almost avoided by infrequent use and renewal of valve 
 faces. 
 
 Here it will seem that we have the whole valve eliminated, but
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 not so. There remains capacity to sustain low pressure, closing the 
 water passage in one direction, reasonable tightness against leakage, 
 endurance against infrequent use and a substitute for the noncorro- 
 sive metal. This much remains and these are the elements of the 
 new valve. 
 
 There remains now the flesh to be put on this skeleton. The 
 subject is ready for the contriver or the constructor, who will adapt 
 to these conditions the operative elements, but he must also begin 
 in a systematic manner, something as follows: 
 
 First a socket to receive the vertical pipe, continue this socket 
 above the pipe as a nipple, and face the end for a valve seat, and 
 surround this on four sides with a spout to catch the water and 
 deliver it at one side. The depth of the spout should be enough to 
 permit a cross bar or cover on the top, through which passes a screw 
 to force down a plate or valve on f the top of the discharge nipple. 
 The screw nut to be cheap, and to prevent corrosion, can be cast 
 around the screw of some alloy. Such a valve, which will cost 
 about one dollar per inch of diameter, will be just as good for the 
 purpose as one that will cost four dollars an inch. 
 
 This has been done, but not I suspect in the manner indicated, 
 nor as well as it might be done in that way, but by an opposite 
 course, beginning at the last end, that is, by contriving and a course 
 of backward evolution that might have been saved. These valves 
 are made in the southern end of this State at about one third the 
 cost of the standard kind, and might be much cheaper still by 
 improving the methods of construction. 
 
 CO-OPERATION IN A WORKS. 
 
 In what may be called human economy all changes, and 
 especially those of an ethical kind, move slowly in a course of evo- 
 lution that if carefully observed may give a very certain clue to the 
 future. 
 
 One of these features of our time pointing to some great change 
 in the future is association for economic ends, as distinguished from 
 combinations for security to maintain a faith or a form of govern- 
 ment. These economical or internal associations, among which are 
 trusts, commercial combinations and the great labor unions, have 
 their rise or inception in the inequalities of government, methods of 
 taxation and privileges not of general attainment. Happily we are 
 not called upon in the present case to consider this subject beyond 
 its unit, so to speak, the small associations founded in industrial 
 establishments, such as management at this day is always called 
 upon to deal with.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 This country at this time has less of such associations than any 
 other in the world where large industries are carried on, but the 
 method is rapidly extending, and is found in some form in nearly all 
 of our large works, relating to insurance, relief, instruction, medical 
 attendance, entertainment and so on. It is an important feature, 
 one that exercises much influnence and, as I believe, deserves 
 encouragement. 
 
 These shop associations are older and, as remarked, more com- 
 mon in European countries than here, and have become permanent 
 in some phases not yet successfully introduced here, in commercial 
 trading for one thing, which in England is a very important matter. 
 I am not aware of what portion of the supplies purchased is from 
 cooperative stores there, but am quite sure it is more than one half 
 of the whole consumed by the skilled portion of the population. 
 
 The idea of cooperative supply stores began in Rochdale, a sur- 
 burb of Manchester, about thirty years ago, and had the encourage- 
 ment of John Bright, whose name has been so prominently connected 
 with humane and useful enterprises that have tended to the betterment 
 of human conditions, not only in the industrial world, but in opposition 
 to slavery, vice and whatever was undesirble in a community. The 
 store in Rochdale was so managed that food, clothing, fuel, medi- 
 cines and so on, reached the consumer at a small advance on the 
 wholesale prices. 
 
 The system has extended to enormous proportions. The army, 
 navy and civil service have such stores, but not operated with such 
 advantage as the original one at Rochdale, which was instituted by 
 the people of a single factory. In some cases the purchase of goods 
 by firms to be distributed among the workmen has been tried, 
 but this leads to a kind of paternalism that is offensive to the better 
 class of workmen, and like profit sharing has no quality of perma- 
 nence. 
 
 One of the most noted examples of cooperation among the peo- 
 pie of a works is in Ireland/at Bessbrook, on the Newry Rriver, in 
 the County Down, a spinning town of five or six thousand people, 
 where everything down to the municipal government is on the 
 cooperative plan. This is a most remarkable place, one of the most 
 orderly known in the whole world. It was here where the first elec- 
 tric railway in the United Kingdom, and almost the first in Europe, 
 was built, a line six miles long to the town of Newry, where the 
 electric current was generated by water power. No liquor is sold, 
 and there are no policemen in Bessbrook, at least none in commis- 
 sion, the owners of the works, a Quaker family named Richardson,
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 assuming this executive function and appointing deputies without 
 service so as to comply with the requirements of the law. Here 
 almost every want is provided by cooperative effort among the work- 
 men and owners, acting under rules of a democratic nature, and the 
 result, after a long experience of at least fifty years, has proved suc- 
 cessful in every way. 
 
 Saltaire, in England, another example of cooperative works, 
 organized by Sir Titus Salt, who founded not only a novel com- 
 munity, but a new manufacture of much importance, that of mak- 
 ing cloth from the hair of the alpaca goat or llama of Peru, a 
 material that had but little value or use previous to this manufac- 
 ture. I am not aware of the particulars of this extensive and suc- 
 cessful establishment, firmly founded at least thirty years ago. As 
 however, the present subject is the element of cooperative association 
 in works, and what it may have to do with administration, I will 
 take an example and describe the methods as well as possible, not 
 completely of course, because a mere visitor to a works cannot 
 acquire complete knowledge of such things. 
 
 The example will be the Cornwall Iron Works of Messrs. 
 Tangye Bros., Birmingham, England, where at the time of my last 
 visit there were employed about 2,000 men. These works are 
 almost on the site of the old establishment of Boulton & Watt, 
 where James Watt made his first successful steam engines, and 
 where the firm of James Watt & Co. did business down to the past 
 year, when the firm was absorbed by the Cornwall Iron Works. 
 The firm of Tangye Bros, consisted of four members, the youngest, 
 Mr. George Tangye, being the general manager, and I doubt if 
 any one in such a charge has given more careful attention to the 
 subject of administration, or has succeeded in a greater degree in 
 such management. 
 
 Thirty years ago Messrs. Tangye Bros, were paying a rent of 
 $150 a year for power and premises in Birmingham, making screw 
 bolts and other rough tackle, now they have about 3,000 men. An 
 accident brought them in contact with Richard Dudgeon, of New 
 York, the inventor of the hydraulic jack, who entrusted the man- 
 ufacture of that implement in England to these energetic young 
 men, and this gave them a start in a singular manner. 
 
 The Great Eastern was then being built by Scott, Russell and 
 Brunei, at Deptford, in London, parallel to the Thames, to be 
 launched sidewise, as is now the custom in some of our lake ship- 
 yards. Her enormous size and weight of 28,000 tons had no pre- 
 cedent, and the launch was a failure, so were numerous attempts to
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 get the vessel off, until Messrs. Tangye Bros, thought of pushing 
 her in with their little hydraulic jacks. Train loads of these were 
 sent up to London, and a whole forest of them set beneath the great 
 ship and she was pushed into the water at low tide. This caused 
 much astonishment, and was the start of the firm, which in 1880 
 had 2,000 men employed. 
 
 The workmen, and indeed the whole force, including the 
 owners, are organized for cooperation in various ways. There are 
 lecture rooms, libraries, schools, medical men employed by the year, 
 Sunday schools, funds for accidents, sickness, insurance, trading, 
 and indeed nearly all that enters into the economy of living. 
 
 The members of the firm contribute their quota, and the works 
 also. The owners meet the men on holidays and when there is any 
 occasion of importance, and it is Mr. George Tangye's custom to go 
 over from Heathfield, two miles away, to attend the L,yceum or 
 other meetings of the workmen every week when he is at home. 
 At my last visit to these works I had the pleasure of going through 
 with Mr. Tangye, the manager, and it afforded a lesson never to be 
 forgotten, and one that may be of some use if described here. 
 
 He wore a suit of tweed that would cost about five dollars of our 
 money, and was dressed no better, or as well, as the draughtsmen 
 and clerks, and seemed to assume no more authority. Our trip was 
 continually interrupted by Mr. Tangye calling out to the workmen 
 to ask about some one who was ill or had been injured. He seemed 
 to know every man in the place, and could call them by name, also 
 knew everything that was going on. 
 
 We finally reached the boiler-making shop, where a man was 
 calking seams with a pneumatic machine suspended from the ceiling 
 and resting against the workman's breast. Mr. Tangye watched 
 the man a moment, then went to him and said: "Tom, give me 
 that thing a moment." He set the machine, and turned on the air 
 for a short time, and then said: " Take that apparatus down and 
 send it around to the tool department for improvement. No man 
 should use a tool like that, the jar will injure him." 
 
 "How can you remember all these things, and keep the run of 
 all these men and their work ? " I asked. "System and cooperative 
 effort," said he. " There are now finished and in process, including 
 steam pumps, fifteen hundred steam engines in the works, and all 
 this causes me less trouble than five such steam engines did ten years 
 
 ago." 
 
 We went to the steam engine factory, as it is called, and it 
 certainly deserved the name. In the assembling room were cases
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 containing piles of cross heads, pistons, valves, glands, cranks, con- 
 nections, and all the elements of the commercial sizes of steam 
 engines of a very high class, all made to gauges and interchange- 
 able. Men were assembling engines which passed in regular order 
 through the various successive stages of trying, painting and pack- 
 ing. It was a manufacture certainly. At 12 o'clock we went to 
 luncheon in a large dining room, where all the office force met, fore- 
 men, draughtsmen and clerks, also the owners and guests. Mr. 
 Tangye took the head of the table, and directed his conversation to 
 various members of his staff and others. They all discussed the 
 affairs of the works. It was a council meeting of the Cornwall Iron 
 Works, and a very important element in its management. Social 
 distinctions, however marked outside, were eliminated here; all stood 
 on a common cooperative level to consider and promote the good of 
 the business. 
 
 All the work is done on the contract system, before described in 
 these lectures, Mr. Tangye remarking that not even a screw-bolt 
 was made in the Cornwall works by time pay. 
 
 This system of a free mid-day meal, served in the works by the 
 owners, is common in England, and it seems to me is one that should 
 be carried out in all large works of an engineering nature in every 
 country. 
 
 It is also common in England for the owners to provide a dining 
 hall or room for the men where they can warm and eat their dinners, 
 read the papers, smoke and hold their meetings. I know of one 
 works where a cooking range that cost $400, and a piano that cost 
 the same amount were given to the men as equipment in their hall. 
 Twenty-three periodicals were subscribed for in this case by the men 
 and the owners. 
 
 Cooperation is actual and complete under such circumstances, 
 and I have explained a principal reason that England with a 
 working week of fifty-four hours, can pay to her workmen nearly 
 double the wages of Continental Europe, and successfully compete 
 in the markets of the world. 
 
 The workmen there are under the most favorable conditions that 
 exist in the whole world, and this they very well know. Twenty- 
 four hours will take them to France, Germany or Belgium, and six 
 days to our Atlantic ports. They know well the rate of wages and 
 the conditions of their trade in all countries, but no good workman 
 goes away. The cooperative spirit makes them feel at home, and 
 that they, like the owners, are directly interested in the works.
 
 10 
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Lectures before the Students of the Leland Stanford Junior University, 
 Palo Alto, California. 
 
 BY J. RICHARDS. 
 
 No. 10. January 23rd, 1896. 
 
 In the present lecture, and last of the series, I will present some 
 views upon an element in the administration of works not hitherto 
 mentioned, a very important one; that of the means employed to 
 sell the product, especially by advertising and publishing circulars, 
 or, as we commonly but incorrectly say, catalogues. 
 
 As usual there will be a good deal of fault to find, and I will 
 remark here, as should have been done in the first instead of the 
 last one of these lectures, that this fault finding is not agreeable or 
 without design. Adulation destroys emulation, and is a stumbling 
 block to progress. If some one informs you that your methods are 
 perfect and the best in the world, there is no reason for changing or 
 even thinking over the matter, but an adverse criticism, while it 
 may not promote the personal popularity of a lecturer, sets you at 
 work, arouses emulation, resentment, or some kind of thinking, and 
 all kinds of thinking is good. All kinds of criticism will be cheer- 
 fully borne if you grant me, candor and a desire to arrive at the 
 truth.
 
 WORKS A DM I X 1ST R A T10.\. 
 
 The English and American people are especial sinners in this 
 matter of advertising, and their methods are in many cases a reflec- 
 tion on the common sense of purchasers or the people addressed, a 
 fact that a good many years of observation have failed to explain or 
 find any logical reason for. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon people are commonly credited with what we 
 call " hard sense," and in such matter-of-fact things as the products 
 of skilled industry it seems strange to see appeals to impulse instead 
 of judgment, but an examination of advertising matter in this coun- 
 try and in England must lead to the conclusion that impulse and 
 credulity are the faculties to be appealed to. 
 
 I am not in this opinion setting up my own views. In fact one 
 in such an environment, and himself a transgressor, is not apt to 
 criticise or perceive faults of the kind. My attention was particu- 
 larly drawn to advertising methods about sixteen years ago, when 
 in company with a prominent Swedish manufacturer, who had never 
 been in England, we arrived at Victoria Station in London. My 
 friend was in amazement. The interior of the station, waiting 
 rooms, and indeed all available places, were covered with advertise- 
 ments, some of them large paintings of much beauty and artistic 
 merit, similar to those seen in the mole station at Oakland, but 
 more elaborate and expensive. 
 
 The Swedish gentleman glanced around and was astonished. 
 He had never seen anything of the kind in a railway station, and 
 was non-plussed. "Who furnishes all these pictures?" he asked 
 in Swedish, and on being informed of their purpose, said: " these 
 people must sell their goods very:dear to afford so much expense," 
 and then followed a number of questions, some of them unan- 
 swered to this day. I will repeat some of these questions as 
 well as can be remembered. " Do people buy goods because of 
 these pictures ? Does everybody put up such pictures ? Do the 
 people who put up the pictures sell their goods at the same price as 
 the people who have no pictures? Do not the people who buy 
 goods know their character and value?" You will wonder at what 
 seemed so simple in this Swedish gentleman, but he was one of the 
 foremost citizens of Gothenberg, an owner in a large works there, 
 and a public officer of the government. . 
 
 In the Scandinavian and other northern countries of Europe the 
 sensational kind of advertising is or was at that time almost 
 unknown, and such trade matter as was published had the same 
 confidence as is accorded to secular literature of any kind !t was
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 3 
 
 for information alone, and any attempt to secure trade by appeals to 
 impulse or credulity would have failed of its object entirely. 
 
 These circumstances are mentioned to show that the sensational 
 form for published trade is not universal, consequently is not essen- 
 tial, but the strangest fact of all is that people accounted as being 
 skilled in trade and common sense are most given to sensational and 
 factitious advertising. 
 
 Coming now to the practical part, all matter addressed to the 
 public should be written in the third person. "I," "we" "us" 
 and " ours" imply the "person," which has usually nothing to do 
 with the goods advertised, besides there is a question of good form in 
 in all kinds of writing addressed to the public or to an unknown 
 reader. This address of the first and second person is a common 
 but most undesirable custom, done in ignorance of good form in 
 most cases, no doubt, but nevertheless undignified and is unneces- 
 sary. The custom of writing advertising matter in the first person 
 is unusual in England among the better class of firms, especially 
 those in engineering pursuits, and many of the leading firms in this 
 country have decided that advertising matter should be written in 
 the impersonal form, and have such a rule, but, as remarked, com- 
 mon custom is otherwise. Jones, Smith and Brown are mixed up 
 with their goods in a way repulsive to good taste, and, as remarked, 
 is not in good form. 
 
 With some practice it is just as easy to write advertising matter 
 in the third person as in the first. One indicates education, and the 
 other the want of it; also indicates a business conducted in an 
 orderly organized manner, the other does not. These lectures 
 delivered in person, and in your presence, admit of the personal pro- 
 noun, but if read before you by some one else they should be writ- 
 ten in the third person. The same rule applies to advertising matter. 
 
 In these remaarks upon advertising matter it is not intended to 
 disparage what is attractive or invites attention, but there are 
 appeals to taste and appeals to credulity. Good paper, clear type, 
 and, above all, orderly arrangement of matter, constitute attractive 
 features to intelligent people. Fancy colors, decoration and 
 exaggeration repel intelligent people. 
 
 As to methods, these vary in many ways, and each system, to 
 so call it, has something to recommend it. Different kinds of busi- 
 ness require various kinds of advertising matter. Commodities that 
 are commonly understood, such as machine tools, for example, need 
 a good illustration and brief specification, but a new manufacture
 
 WORKS A DM IN IX TRA Tl ON. 
 
 or machine requires a good deal more than this, because the reader 
 in addition to dimensions and capacity must be instructed in the 
 purpose and functions of a new machine or other product. 
 
 Many of the leading engineering firms employ no printed matter, 
 indeed cannot, because the work produced is not uniform enough to 
 permit of fixed illustration and description. Circulars, or what we 
 call catalogues, pertain to manufactures or duplicate things. A 
 maker of land engines devoted to some special kind of duty, what 
 we call high-speed engines, for example, can issue a catalogue that 
 will completely describe his engines. Their proportions, weight, 
 horse power, prices, and so on, can be set down in tables and lists, 
 and the information is complete. He is a manufacturer, in a modi- 
 fied sense of that term, but a maker of marine engines cannot issue 
 such lists, because the engines made are not uniform as to design 
 and adaptation. 
 
 In San Francisco the large works can with some success issue 
 circulars of mining appliances, because these have become tolerably 
 uniform, but very little beside can be advertised in this manner. 
 We may assume as a rule that a catalogue or bound circular is 
 suitable for a manufacture, but not for an engineering or other 
 works that produces special things made from variable designs. 
 
 Most of the larger engineering works in this country, have at 
 some time attempted to publish their work by set publications, and 
 in most cases it has proved a failure, outside of some regular manu- 
 facture that the business included. 
 
 A plan that has met with some success, is to print single sheets, 
 each devoted to some particular commodity or machine with a 
 distinguishing number that will answer for catalogue or list pur- 
 poses, and sometimes as a page number, so that a bound circular 
 can be made up from such sheets to comprise a class of work, or if 
 necessary several classes. This system has a good deal to recom- 
 mend it, and has the warrant of endurance, having lasted many years 
 in some of the best regulated works here and abroad. 
 
 The principal firms and companies in this and other countries, 
 have since sun printing came into use relied wholly on photo prints, 
 blue prints and tracings for illustrating their work, and on press 
 advertising to secure acquaintance and connection. This we may 
 call the most advanced method where there is the required skill and 
 extent of business to permit it. 
 
 In advertising matter and tendeis there are some conditions that 
 are quite different here from European countries. Our market is
 
 WORKS A DMIX1STRA T10X. 
 
 mainly at home and is homogeneous. One method will apply to all, 
 but this is far from true in respect to England, France, Germany 
 and Belgium, where a large share of the work made is sent into 
 foreign countries where customs and requirements vary greatly. 
 
 I once overheard some remarks in the draughting room of the 
 Stanley Works, in London, in respect to tenders, that will illustrate 
 what is meant. It was the custom then, when sun printing had not 
 been discovered, to make tracings on thin paper to accompany esti- 
 mates and tenders. Such tracings were commonly colored in a 
 rapid manner with a brush, and were, all things considered, the 
 most effective of any method of illustration that has ever been 
 adopted. 
 
 The managing partner at the works named went into the 
 draughting room, where a number of boys were engaged in preparing 
 tracings for tenders. Going to one of the desks he asked: " Where 
 does this tracing go?" "To Madrid, sir," said the boy. "Color 
 the brick work with vermilion, tint every piece and put on a fine 
 border," said the- owner. At the next desk a similar inquiry, was 
 answered: "Germany, sir." "Be careful about scale; and dimen- 
 sions, smooth lines, no tint," were the instructions. 
 
 Now whether the vermilion in the Spanish tracing was required 
 by custom or for pure trade reasons we need not inquire, but that it 
 was expedient there can be no doubt. The German estimate would 
 have to withstand analysis on its engineering merits. That was 
 well known, and while we did not see the specifications in these two 
 cases, there is no doubt these corresponded to the chromatic work in 
 one case and the technical dress in the other. 
 
 We need not deny the influence on the mind, or the "impression," 
 which is a better term, produced by a neatly made tinted tracing. 
 It may not be logical to admit, or a compliment to intelligence, but 
 every one is more or less influenced by the manner in which a tender 
 is made out in respect to its neatness and good appearance. I am 
 speaking of illustration only, but specifications are subject to the 
 same rule, and before treating of these separately I will introduce 
 a story in illustration. 
 
 In 1883, or thereabout, the City of Sacramento having been 
 flooded with storm water every year, decided to adopt some means of 
 lifting the surface drainage and discharging it over an embankment 
 into a slough leading to the Mokelumne River. The city 
 
 engineer, Mr. Bassett, under instructions from the supervisors of the 
 city, applied to various firms at the East who made centrifugal
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 pumps for tenders of machinery to raise and discharge the water 
 against a head of ten feet or so, and among other such inquiries or 
 invitations one was sent to a company in San Francisco with which 
 I was at the time connected, the reason for this being that a pump- 
 ing plant of the kind I had some time before erected near Stockton, 
 in this State, had given very good results. 
 
 Drawings were carefully made of a vertical or submerged centri- 
 fugal pump and its connections, with an engine of seventy-five horse 
 power, buildings, boilers, furnaces and all required accessories, down 
 to a steam whistle and weather vane. Specifications were made out 
 with dimensions, a guarantee of duty, efficiency, the amount of fuel, 
 terms of erection, trial, acceptance and payment, and were sent in 
 with the drawings. 
 
 On the day the tenders were examined by the Board of Super- 
 visors, a telegram was received from them requesting the presence of 
 some one from our company. I went up to Sacramento, and was 
 called into the engineer's office, where the Board was in session and 
 the various tenders were being examined, and was much astonished 
 at such an invitation, but the reason soon appeared. 
 
 The engineer said: "We have here a collection of circulars, 
 wood cuts and letters, non-committal, vague, and with no exact 
 information or conditions of any kind, claiming a duty in many 
 cases impossible, or inexpedient if possible; in short, your estimate 
 and tender is the only one before the Board that should be con- 
 sidered." He then turned to the Mayor of the city and asked for 
 instructions, after which the pile of letters, circulars and printed 
 matter from other makers was laid on the waste basket and rammed 
 down by the engineer's foot. The Mayor handed me our specifica- 
 tion, and said: " Proceed at once, and we will send you a formal 
 acceptance." This work was put in as specified, tested, accepted, 
 and remained in use until 1893, when the lift or head was doubled, 
 so as to discharge into the Sacramento River, and a new pump was 
 put in. This is an example of what a complete tender will do in 
 such a case. 
 
 Such a circumstance could not take place at this time, and would 
 not then if there had been as there are now able firms on this Coast 
 constructing draining machinery. ' At that time centrifugal pumps of 
 the form required for the work at Sacramento were a kind of manu- 
 facture carried on in the Eastern States, and very poorly carried on, 
 but now much improved there, and still further improved here.
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 7 
 
 As to specifications for tenders, it would be a hackneyed expres- 
 sion to say they should be carefully and explicitly written. Every 
 one knows that, but there are some other points that may be 
 mentioned here, among these abbreviations and. omissions. 
 
 Dr. Johnson is credited with saying that ' ' any man who would 
 make a pun would pick a pocket." This is severe, and perhaps 
 deserved, so is the corollary that any one who will omit the definite 
 article in writing a specification should lose his labor. 
 
 How and why such a common custom of writing came into use 
 it would be hard to find out, unless it be on the principle that inclin- 
 ation is always toward error. The indefinite article, a or an, which 
 means simply one, and is almost a superfluity in our language, is 
 more carefully treated and is not so often omitted, but the definite 
 article, required for euphony if nothing more, is commonly dropped 
 out of specifications to the great detriment of form, giving an impres- 
 sion of slovenliness, wholly inconsistent with good work and exact 
 methods. 
 
 Charles Dickens, who was certainly a model in rhetoric, if not 
 etymology and syntax, never employed figures in his^ writings, 
 because these are abbreviations. He spelt out all dates and quanti- 
 ties without missing a letter, and thereby has given us a smooth 
 example in the works of imagination and fancy, so have most great 
 writers on all kinds of subjects. This is not, of course, necessary 
 in specification, but will illustrate the inconsistency of abbreviation 
 and contraction in technical matters and in language to describe 
 facts and exact things, involving risk and often great sums of money. 
 
 TECHNICAL TERMINOLOGY. 
 
 I will now revert to technical terminology in specifications and 
 advertising matter, and must first thing disclaim a pretense of treat- 
 ing the subject on a philological or even an etymological basis. 
 Few practical men, perhaps none, have the time required for 
 examining and tracing out the technical terms in use, besides many 
 terms employed are arbitrary, and have no base for investigation, 
 still it is proper and profitable for every one who has to speak or 
 write of technical matters, and this is every one engaged in or 
 managing industrial pursuits, to as far as possible employ names 
 that are relevant, or have the warrant of use by educated people. 
 
 It is proposed to deal at some length with this subject. It is one 
 deserving attention, because the constant efforts of our best writers 
 and speakers are not enough* to keep our technical terminology in 
 anything like correct form, or what it should be for the purpose of
 
 WOR AT.S . 1 DMIXJS TRA 770A". 
 
 translation into other languages. There are, however, common- 
 sense rules, where grammer cannot be applied, and even- one can 
 lend some aid by their own efforts if they set about it. 
 
 The development of industrial art during the present century 
 has called for thousands of new terms to define objects, commodities 
 and process not known before, and these terms have, in most cases, 
 been adopted from accident, generally from the workshop, sometimes 
 relevant, sometimes in jest, and frequently in slang. 
 
 There has been no attempt at methodical nomenclature, except 
 in electrical terms, and you all know the conventions, discussions, 
 and dissentions also, that have arisen in settling electrical terms, 
 now happily at rest let us hope. 
 
 The art of naming things does not seem to have been much con- 
 sidered in this country. We have every facility for acquiring names 
 from other languages not now spoken among us, and this is a very 
 important and proper source for names, because of their having no 
 separate meaning in our own language. 
 
 I have noticed that in England, and the northern European 
 countries x they seem to manage without the appropriation of other 
 useful terms for names. One may, for example; read over a list 
 of post towns there, thousands of them, and in the whole not find a 
 dozen names that have other significance. It is a rule, and a good 
 one, that proper names of all kinds should apply only to the object, 
 place or thing to which they pertain. A proper name should mean 
 one thing, and not be borrowed from something else, so the meaning 
 will be double and in doubt. 
 
 We have in this country the worst geographical nomenclature in 
 the world, and our technical terms have to some extent suffered by 
 the bad example. Almost every prominent city in Europe has its 
 name repeated here, sometimes in a dozen places. Even the old 
 names of Greece and Rome have been dragged into service, and our 
 principal State, New York, has a Rome, Syracuse, Athens, most 
 likely a Berlin, London, Paris. Hamburg and Vienna, so have many 
 of the Middle States. This is provincial and useless. The Indian 
 names, many of them fortunately adopted, furnished a source from 
 which could have been taken names for our mountains, rivers and 
 towns without appropriating names already in use. 
 
 On this Coast we are more fortunate, because of the Spanish 
 names and terms, that to us have no significance beyond the thing or 
 place to which they are applied. Palo Alto, for example, means to 
 us, and all English-speaking people, a particular place, and no other 
 place. In Spanish it may mean an elevated place where the palo or
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 9 
 
 alotun grew. It is a beautiful and relevant name, even in Spanish, 
 and for use now by English-speaking people is perfect. Suppose it 
 to be instead a borrowed name, from some other place, Upsala, 
 Oxford or Cambridge, for example. 
 
 Reverting now to technical terms and their use in advertising 
 matter and correspondence, also in records and in a works. I will 
 name some examples of misuse, and first mention the name 
 "stack," as applied to a chimney in this country. There is no 
 need of calling a chimney a "stack." That is an old English word 
 of I,atin origin, meaning a pile, generally conical, of straw, timber 
 or other material, but never a chimney. The name might with 
 some relevancy be applied to a blast furnace as a structure, but not 
 to a common chimney, especially to an iron pipe or flue. 
 
 "Track" is another word commonly applied to a railway. 
 We say track for the ways or rails, but this is irrelevant and incor- 
 rect. The word, as every one knows, means a print left by some- 
 thing passing, especially the foot of a person or animal, it is from 
 the German trek, to draw or illustrate by a print or impression. 
 We say "railroad" instead of "railway." A road is something 
 else, a way on which we drive wagons and travel, and railway or a 
 way of rails is more relevant. We call a tooth wheel a " gear," and 
 the term gearing for that reason has come to mean toothed wheels, 
 but "gearing," as I need not say, does not mean tooth wheels, but 
 may include a variety of things such as shafts, rods, wheels and the 
 like. 
 
 Many machine tools are beginning to acquire names that if not 
 slangy are incorrect. For example, a "drill," "planer" and 
 "miller." Now a drill is an implement employed in a drilling 
 machine, and what are we to call the implement if the name is applied 
 to a machine ? Planer should mean one who planes; a person, not a 
 machine. The er is a contraction of the German personal pronoun 
 herr. Planing machine is the correct term. Miller should mean 
 one who grinds grain, or mills with a machine, not the 'machine 
 itself. 
 
 By parity of reasoning, a lathe should be called a " turner," and 
 it may some time at the present rate of progress in bad nomen- 
 clature. We call a screw key a "wrench," but there is no authority 
 for making a substantive of this term. It is a verb, a longer word 
 than "key," and is not relevant. We might as well call a veloci- 
 pede a " ride." 
 
 The term "lumber " is another one that has been torn from its 
 moorings, so to speak, and applied to sawn timber. It is an old
 
 10 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 English word, meaning cumbrous or waste material, and has in com- 
 mon replaced the old Saxon term "timber" or zimmer. which contains 
 the same number of letters and is the true name. ' ' Builder, ' ' applied 
 to a maker of machines or other commodities that are not built up 
 by an accretion of parts, is another term that is bad. Maker is as 
 easy and sounds as well. One can build a house or a ship, but not 
 build a machine or a hand saw, besides the term "builder" means 
 specifically one who builds houses. The distinction is plain. 
 
 These few names have been selected because they are not 
 employed in the same sense in other countries where the English 
 language is spoken. My attention was very forcibly drawn to this 
 fact of a varied use of terms, as will appear a little further on. 
 This want of uniformity is unfortunate, especially in respect to 
 technical terms that arise in foreign correspondence and in adver- 
 tising matter to be translated, or is addressed to people not acquainted 
 with the idiomatic or local use of such terms. 
 
 Lexicographers who in dealing with words set down their idio- 
 matic use in certain localities or countries, are the principal cause of 
 such confusion. Suppose, for example, our American lexicons set 
 down the term lumber as meaning waste or obstructive material, and 
 nothing more. People would at once fall into a correct use of the 
 name. On the contrary, however, the lexicons, technical and other, 
 seem to be based on description instead of authority. 
 
 This matter of an improper use of technical terms has a result in 
 advertising matter not always thought of. It is easy to see that 
 whatever the merits of our standards or lexicons may be, any one 
 in a foreign country seeking for such authority in technical terms of 
 the English language will naturally consult an English dictionary, 
 and any of the words before named thus translated into any other 
 language would give a queer result. I am well aware of the great 
 and successful work done by Americans in framing lexicons for the 
 English language, and also of their fault in not more clearly point- 
 ing out and condemning the misuse of technical terms that should 
 be uniform wherever the language is spoken. 
 
 To illustrate the importance of a correct use of technical terms I 
 will relate a circumstance that will explain my personal interest in 
 the subject. In 1873 I prepared a small book called the Operators' 
 Hand Book. It related to wood-working machines and processes, 
 and was supplementary to a much larger and different book on the 
 same subject. It was published in London, and I may mention 
 that an edition of 2,500 copies were sold in a few years, so it had 
 some value. When the book was nearly all in type, the publisher
 
 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 11 
 
 called at my office with some of the proof sheets, and asked: "What 
 do you mean by this term 'lumber,' do you mean 'timber?'" 
 "Yes, sawn timber," I replied. " But," said he, "how are readers 
 to know this? I never heard of such a name applied to 'useful' 
 timber." 
 
 I went to the dictionary, and to my consternation could find no 
 authority for such use of " lumber." This book was mainly for use 
 in Europe, and there was nothing to do but to lose and reproduce most 
 of the forms then printed, and eliminate lumber throughout. This 
 cost thirty pounds sterling, or $150, and was a very expensive lesson 
 in etymology. 
 
 This subject has a very practical application. This country by 
 reason of its great natural resources, wealth, skill, geographical 
 position, also by the trend of present facts, is destined to become a 
 great exporter of industrial products to the neutral markets of the 
 world. Our natural markets lie to the south in America, and to the 
 west in Asia, where people have a disimilar civilization and pur- 
 suits. Our trade to Europe in skilled products is an accident, or at 
 least is without permanence, except in food or other natural pro- 
 ducts, but trade the other way will be natural and enduring when 
 the genius and policy of the country is brought to bear on such 
 trade. These markets will be strongly contested, and young men 
 here now will be middle-aged before this trade is fully established, 
 but it must be prepared for now. It has indeed begun, and will 
 increase only as we learn the wants and customs of the people to be 
 dealt with, and proper means of selling. 
 
 Our trade terms, advertising matter and correspondence to pro- 
 mote such trade must be uniform and as exact as possible. We can- 
 not successfully incorporate obscure and incorrect names in such mat- 
 ter, terms that will not translate into a proper meaning. If we do, it 
 will be construed as a lack of care and education, both of which com- 
 mands especial respect among Oriental people, and, we may add, in 
 some of the States of South and Central America, Chili and the 
 Argentine States, for example. 
 
 We cannot or should not send an invoice of printed cloth and 
 call it "calico," because that is not the name of such cloth there. 
 Calico from Calicut, in India, where such cloth was first made from 
 cotton, does not mean prints. Drugs do not mean chemicals or 
 medicines in the terms of trade, now in use, and so on through a long 
 list of trade names.
 
 12 WORKS ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 These markets are now to a great extent supplied from Great 
 Britain, and the terms and names are learned from British mer- 
 chants. We cannot change these terms and need not, because they 
 are as a rule relevant and correct, at least, are equally so with those 
 we employ here. 
 
 Some years ago Mr. Otto Schleischer, of Schleischer, Schumm 
 & Co., owners of the Otto Gas Engine Works in Philadelphia, 
 visited me at San Francisco on his way to Germany. I remarked 
 that he seemed to be going the wrong way to reach Germany, and 
 his answer was: ' ' I am a member of a kind of linguistic society in 
 Germany, and we are just now compiling a lexicon of certain native 
 languages in Africa. There are some points unsettled, and I am 
 going by the way of Zanzibar to gather the required information 
 there." I expressed surprise at an African dictionary. "Oh," said 
 he, "this is the third one. Our people are preparing for trade in 
 Africa, and the first requirement is to know the native languages, so 
 as to translate correctly." 
 
 The phenomenal work done by the German people during 
 twenty -five years past in not only founding successfully nearly all 
 branches of skilled industry, but in founding trade connections while 
 their material was enhanced in value by customs taxes, is one of the 
 wonders of this period. Professors Smith and Marx, who are well 
 acquainted with this matter, will, no doubt, bear me out in saying 
 that the administration of German works has furnished a lesson to 
 the world, and against various impediments there have been founded 
 industries and a trade of great extent in a period half as long as in 
 any precedent that history furnishes. 
 
 This has been done by various agencies, many of which you are 
 acquainted with. Among these has been a careful attention to termi- 
 nology, and as Germany is the home and head of philology, a trans- 
 lation of their technical terms will establish the truth of what I 
 have endeavored to explain in the latter part of this lecture. 
 
 It remains only to thank- you for the kind attention given to 
 these lectures, prepared under various adverse circumstances, also 
 to thank the Faculty who have courteously permitted me to frame 
 the matter in terms and in order, that are more shop-like than 
 academic. My chief interest is to know you have accepted my 
 efforts as a sincere attempt to say something that will be remem- 
 bered, and prove useful in your future experience.
 
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