GIFT OF 
 L. Leupp 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
..,:,,,,....,.,.,, ,,. . 
 
THE 
 
 Marvels of Modern Mechanism 
 
 AND 
 
 THEIR RELATION TO 
 
 SOCIAL BETTERMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 JEROME BRUCE CRABTREE 
 
 i) 
 
 Author of "The Passing of Spain" 
 
 With Special Chapters by 
 
 CARROLL D. WRIGHT, LL. D. 
 
 AND 
 
 WILLARD SMITH, M. D. 
 
 " What yesterday I should have declared impossible, I have to-day seen realized." 
 
 LORD KELVIN 
 
 SAN JOSE 
 
 THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANY 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS. 
 
 CHICAGO INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 1901 
 
 TORONTO 
 

 Copyright, 1901 
 By JEROME BRUCE CRABTREE 
 
 i / 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 MODERN MACHINERY 
 ITS BENEFITS TO MANKIND 
 
 POWER 
 ITS PRODUCTION AND USE 
 
 TRANSPORTATION 
 ITS RELATION TO PROGRESS 
 
 ELECTRICITY 
 ITS PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS 
 
 IRON AND STEEL WORKING 
 THE FOUNDATION OF OUR INDUSTRIAL LIFE 
 
 MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE MATERIALS OF WARFARE 
 
 MINERAL INDUSTRIES 
 GOLD SILVER COPPER COAL PETROLEUM 
 
 MEANS OF COMMUNICATION 
 TELEPHONE TELEGRAPH POSTAL SERVICE 
 
 PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING 
 EVOLUTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY INFLUENCE OF THE ART OF PRINTING 
 
 ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY 
 INCREASES THE FOOD SUPPLY OF THE WORLD 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 OPTICS MODERN SURGERY HOUSEKEEPER'S DEBT TO INVENTION How TO 
 
 MAKE AND PATENT AN INVENTION UTILIZATION OF WASTE 
 
 PRODUCTS MACHINERY, LABOR AND WEALTH 
 
 APPENDIX 
 MAN'S WORK AND TRAINING MODERN OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN 
 
FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 COTTON PICKERS Frontispiece 
 
 VERTICAL BLOWING ENGINE .... ...'.. .... . 51 
 
 EARLY TRANSPORTATION . . . .... . * . . 127 
 
 Rio LAS ANIMAS CANON .... ; . .... . . 137 
 
 DUTTON PNEUMATIC CANAL LOCK . . ..*.-.. . . . . 239 
 
 CASTING PIG IRON . . . . . ...;.. . . 327 
 
 STEEL INGOT FOR ARMOR . . . . .. , . v . . 339 
 
 STEEL SKELETON OF HIGH BUILDING i". V . . . . . . 370 
 
 ARMOR vs. GUN . . .'... . . . " . . > .. . . 391 
 
 SMITH AND WESSON AND OLD FLINTLOCK REVOLVERS .... . . 411 
 
 "CONSTITUTION" AND "OREGON" . - . . . . . . . 435 
 
 TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYER . . . . ^ . . . - . . . 459 
 
 HOE'S LATEST PRESS . . . . . ... . . ^ . 594 
 
 "THE MAN WITH THE HOE" ._ . i V . . . . . . 616 
 
 GRAIN ELEVATOR . . . . y . . . < , . . . . 632 
 
 STOCKYARDS . . .- . . . . . . . . . 676 
 
 ARMOUR INSTITUTE . * . . . . . . i . . . 701 
 
 MINING ROOM OF McGiLL UNIVERSITY . . . ... . . 708 
 
PREFATORY. 
 
 r I ^HIS work is an attempt to describe in language free from tech- 
 * nicalities a few of the most striking inventions and to show 
 what part they have played in our industrial life. It is not a tech- 
 nical treatise but is rather a tribute to the men who have " thought 
 in iron and steel" and an attempt to show how their work has 
 benefited society. 
 
 The demands of modern life are so exacting that the average 
 man is prone to forget how much he owes to those who have helped 
 to bring civilization out of savagery. This book is issued in the be- 
 lief that he is unthoughtful rather than ungrateful and that he will 
 be glad to have their struggles and victories recalled to him. 
 
 It has been the writer's good fortune to add to the value of the 
 book by the special articles contributed by Hon. Carroll D. Wright 
 and Willard Smith, M.D. Recognition is made of the painstaking 
 work of Heber A. Hopkins, B.S., in reading the technical parts of 
 the manuscript. 
 
 Thanks are due to Colonel J. P. Farley and other courteous offi- 
 cers of the Ordnance Department for information furnished ; to the 
 Bethlehem Steel Co., R. Hoe and Co., the Westinghouse Air Brake 
 Co., the Commercial Cable Co., the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 
 and many other progressive manufacturers for literature descriptive 
 and cuts illustrative of their work. 
 
 JEROME BRUCE CRABTREE. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, MASS., April, 1901. 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 THAT this work might be as nearly accurate as possible, constant ref- 
 erence has been made to the highest available authorities. That it might 
 speak of the latest achievements, a large number of technical periodicals 
 have been consulted. The following list will have some interest for the 
 general reader and will be of considerable value to the student who desires 
 to pursue the subject more fully. 
 
 BOOKS CONSULTED. 
 
 Alaska. Published by the Bureau of American Republics. 1897. Washington. 
 
 American Telegraphy. Maver. New York. 1897. 
 
 A Manual of the Steam Engine. R. H. Thurston (Cornell). New York. 1894. 
 
 Articles by Maxim, Chanute, and Holland. 
 
 Boilers and Furnaces. Barr. Philadelphia. 1898. 
 
 British Locomotives. C. J. Bowen Cooke. London. 
 
 Business Openings for Girls. White. Boston. 1891. 
 
 Chambers's Encyclopaedia. Philadelphia. 
 
 College Training for Women. Claghorn. New York. 1897. 
 
 Compendium of Transportation Theories. McCain. Washington. 
 
 Electricity One Hundred Years Ago and To-day. Houston. New York. 
 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica. New York. 
 
 Entomology. Packard. New York. 1898. 
 
 Fatigue of Metal in Wrought Iron and Steel Forgings. Porter. Philadelphia. 
 
 Guide to the Yukon Gold Fields. Wilson. Seattle. 1897. 
 
 Helps for Ambitious Boys. Drysdale. New York. 1899. 
 
 High Office Buildings. Birkmire. New York. 
 
 History of Paper. J. E. A. Smith. New York. 
 
 History of the Baldwin Locomotive Works. Philadelphia. 
 
 History of Pennsylvania. Eagle. Philadelphia. 
 
 History of Steam Navigation. Rear Admiral Preble, U. S. N. Philadelphia. 
 
 History Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore. 
 
 Industrial History of the United States and Canada. Bolles. Norwich, Ct. 1879. 
 
 Influence of Sea Power upon History. Capt. A. T. Mahan. Boston. 1892. 
 
 Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire. Boston. 1892. 
 
 Information from Abroad. Publication of Naval Intelligence Office. Washington. 
 
 Iron in All Ages. Swank. Philadelphia. 
 
 Journalism for Women. E. A Bennett. London. 1898. 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 13 
 
 Lecture of Charles E. Trip' .r. 
 
 Life of Cyrus W. Field. Harper's. 1896. New York. 
 
 Literature furnished by numerous manufacturers. 
 
 Manitoba. Macoun. New York. 1883. 
 
 Michigan Board of Health Report. Detroit. 1895. 
 
 Modern Mechanism. Appleton. New York. 
 
 Modern Methods of Sewage Disposal. George E. Waring. New York. 1894. 
 
 Naval Annual. '92, '93, '94, '95, '96, '97, '98. Lord T. A. Brassey. London. 
 
 Newfoundland to Manitoba. W. Fraser Rae. New York. 1881. 
 
 Nickel Steel for Crank, Pins, and Axles. Porter. Philadelphia. 
 
 Official Handbook of Information Relating to the Dominion of Canada. Government 
 
 Publication. 1893. Ottawa. 
 Ordnance and Gunnery. Bruff. New York. 
 Original Article. Frederick E. Ives, Inventor of Kromscop. 
 Physical Development and Exercise for Women. Bissell. New York. 1891. 
 Physics. Barker. New York. 
 Photography. Abney. New York. 
 Pleasant ways in Science. Proctor. London. 
 Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States. New York. 
 Practical Paper Making. Clapperton. New York. 
 Problems of Greater Britain. Dilke. London. 1890. 
 Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute. Annapolis. 
 Ready for Business, or Choosing an Occupation. Manson. New York. 1889. 
 Reports of the United States Geological Survey. Washington. 
 Report of Committee of Transportation of the American Economic Association. New 
 
 York. 
 
 Report of John W. McCain, President of Commercial Cable Co. New York. 1895. 
 Reports of the United States National Museum. Washington. 
 Recent Economic Changes. David A. Wells. New York. 1891. 
 Senate Report. 1142. 52d Congress. Washington. 
 Separate System of Sewage. Cady Staley. New York. 
 Sewage Disposal in the United States. Rafter & Barker. New York. 
 Sewage Disposal. Kiersted. New York. 1893. 
 State Department Documents. Washington. 
 Steam Engine. London. Burns. 
 Steel Construction. Purdy. Madison, Wis. 
 
 Steel for Marine Engines and Shafting. Davenport. Philadelphia. 
 The Century of Electricity. Mendenhall. Boston. 
 The Electric Automobile. Woods. Chicago. 
 The Health of Nations. Edward Chadwick. London. 1897. 
 The Gatlings at Santiago. Parker. New York. 1899. 
 
 The Life and Work of Cyrus W. Field. Isabella Field Judson. New York. 
 The Laying of the Atlantic Cable. Henry O'Neil. Edinburgh. 
 The Atlantic Telegraph. W. H. Russell. London. 
 The Telephone. Du Moncel. New York. 
 The Story of a Piece of Coal. Martin. New York. 
 
14 LIST OF AUTHORITIES. 
 
 The Student's Cotton Spinning. James Nasmith. Manchester. 
 
 The Textile Industries of the United States. Bagnall. Cambridge. 
 
 The Quarter Century in Photography. Wilson. New York. 
 
 The Queen's Highway. Cumberland. London. 1887. 
 
 The Story of Photography. Story. New York. 
 
 The World's Railways. J. G. Pangborn. New York. 
 
 The Development of Transportation System in the United States. J. L. Ringwalt. Phil- 
 adelphia. 
 
 The Report of the United States Government Deep Waterways Commission. Washington. 
 
 The Training of Girls for Work. Edith A. Barnett. New York. 1894. 
 
 The Woman's Book. 2 Vols. New York. 1894. 
 
 The World's Congress of Representative Women. Edited by May W. Sewall. Chicago. 
 1894. 
 
 Through the Gold Fields of Alaska to Behring Straits. De Windt. New York. 1898. 
 
 Thrown on Her Own Resources, or What Girls Can Do. Mrs. J. C. Croly. New York 
 1891. 
 
 Triumphs of Modern Engineering. London. 
 
 Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Gordon. New York. 
 
 Treatise on Wooden Trestle Bridges. Foster. New York. 
 
 United States Patent Office Reports. Washington. 
 
 Wages, Prices and Cost of Living. Carroll D. Wright. Boston. 
 
 Water Purification. Rideal. Philadelphia. 1897. 
 
 Water Supply. Mason. New York. 1896. 
 
 Wireless Telegraphy. Kerr. New York. 1898. 
 
 Westinghouse Air Brake Co.'s Instruction Book. Pittsburgh. 
 
 What Shall we do with our Daughters ? Mary A. Livermore. Boston. 1893. 
 
 What Shall our Boys do for a Living ? Wingate. New York. 1899. 
 
 What Women can earn. New York. 1899. 
 
 Wonders of Modern Mechanism. Cochrane. Philadelphia. 
 
 Women and Economics. Charlotte Perkins Stetson. Boston. 1899. 
 
 Work for Women. Manson. New York. 
 
 Women in the Pulpit. Frances E. Willard. Boston. 1888. 
 
 Women in the Business World. By One of Them. Boston. 1894. 
 
 TECHNICAL PERIODICALS CONSULTED. 
 
 American Architect. Boston. 
 
 American Manufacturer and Iron World. Pittsburg. 
 
 American Journal of Science. New Haven. 
 
 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Philadelphia. 1893. 
 
 Army and Navy Journal. New York. 
 
 Automobile Magazine. New York. 
 
 Bulletin American Iron and Steel Association. Philadelphia, 
 
 Canadian Engineer. Montreal. 
 
LIST OF AUTHORITIES. I 5 
 
 Gassier. New York. 
 
 Consular Reports. Washington. 
 
 Electrical World and Engineer. New York. 
 
 Engineer. London. 
 
 Engineering. London. 
 
 Engineering Magazine. London. 
 
 Engineering and Mining Journal. New York. 
 
 Iron Age. New York. 
 
 Iron and Coal Trades Review. London. 
 
 Journal of United States Artillery. Radford. New York. 
 
 Journal of United States Artillery. Fort Monroe. 
 
 Machinery. New York. 
 
 Marine Engineering. New York. 
 
 Science. New York. 
 
 Scientific American. New York. 
 
 United Service Magazine. London. . 
 
 OTHER PERIODICALS CONSULTED. 
 
 Arena. New York. 
 
 Belford's Magazine. London. 
 
 Canadian Magazine. Toronto. 
 
 Century Magazine. New York. 
 
 Chambers's Journal. London. 
 
 Chautauquan. Meadville. 
 
 Cosmopolitan. New York. 
 
 Daily Advertiser. Boston. 
 
 Daily Graphic. London. 
 
 Education. Boston. 
 
 Edinburgh Review. Edinburgh. 
 
 Fortnightly Review. London. 
 
 Forum. New York. 
 
 Good Words. London. 
 
 Harper's Magazine. New York. 
 
 Lippincott's Magazine. Philadelphia. 
 
 Living Age. Boston. 
 
 Marine Engineering. New York. 
 
 McClure's Magazine. New York. 
 
 Munsey. New York. 
 
 Nation. New York. 
 
 National Review. London. 
 
 Nature. New York. 
 
 New England Magazine. Boston. 
 
 New Review. London. 
 
I 6 LIST OF AUTHORITIES, 
 
 Nineteenth Century. New York. 
 North American Review. New York. 
 Popular Science Monthly. New York,, 
 Public Opinion. New York. 
 Quarterly Review. London. 
 Review of Reviews. London. 
 Scribner's Magazine. New York. 
 Spectator. London. 
 Strand. London. 
 The Empire. Toronto. 
 Tribune. New York. 
 Westminster Review. London. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A LIFETIME would be too short for the ablest writer to do full 
 justice to the debt civilization owes to the inventive genius 
 which has evolved the marvelous machinery of our time from the 
 rude stone implements of an age of savagery. Familiarity with 
 these achievements seems to have lessened general appreciation of 
 the great progress that has been made, even within the century just 
 closed. 
 
 The world thrills at the recital of the deeds of a Livingstone, 
 a Stanley, or a Nansen, those intrepid explorers of the unknown 
 regions of "Darkest Africa" and the frozen North. Surely those 
 other explorers who invaded an equally unknown realm of natural 
 law and physical forces, who have enabled us to substitute comfort- 
 able clothing for the skins of wild beasts, who have given us warm, 
 lighted, and happy homes in exchange for the cave of the savage, 
 cold, dark, and reeking with moisture, who have made it possible to 
 heap our breakfast tables with the choicest food products of a dozen 
 countries, who have given us quick and easy communications with 
 our loved ones at a distance, whose discoveries have eradicated some 
 diseases and rendered all others less terrible ; who, in short, have 
 made our lives full, rich, and worth living, are entitled to some evi- 
 dence of our appreciation. 
 
 Society accepts these benefits as unconcernedly as though they 
 had always existed, but they have been bought at the expense not 
 only of toil, but often of privation, suffering, and ruin. Frequently 
 have the lives of inventors been threatened and their property 
 destroyed by the people who had most to gain by their inventions. 
 Often they have been dead and forgotten before the world was suffi- 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ciently advanced to make use of their discoveries. Who were these 
 inventors and how has all this progress been gained? 
 
 Lying off the northeastern coast of Australia is a coral reef more 
 than 1200 miles in length, the work of countless myriads of mi- 
 croscopic animals. Only the upper part of the reef is alive, and it 
 has for a foundation, the work of previous colonies that have lived, 
 died, and bequeathed their hard, stony skeletons as a legacy to suc- 
 ceeding builders. The identity of the earlier workers is hopelessly 
 lost, but the fragments of their skeletons are a necessary part of the 
 reef's foundation and from them many a parallel illustrating the 
 growth of society can be drawn. For, like the building of the coral 
 reef, each invention is based upon the data collected by society from 
 all the ages, and the inventor consciously or unconsciously avails 
 himself of the experiences of those who have lost their identity as 
 completely as the countless numbers forming the foundation of the 
 coral reef. It is an accepted belief having in psychology almost the 
 force of a law, that any mental picture, no matter how strange, must 
 be built upon data at some other time collected by the individual. 
 If it is psychologically true that one cannot even dream of something 
 of which he has never heard, it is equally true that all great inven- 
 tions are based upon the acquired sum of human knowledge. 
 
 The man who first subjugated fire and enslaved it for the service 
 of mankind was as great a benefactor of his race as any subsequent 
 discoverer or inventor. 
 
 The primitive man was at war with all the rude forces of nature, 
 the beasts of the forests, and his hardly less savage fellows. Each 
 improvement in his weapons placed a premium on intelligence, ren- 
 dered brute force less decisive, and raised him higher in the scale. 
 The man who hit upon metal as a substitute for stone added im- 
 mensely to the sum of human knowledge. The discovery made him 
 a better builder, a more successful hunter, a much m.ore dreaded 
 
INTRODUCTION. JQ 
 
 antagonist. In tribal conflicts where the metal weapon of the one 
 clashed against the stone weapon of the other, victory must have 
 fallen to the more intelligent. 
 
 All the wants of the primitive man were supplied by his own 
 efforts; he built his own house, hunted wild beasts, used their flesh 
 for food and their skin for garments. The development of tribal 
 organization brought out various abilities; one man became a fisher, 
 another a hunter, a third a maker of weapons. Each took upon 
 himself the part he could best perform and this division of labor 
 marked one of the most important epochs in the history of man, for 
 it was the parent germ of " the factory system" with all that sig- 
 nifies. Specialized labor became more skillful, made better pottery, 
 turned out better tools, better weapons, and built better dwellings. 
 
 One of the most marvelous features of modern civilization is the 
 snail-like pace with which it began and the astonishing rapidity with 
 which it is now progressing. Professor Flinders Petrie ascribes an age 
 of at least 100,000 years to the first rude flints found in the Kentish 
 hills of England and an age of 10,000 years to the polished flint 
 weapons made when man was beginning to engage himself with pas- 
 toral and agricultural pursuits. If the estimate is correct it took 
 90,000 years for him to pass from a dweller in caves and a user of 
 the roughest stone weapons to a builder of rude dwellings and a 
 maker of polished stone weapons. In the latter age he made pottery 
 and spun and wove a rude kind of cloth. For his defense he con- 
 structed earthworks so large as to suggest a tribal organization. 
 
 The Cave Dwellers inhabited large caves of Western Europe, 
 especially those of England, Belgium, and France. Accumulations 
 from their kitchens and workshops mixed with falling material from 
 their walls have in the course of time built up layers many feet in 
 thickness which, like the pages of a book, contain a history of their 
 progress. The cave man lived in the days of the saber-toothed tiger 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and the hairy mammoth. He made needles and awls of bone, from 
 which we conclude he made clothing. He made ornaments from the 
 teeth of animals and was something of an artist, for he often traced 
 on bones or the walls of his cave outlines of men or animals, and his 
 pictures of the hairy mammoth with its long mane, curved tusks, and 
 hanging trunk show considerable skill. 
 
 The Lake Dweller was a later and higher type of man. He asso- 
 ciated with his fellows, built his house on piles over a lake, and had 
 a home easily defended from enemies without and a constant supply 
 of food and drink underneath. Such settlements were first found 
 in the Swiss lakes but they are now known to have existed in 
 France, Hungary, Italy, Holland, and the British Isles. Many such 
 villages have been explored, some of which were built on no less 
 than 100,000 piles set upright in the water and fastened by cross- 
 beams pinned together. This mode of life lasted for thousands of 
 years and passed from the use of stone tools to those of bronze. 
 The lake dweller was a round headed man ; he cultivated flax, grapes, 
 and grain ; made pottery and ornamented it ; kept several domestic 
 animals, and the pictures he left show that he yoked cattle to the 
 plow. 
 
 The long headed man of the bronze age improved upon the work 
 of his predecessors. He used copper and perhaps hardened it, but 
 when he mixed tin with copper and invented bronze, he was able to 
 produce tools and weapons that materially improved his own condi- 
 tion. It is believed that man passed from stone to bronze tools in 
 about 5000 years. Bronze was freely used in Egypt 3000 years B. C., 
 and iron about 1500 B. C., though it was earlier known to the Baby- 
 lonians; it reached Italy about 700 B. C., and Britain about 400 
 B. C., and its use accelerated the progress of the race. 
 
 The oldest man in America was found beneath the great lava 
 beds of California, where the rivers have cut through from 2000 to 
 
INTRODUCTION. 2 I 
 
 4000 feet of lava rock, an operation that must have required thou- 
 sands of years for its performance. However it was the valleys of 
 the Nile and the Euphrates that witnessed the dawn of history and 
 there is found the earliest trace of civilized man. 
 
 The earliest Egyptians were of a race resembling the inhabitants 
 of southern Europe, but about 5000 to 6000 B. C. Egypt was in- 
 vaded by Asiatics having a better knowledge of metals and better 
 weapons. The invaders overthrew the government, coalesced with 
 the natives and formed a very able race. The new Egypt reared 
 great buildings requiring accurate workmanship, undertook exten- 
 sive public works, showing they understood the art of organizing 
 labor. They anticipated the Suez Canal by three times connecting 
 the Nile with the Red Sea and from 1500 B. C. to 1200 B. C. 
 Egyptian ships traded all along the coast of the Mediterranean. They 
 were workers of metals ; cultivated and spun flax and perhaps cotton ; 
 made paper from papyrus ; had an extensive literature and believed 
 in the immortality of the soul. 
 
 When Abraham left " Ur of the Chaldees " in the valley of the 
 Euphrates, 2000 B. C., he left an old, rich, highly civilized, and 
 thickly populated country, one that had not only a language but 
 a literature, and had possessed the art of writing for thousands of 
 years. Here were located the famous cities of Babylon, Nineveh, 
 Accad, Nippur, and, perhaps others as great that are now for- 
 gotten. Large libraries were established containing dictionaries in 
 which words were defined in three languages arranged in parallel 
 columns. They erected magnificent temples, cultivated art, and had 
 an elaborate system of laws. 
 
 It is commonly supposed these ancient civilizations had no effect 
 upon the intellectual life of Europe. Excavations in Greece prove 
 that country was engaged in commerce with Egypt 1000 years B. C. 
 Psammetichus I. (666-612 B. C.) employed Greek mercenaries to assist 
 
22 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 him in his wars and " occasioned the first grand impulse in the intel- 
 lectual life of Europe by opening the ports of Egypt and making 
 that country accessible to the blue-eyed and red-haired barbarians of 
 the North. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the influence of this 
 event upon the progress of Europe." This was 300 years before 
 Alexandria was founded. Babylonian influence is even more strongly 
 marked ; it has given astronomy the signs of the Zodiac, the months 
 of the year, seven days in a week, the division of circles into degrees, 
 and has left its imprint on the religion of the Hebrews. Professor 
 Petrie says that the Greek character and growth of fine arts, 700 
 B. C., was largely influenced by the Assyrian and Egyptian work at 
 second hand, obtained through the Greek settlements. 
 
 The decay of these ancient civilizations was coincident with the 
 intellectual development of Greece and Rome, and when the gloom 
 of the dark ages that had swept over Europe lifted, the scene of the 
 greatest industrial activity was found in Belgium and the Nether- 
 lands. No very considerable progress had been made, but each ad- 
 vancement was due to discovery or invention, as that of the mariner's 
 compass, the use of gunpowder in warfare, or the art of printing 
 from movable types. With the discoveries of Newcomen and Watt 
 the scene of activity shifted to England, and the resulting develop- 
 ment will be treated at length in the body of this work. 
 
 The steam engine caused an industrial and intellectual revolution, 
 totally changed man's mode of existence, and wrought an astonishing 
 improvement in his condition. When the locomotive succeeded the 
 wagon and the plodding caravan, the world shrunk at a bound to one 
 twentieth its size, and man was able to do in a day more than he 
 could formerly accomplish in a year. Every improvement that 
 lightened his toil and made the struggle for food, clothing, and 
 shelter easier, was followed by increased activity in his intellectual 
 life. There can be little display of exalted sentiments where man is 
 
INTRODUCTION. 23 
 
 struggling desperately to preserve a precarious existence, but as in- 
 vention improved his physical and intellectual condition his moral 
 growth was quickened. He founded hospitals, orphan asylums, and 
 libraries ; recognizing in ignorance the greatest foe to progress he 
 established free schools. The increase of human happiness is a true 
 test of human progress. The insane, once believed to be possessed 
 of the devil and treated with shocking barbarity, now receive uniform 
 kindness and skilled attendance. Sanitary engineering has rendered 
 impossible loathsome plagues that once swept over Europe and wiped 
 out whole villages and cities. I Even war has been divested of half its 
 horrors. Cromwell led an assault on Drogheda and says, "We put 
 to the sword the whole number of the defendants." Nearly 1000 
 who had taken refuge in a great church were killed, yet Cromwell 
 was not more merciless than the times, and prisoners taken in any 
 battle were likely to be sold as galley slaves. The Spanish soldiers 
 of the Spanish-American war were sent home at the expense of their 
 captors. Criminals are no longer confined in prisons too horrible for 
 description, but now enjoy more physical comforts and educational 
 advantages than did the laborer of the eighteenth century. At Sing 
 Sing the convicts are permitted to attend school, Bible classes, and 
 prayer meetings. They have the right to see the physician at any 
 time and have freely at their service medical skill that could not be 
 secured by the most powerful monarch of Christendom 100 years 
 ago. The progress made in medicine and surgery has wonderfully 
 relieved human misery and added thousands of years to the life of 
 each generation. It is an open secret in the medical profession that 
 the life of Washington might have been prolonged by a simple opera- 
 tion which thousands of physicians are now capable of performing, 
 and the first man of the nation died for the lack of skill which is now 
 freely available for the meanest pauper in any great city. 
 
 " Who is it would sigh for the days that are gone? " 
 
MODERN MACHINERY 
 
 AND ITS BENEFITS TO MANKIND. 
 BY CARROLL D. WRIGHT, LL.D. 
 
 Textile Machinery The Factory System The Cotton Gin Illuminating Gas 
 Steam and Electricity Street Cars Elevators Clothing Sewing Machines Type- 
 writer Anaesthetics Agricultural Machinery Printing Influence of the Printing Press 
 How Machinery Affects Labor. 
 
 Textile Machinery. Since the Christian era no event has occur- 
 red having such important effects upon the interests of mankind at 
 large as the invention of printing with movable types; and since 
 that invention the institution of the factory system, resulting from 
 the inventions of machinery used in the manufacture of textiles, 
 must be considered as the most important. These inventions belong 
 to modern times ; they were for spinning and weaving machinery, 
 and were developed to great extent during the last third of the 
 eighteenth century. Practically, the decade of years from 1760 to 
 1770 can be considered as the birth of these inventions. The appli- 
 cation of steam as motive power in the use of machinery supple- 
 mented the utility of the spinning and weaving devices by allowing 
 power other than water to be applied to their working. The modern 
 system of labor can well be called the factory system, because it is 
 only through the use of machinery and a motive power that can be 
 
26 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 utilized at any point that the factory system finds its vital, force. 
 All inventions, therefore, which relate to the production of goods by 
 machinery through the application of power, whether water, steam, 
 or electricity, belong to that system, and this, as already stated, is 
 entirely modern. 
 
 Factory System versus the Sweating System. The factory sys- 
 tem has been of immense power as a civilizing agent in the world. 
 Prior to its existence all goods were produced by the slow, tedious 
 hand methods, which constituted the sweating system as we know it 
 to-day. When we find the sweating system in any of the great cities 
 it is simply the lingering remains of the universal system which 
 preceded the establishment of the factory. The factory itself must 
 be understood in order to comprehend its great influence on human 
 welfare. It is scientific in its nature; even in its structure its parts 
 must be harmonious, the calculations requisite for their harmony 
 involving the highest mathematical skill. Under the system which 
 it typifies the combined operation of many orders of work people is 
 secured in operating with assiduous skill a series of productive ma- 
 chines continuously impelled by a central power. According to Dr. 
 Andrew Ure, the factory, in the strictest sense, involves the idea of 
 a vast automaton, composed of various mechanical and intellectual 
 organs, acting in uninterrupted concert for the production of a com- 
 mon object, all of them being subordinated to a self-regulated moving 
 force. Production under this modern system, therefore, is made 
 scientific, as well as the structures used in production. This scien- 
 tific nature, not only of the factory but of the product of the factory, 
 makes all work in it more or less intellectual, and this in itself is a 
 civilizing element ; but when it is understood that through the in- 
 ventions that make up the factory system and they are almost 
 innumerable people of very low attainments, accustomed to the 
 crudest kind of work, are enabled to step up out of their low sur- 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 2/ 
 
 roundings on to a fairly intellectual plane and into associations which 
 stimulate the mind, we see the benefits to mankind. 
 
 So many illustrations of this could be given that it seems only 
 necessary at the present time to make the broad, general statement 
 and pass to specific inventions not particularly belonging to the fac- 
 tory system as a whole ; but if specific illustrations are deemed nec- 
 essary we can point briefly to the question of the hours of labor, 
 which, under the factory system, have been reduced from thirteen, 
 fourteen, and fifteen to eight, nine, and ten a day. This has been 
 the result of economic forces supported by law. While the working 
 time has been greatly reduced, the remuneration for labor has been 
 correspondingly increased, wages under the system being, at the 
 lowest estimate, double what they were seventy-five years ago, and 
 in most instances two or three times what they were under the hand 
 system. These are the benefits to the workers themselves. Society 
 has benefited through the greater productive power of the workers 
 and the cheapening of the products of manufactures. Under the 
 old hand system a common linen sheet cost the worker at least 
 thirty-two days of hard labor. At the present time it can be secured 
 as the result of but a few hours of labor. Such illustrations could 
 be carried on indefinitely, but they all lead to the conclusion that 
 the modern system brings mental friction and a contact of mind with 
 mind which could not exist under the old system. It brings prog- 
 ress and intelligence ; it establishes at the centers the public hall for 
 the lyceum and the concert, and as an educational force its power 
 cannot be contradicted. These statements are emphasized by the 
 fact that prior to the factory system there had been no particular 
 progress in the methods of production. 
 
 The Cotton Gin. The invention of the cotton gin stimulated the 
 rapid expansion of the factory system, so far as it comprehends the 
 production of textiles. Prior to the cotton gin the cotton wool, as 
 
28 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 it used to be called, was separated from the seeds by hand, a slow, 
 tedious process that rendered the product of the textile factories ex- 
 pensive, and crippled the volume of production, but with the cotton 
 gin these difficulties were removed. It was an American invention, 
 and it had a vast influence upon the welfare of mankind, because 
 that welfare has been greatly enhanced by the power created to 
 clothe the people. As one of its results, the exportation of cotton 
 goods from England was made possible and the carrying of clothing 
 to remote parts of the world successful. It has been said that the 
 cotton gin gave a new lease to the slave system by making the labor 
 of the slaves profitable, whereas under the hand methods it was not so 
 profitable, and thus that the cotton gin had a dwarfing influence upon 
 human welfare. Be this as it may, the general results of the effect 
 of the cotton gin were in the interest of the human race, although 
 locally it may have been detrimental to a particular class of people. 
 
 Illuminating Gas. Mankind is greatly indebted to the inventions 
 which led to the practice of lighting cities and towns artificially. The 
 invention of illuminating gas and the appliances by which it could be 
 utilized must be considered as one of the greatest civilizers of the 
 age. Prior to such practice cities were dark and furnished the very 
 best opportunities for crime. With the lighting of cities crime de- 
 creased and the people were safer in their daily pursuits. While the 
 lighting of cities can hardly be classed among machinery, neverthe- 
 less the discovery of the qualities of illuminating gas involved the 
 construction of machinery by which it could be utilized, and it is one 
 of the great inventions which have helped mankind in its upward 
 struggle. 
 
 Steam and Electricity. While steam served to make the factory 
 system possible and effective, it revolutionized the affairs of the 
 world, and, taken in connection with the application of devices for 
 making electricity serve the people, gave new impetus to knowledge 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 29 
 
 and brought all peoples into neighborly relations. Steam and elec- 
 trical appliances must go together, because the generation of elec- 
 tricity for any large uses depends upon a motive power outside of 
 itself, and steam is more generally used in the generation of electric 
 current than water, although water is beginning to be used wherever 
 the power can be applied with the most satisfactory results ; but 
 water power is not modern, while steam is. With steam and elec- 
 tricity and the rapid transmission of intelligence and transportation 
 of products, the real face of industry and of commerce has been 
 changed. Steam is applied as well to the loading of vessels as to 
 the power which moves them when loaded. Prices of commodities 
 are thus equalized. The telegraph announces the condition of the 
 markets in all parts of the world, and steam responds in supplying 
 the waste places. By the two great forces famines have been re- 
 duced and in great degree become entirely impossible, but when 
 they do occur the impulses of the people are first moved by electric- 
 ity to supply those suffering, and by steam the actual supplies are 
 carried quickly where needed. Thus under steam and electricity the 
 human race becomes a great brotherhood instead of a collection of 
 segregated peoples, each caring for itself and little or nothing for the 
 other. In the deepest philosophical sense, then, steam and electric- 
 ity embody inventions in the modern world to which the human race 
 owes an enormous debt, which it can pay only by appreciating the 
 resulting benefits and conducting itself in accordance therewith. 
 
 Steam and Electrical Appliances. But the appliances which 
 enable mankind to utilize steam and electricity constitute the true 
 inventions, for the powers that lead to these inventions are natural. 
 These appliances have raised the grade of labor everywhere. They 
 have made possible great engineering enterprises which could not 
 have been carried out without them. Electrical and steam engineer- 
 ing call for a higher grade of skill than could have been utilized in 
 
3 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 any occupation under the old system. This means higher wages of 
 salaries and a higher grade of men. Men, therefore, are constantly 
 stepping from ordinary industrial walks of life into higher callings 
 made possible by steam and electricity, thus adding practically and 
 really to the demand for labor of all kinds, increasing thereby the 
 general proportion of the population engaged in remunerative labor. 
 The invention of the telephone, the expansion of the telegraph, and 
 the various other appliances for the use of a great natural power are 
 constantly adding to the opportunities in life for engaging in a high 
 grade of employment. 
 
 Electric Street Car. Perhaps one of the most' effective devices 
 to which electricity has been applied is the trolley car. A considera- 
 tion of the modern means of rapid transit in our great cities and be- 
 tween cities and the rural districts immediately surrounding them 
 leads to the conclusion that, sociologically, no invention or applica- 
 tion of inventions has been so potent during the last quarter of a 
 century as the electric street car. The men who work for wages are 
 enabled by it to remove from the congested districts of cities, where 
 their working places are located, to the healthful surroundings of the 
 country, and this very influence is tending to depopulate congested 
 cities. Statistics show that in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, 
 London, and no doubt in other cities could the facts be ascertained, 
 there is a constant decrease in the number of people living in the 
 congested districts of cities. Of course there is another influence 
 helping this movement; that is, the necessity for erecting great busi- 
 ness houses. This deprives the inhabitants of such districts of house 
 room, and they are obliged to move into the suburbs. The trolley 
 car helps them in this movement. On the other hand, the suburban 
 population is given the privilege, at cheap rates, of working in the 
 cities during the day and returning home at night. 
 
 Much is said about the concentration of population in cities. 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 31 
 
 The concentration is not in the cities proper, but in the suburban 
 districts surrounding them. Here those who come from the country 
 and find work in the city make their homes. Here those who are 
 crowded out of the city also make their homes. These two forces 
 meet, and are together constituting one of the grandest populations 
 the world has seen. The influences in these movements, resulting 
 directly from the invention of methods by which electricity can be 
 applied, have a marked and decisive effect on human welfare. They 
 save labor; they save exhaustion; they preserve physical strength, 
 and in turn they help stimulate the mind and lead to a higher in- 
 tellectual growth, for education is necessary not only to the compre- 
 hension of these things but to their practical application. 
 
 Elevators. A modern invention which has enabled the "business 
 man to accomplish more in a day and with less fatigue than of old is 
 the elevator in business and public buildings. The elevator can 
 hardly be considered as an individual invention, but it represents 
 the application of well-known mechanical devices set in motion by 
 steam, water, or electricity in such a way as to benefit the human 
 being individually. The old-time stairway exists, but is not much 
 used. The elevator takes one easily and rapidly to any height and 
 without any fatigue. It has made the upper stories of business and 
 public buildings just as desirable as the lower ones, and in fact far 
 more desirable, for in the upper stories the professional or business 
 man can spend his days with good light and air; hence, physically 
 and in a hygienic sense, the elevator is a blessing for mankind. 
 
 Clothing. The application of invention to the manufacture of 
 clothing, including boots and shoes, has resulted not only in securing 
 better conditions of health but in making life itself easier and more 
 congenial. A fairly well-dressed man or woman is certainly a better 
 type than a shabbily dressed one, and under modern invention 
 clothing can be procured cheaper than at any time during the last 
 
3 2 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 century, and of a quality which surprises one when the price is con- 
 sidered. But the most effective and perhaps far-reaching influences 
 from the manufacture of clothing are to be found in waterproof 
 fabrics. Rubber is a natural product, but the application of it to 
 the uses of man took inventive genius, and to apply it so that tex- 
 tiles could be made waterproof took still further invention. Water- 
 proof clothing, therefore, is not only an invention of itself, but its 
 manufacture required other inventions applicable alike to other 
 classes of goods. The health and welfare of the people have been 
 enhanced many fold by the use of waterproof clothing, and, indeed, 
 one can hardly estimate the benefits of the inventions which led to 
 its practical use. Life is safer, health is securer, longevity is en- 
 hanced *by the use of modern waterproof goods. 
 
 Sewing Machine. The sewing machine may be considered as one 
 of the important modern inventions which have had a decided influ- 
 ence upon human welfare. It has not only increased the working 
 capacity of the people, but it has brought into existence a new line 
 of occupations. The construction of the machines themselves, the 
 great efforts necessary to put them on the market, and their special 
 uses when brought into active employment, all lead to an expansion 
 of industry and, hence, to an expansion in the number of employ- 
 ments open to men and women. They have supplemented to a 
 great extent the inventions of shoe machinery, and enabled manu- 
 facturers to produce most excellent goods at a low price. They 
 have made the sewing-girl's life more endurable, and have helped to 
 cultivate a taste in clothing by the opportunities to use forms and 
 devices in the make-up of dress goods that would not have been 
 thought of under the old hand methods. There are, to be sure, 
 evils in the use of the sewing machine, as in the use of all machines, 
 but when judiciously used it must be considered as one of those in- 
 ventions the loss of which could not be tolerated. 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 33 
 
 Typewriter. The modern typewriter has expanded human pos- 
 sibilities from four to six fold. A few months ago the writer listened 
 to a statement by the president of one of our largest universities. 
 "The topic of the conversation turned upon human abilities and their 
 limitations. He said that with the use of the typewriter he could 
 accomplish from four to six times as much as he was formerly able to 
 accomplish without it. Hence his usefulness was greater to man- 
 kind and his business abilities far superior to those of old. He 
 said he did not see how by any possible invention he could increase 
 his product of work, and the testimony he gave was the clearest on 
 the subject that could be obtained. Take a business house, for in- 
 stance. The vast correspondence necessary to the conduct of the 
 great establishments of the present day could not be carried on 
 without the use of the typewriting machine. A business man takes 
 up his correspondence in the morning, dictates his replies, and after 
 an hour or two is at liberty to attend to other affairs, giving his at- 
 tention to the details of his house, whereas formerly it would have 
 taken him quite if not all day to accomplish, so far as correspond- 
 ence is concerned, what he easily accomplishes in an hour. So with 
 official business the same is true, and the fact that the use of the 
 typewriter has opened an occupation in life not known before offsets 
 some of the displacements that take place when machines are first 
 applied. The education necessary for an efficient typewriter operator 
 has stimulated school work. One cannot become a successful and 
 intelligent operator of the typewriting machine unless he under- 
 stands more than the old hand copyist was expected to know. The 
 typewriter operator must be well grounded in grammar and in all 
 that belongs to it ; he must understand the construction of sentences 
 and the use of capitals and punctuation marks, and in general must 
 be a well-read, well-educated man. As an occupation for women, 
 typewriting offers a respectable and an intellectual class of work. 
 
34 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Anaesthetics. An invention which cannot possibly be called a 
 machine, but which has had perhaps as great an influence on the hu- 
 man race as any invention that can be named, is that of anaesthetics. 
 It has removed the horrors of surgical operations; it has saved life* 
 where under the same operation life would have been lost ; it has en- 
 abled the skillful surgeon to do what he could not do without their 
 application. Under the old way, when the patient was obliged with 
 full consciousness to undergo an operation, the surgeon would often 
 stop short of the minute investigations necessary to ascertain the 
 real cause of existing difficulties, but with the patient safely uncon- 
 scious the surgeon can carry his study and inquiry to as great an 
 extent as may be found necessary. Often, after an intelligent 
 diagnosis, when a surgeon begins to operate he finds complications 
 which he did not foresee. The use of anaesthetics enables him to 
 work until he removes all obstructions and to make a complete in- 
 stead of an incomplete operation. Human life is therefore worth 
 more on account of this invention or discovery. Diseased condi- 
 tions yield where they would not have yielded ; hence, while an- 
 aesthetics cannot be classed, as stated, with machines, they must be 
 classed with inventions and with those that have had the very great- 
 est influence on the welfare of the human race. 
 
 Agricultural Machinery. The application of machinery to agri- 
 cultural pursuits has been slow and difficult but successful. The 
 single, small farmer cannot afford to own and operate expensive ma- 
 chines. The farmer on a great scale reduces farming to a manufac- 
 ture, almost, for he uses machinery in every direction. Under its use 
 it is rarely necessary for him to touch a -tool, and in the harvesting 
 of some crops he need not touch the product from the Ume of the 
 sowing of the seed till it is sent to market. He does no-L touch it in 
 the sowing, nor in the 'cultivating, nor in harvesting or threshing, nor 
 in transportation or milling. He may put his hand to it when he 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 35 
 
 comes to use it as a food. This result has induced the small farmer 
 to engage in co-operative enterprises, by which a number of neigh- 
 bors club together and purchase the necessary machines. The 
 application of machinery to agriculture has not resulted in what was 
 feared a few years ago, the bonanza farm. As a matter of fact, the 
 average size of farms in the United States constantly decreases, but 
 intensive farming increases. The land is made to produce more 
 and in a cleaner way by the use of machinery. 
 
 It is wonderful how many ramifications there are to this use of 
 machinery, and to enumerate all the different features of such use 
 would lead us too far afield, just as it would to undertake to enu- 
 merate the machines necessary under the factory system. One con- 
 crete illustration may be given, however, which will clearly show the 
 power of machinery in agriculture. It takes one hundred minutes 
 to shell corn enough by hand to make one bushel of shelled corn, 
 and one minute to shell the same quantity by steam shelling devices. 
 Applying this to the crop of one of our large corn-raising states, 
 which last year produced almost two hundred million bushels of 
 corn, it is found that to have shelled this amount of corn by hand 
 would have occupied each person in the state over ten years of age 
 9.5 days, while it would have taken the male population ten years of 
 age and over nineteen days. The work was accomplished by machin- 
 ery in fifty-six and four fifths minutes for each person of the popula- 
 tion over ten years of age. . Such illustrations, of course, could be 
 calculated for various crops, but this one is sufficient. 
 
 It may be asked, What is the practical value of the use of agri- 
 cultural machinery unless the price of the product is correspondingly 
 decreased? The price is decreased, and food is cheaper on the 
 whole as time goes on and as machinery is more generally applied ; 
 but the great benefit. is that it enables this country to raise and mar- 
 ket such immense quantities of wheat, corn, and all the great staple 
 
36 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 products as not only to supply its own demands but to furnish other 
 countries witn food, and at a price fairly satisfactory to the toilers. 
 Machinery has enabled the producer to sell crops at such a price as 
 to warrant their exportation, and so the United States is the great 
 food supplying nation of the world. The great industries of Eng- 
 land and some other countries could not well be carried on without 
 the necessary supplies from this country. This very power of the 
 United States in respect to agricultural products is augmented by the 
 use of machinery in the slaughtering of cattle and in the preparation 
 and transportation of meat. Transportation has reduced the ex- 
 pense to such a degree that a whole year's supply of food can be 
 brought from the West to the East at a very small cost ; and while 
 the East does not compete with the West in these respects, and can- 
 not do so, it is allowed to devote its attention to the manufacture of 
 other things, it being cheaper, far more so indeed, to secure its food 
 supplies from other parts of the country. And now the use of 
 machinery in mining coal is augmenting the transportation of agri- 
 cultural supplies. It is furnishing not only the food to enable for- 
 eign countries to continue their industrial enterprises but the fuel 
 with which to run their establishments. So machinery is vitalizing 
 every productive force of the United States and enabling it to assume 
 supremacy in its productive capacity, in its actual productions, and 
 in its commerce. 
 
 Printing. One other illustration showing how human welfare is 
 enhanced by the application of machinery must suffice at the present 
 time, and that illustration is to be drawn from printing. As printing 
 was the first great invention which influenced the world, so it is the 
 latest in the same direction. The use of movable types required 
 composition by hand, and the methods of composition met with no 
 improvement, except through the form of the type and means for 
 their adjustment and their use upon the presses, until within a very 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 37 
 
 few years, when the typesetting machines were perfected. Under 
 the old method of composition a fairly expert compositor could set 
 1000 ems an hour, while with the use of the linotype machine he 
 can set 4500 ems in the same time. This invention followed the 
 perfected presses, which embody the very magic of inventive 
 genius. One of the latest sextuple stereotype perfecting presses 
 has an aggregate running capacity of 72,000 eight-page papers per 
 hour. One pressman and four skilled laborers using one of these 
 presses will print, cut at the top, fold, paste, and count (with a sup- 
 plement inserted if desired) 72,000 eight-page papers in one hour. 
 With the old hand press it would have taken a man and a boy one hun- 
 dred days, working ten hours per day, to produce the same results. 
 The power of the press, therefore, is enhanced many fold ; it cannot 
 be calculated. Its use is revolutionizing many affairs, and among 
 them there is no greater revolution than that seen in the conduct of 
 a political campaign. Printer's ink is rapidly taking the place of the 
 stump orator. In 1896 there were sent out from party headquarters 
 nearly two hundred million copies of documents. This feat could 
 not have been accomplished without the use of the modern power 
 press. 
 
 We need not discuss some of the evils of the modern press, for 
 we can all gratefully acknowledge the fact that the balance of in- 
 fluence is on the side of good, and vastly so. Campaign committees 
 understand perfectly well that the intelligence of the people is to be 
 reached by comprehensive statements of fact. The orator may deal 
 with many generalities and introduce many statements that cannot 
 be supported by facts, but a printed document must be in the main 
 true and unassailable. So leaflets and short pamphlets are sent out 
 by the million to the farmers and the mechanics of the country, giv- 
 ing them the opportunity to sit down quietly by themselves and 
 study the statements instead of listening to the oratory and generali- 
 
38 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ties of the stump speaker. The personality of the political speaker 
 will always hold its place and have its force, but with a rapidly in- 
 creasing population he cannot reach every one. The printing press 
 can, and hence it is utilized in the most effective way by political 
 parties. 
 
 Practical Results of Modern Printing Processes. The cheap- 
 ening of books is the direct result of invention. It is a pretty poor 
 specimen of humanity that cannot at the present time avail himself 
 of some reading matter. He is surrounded by it on every hand ; he 
 finds it everywhere. The very best books are brought out in cheap 
 editions, and one may read and study to any extent he may desire, 
 and under our modern methods the desire generally exists. A 
 farmer up in New England, in talking with a bright New York busi- 
 ness man, said: " You men in New York are pretty smart and know 
 a great deal, but let me tell you that you know it only a few hours 
 before we do." This is true. The printing press drives the informa- 
 tion from the great centers out into the country districts in every 
 direction. This could not be done without the power presses that 
 are used. 
 
 Effect of Machinery on Labor. The antagonism to the use of 
 machinery in production is usually concentrated in the argument 
 that by its use a decreasing number of persons is employed. This 
 argument creates apprehension and often leads to bitter strife. An 
 examination of all the facts bearing upon this point teaches, however, 
 that the apprehension is not well grounded; that while machines on 
 their introduction may and often do displace labor, the general result 
 is .to secure an increase in the number employed. The great number 
 of new occupations that have been opened by the introduction of 
 machinery, the vast works necessary for its construction, and the 
 bringing in of a large body to distribute the products of machinery 
 lead to the belief that the argument has no real foundation, Statis- 
 
MODERN MACHINERY. 39 
 
 tics prove also that the proportion of the whole population employed 
 in machine-using countries is constantly increasing and that the pro- 
 portion of skilled to unskilled workers is constantly enlarged. 
 
 The illustrations given relate almost entirely to American inven- 
 tions. Cotton machinery belongs to the English, steam is an 
 international matter, and the other great inventions referred to are 
 distinctively, if not wholly, American. Ether, while discovered in 
 Europe, owes its practical application to American ingenuity, while 
 the discovery of chloroform is strictly American. Variations of 
 these inventions have been made by other nations, but the initiative 
 genius in them has been American. The Americans constitute the 
 most intense type of machine-using people, and hence illustrate more 
 broadly than any other the benefits which machinery has brought 
 to mankind. 
 
 As a summary, we may enumerate the wonders of American 
 invention. They are the cotton gin, the adaptation of steam to 
 methods of transportation, the application of electricity in business 
 pursuits, agricultural machinery, the modern power printing press, 
 the ocean cable, the sewing machine, waterproof goods, the type- 
 writing machine, and anaesthetics. These may be called the great 
 wonders of American invention. 
 
POWER. 
 
 ITS PRODUCTION AND USE. 
 
 What Energy is How a Steam Engine Works Essential Parts of a Steam Engine 
 Practical Efficiency Steam Engine Records The Limit Nearly Reached Evolution 
 of the Steam Engine Denis Papin Thomas Newcomen Watt and Boulton Corliss 
 Engines Man's Debt to the Steam Engine Evolution of the Locomotive The Ste- 
 phensons Rainhill Contest First Locomotives in America Growth of Locomotives 
 Fastest Trains in the World How Gas Engines Work Advantages of Gas Engines 
 Compressed Air Liquid Air Fallacies and Uses Mining Horrors Safety Lamp 
 Ericsson's Sun Motor. 
 
 M 
 
 AN has increased his productive powers by 
 making certain animals his beasts of bur- 
 den and allying with his puny strength certain 
 powerful forces of nature. Windmills are of a 
 very ancient origin, the power of falling water 
 was early appreciated and applied, but the great- 
 est stride was made when the expansive force of 
 steam was recognized and led captive. 
 
 In order to clearly and easily understand 
 the manner in which steam engines, gas engines, 
 
 dynamos, compressed air and military explosives do their work, it 
 will be advisable to briefly call attention to the manner in which 
 certain forms of energy, as heat, are made to labor for the good 
 of man. 
 
 What Energy is. Energy is a convenient expression for an 
 ideal measure of certain forces or reactions in nature, such as light, 
 motion, heat. The sun is the source of energy, which it gives off to 
 
POWER. 41 
 
 the earth in the form of heat. The sun's heat falling upon the 
 earth's surface produces changes in temperature, causing atmospheric 
 currents, which man has utilized to turn his windmills and propel his 
 ships. The sun's rays falling upon bodies of water cause vapor to 
 rise, which descends later as rain, and, gathering into rills, brooks, 
 creeks, and rivers in obedience to the law of gravitation, returns to 
 Mother Ocean. Seizing advantages of broken surface, man has 
 thrown dams across these streams and utilized the falling water to 
 turn his water wheels, to move machinery, to spin the threads of his 
 clothing or to grind his grain for bread. 
 
 Correlation of Energy. In prehistoric times the heat of the sun 
 falling upon the earth was absorbed by gigantic forests, later to be 
 changed into coal, familiarly known as " bottled sunshine." This 
 same coal, burned in a furnace, may change water into steam to move 
 an engine, to turn a dynamo, to furnish power for an electric light 
 for a city. It is evident from this that energy of one kind may be 
 changed into -another, and from this has been deduced the law of 
 Correlation of Energy: "All kinds of energy are so related to one 
 another, that energy of one kind may be changed into energy of 
 another kind." 
 
 Conservation of Energy is another principle. "When one 
 form of energy disappears, an exact equivalent of another form 
 always takes its place, so that the sum total of energy is un- 
 changed." On these two principles rest the foundations of physical 
 science. Energy, no more than matter, can be annihilated. 
 
 For convenience, common measures or units of these forces have 
 been adopted. The power of work of the steam engine is usually 
 expressed in one of three such units. The force required to raise 
 one pound one foot is known as a foot-pound. This has no reference 
 to time, but is a measure of pure force. When work to be per- 
 formed is measured the element of time enters in. The force re- 
 
42 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 quired to raise 778 pounds avoirdupois one foot (778 foot-pounds) is 
 sufficient to raise the temperature of one pound of water from 39 
 to 40 Fahrenheit. This amount of heat is called a British thermal 
 unit, and the required force, its mechanical equivalent. 
 
 Horse-power. The steam engines of Watt were largely used in 
 coal mines and took the place of many horses. As a matter of con- 
 venience it was desirable to have the power of an engine expressed 
 in such terms that it could be compared with the work of a horse. 
 The raising of 33,000 pounds one foot high in a minute was found 
 to be about as much work as the best horse could do. This was taken 
 as a unit of measure of work. From it we have the horse-power, or 
 the force required to raise 33,000 pounds one foot in a minute, or 
 for a horse-power-hour sixty times that of a horse-power, or the force 
 required to raise 1,980,000 pounds one foot in one hour. 
 
 Carriers of Heat. In steam or other forms of heat engines, 
 pressure is an effect, not a cause. It is produced by subjecting some 
 vehicle to the action of heat. . Hydrogen gas will absorb the most 
 heat and water stands next. The abundance of water renders it a 
 cheap and convenient carrier of heat, for the work steam does is all 
 caused by the amount of heat it carries. Water is made up of 
 molecules, each composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom 
 of oxygen. The molecules are in active motion and so small that 
 each has a range of motion greater than its own dimensions. Lord 
 Kelvin estimated that if a drop of water were magnified to the size 
 of the earth its molecules would be about the size of a pea. The 
 size of an atom is inconceivable, for our molecules are composed of 
 several atoms. 
 
 Heat Causes Motion. When heat is applied to water its mole- 
 cules move so rapidly and bump against each other so hard that the 
 water cannot hold together as a liquid and separates or expands into 
 steam. As more heat is applied the molecules move farther and 
 
POWER. 43 
 
 faster until the expansive force of the steam confined becomes ter- 
 rific. If these molecules move more rapidly as heat is applied 
 to them, they also move more slowly as the heat is taken away from 
 them. 
 
 Limit of Motion. There is a point at which all molecular mo- 
 tion stops. It has never yet been reached by experimenters, but it 
 is known to be about 461 , or, to be exact, 460.7 , below the zero 
 of the Fahrenheit scale. Life depends upon heat, and there is no 
 heat at the absolute zero. At this point not only would all life be 
 dead, but all matter would be dead. 
 
 Combustion. In ordinary practice heat is produced by combus- 
 tion and, leaving out the curiosities of the chemist's laboratory, 
 means the uniting of some substance with oxygen, their union pro- 
 ducing heat. The substance with which the oxygen will unite is 
 called a combustible. The substance containing the oxygen is called 
 an oxidizer, or a supporter of combustion. In furnace combustion 
 a combustible, like carbon or hydrogen, is supplied in the fuel, and 
 the oxygen is supplied by the atmosphere, an abundant and cheap 
 supporter of combustion. Of all combustibles hydrogen gives off 
 the most heat. One pound of it, consumed at a high temperature, 
 with oxygen in the proportion to form water (H 2 O) will yield 62,- 
 032 thermal units, or more than four times as much as carbon. 
 Hydrogen will not burn at a low temperature. Hydrogen is found 
 in " marsh gas " (CH 4 ) and consumed in the " Bunsen burner " gives 
 the characteristic intense heat with little light. 
 
 Carbon is the most common combustible. It constitutes about 
 50 per cent, of wood and from 40 per cent, to 95 per cent, of coal. 
 It will burn at a lower temperature than hydrogen, and consumed 
 with enough oxygen to form CO (carbonic oxide gas) will yield 
 4,452 thermal units per pound, or mixed with enough oxygen to 
 form CO 2 (carbonic acid gas) will yield more than three times as 
 
44 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 much heat, or 14,500 thermal units. We make practical application 
 of this principle when we open the drafts of a stove and admit more 
 oxygen from the atmosphere to the fire to make the latter give out 
 more heat. A pound of carbon requires for perfect combustion 
 2.67 pounds of oxygen, which must be supplied by the atmosphere, 
 and their union sets free 8.94 pounds of nitrogen with which the 
 oxygen was mixed, for nitrogen is not combustible and serves only as 
 a diluent. The necessity of good ventilation in a room where a fire, 
 lamp, or gas jet is burning is obvious. 
 
 A pound of coal contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, 
 and earthy matters in varying proportions. A pound of the best 
 coal has latent within it about 15,000 thermal units and should 
 raise from 95 F. and evaporate 13% pounds of water at atmos- 
 pheric pressure. 
 
 How a Steam Engine Works. The steam engine is a machine 
 that converts heat 'into work. Suitable fuel consumed in a furnace 
 is used to heat water in a boiler. The water may be within tubes 
 around which the fire passes (water tube boiler) or the fire may pass 
 through tubes (tubular boiler) surrounded by water. A quantity of 
 water converted into steam at the same pressure will occupy 1700 
 times its original bulk, and, if closely confined, possesses great ex- 
 pansive force. This force is limited only by the temperature of the 
 fire and the strength of the boiler. The steam generated in the 
 boiler is confined and carried through a pipe to a steam-chest, con- 
 necting by means of openings called valves with a cylinder containing 
 a piston. (See Figure A.) The mechanism is so arranged that the 
 valves open and close to admit or expel steam in perfect time with 
 the stroke of the piston. 
 
 Working of a Slide Valve. The slide valve is the simplest 
 form used in distributing the steam in a steam engine. It is often 
 called the D-valve, because the moving part is the shape of the capi- 
 
POWER. 
 
 45 
 
 St Ch. 
 
 tal letter "D." This form of valve has been superseded by the 
 various forms of balance and piston valves' except in the smaller and 
 less economical engines, but 
 it is the simplest form to 
 study and from it the action 
 of steam can be most easily 
 understood. The accom- 
 panying diagrams will make 
 clear exactly what a steam 
 engine does at each stroke. 
 To avoid confusion only 
 the principal movements 
 will be given. Having mas- 
 tered these the reader can 
 follow out the action of any 
 of the complicated varieties 
 if he chooses to do so. 
 
 Essential Parts. Figure A shows a cylinder into which steam is 
 admitted under pressure from the boilers, a tight-fitting piston 
 within the cylinder and slide valves which open and close the pas- 
 sages through which steam is admitted to or allowed to escape from 
 the cylinder, and the piston rod which communicates motion to the 
 crank. 
 
 Figures I., II., III., and IV. show in detail the action of the 
 valve, the piston, and the steam. 
 
 Figure I. shows the relative position of the parts at the time 
 when steam is most freely entering the cylinder. The position of 
 the crank and its direction of rotation is shown by h. The position 
 and direction of the piston is represented at g, while f shows the 
 same facts as regards the valve. The valve moves back and forth 
 across three openings (ports) in what is called the valve seat. By 
 
 FIG. A. ESSENTIAL PARTS OF A STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 St. Ch.= Steam Chest; E. P.= Escape Port. R.= Piston Rod. 
 L. = Live Steam, E. = Exhaust Steam, and the arrow its direc- 
 tion. P. = Piston Head, S. = Slide Valve, and the arrow its 
 direction until it assumes the position shown by dotted lines. 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the steam ports, a and b, the steam may enter and leave the cylinder, 
 and c is the exhaust port, which communicates either with the open 
 air or with the condenser. With the valve in the position shown in 
 Fig. I. the live steam (steam at the boiler pressure) enters the steam 
 ^_^ port a, travels in the course 
 
 ^t J^p^^ shown by the arrows and 
 
 ^1 w 1^ R^v. enters the interior of the 
 
 V i C U Pr n T 
 
 cylinder at d. Here it ex- 
 erts its force upon the pis- 
 ton and drives it in the di- 
 rection shown by the arrow. 
 The interior of the cylinder 
 represented as e is full of 
 steam from the last stroke, and to permit the piston to move in that 
 end of the cylinder this steam must escape. This it does by leaving 
 the cylinder through the port b, passing through a hollow in the bot- 
 tom of the valve to the exhaust port c. If the valve were to be 
 fixed in this position, the steam would continue to enter the cylinder 
 at full boiler pressure and drive the piston to the end d of the cylin- 
 der. The piston would in 
 turn drive all the steam out 
 of e and when the piston 
 had reached the end of the 
 cylinder, it would come to 
 rest and stay at rest. But 
 the valve is moving in the 
 direction shown by the ar- 
 row, and it soon reaches 
 the position shown by Figure II., when the next event in the stroke 
 occurs. The live steam port has been closed by the face of the valve 
 completely covering it, and pressure shut off from the boiler, but the 
 
 Fig.O 
 
to 
 POWER. 
 
 47 
 
 exhaust port is still in communication with the cylinder end e. The 
 steam yet imprisoned in d, rinding that it can expand by pushing the 
 piston ahead, continues to do so. The point at which this expansion 
 begins can be varied and the amount of live steam used regulated to 
 do exactly the amount of 
 work required. This is the 
 part of the stroke to which 
 more thought has been given 
 than any other, for upon 
 the accurate adjustment of 
 the ratio of expansion de- 
 pends the economy of the 
 engine more than on any 
 other one feature of the stroke. As the piston nears the end e, it 
 must be slowed down and stopped in such a manner as to reduce to 
 the least possible amount the jar to the engine. This is done by ad- 
 justing the valve to reach the position shown in Figure III., when 
 compression begins. Expansion is still going on, for the valve has 
 
 not yet uncovered the port 
 a, and at this point the 
 valve also covers the port ^, 
 
 thus imprisoning the small 
 
 (~~ .[ >v amount of steam still re- 
 
 ^maining in e, and the on- 
 coming piston compresses 
 it. As it is compressed it 
 exerts a cushion-like action on the piston and gradually stops it. 
 
 How the Piston is Stopped. The point at which compression 
 begins is so placed that the steam in e will at the end of the stroke 
 have been compressed by the force of the steam in d and the mo- 
 mentum of the moving parts, until its pressure is very little less than 
 
 Fig.G? 
 
48 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 that of live steam. This does three things. It stops the piston so 
 it can be started in the other direction ; it allows the incoming steam 
 for the next stroke to meet steam at nearly the same pressure and 
 thus keeps the engine from jumping and jerking; and it heats the 
 end of the cylinder to the temperature of the incoming steam and so 
 reduces condensation. Then the event shown in Figure IV. takes 
 place. The valve moves a short distance further and allows live 
 steam to enter port b and pass to cylinder end e, and at the same 
 time throws open the passage from port a to the exhaust port c. 
 
 The Return Stroke. The piston finds that the steam which has 
 just driven it into the end of the cylinder is hurrying away through 
 the exhaust port, while on the other side of it there is a new supply 
 of steam coming in and insisting upon its retracing its course. This 
 it does, and passes through exactly the same course of events in the 
 backward journey. The valve is so planned that it works both 
 ways, and it always turns and starts back just after it has seen the 
 piston safely started upon its new stroke. So the motion continues, 
 the piston always hurrying to get away from the steam and the valve 
 always confronting it with a new supply of steam just when it begins 
 to think it has found a corner where it may stop to rest. To the 
 piston head is attached the piston rod (R in Figure A). This passes 
 through one end of the cylinder, the opening being made steam 
 tight, and is supported at the end by guides which hold it steady in 
 its to-and-fro motion. To the end of the piston rod that plays 
 between the guides is fastened a movable arm, the other end of the 
 arm being attached to a crank used to turn the machinery. This 
 movable arm is the connecting rod that conveys the to-and-fro motion 
 of the piston rod to the crank which converts it into circular motion 
 for the use of machinery. 
 
 LIMITATIONS OF THE STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 The engine is a machine which takes the steam brought to it, 
 converts a portion of the heat it contains into useful work, and 
 
POWER. 49 
 
 throws the rest away. We have seen that water (H 2 O) contains 
 molecular energy ranging from the point at which all life ceases, 
 or the absolute zero, 461 below the zero of the Fahrenheit scale, 
 up to any point to which it can be heated. The engine is wasteful, 
 for it uses the steam through only a portion of this range of tem- 
 perature. 
 
 Theoretical Efficiency. The efficiency of the engine is expressed 
 by the formula: T' -T 2 -5- T' + 461 - Efficiency. This is not as 
 difficult as it looks. T' means the temperature of the steam when 
 admitted to the cylinder; T 2 the temperature of the steam when ex- 
 pelled from the cylinder; T' +461 , the temperature of the steam 
 above absolute zero, and this is found by adding to the temperature 
 of the steam above the Fahrenheit zero the 461 necessary to bring 
 it down to absolute zero. Using this formula: suppose the steam 
 to be admitted to the cylinder at a temperature of 370 F. Suppose 
 the steam to be expelled from the cylinder at a temperature of 140 F. 
 The engine has then used it through a range of 230. When the 
 steam was admitted to the cylinder it was 370 F. + 461 ===831 
 above absolute zero. The steam then had 831 of heat. The 230 
 used by the engine divided by 831 equals .277, the engine's effi- 
 ciency; in other words, the engine used a little more than one 
 fourth of the heat and threw the rest away as a waste product. 
 
 Practical Efficiency. It is plain that the wider the range of 
 temperature through which the steam is used, other things being 
 equal, the higher the efficiency of the engine. The foregoing is the 
 performance of an ideal engine, but there are wastes attendant on its 
 practical use, and the engineer gets out of the steam furnished him 
 only about 60 per cent, or 85 per cent, of the ideal, or from 15 per 
 cent, to 2 1 per cent, of all the heat the steam contained. Let us 
 consider the losses. The very manner in which the coal is consumed 
 in the furnace necessitates, under the best conditions, considerable 
 
50 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 loss due to imperfect combustion, escape of heat up the chimney to 
 maintain draft, radiation from contact of hot surfaces with the 
 atmosphere. In good practice this would leave about .6 of the 
 original heat to be used for the generation of steam. 
 
 Engine Waste. Engine wastes are due to radiation, conduction, 
 and initial condensation. The first is the loss of heat radiated from 
 the cylinder, steam pipes, etc. The second loss is due to the con- 
 duction of heat from the cylinder to the engine frame and engine 
 bed. The chief loss is the condensation within the cylinder itself. 
 When the steam valve opens, the hot steam from the boiler rushes 
 in and is brought in contact with surfaces which have just been ex- 
 posed to a lower temperature, hence are cooler than the incoming 
 steam. These surfaces absorb part of the heat from the steam enter- 
 ing and the heat so absorbed cannot be used to perform work. 
 
 Condensation. Reference to Figure I shows hot steam is en- 
 tering at the end d and escaping at end e into the open air, or a con- 
 denser, at a much lower temperature. End e continues to grow 
 cooler and when, as in Figure 4, hot steam is admitted into it it is 
 so cool that it takes a portion of the heat from the entering steam. 
 The end d, Figure 4, is now discharging its steam into the atmos- 
 phere or condenser and parting with some of the heat in its walls to 
 the escaping steam. The piston rods and valve rods, moving in and 
 out, are alternately heated and cooled. These rob the steam of part 
 of its heat. If the surface of the metal brought in contact with 
 steam is cooled enough to deposit a thin film of moisture it renders 
 the escape of heat from steam to metal easier, hence the gain in ef- 
 ficiency by keeping the steam and the cylinder as hot as possible. 
 The loss due to cylinder condensation is often 50 per cent., rarely, 
 less than 25 per cent. Friction can never be wholly done away with 
 so long as the force of gravitation exists, so here is another loss 
 ranging from 3 per cent, to 20 per cent. 
 
VERTICAL BLOWING ENGINE. MADE BY THE EDWARD P. ALLIS Co. 
 This is the type of engine used to furnish the blast for smelting ores. 
 

 POWER. 51 
 
 How a Condenser Saves. Atmospheric pressure is 14.7 pounds to 
 the square inch. When an engine expels its steam into the open air 
 the piston head has to work against this atmospheric pressure. The 
 economy of engines can be improved in several ways. An exhaust 
 pipe may carry exhaust steam from the cylinder to a chamber called 
 a condenser and bring it in contact with a spray of cold water, which 
 suddenly condenses it. The condensed steam is then pumped out 
 by an air pump and returned to the boilers. About three pounds 
 pressure is required to run the condenser, and the difference be- 
 tween the condenser pressure and that of the atmosphere is the sav- 
 ing to the engine. Further economies will be discussed under the 
 subject of compound engines. 
 
 Improvement of the Engine. The best engines of Watt pro- 
 duced a horse-power-hour on 63^ pounds of water and 10 pounds 
 of coal. The next generation brought it down to 40 pounds of 
 water and 5 pounds of coal. Later the Sickles cut-off and the 
 Corliss engine reduced it to 30 pounds of water and 3 pounds of 
 coal. In 1890, 15 pounds of water and i^ pounds of coal were 
 required. Engines of steamships are not the most economical, yet 
 those of the Deutschland have produced a horse-power-hour for each 
 i y% pounds of coal consumed. No great gains in bulk of coal con- 
 sumed or steam used can now be made. Any radical improvement 
 in the amount of work gotten out of heat energy must come from 
 some other method of using heat. ''All the expenditures of heat 
 in the engine are now recognized, their magnitudes have been meas- 
 ured, the loss governing their variation with the usual conditions 
 have been in some cases closely, in other instances roughly, deter- 
 mined." * 
 
 "As the steam engine now is, we are rapidly approaching the 
 limit of the possible in regard to its efficiency, and naturally further 
 
 *A Manual of the Steam Engine R. H. THURSTON. 
 
52 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 progress will be at a slower and slower rate. The greater progress 
 here will result from the studious effort to bring the average up to 
 the present exceptional practice. In rare cases we have records of 
 one I. H. P. per pound of coal per hour. This is already attainable, 
 therefore, and the problem immediately before us is to make such 
 records the rule rather than the exception." * 
 
 Best Records of Engines. The scientist and the builder co- 
 operating have produced some wonderful machines. The engines of 
 the Edison power plant in Duane street, New York, are said to have 
 produced a horse-power-hour on a pound of coal. An Allis engine 
 at Chestnut Hill station of the Boston Waterworks has produced a 
 horse-power-hour on 1.062 pounds of Loyalhanna coal. The editor 
 of the Engineering News states that these figures can be reduced to 
 one pound per horse-power-hour simply by substituting Virginia 
 Pocahontas coal, and suggests other changes by which he declares it 
 might be reduced to 9-10 pound per horse-power-hour, f 
 
 The Limit Nearly Reached. When we recall that the early 
 Corliss engine required three pounds of coal for a horse-power-hour 
 we see how little room there is for improvement. Under the article 
 "Coal" will be found a statement showing man's obligation to the 
 machines that have enfranchised him. So great has been the devel- 
 opment that one man with a machine is now able to produce as 
 much as one hundred and twenty men one hundred years ago. 
 The commerce of the world has, within a century, increased more 
 than 1 200 per cent., while its population has only rather more than 
 doubled. The steam engine has made possible to every man within 
 the bounds of civilization more of the world's material wealth in re- 
 turn for his labor. 
 
 * Marine Engineering, September, 1900. 
 t Engineering News, September 27, 1900. 
 
POWER. 53 
 
 COMPOUND STATIONARY ENGINE. 
 
 In a single cylinder engine the power is not exerted continu- 
 ously, for the piston moves forward, stops, and retraces its path. 
 This jar or vibration was rendered very noticeable when such en- 
 gines were first used in connection with electric lighting, the vibra- 
 tion causing variation in the intensity of the light. To get rid of 
 this vibration, but more for the purpose of reducing the loss of 
 power due to condensation in the cylinder, the compound engine 
 was introduced. By this term is meant using the steam in one 
 cylinder, passing it to another, and using it again. 
 
 Meaning of Triple Expansion. The terms triple and quadruple 
 expansion engines mean that the steam is used three or four times 
 consecutively and has no reference to the number of cylinders, for a 
 triple expansion engine may have more than three cylinders and a 
 quadruple expansion engine may have more than four. If it were 
 not for the loss due to cylinder condensation there would be little to 
 be gained by using the steam in several cylinders, but this loss in a 
 single cylinder engine frequently amounts to one half, and so leaves 
 a great margin for improvement. It may be stated broadly that the 
 loss in the different types of engines where the cylinders are not pro- 
 tected by jackets, etc., is about as follows: In the simple engine 50 
 per cent., in the compound engine 25 per cent., in the triple expan- 
 sion 20 per cent., and the quadruple expansion 15 per cent. This 
 waste can be reduced markedly by a good system of jacketing. 
 
 How Multiple Expansion Saves. Within the cylinder only a 
 small " skin" on the inside undergoes alternate heating and cooling, 
 for the rapidity of the piston stroke does not give time for more, and 
 the heated mass of metal tends to keep up. an average. By making 
 the range of temperature within the cylinder small, condensation can 
 be partly avoided and this is done by dividing the expansion of the 
 steam into two, three, or four parts, so making the variation in tern- 
 
54 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 perature in each cylinder only one half, one third, or one fourth as 
 great as it would be in a single cylinder. The steam from the boiler 
 enters the smallest cylinder of the set, is exhausted into a larger one, 
 from there into another yet larger. So much room may be neces- 
 sary for the third expansion that it cannot economically be contained 
 
 in one cylinder and so may be di- 
 vided between two. This is why 
 a triple expansion engine may 
 have three or more cylinders, or 
 a quadruple have five, six, or 
 seven. 
 
 Green's Fuel Economizer. In 
 general practice simple compound 
 engines are worked at about 100 
 pounds boiler pressure ; triple ex- 
 pansion, 125 to 1 80; quadruple, 
 200 to 250. So much attention 
 is not being paid to the condenser 
 as formerly, for better methods in 
 boiler making and the use of steel 
 in place of iron have produced 
 boilers that will stand more pres- 
 sure with safety, and have made 
 GREEN'S FUEL ECONOMIZER. 
 
 As the smoke and gases pass over the tubes of the it just as cheap and easy to add a 
 Green Economizer they deposit soot on them and thus 
 
 render them less efficient. This cut shows the device few CXtra pounds to the boiler 
 which automatically cleans the tubes and keeps them 
 
 working at their maximum efficiency. pressure as to take away as many 
 
 pounds pressure at the condenser. Modern methods use the hot 
 gases from the chimney and the exhaust steam to heat the water 
 going into the boiler from which steam is to be made and save part 
 of what was formerly wasted. If cold water is pumped into the 
 boiler to be made into steam, a good deal of work must be done on 
 

 POWER. 
 
 55 
 
 it to raise it to the boiling point. If the water is first heated by 
 the exhaust steam and the gases escaping from the chimney, it enters 
 the boiler carrying some of the heat that would otherwise be thrown 
 away and so does not need so much work to bring it to the point 
 where it will generate steam. Green's Fuel Economizer is a clever 
 piece of mechanism designed for this purpose. It consists of a series 
 
 THE GREEN FUEL ECONOMIZER. 
 
 This cut shows how the Economizer is placed between the furnace and the chimney, using the heat in the 
 gases that would otherwise be wasted, and heating the feed water up to such a point that all the boiler has to do 
 is to turn it into steam at the same temperature. It is a clear saving of all the heat that was formerly wasted, and 
 the turning of it to a useful purpose. 
 
 of tubes arranged vertically in the flue through which the gases from 
 the furnace of the boiler escape to the chimney. The feed water is 
 pumped through the Economizer into the boiler and on its passage 
 heated by the escaping gas. Where these gases have a high tem- 
 perature, from 450 to 560 , considerable heat that would otherwise 
 be wasted can be utilized. The following claims are urged for the 
 Economizer: 
 
 1. The saving of fuel varies from 10 per cent, to 20 per cent, 
 according to conditions. 
 
 2. The feed water is economically heated to a temperature above 
 that attained by any other means. 
 
56 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 3. It holds a great volume of water in reserve heated to the 
 point of evaporation and ready to be delivered immediately to the 
 boilers. This is an advantage in plants which run with loads subject 
 to sudden variations. 
 
 4. It utilizes the heat from the escaping gases which would 
 otherwise go to waste. 
 
 5. It avoids bringing cold water in sudden contact with the 
 heated boiler flues and so prolongs the life of the boiler. 
 
 6. The slow current in the Economizer allows the sediment in 
 the water to be deposited before it reaches the boiler. Sediment in 
 boiler flues hinders the passage of heat from the furnace to the water 
 within the flue. The sediment can be more easily "blown out" of 
 the Economizer than out of the boiler flues. 
 
 Mr. Edward Green brought out the Economizer in 1845. 
 
 Superheated Steam. No matter how much heat is applied to 
 water containing ice, the temperature of the whole mass cannot be 
 raised above the melting point until all the ice is melted, so, steam 
 heated in the presence of water cannot be raised above a certain tem- 
 perature, for all the heat applied is taken up by the water and simply 
 converted into more steam. There are two kinds of steam, the wet 
 steam made in the presence of water, and dry steam which has been 
 removed from the water and raised to a higher temperature. It is 
 then known as superheated steam. The temperature to which it 
 may be raised is limited only by the ability of the furnaces and the 
 strength of the vessels containing it. But superheated steam is 
 sometimes treacherous and violently explosive. It seems to be true 
 that a thin film of moisture on the " interior of pipes and cylinders 
 renders the exchange of heat between the metal and the steam much 
 easier and decreases the efficiency of the engine. Steam is super- 
 heated so that when brought in contact with the surfaces of the 
 pipes and cylinders it will not be cooled down to the point of con- 
 
POWER. 57 
 
 densation. It may be said in general that in large plants the process 
 of superheating steam is economical for it helps prevent, as we have 
 seen, loss by condensation and makes the steam available through a 
 wider range of temperature. However, superheated steam increases 
 the corrosion of the piston and cylinder. 
 
 The averages of the efficiencies of "several typical plants are about 
 as follows. These engines were all worked with condensers: 
 
 Pounds per horse-power. 
 
 Steam. Fuel. 
 
 Simple single cylinder, 25 2.8 
 
 Compound, 18 2 
 
 Triple expansion, 14 1.5 
 
 Quadruple expansion, 12 1.25 
 
 Where fuel is cheap the simpler forms of engines may be the 
 more economical. The same statement holds good in those plants 
 which run only a small part of the time. But with coal at $5.00 a 
 ton, some form of compound engine gives the best service. At sea, 
 where every pound of coal displaces a pound of paying freight and 
 every ton a passenger, where coal must be used to transport coal, 
 where a lighter and smaller boiler plant is a decided advantage, the 
 multiple cylinder is evidently the best. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 Alexandria, a city at the mouth of the Nile, founded 332 B. C. 
 by Alexander the Great, after whom it was named, was destined to 
 become for centuries a famous seat of learning. Here flourished 
 Hero, a Greek philosopher and mechanician (born 285, died 222 B. 
 C.), who seems to have brought out the prototype of the steam 
 engine which has revolutionized the industrial forces of the world. 
 Hero's engine, ^olipyle, was a hollow metallic sphere supported be- 
 tween two trunnions through which steam from the boiler passed to 
 the interior of the sphere. At right angles to the trunnions two 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 HERO'S ENGINE, 
 250 B.C. 
 
 bent arms issued from the sphere and through these the steam was 
 discharged into the atmosphere, which, reacting upon it, caused the 
 sphere to revolve. Something similar is seen 
 in the revolving lawn sprinklers of to-day. 
 Hero was an able writer, and in his " Spiritalia 
 sue Pneumatica" has described for us many 
 clever mechanical devices used in the temples 
 of the Egyptian gods to inspire awe and incite 
 belief among their credulous worshipers. His 
 work is interesting because it shows that some 
 knowledge of the expansive force of steam had 
 even then been possessed for a long time. 
 
 Another steam or vapor engine of no little 
 interest is the Vocal Memnon. This is well 
 described by a famous Egyptologist. " When the secrets of a waning 
 faith were revealed by the votaries of a rival belief, the celestial har- 
 mony was then said to be produced by vapor, rising from water con- 
 cealed in a cavity in the statue, being made to pass through a tube 
 having a small orifice fashioned in a manner similar to that of an 
 organ. As long as the fluid was heated by the rays of the sun, mys- 
 terious sounds were heard by the assembled worshipers, which died 
 gradually away, as the solar influence was withdrawn from the gigan- 
 tic idol." It was not until the gloom of the Dark Ages had lifted 
 that any practical progress was made in the application of steam as a 
 motive power. 
 
 Baptista Porta, in 1606, described and illustrated a plan for the 
 first steam pumping engine. It consisted of a furnace, a boiler, and 
 a box partly full of water. A pipe from the boiler connected with 
 the box above the water line. Another pipe with one end beneath 
 the water leads out of the box. The box, being filled with water, 
 was tightly closed and a fire built under the boiler, the steam from 
 
POWER. 59 
 
 which passed to the box. As the steam pressure bore down upon 
 the water the latter was forced out through the delivery pipe to a 
 height varying with the boiler pressure. When the box had been emp- 
 tied, steam was shut off, the box refilled, and the operation repeated. 
 The plan was too cumbersome to be economical, but it was the fore- 
 runner of Savery's engine. In 1615 De Caus improved upon Porta's 
 engine by doing away with the water box, and connecting the pipe 
 directly with the boiler. By this means he delivered hot water at 
 the point desired, thus achieving his object. The " creative imagina- 
 tion " of many countries was soon working upon the problem, but it 
 was in England that the greatest strides were made, and that country 
 may be justly called the birthplace of the effective steam engine. 
 
 It is amusing to note that the story of " Watt and his teakettle" 
 is anticipated one hundred years in the career of the Marquis of 
 Worcester. A partisan of Charles II., he was captured and impris- 
 oned by the Cromwell party in the Tower of London. While cook- 
 ing his dinner in an iron pot he is said to have watched the rise and 
 fall of the iron lid as the steam gathered and escaped. After the 
 Restoration he actually completed a rude machine capable of. raising 
 a column of water 40 feet. 
 
 Origin of the Safety Valve and Piston. Denis Papin (see Steam- 
 boat) for a time resided in England, where he perfected his " Di- 
 gester," a process of extracting the gelatin from bones by dissolving 
 them in steam at a high pressure. Warned by an explosion or two, 
 he devised the safety valve. This was a tapering opening into a 
 boiler and made steam-tight by fitting into it a conical plug. The 
 plug was held in place by weights so graduated that when the pres- 
 sure within the boiler had nearly reached the limit of safety it would 
 raise the plug and allow the steam to escape. This with some 
 refinements of mechanism is the safety valve of to-day. Papin is 
 credited with the first application of the piston to the steam engine. 
 
60 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 He designed a long upright cylinder fitted with a piston rod passing 
 out through the top. A small amount of water was admitted to the 
 cylinder and a fire built underneath the bottom. The steam, ex- 
 panding, forced the piston to the top together with any weight that 
 might be attached to it. To return it to its original position the fire 
 was withdrawn from beneath the cylinder, and as it cooled the steam 
 within condensed and the atmospheric pressure forced the piston 
 back to its original position. Crude, slow, and unserviceable as was 
 Papin's device it was the ancestor of the piston that in our modern 
 high power engines moves with almost lightning-like rapidity. 
 Strange as it may seem, the piston was a disappointment to Papin 
 and he desisted when on the very threshold of a great discovery. 
 
 First Use of Steam Engine. The drainage of mines was a seri- 
 ous problem in England, and the first practical working steam engine 
 was applied to this purpose. To "Thomas Savery, Gentleman," a 
 Cornish mine captain, was issued in 1698 a patent "for raising water 
 and occasioning motion to all sorts of mill work by the impellent 
 force of fire." In 1699 he exhibited his model before the Royal So- 
 ciety, where it was favorably received. 
 
 His pumping engine was placed near the bottom of the mine to 
 be drained, and a fire built under the boiler, from which steam was 
 conveyed to 'a long oval-shaped copper cylinder. The bottom of 
 the cylinder connected with two pipes, one a suction pipe that led to 
 the water below, the other a discharge pipe through which the water 
 was forced out of the mine. Steam from the boiler was admitted to 
 the cylinder and the valves closed. The cylinder was next sprayed 
 with cold water. The steam within condensed, a vacuum was 
 formed, and the water from the mine rushed through the suction 
 pipe into the cylinder. The valve in the suction pipe was then 
 closed and the one between the cylinder and the boiler opened, 
 steam from the boiler entered the cylinder and forced the water out 
 
POWER. 6l 
 
 of the cylinder through the delivery pipe. Savery constructed his 
 pumping engine in duplicate and had a small boiler in which he 
 heated the water supplied to the large one, thus reducing "conden- 
 sation " in the large boiler. If heat is applied to a boiler after all 
 the water within it has been turned into steam, the steam becomes 
 superheated and explosive. That he might know how much steam 
 and water he had within his boiler Savery fitted to it two stopcocks ; 
 one above the desired water level, the other below. If on opening 
 the upper one water came out, that indicated too much water in the 
 boiler, and the supply to the boiler was shut off. If on opening the 
 lower one steam came out, that showed that the water was too low, 
 and a fresh supply was admitted. These, with some improvements, 
 constitute the gauge cocks now used. 
 
 Savery's engine used what was a comparatively high pressure for 
 the rude boilers of that time and explosions were not unknown. 
 Although Papin had invented the safety valve several years before, 
 it was not until after Savery's death that it was applied to steam 
 engines. The Savery engine was necessarily wasteful, for the steam 
 from the boiler was partly condensed when brought in direct com- 
 munication with the cold water in the cylinder. The vacuum created 
 would lift the water only about 20 or 22 feet and the engine com- 
 plete under the best circumstances had an effective pumping range 
 of about 90 feet. To get the water out of a deep mine a series of 
 engines, one above another, were built at different levels, each re- 
 quiring some one to operate it. 
 
 Newcomen's Engine. Thomas Newcomen (1650? -1729) of 
 Devonshire, England, was the maker of the first real steam engine. 
 With the exception of Papin's experiment, the engines of Savery, 
 the Marquis of Worcester, etc., were but modifications of Hero's 
 engine ^Eolipyle. One vessel in the earliest engines served as boiler, 
 engine, pump, and condenser, and did none of its duties well. New- 
 
62 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 comen improved upon Papin's piston. He constructed a large up- 
 right cylinder, fitted it with a piston, passed the piston rod out 
 through a cover in the top, and attached it to one end of a balance 
 beam (walking beam), the other end of which operated a pump down 
 in the mine. The pump being heavier than the piston, drew the 
 latter to the top of the cylinder. When the piston was at the high- 
 est point, steam was admitted into the cylinder at the bottom, then 
 all the valves were closed and the cylinder sprayed with cold water. 
 This reduced its temperature and condensed the steam inside it, 
 forming a vacuum within. Twelve cubic feet of the atmosphere 
 weigh one pound. Its pressure on each square inch of surface 
 averages 14.7 pounds. When the vacuum was created in New- 
 comen's cylinder the atmospheric pressure forced the piston to the 
 bottom of the cylinder. This raised the other end of the walking 
 beam and operated the pump. When the valve leading to the boiler 
 was opened the vacuum was destroyed and the piston rose to the 
 upper part of the cylinder. The operation was then repeated. To 
 make his piston air-tight Newcomen covered the top of it with 
 water. 
 
 Improvement from an Accident. The next marked improve- 
 ments were due to an accident and a lazy boy. One day, greatly to 
 Newcomen's surprise, his steam engine made several rapid strokes in 
 quick succession without any reference to the action of the valves. On 
 taking his machine apart to find out the difficulty, he saw that a lit- 
 tle water had trickled through from the top and being brought in con- 
 tact with the steam condensed it instantly. He was quick to perceive 
 the significance, and instead of applying water to the outside of his 
 cylinder turned a tiny jet inside and increased markedly the efficiency 
 of his engine. It was now able to make six or eight strokes a min- 
 ute but required an attendant who must open and close at the right 
 moment the valves controlling the steam and the condensing jet. 
 
POWER. 63 
 
 Boys were employed for the work. One of them, Humphrey Potter, 
 liked to play marbles and found the task of opening and closing 
 those valves six or eight times a minute a most irksome one. Set- 
 ting his wits and his eyes at work he observed that the valves were 
 opened or closed every time the walking beam was in a certain posi- 
 tion. He devised a system of strings and bits of wood which he 
 stealthily attached to the engine. When watched he would open 
 and close the valves by hand. When left alone he would apply his 
 " scroggan " and play truant. One day calamity in the person of 
 Newcomen overtook him, but the engineer was quick to perceive the 
 significance of the boy's crude snarl of string, for when worked out 
 by the hand of the master it made the engine fully automatic and 
 raised the speed of its stroke from six or eight per minute to fifteen 
 or sixteen. Newcomen was an able engineer, not only fertile in 
 invention but. quick to see and appreciate the efforts of others, and 
 could perfect and apply to his own machine ideas that in other 
 hands were crude and inefficient. His engine with minor improve- 
 ments prevailed until the time of Watt. " The modern condensing 
 pumping engine, however, is a Newcomen engine rather than a Watt 
 engine, and Newcomen rather than Watt is the inventor of the 
 
 o 
 
 steam engine."* 
 
 James Watt was born at Greenock, Scotland, January 19, 1736, 
 and died August 25, 1819. The story of his experiments of the tea- 
 kettle illustrates well the myths that attach themselves to the mem- 
 ory of all great men. As a boy he was of delicate constitution. He 
 went to London when eighteen and apprenticed himself to an instru- 
 ment-maker. When twenty-one, he went to Glasgow to enter busi- 
 ness for himself, but trouble at once arose over trade regulations, for 
 he was not a freeman or burgess of the town, and this threatened to 
 put a stop to his business. Within the college walls such trade 
 
 *R. H. THURSTON. 
 
6 4 
 
 MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 regulations were not operative and the college authorities gave him a 
 small room where he took up the trade of instrument maker to the 
 
 college. He was of a philosophical 
 turn of mind and his skill soon made 
 him a favorite with the instructors 
 of the college, and rendered the me- 
 chanical knowledge of the age ac- 
 cessible to him. There is evidence 
 to show that he early began experi- 
 ments with Papin's crude engine. 
 Papin was a man eminent in the 
 scientific circle of his age. Honor- 
 ary titles had been conferred upon 
 him by English educational institu- 
 tions. In his experimental boat on 
 the River Fulda he is said to have 
 employed two cylinders with differ- 
 ent timed strokes, so as to give a continuous exertion of power. 
 Papin's descriptions of his experiments were published and preserved 
 in the libraries of all the great institutions of learning. There is no 
 reason why Watt may not have known of them. We are told that 
 as early as 1760 Watt had improved upon Papin's cylinder by adding 
 a valve to the bottom of it through which the steam might escape t 
 after the piston had been raised to its highest point and thus do 
 away with the necessity of a vacuum. 
 
 Watt's Important Discovery. A model of a Newcomen engine, 
 placed in Watt's hands for repair in 1763, interested him still 
 further in the subject. After repairing it he made experiments with 
 it and remarked his surprise at the great amount of steam required to 
 operate it. He conducted a long series of experiments until, -medi- 
 tating upon some means of reducing the waste, the idea of a separate 
 
 JAMES WATT. 
 
POWER. 65 
 
 condenser is said to have burst upon him suddenly one Sunday. He 
 placed near the cylinder a large chamber in which was a jet of water 
 and turned the steam from the cylinder into it. The condensation 
 produced a vacuum in the chamber, and the steam at each stroke 
 rushed into the chamber, only to be condensed by the jet, and thus 
 furnish the necessary vacuum for the next stroke. The water was 
 removed by a pump driven by the walking beam of the engine. 
 This, the first of Watt's brilliant series of inventions, made a useful 
 machine from what had been of only doubtful economic value before. 
 Still he was using the steam only to produce a vacuum and the pis- 
 ton was exposed at the top that the air might force it down. To 
 keep his cylinder from cooling he put a jacket upon it. That the 
 upper side of the piston might not radiate its heat too freely, he 
 closed that end of the cylinder and passed the piston rod out through 
 an opening. This naturally suggested the next step. If the steam 
 could force the piston up, why could it not force it down ? He 
 packed the piston rod with hemp, wax, oil, and grease, admitted the 
 steam to top and bottom of the piston alternately, and the first in- 
 dependent steam engine was born. It is well that he retained the 
 condenser, for with the imperfect boilers then in use had an engine 
 worked entirely above atmospheric pressure, the mortality attendant 
 upon the operation would have put a serious damper on its general 
 use. 
 
 Rapid Development of the Engine. Watt began a large model 
 but, meeting with an accident and having but limited means, he was 
 forced to give it up. He outgrew his trade of instrument maker and 
 became a surveyor and consulting engineer. This brought him the 
 acquaintance of Dr. Roebuck, a famous chemist and man of wealth, 
 who advanced money sufficient to secure a patent and received 
 therefor a two thirds interest. Financial trouble overtaking Dr. 
 Roebuck, his interest in Watt's patent was sold to Matthew Boulton, 
 
66 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 an inventor remarkable for his energy and enterprise as a manufac- 
 turer. Watt could not have had a better partner. After the in- 
 ventors had spent a fortune on their engine they were able to offer 
 it to the public in these words: "All that we ask from those who 
 choose to have our engines is the value of one third part of the coals 
 which are saved by using our improved machines instead of the old. 
 With our engine it will not, in fact, cost you but a trifle more than 
 half the money you now pay to do the same work, even with one 
 third part included ; besides an immense saving of room, water, and 
 expense of repairs." With the adoption of their engine fortune 
 poured in upon them. 
 
 Invention of the Crank and Valve Gear. Watt and Boulton 
 now brought out in succession various improvements such as the 
 " governor," which regulates the supply of steam to the engine ac- 
 cording to its needs. In all other engines steam had been applied 
 from the boiler during the whole stroke of the piston. The jar 
 resulting at the end of the stroke was a difficult problem to over- 
 come. Watt cut off the steam before his piston had completed its 
 stroke, and as it slowed down admitted steam on the other side of 
 the piston to form a cushion. Although he had stumbled upon the 
 discovery of the expansive force of steam, he died in ignorance of it. 
 He invented the indicator, an instrument that gives a tracing show- 
 ing the exact pressure within the cylinder at every point of the 
 stroke. This suggested other improvements. The engine was as 
 yet a pumping machine having only the up-and-down motion of pis- 
 ton and walking beam. Watt's friends claim that he gave a plan for 
 a pattern of a crank and connecting rod to a workman named Cart- 
 wright to make for him. Cartwright is said to have sold it to a man 
 named John Steed, who secured a patent in 17/9. It is significant 
 that the steam engine, which we seem to think has existed for ages, 
 was so crude one hundred and twenty years ago that it could not 
 
POWER. 67 
 
 convert its power into circular motion for the' use of machinery. He 
 was not successful in his suits with Steed over the application of the 
 crank and was forced to substitute a small cogwheel engaging a 
 larger one to secure circular motion. However, the engine was 
 made available for all machinery. Hornblower brought forth a com- 
 pound engine in 1790 but Watt sued him for infringement and won 
 his case. The steam engine as it left the hands of Watt was essen- 
 tially complete, and the era of fundamental invention had closed. 
 
 Corliss's Improvement. Various improvements in valve gear 
 were made or foreshadowed until Corliss in 1849 produced an engine 
 of new design and construction in which were embodied the best 
 ideas of the previous half century. The Corliss engine is to-day the 
 best type of the single cylinder slow-acting engine. Corliss left the 
 engine complete in all its essential characteristics. Since his time 
 progress has consisted in the refinement of the mechanism, the im- 
 provement of the materials, and the adaptation of the engine to the 
 duty which it is called upon to perform. It has gradually been given 
 certain special and typical forms. Every railroad has at least three 
 kinds of locomotives; one to climb steep grades and draw heavy 
 loads, another to dash across the country with its passenger 
 coaches often, for short distances, at the rate of sixty, seventy, 
 eighty, or even ninety miles an hour; a third, neither so strong 
 nor so swift, for mixed traffic. Another type of engine, slow and 
 ponderous, may help drive the oil production of a country half way 
 across a continent. 
 
 Man's Most Faithful Servant. The steam engine is the most 
 faithful servant of man. Modern civilization could not be supported 
 without it. For man's benefit it brings materials from the lowest 
 levels of the mine and from the uttermost parts of the earth. It 
 turns the dynamo to light his cities, to propel his street cars, and to 
 run his passenger elevators. It furnishes the power to make the finest 
 
68 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 cambric needle, the microscopic parts of a watch, and to forge the 
 gigantic anchor of an ocean liner. It spins for him lace, rivaling the 
 cobweb in its delicacy, and bends the armor plate of a battleship. 
 It plows his fields, grinds his grain, carries his products to market, 
 and makes his clothing. For him it has annihilated distance. It 
 has made it possible for the wheat grower of Manitoba or the cotton 
 planter of Louisiana to exchange his crop for the carpets of Brussels 
 or the cutlery of Sheffield. It has enabled the operatives of those 
 cities to obtain materials for their food from one and for their cloth- 
 ing from the other. It has made ships independent of wind or tide, 
 and eradicated the worst horrors of a stormy voyage. In other 
 times storms might force sailing vessels to beat about for days with 
 hatches battened down, rendering the atmosphere inside stifling be- 
 yond description. At such times the aged, the infirm, or the feeble 
 frequently succumbed, and if smallpox or the deadly ship fever were 
 aboard the vessel was frequently converted into a floating pesthouse. 
 
 The March of Steam Power. In 1840 steam was in its infancy 
 and constituted only 5 per cent, of the working power of Christen- 
 dom. At that time about 34 per cent, of the workers of England 
 were engaged in manufactures. Fifty years later steam had increased 
 more than 3000 per cent. The ratio of the workers engaged in 
 manufacture had risen to 54 per cent., and articles were produced 
 for one fourth of the cost of half a century before and more than two 
 and a half times the weight of clothing per capita was produced. 
 The world is better clothed, better housed, better fed than ever 
 before. To-day the sociologist who does not take into account the 
 steam engine as a factor in his studies has an inadequate grasp upon 
 his subject. 
 
 Athena, the Greek goddess, who presided over inventions and 
 the arts of peace, was said to have sprung, clad in full armor, from 
 the head of Jupiter, but the steam engine did not spring full-fledged 
 
POWER. 69 
 
 from the brain of any inventor. St. Peter's, the largest and most 
 famous church in Christendom, was begun in 1163 but centuries were 
 required for its completion. The identity of countless multitudes 
 engaged in its construction has sunk into obscurity, but their work 
 stands. Many a ruler has become famous simply by building one of 
 its thirty-seven chapels. An architect might make a reputation by 
 designing a panel, a window, or a column. The genius of Michael 
 Angelo found a fitting occupation in the construction of its dome. 
 Thus it stands to-day, grand, awe-inspiring, the work of countless 
 hands and many minds. The steam engine has required for its per- 
 fection the best inventive talent of more than a score of centuries, 
 and as certain parts of the cathedral are sufficient to immortalize the 
 genius of its constructors so in the working parts of the modern steam 
 engine we may read the names of Hero, Papin, Savery, Newcomen, 
 Watt, Sickles. Allen, Giffard, and Corliss. 
 
 EVOLUTION OF THE LOCOMOTIVE. 
 
 Like other great inventions, the locomotive was evolved from the 
 workings of many minds and in its development passed through the 
 usual stages of doubt, ridicule, discussion, and adoption. It is so 
 familiar a sight that one is apt to forget that it is of comparatively 
 recent origin. Many persons now living were born before it was in- 
 troduced into America. People seem to believe, in a vague sort of 
 a way, that it left the hands of Stephenson the perfect machine we 
 know to-day. But it did not spring forth spontaneously; on the 
 contrary it grew to its present proportions and efficiency gradually 
 in response to the pressing demands of an urgent need. 
 
 Nearly two thousand years after Hero and his ^Eolipyle fore- 
 shadowed the steam engine, a great philosopher, Sir Isaac Newton, 
 mounted Hero's engine on wheels and the germ of the modern loco- 
 motive was started. Newton in 1690 said, " We have a more sensi- 
 
70 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ble effect of the elasticity of vapors if a hole be made in a hollow 
 metal ball and stopped and partly filled with water and then the ball 
 be laid upon the fire until the water boils violently. After this if 
 the ball be set down on wheels so as to move easily on a horizontal 
 plane and the hollow be opened, the vapors will rush out violently 
 one way and the wheels and the ball at the same time will be carried 
 the contrary way." Just as for centuries the philosophers had 
 amused themselves with Hero's ^olipyle, Newton's rude vehicle 
 was spoken of only as a curiosity. One of the instructors in Edin- 
 burgh College suggested to Watt in 1769 that he turn his attention 
 to steam carriages. The suggestion did not bear fruit, and the low 
 pressure engine which Watt was engaged in developing would not 
 have been suitable for that purpose. 
 
 First Steam Carriage. Nicholas Joseph Cugnot of Paris con- 
 structed in 1769 a rude three-wheeled carriage propelled by steam. 
 
 His engines could keep up steam 
 only about fifteen minutes at a time, 
 and his carriage showed a speed of 
 about two and one fourth miles an 
 
 hour. It was driven over the or- 
 
 CUGNOT'S CARRIAGE. ,. , , . ,, 
 
 dmary roads and is the common 
 
 ancestor of the automobile and the locomotive. After a few trials 
 Cugnot's carriage tipped over in the streets of Paris and was locked 
 up in the arsenal for a time by the authorities for fear it would injure 
 some one. Cugnot built another in 1770 which is still preserved in 
 a Paris museum. 
 
 Oliver Evans, an American, in 1786 constructed a queer amphibi- 
 ous affair propelled by steam. It was to move along the roads to 
 the bank of the river at the regular ford, swim the stream, climb the 
 opposite bank, and proceed on its way. It was not practicable, but 
 the legislature of Pennsylvania passed a law prohibiting him from 
 running it on the roads of that state. 
 
POWER. 71 
 
 Captain Richard Trevithick (177 1-183 3) was the father of the loco- 
 motive and the pioneer in the manufacture of high pressure engines. 
 Watt and Newcomen had used their engines at only a few pounds 
 pressure above the atmosphere, and Watt to the end of his days re- 
 mained a sturdy opponent of high pressure engines. Davies Gilbert, 
 a scientist of high repute and president of the Royal Society, wrote: 
 "Trevithick came to me and inquired with great eagerness what 
 would be the loss of power in working an engine by the force of 
 steam raised to the pressure of several atmospheres, but instead of 
 condensing it to let it escape. I answered, the loss of power would 
 be one atmosphere less the saving effected by discarding the condens- 
 ing machinery. I never saw a man so delighted." 
 
 High Pressure. Trevithick set about improving his boilers and 
 raised the steam pressure to 150 pounds. The legitimate develop- 
 ment of this idea has made possible the speedy and powerful engines 
 of the locomotive and the ocean steamer. So remarkable a career 
 may well claim a little of our space. He made in 1796 a model of a 
 locomotive which is yet preserved in South Kensington Museum. 
 Many crude and ludicrous ideas prevailed among the first inventors 
 who turned their attention to the locomotive: one that the cylin- 
 ders should be in a vertical position that the weight of the atmos- 
 phere upon the piston might help hold the engine upon the rails; 
 another that smooth wheels would not adhere enough to the rails to 
 give the engine any power. In 1800 Trevithick and Gilbert, to 
 satisfy the vexed question for themselves, hired the only chaise in 
 the little town of Camborne, drove it to the foot of a steep hill, un- 
 hitched the horse and moved the chaise to the top of the hill by 
 turning around the spokes of the wheels with their hands. Trevithick 
 had no further fear that the smooth wheels of his-locomotive would not 
 have sufficient adhesion and he at once set to work to build his first 
 steam carriage. His engine had a cast-iron boiler, a wrought-iron 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 fireplace with a return flue, a vertical cylinder let into the boiler, a 
 feed water heater, and was mounted on four wheels. Draft was 
 secured by exhausting its steam into the. chimney and further in- 
 creased by a leather hand bellows. These facts are worthy of notice, 
 for other inventors, among them the Stephensons, years afterward 
 claimed some of them for their own. On Christmas Eve, 1801, the 
 first trial was made, and an eyewitness has said: " When we seed 
 
 Cap'n Dick was a-going to 
 turn on steam, we jumped 
 up, as many as could, may- 
 be seven or eight of us. 
 'Twas a stiffish hill going 
 from the Weith up to Cam- 
 borne Beacon, but she 
 went off like a bird." Tried 
 a few days later something 
 broke and the carriage was 
 run under a shed while the 
 company adjourned to an inn to regale themselves with roast goose 
 and the drinks of the season. At the close of their festivities they 
 returned to find that a heap of ashes and a few tangled irons repre- 
 sented the shed and the locomotive. When Trevithick's puffing 
 engine appeared one good old lady exclaimed to his partner, " Good 
 gracious, Mr. Vivian, what will come next ? I can't compare it to 
 anything but a walking, puffing devil." Trevithick and his partner, 
 Captain Vivian, took out a patent in March, 1802. 
 
 First Locomotive on Rails. In 1803 he built a locomotive as the 
 result of a wager that one could not run over a tramway in South 
 Wales nine miles long and carry ten tons, but it carried the re- 
 quired load and seventy men in addition. In this locomotive, the first 
 that ever ran on rails, he dispensed with the leather bellows and used 
 
 TREVITHICK LOCOMOTIVE. 
 
POWER. 
 
 73 
 
 a horizontal cylinder turning the exhaust steam from it into the 
 chimney to increase the draft. In 1805 he built a locomotive for a 
 Newcastle colliery but it was diverted from its intended purpose and 
 used to drive an air blast .for a furnace. William Hedley, the mana- 
 ger of the colliery, five years later 
 patented an engine and claimed the 
 first application of smooth wheels 
 for steam traction. Hackenworth, 
 who later invented an engine, also 
 worked in the same colliery, and 
 George Stephenson, who built his 
 first locomotive in 1814, was close 
 by. In 1808 Trevithick exhibited 
 in London on a circular track, a loco- 
 motive with a speed of twelve miles 
 an hour and carried passengers for a 
 shilling a head. About 1811 a rep- 
 resentative of silver mines in Peru 
 came ^to Boulton and Watt, and 
 
 asked them to design an e'ngine for use in the Peruvian mines, small 
 enough so that it could be taken apart, and carried over the moun- 
 tains 15,000 feet above the sea. They declared it impossible. The 
 agent hunted up Trevithick, who not only built several small engines 
 for him but finally followed them to Peru to superintend mining oper- 
 ations. His experiences were varied and highly interesting. This was 
 the period of the revolt of the Spanish colonies against the mother 
 country. Trevithick designed a brass carbine and was impressed into 
 service, together with $20,000 of his money and property. After 
 other adventures and narrow escapes he returned to England, having 
 been absent eleven years. It is computed that his engines and im- 
 proved methods had saved $2,500,000 to the Peruvian miners, but 
 
 GEORGE STEPHENSON. 
 
74 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Trevithick appeared with his clothing worn to tatters and having 
 only a magnetic compass, a gold watch, drawing compasses, and a 
 pair of silver spurs to show for his eleven years' work. "During his 
 absence from England other inventors had made some improvements 
 in locomotives and there is a tradition current that Robert Stephen- 
 son met Trevithick somewhere in South America and came home 
 with him, greatly to the advantage of the subsequent builder of the 
 " Rocket." 
 
 Trevithick was a busy man and locomotives were only one of the 
 many things with which he occupied himself. He began the con- 
 struction of a tunnel under the Thames river, in fact, progressing 
 until he was within seventy feet of low water mark, when the direc- 
 tors of the company for which he was at work quarreled among 
 themselves and the scheme fell through. He was the first to build 
 the locomotive on a practical scale to run on rails, the first to use 
 flanged wheels, to exhaust the steam into the chimney to increase 
 the draft, to adopt high pressure boilers, and to discover that smooth 
 wheels were sufficient for traction purposes. 
 
 The first locomotive intended for passenger service was built 
 in 1821 by Julius Griffiths. Its machinery was intricate and it never 
 proved a success. Up to 1825 the only practical locomotives were 
 used in hauling coal at the mines, but that year the Stockton and 
 Darlington Railway was opened for passenger and goods traffic. 
 The first train was hauled by an engine built by George Stephenson, 
 who acted as engineer on the trial trip. "Off started the procession 
 with a horseman at its head. A great concourse of people stood 
 along the line. Many of them tried to accompany it by running, 
 and some gentlemen on horseback galloped across the fields to keep 
 up with the engine. The railway descending with a gentle incline 
 toward Darlington, the rate of speed was consequently variable. At 
 a favorable part of the road Stephenson determined to try the speed 
 
POWER. 
 
 of the engine and called upon the horseman with the flag to get out 
 of the way. Stephenson put on the speed to twelve miles and then 
 to fifteen miles an hour, and the runners on foot, the gentlemen on 
 horseback, and the horseman with the flag were soon left behind. 
 
 FIRST TRAIN ON THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY (1825), DRAWN BY 
 STEPHENSON'S " No. i." 
 
 When the train reached Darlington it was found that 450 passengers 
 occupied the wagons, and that the load of men, coal, and merchan- 
 dise amounted to about ninety tons." 
 
 The Rainhill Contest. The famous Rainhill contest, which took 
 place October 6, 1829, for the purpose of selecting the motive power 
 for the new Liverpool and Manchester railroad, was one of the most 
 important events in the history of the locomotive. An editorial in 
 the famous Quarterly Review of that period shows the doubt and 
 ridicule that had yet to be removed before the locomotive could be 
 generally adopted. " As to those persons who speculate on making 
 railways general throughout the kingdom, and superseding all the 
 canals, all the wagons, mails, stage-coaches, post-chaises, and, in 
 short, every other mode of conveyance by land or by water, we 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice. The 
 gross exaggerations of the locomotive steam engine (or, to speak in 
 plain English, the steam carriage) may delude for a time, but must 
 end in the mortification of those concerned. We should as soon ex- 
 pect the people to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Con- 
 greve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves at the mercy of such a 
 machine going at such a rate." Some of the conditions of the con- 
 test were that the engine must consume its own smoke. It must 
 draw at the rate of ten miles an hour a train of carriages of three 
 times its own weight. The boiler must be able to withstand a test 
 of 150 pounds to the square inch, 'but the engine must perform its 
 work with a pressure not to exceed fifty pounds. The engine and 
 boiler were to be supported on springs mounted on six wheels, and 
 the height of the whole not to exceed fifteen feet. 
 Each engine must have two safety valves, and for 
 fear of "jockeying " one must be beyond the reach 
 and control of the engine man. The weight of the 
 engine under no condition was to exceed six tons and 
 the preference would be given 
 to a lighter one. The engine 
 and train were to make forty 
 trips of a mile and three fourths 
 each. One eighth of a mile 
 was allowed at each end of the 
 trial course for starting and 
 stopping. The minimum rate 
 of speed for the whole trial was 
 ten miles an hour. John Erics- 
 son, the builder of the Monitor, "ROCKET. 
 entered an engine in the competition which to this day his partisans 
 claim was a better one than Stephenson's, but the hot-headed Swede 
 
POWER. 77 
 
 lost his temper and withdrew, unknown to his partner, without mak- 
 ing a trial. Five competitors appeared at the trial and one was ruled 
 out because his engine was driven by horse power. The test was 
 too severe for two others. The " Rocket," built by Robert Stephen- 
 son, son of George Stephenson, not only withstood the test but did 
 twice as much work as the conditions of the contest demanded. It 
 attained a maximum speed of twenty-four and one fourth miles an 
 hour and maintained an average speed of 13.81 miles per hour. 
 Stephenson's engine won the prize of 500, which had been offered to 
 the successful contestant. As a result, locomotives of the "Rocket" 
 type, only heavier and more powerful, were chosen as the motive 
 power for the new railway. 
 
 The First Man Killed by Railroad. The Liverpool and Man- 
 chester railroad was formally opened with great ceremony September 
 -15, 1830. But, as if prophetic of its future demands, the Moloch of 
 travel claimed as its first victim William Huskisson, a minister of 
 the cabinet, and Stephenson's "Rocket" has the unfortunate record 
 of being the first to kill a man in a railroad accident. 
 
 After Rainhill the development of the English and the American 
 locomotives ran nearly parallel, and to-day there is no great differ- 
 ence between the two national types of engines. A custom peculiar 
 to England originated with the introduction of the locomotive. 
 Shippers were at first backward about patronizing the new system. 
 To encourage trade the railroads offered to deliver freight free to the 
 shipper, instead of leaving it at depots as is customary in other 
 countries. A custom once established in England is not easily 
 changed and free delivery still prevails. At one station the railroad 
 company employs 2, 100 men and 800 horses to deliver its freight. 
 
 The Pioneer Engines in America. The earliest locomotives 
 used in America were of English manufacture. The " Stourbridge 
 Lion," the first practical one to run on a railroad in the United 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 States, was built by Stephenson & Co., and arrived at New York 
 May, 1829, and was tried during that year on a portion of the Dela- 
 ware and Hudson Canal Company's road. The first locomotive made 
 in the United States was " The Best Friend of Charleston." It was 
 built at West Point foundry in New York city and put on the track 
 November 2, 1830. It was not markedly successful. An- 
 other pioneer was the " John Bull," built by Stephenson 
 & Co. for the Camden and Amboy 
 road of New Jersey. This locomo- 
 tive is now in the National Museum 
 at Washington. At the time of the 
 World's Fair at Chicago it proceeded 
 under its own steam from Washing- 
 ton to that city and carried more than 
 50,000 passengers on a special track 
 at the Exposition Grounds. 
 
 The Baltimore and Ohio railroad 
 had intended to use horse power, 
 but Peter Cooper induced the man- 
 agers to give his engine a trial. Coo- 
 per's engine looked like a flour barrel on a hand car. Gun barrels 
 were used for boiler tubes. Mr. Cooper in after years told with 
 great glee how he raced with a gray horse hitched to another car 
 and defeated his four-legged antagonist after a hard contest. Crude 
 as was Cooper's engine it showed the value of steam power. The 
 management of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad advertised that they 
 would hold a contest June 2, 1832, for the purpose of selecting a lo- 
 comotive. The weight was limited to three and one half tons, the 
 extreme height to twelve feet, and steam pressure of one hundred 
 pounds was allowed. With these exceptions the conditions were 
 about the same as those of Rainhill. A first prize of $4,000 and a 
 
 " STOURBRIDGE LION." 
 
 The first locomotive to run in America. 
 
POWER. 79 
 
 second of $3,500 were offered. At the contest the first prize was 
 won by "The York," built by Phineas Davis of Little York, Pa., 
 and this engine, considerably modified by Winans, became the type 
 of locomotive first used on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad. The 
 question of steam power came rapidly to the front. American in- 
 ventors gave the matier their attention to such good effect that in 
 1837 the Norris Works of Philadelphia shipped a locomotive to Aus- 
 tria, and in 1839 Matthias W. Baldwin of the same city filled orders 
 from England. Perhaps no man in America has done more than he 
 for the improvement of locomotives. The history of the American 
 locomotive must include some mention, at least, of the Baldwin Lo- 
 comotive Works, an establishment that has constructed half the 
 locomotives ever used on this continent. 
 
 The First Practical American Locomotive. The Rainhill con- 
 test excited interest in America and the manager of the Philadelphia 
 Museum applied to Mr. Baldwin, then a famous machinist, to make 
 for him a miniature locomotive for exhibition purposes. With the 
 aid only of imperfect descriptions and sketches of the Rainhill com- 
 petitors Mr. Baldwin undertook the task, and April 25, 1831, the 
 engine was put in motion in the Museum. The course was a circu- 
 lar track made of pine boards covered with hoop iron. Two small 
 cars furnished seats for four passengers, and the spectacle attracted 
 large crowds and aroused great public interest. The model was so 
 successful that the Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Rail- 
 road Company, operating a short line of six miles, gave Mr. Baldwin 
 an order for a locomotive to take the place of the horses they were 
 then using. One can hardly appreciate the difficulties that con- 
 fronted the manufacturer. There were no s.uitable tools, no plans 
 or specifications, and almost no literature. This was the situation 
 that confronted Mr. Baldwin when he started to build "Old Iron- 
 sides," the first serviceable locomotive of American construction. 
 
8o 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The Camden and Amboy road had imported an English locomotive. 
 The parts not yet assembled were lying under a shed at Bordentown, 
 N. J. Mr. Baldwin paid it a visit, made some measurements and 
 a memoranda, and set at work. There were few machinists capable 
 of doing work on such an engine and few blacksmiths able to weld a 
 bar of iron more than one and one fourth inches in thickness. So 
 crude were the appliances that the cylinders, 9^ inches in diameter, 
 were " bored by a chisel, fixed in a block of wood and 
 turned by hand." Th.e engine was supported on springs, 
 and inclosed within a wooden frame mounted on four 
 wheels. The rear 
 pair were driving- 
 wheels, 54 inches in 
 diameter, fixed to 
 an axle bent to 
 form a crank. The 
 wheel hubs were 
 cast-iron, the 
 spokes of wood, 
 and the tires 
 wrought-iron. The price was to have been 
 
 OLD IRONSIDES/ 
 
 This locomotive was built by Baldwin in 1832, and at that time represented 
 the acme of locomotive building. Note the contrast with the Atlantic type of 
 .- r locomotive. 
 
 ,000, but some alter- 
 ations were necessary before it worked well and a compromise price 
 f $3>5 was finally accepted. After much work it was com- 
 pleted and tried November, 1832. There were so many disappoint- 
 ments and annoyances connected with it that Mr. Baldwin declared 
 emphatically, "This is our last locomotive." Yet the plant he 
 founded has since turned out nearly 20,000. After some alterations 
 the " Ironsides " reached a speed of thirty miles an hour. " So great 
 were the wonder and curiosity which attached to such a prodigy that 
 people flocked to see the marvel and eagerly bought the privilege of 
 riding after the strange monster." Even the management of the road 
 
POWER. 8 1 
 
 did not regard the machine seriously but rather as a curiosity and a 
 bait to attract travel, as is shown by one of their advertisements. 
 
 The fascination of locomotive building overcame Mr. Baldwin's 
 resolutions and he soon gave his whole time to it. When the panic 
 
 
 THE ATLANTIC TYPE OF LOCOMOTIVE. 
 
 It is this type which is used on the fast runs from Camden to Atlantic City. 
 
 of 1837 struck the country he became heavily involved and offered 
 to turn over everything to his creditors. This would have paid them 
 about twenty-five cents on the dollar, but they had such great con- 
 fidence in the man that they allowed him to continue, and in five 
 years he had paid off every penny of his indebtedness. 
 
 First Effort at Speed. The poverty of the country and the low 
 state of iron making made the demand for locomotives limited, but 
 they were constantly improved by many skillful workmen and grew 
 rapidly in size. It is amusing to note that as late as 1842 Mr. Bald- 
 win believed a locomotive built in 1838, weighing thirteen tons, was 
 as large as would ever be needed. To-day just the tender, carrying 
 the coal and water of a large locomotive, weighs six times as much. 
 Great speed was not a consideration and it was not until 1848 that the 
 Central Vermont railroad called particular attention to that quality. 
 They offered Mr. Baldwin $10,000 for a locomotive that could draw 
 a passenger train at the rate of sixty miles an hour. He completed 
 and delivered to them the "Governor Paine," which had only one 
 pair of driving wheels, six and one half feet in diameter, and was the 
 
82 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 first fast passenger locomotive. It was advertised that this engine 
 could start from a rest and run a mile in forty-three seconds. It 
 undoubtedly did possess high speed, but had insufficient adhesion to 
 do the great amount of work required of it. 
 
 Perfecting the Locomotive. As if in obedience to a general law 
 governing inventions, the locomotive of to-day is a composite struc- 
 ture bearing the different features contributed by the minds that 
 evolved it. Trevithick in 1802 turned the exhaust steam from the 
 cylinders into the chimney to increase the draft of the furnace. 
 Hackworth in 1827 mounted the bell on the locomotive and improved 
 upon the method of using exhaust steam. Seguin in 1828 designed 
 the tubular boiler, which exposed much more heating surface to the 
 furnace fire and greatly increased the steam supply. William T. 
 James of New York in 1832 first used the " link-motion," improved 
 eleven years afterward by the Stephensons. This makes it possible 
 to reverse the engine and to cut off "steam in either direction so that 
 it will act expansively. It also prevents the engine from getting 
 "on the center." Stephenson added the steam whistle in 1833. 
 Baldwin in 1834 ground the faces of the joints to make them steam 
 tight instead of packing them with red lead and canvas, as was the 
 custom. When four, six, and eight wheel drivers were applied to 
 the locomotive it was found difficult with so many wheels in a 
 straight line to get around sharp curves. Baldwin patented in 1842 
 a device by which truck beams connecting the wheels were permitted 
 to move like parallel rulers. A little play, a thirty-second of an 
 inch, was left in the brasses of the connecting rods and the locomo- 
 tive could turn in a circle 200 feet in diameter. If a railroad track 
 were laid in a circle and two wheels fastened firmly to one axle were 
 rolled about it, since the outer wheel would have to travel the 
 greater distance and one wheel could not turn without the other 
 there would be constant slipping and increased friction. To over- 
 
POWER. 83 
 
 come this, ordinary car wheels are made with the tread (that part of 
 the rim bearing upon the rail) slightly tapering, the outer edge being 
 smaller in diameter than the edge next the flange. The rails are 
 slightly farther apart than the flanges of the wheels. In running 
 around a curve the outer wheel hugs the rail, the flange bears against 
 it and keeps the car from leaving the track. When in this position 
 the outer wheel runs upon that part of the tread having the greater 
 diameter, and the inner wheel, being slightly drawn away from the 
 inner rail, runs upon that part of its tread that is smaller in diameter. 
 By this means the outer wheel covers more distance than the inner 
 wheel, and some friction and slipping are thus done away with. 
 The Giffard injector, which forces feed water from the tanks to the 
 boiler by condensing a small jet of steam, appeared in 1859. West- 
 inghouse perfected his air brake in 1869. 
 
 With better tracks the length and weight of trains increased as 
 well as the speed. The value of the coal consumed and the amount 
 carried then became a more important factor, for every ton of coal 
 in the tender of a locomotive displaces a ton of paying freight. The 
 compound stationary engine having proved economical, the principle 
 was applied to the locomotive and seems likely eventually to displace 
 the simple engine. 
 
 Compound Engines. In steam engines steam is not turned on 
 from the boiler for the- full length of the piston stroke but is " cut 
 off," and the expansive force of the imprisoned steam drives the pis- 
 ton for the remainder of the stroke. A great saving of steam and 
 fuel is thus effected. With a single cylinder steam cannot be ex- 
 panded to the point of greatest efficiency. So engines are made 
 with two, three, and even four cylinders, and the steam after doing its 
 work in one cylinder is passed into the next cylinder instead of being 
 exhausted into the air. On reaching the second cylinder it is again 
 expanded, and passed into perhaps a third cylinder, and made to do 
 
8 4 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 still more work. Each successive cylinder is made larger than its 
 predecessor, for it has not been found practicable to carry steam at 
 the same volume from one cylinder to another. In some marine 
 engines the steam as it enters the first cylinder has a pressure of 200 
 pounds to the square inch, and when it is exhausted from the last 
 cylinder, has a pressure perhaps only one pound above that of the 
 condenser. Thus nearly all the available work has been taken out 
 of it. 
 
 The Vauclain System is the one most widely used in American 
 locomotives. This system mounts two cylinders on each side of the 
 locomotive and each side forms a complete compound engine. The 
 
 steam issues from the boiler 
 to the high pressure cylinder 
 shown at the top of the cut. 
 The portion between the up- 
 per and lower cylinders is oc- 
 cupied by valves of the piston 
 type. The first part of the 
 valve section is made up of 
 the ends of the valves con- 
 trolling the admission of the 
 steam from the boiler to the 
 high pressure cylinder. After 
 having performed its work in 
 the upper cylinder, the steam 
 passes to the low pressure cyl- 
 inder. By this system steam from the boiler can be used in both 
 cylinders at the same time if an emergency requires. This is a marked 
 advantage in starting a heavy train or working it up a steep grade, 
 for if the boiler can furnish the steam, it can be applied at full 
 pressure to four pistons instead of two as in the simple locomotive. 
 
 VAUCLAIN SYSTEM OF VALVES. 
 
POWER. 85 
 
 After the load is started the engine can then be worked compound 
 and do more work with the same amount of steam and coal than 
 a simple engine. The compound locomotive not only saves steam 1 
 and coal, but, as it exhausts at a lower pressure, it does not pull the 
 coal out of the fire-box and blow it out of the stack in the form of 
 sparks and cinders as does the ordinary single expansion engine. 
 The loss of coal from sparks and cinders varies from 5 to 10 per 
 cent, of the coal fired in the ordinary locomotive. There is none 
 of the noisy puffing about the compound type, usually associated 
 with the idea of a locomotive. Many very careful tests of the com- 
 pound engines have been made and the saving of coal effected by 
 their use has been found to vary between 14 per cent, and 68 per 
 cent, in the various tests. The Vauclain system is certainly eco- 
 nomical. The low pressure at which the steam is exhausted into 
 the chimney gives a mild draft in the furnace that will allow pea coal 
 to be used in place of egg coal, a marked saving in cost. A test 
 was made with two Baldwin locomotives, one of the ordinary type 
 burning egg coal, the other exactly like it except for its compound 
 cylinders and burning pea coal. The compound system showed a 
 saving of 6.9 per cent, in weight and 68.6 per cent, in cost of coal. 
 There are about 40,000 locomotives in the United States alone. If 
 a good compound system were adopted for all, the saving in the 
 coal bill would be enormous. 
 
 Quick Locomotive Building. Although locomotives are now 
 much larger and heavier than formerly, the time required for their 
 construction has been greatly reduced. Nearly a year was necessary 
 for the completion of " Old Ironsides." In 1873 the same company 
 turned out a small engine on a ''special urgency order" in sixteen 
 working days. In 1889 a test case was made. On Saturday, June 
 22, Mr. Robert H. Coleman ordered a narrow-gauge "American" 
 type passenger locomotive and tender, which it was agreed should 
 
86 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 be ready for service on his railroad in Lebanon County, Pa., by the 
 4th of July following. The boiler material was at once ordered 
 and was received Tuesday, June 25. The boiler was completed and 
 taken to the erecting shop on Friday, June 28, and on Monday, 
 July i, the machinery, frames, wheels, etc., were attached and 
 the locomotive was tried under steam in the works. The tender was 
 completed the following day, thus making the record of the construc- 
 tion of a complete locomotive from the raw material in eight work- 
 ing days. 
 
 The Baldwin Company. In 1861, thirty years after building 
 its first locomotive, the Baldwin Company had turned out one thou- 
 sand. To-day its plant has an annual capacity of that number. Mr. 
 Baldwin started in business in a small shop on a narrow alley off 
 from Walnut Street and did much of the work on his first locomotive 
 with his own hands. To-day the establishment has twenty-four 
 buildings, lighted by more than three thousand electric lights, and 
 covering sixteen acres of ground. Between five and six thousand 
 workmen are employed and the principal departments run twenty- 
 four hours a day. Fifteen hundred tons of iron and steel per week 
 are used. One thousand tons of coal per week are consumed to turn 
 the machinery. Such is the fairy-like growth of an industry but 
 seventy years old. 
 
 The smallest locomotives are employed for drawing ore cars in 
 mines. Those designed for speed have large driving wheels, usually 
 six and one half feet, sometimes'eight feet, in diameter, and but few 
 of them. Engines for hauling heavy loads have from six to ten 
 small driving wheels, sometimes as small as three and one half and 
 four feet in diameter. The greater the weight borne by the driving 
 wheels the greater the adhesion of the wheels to the rail and the 
 more the engine can draw. The engine and boiler are suspended on 
 powerful and heavy but easy and elastic springs to prevent the jar 
 
POWER. 87 
 
 from the roadbed being transmitted. The life of the average engine 
 is about thirty years. 
 
 Increasing the Engine's Power. One of the most conspicuous 
 features of modern locomotives is the enormous increase in their size 
 and weight, in which they seem to be limited only by the power of 
 the rails to support the load. In forty years the cylinder capacity 
 of the passenger type has been doubled. The diameter of the driv- 
 ing wheels has been increased from sixty inches to eighty-six inches. 
 The boiler pressure has been increased from 100 pounds to 210 
 pounds to the square inch, and engines are now being built which 
 are designed to carry 250 pounds pressure. The tractive power or 
 pull at the draw-bar has been increased from 7,980 to 25,000 pounds. 
 The growth of the lo-wheel or consolidation type, which is used 
 mainly for freight service, has been fully as remarkable. 
 
 THE HEAVIEST LOCOMOTIVE IN THE WORLD. 
 
 The Largest Locomotive. Locomotives can now be made larger 
 only by making them longer, for the new giant built by the Pitts- 
 burg Locomotive Works for the Pittsburg, Bessemer, and Lake Erie 
 railroad has reached the limit in both width and height. This 
 engine weighs 125 tons and its tender weighs 70 tons. The tender 
 alone weighs seventeen times as much as the heaviest locomotive 
 
88 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 that competed in the famous Rainhill contest. The engine and 
 tender together weigh about thirty per. cent, more than the entire train 
 known as the Empire State Express, the fastest train on the New 
 York Central railroad. Its boiler is 7 feet, 4 inches in diameter at 
 the smallest part, and in it there are 406 tubes each 2 ^ inches in 
 diameter, the total heating surface being no less than 3805 square 
 feet. The weight and power of the engine are well shown by the 
 main driving journals, 10 inches in diameter and 13 inches long, 
 while the main crank pin is 8 inches long and has a diameter of 7^ 
 inches. These figures give some idea of the strain to be made upon 
 them. The cylinders are 24 inches in diameter, and the piston has 
 a 32-inch stroke. The piston rods are 4^ inches in diameter. 
 
 A horse traveling at the rate of ten miles an hour on a level road 
 can exert 25 pounds of tractive force. This engine can exert a draw- 
 bar pull of 56,300 pounds, or enough to pull 7847 tons of freight on 
 a straight and level track ten miles an hour. If the load this engine 
 can haul were put in good four-wheeled vehicles on the best level 
 ordinary .road, it would require 28,563 horses traveling at the same 
 rate of speed on the best macadam roads under the best conditions. 
 
 If the horses required to do the work of this single locomotive 
 were hitched two abreast, allowing eight feet for the length of each 
 team, they would reach 21.638 miles. Allowing one driver to each 
 four horses, as in artillery, there would be .required 7140 men to 
 drive this great team. The locomotive is handled by two men. 
 Small wonder that improvements in transportation between 1870 
 and 1893 made wheat 20 cents per bushel cheaper in New York city. 
 
 Trevithick's first engine had a speed of about five miles an hour, 
 Stephenson's "Rocket" attained twenty-four and a quarter miles, 
 Baldwin's "Old Ironsides" thirty miles, and the "Governor Paine" 
 of the Central Vermont sixty miles an hour. Man's " iron horse, " 
 given its drink of water and the service of its black slave, coal, has 
 
POWER. 
 
 89 
 
 annihilated distance for him. The following were, at the end of the 
 nineteenth century, the world's best records: 
 
 Fast Schedules. Table showing the regular schedule time of 
 some of the fastest short distance trains in the world. They rarely 
 fall short of the schedule, and sometimes exceed it. 
 
 NAME OF ROAD 
 
 FROM 
 
 TO 
 
 DISTANCE 
 
 MILES 
 
 
 
 
 
 AN HOUR 
 
 Phil. & Read. R. R. 
 
 Camden 
 
 Atlantic City 
 
 55K 
 
 66.6 
 
 n n 
 
 ii 
 
 a 
 
 SS/2 
 
 66.6 
 
 Pennsylvania R. R. 
 
 ( 
 
 " " 
 
 59 
 
 64-3 
 
 
 
 
 
 < < 
 
 59 
 
 64-3 
 
 Midi 
 
 Morceux 
 
 Bordeaux (Controle) 
 
 67^ 
 
 61.6 
 
 Pennsylvania R. R. 
 
 Camden 
 
 Atlantic City 
 
 59 
 
 61.0 
 
 Phil. & Read. R. R. 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 55^ 
 
 60.5 
 
 tt < t 
 
 Atlantic City 
 
 Camden 
 
 55^ 
 
 60.5 
 
 <t 1 1 
 
 < 
 
 " 
 
 55^ 
 
 60.5 
 
 Nord 
 
 Paris 
 
 Amiens 
 
 81% 
 
 60.5 
 
 L. & S. W. R. 
 
 Dorchester 
 
 Wareham 
 
 15 
 
 60. i 
 
 
 
 < < 
 
 " 
 
 15 
 
 60.1 
 
 Pennsylvania R. R. 
 
 Camden 
 
 Atlantic City 
 
 59 
 
 60.0 
 
 " " 
 
 
 
 
 
 59 
 
 60.0 
 
 Caledonian R. R. 
 
 Forfar 
 
 Perth 
 
 32/2 
 
 59.1 
 
 Midi 
 
 Morceux 
 
 Dax . 
 
 ^A 
 
 58.2 
 
 " 
 
 < 
 
 Bordeaux (Controle) 
 
 67% 
 
 58.1 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Tours 
 
 6 9 ^ 
 
 58.1 
 
 
 
 Angouleme 
 
 Bordeaux 
 
 87^ 
 
 57.6 
 
 
 
 Bordeaux 
 
 Angouleme 
 
 87^ 
 
 57.6 
 
 Nord 
 
 Paris 
 
 St. Quentin 
 
 95^ 
 
 57-4 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Angouleme 
 
 Poitiers 
 
 7oX 
 
 57-0 
 
 Nord 
 
 Amiens 
 
 Calais Pier 
 
 104 
 
 57-2 
 
 N. Y. C. & H. R. R. R. 
 
 Syracuse 
 
 Rochester 
 
 80 
 
 57-1 
 
 Pennsvlvania R. R. 
 
 Atlantic City 
 
 Camden 
 
 59 
 
 57-0 
 
 
 
 
 
 < < 
 
 59 
 
 57.Q 
 
 < C 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 59 
 
 57-0 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Poitiers 
 
 Angouleme 
 
 7<>X 
 
 57-0 
 
 Phil. & Read. R. R. 
 
 Mass. Ave. 
 
 Camden 
 
 56.8 
 
 56.8 
 
 Caledonian R. R. 
 
 Stirling 
 
 Perth 
 
 33 
 
 56.5 
 
 Phil. & Read. R. R. 
 
 Atlantic City 
 
 Camden 
 
 55^ 
 
 56.4 
 
 Nord 
 
 Longuean 
 
 Paris . 
 
 79 
 
 56.4 
 
 Midi 
 
 Dax 
 
 Bayonne 
 
 3i 
 
 56.3 
 
 " 
 
 Bayonne 
 
 Dax 
 
 3i 
 
 56.3 
 
 Nord 
 
 Arras 
 
 Longuean 
 
 4i# 
 
 56.2 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Angouleme 
 
 Poitiers 
 
 7oX 
 
 56.2 
 
 Midi 
 
 Morceux 
 
 Bordeaux 
 
 67^ 
 
 56.2 
 
 M 
 
 Bordeaux 
 
 Morceux 
 
 67^ 
 
 56.2 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Poitiers 
 
 Tours 
 
 62/ 2 
 
 56.0 
 
9 o 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The number of trains scheduled for 53, 54, and 55 miles per hour 
 is too large to be included in the list. France easily makes the best 
 showing in the number of high speed trains. The French Northern 
 railroad alone runs 45 trains daily at an average speed, including 
 stops, of over 50 miles an hour, and ten of these are scheduled at 
 from 54 to 60 miles an hour. France has in this list nineteen, 
 United States sixteen, and Great Britain four. German government 
 regulations forbid' a speed of more than 56 miles an hour, but it is 
 doubtful if a German train could violate the regulations if it tried. 
 Their fastest trains run between Wittenberg and Hamburg at the 
 rate of 52 miles an hour, between Stendal and Hanover at 50 miles 
 ari hour, and between Berlin and Bitterfield at 47 miles an hour. 
 
 The following is the schedule time of the fastest long distance 
 trains in the world : 
 
 TRAIN 
 
 ROAD 
 
 FROM 
 
 TO 
 
 Sud Express 
 
 Orleans & Midi 
 
 Paris 
 
 Bayonne 
 
 Empire State 
 Express 
 
 N. Y. C. &' I 
 H.R.R.R. } 
 
 N. York 
 
 Buffalo 
 
 v- 
 
 Gt N fr N > 
 
 
 
 East Coast 
 
 \jr L 1> OL 1>I f 
 
 E. Railways ) 
 
 London 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
 
 L. & N. W. ) 
 
 
 
 
 andCaledo'n C 
 
 London 
 
 Glasgow 
 
 
 Railways \ 
 
 
 
 440 
 
 393^ 
 
 401^ 
 
 8 59 
 8 15 
 
 7 45 
 
 8 oo 
 
 STOPS MILES 
 PER HOUR 
 
 6 54.13 
 4 53-33 
 
 50.77 
 
 50.18 
 
 The Empire State Express has to contend with numerous sharp 
 curves and heavy grades. In addition to its regular schedule of four 
 full stops and slackened speed through the city limits, it has twenty- 
 eight regular slow-downs at other points and is frequently checked at 
 grade crossings or drawbridges, yet it almost invariably pulls into 
 Buffalo on time. It was helping to draw this train that engine No. 
 999 made itself famous. This engine weighs about 62 tons, works 
 at a steam pressure of 190 pounds per square inch, has four driving 
 wheels 86 ^J inches in diameter, steam cylinders 19 by 24 inches. It 
 was shown at Chicago and that year made a record of a mile at the 
 
POWER. 91 
 
 rate of 102 miles per hour. Later, it is said to have run at the rate 
 of 112 miles an hour, the highest speed yet attained, but the latter 
 record is not universally accepted. 
 
 July i, 1898, train No. 25, engine No. 1028 of -the Philadelphia 
 and Reading railroad, running from Atlantic City to Camden, N. J., 
 drawing five cars and carrying 201 passengers, made an average 
 speed of 81.8 miles per hour for 45 miles, 82.8 miles per hour for 36 
 miles, and ran one mile in 41 seconds, a speed of 87.8 miles per 
 hour. A copy of the train dispatcher's sheet shows that for the 
 month of August, 1898, the same train, with an average weight of 
 207.7 tons and carrying an average of 215 passengers, ran for the 
 whole month at an average rate of speed of 71 miles an hour. 
 Engine No. 1028 was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works and 
 is fitted with Vauclain compound cylinders. 
 
 Locomotive No. 564 of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern 
 railroad, drawing a train weighing 152^ tons, ran for part of the 
 distance between Chicago and Buffalo at the rate of 92.3 miles an 
 hour, eight miles at 85.44 miles an hour, thirty-three miles at 80.6 
 miles an hour, and eighty-six miles at 72.92 miles an hour. 
 
 A Vauclain compound locomotive on the Northern railroad of 
 France running between Paris and St. Quentin, a distance of 95^ 
 miles, drew a 108 ton train the whole trip at an average of 67.4 
 miles per hour. For 50 miles of the trip the average rate was 
 75 miles per hour. 
 
 An Experiment in Speed. Frederick U. Adams, having made a 
 study of fast trains, persuaded the officials of the Baltimore and Ohio 
 railroad to fit six cars, for a special trial, from the tender to the 
 other end of the train. Great care was taken to keep the surface as 
 free from projections as possible. The windows were set even with 
 the car sides and the car sides were covered with matched sheathing 
 reaching almost to the rails. The sheathing was laid horizontally 
 
 
92 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 instead of vertically that the cracks in it might offer less resistance 
 to the air. The vestibules between the cars were carried out even 
 with the car sides. The train weighed 170 tons, was drawn by a 70- 
 ton engine, and made the trip from Baltimore to Washington, in- 
 cluding one slow-down, in 37^2 minutes. One mile was made in 40 
 seconds, two miles in 81 seconds, four and one-half miles at the 
 rate of 85 miles an hour. A grade seven miles in length, rising forty 
 feet to the mile, was ascended at the rate of 78.6 miles an hour. 
 The last five miles of down grade from Alexander Junction to 
 Trinidad was made in two minutes and fifty-five seconds, a rate of 
 102.8 miles an hour. Had the train been drawn by some of the 
 famous engines these figures might have been exceeded. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAS ENGINE. 
 
 Soon after the discovery of the piston, attempts were made to 
 employ it for other powers than steam. Huyghens (1629-1695), 
 famous for his early advocacy of the undulatory theory of light, 
 tried to utilize the explosive force of gunpowder as early as 1680. 
 Illuminating gas was later tried by many. 
 
 In 1799 Le Bon, a clever French artisan, patented a gas engine. 
 Considering the condition of the general mechanic arts of that time 
 it was an excellent one. It employed a piston and cylinder, took 
 illuminating gas from a reservoir, mixed it with atmospheric air and 
 exploded it by means of an electric spark on alternate sides of its 
 piston. His engine was automatic and theoretically all right but the 
 high price of illuminating gas and the difficulties of generating 
 electricity rendered his engine impracticable from a financial point. 
 
 In 1860 Lenoir obtained a French patent for practically the same 
 engine, but it used 100 cubic feet of gas per horse-power-hour. As 
 gas for the test cost about $2 per thousand feet, and coal $6 a ton, 
 the fuel for the gas engine cost several times as much as the fuel to 
 do the same work by steam. 
 
POWER. 93 
 
 A Parisian inventor, Hugon, brought out an engine with an im- 
 provement on Barnett's idea of lighting the gas from a flame. He 
 introduced a jet of water into the cylinder to be turned into steam 
 by the explosion. Hugon's engine was slightly more economical 
 than Lenoir's. 
 
 In 1867 Otto and Langen of Cologne exhibited at the Paris ex- 
 hibition a gas engine which consumed 38 cubic feet of gas per horse- 
 power-hour, and was intolerably noisy. The cost of fuel was still too 
 high. 
 
 Brayton in 1872 patented a gas engine, or, more strictly speaking, 
 a hot air engine, for he used largely the expansive force of hot air. 
 This was 18 per cent, more economical than the Otto and Langen 
 engine and worked without any of the distracting noise of the latter. 
 
 In 1876 Otto brought out a new engine in which was embodied 
 the famous "Otto cycle" (a definite series of motions constantly 
 repeated), the method in general use to-day. It was found that if the 
 gas and air were subjected to a heavy pressure and then exploded, 
 the resulting force was much greater than under less pressure. The 
 essential feature of the Otto cycle is the application of this principle. 
 It was advocated by Barnett in 1838, tried by several, and success- 
 fully applied by Otto in 1876. 
 
 How Gas Engines Work. The explosive charge in a gas en- 
 gine cannot be exploded as often as the piston in a steam engine 
 moves. In a gas engine the propelling power comes in one shock and 
 not a steady pressure. Heavy fly wheels are used which, set in motion 
 by the energy of the shock of an explosion, continue to revolve until 
 the succeeding explosion. There are four piston strokes to each 
 cycle. This means two revolutions of the fly wheel to each explo- 
 sion. The cycle starts with the explosion of a charge of mixed gas 
 and air in the cylinder. (See diagram.) This drives the piston 
 forward. The energy imparted to the fly wheel revolves the machin- 
 
 
94 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Tor ward. 
 Explosion Stroke. 
 
 ery and carries the piston back on the return stroke. On its back- 
 ward stroke the waste gases are driven out of the explosion chamber. 
 The continuous revolution of the fly wheel carries the piston forward 
 and, during the forward stroke, a fresh explosive charge is admitted 
 
 into the cylinder. The piston 
 again returns and this time 
 compresses the explosive 
 charge to the desired point, 
 when it is ignited and drives 
 the piston forward again on a 
 
 new cycle. Various means of 
 Compres siry Stroke. * "" 
 
 Exhaust Stroke. 
 
 Ch drying <5trol<e. 
 
 How GAS ENGINES WORK. 
 
 igniting the charge have been 
 
 _ , . c , used: first, an electric spark; 
 Explosion Stroke 
 
 next, burning gas jets covered 
 by slide valves; then, a rod 
 heated by friction and the force of the explosion to such a high tem- 
 perature that it would explode the incoming charge. Recent prac- 
 tice has returned to the electric spark. 
 
 A very sensitive governor of one of the ordinary types regulates 
 the speed by either limiting the amount of the charge admitted or 
 varying the frequency of the explosions to meet the demand for 
 power. It does it so accurately that in an engine of 130 horse-power 
 working at a speed of 180 revolutions per minute it is impossible for 
 the speed to vary more than one and one half per cent, either above 
 or below the required speed, and under actual working conditions it 
 seldom varies so much as one half per cent, all together. The heavy 
 fly wheels steady the action of the engine and materially aid the 
 governor in its work. 
 
 Plants which require much power can connect two, three, or four 
 engines to one shaft and so arrange their explosions that they will 
 follow each other in regular succession, thus giving a more even im- 
 
A 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 POWER. 95 
 
 
 pulse to the machinery. By using four engines so "compounded," 
 an impulse can be imparted to the shaft at each stroke, instead of at 
 every fourth stroke, as in the single engine. 
 
 Gas Engines are of Two General Types : the single acting, in 
 which the power is applied on only one side of the piston ; the dou- 
 ble acting, in which the force is applied on each side of the piston. 
 The latter are more than twice as powerful. 
 
 The gas at the time of its explosion in the cylinder is heated to 
 about 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. The waste gases when they are 
 expelled from the cylinder have a temperature of about 1200 degrees, 
 so the engine turns about 600 degrees of heat into work. The com- 
 pression of the gas generates so much heat that sometimes 'it ignites 
 before the proper time has arrived. However, this has been reme- 
 died, until even in small engines running at 400 revolutions per min- 
 ute there is seldom a premature ignition, although the piston when 
 working reaches a temperature little short of a red heat. 
 
 The high temperature within the cylinder presents some difficul- 
 ties in operation and lubrication is difficult, for the heat turns some 
 lubricants into acids which have a destructive effect on the pistons 
 and cylinder. Metals wear fast when heated so hot and the packing 
 requires more attention than in the steam engine, but the gas engine 
 has many features which commend it. 
 
 Advantages of Gas Engine. The gas engine uses its fuel 
 through a wider range of temperature than the steam engine, and so 
 is more efficient both in theory and in practice (see Efficiency of 
 Steam Engine), and even a 10 horse-power engine is fairly econom- 
 ical. The gas engine can be started at a moment's notice, it requires 
 no boilers, no firemen, little skilled attendance and can use any 
 volatile hydrocarbon, such as petroleum or gasoline. In using oil it 
 is usually first turned into spray and the spray into gas by the heat 
 within the cylinder, Gasoline vaporizes easily when heated, so is 
 
g6 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 instantly available. When gas, oil, or gasoline are used there are no 
 ashes to be removed, no chimney giving off disagreeable gases, and 
 the space occupied and the weight of the boiler and furnace are saved 
 and can be used for other purposes. 
 
 When the gas engine was first introduced extravagant claims 
 were made for it that were never realized, but the limit of its im- 
 provements has not yet been reached. 
 
 Of the gases ordinarily used for fuel natural gas or marsh gas 
 stands highest in heat units and is almost ideal for use in gas en- 
 gines. Coal gas, which comes next, contains about 30 per cent, of 
 marsh gas with twice as much hydrogen. Water gas is formed 
 by bringing a jet of steam into contact with a fiercely burning body 
 of coke or coal. The intense heat separates the hydrogen and oxy- 
 gen in the steam, which combines with the carbon in the coal to form 
 gas. Water gas has less heat units than coal gas, but is a good con- 
 veyer of heat. The heat power of gases measured by carbon stands 
 as follows: pure hydrogen, 4.25; marsh gas, 2.53; coal gas, 1.71; 
 water gas, 0.59. The gas engine has given a wonderful impetus to 
 the manufacture of fuel gas. 
 
 Some time and fuel are required to " get up steam " in a steam 
 engine, and if it is stopped for a short time the consumption of coal 
 and the time of the fireman continue, but when a gas engine stops 
 there is no further waste. Since the gas engine is furnace, boiler, en- 
 gine, and condenser all in itself, there is less loss from radiation than 
 with steam power. A gas engine can burn almost anything from 
 the waste gases of blast furnaces to pure hydrogen gas, including in 
 its range oil and gasoline, and it works well with fuel gas, which can 
 be produced very cheaply. 
 
 A 60 horse-power gas engine at Chelsea, England, burning fuel 
 gas, tested for two days used .615 pounds of anthracite coal and 
 .147 pounds of coke, or .762 pounds of fuel for a horse-power- 
 
POWER. 97 
 
 hour. The best steam power practice is one pound of coal per 
 horse-power-hour. 
 
 A Crossley gas engine rated at only 10 horse-power developed 
 24^ indicated horse-power, on 14.32 cubic feet of Manchester coal 
 gas per horse-power-hour. The gas engine is not yet a satisfactory 
 solution of the power problem, but it gives the greatest efficiency yet 
 attained. 
 
 USES OF COMPRESSED AIR. 
 
 The expression "light as air" is misleading. The bicycle rider 
 realizes the resistance of even a head wind, and its power in motion 
 is utilized by the application of sails to ships, while the destructive 
 force of rapidly moving bodies of air is evinced by the power of cy- 
 clones and tornadoes. Light as it apparently is, this envelope rests 
 upon the earth with a pressure at sea level of 14.7 pounds per square 
 inch, and 12.387 cubic feet of air actually weigh one pound. 
 
 The thickness of the atmosphere has not been definitely deter- 
 mined. Its action at twilight shows that it will reflect light at a 
 height not to exceed 45 miles. Meteors entering the atmosphere 
 may begin to burn at a distance of 100 miles, and the phenomena of 
 the aurora borealis seem to indicate some sort of a continuity to the 
 height of even 300 miles or more. 
 
 Air is essentially elastic, yielding under pressure and occupying 
 less space, while the instant the pressure is removed it returns to its 
 original volume. The idea of compressed air is usually associated in 
 the popular mind with some complex mechanical operation, but 
 nothing is simpler, as may be noted in its common use in the bicycle 
 tire and its compression by the bicycle pump. Fanning a fire with 
 the human breath was probably the first application of compressed 
 air in the industrial arts. From this it has grown until a recent cat- 
 alogue of compressed air tools and machinery enumerates 32 7 distinct 
 
98 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 uses for which it is now employed, and these range from spreading 
 whitewash to raising a sunken battleship. 
 
 Compressed air does not differ in its chemical properties from 
 atmospheric air, but when compressed the heat which it carries is 
 forced into a smaller volume and the temperature rises. This is 
 noticeable even in the rapid working of a bicycle pump. Larger 
 pumps, called air compressors, driven by steam power, usually have 
 a cylinder surrounded with a water jacket to carry away the heat. 
 Compressed air released is quick to seize upon heat from anything 
 with which it may come in contact, to make up for that of which it 
 has been divested. This principle is applied in making liquid air and 
 is one of the things that makes the use of compressed air in mines, 
 the hulls of ships, etc., valuable as a means of reducing temperature. 
 
 Advantages in the Use of Compressed Air. Space will permit 
 but a brief mention of some of the uses made of compressed air, for 
 it ranges from furnishing a cushion for an invalid to a Button pneu- 
 matic balance lock capable of lifting five or six canal boats. In ordi- 
 nary practice a steam engine is used to drive an air pump (air 
 compressor) which forces air into a reservoir and holds it there at 
 any required pressure until used. To obtain a high pressure it has 
 been found more economical to divide the work into steps, each rais- 
 ing it higher than its predecessor, and delivering it to a cylinder 
 (inter-cooler) where it is partially divested of its heat before deliver- 
 ing it to the next compressor. No additional power is gained by 
 using air in place of steam. The chief advantages are : economy, 
 if the work to be performed is interrupted ; convenience, the ease 
 with which it may be carried to places difficult of access, as beneath 
 a freight car, or underneath the keel of a ship ; its special fitness, as 
 for work in mines, where it aids in ventilating and reducing the tem- 
 perature. 
 
 A flexible rubber hose has made it possible for a workman to 
 
POWER. 99 
 
 carry about with him a pressure greater than that at which Watt 
 dared run his steam engines. Many branches of work formerly done 
 with the hand hammer are now performed with a pneumatic ham- 
 mer. 
 
 The Pneumatic Hammer. In the hammer shown in the accom- 
 panying illustration, when the trigger is pressed the air from the hose 
 passes through the channel along the side of the hammer and enters 
 the pear-shaped cavity within the piston. Un- 
 der its impulse the piston rushes downward 
 and strikes a blow upon the hammer head, 
 but at that instant the piston ports are brought 
 opposite openings into the atmosphere and 
 the air within the piston escapes. Meanwhile, 
 the compressed air, not being able to enter the 
 piston, presses against the shoulder running 
 around it and forces it back to the position 
 shown in the cut, when air once more enters 
 
 into the cavity of the piston and the blow is TH PNEUMATIC HAMMER . 
 repeated., A heavy or a light blow may be 
 
 delivered at the option of the operator, varying with the amount of 
 air admitted. 
 
 For cutting designs in stone or marble a light, short, quick stroke 
 may be needed. For this class there is a hammer with a light piston 
 and a stroke of about half an inch in length, capable of delivering 
 7500 blows a minute. Another hammer with a heavier piston, a 
 longer stroke and slower, will deliver 1800 blows a minute and suc- 
 cessfully " upset " and " head " a rivet i% inches in diameter. 
 These hammers can be used for a great variety of work, such as 
 riveting, calking, removing "scale," cutting, carving, and dressing 
 all kinds of metal and stone work. 
 
 Pneumatic vs. Hand Hammer. A man cannot average for a 
 
 
100 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 whole day's work more than fifteen blows a minute with a hand 
 hammer. The pneumatic hammer places 7S blows a minute at his 
 disposal, so the amount of work turned out depends mostly upon 
 the skill of the operator, for the speed of the stroke is always more 
 than sufficient to meet any demand. Where pneumatic hammers 
 are used they regularly do the work formerly requiring six, eight, or 
 ten men and at about one quarter the cost. This leaves free three or 
 four men to take up some other kind of work and increases the pro- 
 ductive power of the industrial army. 
 
 Pneumatic hammers are extensively used for the riveting work of 
 bridges, tanks, boilers, ships, and skeletons of buildings. They en- 
 able the power to be brought to the work without the trouble of 
 moving the work to the power. Suppose a rivet to be driven in a 
 ship's deck : it is heated, thrust through the hole, the pneumatic 
 hammer is rested upon it, the trigger pressed, and almost before the 
 hammer can be removed the rivet is upset and headed. A similar 
 instrument armed with a chisel instead of a hammer head removes 
 the superfluous metal, and an instant's work with the hammer 
 smooths the surface. The hammer will do the work of ten men. 
 
 Another form of air valve, rather too complicated to be described 
 here, will impart rotary motion and so turn bits and drills to make 
 holes in wood, steel, or rocks. 
 
 Castings fresh from the foundry are rough. Hand labor was 
 formerly employed to smooth them. A current of compressed air 
 propelling a blast of sand will do the work of from six to ten men 
 and do it better, for it will reach into nooks and crannies that could 
 not be reached by a tool and it can be operated by a small boy. A 
 pneumatic machine for cutting off stay bolts in boiler work can be 
 easily managed by one man. It will measure accurately and cut 
 1800 bolts an hour, while 45 bolts an hour would be fast work for 
 hand labor. The sand blast may be used to clean the hulls of steel 
 ships when in dry dock and to remove paint. 
 
POWER. 
 
 101 
 
 Painting and Sweeping by Compressed Air. Nearly all large 
 jobs of painting, like bridges, tanks, warehouses, etc., may be quickly 
 and easily performed by spraying the paint with a pneumatic ma- 
 chine. Greater protection can be given, for the paint by this means 
 can be driven somewhat into the wood and labor that is less skilled 
 may be employed. 
 
 A hose pipe and a current of air makes the best possible broom 
 to sweep out a passenger car, for it will reach cracks and corners not 
 accessible by ordinary means. Garden hose is made over an iron 
 bar. When ready to be removed if an attempt were made to pull it 
 off it would be ruined. Compressed air turned in between the hose 
 and the bar stretches it slightly and it can be removed without diffi- 
 culty. Varieties of hose are now made that can sustain a pressure 
 of a thousand pounds per square inch. 
 
 Compressed Air in Mining and Submarine Operations. Com- 
 pressed air is an ideal application of power in mines where fire damp 
 is present in any quantity. No 
 sparks, better ventilation, cool- 
 ing of the mine, the outgoing 
 current of air carried with it, the 
 smoke of blasts, are all arguments 
 in its favor. 
 
 Submarine operations would 
 be impossible without the use of 
 compressed air. The diver and 
 the navigator of the submarine 
 boat both depend upon it to furnish the oxygen necessary to support 
 life. The motive power of the Whitehead torpedo consists of a cyl- 
 inder containing compressed air at a high pressure. Compressed air, 
 used in the guns of the cruiser Vesuvius, threw its dynamite shells 
 over the hills at the entrance to Santiago Harbor, 
 
 SUBMARINE USE OF PNEUMATIC TOOLS. 
 
102 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Compressed air is used in raising sunken ships. Great casks 
 placed near the ships are allowed to fill and sink. Cables are passed 
 under the ships and made fast to the casks. Water is then forced 
 out of the casks by compressed air, so lightening them that they are 
 sometimes able to lift the ship. Another method is to place col- 
 lapsed air bags within the sunken vessel and then pump them full of 
 air. These displace the water and their buoyant force may enable 
 the ship to float. 
 
 In Australia sheep are sheared by clippers run by compressed air 
 motors, and one man can shear one hundred sheep in the time that 
 would be required to shear seventy by the old method. 
 
 When the steamer Paris stuck fast upon the rocks off the coast 
 nearing the entrance to the English Channel, divers by the aid of 
 compressed air and compressed air machinery removed 15,000 cubic 
 feet of rock which had penetrated her side and held her fast. When 
 the Americans raised the sunken Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes, 
 compressed air drills were used to drill more than three hundred 
 holes below the water line. 
 
 Compressed air made the Westinghouse air brake possible, and 
 curiously enough railroad shops have been most forward in its use. 
 Probably the adoption of the air brake and the necessity of air com- 
 pressors in the shops to test them led naturally to the use of air for 
 other purposes. 
 
 On the United States Monitor " Terror." Compressed air is 
 used " for taking up the recoil of the guns and running them out to 
 battery after firing; for rotating the turrets; for elevating and de- 
 pressing the guns ; for all the movements of the breech plug except 
 locking it; for working the telescopic rammer; for blowing out the 
 powder gases when the breech is opened ; for picking up and hoist- 
 ing the ammunition, and for steering the ship." 
 
 The gases escaping from the chimneys of locomotives would soon 
 
POWER. 103 
 
 render the atmosphere in long tunnels unendurable if it were not for 
 the aid of compressed air. By means of air compressors or power- 
 ful fans, strong currents of air are forced through and the tunnel 
 ventilated. 
 
 Figures on copper, glass, or marble are quickly and inexpensively 
 cut by the use of the sand blast. The glass may be covered with a 
 coat of collodion, gelatin, or wax, and the figure traced upon it, re- 
 moving the covering from those parts that are to be cut away and 
 leaving the raised portion protected by it. The sand blast is then 
 turned upon it and rapidly cuts away all exposed portions while the 
 elastic coating protects the other parts. Designs in large numbers 
 may be rapidly and cheaply reproduced by making a pattern or tem- 
 plet of thin sheet rubber. A pane of glass exposed to the sand 
 blast is quickly obscured and turned into ground glass wherever the 
 blast falls upon it. 
 
 LIQUID AIR. 
 
 Within a comparatively recent time the attention of the public 
 has been drawn to the startling phenomena of liquid air and the pos- 
 sibility of its being harnessed for practical work. Air was first liq- 
 uefied in 1878 by Cailletet in Paris and Pictet in Geneva, but only in 
 minute quantities. By 1886 Professor Dewar of England was able 
 to produce it in small quantities and drew it off into an open vessel. 
 In 1892 in his lectures at the Royal Institution he had a machine that 
 would produce a pint at a time. It is now easily available in consid- 
 erable quantities. Charles E. Tripler of New York has produced it 
 on such a large scale that it can be carried about and shown at pub- 
 lic lectures. The possible application of liquid air outside of the 
 physical laboratory opens up such an unexplored field that some of 
 the most enthusiastic experimenters have been led to claim more for 
 it than they have been able to substantiate. It is accepted as a law 
 that no energy can be created or destroyed. How absurd then to 
 
104 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 suppose that more power can be secured from the expansive force of 
 liquid air than was first required to reduce the air to that form! It 
 is unfortunate that such claims have apparently been made for it. 
 Liquid air has already been of service to the chemist. By its aid, 
 hydrogen and helium, the last of the gases, have been not only reduced 
 to liquids, but to solids, and the chemist can now study the physical 
 properties of matter at a temperature more than 200 below the zero 
 of Fahrenheit. Argon, a gas of which but little was known, has by 
 its aid been separated from the nitrogen with which it is usually 
 mixed, and its properties studied. Fluorin, a substance so active 
 that it was almost impossible to obtain it except in combinations, 
 has yielded at the temperature of liquid air, and may now be studied 
 by the chemist. 
 
 A Fascinating Subject. If so many curious and marvelous things 
 can be done with liquid air, what a wide field of possibilities is 
 opened up with liquid hydrogen ! This subject has a wonderful 
 fascination for the chemist, who strives to attain absolute zero with 
 something of the zest that an explorer searches for the frozen pole. 
 1 'This subject possesses an attraction for those who are accustomed 
 to look ahead, remembering that the laboratory experiments of one 
 day and generation have often in the past become the foundations 
 of great industries. It took three quarters of a century for Davy's 
 electric arc to develop into the beginnings of commercial arc lighting, 
 and nearly fifty years elapsed after Faraday's brilliant researches in 
 magnetic-electricity, before dynamos became a part of engineering. 
 Yet, Faraday had built a primitive dynamo, and its reversed form 
 was known in primitive types of electric motor. Who would have 
 supposed, when ammonia gas was first liquefied by pressure, that 
 before the close of the century companies would be doing business 
 by sending it about in pipes for refrigeration ? Yet, such is the 
 fact." 
 
POWER. 10$ 
 
 Were liquid air closely confined and allowed to regain the tem- 
 perature of ordinary air, it would exert a pressure of about 12,000 
 pounds per square inch on the walls of the container. Allowed to 
 expand as it regained its heat, it would occupy a volume 800 times 
 as great as it occupied in the liquid form. In this expansion it could 
 do 1,900,000 foot pounds of work for each gallon raised to a tem- 
 perature of 70 Fahrenheit. This expanding force, used in an 
 engine which could turn it all into useful work in one hour, would 
 do almost one horse-power-hour of work (1,980,000 foot pounds). 
 Used in this manner it would be a heat engine reversed, for it would 
 work, not by giving up its heat, as steam does, but by taking up 
 heat. Gravitation makes no exception in the case of liquid air, which 
 has to pay toll in the form of friction the same as any other power, 
 and the temperature losses of liquid air are greater than those of 
 steam. Further, to prevent the freezing of pipes, etc., heat must be 
 used with it. In any form yet devised the losses amount to at least 
 50 per cent. A gallon then would do only half a horse-power-hour of 
 work. That is not all. In 1898 it required 15 horse-power-hours 
 of work to produce a gallon of liquid air. The cost of its production 
 must be greatly reduced before it can be generally employed as a 
 motive power, for coal at $3.00 per ton, economically consumed, will 
 produce a horse-power-hour for one fourth of a cent. In other 
 words, it will do work enough in one hour, at the cost of one fourth 
 of a cent, to lift an ordinary locomotive 10 or 12 feet. 
 
 Great credit is certainly due to Professor James Dewar for re- 
 searches in the liquefaction of gases. The first ounce of liquid air 
 which he made cost no less than $3000. In a few weeks he was able 
 to make it for $500 a pint. It can now be made so cheaply that the 
 cost is no longer a barrier to thorough experimentation. 
 
 In Charles E. Tripler's process the air with which he starts is not 
 the air that is liquefied. With a powerful engine and air compressor 
 
106 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 he pumps air into a reservoir till the pressure is between 100 and 150 
 atmospheres. (An atmosphere is 14.7 pounds per square inch.) Air 
 is drawn from the reservoir for use in the machinery, and constant 
 pumping keeps up a high pressure in the reservoir. The liquefier is 
 a crude looking affair consisting of a tall cylinder covered with heavy 
 wrappings of felt or other materials that are poor conductors of heat. 
 At the base of the cylinder, resting on one face, is a metallic drum, 
 into the upper face of which are screwed a large number of vertical 
 pipes about two inches in diameter. The pipes are open at the top 
 and the contents of the drum can be drawn off by a faucet at the 
 bottom. Small pipes encircle each vertical pipe. The sides of the 
 small pipes nearest the large one are full of minute holes. Com- 
 pressed air is forced through the holes in the small pipes and strikes 
 in little jets on the larger pipe. The small pipes are closed at the 
 top and connected at the bottom with a pipe leading to the com- 
 pressed air reservoir. If air is heated it expands, if air is compressed 
 it radiates its heat freely. In making compressed air the heat is 
 carried away by means of water flowing through water jackets sur- 
 rounding the cylinders. The compressed air from the reservoir, 
 passing through the small pipes, has been largely divested of its heat 
 and, striking upon the vertical pipe, has a chance to expand and 
 takes up all the available heat within the vertical pipe. This re- 
 duces the temperature of the large pipe so low that atmospheric air 
 entering at the open tops of the vertical pipes is deprived of its heat 
 and liquefied at ordinary atmospheric pressure. 
 
 Cost of Liquid Air. No satisfactory figures are available as to 
 the cost of producing liquid air. Some claim it can be done for a 
 few cents a gallon, and other conservative physicists say it costs five 
 dollars a gallon. 
 
 Liquid air may be drawn off into dippers and buckets and poured 
 in the same manner as water is handled. It is almost as much 
 
POWER. 
 
 107 
 
 colder than ice as ice is colder than molten tin. Upon contact with 
 
 flesh it "burns" like hot iron, and the sores from it are obstinate 
 
 and require a long time to heal. The hand may be dipped for an 
 
 instant into liquid air without injury, just as workmen at a furnace 
 
 dip their hands in molten iron. If a drop 
 
 of water is let fall upon a hot stove, it gees FAHRENHEIT SCALE. 
 
 skipping about without touching the stove, 
 
 because the heat of the stove turns part of ^ 2l2 de e --j- Water boils 
 
 the water into an envelope of vapor. When 
 
 the hand of the workman is drawn hurriedly 
 
 through the molten metal the heat of the + 32 de g .., 
 
 metal vaporizes the moisture in the hand de s- 
 
 and so protects the tissues from direct con- ~ 4 deg f Mercury freezes ' 
 
 tact with the metal. When the hand is 
 
 dipped hastily into liquid air it is protected 
 
 by an envelope of vapor, but for the oppo-- 20 " de g .-f- Alcohol freezes. 
 
 site reason. The hand is as much hotter 
 
 300 deg. Oxygen boils. 
 
 than the liquid air as the stove is hotter^* de|f 5 ' 
 
 than the drop of water, so the heat of the 
 
 Hydrogen boils. Low- 
 
 hand vaporizes enough air to temporarily-^ deg , .. S 
 
 it. 
 
 461 deg 
 
 Water freezes. 
 Fahrenheit's zero. 
 
 Prof. Dewar's abso- 
 LANDMARKS lute zero. Supposed 
 OF FAHREN- temperature of in- 
 
 HHIT ScALE - tersteiiar space. 
 
 Wonders of Liquid Air. Many inter- 
 esting experiments can be performed with this substance, which is 
 wonderful only because we are used to seeing it in an entirely differ- 
 ent form. With it, alcohol can be made into an icicle in a few sec- 
 onds; mercury can be frozen and used as a hammer to drive nails. 
 Contained in a teakettle, it will boil vigorously when placed on a 
 block of ice, for ice is 344 hotter than liquid air. Haifa pint of 
 liquid air will boil away in thirty minutes. No method has yet been 
 devised that will preserve it for more than a limited time. It is kept 
 longest when surrounded by a vacuum. 
 
108 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Atmospheric air is composed roughly of four fifths nitrogen and 
 one fifth oxygen. In liquid air the nitrogen evaporates the more 
 rapidly, so when the liquid air boils the nitrogen passes off first and 
 the remaining portion grows relatively richer and richer in oxygen, 
 until a piece of steel heated red and thrust into the liquid will burn 
 vigorously. To render this experiment more striking, an operator 
 often pours liquid air into a tapering tin cup, holds the cup in water 
 for a few minutes, when a coating of ice is quickly frozen around it; 
 the ice is carefully removed, and into the hole that inclosed the cup 
 the liquid air is poured. This is so cold that it prevents the ice from 
 melting, and when the nitrogen, as before, has been evaporated from 
 this cup of ice the steel may be burned in the remaining oxygen. 
 This gives an exhibition of great brilliancy and presents the strange 
 spectacle of white hot heat and fierce combustion surrounded by a 
 block of ice without melting the latter. A visitor to Mr. Tripler's 
 laboratory says: " He has an iron tube into which he pours about 
 a quart of liquid air. This tube serves him as a boiler, being heated, 
 not by a fire, but by the warm air of his laboratory, whose heat 
 vaporizes the liquid air. This boiler is then connected with a small 
 steam engine cylinder, which is operated by the air from this boiler, 
 charged with liquid air, just as it would be by steam from a boiler 
 charged with water and heated by a fire." 
 
 Limitations of Liquid Air. The plan works excellently, and 
 the engine runs without a fault, but one drawback has been men- 
 tioned; it requires more work to make the liquid air than the air can 
 be made to do. The difference is just equal to the amount of power 
 required to run all the necessary machinery, the temperature losses in 
 the process, and the direct leakage from evaporation. The sum of 
 these losses represents the toll that the machinery and material ex- 
 act in payment for its obliging alteration of form to suit the whim 
 of man. 
 
POWER. 
 
 IOQ 
 
 A small waterfall can be made a big one by digging a pit into 
 which the water may fall, but to keep up the increased power the pit 
 must be pumped dry. The water in falling will not generate power 
 enough to both lift itself out of the pit and run the .machinery by 
 which the lifting is done ; so practically the pit proves a distinct loss 
 instead of a gain. That is precisely the case with liquid air. Pay- 
 ment in full must be made for any power obtained from Nature, for 
 she never has " bargain days" nor " clearance sales below cost." 
 
 POWER FOR MINES. 
 
 All mines require power for their operation, and it was the neces- 
 sity of the English mines that gave birth to the practical steam 
 engine. This, however, although generally accepted and used above, 
 is not always available underneath the surface. The fire from the 
 boilers would certainly cause explosions in some mines, and ex- 
 plosions are frequent enough without inviting them. The water of 
 deep mines frequently contains matter in solution that is deposited 
 as " scale " within the tubes of a boiler and so renders it unfit for 
 use. The smoke and steam would interfere with ventilation and the 
 latter is a problem that has to be carefully worked out, for without 
 a proper air supply the miner can do little work and the better the 
 air the better the work he can do. These objections have usually 
 restricted steam power to use on the surface. 
 
 At present electricity furnishes the cheapest means of com- 
 municating power for any considerable distance, but some mines are 
 infested with fire damp, and electric wires have an unpleasant habit 
 of giving off sparks when things do not go to suit that whimsical 
 power. One such spark might spread ruin and destruction to the 
 innermost recesses of the mine. Electric lighting is cheap, and with 
 the best connections there is little liability to sparking. It has no 
 exposed flame and does not consume any of the air of the mine. 
 
IIO THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 But there is the constant fear that a globe might break or a current 
 cut across lots (short circuits) and the fatal sparking occur. 
 
 Compressed air is free from the defects named but it is an ex- 
 pensive method of transmitting power and the temperature losses 
 and leakages are considerable. However, it has advantages, for it 
 takes pure air just where it is most needed, deposits it at the work- 
 ing face and aids in forcing out the bad air from the mine. 
 
 These are a few of the many problems with which the mining 
 engineer has to wrestle. The three methods are frequently com- 
 bined. The power is generated at the surface by immense steam 
 plants. They also furnish direct power for running and hoisting the 
 surface machinery. Electric currents are generated and carried down 
 the shafts to the level where electricity is to be used. At that point 
 in the mine the electric energy is often employed to drive a motor 
 operating an air compressor and compressed air is carried through 
 flexible hose to the end walls and used by the workmen. 
 
 Terrors of Old-Time Mining. Less than a hundred years ago 
 miners went about bearing in their caps lighted candles without any- 
 thing inclosing the flame. Brought in contact with fire damp (marsh 
 gas, CH 4 ) disastrous explosions were frequently occasioned. When 
 fire damp constitutes from 6 per cent, to 17 per cent, of the atmos- 
 phere it forms a dangerously explosive compound, and freshly ex- 
 posed coal underground often gives off fire damp in large quantities, 
 a single ton of anthracite coal emitting more than 500 cubic feet. 
 
 About 1815 Sir Humphry Davy devised the safety lamp, which 
 consists of a flame inclosed within a wire gauze cylinder. The gauze 
 prevents explosions by absorbing and radiating so much heat that it 
 reduces below the point of ignition the temperature of the gases 
 passing outward through the meshes. A lamp so protected carried 
 into an atmosphere containing from 3 per cent, to 6 per cent, of fire 
 damp shows its presence by the flame growing longer and smoky. 
 
POWER. I i I 
 
 In a higher percentage the gas may penetrate the gauze, ignite at the 
 flame, and occupy the whole position within the gauze cylinder. If 
 subjected to this extra heat for any great length of time or exposed 
 to a draft, the gauze becomes red hot and capable of producing an 
 explosion. 
 
 Davy's invention robbed mining of its worst terrors, and probably 
 no single device has saved so many lives, for prior to its invention 
 thousands of lives were annually lost in the mines of Great Britain 
 alone. The safety lamp enables the workman to pass freely through 
 an atmosphere charged with fire damp, lacking but a single spark to 
 hurl him to destruction. Often while he digs the coal that may 
 furnish the cheery fire for a home hundreds of miles away, death 
 lurks in the gloom on all sides, held off only by the frail wire gauze 
 surrounding the flame of his lamp. 
 
 Since Davy's time man has labored with remarkable success to 
 devise methods by which he may economically, conveniently, and 
 safely dispossess Mother Earth of her mineral treasures. 
 
 ERICSSON'S SUN MOTOR. 
 
 The sun is the source of all heat and power. Some idea of the 
 immense heat radiated from it may be gathered from the fact that 
 the radiation from each square inch of its surface is on the earth 
 spread over 46,561 square inches, and even when thus attenuated 
 the rays gathered within a small sun glass are hot enough to almost 
 instantly scorch the flesh or set fire to anything inflammable. 
 
 Langley has estimated that " if the amount of heat falling on a 
 square centimeter (. 1 5 square inches) were transformed into a lifting 
 force, without any loss whatever, it would raise a cubic centimeter 
 (.06 cubic inches) of water against the force of gravity at the rate of 
 about 4800 feet per minute. A similar computation shows that the 
 heat which the sun, when near the zenith, radiates upon the deck of 
 
112 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 a steamship would suffice, could it be turned into work without loss, 
 to drive her at a fair rate of speed." 
 
 How long the sun's heat will continue is a matter of conjecture. 
 Whether or not it has continued unchanged is debated and the 
 glacial period has been ascribed by some to a diminution of its heat. 
 It seems certain that when the sun's heat fails the earth will be 
 surrounded by eternal cold and darkness. 
 
 In 1876 John Ericsson said: " Upon one square mile, using only 
 one half of the surface and devoting the rest to buildings, roads, 
 etc., we can drive 64,800 steam engines, each of 100 horse-power, 
 simply by the heat radiating from the sun. Archimedes, having 
 completed his calculation of the force of a lever, said that he could 
 move the earth ; I affirm that the concentration of the heat 
 radiated by the sun would produce a force capable of stopping the 
 earth in its course." A firm believer in the truth of his theories, he 
 devoted the last fifteen years of his life and $100,000 to experi- 
 mental work on his solar engine. 
 
 Efforts to Harness the Sun. Ericsson's motor is a simple ma- 
 chine and its most striking feature is the immense mirror. This is 
 not flat, nor is it all one mirror. It comprises a large trough-shaped 
 frame with a parabolic curve. If the inside of this trough were 
 covered with a mirror conforming to its curve and exposed to the 
 sun, the rays would all be concentrated in a line at the focus of the 
 parabola. A long tube placed in this would catch on its surface all 
 the concentrated rays from the mirror. These would heat the tube 
 to a temperature of about 600 degrees on a summer day, or a few 
 degrees less on a winter day. If water were to be passed through 
 this hot tube, it would be converted into steam. This was the form 
 of Ericsson's first motor generator. But he soon found that even 
 though all the rays were concentrated by the curved surface, the 
 bending of the rays into small prisms, by the curved surface of the 
 
POWER. 113 
 
 mirror, caused a loss of heat delivered at the cylinder. This led to 
 the discovery that if heat rays are bent together there is an inter- 
 ference with wave motion that diminishes the amount of heat con- 
 veyed. After many experiments he made use of a large number of 
 narrow mirrors arranged side by side following the curve of the 
 frame, but every individual mirror being a plane surface. These did 
 not bunch the rays, and almost the full amount of the heat con- 
 tained was applied to the heater, very much increasing the efficiency 
 of the motor. The mirror and heater were mounted on a stand and 
 moved by mechanism to keep the mirror at all times pojnted directly 
 at the sun. A supply pipe was connected with one end of the 
 heater and at the other end was a pipe for carrying the heated 
 medium, usually water, to the best steam engine obtainable. 
 Flexible pipes were required, and after a time he was able to pro- 
 duce these satisfactorily. Air, in place of water, could be used and 
 heated enough to get a working pressure, inferior to steam, it is 
 true, but a good thing in countries where there is plenty of air and 
 very little water. 
 
 More heat can be gathered at midday, because then the sun's 
 rays, falling perpendicularly upon the atmosphere, pass through less 
 than when the sun is near the horizon. The engine can be worked 
 eight hours a day and the energy turned into electricity and used 
 to charge storage batteries. The mirror and heater do not cost so 
 much as an ordinary steam boiler of the same capacity. The engine 
 is, of course, the same as would be used with a steam boiler. The 
 steam boiler is helpless without its fuel. Coal must be mined from 
 the earth, hoisted to the surface, usually hauled a long distance and 
 frequently handled many times before getting to the furnace. Only 
 a skilled fireman can burn it efficiently and all this takes work, time, 
 and money. Not so with the sun motor. As the sun appears 
 above the horizon the mirror is pointed at it, and clockwork mech- 
 
 
114 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 anism moves it to follow the sun's course. The engine once 
 started the machine needs no further attention except an occasional 
 oiling until time to shut down. Stopping the clock brings the 
 mirror to rest, and the rays are in a few minutes focusing on a 
 point that is not in the range of the heater. 
 
 Ericsson's engine requires for its highest efficiency a cloudless 
 sky and a tropical sun. The country where such conditions abound 
 is not likely to be thickly populated. "When the world's forests 
 have all been stripped and her coal beds have all been rifled, it is 
 probable that the center of population will be in the center of the 
 Sahara Desert, where the sun sheds his store of power most lavishly. 
 Religions have changed in less time than will be necessary to bring 
 this about, and by that time it is not improbable that the name of 
 John Ericsson, enveloped in the mists of the past, will be revered as 
 the Greeks were wont to reverence Vulcan." 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 Roman Roads Transportation and Production First Steam Railroad Prejudice 
 Encountered Growth of Transportation Mileage at Close of Century How a Rail- 
 road is Built Panama Railroad Trans- Siberian Railroad Railroad Accidents The 
 Block System Tunnels Rapid Transit Passenger Movement of Great Cities Bicy- 
 cles Automobiles Aerial Navigation The First Balloon Military Significance of Air 
 Ships The First Steamboat " Great Eastern " " Oceanic " " Deutschland " 
 Steam Turbine Famous Ship Canals Canadian Canals Busiest Canal in the World 
 Button Pneumatic Lock Relation of Transportation to Progress. 
 
 THE primitive man built his own house, made his own weapons, 
 and his wife and children fashioned the rude garments and did 
 the agricultural work. But as association showed that men had 
 varying gifts, one became a hunter, another a fisherman, another a 
 maker of weapons, and the germ of il division of labor" was planted 
 and has grown until to-day our complex industrial system has made 
 us all servants of one another. 
 
 Sociologists maintain that man owes much of his progress to as- 
 sociation. His wants must have been few indeed when his own 
 efforts could supply them, and the modern breakfast table would 
 look bare and uninviting that offered only the products that the im- 
 mediate vicinity could afford. With the growth of " division of la- 
 bor " the variety of products increased and the necessity for a cheaper 
 means of transportation grew apparent and even urgent, for next to 
 the ability to produce is the necessity of distribution. 
 
1 16 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Trading Promotes Civilization. Conquest usually preceded 
 trade, and the routes traveled back and forth by the armies of the 
 ancient Persians and Egyptians afterward became lines of travel over 
 which passed the rich goods of the Orient. It was trade that built 
 up those opulent cities of the Mediterranean: Tyre, Carthage, Alex- 
 andria, Genoa, and Venice. With the development of civilization 
 regular routes of travel grew, over which passed the caravans of 
 traders, merchants, and pilgrims associated for security, journeying 
 from one country to another, and Asia Minor was for Europe the 
 gateway to the East. The religion of Mohammed changed the 
 course of the world's trade, for his followers were fanatically hostile 
 to the western nations and the spread of Mohammedanism across 
 Western Asia cut off the caravan trade with the Orient. Portugal, 
 the leading maritime nation of the fifteenth century, searching for 
 another route, sent Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope, 
 discovered by Diaz, and established a water route to India. It was 
 the needs of commerce, a new and shorter route for the trade of 
 India, not alone the spirit of discovery, that Columbus urged as a 
 reason for his voyages of discovery. 
 
 It is an important consideration that armies be readily supplied 
 with provisions and munitions of war. Genghis Khan (i 162-1227), 
 with his armies conquering Northern China and founding the Mogul 
 Empire, stopping to plant crops and harvest them, furnishes a marked 
 contrast to the rapidity with which Western civilization lately organ- 
 ized and rushed its rescuing columns to Pekin. The Romans, for 
 military purposes, threw across their subjugated colonies a network 
 of magnificent roads, some of which endure and give excellent serv- 
 ice at the present time. 
 
 Transportation Creates Trade. " Down to about the twelfth 
 century each village, as a rule, formed an independent community, 
 having its own blacksmith, its own miller, and its own craftsman, as 
 
TRANSPORTATION. Ii; 
 
 far as handicraft was developed, while the operations of spinning and 
 weaving were carried on by each household for itself. Certain days 
 were set on which the country people would carry their goods to town 
 and make their purchases. These market towns became more and 
 more the residence of craftsmen, and the place in which the various 
 forms of manufacture first developed. Stores or shops, in the modern 
 sense, did not as yet exist. The farmer sold his produce at the market 
 and bought his goods of the craftsman. But the first step toward 
 commerce had been taken, for he had ceased to depend upon himself 
 for all his supplies." 
 
 With the gathering of craftsmen into towns and the development 
 of the factory system transportation was quickened. The lessened 
 cost at which goods could be produced at industrial centers left a 
 margin of profit that could be paid to a carrier to wider markets. 
 Transportation furnished the means of that exchange of products 
 which rendered the division of labor possible, and each improvement 
 in transportation facilities helped to reduce the cost of carrying 
 freight, and this in turn stimulated increased traffic and brought to 
 the consumer products that otherwise would not have been available 
 for him. As manufacturing towns grew and their products increased 
 in value they became wealthy enough to give to the construction of 
 roads and the bettering of means of communication. 
 
 ROMAN ROADS. 
 
 The skill of the Romans as road builders aided them in maintain- 
 ing their military supremacy. During the golden days every road 
 literally led to Rome, for, outside the limits of the Roman world, 
 there were no roads worthy of the name ; while within its limits 
 every highway was but part of a system which centered in the Ap- 
 pian Forum. From the Wall of Antoninus in Britain, to Jerusalem, 
 was 4080 miles; and to the extreme limits of the empire on the Eu- 
 
Il8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 phrates 4500 miles, all included in the system. These roads were of 
 a military character, and no country was considered by the Romans 
 as conquered until roads had been constructed. Their strategic 
 value is shown by the fact that in every provincial insurrection the 
 rebels tried first to destroy the roads and bridges. Road making 
 was the common toil of the slaves and criminals, and in newly ac- 
 quired provinces the whole male population were often temporarily 
 forced into the service. 
 
 Every mile was marked by a milestone, and at every fifth mile 
 was a posthouse where forty horses were always kept in readiness 
 for imperial service. The imperial messenger, using relays, could 
 travel 100 miles or more in a day. 
 
 In country districts nothing affording concealment for robbers 
 was allowed within .200 feet of the road. Roads passing where the 
 loyalty of the people was open to suspicion had a stone wall breast- 
 high built on each side, affording quite a fortress. From city to 
 city the roads usually ran in a straight line, property being con- 
 demned without much regard for the rights of its owners. Military 
 requirements took precedence over every other claim. Natural ob- 
 stacles did not deter the road builder, who tunneled mountains and 
 filled morasses with stones and earth. Grades were no serious 
 objection, for travel was almost entirely on foot or on horseback, 
 wheeled vehicles being little used in the country. 
 
 Roman Roads were Built to Last. When the line of a road 
 was determined, on each side of the road trenches were dug and one 
 foot of the earth between removed. The earthen floor was then 
 packed firmly and the trenches and floor filled to the ground level 
 with concrete. The whole was firmly packed and allowed to solidify. 
 Larger stones were next placed on this base and the interstices filled 
 with mortar and the road given another layer of concrete, like the 
 bottom layer. The towns and cities had in addition a top layer of 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 1 19 
 
 granite or basaltic blocks, cut to fit accurately and making a smooth 
 and level roadway. The typical Roman road was practically a mass 
 of solid stone from fifteen to twenty-five feet wide and three feet or 
 more thick. 
 
 The Appian Way, the finest road the Romans built, has been in 
 constant use for more than 1800 years. The top layer of the road is 
 made of hexagonal blocks of granite, so accurately fitted that even 
 to-day it is not easy to detect the joints. 
 
 Quick and Cheap Transportation has had a potent influence on 
 the morality of commercial transactions. The old proverb, " Let the 
 buyer beware," has come down from the times when the buyer and 
 the trader perhaps saw each other but once in a lifetime. The 
 trader and manufacturer now depend on the buyer's steady favor 
 and prepare their goods with special care to suit his tastes and 
 requirements. 
 
 The immense gain by the application of steam to railways and 
 navigation cannot well be estimated, but the fact must not be lost 
 sight of that it was increased productive power that stimulated trans- 
 portation. The steam engine did its first work in a coal mine, the 
 first locomotive hauled the coal from that mine to a market, and as 
 manufacturing grew under the stimulus of its new servant, the 
 needs for quicker and cheaper transportation became more urgent. 
 The locomotive and steamship came to supply the demand. 
 
 Transportation Feeds England. If an example of the necessity 
 of adequate transportation is desired, it may be remembered that 
 without it England would starve to death in a few months, for her 
 agricultural industries so far fail to produce what is necessary to feed 
 her own people, that she is required to import food supplies for 285 
 days of the year. This point has an especial military significance, as 
 is evidenced by the enormous navy she feels called upon to sustain, 
 to guard her lines of food supplies. Modern methods have made it 
 
120 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 possible to supply mutton chops from Australia for the London 
 breakfast table, cheaper and quicker than the same could formerly 
 have been obtained from the Highlands of Scotland. Australian 
 fresh beef carried in refrigerators was furnished to American soldiers 
 on the firing line in the Philippines. 
 
 An Example of Mechanical Progress. It would be difficult to 
 find a town offering a better illustration of what society owes to me- 
 chanical progress than Manchester, England, that typical hive of 
 systematized human industries. Manchester was early famous as a 
 manufacturing center, and in Queen Elizabeth's time it was spoken 
 of as "surpassing neighboring towns." In 1724 it was said to be 
 " the largest, most rich, populous, and busy village in England." It 
 has what is believed to be the oldest free library in the kingdom, and 
 is probably the birthplace of the present factory system and methods 
 of modern transportation, for it was here that Stephenson's railroad 
 had its famous contest with the Duke of Bridgewater's canal. It also 
 possesses great interest for the student of municipal government, for 
 it owns its own markets, gas works, water works, street railroads, and 
 numerous valuable electrical and water power privileges. It derives 
 a large income from its corporate property and uses it for public im- 
 provement and to reduce taxation. In 1757 this city had a popula- 
 tion of 20,000 inhabitants, of whom an unusually large proportion 
 were engaged in manufacture. Great difficulty was frequently ex- 
 perienced in securing the necessary raw materials, cotton, wool, coal, 
 and iron, as well as food supplies for the operatives. The country 
 immediately surrounding it could not supply all its demands and the 
 nearest seaport was Liverpool, thirty-five miles away. Connecting 
 the two cities were excellent roads, and freight was hauled in wagons 
 by horses from one to the other at a cost of $10 to $12 per ton. 
 For a time it seemed as though the factory system had outgrown the 
 transportation system that supplied the raw materials for its finished 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 121 
 
 products. To reduce this freight rate, which greatly increased the 
 cost of living, cost of materials, and so the cost of the finished 
 products of Manchester's factories, the Duke of Bridgewater under- 
 took to build a canal connecting the two cities. The cartage com- 
 panies recognized this as a rival and left no means unturned to incite 
 opposition and provoke ridicule. The canal was dubbed " The 
 Duke of Bridgewater's folly," but he was a man of indomitable 
 courage and completed it after sixteen years of strenuous effort which 
 is said to have shortened his life. When completed, the cost of 
 carrying a ton of freight from Liverpool to Manchester fell from $10 
 or $12 to $2. Trade felt the stimulus, and in forty-five years the 
 two cities had increased in population and wealth more than 300 per 
 cent., and Liverpool took rank as the second commercial town, and 
 Manchester as the first manufacturing town in the world. But with 
 this great increase the factory system again outstripped transporta- 
 tion and Manchester freight often waited at its seaport, longer than 
 it took to carry it from New York to Liverpool. Two other canals 
 were built and taxed to their utmost. Manufacturing interests in- 
 creased and the resulting prosperity demanded better service. The 
 Liverpool and Manchester railway was chartered in 1828 and it was 
 intended to use horses for motive power, but George Stephenson in- 
 terested the directors in steam power and they offered the prize for 
 the Rainhill contest, with what result the world knows. 
 
 In the early days of the American Republic the problems of 
 transportation and communication were deemed of the utmost im- 
 portance, and engaged the best minds of the country. It then cost 
 $100 to move a ton of freight from Buffalo to Albany, and $5 to 
 carry a barrel of salt from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. The locomo- 
 tive had not been invented and the mouth of the Mississippi river 
 was controlled by a power none too friendly. The free navigation 
 of that stream was necessary to the welfare of the Western colonies, 
 
122 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 for it furnished their only cheap means of communication with the 
 seaboard. The states were encouraged to build turnpikes and the 
 United States government began the construction of a public road 
 from Washington via Wheeling, Columbus, and Vandalia, to the 
 Mississippi river. The necessity of better means of communication 
 was recognized by all. "The subject was a favorite one with 
 Washington, and he looked at it from both a commercial and a po- 
 litical point of view. What we most needed, he said in 1770, were 
 easy transit lines between east and west, as ' the channel of convey- 
 ance of the extensive and valuable trade of a rising empire.' Just 
 before resigning his commission in 1783 Washington had explored 
 the route through the Mohawk valley, afterward taken first by the 
 Erie canal and then by the New > York Central railroad, and had 
 prophesied its commercial importance in the present century. Soon 
 after reaching his home at Mount Vernon, he turned his attention to 
 the improvement of intercourse with the west through the valley of 
 the Potomac. " The east and west, he said, must be cemented to- 
 gether by interests in common ; otherwise they will break asunder. 
 Without commercial intercourse they will cease to understand each 
 other, and will thus be ripe for disagreement. It is easy for mental 
 habits, as well as merchandise, to glide down stream, and the con- 
 nections of the settlers beyond the mountains all center in New 
 Orleans, which is in the hands of a foreign and hostile power. No 
 one can tell what complications may arise from this, argued Wash- 
 ington ; * let us bind these people to us by a chain that can never 
 be broken ; ' and with characteristic energy he set to work at once to 
 establish that line of communication that has since grown into the 
 Chesapeake and Ohio canal and into the Baltimore and Ohio rail- 
 road."* The need was urgent enough, for in 1814 Robert Fulton 
 estimated that it cost $100 to move a ton of freight by means of 
 
 * John Fiske's " Critical Period of American History." 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 123 
 
 horses and wagons three hundred miles on the highways of Pennsyl- 
 vania and Ohio. The transportation system between Philadelphia 
 and Pittsburg was the most primitive. " For several years after the 
 peace of 1783, there was nothing but a horse path over the moun- 
 tains; so that salt, iron, powder, lead, and other necessary articles 
 had to be carried on pack horses from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. 
 As late as 1794, the year of the insurrection, so bad were the roads 
 that freight in wagons cost from $5 to $10 per 100 pounds; salt sold 
 for $5 a bushel ; iron and steel for fifteen to twenty cents a pound in 
 Pittsburg." * 
 
 No longer ago than 1809 freight going from Lake Ontario to 
 Lake Erie and west had to be hauled from the mouth of the Niagara 
 river to the head of the falls, a distance of twenty-eight miles. 
 The regular charge for this was seventy-five cents for a bushel of salt 
 and $10 for a ton of general merchandise. It is easy to see that the 
 costs would mount up with frightful rapidity when goods had to be 
 carried by such methods any considerable distance. The humblest 
 laborer of to-day enjoys what would then have been unparalleled lux- 
 ury for people in comfortable circumstances, while the economy and 
 self-denial necessary for those less fortunate can hardly be imagined. 
 
 Primitive Methods in South America. Some of the primitive 
 methods yet employed in the South American states are interesting. 
 The transportation system of Colombia contrasts sharply with im- 
 proved methods and shows the condition of affairs where every 
 pound of freight must be carried either by mule or man power. The 
 chief port of entry of Colombia is Barranquilla, on the Magdalena riv- 
 er. The city is eighteen miles from the coast and bars obstruct navi- 
 gation below the city. A narrow gauge railroad eighteen miles long 
 connects the city with the coast and runs out on a steel pier over 
 4000 feet long, at the end of which there is 26 feet of water at low 
 
 * Eagle's " History of Pennsylvania." 
 
124 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tide. This pier is remarkable as being one of the longest three in the 
 world. It annually receives 34,000 tons of freight and discharges 
 23,000 tons. Freight intended for the interior of the country is put 
 up in packages of about 125 pounds, two packages making a mule 
 load. If the packages are heavier, they are carried by man or woman 
 power, and as the weight of the package increases the prices go up at 
 an amazing rate. The average man load is 330 pounds, and the load 
 most frequently carried by the woman packers is no less than 220 
 pounds. One of the packers recently carried an organ, packed in its 
 case, on his back for 90 miles inland. When the package is too 
 heavy to be thus packed, it is dragged along the rough and treach- 
 erous mountain trails by means of a rope and windlass, and the 
 progress is slow indeed. One piece of machinery for the government 
 mint was five years on a 100 mile trip. Man packing costs $10. 18 
 per ton-mile in paper money; mule packing from 65 cents to $3.00 
 per ton-mile. It recently cost a contractor $1500 to transport 
 twelve 2O-foot iron rails over 90 miles of mountain road. A sack of 
 coffee weighing one sixteenth ton, carried from the plantation where 
 it is grown to its market in New York, costs for mule-packing to the 
 river $8.50 paper money. For 500 miles down the river to Barran- 
 quilla, it is carried by boat for $1.92 and the 18 miles of railway to 
 the dock costs 33 cents. This is a total of $10.75 in paper, or $4.30 
 in gold, for the first 598 miles transportation. A steamer then takes 
 it and delivers it in New York, 2000 miles away, for only 40 cents. 
 A ton of freight can be brought from Europe, 5500 miles, and car- 
 ried 600 miles up the Magdalena river for $24. But His Excellency, 
 the mule, demands $64.00 to carry it the remaining 90 miles inland 
 to the capital. 
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 The primitive method of packing freight on the back of a horse 
 is expensive, for it does not allow him to apply his strength to the 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 125 
 
 best advantage. Placed on wheels, he can take three times as much 
 over a poor earthen road, nine times over a good macadamized road, 
 twenty-five times over a plank road, thirty-three times over a stone 
 trackway, and fifty-four times over a good railway, as he can carry 
 on his back. The foregoing is about the order in which railway con- 
 struction using the horse as a motive power developed. In the reign 
 of George III., the inland transportation facilities of England were 
 at such a low ebb that the old Roman roads furnished the best routes 
 of travel. 
 
 It is uncertain when railways first came into use, but the plan is 
 old, and stone tramways have been attributed to the Romans. 
 Their tracks were said to have been made of two lines of cut stones. 
 Smiles's " Life of George Stephenson " states that in 1630 Master 
 Beaumont laid down wooden rails from his coal pits near Newcastle 
 to the river side. In 1738 Jessop introduced at Loughborough the 
 cast iron edge rails and cast flanges upon the'tires of the wheels so 
 as to keep them on the track. In 1800, at Little Eton, Derbyshire, 
 Outram used stone sleepers for his railroad, and from his name is 
 derived the term "tramways." 
 
 The application of the flange to the car wheel was a great im- 
 provement. The manufacture of wrought iron improved until rolling 
 mills were able to turn out long strips called "strap iron" and these 
 were spiked to the top of the wooden rails. 
 
 >As loads grew heavier and requirements greater the " T " rail was 
 vntroduced, on top of which the wheels ran. The rail was held in 
 place by brackets called " chairs," spiked to crosspieces called 
 " ties." 
 
 The First Steam Railway was that at Pen-y-Darran in South 
 Wales, nine miles long and covered with cast iron plates. On this a 
 Trevithick engine was employed to haul coal. The Stockton and 
 Darlington railway, opened in 1825, was a coal road on which it was 
 
126 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 intended to use horses, but George Stephenson constructed locomo- 
 tives weighing about twelve tons that under favorable circumstances 
 were able to carry a load with a speed of seven or eight miles an 
 hour. 
 
 Stephenson's success on the Stockton and Darlington railroad in- 
 clined the managers of the Liverpool and Manchester railroad to 
 listen to him favorably. After the Rainhill contest, October, 1829, 
 preparations were made to equip their road with Stephenson's en- 
 gines. It was opened with considerable ceremony September 15, 
 1830, and William Huskisson, a prominent statesman, was struck by 
 a locomotive and mortally injured. The " Rocket" carried the 
 dying statesman to his home fifteen miles, in twenty-five minutes, at 
 one point attaining a speed of thirty-six miles an hour. There was 
 no longer any doubt as to the capability of the locomotive, and 
 modern railways may be said to begin with the Liverpool and Man- 
 chester road. Stephenson and the managers had not succeeded 
 without a hard struggle. The railroad met as violent opposition 
 from the canal men as they had met from the cartage companies, for 
 if the newfangled steam locomotive were able to make the trip in 
 four hours, while it took the most rapid canal boats fourteen hours, 
 the welfare of the canals would be seriously jeopardized. Present 
 personal interest again gained the ascendency over public welfare, 
 and the struggle of Stephenson to accomplish his plan is a matter of 
 history. Even in Parliament it was argued that if the new method 
 of travel were to be at all extensively used, such people as stage 
 owners, teamsters, and inn keepers would be deprived of their 
 means of livelihood, and national disaster would swiftly follow. 
 However, the conservatives had to "look out for the engine," for 
 the railroad reduced the freight rate between Liverpool and Man- 
 chester from eight shillings to less than one shilling a ton, and gave 
 an electrical impulse to transportation throughout the civilized world. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. I2/ 
 
 The First Passenger Cars on the Liverpool and Manchester 
 roads were crude enough, and not as comfortable as an ordinary flat 
 car now used for hauling freight. They had no roofs, and as they 
 were without springs the constant jar of the road soon shook them 
 to pieces, until, as a matter of economy, springs were added. 
 
 In the early days of steam railroading it was customary for a 
 traveler to drive up in his own private coach, remove his horses, 
 have the coach and its passengers transferred bodily to the railroad 
 carriages, connect them to the train and complete the journey in his 
 own coach. The custom left its imprint upon the standard pas- 
 senger " coach " of the English roads, which for many years bore a 
 close resemblance to the stagecoach of highway travel. 
 
 In America facilities for traveling were even worse than in Eng- 
 land, for the country was new, thinly populated, and so poverty- 
 stricken that but little attention had been paid to internal 
 improvements. In the palmy days of stagecoaching the fare from 
 New York to Albany was $12, and from New York to Boston $15. 
 When light coaches, called "flying machines," put on the road be- 
 tween New York and Philadelphia, were able to make the trip in 
 two days it was spoken of as marvelous. The express trains of to- 
 day cover the distance in two hours. In 1865, one Salt Lake City 
 merchant paid $150,000 a year to bring his goods from the Missouri 
 river. The same year transportation cost the United States govern- 
 ment in Utah $1,524, 1 19, and the price of a bushel of corn delivered 
 at Fort Kearney was $5.03, Laramie $9.26, Colorado $10.05, Salt 
 Lake City $17. 
 
 Judge Tait of Ohio says: " I paid the sum of thirty-two dollars 
 and some cents to be carried from Wheeling to Cincinnati, in 1835, 
 a sum which was by no means insignificant to a somewhat impecuni- 
 ous young lawyer who had just been admitted to practice." 
 
 Difficulties of Early Travel. About the beginning of the cen- 
 
128 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tury, in describing the traveling between Boston and New York, 
 President Quincy of Harvard College said: "The carriages were old 
 and the shackling and much of the harness made of ropes. One pair 
 of horses carried us eighteen miles. We generally reached our rest- 
 ing place for the night, if no accident intervened, at ten o'clock, and 
 after a frugal supper went to bed, with the notice that we should be 
 called at three next morning, which generally proved to be half past 
 two, and then, whether it snowed or rained, the traveler must rise 
 and make ready by the help of a horn lantern and a farthing candle 
 and proceed on his way over bad roads, sometimes getting out and 
 helping the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire or rut, and 
 arriving in New York after a week's hard traveling, wondering at the 
 ease as well as the expedition with which our journey was effected." 
 
 The first American railroad was built by Thomas Lieper, 1809, 
 near Bull's Head Tavern, Philadelphia. The line was short, but 
 the next year he had a road three fourths of a mile long leading from 
 his quarries to the landing place on Crum Creek. He estimated 
 that this had cost him $1500. Progress was so slow that what is 
 probably the first iron railroad in America was very appropriately 
 built to transport the granite required for the Bunker Hill monu- 
 ment. This road ran from the granite quarries of Quincy, Massa- 
 chusetts, to the docks at tide water. It was begun in 1826 and 
 completed in 1827, using granite blocks for ties, on top of which 
 were placed wooden rails faced with a strap of rolled iron. 
 
 No longer ago than 1827 the Boston Daily Advertiser pub- 
 lished a series of articles entitled "Remarks on the Practicability and 
 Expediency of Railroads from Boston to the Hudson River, and from 
 Boston to Providence." These articles, as read in the light of mod- 
 ern achievements, have a certain tinge of the ludicrous but they are 
 also marked by sound common sense. They express a clear recogni- 
 tion of the necessity of a better means of transportation, though 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 129 
 
 some of the expedients they suggest are, to say the least, unique. 
 Horse power is recommended as a motive power, and the steam loco- 
 motive only hinted at as a remote possibility. The possibilities of 
 Massachusetts as a manufacturing state were stated and followed by 
 the statement that while the population of the United States as a 
 whole had increased 150 per cent, in thirty years, that of Massachu- 
 setts had increased only 30 per cent. This was attributed to the fact 
 that there was no adequate means of inland transportation. 
 
 The value of railroads was early recognized, many ridiculous 
 plans for motive power for them advanced, and some amusing devices 
 tried. "On the Baltimore and Ohio ran first of all a little clap- 
 boarded cabin on wheels, for all the world like one of those North 
 Carolinian mountain huts, with the driver perched on. top of the front 
 portico, because the motive power then was one horse in treadmill 
 box." 
 
 First American Locomotive. In 1819, John and Maurice 
 Wurts, two Philadelphia Quakers, undertook to supply New York 
 with Lackawanna coal, and out of this grew the Delaware and 
 Hudson canal, 105 miles long, connecting the two rivers. For some 
 time coal was drawn in wagons by horses from near Carbondale to 
 the canal at Honesdale, and shipped thence to New York. Finding 
 this method too slow and expensive, they built a railroad sixteen 
 miles long from the mines to Honesdale and hauled their coal in cars 
 drawn by horses. This trade increased, and the Delaware and Hud- 
 son Canal Company became interested in the experiments with loco- 
 motives then being conducted in England. In 1828, John B. Jervis, 
 chief engineer of the company, sent his assistant, Horatio Allen, to 
 England to study the subject. In May, 1829, Allen returned with a 
 locomotive. The railroad track consisted of long hemlock stringers 
 or rails 6 by 12 inches in section, on which were spiked bars of 
 rolled iron 2j^ inches wide and j inch thick. The rails were sup- 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ported every ten feet by sticks of timber. On this track the engine 
 which had been named the " Stourbridge Lion" was tried August 
 9, 1829. 
 
 " The road crossed the Lackawaxen river after a sharp curve, on 
 a slender hemlock trestle, which it was believed would not support 
 the engine. Allen was besought not to imperil his life with it. He 
 knew there was danger, but, anxious to connect his name with the 
 
 first locomotive in America, he determined to take the risk. He ran 
 
 
 
 the engine up and down along the dock for a few minutes and then 
 invited some one of a large assembly to accompany him. No one 
 accepted, and pulling the throttle wide open he said ' good-bye ' to 
 the crowd and dashed away from the village, around the abrupt 
 curve, and over the trembling trestle amid deafening cheers, at the 
 rate of ten miles an hour." Mr. Allen lived to take a prominent 
 part in the improvement of locomotives and the development of rail- 
 road systems. In speaking of the trial on the Carbondale and Hones- 
 dale road he said, " I had never run a locomotive nor any other en- 
 gine before; I have never run one since." The " Stourbridge Lion " 
 was attached, after the trial, to trains of coal cars and drew them 
 satisfactorily on the dock but could not be employed to advantage 
 on so light a roadbed, and the latter could not be fitted to the engine 
 on account of the expense required. Finally it was taken to pieces, 
 its boiler carried to Carbondale and put into the foundry where it was 
 still in use in 1890. Such was the career of the first locomotive on 
 the American continent. 
 
 Short lines of railroad began to spring up both in England and in 
 the United States, and the queerest ideas prevailed concerning them. 
 "The people at first thought of the railroad merely as an improved 
 highway which should charge tolls like a turnpike or canal, and on 
 which the public should run cars of its own independent of the rail- 
 road company itself . In England long sheets of tolls were published, 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 13! 
 
 naming the rates under which the use of the roadbed should be 
 free to all." The people of New England had no more accurate 
 conception, for George Ticknor Curtis said, in 1880: " I remember 
 that the ideas of the first projectors of railroads in New England 
 and of the public, as to the use that would be made of them, were 
 exceedingly crude. The earliest charters granted in Massachusetts 
 contain traces of an expectation that the company would lay down 
 the rails and that the public would somehow drive their own car- 
 riages over them, the proprietors having the right to exact tolls." 
 The lines were not built according to any harmonious plan. As late 
 as 1847 there were in England seven hundred chartered railroads, 
 averaging about fifteen miles each in length. What is now the New 
 York Central and Hudson River railroad constituted sixteen separate 
 and distinct organizations, incurring numerous trans-shipments of 
 freight, delays, expenses, multiplicity of offices, division of re- 
 sponsibility, and all attendant evils. The public need eventually 
 brought about in the fifties consolidation of the many warring, jarring, 
 jangling interests. This consolidation was not due to the wisdom 
 of legislators, and was due only in a small measure to the personal 
 influence of railroad managers, for it took place about the same time 
 all over the world. It is needless to say it reduced operating ex- 
 penses and gave better service to the public. It seems in a way 
 to have foreshadowed the great combinations of capital now being 
 formed. 
 
 Growth of Rail Transportation. Western Pennsylvania, during 
 Washington's administration, suffered for the lack of adequate trans- 
 portation. The cost of carrying grain by horse and wagon one hun- 
 dred miles was equivalent to its price on reaching market. The same 
 grain turned into whisky occupied less bulk for its value and could 
 be easier transported. The tax upon whisky was keenly felt because 
 it was a tax upon about the only exchangeable product of the people. 
 
132 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 A good system of transportation would have removed the exciting 
 cause and modern methods have made its recurrence impossible. 
 
 Pennsylvania, with the first American steam railroad to her 
 credit, continued their construction with commendable zeal, and in 
 1835 had two hundred miles, about one fourth the whole mileage of 
 the United States. 
 
 "When the roads forming the line between Philadelphia and 
 Harrisburg, Pa., were chartered in 1835, and town meetings were 
 held to discuss their practicability, the Hon. Simon Cameron, while 
 making a speech in advocacy of the measure, was so far carried away 
 by his enthusiasm as to make the rash prediction that there were 
 persons within the sound of his voice who would live to see a pas- 
 senger take his breakfast in Harrisburg and his supper in Philadel- 
 phia on the same day. A friend of his on the platform said to him 
 after he had finished : * That's all very well, Simon, to tell the 
 boys, but you and I are no such infernal fools as to believe it.' 
 They both lived to travel the distance in a little over two hours." 
 
 The Baltimore and Ohio was the first road undertaken in the 
 United States for the transportation of passengers and freight on a 
 large scale. It was begun in 1828, and on July 4th of that year 
 Charles Carroll, whose life seemed to form a connecting link between 
 the political revolution of one century and the industrial revolution 
 of another, laid the first rail. In 1831 the Baltimore and Ohio offered 
 premiums of $4000 and $3500 for competing locomotive builders, 
 and the winning locomotive, made at York, Pa., was carried on 
 wagons over the turnpike roads from there to Baltimore, Md. (See 
 Locomotives.) 
 
 By the close of the year 1835 the Baltimore and Ohio had attained 
 a length of 115 miles. Peter Parley, who wrote school books for 
 our grandfathers, describing Maryland, says: "But the most curious 
 thing in Baltimore is the railroad. There is a great trade between 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 133 
 
 Baltimore and the states west of the Alleghany mountains. The 
 Western people buy a great many goods at Baltimore and send in 
 return a great deal of Western produce. There is, therefore, a 
 vast deal of traveling back and forth, and hundreds of teams are oc- 
 cupied in transporting goods and produce to and from market. Now 
 in order to carry on this business more easily the people are building 
 what is called a railroad. This consists of iron bars laid along the 
 ground and made fast, so that carriages with small wheels may be 
 run along them with facility. In this way one horse power will be 
 able to draw as much as ten horses on a common road." It was on 
 this railroad that Peter Cooper in 1829 conducted his experiments 
 with his little engine and had his race with the gray horse, and, 
 singularly enough, Peter Parley speaks of such an animal. 
 
 In seven years after the beginning of the Baltimore and Ohio, 
 South Carolina had in operation the longest line of railroad in the 
 world under one management, the Charleston and Hamburg, 137 miles 
 in length. New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts had about 
 100 miles each. 
 
 Beginnings of Railroad Consolidation. The Mohawk and Hudson 
 (Albany and Schenectady) was opened in 1831, the Saratoga and 
 Schenectady in 1832, the Rensselaer and Saratoga in 1835. What is 
 now the New York Central had in 1836 been completed from Albany to 
 Utica, and by 1842 it reached Buffalo by a devious route. In 1851 
 the line was completed from New York to Albany and soon all the 
 different systems from New York to Buffalo were consolidated under 
 one management. By 1851 the Erie had been completed from the 
 Hudson river to Lake Erie. The Lake Shore and Michigan South- 
 ern, connecting the New York Central with Chicago, was opened in 
 1852. It is interesting to note that in New York the railroads had 
 grown up in spite of the opposition of the canals, for until 1851 
 canal tolls were levied on all freight carried from Albany to Lake 
 
134 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Erie by the railroad. It was many times seriously proposed to 
 restrict railroads to carrying passengers and prohibit them from car- 
 rying freight. 
 
 The Camdenand Amboy, connecting Philadelphia with New York, 
 was completed in 1837. It was this road that imported the English 
 locomotive from which Baldwin secured his data for the construction 
 of " Old Ironsides." 
 
 By 1841 there was a through line from Boston to Albany, which, 
 completed in 1842, was the first through road not operated simply 
 for local traffic. By this time the roads of New England began to 
 assume something like system. By the end of 1848 Boston and New 
 York were connected by the New York and New Haven, and there 
 had been constructed 5996 miles of railroad in the United States. 
 
 The Pennsylvania railroad, chartered in 1846 and begun in 1847, 
 was open for business in 1854, and by 1858 had completed a line to 
 Chicago. At the end of 1860 there were over 30,000 miles of rail- 
 road in the United States, where a generation before the locomotive 
 was known only as a curiosity. 
 
 The following table shows the date of opening of any section of 
 a steam railroad in each state : 
 
 Pennsylvania, } 
 Maryland, > 1830 
 
 New Hampshire, 1 
 Ohio, f I8 3 8 
 
 Kansas, ) R , 
 Nebraska, J I8O/ 
 
 South Carolina, ) 
 
 Connecticut, ) Q 
 
 Nevada, 1868 
 
 New York, ) 
 
 Illinois, } l8 39 
 
 Montana, ) , Q< ^ 
 
 Virginia, [1831 
 
 Mississippi, 1841 
 
 TT. i r I oOO 
 
 Utah, J 
 
 Louisiana, ) 
 
 Indiana, 1842 
 
 Colorado, 
 
 Delaware, ) 
 
 Vermont, 1848 
 
 Indian Territory, 
 
 New Jersey, J I53 * 
 
 Tennessee, ) R 
 
 Oregon, 
 
 North Carolina, 1833 
 
 Wisconsin, f I551 
 
 Wyoming, 
 
 Alabama, 1834 
 
 Missouri, 1852 
 
 North Dakota, / 
 
 District of Columbia, ) 
 
 Texas, 1854 
 
 South Dakota, J 
 
 Kentucky, > 1835 
 Massachusetts, ) 
 
 Iowa, 1855 
 California, 1856 
 
 Idaho, 1874 
 New Mexico, 1878 
 
 Florida, "1 
 
 Arkansas, 1857 
 
 Arizona, 1879 
 
 Maine, ! c s 
 Michigan, h 83 
 
 Minnesota, ) o/- 
 Washington, J " 
 
 Oklahoma, 1886 
 
 West Virginia, J 
 
 
 
 Georgia, ) R 
 
 
 
 Rhode Island, \ J 37 
 
 
 
 1870 
 1873 
 

 TRANSPORTATION. 135 
 
 Nothing can better show the rapidity with which transportation 
 systems have developed than the simple fact that engine No. 999, 
 the best that American skill could produce, exhibited at the World's 
 Fair in Chicago and honored by being assigned to the Empire State 
 Express, is now relegated to drawing local trains on a subordinate 
 road of the New York Central. 
 
 Railroad Mileage enough to Reach the Moon. In 1899 the 
 mileage of tracks in the United States had risen to 245,238.87, or 
 rather more than enough to reach to the moon and constituting more 
 than half the mileage of the world. The same year the United 
 States employed 176,726 miles to carry mail. Not so very long ago 
 relays of riders carrying the mail on horseback formed the connect- 
 ing link across the continent. The contrast must appear startling to 
 Buffalo Bill, who in his early manhood was one of the best known 
 messengers of this famous " pony express." 
 
 At the close of the century the New York Central owned or con- 
 trolled 10,410 miles of road; the Pennsylvania, .10,392 ; the Cana- 
 dian Pacific Overland, 10,018; the Southern Pacific, 9632; the 
 Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, 7880; the Union Pacific, 5584; the 
 Northern Pacific, 5489; and the Great Northern, 5201. Europe had 
 167,439 miles. The average mileage per million inhabitants was: 
 Sweden 1247, Switzerland 730, France 670, Denmark 669, Finland 
 604, Norway 57 1 * Germany 563, England 527, Turkey 154. 
 
 The art of railroad building grew so fast as to outstrip the lan- 
 guage. A manufacturer in one state ordering parts of locomotives 
 or cars from a manufacturer in another state, frequently found it 
 difficult to make himself understood because the names varied in dif- 
 ferent states, so, to obviate the difficulty, a committee of car builders 
 came together and compiled a dictionary of 560 pages with over 2000 
 illustrations. 
 
 Crude Methods of the Early Days. Some of the expedients 
 
136 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 practiced on the early railroads seem very amusing. On the Phil- 
 adelphia, Germantown and Norristown railroad, if the conductor 
 wished the train to stop he climbed a ladder to the roof of the car and 
 ran forward till he could make the engineer hear his shouts, for there 
 were no bell ropes and the steam whistle had not been invented. 
 Before the appearance of the headlight night trips were avoided as 
 far as possible. Horatio Allen, on his South Carolina railroad, ran 
 for night trips a platform car ahead of his engine, on which was a pile 
 of sand having a fire of pine knots built upon it. 
 
 Trevithick's engine required a horse to help it up grades of more 
 than 1 8 feet in a mile. In 1832 the superintendent of the Baltimore 
 and Ohio boasted that he had an engine that could draw 17 tons at a 
 speed of ten miles an hour up a grade of nearly 55 feet to the mile. 
 In 1840 the Reading railroad considered drawing 221 tons from 
 Reading to Norristown, 41 miles, in 3. hours and 41 minutes, a nota- 
 ble performance. The fears for the roadbed kept down the weight 
 of the locomotives and trains, for iron rails were hard to get and ex- 
 pensive. Mention has been made of cast iron and strap rails. The 
 first rolled rails were about three feet in length, but as the art of iron 
 making progressed they became longer, heavier, and better able to 
 bear loads. Colonel Robert L. Stevens of the Camden and Amboy 
 road improved the crude T rail by putting a flange on the bottom, 
 doing away with the chairs and giving a base that could be spiked or 
 bolted to the cross-ties. But rails were expensive. The weight 
 they would support, and their cost, limited the size of the trains and 
 influenced freight rates. 
 
 Steel Rails. With the development of the Bessemer process steel 
 rails became possible and they are now almost wholly used. The life 
 of a steel rail is now, even with its greatly increased load and use, five 
 or six times as long as the life of the wrought iron rail. The first one 
 tested on a railroad in England lasted seventeen times as long as the 
 

TRANSPORTATION. 1 37 
 
 wrought rail. Its application has been an important factor in rail- 
 road traffic, for it has reduced the expense of construction and repair, 
 and, more important yet, made possible longer and heavier trains. 
 The most powerful locomotives (see Locomotives) can now haul a 
 train of wheat a mile long. In twenty years after the adoption of 
 steel rails the New York Central traffic increased from less than 
 400,000,000 tons to more than 2,000,000,000 tons, while the average 
 rate fell from 3.09 cents per ton mile in 1866 to .76 cent in 1886. 
 The locomotive has cheapened transportation until the skilled work- 
 man of a New England factory can pay with a single day's wages for 
 hauling from the wheat fields of California to the Atlantic coast 
 enough wheat to supply himself with bread for a year. 
 
 How a Railroad is Built. A new railroad being determined 
 upon, an engineer is sent ahead to look over the ground and deter- 
 mine, roughly, the best course. This is called the " reconnaissance." 
 The reconnaissance is followed by a crew for the "preliminary 
 survey." This party consists of a chief with several aids and their 
 assistants, each to perform a definite part of the work. The first is 
 the front flagman with his axmen, who cut away intervening brush 
 and trees that obstruct the vision of the transit man. The latter 
 with his chainmen and flagmen measures the distances and takes the 
 angles of the line. After the transit man comes the leveler with 
 his rodmen and axmen. These take the levels that show the eleva- 
 tion of the road. Last is the topographer with his sketch book, 
 who makes a sketch of the road, showing the hills, the water courses, 
 their direction, and the general contour of all. These maps are 
 submitted to the chief engineer, who looks them over and indicates 
 a line which may or may not agree with the preliminary survey. 
 
 The survey parties go over the field again, stake out the new 
 line, record the levels, run the courses, and lay out the "approximate 
 location," which is presented to the engineer for his final approval. 
 
138 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 In a broken country, with rivers to be crossed, hills to be climbed, 
 and mountains to be tunneled, several surveys are frequently neces- 
 sary, but across a country offering few natural obstructions the pre- 
 liminary survey may be all that is required. Great skill and 
 judgment are demanded in determining the first location, for once 
 selected it must be adhered to or abandoned, with all the attendant 
 cost. 
 
 The line having been located land plans are drawn and the right 
 of way secured. Other plans, showing excavations to be made, 
 bridges to be built, culverts or tunnels, are made carefully, specifi- 
 cations drawn up, and the work let either to one contractor or to 
 many smaller ones, and the actual work of construction begins. At 
 this stage are brought into action steam ditchers, capable of moving 
 4000 cubic feet of earth a day, steam shovels that will dig as much 
 as five hundred men, rock drills operated by steam, compressed air, 
 or electricity, hoisting engines, cranes, pile drivers, and all that 
 modern mechanism can devise to expedite the work; for upon the 
 completion of the railroad wait settlers and trackmen, switchmen, 
 brakemen, conductors, engineers, telegraph operators, station agents, 
 and others, making up the whole army employed by a great railroad 
 system. 
 
 Some Engineering Feats. Some of the greatest feats of modern 
 engineering were those connected with the construction of railroads. 
 To avoid climbing the mountain, the St. Gothard tunnel, nine miles 
 in length, was driven through the very heart of the Alps. A canti- 
 lever bridge crosses the gorge of the Niagara river. A ravine at 
 Kinzua, Pa., half a mile wide and 300 feet deep, is spanned by a via- 
 duct 305 feet high and 2400 feet long, and the elevated railroads of 
 great cities are nothing more or less than long viaducts. The 
 demands on the constructors are in keeping with the magnitude of 
 the work. A surveyor is expected to be able to swing by a rope 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 139 
 
 over a precipice 1000 feet in height and retain his senses and nerves. 
 He must be "gifted with the strength of a drayman and the accu- 
 racy of a college professor." 
 
 " No heights seem too great, no valleys too deep, no canons too 
 forbidding, no streams too wide. If commerce demands, the engi- 
 neer will respond and the railroads will be built." 
 
 Railroad Management. In no other business enterprise is sys- 
 tematized work so necessary as in the management of a railway. 
 Not only must the labor be divided, but such a chain of responsibility 
 established that mistakes cannot often occur. If they do occur, the 
 system must immediately discover and correct them, for a mistake 
 on a railroad may mean the loss of hundreds of lives and the destruc- 
 tion of thousands of dollars worth of property. The arrangement 
 of such a system is as great a problem as any presented to a general 
 />n a field of battle. 
 
 The president of a railroad has under him, and directly respon- 
 sible to him, three men : the secretary and treasurer, the general 
 manager, and the general counsel. The secretary and the counsel 
 arrange their own staffs and conduct their business as seems best to 
 them. The greatest responsibility rests upon the general manager. 
 His army is divided into eight departments, and at the head of each 
 is placed a man directly responsible to the general manager. The 
 following are the departments with their subdivisions : 
 
 1. Comptroller. 
 
 Auditor of receipts. 
 Auditor of disbursements. 
 Traveling auditor. 
 Local treasurers. 
 Local paymasters. 
 Clerk of statistics. 
 
 2. Purchasing agent. 
 
 Local storekeepers. 
 
140 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM, 
 
 3. Superintendent of transportation. 
 
 Station agents. 
 
 Receiving clerks and laborers. 
 
 Loading clerks and laborers. 
 
 Billing clerks. 
 
 Discharging clerks and laborers. 
 
 Delivery clerks. 
 
 Collectors. 
 
 Yard master. 
 
 Yard engineers. 
 
 Switchmen. 
 
 Brakemen. 
 Train master. 
 
 Train dispatchers. 
 Operators. 
 Conductors. 
 Trainmen. 
 
 4. Division superintendents. 
 
 5. Superintendent of machinery. 
 
 Master mechanic. 
 
 Foreman of machine shop. 
 
 Engine runners and firemen. 
 
 Hostlers and cleaners 
 
 Mechanics. 
 
 Laborers. 
 Foreman of car shops. 
 
 Car inspectors. 
 
 Greasers. 
 
 Mechanics. 
 
 Laborers. 
 
 6. Superintendent of roadway. 
 
 Road master. 
 
 Supervisors of bridges. 
 Bridge foremen. 
 Watchmen. 
 Carpenter gangs. 
 Mason gangs. 
 Supervisors of road. 
 
 Section foremen. 
 Gangs and track walkers. 
 Wood and water tenders. 
 Floating gangs. 
 Construction trains. 
 
 7. Car accountant. 
 
 Lost car agents. . 
 
 

 TRANSPORTATION. 14! 
 
 8. Traffic manager. 
 
 General passenger agent. 
 
 Traveling agents. 
 
 Local agents. 
 
 Rate and division clerks. 
 Claim agent. 
 General freight agent. 
 
 Traveling agents. 
 
 Local agents. 
 
 Rate and division clerks. 
 
 RAILROADS OF CANADA.* 
 
 The railroads of England and those of Canada well illustrate 
 the extreme use of transportation. Those of England were built in 
 response to the urgent demand of an old and rich country for better 
 transportation of raw materials and finished products. Those of 
 Canada were built because they were military necessities, or so inti- 
 mately connected with the development and welfare of the country 
 as to warrant provincial and Dominion aid to the private companies 
 engaged in their construction. The first Canadian railway charter 
 was granted in 1832, and was for a line sixteen miles long reaching 
 from La Prairie, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence river op- 
 posite Montreal, to St. Johns, on the Richelieu (the outlet of Lake 
 Champlain), at that time the terminus of the water route from the 
 United States via Lake Champlain. The railway was to be the water 
 route's connecting link with the St. Lawrence river. Horses were em- 
 ployed as motive power and locomotives not used on it until 1837. 
 
 Canada was slow to take up the construction of railroads, for its 
 small population was settled almost exclusively along the routes of its 
 great waterways. Some ambitious railway schemes were later pro- 
 jected but there was little capital in the country and no immediate 
 promise of any considerable traffic, and as the Erie canal, only four 
 feet deep, had proven highly successful, great things were expected 
 of Canada's seven-foot water way from the lakes to the sea. 
 
 * From data furnished by PROF. I. G. G. KERRY of McGill University. 
 
142 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The second Canadian railway was a little coal road six miles long, 
 opened in 1835, and the first engine operating on it, the " Samp- 
 son," led the procession of locomotives at the Chicago Exposition. 
 
 The Great Era of Canadian Railways. "In 1849 ^ became 
 recognized that railways of great length were practically and politi- 
 cally necessary to the well-being of the country ; and the policy of 
 liberally subsidizing private companies for their construction was in- 
 troduced and extended, with the result that the decade of 1850 and 
 1860 became the first great era of Canadian railroad construction." 
 In 1859 the first passenger train on the Grand Trunk railway passed 
 over the Victoria Bridge, and established railway communication 
 from Sarnia at Lake Huron to Portland on the Atlantic. The enter- 
 prise had proceeded under various charters and in the face of great 
 obstacles. In 1851 a Canadian delegate sent to England to solicit 
 governmental aid failed " mainly, it is charged, through the activi- 
 ties of a powerful syndicate of English railway contractors, by 
 whom the scheme was finally floated on the London market. Many 
 scandals occurred during the floating and the construction of the 
 line, and it has never been a financial success." In 1860 the Grand 
 Trunk had in operation 2065 miles, nearly all of it within the prov- 
 ince of Ontario. In 1900 it operated a main line from Chicago to 
 Portland, Maine, 1138 miles in length, and the railroad with its 
 branches aggregated 4186 miles, about three fourths of it being in 
 Canada and one fourth in the United States. The Grand Trunk has 
 a large capitalization, upon a part of which it has never paid even 
 the interest. 
 
 One of the greatest engineering feats of its time was the con- 
 struction of the Roebling Suspension bridge, completed in 1854, 
 across the Niagara river. This was for the purpose of connecting the 
 Great Western railway, running from Windsor, on the Detroit river, 
 to the Niagara river, and connecting by means of the bridge with 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 143 
 
 the Erie and New York Central roads. This road was afterward 
 absorbed by the Grand Trunk. Railroad construction again lan- 
 guished and until after the Confederation the Grand Trunk com- 
 prised about two thirds of the railroad mileage of Canada. 
 
 The Great Canadian Pacific. When what is now the Dominion 
 of Canada was composed of separate and sometimes jealous provinces 
 it was not to be expected that a railroad system running from one to 
 the other could be developed by provincial aid, but the confedera- 
 tion of the provinces in 1867 tended to unify their interests and 
 encouraged the construction of long lines. British Columbia en- 
 tered the Confederation in 1871 upon the express condition that 
 the Canadian Pacific railroad was to be completed within ten years. 
 The construction of the road was commenced in 1875 and for some 
 years occupied the most important position in Canadian politics. It 
 was commenced as a public work but in 1880 it was transferred to a 
 private company which carried it to its completion, although it was 
 from the start recognized as a public necessity and in every financial 
 difficulty the company was aided by subsidies. Since that time 
 most Canadian railroads have been built by private companies liber- 
 ally aided by subsidies from the Provincial and Dominion govern- 
 ments. With the exception of the Trans-Siberian railroad, the 
 Canadian Pacific is the longest continuous line in the world, extend- 
 ing as it does from St. John, New Brunswick, to Vancouver, Brit- 
 ish Columbia, a distance of 3387 miles. It has an extensive system 
 of branches throughout Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia, 
 giving it in all a mileage of 6302.7. " The Canadian Pacific, due to 
 the liberal governmental aid it has received, has the lowest capitali- 
 zation per mile of any of the transcontinental lines, and may be 
 regarded as distinctively Canadian, built for national purposes, and 
 with the most promising part of Canada, the far west, dependent 
 upon it for means of existence." Many prophesied its failure as a 
 
144 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 commercial enterprise, but it is paying good dividends and it is due 
 to its activity and encouragement to settlers that a large part of the 
 Northwest has been developed. 
 
 The Intercolonial, connecting the maritime provinces with Que- 
 bec and Montreal, built chiefly for military purposes, has to support 
 a long line, some of it passing through an unprofitable country, and 
 rarely pays operating expenses. It was commenced in 1869, com- 
 pleted in 1876, and cost $21,000,000 for 499.5 miles. 
 
 The greatest railroad project now before the Canadian people 
 is the construction of the McKenzie and Mann railroads, now being 
 built, under various charters, to afford another through line from the 
 Great Lakes to the Pacific coast. It will be known as the Canadian 
 Northern railway. Portions of it between the Great Lakes and 
 Winnipeg, and for some distance beyond Winnipeg, are now under 
 way, and some of it is already open for traffic. Its general route is 
 well north of that of the Canadian Pacific main line. 
 
 " The Canadian roads generally are built and operated on Ameri- 
 can models; the engines, cars, tracks, etc., are of American types, 
 and owing to the exchange of traffic between all the great lines and 
 their American connections the freight cars are being rapidly equipped 
 with air brakes and automatic couplers." 
 
 The speed of the passenger train is not high except in special 
 cases. The most notable trains are the Grand Trunk ''International 
 Express." from Chicago to Montreal, which from Toronto to Mon- 
 treal averages 43^ miles an hour, and the Canadian Pacific and 
 Canadian Atlantic expresses from Montreal to Ottawa, averaging 
 from 45 to 48 miles an hour. 
 
 11 Freight rates vary with classification and locality, but through 
 freight rates are largely influenced by competition with American 
 lines. The Grand Trunk railway's average freight rate for the first 
 half of 1900 was .60 of a cent per ton-mile. That of the Canadian 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 145 
 
 Pacific railway for 1898 was .76 of a cent per ton-mile, its average 
 being higher on account of the higher average rate in the West. 
 The -grain rate of the Canadian Atlantic from Depot Harbor to 
 Coteau Landing is about .20 of a cent per ton-mile." 
 
 Up to June 30, 1898, $941,297,036 had been expended on Cana- 
 dian railways, of which 20 per cent, had been obtained from gov- 
 ernment and municipal aid. The following table gives the statistics 
 for the principal lines for year ending June 30, 1898 : 
 
 C. P. R. 
 
 I. C. R. 
 
 G. T. R. O. A. & P. S. Can. South. 
 
 Passengers, 
 Tons freight, 
 Receipts per mile, 
 Cost per train-mile, 
 Proportion of operating ex- 
 penses to total receipts, 
 Gross receipts, 
 
 3,327,368 
 
 1,528,444 
 
 6,041,551 
 
 104,214 
 
 522,727 
 
 5,493,3 
 
 1,434,596 
 
 8,773,322 
 
 366,884 
 
 3,869,602 
 
 $143.88 
 
 #78.83 
 
 $115.05 
 
 $80.52 
 
 $116.00 
 
 82.95 
 
 82.36 
 
 72.15 
 
 61.77 
 
 79.29 
 
 57-8% 
 
 105-3% 
 
 63-0% 
 
 77-0% 
 
 68.6% 
 
 $25,470,796 $3,117,669 $18,396,010 $479,954 $4,458,629 
 
 STATISTICS CANADIAN RAILROADS. 
 
 Year ending June 30, 1899. 
 
 Mileage built, 
 
 in operation, 
 Capital Ordinary stock, 
 
 Preferred stock, 
 
 Bonded debt, 
 
 Bonuses and government loans, 
 
 Other sources, 
 
 Total, 
 
 Operation Gross earnings, 
 
 Working expenses, 
 
 Net earnings, 
 
 Passengers (number), 
 
 Receipts per passenger, 
 
 Receipts per passenger train-mile, 
 
 Tons of freight, 
 
 Receipts per ton, 
 
 Receipts per freight train-mile, 
 
 Cost per train, mile, 
 
 17,358 
 17,250 
 
 $270,325,496 
 
 120,974,864 
 
 362,053,494 
 
 202,043,813 
 
 9,302,117 
 
 $964,699,784 
 
 62,243,784 
 40,706,217 
 21,537,567 
 
 1.24* 
 
 0.78 
 
146 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The haul is not given for either passengers or freight and rates 
 for ton-mile and passenger-mile are therefore not reducible. 
 
 Canals Capital expenditure, $76,404,279 
 
 Maintenance and operation, 15,632,242 
 
 Total receipts (total to date), 12,079,274 
 Excess of expenditure for maintenance and operation over receipts for 
 
 fiscal year, 264,271 
 
 Tonnage on Welland canals, 1,140,077 
 
 St. Lawrence canals, 1,439,134 
 
 Chambly canals, 271,336 
 
 Ottawa canals, 549.986 
 
 THE PANAMA RAILROAD. 
 
 One of the most picturesque and little known railroads of the 
 world is that crossing the Isthmus of Panama. It was constructed 
 in response to the demands for a shorter route to California than was 
 offered by the long voyage around Cape Horn. Its Atlantic terminus 
 is Colon, its Pacific terminus, Panama, the oldest city founded by 
 Europeans on the American continent. The road is supposed to 
 correspond very closely with the route of Balboa when he discovered 
 the Pacific Ocean in 1515. It is forty-eight miles in length and runs 
 northwesterly and southeasterly. Paradoxical as it may appear, the 
 traveler, leaving the Atlantic steamer, journeys southeasterly on the 
 railroad to reach the Pacific steamer, for at this point the Isthmus of 
 Panama runs nearly east and west, and Colon, the Caribbean termi- 
 nus, is west of the Pacific terminus, Panama. 
 
 This road has other peculiarities. The telegraph poles are not 
 poles, but worn-out iron rails, and the cross ties are of a wood harder 
 than some metals. " It is in a Spanish country, its stock is held by a 
 French company, its charter was granted by the State of New York, 
 it is dominated entirely by Americans, while as ordinary laborers it 
 employs British negroes almost exclusively.!' 
 
 The Cost of Tropical Railroad Building. In December, 1846, 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 147 
 
 a treaty was made between New Granada (Colombia) and the United 
 States, by which the right of transit was given to the United States, 
 and both powers guaranteed free transit across the Isthmus ''from 
 one to the other sea." The railroad company was organized in 1850 
 and the road put in operation in 1855, after losses connected with 
 engineering operation in that tropical country that are said to have 
 cost a life for every tie laid. 
 
 The, ground is deluged with rains eight months of the year, and 
 nearly all kinds of wood quickly rot. The cross ties are of lignum 
 vitae and cost $1.20 apiece; they last from twelve to twenty-five 
 years, and are thrown away not because they rot or have worn out, 
 but because there is not room in the cross section to drive another 
 spike, for the wood is so hard that a hole must be bored for the spike 
 to be driven in. As the rail bends beneath the load the tie grips the 
 spike so firmly that the head of the spike is worn or cut off; the old 
 spike cannot be pulled out and a new one has to be driven by the 
 side of it. To prevent washouts from the tropical rains the surface 
 and sides of the road are covered with concrete. There are no cat- 
 tle guards or fences along this road, and the ponies, using it for a 
 pasture ground, are a general nuisance. The greatest expense in 
 connection with the maintenance is in keeping down the weeds, for 
 with so much heat and moisture the growth of vegetation is rank. It 
 is said to cost from $40 to $50 a mile for one weed-cutting operation 
 by hand. A later method that promises success is spraying with a 
 solution of arsenic and saltpeter. It costs only about one third as 
 much as hand labor, and the increased mortality among the ponies 
 seems to promise efforts on the part of the owners to keep them off 
 the track. The officers, supervisors, roadmasters, engineers, and 
 conductors are American, as well as the terms, phrases, and methods 
 of conducting the road. 
 
 There is no road for wheeled vehicles between Panama and Colon, 
 
148 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and the railroad gets all the traffic, except such as can walk or is car- 
 ried on ponies' backs, but although it runs through a fertile country 
 bananas are the only important local freight. The United States 
 has several times landed armed forces in Panama to preserve the neu- 
 trality of the road during political disturbances characteristic of that 
 country. 
 
 Trans-Siberian Railroad. Siberia is the largest single country 
 in the world. It contains 4,925,000 square miles, has a population 
 of but 8,000,000, and is able to easily support 80,000,000. Eighty- 
 two per cent, of the population of the Russian Empire occupy but 23 
 per cent, of its available territory. It is as important for Russia as 
 for the United States and Canada to open up her government lands 
 to actual settlers. The popular conception of Siberia is a land of ice- 
 bergs inhabited by criminals. Nothing could be more erroneous. A 
 country so large that the United States might be set down within it 
 and leave nearly 2,000,000 square miles uncovered must possess wide 
 ranges of temperature, climate, and natural products. The Russian 
 Empire produces nearly half as much cotton as the United States. 
 Southern Siberia has millions of acres of fine wheat-growing land, 
 waiting for the immigrant and some means of transporting its products 
 to market. 
 
 The Wonders of Siberia. Siberia already produces one tenth 
 of the world's yield of gold, and but few mines have been working 
 and little improved machinery used. Its immense coal deposits have 
 hardly been touched One mine alone, with six beds, is estimated 
 to contain as much coal as all the deposits of England. * 
 
 The Trans-Siberian railroad deserves attention, for there is no 
 railroad in the world that h?s the peculiar economic, political, and 
 military significance that this possesses. The system that connects 
 St. Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland, with ports on the Pacific 
 
 *John C. Covert, U. S. Consul. 
 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 149 
 
 ocean, attracts by its very magnitude. The longest continuous line 
 of railroad on the American continent is that of the Canadian Pacific 
 running from Vancouver, British Columbia, to St. John, New Bruns- 
 wick, a distance of 3387 miles. The railroad crossing Siberia, 
 reaching from Cheliabinsk, the eastern terminus of the European sys- 
 tem, to Vladivostock, on the Sea of Japan, is 4717 miles in length, 
 and its branch, running through Manchuria, the Northeastern prov- 
 ince of China, to Port Arthur on the Strait of Pe-chi-li, 1273 miles 
 in length, gives with its European mileage a system 6700 miles in 
 length before any of its feeders are built. 
 
 The Siberian railroad was first proposed by an American named 
 Collins in 1857. The next year three Englishmen offered to furnish 
 capital and build the road. The Czar took all these plans under 
 consideration and filed them for future reference, for it is the gov- 
 ernment policy to employ only Russian engineers, Russian labor, 
 and Russian capital as far as possible, and this policy has been rigidly 
 adhered to. While the road is for the ultimate purpose of develop- 
 ing the natural resources of Siberia, it is its strategic value that has 
 hurried its construction. From St. Petersburg to Moscow, a distance 
 of 600 miles, there is scarcely a curve, and none that are needless. 
 On the Siberian road proper there are many strips for eighty miles or 
 more without a curve. The last rails were laid December 28, 1899, 
 giving direct communication from Vladivostock to St. Petersburg. 
 
 No other road has such mining and manufacturing prospects. 
 Its political and military significance are even more striking. It 
 affords Russia through her own territory a safe passage to the Pacific 
 coast for her troops and munitions of war. It renders futile Great 
 Britain's command of the sea for any purpose of balking designs that 
 Russia may have on China. It brings Pekin within two weeks of 
 St. Petersburg and greatly augments Russian influence there. 
 
 Magnitude of the Undertaking. "The builders of the road had 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 to make a scientific exploration of half a continent and drain swamps 
 and utilize peat bogs for fuel, lay out irrigation ditches, dig wells, 
 provide for the housing, feeding, and health of incoming settlers and 
 their animals, to erect schoolhouses, bring in agricultural papers to 
 show the immigrant how to plant, water, and raise crops fit for 
 the soil and climate, make country roads and bridges, arrange rural 
 mail facilities, and a multiplicity of othe^r things about which an 
 American railroad man has not to think." 
 
 It is not likely that the railroad will ever be a considerable carrier 
 of freight from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The schedule time of 
 the North German steamers between Bremen and Shanghai is forty- 
 six days. Their freight rates per ton to Shanghai or Port Arthur are 
 $6.25 to $8.75 ; to Yokohama, $8.75. In 1898 the rate from London 
 to Shanghai was only $5.60 per ton. This is less than the price for 
 which the Siberian railroad can afford to carry goods 7000 miles. 
 
 The road will probably do a large passenger business. The 
 present fare from London to Shanghai by water is from $330 to 
 $460, varying with the accommodations, and takes from thirty-four 
 to thirty-six days. When the railroad to Port Arthur is completed 
 the trip can be made in sixteen days at a cost of $162.80 first class, 
 or$iO2 second class. The road was built in such haste that some 
 rails weighing only twelve pounds to the foot were used, and the 
 whole has been so hastily constructed that it is estimated $8,000,000 
 or $10,000,000 will have to be expended for reconstruction. It has 
 cost from $18,025 to $25,750 a mile, and the whole cost is estimated 
 at $400,000,000. The company is a joint stock concern and the 
 government owns a controlling interest. When the line to Port 
 Arthur is finished that point will be 5819 miles from St. Petersburg, 
 6331 miles from Berlin, and 7060 miles from Paris. The Russians are 
 rapidly converting Port Arthur into an impregnable base of military 
 supplies. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 1 5 I 
 
 The Eastern Question bids fair to be the most portentous of 
 the twentieth century, and Russia is bending every energy to prepare 
 herself for the crisis. The future may hold a race struggle between 
 the Anglo-Saxon and the Slav, the greatest in all history. The 
 population of Russia in 1855 was 64,000,000; at the close of the 
 century, nearly 140,000,000. At her natural rate of increase 1950 
 will find her with 300,000,000 inhabitants, and what power will then 
 be in a position to dictate to her? 
 
 The loss of life on the Russian railroads is something fright- 
 ful. With only about one eighth the railroad mileage of the United 
 States she had in 1896 accidents resulting in 6107 deaths, to say 
 nothing of thousands of other persons crippled for life or less 
 seriously injured. 
 
 The Safest Method of Travel. " On a New Jersey railroad in 
 early days there was painted on every car door a picture of a new- 
 made grave and a large tombstone on which appeared the following 
 inscription : ' Sacred to the memory of the man who had stood on a 
 platform.' What a contrast to our modern vestibuled trains, in 
 which the platform is about as safe as any part of the car! 
 
 " In the year 1887, the number of passengers killed in train acci- 
 dents in the United States was 207; the number injured, 916. The 
 total passenger travel was equal to one passenger traveling 10,570,- 
 306,710 miles. At that average a man could travel for 194 years at 
 the rate of 30 miles an hour before he would be 'due to be killed,' 
 and almost 46 years before he would be liable to an accident. It 
 would seem that if one were seeking immunity from accident he 
 should 'take a train.' It is unquestionably safer than any other 
 way of getting over the earth's surface except walking." 
 
 Train Operating Compared with War. " While passengers on 
 a railroad train are running such small risk of accident, the men who 
 make a business of running those same trains are exposed to a risk 
 
152 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of accident that is really appalling. The Interstate Commerce Com- 
 missioners' Report for the year ending June 30, 1899, gives the 
 total number of railway employees in the United States for the year 
 as 227, 537. The god of travel does not exact much from occasional 
 worshipers but from his constant devotees he requires and receives 
 an annual sacrifice of human lives that would make any heathen god 
 turn green with envy. 
 
 " For every 155 trainmen employed during the year under consid- 
 eration, one was killed ; and for every eleven who were employed, 
 one was injured. Modern warfare is a horrible thing, but it can 
 show no such a record as this. During the same year 63,000 troops 
 were in the Philippines, of whom 1640 were killed and wounded, 
 making a casualty of 2.6 per cent. The railroad figures of 2210 
 killed and 34,923 injured, or 14.12 per cent., makes quite a startling 
 comparison. The total number who were killed or wounded in the 
 British army in South Africa up to July I, 1900, was 15,000. 
 The total number killed and wounded in thj American forces in the 
 Philippines from the time of occupation to June 2, 1900, was 
 2620. The estimated losses of the Filipino troops up to the same 
 time was 12,884. These figures are from Secretary Root's report. 
 Adding all these we have a total of 30,504. Allowing a loss of 500 
 for the Boer Army up to the same time, we have a total of 35,504. 
 Thus it is seen that the total losses of the armies engaged in the 
 two great wars in progress during the year did not equal the number 
 of lives lost and persons wounded in carrying on the business of 
 transportation for the United States for a single year."* 
 
 The most numerous accidents are those due to coupling and 
 uncoupling cars. Several states from time to time passed laws mak- 
 ing compulsory the use of automatic couplers, but these laws were 
 of little value, for they were often drawn by men not familiar with 
 
 * Army and Navy Journal. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 153 
 
 the requirements of railroading and the jurisdiction of the state was 
 limited. 
 
 It is obvious that a car which may journey from Winnipeg to the 
 city of Mexico must be fitted with such couplers that it can be used 
 with other cars from a dozen different lines on whatever road it may 
 make up part of a train. The simplest and most generally used car 
 coupler was a large iron link through which were passed coupling 
 pins. Thousands of patents have been issued for car couplers, of 
 which but few were of enough practical value to warrant considera- 
 tion. Finally a committee of the Master Car Builders' Association 
 was appointed to study the subject and recommend a coupler. They 
 recommended the "Janney," patented 1873. After a time the 
 United States passed laws requiring that roads should fit out new 
 cars with automatic couplers and providing for the gradual equip- 
 ment of others with them. Progress was slow and the government 
 extended the time limit but definitely fixed the end of the century 
 as the period when all cars must be fitted with automatic couplers. 
 
 The block signaling system, dividing a road into sections called 
 " blocks," their length depending upon the extent of their use, is 
 one of the most important safety devices in railroading. In cities 
 and switching yards the section may be only a few hundred feet 
 long; on the main line of a road it may be several miles in length. 
 At the end of each block stands a tall post with two movable arms, 
 called a "semaphore," pointing toward the track. 
 
 In ordinary practice the upper one has a square end and is 
 painted red, the lower one has a fish-tail end and is painted green. 
 The arms are continued back past the pivot and are weighted at that 
 end. In the weighted end a red or green glass, as the case may be, 
 is so placed that it can cover or uncover lanterns and display signals 
 which can be plainly seen in the dark. Each color has its special 
 significance. The word "semaphore" signifies "a sign I bear," and 
 
154 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 accurately describes the machine. The arms are usually moved by 
 compressed air mechanism, the valves of which are operated by elec- 
 tricity. In the electrical method the rails of the track are used as 
 conductors, and by them the system is made automatic, for at the 
 end of each block the rails are separated by an insulation. When a 
 car enters the " block" the electric current is short-circuited through 
 its axles and the semaphore responds and the upper or " home " arm 
 rises to a horizontal position, and remains up while the car is on that 
 block. An engineer following can know at once if there is a train 
 ahead of him on the block. On many roads it is forbidden for two 
 trains to occupy the block at one time. Other roads have a third or 
 "caution" signal which allows an engineer to go ahead at his own 
 risk. When the "home" signal is raised the lower or "distant" 
 arm is brought up. This stays up till the train has passed out of the 
 succeeding block, so the following engineer not only knows whether 
 the block immediately ahead of him is clear or not, but he also 
 knows whether the next one is occupied or not. After a train has 
 passed the two blocks, both signals drop to "safety" and the fol- 
 lowing engineer can proceed. The plan just described is the most 
 simple. Complicated lines may require many modifications or com- 
 binations of it. 
 
 A speed of seventy-five miles an hour means moving one hundred 
 and ten feet in a second. A moderately heavy passenger train 
 weighs 300 tons, and such trains frequently attain a speed of seventy- 
 five miles an hour for short distances. Few realize the enormous 
 energy represented by a moving passenger train. When the rela- 
 tively light rails and fastenings which carry this train and the many 
 curves and inequalities of the track which it must traverse are con- 
 sidered the wonder grows that accidents are not more frequent. It is 
 not due to chance that there are so few of them, for many of the 
 brightest minds of the world are continually at work to make railroad 
 travel safer. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 155 
 
 Locomotive Brakes. The chief appliance upon which the safety 
 of the train depends is its brakes ; all others, to a greater or less ex- 
 tent, tell the engineer when to shut off steam or use the brakes. 
 With few exceptions safety is synonymous with stopping quickly and 
 easily at the right moment. The first brake not operated by hand 
 power was patented by Robert Stephenson in 1833. It was a steam 
 driver brake, simple and effective. The brake shoes were placed be- 
 low center and between the driving wheels of the engine, connected 
 by a toggle joint which made connection with an ordinary steam 
 cylinder. When it was desired to apply the brakes, steam was 
 admitted to the cylinder, and the toggle joint was straightened and 
 the brake shoes forced against the wheels. Although the best of 
 modern brakes are constructed upon this principle, Stephenson made 
 but little use of it. 
 
 Early Brakes. Then came a class of brakes the plan of which 
 was to raise the car off its wheels and cause it to slide along on a set 
 of runners that were substituted for the wheels when it was desired 
 to stop the train, but this plan did not long survive for obvious rea- 
 sons. The ordinary hand power brakes were introduced. These 
 act by winding a chain around a staff, and then multiplying the 
 power by a compound system of levers before it is applied to the 
 brake shoes. This has been a very useful system, but as the work 
 can be done better and more cheaply by machine than by hand it is 
 disappearing. Other forms of brakes were those operated by 
 hydraulic power, and those which used the momentum of the train 
 to wind a chain on the car axles and make the car furnish the power 
 to stop itself. In another the chain was wound around a friction 
 wheel which was drawn into contact with the car axle by an electro- 
 magnet at the moment when the brakes were to be applied. This 
 had the advantage of applying the brake at every point at the same 
 instant and thus all bunching of the cars or straining of the coup- 
 
156 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 lings was avoided. Improved air brakes require about two seconds to 
 apply the brakes at the rear end of a long train, but this slight delay 
 has not proved serious. Brakes to be most effective must be under 
 the instant control of the person who will first see the danger and 
 the need of applying them, That person is the engineer and he can 
 apply the air brake almost at once to every wheel of every car of 
 the train. The air brake is the only one with which this is possible. 
 Of the different air brakes the Westinghouse is most generally 
 used. 
 
 Westinghouse Air Brake. The first air brakes made their ap- 
 pearance about 1868, but, as usual with new appliances, were faulty. 
 To George Westinghouse, who began his experiments in 1869 and 
 took out his first patent in 1872, more than to any other man, is due 
 the credit for the automatic brake that can stop an ordinary freight 
 train within its own length and bring an express train flying sixty 
 miles an hour quickly and easily to a standstill within less than a 
 thousand feet. 
 
 Essential Parts. Underneath nearly every passenger coach can 
 be seen two cylindrical tanks. These are reservoirs holding com- 
 pressed air. Each reservoir connects with a cylinder having a piston 
 at each end. The pistons are attached to levers connecting with 
 brake shoes, or curved pieces of metal, applied to the face of the car 
 wheels to retard their motion. A pipe, called a train pipe, for the 
 conveyance of compressed air, runs from the engine to every car 
 equipped with the air brake. The connections between each car are 
 made with a flexible hose having coupling joints. The first West- 
 inghouse brakes were of the "straight air" variety; that is, the 
 compressed air was stored in a cylinder in the engine, and when ap- 
 plied through the train pipe set the brake shoes on each car. By 
 this means the brakes could be applied by the engineer as forcibly as 
 he chose, a desirable feature, but in case of a train breaking in two 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 157 
 
 the brakes would be useless when they were most needed. Again 
 the urgent need brought forth the remedy, and the automatic brake 
 with the triple valve was devised. 
 
 Modern Brake and its Operation. As now operated, compressed 
 air is stored in the reservoir of each car by means of a steam pump 
 located in the engine. In usual service the pressure in the reservoir 
 of the car is about 70 pounds, and in the reservoir in the cab, about 
 100 pounds. Under the engineer's left hand lies a lever controlling 
 the air brake mechanism. The brake is almost a mechanical para- 
 dox, for it supplies its force when it lets go and releases its grip when 
 it exerts most power. If the engineer wishes to apply the brakes he 
 moves the lever and cuts off the reservoir in the cab from the train 
 pipe. The pipe being relieved of the 100 pounds pressure from the 
 engine, the 70 pounds pressure in the reservoir under each car is free 
 to act. This it does by forcing out the pistons in each cylinder, 
 which are attached to the long levers that move the brake shoes, and 
 the brakes are applied throughout the train. To release the brakes 
 the engineer moves the lever and connects the reservoir in the engine 
 with its 100 pounds pressure with the train pipe. This overbalances 
 the pressure in the reservoir of the car, the pistons are forced back, 
 and the brakes released. It is obvious that an accident to the train 
 pipe which relieves it from the pressure in the engine will allow the 
 brakes to act automatically. 
 
 The interlocking switch and signal system is so efficient that it 
 is now in use on nearly every important railroad of the world. A 
 railroad yard is a labyrinth of tracks and switches. If it were left to 
 anyone to operate the switches as he had occasion to use a track, 
 confusion would run riot and innumerable accidents occur. The 
 combinations that can be made by even a limited number of switches 
 are so many and so intricate as to rival a Chinese puzzle. The clear- 
 est headed man is liable to muddle if he is hurried. Fortunately, 
 
158 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the system can be reduced to mathematical combinations and these 
 worked out by machinery. For example, take a main line and a 
 branch line running from it, the junction being made by a switch 
 (facing point) where the inside rail narrows down to a point and con- 
 nects with the outside branch rail similarly narrowed. By sliding 
 the point rails a few inches one side or the other across the track 
 bed, the line can be changed from main to branch or vice versa. To 
 prevent the switch from moving under the weight of the train and 
 perhaps causing disaster, the switch is locked in its proper position. 
 Before the switch can be changed from one position to another it 
 must be unlocked, and to do this the guard rail must be raised above 
 the level of the track. This cannot be done while the switch is held 
 down by the weight of a train. The switches and semaphore signals 
 are moved by sets of levers in a tower built beside the track where it 
 will afford a good view. The signal man within the tower operates 
 the system by means of the levers. Suppose the track to be pre- 
 pared for a train to pass on the main line. The switch is first un- 
 locked by reversing the position of a lever, which we will call lever 
 3 and which then allows lever 4 to turn the switch to the main 
 line. If the signal man then tries to set the signals that the main 
 line is clear, he finds that lever 2, which should work the "home" 
 signal, will not move. The reasdn is that the switch has not been 
 locked. So he puts lever 3 back in its normal position and thereby 
 drops the guard rail and locks the switch. He can then move lever 
 2 and se't the semaphore signal at "safety." The semaphore will 
 always drop to " danger" unless held to some other position. Thus 
 any break in the signal mechanism could only delay traffic, and not 
 endanger the train. There is still another semaphore, perhaps half 
 a mile down the track, which shows the engineer the condition of the 
 switch ahead of him. It is yet hanging at danger, and at its sight 
 the engineer would stop. Lever I now sets this at safety. If the 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 159 
 
 signalman had tried to move it to safety before he had set lever 2, 
 or the home semaphore, it would not have moved. As it is, the 
 switch is locked in position and all the signals are at safety and the 
 train passes on the main line. Suppose another train following it is 
 to pass on to the branch. If the signalman tries to move the switch 
 to the branch line by lever 4, he finds it has been locked by lever 3. 
 Lever 3 has been locked by lever 2, and that in turn by lever I. So 
 he places lever I at normal. This sets the distant semaphore at 
 "danger" and releases lever 2, which he then returns to normal, 
 setting the home semaphore at "danger "and unlocking lever 3. 
 Then by pulling lever 3 back he unlocks the switch and turns it by 
 the aid of lever 4. Then the switch is locked by lever 3, and signals 
 2 and i set in turn at " safety." The example given is the simplest 
 possible and has only four levers. Such is the working of the inter- 
 locking switch and signal system, which makes it absolutely impossi- 
 ble to make an improper combination of the switches and signals. 
 All that a drunken or careless signalman can do is to delay traffic, 
 for the signals will invariably stop at danger till he has set the 
 proper combination and established a clear track. What a maze 
 must be the switch tower of the London bridge, where there are 
 nearly 300 levers! Without the interlocking system no human mind 
 could successfully operate so many switches and signals. 
 
 Where the tower controls a short section the switches and sema- 
 phores are operated by the direct leverage from the tower levers. In 
 most cases the distance is so great that compressed air at each switch 
 and signal is led into a cylinder, where it acts upon a piston. The 
 valve which controls the air is operated by a lever in the tower. 
 The inventive genius of Westinghouse changed the signal tower from 
 a clumsy array of great levers to a delicate instrument. The valves 
 which control the switches and signals are connected with the tower 
 by pipes filled with a liquid that will not freeze. Compressed air is 
 
l6o THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 elastic, and there is lost motion and lost time. The liquid transmits 
 the impulse instantaneously to the chamber filled with compressed 
 air. In the old style all the work was done by the signalman's 
 strong right arm, if that was powerful enough, and it sometimes was 
 not. The levers of the new system can be moved by a finger's 
 weight, providing they are moved in the proper order. But the 
 interlocking is just as perfect, and it is impossible to move a lever at 
 the wrong time. Mr. Westinghouse has further placed in front of 
 the signalman's eyes a model on which every switch and signal 
 under his control is plainly shown. By means of an electric device, 
 the movement of any switch or signal is immediately reproduced on 
 the model. By its help the signalman, without even looking out 
 of the window, can tell whether his switches and signals are working 
 all right. 
 
 On many railroads an additional safeguard is employed to pre- 
 vent an engineer from running past a danger signal. Sometimes the 
 weather is foggy and sometimes the engineer relaxes his vigilance for 
 an instant. Either may mean a wreck. So there is placed beside 
 the track at each signal a machine which slides a torpedo out on the 
 rail when the line is not clear. If the engineer runs past the danger 
 signal the torpedo explodes and its noise warns him. But his dan- 
 ger isn't over when he has obeyed the torpedo. If he cannot give a 
 good reason why he ran past the danger signal, he is suspended for 
 the first offense and discharged for the second. Such discipline has 
 a tendency to inculcate a deeply rooted respect for danger signals. 
 The precautions taken at railroad crossings are familiar to all. Grade 
 crossings are gradually becoming obsolete. In the cities they make 
 the operation of the railroad more expensive, for they require the 
 attendance of a signalman, force the trains to run slower, and delay 
 traffic. 
 
 The closed vestibule, which allows safe passage from one car to 
 
TRANSPORTATION. l6l 
 
 another, may be called a safety device. It has practical efficiency in 
 other ways, for it strengthens the car and reduces air resistance. 
 Two or more tracks, on each of which all the trains are moving in 
 one direction, also conduces to simplicity of operation, and so to less 
 expense, increased traffic, and added safety. 
 
 Steam heating and electric lighting have banished the old-time 
 stove and the oil lamp, and with them disappeared the horror of the 
 
 burning wreck. 
 
 TUNNELS. 
 
 The longest tunnel in the world affording passage for a railroad is 
 that of St. Gothard, which pierces the heart of the Alps. It is nine 
 and one quarter miles in length, twenty-six 
 feet wide, and twenty-one and one half feet 
 high. It cost $i i, 175,000, or about $229 per 
 foot in length, consumed nine years of con- 
 tinuous labor in building, and is one of the 
 greatest feats of engineering of any age. The 
 tunnel under the pass was begun in 1872, and gr GQTHARD 
 in 1 88 1 the first locomotive passed through. 
 
 Wonders of the St. Gothard. The approaches to the tunnel 
 are more wonderful than the tunnel proper. Between Erstfeld and 
 Biasca there are fifty-six miles of railroad, nineteen miles of which is 
 tunnel. This distance is divided between twenty-one tunnels on the 
 Swiss side and twelve on the Italian side. The mountains are so 
 steep that to get the trains up to the tunnel level a most novel 
 method was resorted to. Four of the approach tunnels on each 
 side are in the form of spirals, for when it became impossible 
 to proceed on the upward path by building the road in a groove 
 cut out of the face of the cliff, the engineers plunged into the face 
 of the mountain and made a tunnel which described a complete 
 circle within the heart of the mountain and emerged high above the 
 
l62 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 point where it entered. There are four such loops on each side of 
 the pass before the level of the great tunnel is reached. During the 
 course of its construction 4000 men were constantly employed. Im- 
 provements in rock drills and compressed air machinery lightened 
 their labors and enabled them to progress at a speed never before 
 reached in tunnel construction. Ventilation was improved by carry- 
 ing the air into the tunnel in great pipes and 
 liberating it near where the men were at 
 work. When it is understood that without 
 some such plan there is no circulation of 
 air in a tunnel, and that the temperature is 
 frequently far above 100 degrees Fahrenheit 
 in the deeper tunnels, it can be seen what a 
 boon this was to the men. Dynamite was 
 
 ON THE ST. GOTHARD , , 
 
 RAILWAY perfected and superseded gunpowder as a 
 
 blasting agent, and the rate at which the 
 
 tunnel could be built increased from month to month as the newer 
 inventions were made and came into use. Work was begun at each 
 end, and when the two ends met in the heart of the mountain only 
 thirteen inches difference was found in the direction of the approach 
 and only two inches in the level, a remarkable tribute to engineering 
 skill. 
 
 The St. Gothard tunnel is wholly within Swiss territory, but the 
 project was considered so important and of so much advantage to 
 Northern Italy and southern and southwestern Germany that in 1869 
 a treaty was concluded between Italy, Germany, and Switzerland by 
 which they agreed to become partners in its construction. Italy 
 contributed 45,000,000 francs, the others 20,000,000 francs each. 
 The chief difficulty was the large quantity of water encountered, 
 but such improvement had been made in machinery that although 
 the St. Gothard tunnel was begun only a year after the Mt. Cenis 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 1 63 
 
 tunnel was completed, progress was made at the rate of 14.6 feet 
 per day for the former to 8 feet per day for the latter. 
 
 Tunneling under Simplon Pass. Monsieur Brandt of the St. 
 Gothard tunnel signed a contract with the Jura-Simplon Railroad 
 Company for the construction of two tunnels under the Simplon 
 pass, and guaranteed the completion of the main tunnel within five 
 and one half years. The tunnel must be completed by May 13, 
 1904. If not, the contractors are liable to a fine of $1000 a day. 
 If completed before that date they are to receive a premium of $1000 
 a day. At the close of 1899, 9653 feet of tunnel had been made. 
 A series of ten holes is bored in the face of the tunnel and a blast 
 put in and exploded. "Strange to say, no sound of the explosion 
 is heard a thousand yards away from the working point, and yet the 
 air pressure at that distance is such as to cause pain in the ears." 
 At the instant the charge is exploded in the bore holes a huge air gun 
 300 feet long, with a caliber of six and one half inches, charged with 
 compressed air at 1500 pounds pressure, dashes 900 gallons of water 
 against the falling rock and washes it away from the face of the tunnel. 
 
 When completed, this tunnel, connecting the valley of the Upper 
 Rhone in Switzerland with that of the Diveria in Italy, will be 
 about twelve and one fourth miles in length and the longest railroad 
 tunnel in the world. Instead of one tunnel there will be two small 
 ones about fifty-eight feet apart running in parallel lines. The plans 
 have been carefully studied, new machinery and new methods in- 
 troduced and the work is progressing satisfactorily. 
 
 The Mont Cenis Tunnel was constructed to afford railway com- 
 munication between France and Italy. It was begun in 1857, and 
 opened for traffic in 1871. It is seven and one half miles long and 
 extends for the most of the way through solid rock. The tunnel 
 was begun by hand drills, but rock drills operated by compressed air 
 created a new epoch in mining operations and made it possible to 
 
164 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 progress three times as fast. As completed the tunnel is wide 
 enough for a double track railroad. 
 
 The Arlberg Tunnel, piercing a branch of the Alps in Tyrol, a 
 province of Austria-Hungary, was begun in 1880, opened in 1884, 
 is six and one half miles in length and occupied three years and nine 
 months in construction. Improvements in tunneling machinery 
 enabled the work to go forward at the rate of 27.8 feet per day. 
 About 1,760,000 pounds of dynamite were employed for blasting 
 purposes. The contractor finished the tunnel 420 days ahead of his 
 time limit, thereby winning a bounty of about $168,000. The tunnel 
 cost about $154 per foot. 
 
 The first railroad tunnel in America was the Alleghany Portage, 
 running through a spur in the Alleghany mountains. It was 901 
 feet long; was begun in 1831 an'd completed in 1833. 
 
 The longest railroad tunnel in America is the Hoosac, on the 
 line of the Fitchburg railroad, passing through the Hoosac moun- 
 tains in the western part of Massachusetts. It was begun in 1854, 
 although for some years but slow progress was made, due to financial 
 difficulties and the lack of machinery. The Hoosac tunnel passes 
 under two mountains with a valley between. The bottom of the 
 valley is about 1000 feet above the top of the tunnel, and in this 
 valley a shaft was sunk to the proposed depth and work begun in 
 both directions, four stretches of tunnel being in progress at once. 
 Its total cost was about $11,000,000. 
 
 The Cascade tunnel, on the Northern Pacific railway, begun in 
 1886, was completed in twenty-two months at a cost of $118 per 
 foot. The tunnel is 9850 feet long and i6*4 feet by 22 feet in sec- 
 tion. The machinery, fuel, and supplies were hauled over 100 miles, 
 to a height of 3970 feet, on roads made by the contractor through 
 hitherto untraveled country. Bridges were built, streams dammed 
 to give the necessary water power, and the whole built in the midst 
 of a wilderness. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 165 
 
 The tunnel for the Great Western railway of England, under the 
 Severn, is four and one half miles in length and was commenced in 
 1873. An almost uncontrollable inpouring of water was encoun- 
 tered, twice causing the work to be suspended, but the tunnel was 
 finally completed and the first train passed through in 1886. 
 
 The Mersey tunnel, connecting Liverpool and Birkenhead, was 
 begun in 1881 and completed in 1886. St. Gothard was a triumph 
 of surveying, but the Mersey tunnel was a marvel. It is 23,615 feet 
 in length, and, when the two ends met under the river, their lateral 
 deviation was less than one inch, and the difference in level was just 
 i-ioo of a foot. 
 
 At Sarnia, Ontario, there is a tunnel 6050 feet in length under 
 the St. Clair river through which the Grand Trunk trains dash in a 
 trifle over one minute. 
 
 Constructing a tunnel in solid rock means simply the blasting of 
 a passage through it, but when the passage extends through such 
 materials as - clay, silt, gravel, sand, or any strata bearing water, 
 means must be taken to prevent caving in before the passageway can 
 be arched and protected. In the construction of the St. Gothard 
 tunnel, the arches lining it were twice crushed and were finally made 
 of cut granite blocks, five feet thick at the top and ten feet at the 
 sides. 
 
 In 1825, Brunell, the famous British engineer, began the con- 
 struction of a tunnel under the Thames, near the site of Trevithick's 
 attempt, two miles below London Bridge. Soon the inpouring mud 
 and sand proved too much for the existing methods of engineering. 
 Brunell then devised a shield protecting the whole face of the tunnel 
 and containing the rude germ which Beach of New York and Great- 
 head of England have improved upon and made the tunneling shield 
 of to-day. 
 
 The Greathead Tunnel Shield. In 1869 the Tower subway 
 
l66 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 under the Thames was lined with cast-iron plates. These have since 
 come into pretty general use for tunnels and subways. In 1889 Mr. 
 J. H. Greathead completed a tunnel under the Thames for the South 
 London railway, and the improvements he made in the shield and 
 the methods he employed are now widely used wherever the strata 
 to be penetrated are of the same character. Instead of lining his 
 tunnel with brickwork, or cut stone, he employed huge cast-iron 
 rings, and surrounded them with a layer of concrete. Where the 
 conditions and the magnitude of the operation warrant the expense 
 of the Greathead system it is carried on about as follows : Starting 
 on the site where a future station is to be located, a shaft is sunk 
 to the level of the proposed tunnel, and solidly walled with brick 
 and cement. Then the tunnel is started from the shaft in opposite 
 directions. As soon as work is enough advanced to make room for 
 it, the " shield" is introduced. The shield is a great tube of steel 
 of the shape of the finished tunnel, and a little greater in its diame- 
 ter than the diameter of the cast-iron rings with which the tunnel is 
 to be lined. It is open at both ends, and the front end has its edges 
 sharpened to a cutting edge. It is long enough to afford room for 
 two or three of the rings twenty inches wide, and the diggers or 
 "muckers" who work at the face of the tunnel. As the tunnel is 
 not circular, but slightly oval, the rings can be carried through the 
 completed portion of the tunnel by turning them so their smallest 
 diameter will coincide with the greatest diameter of the tunnel. 
 Brought to the right place and given a quarter turn, they fit exactly 
 into their final position. Inside the shield are eight projections. 
 Against them rest the heads of eight hydraulic presses, whose bases 
 butt against the flange of the last ring. Pressure applied by these 
 presses forces the shield forward the length of one ring, or twenty 
 inches. The diggers remove the earth thus cut loose. Another 
 ring is passed forward and put in place. Thus the work goes on, 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 167 
 
 without danger of a cave-in. Each ring has a flange three inches 
 wide pointing inward. A tarred rope is placed between them and 
 the flanges bolted together, making a tight joint. At the top, 
 bottom, and sides of each ring are small holes. Grout, made of 
 Roman cement, is forced, under a pressure of thirty pounds to the 
 square inch, through the bottom hole until it appears at the side 
 holes. It is then forced through the top hole till no more can enter. 
 Thus the space outside the rings is filled with what becomes as hard 
 as stone. The cement protects the rings and prevents water from 
 entering. It also stiffens the rings, and does away with vibration 
 and much noise that at first rendered subways objectionable. Only 
 20 inches are exposed without a rigid support, and this only while 
 the shield is forced ahead one ring length, the ring placed in position 
 and the grout introduced. Greathead's tunnel passed under the pier of 
 the Southwestern railway's Thames Bridge. The directors tried to 
 stop the tunnel for fear it would injure the foundation of the bridge. 
 When they made their demand they learned, much to their surprise, 
 that the tunnel had passed their foundation and a half a mile beyond. 
 They withdrew their objection. 
 
 If water, quicksand, or mud is encountered, and danger is an- 
 ticipated, doors are built in the rear of the shield through which 
 the workmen can escape in an emergency, and close the doors be- 
 hind them. Partitions are built in the tunnel back of the shield and 
 compressed air pumped in. This helps to hold the water back and 
 prevents caving. The cutting end of the shield is sometimes partly 
 closed to prevent the ingress of earth faster than it can be handled. 
 
 When conditions are such as to require the use of compressed air 
 some method is necessary to remove the earth without decreasing the 
 pressure. Sometimes there is a second compressed air chamber, 
 back of the forward one, into which the dust is first thrown and from 
 there shoveled to the tunnel proper. 
 
168 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 A tunnel passing beneath the Thames came so close to the water 
 that it was feared the air pressure within would burst through the 
 thin layer of earth and the tunnel be flooded. To overcome this, 
 clay was dumped into the bed of the river over the course of the 
 tunnel. This gave sufficient weight to resist the air pressure, helped 
 to keep out the water, and was afterward dredged out when the 
 tunnel was completed. 
 
 Sometimes in city work, tunnels pass near foundations of build- 
 ings or under streets and the shield method would be too expensive 
 to use. Steel plates ( u needles ") tongued and grooved like matched 
 boards are used. These are forced ahead in the direction of the 
 tunnel and the earth underneath removed for a portion of their 
 length. The iron lining of the tunnel is placed in position behind 
 the " needles " and the space filled with concrete. As fast as re- 
 quired the needles are forced ahead by jackscrews or hydraulic 
 presses, exerting a force of perhaps 3000 pounds; quite sufficient to 
 drive out of the way any small-sized bowlder they might encounter. 
 This method is cheaper than using a shield. 
 
 RAPID TRANSIT. 
 
 One solution of the crowded tenement house problem is to 
 enable people to live where there is more room and to go to and 
 from their work quickly and cheaply. When the street car com- 
 panies proposed an electric conduit system in Boston, a committee 
 of eminent citizens opposed more rapid transit facilities. They 
 argued it was better and healthier to walk than to ride. The person 
 whose time is money does not take that view of rapid transit. 
 ' 'Rapid transit" is of recent origin. The lack of it in early cities 
 kept shops small, and each shopkeeper lived in his shop. Those 
 engaged in manufacturing lived in their small factories. These, from 
 the nature of the conditions, were small and always worked at a 
 

 TRANSPORTATION. 169 
 
 great waste. The co-operative plan was not possible owing to the 
 restricted transportation facilities both for men and for goods. Such 
 conditions render a large city almost unendurable. In early times 
 people recognized this and walled their cities with the double purpose 
 of protection and of limiting their further growth. The literature 
 of the Middle Ages constantly laments the tendency of mankind to 
 crowd into cities. Sir Christopher Wren, the famous architect, in 
 making a new plan for London after its great fire, proposed to check 
 its growth by arranging the graveyards in a ring around the city. It 
 was urged in Parliament that a new bridge across the Thames would 
 cause so many people to come to London that they could not be 
 fed. 
 
 In a modern city a different problem presents itself. In one part 
 is found the financial center; in another the manufacturing industries 
 are centered ; in a third are located the wholesale houses, while in a 
 fourth are grouped the retail stores ; last of all are the residences of 
 the people daily employed in these various parts of the city. If the 
 people had to walk to and from their places of employment as in 
 former times, they would do. nothing but walk, for the modern city 
 covers an area never dreamed of two centuries ago. The life of a 
 great city depends upon its rapid transit facilities. Cabs and omni- 
 buses answer for a time ; horse cars double the available area of a 
 city ; cable and electric cars a little more than quadruple it. Still 
 the cry is for ampler and swifter means of transportation. This is 
 the problem the engineers of to-day are facing. The traffic on the 
 street railroads of large cities is enormous, and the better the facili- 
 ties the more strenuous are the demands for improvement. 
 
 Growth of Rapid Transit. Prior to 1830 nearly all the business 
 of New York city was transacted below Canal street and nearly all 
 the residences were below I4th street. In 1831 John Stephenson 
 put in operation the first street car drawn by horses. " A track of 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 M* 
 
 NORKISTOWN JiAlL-ROAl}' 
 
 Locomotive R*ji,ie, (built. 
 
 plate iron bars spiked to timbers resting on stone blocks was laid on 
 the Bowery and Fourth avenue, on Prince street to the Harlem 
 river." The project was not a success and was abandoned to be re- 
 sumed in 1845. Horse car lines appeared in Boston in 1856, in 
 Philadelphia in 1857, in New Orleans in 1861. A line was con- 
 
 ___ ______ structed in France in 
 
 *-iiun*.~^^ M l85Ij and it was not 
 
 until 1870 that they 
 were allowed in Lon- 
 don. The horse car 
 extended the area of 
 New York northward, 
 while the ferry boats 
 built up Brooklyn and 
 Jersey City. Surface 
 lines were followed in 
 1878 by elevated lines 
 operated by steam, but 
 they were inadequate 
 to meet the demands 
 and more were built, 
 every available 
 
 tj at the 
 
 FIRST RAILROAD ADVERTISEMENT IN AMERICA. 
 TIME-TABLE OF THE PHILADELPHIA, GERMANTOWN AND 
 
 NORKISTOWN RAILROAD IN 1832. until 
 
 street was utilized. In 1900 electricity as a motive power was sub- 
 stituted for steam on the elevated railroads of New York. Now 
 there is in progress a monster subway, and in a few years even this 
 will probably be insufficient. 
 
 Cable Roads. In 1873 Andrew Halidie built in San Francisco 
 the first " cable road." Power was furnished by a stationary steam 
 engine revolving a band wheel around which was passed a long end- 
 less wire cable. The cable was carried on pulleys in a channel (con- 
 duit) underneath the roadbed. The conduit was covered by iron 
 
TRANSPORTATION. I /I 
 
 plates separated by a narrow slot running the length of the street. 
 Flat bars passed down from the cars through the slot to the cable 
 and they were enabled to grasp or release by means of " grips." 
 The cable being set in motion and the grip applied the car was 
 dragged along. When the grips were released the car could be 
 easily stopped by an ordinary brake. The cable system was used 
 in Chicago in 1881, on the Brooklyn bridge in 1883, in London in 
 1884. 
 
 American vs. European System. By the American system a 
 man can ride from the crowded part of the city to his home in the 
 suburbs for five cents. In European cities the charge is made in 
 proportion to the number of miles traveled, and the same trip would 
 cost more than twice as much. The cost becomes so great for the 
 laborer as to make his living in the suburbs an impossibility. 
 
 In Berlin in 1885 there were but 2820 private houses. Of the 
 population of 1,122,000, 900,000 lived in tenements; 478,000 of 
 these lived in houses of one room that could be heated; 302,000 in 
 houses of two rooms; and 101,000 in cellar and underground tene- 
 ments. The wages earned were not enough to enable them to live 
 at more than a walking distance from their places of employment. 
 This condition of affairs is well contrasted with Somerville, a suburb 
 of Boston. In this city there are about 7000 houses and the popu- 
 lation averages only about 5.9 persons per house, or about the same 
 as in well settled country districts. These people live in a comforta- 
 ble town only five miles, or one half hour's time, from their work 
 in Boston. The necessary trip costs only ten cents per day. All 
 the benefits of a healthful home, and the comforts of a suburban 
 residence, are made possible to every wage earner, and the cost is 
 actually less than would be his share of the municipal burden if he 
 were to live in the center of the great city. 
 
 Political Significance. All this has been made possible for him 
 
I/ 2 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 by, as Emerson has it, " paving the roads with iron bars." "The 
 dangers to our republican form of government arise largely from the 
 overcrowding of people in the great cities, reducing the minimum of 
 intelligence, making slaves of the wage earners, and rendering easy 
 the control of votes for corrupt purposes. With the. scattering of 
 industries under the highest development of rapid transit, the condi- 
 tions prevailing in the great cities may be so modified as to rapidly 
 advance the higher ideals of government. The necessity for the 
 concentration of people behind fortified walls gave to Europe its 
 feudal system." * 
 
 ELECTRIC RAILWAYS. 
 
 As might be expected, there are many claimants for the honor of 
 first applying electrical energy for traction purposes. Thomas 
 
 Davenport of Brandon, Vt., in 1835 
 made a model electric car and exhib- 
 ited it on a circular track. Daven- 
 port's model carried the battery that 
 supplied the electrical energy for use 
 
 in its electric motor. 
 RETIRED FROM 
 
 BUSINESS. ^ n I 39 Robert Davidson, a 
 
 Scotchman, moved a railway car six- 
 teen feet long, weighing six tons, at the rate of four miles an hour. 
 In 1851 Professor Page of the Smithsonian Institution exhibited an 
 electric locomotive and drew a light train on the Baltimore and 
 Washington railway at the rate of nineteen miles an hour. All these 
 motors derived their power from voltaic batteries, which were ex- 
 pensive. However, the possibility was proved and the principle 
 awaited the cheapening of electric power. 
 
 It came with the invention of the dynamo, and the steam engine, 
 the dynamo and the electric motor formed a magic circle. The steam 
 
 * John Brisben Walker. 
 

 TRANSPORTATION. 173 
 
 engine develops the mechanical power, which the dynamo takes and 
 turns into electrical energy; the electric motor takes the energy 
 furnished by the dynamo and turns it back into mechanical power. 
 A dynamo cannot create energy ; it can only change the form of 
 that furnished it by the steam engine. 
 
 Accidental Discovery.. It has been said that the electric motor 
 owes much to an accident. At the Vienna Exposition in 1873 a 
 workman was making the connection for some Gramme dynamos. 
 By mistake he connected one to a dynamo in operation. To his 
 great surprise the dynamo he connected began to revolve in the 
 opposite direction and the discovery was made that the motor and 
 the dynamo were practically identical in structure. From that time 
 numerous experiments were made in Europe and America by the 
 ablest inventors of the times. 
 
 First American Line. Siemens and Halske of Berlin are usually 
 credited with having produced in 1881 the first financially successful 
 electric street railway. In 1888 a complete electric road was oper- 
 ated in Richmond, Va. The new method gave such good service 
 that according to Mulhall there were in the United States and Can- 
 ada in 1890 about 645 miles of street railway operated by electricity. 
 At the close of the century it was estimated that there were nearly 
 20,000 miles, employing 200,000 men. 
 
 Electricity has the following advantages as a motive power for 
 rapid transit : 
 
 Power can be produced cheaper at a stationary plant than in a 
 locomotive. Mechanically stoked boilers can dispense with the fire- 
 men and burn, economically, slack coal unfit for use in a locomotive 
 furnace. The best stationary plants can produce a horse-power-hour 
 on about a pound of good coal. Large compound condensing en- 
 gines can produce power without increasing the waste proportionately. 
 With the relatively smaller force of firemen and engineers in the sta- 
 tionary plant the cost is less for labor. 
 
1/4 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The repair bill of a stationary plant is less than for locomotives 
 subject to all the accidents and rough usage of the road. 
 
 The "adhesion" of wheel to rail is much greater in the electric- 
 ally driven car system, because the weight of the whole train is dis- 
 tributed over the axles to which the power is applied, and they do 
 not turn as " dead" wheels, as they do in an ordinary railroad train. 
 The current connecting wheel and rail seems also to increase the 
 adhesion. 
 
 The power can be applied to all the wheels, and the adhesion of 
 all the wheels can be used to apply propulsive power. 
 
 With the electric system there is absolute freedom from smoke 
 and cinders. 
 
 All the parts of the electric motor move continuously in one 
 direction. This is the ideal condition in all machines. The recipro- 
 cating parts of a locomotive must at every stroke be brought to a 
 dead standstill and then started in the opposite direction. 
 
 The storage battery, which stores up surplus power when it is not 
 needed and gives it out when it is needed, has greatly cheapened the 
 cost of operating electric railways. 
 
 Patronized by Hundreds of Millions. It is estimated that in 
 New York city there is a daily passenger fare equal to 1,643,000 per- 
 sons, or a yearly movement of about 600,000,000, and over one half 
 of these come and go from the comparatively small area .below Canal 
 street. 
 
 In 1898 the total passenger movement in the city of Paris was 
 288,582,000, and in 1889, the year of the previous Exposition, it 
 was 340,000,000. In 1890 the passenger movement in London was 
 estimated at 988,000,000. 
 
 For the last fifty years one of the greatest problems of a city has 
 been how to carry its people to and from their work with the least 
 loss of time. Well might Mr. Whitney, in an address to the 
 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 175 
 
 Massachusetts legislature, say, "While you are legislating under 
 this roof to reduce the hours of labor, the West End Railway Co., 
 by simply changing its system to a more rapid one, has reduced the 
 hours of labor nearly half an hour per day." 
 
 All the available streets having been covered with surface lines 
 and elevated roads, and the flying machine not yet perfected, the 
 insistent demands for rapid transit forced the engineer to emulate 
 the mole. By going underground he could use space not available 
 for other purposes and propel his trains at a higher speed than would 
 be safe in streets used in common with vehicles and pedestrians. 
 The plan has succeeded, but no small amount of missionary work 
 was necessary to remove the prejudices of property owners beneath 
 whose feet the tunnels passed and to allay the fears of timid trav- 
 elers, 
 
 SUBWAYS. 
 
 The subway has been called in to supplement the transportation 
 facilities of a city where there are already in active operation all the 
 lines for which there is room on its surface. Subways and tunnels, 
 although synonymous in the popular mind, are not, strictly speaking, 
 the same, for the subway is usually a ditch before it is a tunnel. 
 
 London set the fashion for underground railroads by opening 
 in 1863 one three miles in length. Since then others have been built 
 and units constructed independently have been connected until there 
 is now quite an extensive underground rapid transit system. In 
 1900 there was opened for traffic the Central London railway, the 
 third of its kind, six and one half miles long, running from the Bank 
 of London, the center of London's commercial activity, to Shep- 
 herd's Bush, west. The clay soil through which it passed was favor- 
 able for the operation of the Greathead Shield, and as the tunnel ran 
 under the streets of the city, nothing was paid to private property 
 owners for right of way. The road cost about $2,500,000 per mile, 
 
176 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 which is cheap for roads of that character. It is equipped with 8- 
 wheel electric locomotives, thirty feet in length and each weighing 
 about forty-eight tons. The road is operated with electricity as a 
 motive power, taking it from a third rail. It was intended to equip 
 the road with British locomotives, but no British manufacturer, 
 owing to trade union restrictions making it difficult to employ work- 
 men on extra time, would guarantee the delivery of the locomotives 
 within the time necessary, so the order went to the General Electric 
 Company at Schenectady, N. Y. Each train with its locomotive 
 will weigh about one hundred and fifty tons. The cars are of the 
 American plan, with a corridor extending down the center, and will 
 seat three hundred and thirty-six passengers. The power is fur- 
 nished by sixteen Babcock and Wilcox water tube boilers having a 
 combined heating surface of nearly an acre and a- half. The sta- 
 tions on this road are all at the tops of grades (slight hills). This 
 feature possesses two advantages : the up grade assists in bringing the 
 train to a stop at a station ; the down grade makes it easier to start. 
 Boston's subway. Boston has a system which employs a sub- 
 way in the congested portion of the city and an elevated road in the 
 less crowded parts. In the side walls of the Boston subway are 
 vertical steel pillars. The pillars are connected by arches made of 
 concrete. The arches stand on end (have their axes vertical) with 
 their convex sides facing outward. The vertical arches along the 
 sides give the side walls a peculiar scalloped or corrugated appearance, 
 but it was constructed in that manner to enable the walls to resist 
 the side pressure due to heavy traffic and the weight of buildings. 
 The roof is of steel beams connected by arches of concrete or brick. 
 New York's Subways. New York city will have, when it is 
 completed, the most complete and fully equipped underground system 
 of any yet devised. As now planned it will run from the City Hall 
 park nearly north to Forty-second street, westward on Forty-second 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 1/7 
 
 street to Sixth avenue, under it and Broadway for a considerable dis- 
 tance to iO4th street, where it branches, one branch continuing 
 north and the other northeast to the Bronx river. The branches 
 will be large enough for a double track road ; the main line for four 
 tracks. Two tracks of the system will be reserved for express 
 trains, which will be run at a high speed and make few stops. In 
 the vicinity of the City Hall the subway will carry its tracks in two 
 stories; two tracks above and two below. It is expected that the 
 express trains will make a trip from City Hall to the Harlem in not 
 far from fifteen minutes. The whole contract was awarded to 
 John B. McDonald for $35,000,000, probably the largest contract 
 that a single individual ever undertook. The ground was formally 
 broken in front of the City Hall, March 21, 1900, Mayor Van 
 Wyck turning the first spadeful of earth. Actual work was com- 
 menced on May 14, 1900. It is expected the subway will be com- 
 pleted within three or four years from the time of its inception. 
 The natural conditions are rather favorable. The greater part of it 
 will be constructed by the "cut and cover method," tunneling being 
 necessary only for a comparatively short distance and then through 
 rock, where the use of a shield will not be required. The east 
 branch will be about four hundred feet in length where it passes 
 under the Harlem river, and caissons can there be used at less ex- 
 pense than a shield. It is now planned to extend the tunnel from 
 City Hall park to Bowling Green, thence under the East river to 
 Brooklyn City Hall. In passing under the river the tracks will be 
 carried in two cast iron tubes each fifteen feet in diameter and afford- 
 ing room for one line of track. The contemplated extension is four 
 and one half miles, and one and one half miles of it would be of 
 cast iron tubing. The New York subway will consist of a steel and 
 concrete water tight conduit. The following is the general method 
 of construction: 
 
1/8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Method of Construction. As the great ditch is dug the bottom 
 is covered with a layer of concrete. Over this a layer of hot asphalt 
 is poured and smoothed down ; on the asphalt is laid a sheet of 
 felt, then another layer of asphalt, and the process repeated as often 
 as the character of the ground may seem to render it necessary to 
 keep out moisture. The waterproofing is covered with another 
 layer of concrete in which are set the bases for the tracks and the 
 pedestals for the steel columns intended to complete the sides and 
 carry the weight of the roof. The sides and roof are given the con- 
 crete and waterproof coating as well and the whole subway made 
 water tight. When completed it will be superior to all others, in 
 capacity, ventilation, lighting, and efficiency. 
 
 The rolling platform at the Paris Exposition proved popular. 
 It consisted of three parallel paths: the first a stationary one 3.5 
 feet wide; the second or middle one 3 feet wide, moving at the 
 rate of 2.6 miles an hour; the third path, 6.5 feet wide, and moving 
 in the same direction as the second at the rate of 5.25 miles an hour. 
 The system, 3400 yards long, was driven by a number of electric 
 motors at fixed points in its course. To the shafts at these motors 
 were fixed two pulleys of different sizes. The large pulley helped 
 move the high speed platform, and the smaller pulley the low speed 
 platform. The platform was divided into short lengths, so joined 
 that it would round curves easily and leave no dangerous gaps. 
 Passengers were carried to the stationary way by means of ramps. 
 On such a system the middle platform moves so slowly that one can 
 step upon it from the stationary platform and be canned along by it 
 as fast as a moderate walk. Then the difference between the low 
 speed and the high speed platforms is so little a man can step from 
 the low speed to the high speed platform and find himself moving at 
 the rate of 5.25 miles an hour. He can add to the motion of the 
 platform his own speed by walking in the direction in which the plat- 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 1 79 
 
 form is moving. If he wishes more time to look at anything along 
 the way, he can walk in the opposite direction, step upon the mid- 
 dle platform, or even step off upon the stationary one at any point. 
 
 Moving Platforms vs. Elevators. The Paris moving platform 
 was twenty feet above the street level, and to bring the passengers 
 up to it the company employed broad, thick, strong, endless belts 
 (ramps), each running over two large pulleys so set that the belt, at 
 a gentle incline, moved continuously, its upper surface carrying up 
 anything placed upon it. The belt was stiffened and run on 
 numerous rollers. Standing upon it one had no feeling of insecurity. 
 It was given a vertical speed of one foot per second. Anyone wish- 
 ing to go faster could do so by simply walking in the direction in 
 which the ramp moved. In competition with a modern elevator of 
 the best type, the two working continuously, the ramp lifted 4000 
 people twenty feet in one hour, as against 400 for the elevator. 
 There has been installed on the Third Avenue elevated railroad of 
 New York city a ramp able to lift 3000 passengers an hour from the 
 street to the level of the platform. The receipts at the ticket office 
 where it is in use show that the device is popular with the public. 
 
 Rapid Transit by Means of Moving Platforms. A system of 
 moving platforms has often been urged for rapid transit in great 
 cities. By increasing the platforms any desired speed could be 
 attained. Passengers could travel slowly by remaining on one of 
 the intermediate platforms. There would not be the trouble of 
 stopping and starting, for the passengers could board the platforms 
 and leave them at any time or any place. A street car stopping for 
 a passenger usually loses from five to ten seconds of time. There is 
 a further loss of energy, employed to stop and start the car. The 
 aggregate loss of time and energy in a city where there are 600,000,- 
 ooo fares collected in a year assumes no small proportions. 
 
180 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 WHEELED VEHICLES. 
 
 The first wheeled vehicles probably resembled the rude bullock 
 carts now in use in India. These consist of two solid wheels made 
 by cutting off the end of a log, a hole made through the heart, a 
 box-like body with a solid beam crossing it underneath, the ends of 
 the beam rounded and thrust through the holes in the blocks. The 
 wheels are kept in place by a pin through each end of the beam. A 
 rude pole is attached, to which are fastened the cattle. Such vehi- 
 cles, which go crawling across the plains of India or Southern Africa, 
 their ungreased axles sending out shrieks of protest that can be heard 
 for a thousand yards, are a fair type of man's first carriage. The 
 Egyptians and Assyrians made considerable advance in the building 
 of chariots, gradually developing the wheel until it consisted of a 
 hub, spokes, felloes, and a bronze tire. The box-like body and solid 
 axle were retained and nothing was known of springs. The war 
 chariots had huge bronze scythes attached to their axles, and when 
 driven at high speed through a mass of men created dire havoc. 
 They could be operated only on smooth ground. 
 
 At the beginning of the Christian era the carriage had acquired 
 two more wheels and had come to represent a mark of rank or 
 wealth. Its lack of springs and the extreme discomfort attendant 
 upon riding in it over an uneven surface probably had some influence 
 in inducing the Romans to build smooth as well as durable roads. 
 With the decline of Rome and the advent of the Dark Ages the roads 
 fell into such a horrible condition that wheeled vehicles practically 
 disappeared. All the carrying trade of Europe was conducted by 
 means of horses, asses, and mules, bearing pack saddles. As late as 
 1550 there were only three rude coaches in Paris. The coach of 
 state was introduced into England in 1555 for Queen Elizabeth. It 
 was a strong, clumsy, four-wheeled vehicle without springs of any 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 1 8 1 
 
 kind, and a modern ice-wagon with a little decoration would appear 
 like a palace car beside it. At the beginning of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury heavy lumbering wagons drawn by eight, ten, or twelve horses, 
 carried the freight from city to city. At the rear end of each wagon 
 was a small space covered with straw, into which half a dozen passen- 
 gers could be crowded, sitting upon the straw, for want of other 
 seats. In 1750 the first line of stagecoaches was established between 
 London and Birmingham, and in good weather they were able to make 
 the trip of 116 miles in three days and three nights. An expert 
 bicycle rider can now easily make the same distance from sun to sun. 
 
 In 1754 the first stagecoach line was established between Lon- 
 don and Edinburgh and it was advertised that "a two-end glass 
 coach machine hung on steel springs, exceedingly light and easy, will 
 go through in ten days in summer and twelve in winter, the passen- 
 gers lying over during the Sabbath at one of the villages on the 
 route." The distance is about 400 miles, and the Great Northern 
 railway now makes it in eight or ten hours. 
 
 Steel springs for coaches came into use about 1750 and with the 
 imprpvements of roads due to Macadam, Telford, and other engi- 
 neers, the development of the modern carriage began. 
 
 Alexander's chariot was about as comfortable as a city dump cart, 
 and the coach of state of Caesar could not compare for strength, 
 comfort, efficiency, and speed with a modern brewery wagon. 
 
 First Bicycles. It is evident that good bicycles could not pre- 
 cede good roads. As early as 1779 the primitive ancestor of the 
 bicycle, afterward known as the "hobby horse," was described. 
 This machine consisted of a bar of wood with a wheel at each end in 
 the same plane. The rider, sitting astride the bar, propelled the 
 machine by pushing against the ground with his feet. Improved 
 upon by Baron von Drais in 1816, it was called the "Draisine." 
 This machine had a saddle ; the front wheel was guided by a handle- 
 
1 82 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 bar; rests supported the elbows, and leaning his weight upon them 
 the operator propelled the machine by striking the tips of his toes 
 against the ground. This was popular in the cities for a time, and 
 in various forms was called the " Draisine," " velocipede," " dandy 
 horse," and " celerifere," but the mode of propulsion was the same 
 in all. 
 
 In 1840-41 a Scotch inventor named McMillan made a bicycle 
 built of wood, having pedals and cranks, and connected the rear wheel 
 with his cranks by "connecting rods." In 1846 Dalzell, another 
 Scotchman, improved upon McMillan's machine and was able to 
 travel with it as fast as the ordinary coach. 
 
 From "The Boneshaker" to Pneumatic Tires. In 1855 Ernst 
 Michaux, a French inventor, first applied the cranks and pedals di- 
 rectly to the driving wheel. Michaux's invention is generally con- 
 sidered the germ of the modern bicycle, and France has erected a 
 monument to his memory. Michaux was a locksmith with but little 
 capital, and not much was done with his machine. In 1.866 another 
 Frenchman, Pierre Lallament, took out a patent in France and the 
 United States for an improvement of Michaux's machine, and ; for a 
 time was supposed to be the real inventor. From 1866 until 1870 
 the " boneshaker," as it came to be called, had quite a popular run. 
 Then wheels began to be made of all iron and steel and the front 
 wheel grew larger, producing the familiar high wheel of some years 
 ago. To avoid "headers," which were frequent with the high 
 wheel, the little wheel was put ahead and the rear one connected to 
 the pedals by straps or ratchet wheels. From this the transition to 
 the " safety " of to-day was rapid, but the one thing that more than 
 anything else made the bicycle popular was the application of the 
 pneumatic tire. This was invented by R. W. Thompson in 1845, 
 but it was not designed for the bicycle. It was applied to the bi- 
 cycle by Dunlop in 1889, and the weight rapidly came down from 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 183 
 
 the hundred pound machines to the light roadsters of twenty pounds 
 or less. 
 
 The bicycle of to-day is a marvel of strength and lightness, and 
 is responsible for many improvements in other machines. Among 
 them are the principles of ball bearings, suspension wheels, seamless 
 steel tubing, and the pneumatic tire. It has been one of the most 
 potent factors in the development of good roads, for the presence in 
 the United States and Canada of a million bicyclers who are also" 
 voters has been felt in the legislation pertaining to improved high- 
 ways. In 1896 the United States Congress established a national 
 bureau of highways for the purpose of aiding the states in the con- 
 struction of scientific roads. All military powers have given con- 
 siderable attention to the application of the bicycle to military use, 
 and in nearly all armies bicycle corps are formed. 
 
 Marvelous rates of speed have been attained with it, and rec- 
 ords are broken every day of the racing season. In 1899 Murphy, 
 riding on a plank path between the rails of the Long Island railroad 
 behind a train with a hood built over it to shield him from the wind, 
 made a mile in fifty-seven and four fifths seconds, and was picked up 
 bodily by his friends, wheel and all, and drawn on board the train 
 while it was in motion. 
 
 Ocean cables and bicycles are rapidly using up the visible supply 
 of rubber. As an example of the growth of the business, the Pope 
 Manufacturing Company in 1888 employed 500 hands, and at the 
 close of the century, 3800. It is estimated that the United States 
 alone annually turns out $30,000,000 to $40,000,000 worth of 
 bicycles. 
 
 THE AUTOMOBILE. 
 
 Without question the greatest advance in transportation within a 
 few years is represented by the automobile, yet the welcome it met 
 has been no exception to the general rule that improvements are 
 
1 84 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 usually coolly received by the public, who are prone to say, "It will 
 not work"; next, "It is dangerous"; finally, " Every one knew it 
 before." 
 
 Although the development of the automobile has been so rapid 
 that it is not even described in some of the latest encyclopedias, yet 
 
 the idea is older than that of the 
 locomotive. The steam carriage of 
 Cugnot was operated on the road. 
 Patents were issued to Watt for 
 the application of steam to road 
 carriages. Even Trevithick, the 
 father of the locomotive, tried his. 
 THE FIRST HORSELESS CARRIAGE. fi rst carriage on the road, and it 
 
 was due to its success on rails, the wretched state of the roads, and 
 the violent opposition of all interested in stagecoaches, inns, canals, 
 and kindred interests, that the locomotive outstripped the auto- 
 mobile. 
 
 Automobiles not New. Cugnot produced a successful model in 
 1763.* He was employed by the French government in 1769 to 
 make a three wheeled steam carriage for transporting cannon. There 
 are many stories of his adventures. One relates that one of his ma- 
 chines having overturned in the streets of Paris, the authorities were 
 at a loss whether to treat him as a genius or a culprit, and with strict 
 impartiality imprisoned him, released him, and gave him a pension. 
 Cugnot is certainly the pioneer in steam road carriages. 
 
 In 1822 Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, a scientist of no mean abili- 
 ties, constructed several steam carriages which were successfully 
 operated about London, but met with so much opposition from 
 rival interests as to render them unprofitable. 
 
 In 1833 a machinist named Squire, aided by a financial backer, 
 * See page 70 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 TRANSPORTATION. 185 
 
 Colonel Macerone, built several practical steam carriages, one of 
 which is said to have drawn a carriage 1700 miles without any re- 
 pairs. It was capable of making an average speed of seventeen 
 miles an hour, and coke, which was used for fuel, cost seven cents a 
 mile. These coaches were efficient and but for the bitter opposition 
 of the stagecoaches and allied interests could have done a profitable 
 business. 
 
 The automobile developed enough to be commercially practicable 
 by the year 1857, when the British government passed a law restrict- 
 ing their speed to two thirds that of a stagecoach. This was fol- 
 lowed in 1865 by a law which was designed to suppress them as a 
 dangerous nuisance. It would not be hard to guess what motives 
 inspired such legislation. Horse dealers, innkeepers, stage drivers, 
 and some workmen feared the new machine would rob them of their 
 bread and butter. The same spirit of ignorance, violence, and con- 
 servatism was responsible for the destruction of Denis Papin's first 
 steamboat and the textile machinery in English factories. It finds 
 its latest expression in restrictions upon the British manufacturer 
 that render him at a disadvantage in some respects with his Ameri- 
 can competitor, and which are responsible for the American locomo- 
 tives on the Midland railway of England, the filling by an American 
 bridge company of Kitchener's hurry order for the bridge at Atbara, 
 and the appearance of American bridges in India. 
 
 The "Auto's" Hard Struggle. The English law of 1865 pro- 
 vided that each machine must have three drivers with it, one of 
 whom was to precede the carriage on foot at a distance of sixty 
 yards, and to carry a red flag to warn all persons that the carriage 
 was approaching. There wjere to be no whistles blown and no steam 
 was to be blown off. This forced the engines to work at low pres- 
 sure. Any driver of a horse could compel the drivers of the auto- 
 mobile to stop at any point and for any length of time by simply 
 
1 86 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 raising his hand, and to disobey the signal meant a severe fine. The 
 speed of the carriages in the country was not to exceed four miles 
 an hour, and in the towns it was never to be higher than two miles 
 an hour. The name and residence of the owner of the carriage were 
 to be painted conspicuously on the carriage. The hours when it 
 dared to venture out on the public road were to be regulated by the 
 local authorities of each borough. As if these regulations were not 
 stringent enough, more were added in 1878. Each automobile was 
 taxed 10 a. year in each borough in which it was operated. The 
 first law covered only steam carriages, but this law was extended to 
 include " a locomotive propelled by steam or by any other than ani- 
 mal power." The automobile was restricted to certain hours, which 
 were seldom the same in adjacent boroughs. In Gloucestershire 
 they were allowed to run only between the hours of 8 P.M. and 4 
 A.M. These absurd laws stood until 1896. 
 
 As early as 1878, in France, there were purchased at county ex- 
 pense several traction engines in every county and these were reg- 
 ularly loaned to the small farmers to transport their crops to market. 
 It is significant that in the year 1898 there was $150,000,000 of 
 French capital invested in the manufacture of automobiles, and this 
 manufacture gave employment to 200,000 people. Never before was 
 there such a demand for skilled labor as that which the revival of the 
 automobile caused in France. 
 
 Its Final Ascendency. What the " Rainhill Contest" was to 
 the steam locomotive, the automobile race of July 22, 1894, was to 
 the history of the automobile. The race was arranged by Le Petit 
 Journal and the course was from Paris to Rouen, a distance of 
 seventy-nine miles. There were nineteen competitors in the race and 
 seventeen of them finished at times ranging from eight to thirteen 
 and one half hours. The greatest speed attained on this trial was 
 eighteen miles an hour. Numerous other races followed. Since 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 187 
 
 these contests the growth of the automobile in public favor has been 
 rapid and steady. 
 
 Advantage of Rubber Tires. Nearly all automobiles have either 
 pneumatic or cushion rubber tires. Traction engines have spikes or 
 iron strips on their tires to avoid slipping, but the resulting jar would 
 not do for an automobile, so the rubber tire is used instead. The 
 rubber tire has another advantage, it saves power, for no road is per- 
 fectly smooth. Even if the bits of gravel average no more than one 
 eighth inch in size, it takes power to lift the wheel over it. If a 
 machine weighs two tons, then there will be 1000 pounds bearing on 
 each wheel. Each time a wheel passes needlessly over an elevation 
 of one eighth inch, 10.4 foot-pounds of work is wasted. Four wheels 
 each having to pass over such an obstacle five times a second at the 
 ordinary running speed would amount to 208 foot-pounds per sec- 
 ond, or 12,480 per minute, almost one half a horse-power. Auto- 
 mobiles are seldom fitted with engines above four horse power, so a 
 saving of half a horse-power is quite an item. The pneumatic tire 
 saves because the pebbles cause little dents in the tire and the axle of 
 the wheel runs in a straight line. Nor is this all, for part of the 
 power that is used in the production of the dent is stored in the 
 elasticity of the tire and as the wheel passes to the point where it is 
 free of the little elevation, the elastic force of the tire helps push 
 against it. 
 
 Means of Propulsion. At present the principal means used for 
 propelling automobiles are steam engines, gasoline engines, and elec- 
 tricity. The ''Locomobile" is a good representative of the steam 
 carriage and is shown in the accompanying illustration. It effect- 
 ually conceals a complete boiler and furnace, a water and a fuel 
 supply tank, and a four horse-power steam engine. The water and 
 fuel supply tanks are stowed in the box-shaped part behind the seat, 
 while under the seat is the boiler, furnace, and engine. The boiler, 
 
 
188 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 14 inches in diameter and 14 inches high, is made of copper, and has 
 298 copper tubes, giving the little boiler 42 square feet of heating 
 surface. The boiler is wound with two thicknesses of piano wire, 
 which gives it great strength. In fact each boiler is hydraulically 
 
 tested to a pressure of 600 
 pounds to the square inch. 
 The wire wrapping is cov- 
 ered with asbestos to pre- 
 vent the radiation of heat. 
 The boiler complete weighs 
 only 105 pounds. 
 The fuel is gas- 
 oline and the 
 boiler pressure is 
 controlled by an 
 automatic device 
 which regulates 
 the size of the 
 LOCOMOBILE. fire to correspond 
 
 np^rlc rf 
 ,-p,. 
 
 The 
 
 fire may be lighted and the steam pressure raised to 150 pounds 
 inside of five minutes from the time of starting with a cold boiler. 
 When the vehicle is carrying enough water and fuel for a run of 25 
 miles, the whole affair weighs only 550 pounds. 
 
 As a Climber. Double engines allow each drive wheel inde- 
 pendent rotation. The engine, at a speed of 300 revolutions per 
 minute, develops four horse-power, and the power may be increased 
 to five horse-power if necessary for a short time. On one test run 
 of 72 miles, the cost for fuel was only 17 ^ cents. The machine is 
 geared to climb very steep hills and has ascended a 36 per cent, in- 
 
 This is one of the steam driven automobiles. It contains a steam boiler and w1 *rVi 
 furnace, as well as a four horse power steam engine. Yet the lines of the cus- n 
 ternary carriage have not been departed from in its construction. , , .. 
 
 the boiler. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 189 
 
 cline. The inventor, F. O. Stanley, and his wife, made one of the 
 first long distance runs with a locomobile from Newton, Mass., to 
 the summit of Mount Washington, a distance of 205 miles, at an 
 average speed of 14.1 miles an hour. The grade of the ascent of the 
 mountain averages 12 per cent., and the machine climbed it in two 
 hours and ten minutes. 
 
 An explosive mixture of gasoline and air is the power most gen- 
 erally used in France and throughout Europe. A motor of this 
 class carried off the first prizes at the French race in 1894, which did 
 so much to excite interest in the automobile. The application of 
 this power is said to date back to Mr. Pinkus of England. Lenoir 
 of France used it about 1860 and is a pioneer in its use in that coun- 
 try. Some natural disadvantages of gasoline have been largely 
 overcome. Gas engines were ordinarily heavy, but if " adhesion" is 
 a quality greatly to be desired the weight of the gas engine will 
 answer that perhaps as well as the weight of a storage battery, and 
 gas engines are more economical than steam engines. At first there 
 was considerable difficulty in getting a gas engine that would start 
 promptly, but in the best types this has been overcome. Once it 
 was impossible to change the speed of a gas engine without changing 
 the gear, but improvements in the mechanism regulating the explo- 
 sion have been devised by which instant changes can be made almost 
 as effectively as with a throttle valve on a steam engine. Owing to 
 the high temperature at which gas engines work the escape is neces- 
 sarily noisy, but to overcome this " mufflers" have been provided 
 
 Considerable interest attaches to gas engines just at present be- 
 cause of the infringement suits likely to be instituted. George B. 
 Selden made application for a patent May 8, 1879, f r a roa< ^ engine 
 driven by a hydrocarbon motor, and a patent was finally granted him 
 November 5, 1895. When the patent was applied for there was not 
 much public interest in automobiles in America. Mr. Selden was a 
 
19 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 patent attorney and a shrewd one. " Under the law in force up to 
 1879 an application for a patent could not be considered to have been 
 abandoned if prosecuted within two years after the last official action. 
 By complying with the letter of the law Mr. Selden managed to delay 
 
 the granting of his 
 patent for sixteen 
 and one half years."* 
 His claim is a broad 
 one, and if sustained 
 ^ will embarrass many 
 manufacturers of au- 
 tomobiles using gaso- 
 line engines as a mo- 
 tive power. The use 
 
 ELECTRIC AUTOMOBILE. BUILT BY THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE o f gasoline presents 
 Co. OF HARTFORD, CT. 
 
 It will be noticed that the customary forms of vehicles have been as OIie ao - van tage. 
 closely followed as possible, this one being on the lines of the phaeton. i r J 1 
 
 can be found at al- 
 most any country store and renders machines using it as a motive 
 power especially fitted for touring purposes. 
 
 Electric motors were early applied to vehicles, dating back to 
 Davenport, Becker, and Stratingh in 1835, and mention has already 
 been made of others. Despite the great weight of the storage bat- 
 teries the electric automobile is popular. The electric motor is the 
 simplest form of machine possible. One moving part and a station- 
 ary support. It transforms energy with less waste than any other 
 device for the production of mechanical energy yet known. There is 
 no fire, heat, or odor connected with its use, and no danger of an 
 explosion. The speed can be instantly changed by varying the cur- 
 rent supplied to the motor. A two horse-power motor at ordinary 
 speed exerts about sixty pounds tractive power. If the necessity 
 
 * 'Scientific American, November 24, 1900. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 19! 
 
 arises this same motor can, without injury, exert a pull of 800 pounds. 
 Such a reserve power is sometimes convenient. 
 
 The weight of the storage batteries is likely to be reduced in the 
 near future, for the chemical change necessary for a horse-power- 
 hour requires only about eleven pounds of material. By reducing 
 the weight of the container, the supports for the plates, and the bat- 
 tery fluid, a saving could be made. Batteries are made and used in 
 automobiles furnishing power for from 80 to 100 miles. Such can 
 be recharged in an hour and a half, so it seems that practical utility 
 is nearly approximated. t 
 
 An automobile truck is being made employing a steam engine to 
 compress air, which is drawn from a reservoir and used as a motive 
 power by the truck. The force required to hold the truck back in 
 going down grades is also used to assist the engine in compressing 
 air. Automobiles using liquid air as a motive power have been ex- 
 hibited, and the Tripler Company have stated that they are ready to 
 furnish liquid air for them at fifteen cents a gallon. The practical 
 efficiency of such a machine has yet to be demonstrated. 
 
 Some remarkable speed records have been made by the auto- 
 mobile. In August, 1897, 105 miles were covered at the rate of 
 twenty-six miles an hour. In July, 1898, this record was raised to 
 thirty miles an hour for 357.3 miles. In a nine days race around 
 France, a distance of 428 miles was covered by the winner in 44 
 hours 44 minutes and 9 seconds, an average of about thirty-two 
 miles an hour. 
 
 Automobile vs. the Express Train. Monsieur Charron of 
 France won, at the Paris Exposition, the International Challenge Cup, 
 June 14, 1900, the course being from Paris to Lyons, 351 miles; 
 time, nine hours nine minutes; average speed, 38.4 miles an hour. 
 The regular express, train between those cities, by a shorter route, 
 318 miles, covers the distance in nine hours. Had Monsieur Char- 
 
IQ2 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ron's route been as short he would have beaten the time of the ex- 
 press train. Another of the contestants made 62 miles an hour for 
 a considerable part of the distance and in some places his speed was 
 over 70 miles an hour, but his machine was broken by an accident 
 which prevented his winning the race. He showed, however, what 
 bursts of speed are possible on an ordinary road, and M. Charron 
 proved that the automobile can maintain a high speed for a long 
 distance. 
 
 The question of the use of automobiles in the French army is re- 
 ceiving a good deal of attention. Emperor William of Germany has 
 offered a prize of $20,000 for the machine best adapted for use in 
 military service. 
 
 AERIAL NAVIGATION. 
 
 Although for thousands of years mankind .has longed for "the 
 wings of a dove," the Montgolfier brothers' crude balloons were the 
 first practical step toward the realization of the dream of aerial navi- 
 gation. It was in France that after several unsuccessful experiments 
 Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier constructed a balloon, inflated it 
 with hot air, and gave a successful exhibition of it June, 1783. It 
 does not appear that this balloon carried any passengers. In August 
 of the same year M. Charles, a Parisian scientist of considerable repute, 
 improved upon Montgolfier's idea by substituting hydrogen gas for 
 hot air, and the Robert brothers constructed it for him. In such a 
 balloon, MM. Charles and Robert made a successful ascension, reach- 
 ing a height of 7000 feet. In November of 1783 Pilatre de Rozier 
 ascended in a Montgolfier hot air balloon. It is generally believed 
 that this antedates the ascension of MM. Charles and Robert. These 
 were the first balloon ascensions and they were made at or near 
 Paris, and France has ever since been keenly alive to the importance 
 of aerial navigation and ; ready to lend aid to any other project that 
 seemed to promise its successful achievement. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 193 
 
 Balloons rise because filled with some gas lighter than atmospheric 
 air. Balloons inflated with ordinary illuminating gas lift about one 
 pound for each thirty cubic feet of their contents. Hydrogen gas 
 has about twice the buoyancy of illuminating gas. The buoyancy 
 of hot air depends, of course, upon the difference between its tem- 
 perature and that of the surrounding atmosphere. Glaisher and the 
 aeronaut Coxwell are said to have reached an extreme height of 
 37,000 feet. As for long distance records, John Wise is said to 
 have made the trip from St. Louis, Mo., to Jefferson county, N. Y., 
 1200 miles, in twenty hours. 
 
 Early Ideas of Air Ships. A letter dated May 24, 1784, writ- 
 ten by Francis Hopkinson to Benjamin Franklin, suggests that a bal- 
 loon be made oblong and driven by a wheel at its stern. "This 
 wheel should consist of many vanes or fans whose planes should be 
 considerably inclined with respect to the plane of its motion, exactly 
 like the wheel of a smokejack." It was not until many years after- 
 ward that Stevens, Smith, and Ericsson were able to successfully ap- 
 ply the screw propeller here outlined to steam navigation, and it is 
 worthy of note that Professor Langley and Mr. Maxim used this 
 principle in their latest flying machines. 
 
 Henri Giffard, the inventor of the "injector," in 1852 made a 
 balloon large enough to carry a steam engine and the machinery to 
 turn a screw propeller. He was actually able to move his air ship 
 fast enough so it could be steered to some extent, and produced the 
 first balloon in any considerable degree dirigible (steerable). 
 
 In 1 88 1 the brothers Tissander equipped a balloon with a storage 
 battery and electric motor, and were able to make seven or eight 
 miles an hour with it. Napoleon hoped to make the balloon useful 
 to him in his campaigns and took a ballooning outfit with him into 
 Egypt but it was captured by the British. When Paris was besieged 
 (187071) more than fifty balloons were employed to carry persons 
 
194 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 out of the city, taking with them carrier pigeons by which messages 
 could be sent back to the besieged. Even fashion plates from Paris 
 for the use of English and American magazines were said to have 
 been sent out in this manner. In 1884, Captains Renard and Krebs 
 used an electric battery and motor to drive a screw propeller seven 
 feet in diameter to propel a balloon 165 feet long, and 27^ feet in 
 diameter. This balloon was to be able to make 12 to 15 miles an 
 hour and was readily manageable in a calm, or even in a light breeze. 
 
 The Russian Dirigible Balloon. The Russians have a fairly 
 good dirigible balloon capable of carrying one man. It is that of Dr. 
 K. Danilewsky, Charkov, Russia, who partly fills a balloon with pure 
 hydrogen gas to balance the weight of the operator. In a recent 
 exhibition before Russian officers the balloon was taken out of the 
 barn on his estate in which it was kept, and inflated in a half hour. 
 It ascended, passed out of sight, reappeared in about two hours, 
 gradually approached and alighted within a few yards of the place 
 from whence it started. The balloon is small, requires the service 
 of only three or four men to start it, and when inflated can be carried 
 anywhere by two men. It is propelled by the muscular power of the 
 operator. It seems to be but little influenced by moderate currents 
 of air and the descent is absolutely under control. The Russian 
 officers expressed a high opinion of its value for making a recon- 
 naissance. 
 
 Count Zeppelin, an officer of the German army, was attracted 
 to the study of dirigible balloons, primarily to develop a new de- 
 structive weapon of war. Fortunately he is a man of wealth, for his 
 experiments are said to have cost him at least $100,000. Count 
 Zeppelin has been working for a long time on an air ship. His 
 device is a lattice framework made of aluminum, 416 feet long, and 
 38 feet in diameter. It is divided into seventeen compartments, in 
 each of which is a balloon equipped with a safety valve to prevent 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 195 
 
 its bursting, should the gas within it expand much under the heat of 
 the sun. When inflated the whole has a total capacity of nearly 
 400,000 cubic feet and can lift about ten tons. Underneath the bal- 
 loon, near each end, are two aluminum cars, each about twenty feet 
 long and three feet four inches high. The cars have double floors 
 and the space between them is filled with water ballast, which can be 
 released almost instantly. The air ship with its crew and machinery, 
 all told, weighs about eleven tons. To regulate its buoyancy four 
 of the largest balloons are fitted with outletting valves which can be 
 
 COUNT ZEPPELIN'S FLYING MACHINE. 
 
 operated from one of the cars. Within the aluminum lattice work 
 is woven a great quantity of aluminum wire, which not only strength- 
 ens the frame but furnishes the network usually found about a bal- 
 loon. The outer cover is water tight, but not necessarily gas tight, 
 and seems to have been chiefly designed to present a smooth surface 
 to the air and reduce skin friction. There are a pair of rudders at 
 each end. Light, strong engines, burning naphtha as fuel, furnish 
 sixteen horse-power to drive screw propellers which supply the mo- 
 tive power. The engines give one horse-power for forty-four pounds 
 of weight and are considerably heavier than those used by H. S. 
 Maxim in his experiments. Under favorable circumstances the air 
 
196 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ship seems to move at the rate of twenty-three miles an hour. A 
 weight sliding on a cable underneath the air ship changes its center 
 of gravity and regulates its poise. When the weight is drawn toward 
 the rear the front rises, and vice versa. Count Zeppelin has shown 
 that he has fair control over his air ship and that it possesses moder- 
 ate speed. It is kept in a floating house on Lake Constance and in 
 alighting rests upon the water, the buoyancy being regulated by 
 the escape valves until it rests easily on the cars without sinking 
 them more than a few inches. Inasmuch as it is said to cost $2380 
 to inflate it once, it is not likely for some time to be a formidable 
 competitor of present methods of transportation. 
 
 Flying machines proper differ from balloons in that they de- 
 pend for support upon their own efforts without employing buoyant 
 gases for that purpose. Light as air seems, it is yet capable of sus- 
 
 MAXIM'S. FLYING MACHINE. 
 
 taining, for the shortest fraction of time, some weight, just as a 
 stone may be sent " skipping" across the water or a fast skater may 
 pass safely over thin ice that would break under a lighter load moving 
 slowly. Studies made of birds that "sail" show that by changing 
 the slope of their wings they are able not only to sustain themselves 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 197 
 
 in a strong breeze but actually to make headway against it without, 
 apparently, much muscular exertion. Of the experimenters with 
 flying machines Mr. H. S. Maxim and Professor Langley have been 
 most successful. They each made exhaustive tests of the lifting 
 power of aeroplanes. Of this a kite is a familiar example. Boys 
 know that a kite properly balanced and held by a string in such a 
 way that the wind strikes its under surface, pulls and rises high into 
 the sky against the force of the wind. Mr. Maxim constructed ma- 
 chinery that would turn a vertical shaft. To the shaft he attached 
 at right angles two boards for arms, the whole slightly resembling the 
 fans used during hot weather for ventilating purposes. Setting the 
 boards with the front edge slightly higher than the rear, he rotated 
 them rapidly, measured the power applied to turn them and the lift- 
 ing power that the boards (aeroplanes) exerted. Maxim found that 
 if the plane were driven at a slant of one in fourteen, it would lift 
 fourteen pounds for every pound of energy used to drive it, and 
 when the slant was made one in twenty, the carrying power increased 
 to twenty pounds for each pound of energy. Different shapes were 
 tried, and it was shown that if the aeroplane were made convex 
 above, concave below, and the front edge sharpened, the lifting 
 power was increased almost two and one half times over that of a 
 flat and blunt board. He next proceeded to experiment with screw 
 propellers and determined the slope of propeller blades that would 
 give the best results. He demonstrated to his own satisfaction that 
 a propeller could be made to drive an aeroplane fast enough so that 
 the lifting power of the latter would carry the machinery required to 
 propel it. He concluded that at the most the power required would 
 not exceed one horse-power for twenty-five pounds weight, and set 
 about to find a motor light enough for his purpose. After trials 
 with oil engines and engines using naphtha in place of steam, he came 
 back to the steam engine and constructed one especially for his pur- 
 
198 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 pose. He produced a marvel of lightness and power. For his boiler 
 he used 800 copper tubes one half inch in diameter, an aggregate 
 length of 5700 feet, and with walls only one fiftieth inch thick. They 
 were designed to withstand a pressure of 410 pounds per square inch 
 and tested far in excess of that. To prevent the water tubes from 
 injury from intense heat he kept up a forced circulation of the water 
 within them. The heat was furnished by 7600 naphtha gas burners, 
 whose flames could be instantly controlled. About one pound of 
 gasoline per hour gave a horse-power. The machine was fitted with 
 two compound cylinder steam engines, as remarkable as the boilers. 
 The engines and boilers weighed about 1960 pounds and easily de- 
 veloped 300 horse-power, an achievement in reducing weight never 
 before equaled and hardly considered even possible. The basis of 
 his machines was a wooden platform, light but strong, forty feet long 
 and eight feet wide. Above and fastened to it was a framework of 
 steel tubes. Thirty feet above the platform was the main aeroplane, 
 rather more than fifty feet square and having an area of 2874 square 
 feet. Numerous others were used as wings and rudders, and the 
 total area amounted to about 6000 square feet. All planes were set 
 at the angle that gave the greatest lifting power with the least resist- 
 ance to motion. The inclination of the side wings and rudders 
 could be instantly changed. The rudders directed the vertical flight. 
 Above the platform were two screw propellers, seven feet eleven 
 inches in diameter, made of yellow pine covered with canvas painted 
 and sandpapered smooth. The thrust of the screws was at the 
 same height as the center of gravity. 
 
 The aeroplanes were made of cotton cloth of an especially fine 
 texture. Two thicknesses were employed ; the upper one gas tight, 
 the lower slightly porous. The air passing through the lower one 
 filled the space between them and held the lower sheet flat, the ob- 
 ject desired, making it almost as efficient as though of wood or 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 199 
 
 metal, and much lighter. The machine complete weighed about 
 8000 pounds. 
 
 First Trial of Maxim's Machine. The machine was constructed 
 in a building adjoining a large field. From the building a track 
 about one third of a mile long was constructed and laid with rails. 
 Two axles on the bottom of the machine platform were fitted with 
 wheels to run on these rails. Tests showed that the thrust of the 
 screws against the atmosphere gave force enough to easily propel 
 the machine along the track. Not being ready to undertake the 
 task of steering the craft where so many trees and other obstructions 
 were in evidence, an upper set of rails made of timbers three inches 
 by nine inches in section was laid so that they would strike the 
 upper rails and run along underneath those. When all was ready 
 the machine was given two preliminary runs along the track at mod- 
 erate speed, carrying Mr. Maxim and two assistants. It behaved 
 well and showed a lifting power of 2500 pounds. On the third trial, 
 after running 450 feet at a steam pressure of 275 pounds, it left the 
 lower rails and began to touch the upper ones. At 600 feet it was 
 bearing entirely against the upper rails. At 1000 feet, running at 
 about 50 miles an hour, at a pressure of 310 pounds, its lifting power 
 was so great that it bent the rear axle, threw the wheels out of joint, 
 tore up a hundred feet of track, and wrecked the machine. The 
 dynograph showed that the machine developed at each 100 feet in 
 the run the following lifting power: 700, 1700, 3000, 3700, 3950, 
 5750, 6600, 6450, 6500, and 8700 pounds. Though the machine was 
 a wreck, man had achieved actual flight, and July 31, 1894, will 
 ever be a red letter day in the history of aerial navigation. 
 
 Various Attempts to Fly. Several inventors have constructed 
 models employing aeroplanes and motors, and have proved that such 
 can fly. Lawrence Hargreaves of England has constructed several 
 that have flown hundreds of yards. Professor S. P. Langley of the 
 
200 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Smithsonian Institution has been markedly successful. His first 
 attempt, shortly after that of Maxim, employed aeroplanes driven 
 by screw propellers turned by a small, light steam engine rivaling 
 that of Maxim. Otto Lilienthal of Berlin, soaring, covered distances 
 as great as 1000 and 1500 yards, but his device was a set of wings 
 and a rudder attached to his person. Starting with a run he would 
 spring into the air and depend upon the atmosphere acting upon his 
 aeroplanes. During his experiments he met with an accident which 
 resulted in his death. The nineteenth century has proved the flying 
 machine possible and has left its successful development as a legacy 
 to the twentieth century. 
 
 Importance of Air Ships. It needs no argument to prove the 
 value of an air ship that can be used in ordinary weather, and its 
 course directed with certainty. Such a machine would be invaluable 
 for purposes of exploration in " Darkest Africa" or the "Frozen 
 North." A military power enjoying its monopoly would possess an 
 overwhelming advantage over another power numerically stronger. 
 If it were capable of carrying explosives to let fall from a height, it 
 could destroy the most powerful navy afloat. Battleships now carry 
 all the armor they can bear without sacrificing other requisites. 
 Their decks are comparatively unprotected and would be very suscep- 
 tible to attack from above. It would render war so destructive that 
 it would do more than any other cause to promote universal peace. 
 It could establish communication with blockaded ports or besieged 
 towns, and carry messages to regions inaccessible to telegraph or 
 railroad. The British government would have been only too happy 
 to have possessed one during the heroic defense of Ladysmith, and 
 the whole civilized world would have paid almost any price for an 
 air ship that could have brought authentic news from the imprisoned 
 ministers at Peking. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2OI 
 
 WATER TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 Some years ago it was discovered that by a trick of photography 
 the features of a number of persons might be blended and a com- 
 posite picture produced. In the steamboat of to-day we have some- 
 thing' akin to it, though it is not a blending of features but rather of 
 the inventive genius of a thousand minds. In fact, few mechanical 
 contrivances would better illustrate the theory of evolution. 
 
 Evolution of the Steamboat. The average person when asked 
 who invented the steamboat will at once reply, " Fulton." But, with 
 no disrespect to that able engineer, it may be truthfully said that he 
 was only a man who, backed by the wealth and influence of the 
 Livingstons, was able to put in practical shape ideas that had been 
 advanced even centuries before. 
 
 Mankind's Progress. It does not detract from Fulton's glory 
 to take this view of his work, and it certainly furnishes a broader, 
 nobler, grander conception of the destiny of the human race to re- 
 gard such marked improvements as the sum of the efforts of the 
 many rather than the product of an individual genius. If the former 
 view is correct, such improvements show a general advance of the 
 whole industrial army in its warfare with Nature's rude forces. 
 
 Just the index alone to the specifications of patents relating to 
 propelling ships by means other than sails, that were filed in the 
 English Patent Office from 1618 to 1866, fills nearly eight hundred 
 closely printed pages. Does not this show something of the wealth 
 of thought that has been lavished on the subject? 
 
 It has been said that Blasco De Garray made in 1543 a steamboat 
 and exhibited it before the commissioners of Emperor Charles V. of 
 Spain. This is not easily verified and is not generally credited, but 
 from that time the idea continued to receive increased attention. In 
 1663 the Marquis of Worcester describes an engine with which he 
 said he could propel a boat against an adverse current. 
 
202 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The First Steamboat. Denis Papin, a French engineer, forced 
 by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to leave his country, fled 
 to Hesse, Germany, and was made professor of mathematics at the 
 University of Marburg. He published in 1690 a good description of 
 a fire engine and suggested the application of steam power to boats. 
 Some of his correspondence, recently brought to light, proves that in 
 1707 he constructed and operated on the river Fulda a boat pro- 
 pelled by paddles moved by steam power. This was one hundred 
 years before Fulton's Katharine of Clermont. Papin's experiment 
 was a success but it subjected him to a storm of scorn, ridicule, and 
 abuse. It was made so unpleasant for him that he attempted to go 
 to London in his boat. He descended the Fulda and entered the 
 Weser river, where the boatmen, jealous of their calling and fearing 
 that this strange engine would take from them their means of liveli- 
 hood, assaulted him and destroyed his boat. He escaped and went 
 to London, where he died three years later. However, the idea was 
 in the atmosphere and numerous experiments were being made by 
 the inventors of the whole civilized world. In 1775 Monsieur Per- 
 rier constructed a boat driven by an engine of about one horse- 
 power. It was tried on the river Seine, but his engines were not 
 powerful enough to enable the boat to ascend the river, and it is in- 
 teresting to note that the inventor ascribed his failure to the use of 
 paddle wheels instead of oars. 
 
 First American Steamboat. . Mr. James Rumsey of Berkeley 
 county, Virginia, next claims our attention and presents his cre- 
 dentials. 
 
 "I have seen the model of Mr. Rumsey' s boat, constructed to work 
 against the stream ; examined the powers upon which it acts'; been eye- 
 witness to an actual experiment in running waters of some rapidity ; and 
 give it as my opinion (although I had little faith before) that he has discov- 
 ered the art of working boats by mechanism and small manual assistance 
 against rapid currents ; that the discovery is of vast importance, may be of 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 203 
 
 the greatest usefulness in our inland navigation ; and if it succeeds, of which 
 I have no doubt, the value of it is greatly enhanced by the simplicity of the 
 work, which, when explained, may be executed by the most common 
 mechanic. 
 
 " Given under my hand and seal, in the town of Bath, county of Berke- 
 ley, in the state of Virginia, this yth day of September, 1784. 
 
 -GEORGE WASHINGTON." 
 
 The poverty of the country was such at the end of the war that 
 Rumsey was unable to find financial backers, so he destroyed his 
 model and went to England, hoping in that older and richer country 
 to find the aid of capital he needed. He took out patents in 
 England, France, and Germany, organized a company, and exhib- 
 ited a boat on the Thames in 1/92. He made little progress and 
 after a hard struggle died Dec. 23, 1/93. He had become engaged 
 in a controversy with Fitch, whom he accused of " coming pottering 
 around " his Virginia shop. In London letters written to a friend 
 he speaks of the visits of a Mr. Fulton, a young American engineer 
 who betrayed a very sympathetic and intelligent interest in his 
 plans. 
 
 Origin of the Screw Propeller. Thomas Jefferson, writing from 
 Paris in 1785, describes a boat of whose propeller he says: " It is a 
 screw with a very broad or thin worm, or rather it is a thin plate 
 with its edge applied spirally around an axis. This being turned, 
 operates on the air as a screw does. The screw, I think, would be 
 more effectual if placed below the surface of the water." In tracing 
 the evolution of the screw propeller it is well to remember that 
 David Bushnell used it on a submarine torpedo boat in the Revolu- 
 tionary War, although Bushnell's was turned by hand. The screw is 
 said to be as old as the windmill and is described by Hero of Alex- 
 andria. Joseph Bramah took out a patent in England in 1785 for a 
 screw propeller to be placed at the stern of a vessel and the shaft to 
 
2O4 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 be connected directly to the spindle of a rotary steam engine. 
 There is no evidence that he ever put this idea into practice. 
 
 John Fitch, in 1786, exhibited on the Delaware a steamboat pro- 
 pelled by means of paddles. The experiment was considered a suc- 
 cess. Other boats were built by Fitch and his friends, and one 
 tried April, I79> on the Delaware river opposite Philadelphia, over 
 a measured course, went at the rate of eight miles an hour. The 
 same boat afterwards steamed eighty miles in a day and ran regularly 
 for three or four months to Trenton, Burlington, Chester, Wilming- 
 ton, and Gray's Ferry, carrying passengers and freight. "One of 
 these advertisements, taken from The Federal Gazette and Philadel- 
 phia Daily Advertiser of Monday, July 26, 1790, is as follows. It 
 will- be seen it was thought sufficiently distinctive to call her the 
 steamboat, since there was none other in the world at that time : 
 
 '"THE STEAMBOAT 
 
 Sets out to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, from Arch Street Ferry, in 
 order to take passengers for Burlington, Bristol, Bordentown, and Trenton, 
 and return next day. 
 
 ' Philadelphia, July 26th, 1790.' " * 
 
 The boat steamed in the course of the season 2000 or 3000 miles, 
 but was laid up because there was not enough business to justify the 
 expense of running it. 
 
 In 1791, at the request of Mr. Vail, United States consul at 
 L'Orient, France, Fitch went over there for the purpose of building 
 steamboats, but the necessary workmen and materials could not be 
 obtained. Mr. Vail afterwards stated that he showed the plans and 
 description of Fitch's steamboat to Robert Fulton, who visited him 
 in France. 
 
 * Treble's " History of Steam Navigation." 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2O5 
 
 Efforts of the Early Inventors. In the light of the present it 
 would appear that the steam engine had not reached that degree of 
 perfection that rendered the steamboat practicable. Fitch died poor 
 and disappointed. In his autobiography he said, "The day will 
 come when some more powerful man will get fame and riches 'from 
 MY invention; but nobody will believe that poor John Fitch can do 
 anything worthy of attention." 
 
 In 1789 Mr. Patrick Millar exhibited a steamboat on the Clyde 
 canal. It appears to have been driven by paddle wheels and to have 
 made seven knots an hour. It was a pleasure boat used simply for 
 experimental purposes, and soon the engines were taken out and the 
 boat returned to its original work. 
 
 The first United States patent applied for was that of Nathan 
 Read of Salem, Massachusetts, who, in 1790, asked fora patent on 
 a steamboat to be propelled by paddle wheels. Later, on reading 
 "The Transactions of the Royal Society," he found mention of an 
 experiment made many years before in France with paddle wheels 
 and supposed that would debar him from securing a patent, so with- 
 drew his petition. Fulton obtained his patent for paddle wheels 
 twenty years after Read withdrew his application. August 26, 1791, 
 the first United States patents were issued to Read for a multi- 
 tubular boiler, and to Fitch, Rumsey, and Stevens for different ap- 
 plications of steam to boats. 
 
 The Earl of Stanhope in 1795 exhibited a steamboat propelled 
 by two gigantic paddles shaped like duck's feet, made to close as 
 they were moved forward and spread out as they were pushed back- 
 ward. He attained with his boat a speed of about three miles an 
 hour. After Fulton's death it was discovered that he had corre- 
 sponded with the Earl of Stanhope. Had he found in the earl the 
 wealthy backer that in after years he found in the Livingstons, the 
 first commercially successful steamboat line might have been estab- 
 lished in England instead of on the Hudson. 
 
206 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 " Elijah Ormsbee, a carpehter by trade, an inventor by birth, 
 and a native of Connecticut, is said to have moved a boat successfully 
 by steam." Ormsbee's experiments were in the vicinity of Provi- 
 dence, Rhode Island. He borrowed a "long boat" from the ship 
 Abigail, a copper still from a friend, and constructed a boat that 
 moved by means of goose-foot paddles. The experiment was wit- 
 nessed by many people of Provi- 
 dence and Pawtucket about 1/94. 
 It has been claimed that Mr. Daniel 
 French, who afterward saw the ma- 
 chinery, had it explained to him, and 
 later made Mr. Fulton familiar with 
 it. 
 
 About the same year Captain 
 Samuel Morey of Connecticut is 
 said to have propelled a boat from 
 Hartford to New York city at the 
 rate of five miles an hour, carrying 
 on board John C. Stevens, several 
 members of the Livingston family, 
 and others. This boat was propelled 
 
 by a stern wheel. Beyond question, he in 1797 exhibited on the 
 Delaware a steamboat with paddle wheels on the sides and ran it 
 from Bordentown to Philadelphia. Fulton's Clermont closely re- 
 sembled Morey's boat. Captain Morey was an educated man and 
 expended what was then a large fortune in scientific experiments. 
 He corresponded and exchanged visits with Fulton and had taken 
 out several patents for steamboats before Fulton's Clermont appeared 
 on the Hudson. Captain Morey always maintained that Fulton 
 copied his plans and abused his confidence. 
 
 Rumsey's first boat was propelled by directing a jet of steam 
 
 ROBERT FULTON. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2O/ 
 
 through the stern against the water. In Fitch's first boat water was 
 drawn in at the bow and discharged at the stern, but later he moved 
 it by paddles fixed at the stern. In 1796 Fitch tried the screw pro- 
 peller, and if not the first to actually move it by steam was at least 
 one of the first. "The experiment was tried under the patronage of 
 Robert H. Livingston, as certified to by John R. Hutchings, General 
 Anthony Lamb, and William H. Westlock. It was made with a 
 screw propeller, the vessel used was a yawl, about eighteen feet in 
 length and having six feet beam, and steered at the bow with an oar. 
 The boiler was a ten-gallon iron pot, with a thick plank lid firmly 
 fastened to it by an iron bar placed transversely. The cylinders 
 were of wood, barrel shaped on the outside, straight on the inside, 
 and strongly hooped. Steam was raised sufficiently high to send the 
 boat once or twice around the pond, when more water was needed 
 to generate steam for a new start. The time was the summer of 
 1796, and the scene of the experiment was 'The Collect,' a fresh- 
 water pond in New York city, near what is now called Canal street. 
 The pond has been drained, and its site, covered with houses, is now 
 in the heart of the city." * 
 
 Chancellor Livingston, American minister to France, had for 
 some years been interested in the application of steam to boats. He 
 made the acquaintance of Robert Fulton, and in 1803 they launched 
 a steamboat on the river Seine. The boat was so frail that when 
 the engines were placed aboard they broke through the bottom and 
 the boat sank. A larger boat made in 1804 was so slow as to be a 
 failure. Napoleon appointed a committee from the Institute to 
 investigate Fulton's scheme and report upon it. When the adverse 
 report was handed in it is said he appeared disappointed and ex- 
 claimed, "It is a pity." His navy was vastly inferior to that of 
 Great Britain and he had been anxiously seeking for something that 
 
 * Treble's " History of Steam Navigation." 
 
208 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 would make his landsmen drafted into the French navy, the equal 
 of the British sailors. After Fulton's unsuccessful experiments on 
 the Seine, he went to England to inspect the boat Charlotte 
 Dundas, built by Miller, Taylor, and Symington, and which was in 
 successful operation upon the Clyde canal. Of this visit Symington 
 has said: " In compliance with Mr. Fulton's earnest request, I caused 
 the engine fire to be lighted up, and in a short time thereafter put the 
 steamboat in motion, and carried him from Lock Sixteen, where 
 the boat then lay, four miles west in the canal, and returned to the 
 place of starting, in one hour and twenty minutes, to the great 
 astonishment of Mr. Fulton and several gentlemen, who at our offset 
 chanced to come on board." The Charlotte Dundas had a double- 
 acting Watt engine and a stern paddle wheel. The power was trans- 
 mitted by a connecting rod attached to the crank of the paddle shaft. 
 She was employed to tow boats on the Clyde canal and did the work 
 successfully, but was abandoned because the canal authorities con- 
 sidered the waves she set in motion destructive to the canal banks. 
 
 Aided by Chancellor Livingston, Fulton purchased an engine of 
 Boulton and Watt in 1806 and shipped it to America. The state of 
 New York had already, April 3, 1803, conferred upon Livingston 
 and Fulton the privilege of navigating for twenty years, by vessels 
 propelled by fire or steam, all the waters within its boundaries upon 
 condition that they should propel a boat of twenty tons burden up 
 the Hudson at the rate of four miles an hour. After considerable 
 delay the Clermont, a boat 130 feet long, 18 feet wide, drawing 
 six feet of water, was launched at New York and the Boulton and 
 Watt engine that had been lying at New York between Canal street 
 and the Battery for some months, held by the carriers for non- 
 payment of freight, was installed. It was a low pressure engine with 
 a cylinder twenty-four inches in diameter and a three-foot stroke, 
 and it turned two side paddle wheels fifteen feet in diameter dipping 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 209 
 
 THE "CLERMONT'S" FIRST VOYAGE. 
 
 two feet in the water. On August 7, 1807, the Clermont with 
 Fulton, her crew, a few friends, and six passengers left her berth in 
 the presence of an incredulous and jeering crowd and proceeded on 
 her memorable voyage up the Hudson. She made the trip of 150 
 miles in thirty-two hours, a rate of nearly five miles an hour, and 
 complied with all the 
 requirements neces- 
 sary to hold the priv- 
 ilege to the naviga- 
 ble waters of New 
 York state for Liv- 
 ingston and Fulton. 
 The excitement the 
 appearance of the 
 boat produced can 
 be better 'imagined than described. Mails were slow, there was no 
 such thing as telegraphic communication, and the people along the 
 route were not prepared for the appearance of the strange monster. 
 The crews of many of the passing boats were much alarmed even in 
 the daytime, and at night as she moved along, emitting a cloud of 
 sparks from her chimneys and accompanied by the rumbling and 
 roaring throb of her engine, she struck terror to the hearts of the 
 superstitious. " Whole crews prostrated themselves upon their knees 
 and besought Divine Providence to protect them from the horrible 
 monster that was marching on the tides and lighting up its pathway 
 by its fires." Writers of that time do not agree as to the name of 
 the boat. Some state that it was called the Clermont, after Chancellor 
 Livingston's residence ; others that it was called Katharine of Cler- 
 mont, after Fulton's wife, Katharine Livingston. 
 
 Development of Steam Shipping. A regular line was estab- 
 lished between Albany and New York. The fare by stagecoach be- 
 
210 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tween the two points was $12, but Fulton's boats were soon carrying 
 passengers for $7 and the price in a few years was reduced to $3. 
 Fulton's name has become so closely linked with the steamboat 
 because his line was a financial success, made so by the wealth, influ- 
 ence, and enterprise of the Livingstons aided by the valuable fran- 
 chise conferred upon them by the state of New York. Numerous 
 inventors had made steamboats before the Clermont was launched 
 and some of them were speedier, notably those of Fitch, Colonel 
 John Stevens, and Symington. 
 
 Fulton's first United States patents, issued in 1809 and 181 1, cov- 
 ered only a few points relating to the attachment of paddle wheels 
 to axles and cranks to engines. August 26, 1/91, a United States 
 patent signed by George Washington, president, and Thomas Jeffer- 
 son, secretary of state, was issued to John Fitch " for applying the 
 force of steam to cranks, paddles for propelling a boat or vessel 
 through the water." Fitch's patent was granted for fourteen years 
 and it expired before the Clermont was launched. Fulton was 
 an able engineer and had devised improvements in machinery for 
 sawing marble, making rope, spinning flax, and making excavations, 
 and he had given considerable study to the improvement of canals. 
 He was also a portrait painter of considerable ability. 
 
 Colonel John C. Stevens of Hoboken, N. J., who devoted con- 
 siderable time and money to experiments with steamboats and steam 
 engines and was later to become identified with railroads, in 1789 
 petitioned the New York legislature for a grant of the exclusive 
 right of steam navigation of the waters of that state but it was re- 
 fused him and later given to the Livingstons. The Stevens family 
 had constructed several steamboats prior to 1807, some of them bet- 
 ter than any at that time existing. One of their later ones, the 
 Phoenix, a paddle wheel steamer, was ready only a few days later 
 than the Clermont, but the franchise granted Fulton and Living- 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 211 
 
 ston precluded Stevens from operating it on New York waters. 
 Later, with characteristic courage, he placed it in command of his 
 son, Robert L. Stevens, who started along the coast of New Jersey 
 around Cape May and up the Delaware to Philadelphia. This was 
 the first appearance of a steam vessel on the ocean. Stormy weather 
 was encountered but the Phcenix was able to make a harbor 
 when sailing vessels were blown out to sea, and arrived safely at 
 Philadelphia. It was employed for a long time to transport passen- 
 gers and freight on the Delaware river. Improvements in steam 
 engines increased the efficiency of the steamboat and soon they were 
 found on the principal inland waters of America. The first to ap- 
 pear on the St. Lawrence was the Accommodation launched in 
 1809, which carried passengers from Montreal to Quebec for $8 and 
 from Quebec to Montreal, against the stream, for $9. In 181 1 a line 
 was established between Pittsburg and New Orleans. 
 
 In Great Britain. In 1812 Henry Bell of Glasgow launched the 
 Comet and established the first commercially successful line in Great 
 Britain. Following is a copy of the original advertisement: 
 
 "STEAM PASSAGE BOAT. The Comet. Between Glasgow, 
 Greenock, and Helens burgh, for passengers only. The subscriber having, 
 at much expense, fitted up a handsome vessel to ply upon the RIVER 
 CLYDE BETWEEN GLASGOW AND GREENOCK, to sail by the 
 power of wind, air, and steam, he intends that the vessel shall leave the 
 Broomielaw on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, about midday, or at 
 such hour thereafter as may answer from the state of the tide ; and to leave 
 Greenock on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, in the morning, to suit 
 the tide. 
 
 " The terms are for the present fixed at 45. for the best cabin, and 35. 
 for the second ; but, beyond these rates, nothing is to be allowed to serv- 
 ants or any other person employed about the vessel. 
 
 "The subscriber continues his establishment at HELENSBURGH 
 BATHS the same as for years past, and a vessel will be in readiness to con- 
 vey passengers in the Comet from Greenock to Helensburgh. 
 
212 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 " Passengers by the Comet will receive information of the hours of sail- 
 ing by applying at Mr. Housten's office, Broomielavv ; or Mr. Thomas 
 Blackney'-s, East Quay Head, Greenock. 
 
 "HENRY BELL. 
 " Helensburgh Baths, Aug. 5, 1812." 
 
 Russia introduced steam navigation in 1815-1816, but earlier 
 than that she placed an order for a steamship with a company in the 
 United States which constructed the Emperor Alexander for her. 
 Great Britain's command of the sea during the War of 1812 pre- 
 vented the departure of what would have been the first steam vessel 
 to cross the Atlantic, and it was used as a coasting steamer between 
 Portland and Boston. As early as 1826, Russia had a steam 
 warship. 
 
 The first steam vessel to cross the Atlantic was the Savan- 
 nah. Built at New York, launched August 22, 1818, of 380 tons 
 burden, she was originally intended as a sailing packet between New 
 York and Liverpool. She was fitted with sails and paddle wheels, 
 and made the passage from New York to Savannah in 1819 in seven 
 days, where she took President Monroe and his party on board for a 
 trial trip. On May 26, 1819, she sailed from Savannah for Liver- 
 pool. The log books of several ships contain notices of having 
 spoken her. One supposed she was on fire and tried to afford relief 
 but could not catch her. Off the coast of Ireland the revenue cutter 
 Kite chased her for several hours, supposing her to be either on 
 fire, or a most suspicious craft. Several shots were fired at her 
 before she stopped her engines, and the revenue officers were greatly 
 surprised at the strange craft when they came on board. She arrived 
 in Liverpool after a voyage of twenty-five days, having used her 
 engines but eighteen days for fear of giving out. The Savannah was 
 the subject of many strange rumors, one that she was a craft 
 especially designed to effect the escape of Napoleon from St. Helena. 
 From Liverpool she proceeded to Copenhagen, Stockholm, and St. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2 1 3 
 
 Petersburg, being visited at each port by a curious crowd ; while at 
 Kronstadt the Emperor of Russia paid her a visit. She returned to 
 Savannah, having made the voyage in excellent condition. Later 
 she was wrecked off the coast of Long Island. 
 
 The importance of steam navigation soon came to be generally 
 recognized, and lines of steamboats were plying upon the inland 
 waters of America, between Ireland and Great Britain, and between 
 Dover and Calais. In 1825 the British ship Enterprise steamed 
 from London to Calcutta, and was the first to steam around the 
 Cape of Good Hope. However, steamship lines between British and 
 Indian ports were restricted chiefly to carrying passengers, for the 
 great amount of coal required for the long voyage occupied so much 
 room that there was little left for profitable freight. 
 
 Iron Ships. In 1820 the Aaron Manby was launched at a British 
 shipyard. She was the first iron steamer and the first steamer to 
 sail directly from London to Paris. By 1832 iron ships were com- 
 mon. They were stronger, lighter, and were the first vessels con- 
 structed with water-tight bulkheads. In 1831 there was built at 
 Quebec the Royal William and the following year this steamer, 
 the third to cross the Atlantic ocean, was taken to Montreal, fitted 
 with engines, and made the voyage to London. Her appearance 
 was so unusual that upon encountering a British warship she was 
 fired upon and forced to lie to until the naval officers could satisfy 
 themselves there was nothing wrong with her. She had no cargo 
 but coal, and used the greater part of that in making her voyage. 
 While on the Thames she was sold to the Spanish Government, and 
 was the first steam war vessel possessed by that nation. Prior to 
 1838 it was generally supposed that a steamer in crossing the Atlan- 
 tic would require so much coal- that there would be little room left 
 for passengers or paying freight. 
 
 Opening of Transatlantic Lines. As early as 1832 Dr. Junius 
 
214 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Smith, an American residing in London, began to agitate the ques- 
 tion of a line of transatlantic steamers. A trip from London to 
 New York which consumed fifty-four days, and the return, thirty-two 
 days, brought the need forcibly to his notice, when, according to his 
 ideas, a steamship should have made the time in fifteen or sixteen 
 days. His plan excited general ridicule and the strenuous opposition 
 of those interested in sailing vessels, who, from self-interest, would 
 naturally oppose such schemes. So conservative were the people 
 that the utmost difficulty was experienced. The Duke of Wellington 
 replied to Dr. Smith that he "would give no countenance to any 
 scheme which had for its object a change in the established system of 
 the country." However, Dr. Smith pluckily kept at it, borrowed 
 influential names and by such aid secured other names until finally 
 he had a list of responsible gentlemen who would agree to become 
 directors in his company. The company, known as the British and 
 American Steam Navigation Company, was organized, the stock sub- 
 scribed, and the construction of the British Queen, of 2400 tons, 
 what was then an exceedingly large vessel, was begun. The line 
 was intended to run from London and Liverpool to New York. 
 
 Meantime a rival company was in the field. The Great Western 
 Railway was constructed from London to Bristol about 1835. At 
 one of the meetings of the directors the celebrated engineer, Brunei, 
 proposed building steamships and connecting Bristol directly with 
 New York. The idea was treated as a joke, but the authority of 
 the engineer prevailed and a comparatively large ship known as 
 the Great Western was constructed. This line was to run in op- 
 position to that of Smith's, and the Great Western was to be com- 
 pleted before the British Queen. Not to be outdone, Smith's 
 line chartered a schooner rigged steamer called the Sirius and em- 
 ployed her until their own vessel could be completed The Sirius 
 left Cork on her first voyage April 4, 1838, and arrived off New 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2 15 
 
 York harbor April 22, making the trip in eighteen days. This 
 was the first trip made in the interests of an established trans- 
 atlantic line. The Great Western sailed from Bristol four days 
 later than the Sirius and arrived in New York April 23, actually 
 tying up at the wharf only a few hours later than the Sirius, for 
 the latter vessel, in trying to make the harbor without a pilot, 
 grounded and was delayed off Sandy Hook. Their appearance at 
 New York created a sensation and marked a new epoch in trans- 
 portation. This was not so long ago but that many people are still 
 living who witnessed the arrival of these steamers at New York. If 
 they be compared with the largest steamers at the close of the cen- 
 tury the advance appears startling. The Sirius, which made the 
 first voyage in the interests of an organized transatlantic company, 
 was of about 700 tons burden. The Deutschland, the fastest 
 steamer of the Hamburg-American line, the greatest transportation 
 company in the world, has a displacement of 23,000 tons. The 
 Sirius in her voyage made 7 knots an hour; the Deutschland, 
 231/2 knots an hour. The engines of the Sirius developed about 
 320 horse-power; those of the Deutschland, 36,913 horse-power. 
 The first was moved by paddle wheels aided by masts and sails ; 
 the second by two manganese bronze screw propellers, 23 feet 
 in diameter, each attached to the end of a hollow nickel steel 
 shaft, 130 feet in length and more than 2 feet in diameter. Steam 
 is furnished the Deutschland by 16 Scotch boilers, with a working 
 pressure of 225 pounds per square inch," heated by 112 separate 
 furnaces, burning 572 tons of coal a day. In her record run she 
 averaged 1.45 pounds of coal per horse-power-hour. The engines 
 of the Sirius. worked with a pressure of 53.4 pounds per square 
 inch, and her furnace consumed one ton of coal in one hour and 
 thirty minutes. She carried forty-six passengers. The Deutsch- 
 land has sleeping accommodations for 1320 persons, rather more 
 
2l6 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 people than are found in the average country town. At her best the 
 Sirius could do about 225 knots a day: the new ship has a record 
 of 584 knots in 24 hours. The Sirius occupied 17 days on her 
 return trip, ran out of coal and burned anything that could be 
 spared. The Deutschland, leaving New York September 5, 1900, 
 on her eastern trip, crossed in five days, seven hours, and thirty-eight 
 minutes, her engines at times developing nearly 38,000 horse-power. 
 The engines of the Deutschland are each of the 6-cylinder, 
 quadruple expansion type: two high pressure cylinders, each 36.64 
 inches in diameter; first intermediate cylinder 73.67 inches in 
 diameter; second intermediate cylinder 104.61 inches in diameter. 
 The common stroke is 72.89 inches. To produce the steam re- 
 quired to drive her enormous mass at the rate of 28 statute miles 
 an hour it is necessary to expose nearly two acres (84,250 square 
 feet) of her heating surface to the action of the fire of 112 furnaces. 
 Twelve rings or collars on each shaft, working against bearings or 
 thrust holes, hold the shaft in place and prevent the propellers from 
 pushing the engines out of the ship. 
 
 Contrast with the Present. It is estimated that it costs $100,000 
 to send the Deutschland on one round trip. The coal alone for 
 one voyage costs about $15,000. She has a crew of 550 men, of 
 whom 240 are required to care for her engines and machinery. The 
 enormous engines and the necessary supplies take up so much room 
 that the Deutschland has room for only about 600 tons of freight 
 and carries practically none. Her furnaces burn in one day as much 
 coal as the Sirius could carry if her whole cargo were given up to 
 it. The Deut.schland is essentially a passenger steamer and every- 
 thing has been done to make her attractive. She has a gym- 
 nasium, a hospital, library, printing office, pianos, flowers, an electric 
 lighting plant with about 2000 lights in the circuit, a restaurant forty 
 feet above the water where the passengers can obtain meals at any 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2 17 
 
 time. In the grand saloon 500 persons can be seated at the table at 
 one time. Costly paintings and decorations add to the general 
 attractiveness, and an ocean voyage has been robbed of its most dis- 
 agreeable features. Every provision for safety that the ingenuity of 
 man can devise has been made. She has a cellular double bottom 
 divided into twenty-four tanks, and the inside of the hull proper is 
 divided into twenty-one water-tight compartments, while twenty-six 
 lifeboats provide for any emergency. So popular has the Deutsch- 
 land, the fastest steamship of the nineteenth century, proved, that 
 on one western voyage $143,000 was collected for passenger fares. 
 
 The "Great Eastern." After the trips of the Sirius and 
 Great Western had proved the practicability of the scheme other 
 transatlantic lines were soon established. The Cunard line in 1840, 
 whose proud boast is still that they have never lost a passenger; the 
 Bremen line in 1847, the Havre line in 1848. The Collins line fol- 
 lowed in 1850, and soon steamships were plowing certain well recog- 
 nized routes of travel. By 1852 it had been demonstrated that 
 steamers running from England to Australia usually lost from $5,000 
 to $50,000 on a voyage, owing to the necessity of stopping often to 
 replenish their coal bunkers, such stops taking them out of the 
 shortest lines of travel and consuming so much extra time that the 
 fastest sailing ships made as quick passages and at less expense. 
 Studying this problem, Brunei, the great engineer, came to the con- 
 clusion that a vessel of 25,000 tons capacity could carry ample coal 
 supplies and have room enough left for freight and passengers to 
 operate at a profit. He interested capitalists, organized the Eastern 
 Steam Navigation Company with a capital of 1,200,000, and work 
 on the Great Eastern, until 1899 the largest ship in the world, 
 was begun May I, 1854. The hull was made double, at that time 
 an unusual construction, the outer and inner shells being two feet 
 ten inches apart, with partitions running lengthwise and crosswise 
 
218 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 dividing the space into water-tight cells about six feet square. The 
 interior of the ship was divided by transverse bulkheads (partitions 
 crossing) into twelve water-tight compartments below the lower deck 
 and nine compartments above. Two of these compartments might 
 be filled with water without endangering the safety of the ship. 
 Two bulkheads extending from the bottom of the ship to the upper 
 deck ran lengthwise for about 350 feet. To reduce the draft she 
 was built with a flat bottom without any keel. About 30,000 iron 
 plates, averaging ten feet by two feet nine inches, and three fourths 
 inch thick, and 2,000,000 rivets, the whole weighing about 9000 
 tons, were used in the construction of her hull. The vessel when 
 completed had an extreme length of 692 feet ; breadth across the 
 paddle boxes, 118 feet; breadth of hull, 83 feet; depth from bottom 
 to upper deck, 58 feet; six masts, two paddle wheels 56 feet in di- 
 ameter, weighing 185 tons, or more than Fulton's first steamboat. 
 Ten boilers heated by 112 furnaces furnished the steam to turn the 
 paddle wheels and a screw propeller twenty-four feet in diameter. 
 Her draft when empty was fifteen feet six inches; when fully laden, 
 thirty feet. The vessel was so long that she could not be launched 
 stern first as is customary, so 1400 piles were driven in the mud 
 along the river bank and she was built and launched sideways. They 
 first tried to launch her November 3, 1857, but moved her only six 
 feet. Several unsuccessful triajs followed, and it was not until Jan- 
 uary 31, 1858, that she was afloat. She at that time had ; . cost 
 $3>555> IO - I* 1 1858 the company became financially embarrassed, 
 was dissolved, and a new corporation, called the Great Ship Com- 
 pany, formed, and the ship completed. When fully equipped her 
 displacement was about 27,000 tons and her engines developed about 
 12,000 horse-power. ' She had accommodations for 800 first class 
 passengers, 2000 second class, 1200 third class; or more than any 
 ship ever built. However, on her first voyage she carried only 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 2IQ 
 
 thirty-eight passengers and eight guests. She left Southampton 
 June 17, 1860, and arrived at New York in eleven days and two 
 hours, having steamed 3188 knots, at an average speed of twelve 
 knots an hour. Her greatest speed was about 14^ knots an hour. 
 She consumed 2877 tons of coal. Even at that time other steamers 
 were speedier than she. The Baltic, of the Collins line, the same 
 year ran from New York to Liverpool in nine days, thirteen hours, 
 and thirty minutes. The greatest service the Great Eastern per- 
 formed was in laying the Atlantic cable, for which work her great 
 bulk and steadiness in rough seas especially fitted her. In 1875, 
 when put in dry dock that her bottom might be cleaned, it was esti- 
 
 THE " OCEANIC." 
 
 mated that from 52,000 square feet of her hull, rather more than an 
 acre, mussels six inches in thickness and weighing about 300 tons 
 were removed, or nearly as much as the entire tonnage of the Savan- 
 nah, the first steamer to cross the ocean. The Great Eastern was 
 not a financial success. In 1880 the directors of the company to 
 which she belonged reported she had run them in debt between $40,- 
 ooo and $50,000 annually. She was sold to a man who used her for 
 exhibition purposes. Later she was broken up and sold for old iron. 
 The "Oceanic." It was not until 1899 that a larger ship than 
 
220 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the Great Eastern was constructed. Then the Oceanic was launched 
 with a total length of 704 feet, 12 feet more than the Great Eastern, 
 and a displacement of 28,500 tons to the 27,000 tons of the other. 
 The Oceanic has five steel decks running from stem to stern. She is 
 
 made with a double bottom, the 
 intervening space being from five 
 to seven feet. The plates range 
 in thickness from one to one and 
 one half inches. She has twin 
 screw propellers turned by triple 
 compound engines of 28,000 horse- 
 
 LAUNCH OF THE 
 
 OCEANIC.-- power. She can accommodate 410 
 
 first class passengers, 300 second class, 1000 third class. 
 The Oceanic was constructed by the White Star line at 
 a cost of $5,000,000, with the avowed object of fur- 
 nishing a steady sea-going boat that might be depended upon to ar- 
 rive in port on schedule time irrespective of the weather. Extreme 
 speed was not expected of her, yet she can make 2 I ^ knots an hour. 
 Larger ships are now being constructed, and it is likely the twentieth 
 century will see others yet larger and faster. The following table 
 gives the principal dimensions of the largest ships. 
 
 Line 
 
 Steamship 
 
 Launched 
 
 Length 
 
 Beam 
 
 Draft 
 
 Displacement 
 
 Horse- 
 
 Speed 
 
 
 
 
 Feet 
 
 Feet 
 
 Feet 
 
 Tons 
 
 Power 
 
 
 Great Ship 
 Company 
 
 i Great Eastern 
 
 1858 
 
 6 9 2 
 
 83 
 
 i'5/ 
 
 31,000) 
 27,000 J 
 
 I2,OOO 
 
 14.5 
 
 American 
 
 City of Paris 
 
 l88 9 
 
 5 60 
 
 63 
 
 26% 
 
 I5,OOO 
 
 20,000 
 
 20.25 
 
 White Star 
 
 Teutonic 
 
 1890 
 
 585 
 
 57/2 
 
 26 
 
 13,800 
 
 l8,OOO 
 
 19.50 
 
 Cunard 
 
 Campagnia 
 
 1893 
 
 625 
 
 65 
 
 28 
 
 19,000 
 
 3O,OOO 
 
 22.1 
 
 American 
 
 St. Paul 
 
 1895 
 
 554 
 
 63 
 
 27 
 
 l6,OOO 
 
 2O,OOO 
 
 21 
 
 North Ger- 
 man Lloyd 
 
 ) Kaiser Wilhelm 
 ) der Grosse 
 
 l8 97 
 
 649 
 
 66 
 
 29 
 
 2O,OOO 
 
 28,OOO 
 
 22.62 
 
 White Star 
 
 Oceanic 
 
 I8 99 
 
 704 
 
 68 
 
 3 2 X 
 
 28,500 
 
 28,OOO 
 
 2I.2 S 
 
 Hamburg- 
 American 
 
 | Deutschland 
 
 1900 
 
 686 
 
 67 
 
 28 
 
 23,OOO 
 
 36,913 
 
 23-36 
 
 North Ger- 
 man Lloyd 
 
 > Kaiser Wil- 
 \ helm II. 
 
 } ? 
 
 705 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 26,OOO 
 
 38,000 
 
 > 
 
 White Star 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 75 
 
 ? 
 
 ? 
 
 32,000 
 
 
 ? 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 221 
 
 The " Turbinia." The nineteenth century has left the twentieth 
 century the development and perfection of the steam turbine. In 
 all engines of the piston principle there are many reciprocating parts 
 that must be stopped at the end of each stroke and started the other 
 way. There is great strain attendant upon this, and the energy 
 required for its performance is sheer waste. Various methods are 
 employed to overcome this strain ; for example, where four engines 
 are attached to a propeller shaft the cranks are turned at right angles 
 
 THE "OCEANIC" COMPARED WITH BROADWAY BUILDINGS. 
 
 From " The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century." 
 
 to each other, like four spokes in a wheel, and the reciprocating parts 
 of one engine balanced as much as possible by those of another. It 
 was the shock and strain of reciprocating parts that recently nearly 
 wrecked the St. Paul. An accident to the propeller set the machin- 
 ery to racing at high speed, and the centrifugal force of the unbal- 
 anced parts soon wrecked the machinery and made the engine room 
 look as though a torpedo had struck it. 
 
 Parsons Steam Turbine. The losses due to reciprocating parts 
 are well understood and have engaged the attention of many able 
 inventors who have constructed engines without such parts. Nearly 
 
 
222 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 2000 patents have been granted in the United States alone for such 
 termed rotary engines. Of these Parsons steam turbine is at present 
 the best advertised because applied in 1897 to the yacht Turbinia. 
 It drove her at the rate of 32^ knots an hour, which was then con- 
 sidered a wonderful speed, and later, applied to the Viper, has ena- 
 bled her to cover a measured mile at the rate 
 of 37.1 knots an hour, or 42.67 statute 
 miles. In reciprocating engines the piston 
 is forced back and forth, as steam is applied 
 to each side of it, but in the turbine a disc 
 bearing vanes or flanges, against which 
 steam impinges, revolves continuously in 
 one direction like a windmill, and there is 
 no stopping and starting of pistons, cross- 
 heads, slide valves, etc. Roughly, the Par- 
 sons steam turbine may be said to consist 
 of a cylinder with inside rings or diaphragms 
 through which steam is guided and directed 
 against moving blades fixed to a revolving 
 shaft, turning something like a windmill, 
 with slats like a Venetian blind. There 
 may be a series of such rings and blades 
 within the cylinder. Steam, passing through 
 the first, acts upon the first set of blades and so on through all. 
 
 The De Laval turbine consists of a steel wheel with a series of 
 vanes or buckets at its outer rim, against which jets of steam are 
 directed, causing the wheel to revolve. A speed of 30,000 revolu- 
 tions a minute has been reached with the De Laval turbine, and it is 
 peculiarly adapted to running high speed dynamos. One precaution 
 that has to be taken with turbines moving at such high speed is that 
 the rotating parts must move about their absolute center of mass 
 
 TEUTONIC IN DRY DOCK. 
 Showing Screw Propellers. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 223 
 
 and not their geometrical center of figure. Ordinary workmen can- 
 not perform such infinitesimally fine work as to construct bearings 
 which accomplish this, so it is necessary to make some arrangement 
 by which the machine will attend to this adjustment for itself. Par- 
 sons makes the bearings of several concentric bushings fitting over 
 each other loosely and fills the small space between them by forcing 
 it full of oil under pressure. Such fittings allow the shaft to dis- 
 place the bearings ever so slightly in the direction required. De 
 Laval mounts his wheel on a long slender spindle, that the latter 
 may spring enough to give the desired result, but a large number of 
 De Laval's spindles have broken, showing the method is imperfect, 
 for a speed of 17,000 revolutions per minute means over a million 
 changes of stresses an hour, and this is enough to worry the life out 
 of the best steel in a comparatively short time. 
 
 Since the turbine moves continuously in one direction it has the 
 marked advantage of being free from the vibrations inherent in other 
 engines that use reciprocating parts. The thrust of the propeller 
 that with ordinary engines is taken up by collars and thrust blocks is 
 balanced by the pressure of the steam against the turbine and the 
 friction saved. The engines of turbines with all their auxiliary gear 
 weigh less per horse-power than in the reciprocating type, but 
 greater boiler surface is necessary to produce the vast amount of 
 steam required, and the increased weight of boilers materially re- 
 duces the credit for weight saved by the engines. 
 
 The "Viper," the fastest vessel of the nineteenth century, 
 showed on her various trials as high as 35^ knots, or practically 41 
 statute miles an hour, and covered one mile at 37.1 knots an hour. 
 She has four propeller shafts, two on each side driven by two 
 duplicate engines, one on each side. The two innermost propeller 
 shafts have attached an additional small reversing turbine to which 
 steam is admitted when the vessel is reversed, and which revolves 
 
224 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 idly with the shaft when the vessel goes ahead. To reverse the ves- 
 sel, steam is cut off from the propelling turbines and applied to the 
 reversing turbines. No thoroughly satisfactory means has been 
 devised for reversing the regular turbine. It is generally believed 
 that steam turbines are not economical users of coal. The Viper 
 has a displacement of 385 tons. Running at 31,118 knots she 
 burned 19,846 pounds of coal per hour. The Albatross is a boat of 
 the same class fitted with reciprocating engines and having a displace- 
 ment of 384^4 tons. Running at the rate of 31.552 knots, she con- 
 sumed 17,474 pounds of coal per hour, showing economy of 2372 
 pounds of coal in favor of the reciprocating engine. 
 
 CANALS. 
 
 Birthplace of Civilization. The origin of the canal is lost in 
 the mists of antiquity that surround the valleys of the Nile and the 
 Euphrates, rival claimants for the credit of the birthplace of civiliza- 
 tion. The explorations conducted by the University of Pennsylvania 
 in the valley of the Euphrates have brought to light indisputable proof 
 of the existence of a high civilization there thousands of years before 
 the beginning of the Christian era. The country supported a dense 
 population, having colleges and libraries well established more than 
 a thousand years before Abram and his family left " Ur of the Chal- 
 dees to go into the land of Canaan." The lower valleys of the 
 Euphrates and Tigris rivers were connected by a network of irri- 
 gating ditches, some of which reached the dignity of canals large 
 enough to afford passageway for the boats of the period. The stra- 
 tegic value of the canal was recognized, and canal centers were com- 
 manded by towers built to defend them, for the water supply was 
 the life of the country, and when more warlike and less enlightened 
 tribes from the north invaded the land and broke down the dams and 
 canals the country lapsed into that state of decay and barrenness 
 that characterizes it to-day. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 225 
 
 De Lesseps Anticipated. The valley of the Nile has also an 
 interesting history. Egyptologists have shown that at different 
 times it has been connected by a canal with the Red Sea, probably 
 before Joseph "went down into Egypt." The valley of the Nile, 
 like that of the Euphrates, depended upon irrigation, and what more 
 natural than the development of a canal for commercial purposes 
 from an irrigating ditch? 
 
 Chinese Canals. The Grand Canal of China, in operation to- 
 day, and bearing the burden of a large part of its inland commerce, 
 connects the rivers Pei-Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang. The canal is 
 about 560 miles long and with the connecting rivers furnishes an 
 inland waterway of more than 2000 miles, an important consideration 
 in a country where the religion of its people will not allow railroads 
 to cross the graves of their ancestors. It is interesting to note that 
 although the country is supposed to have a population of about 
 400,000,000 souls it has only about 600 miles of railroad and 4000 
 miles of telegraph line. Small wonder that millions of its inhabit- 
 ants never heard of its late war with Japan ! 
 
 The little kingdom of the Netherlands represents a victory 
 wrung by man from the forces of nature. Much of its surface lies 
 below the level of the sea, which is held back by powerful embank- 
 ments. The construction of canals was begun there in the twelfth 
 century and they have been developed to such an extent that those 
 for drainage and communication now have a total length of 1,907,17 
 miles, while the area of the country is only 12,656 square miles. 
 
 The Amsterdam Canal. One of the most remarkable feats of 
 modern engineering was the construction of the Amsterdam Canal, 
 connecting that city with the North Sea. The canal is 15^ miles 
 long, 88 feet wide at the bottom, 197 feet wide at the top, and has a 
 depth of 23 feet of water. Its level is 20 inches below that of the 
 sea at low tide and this has necessitated the building of an artificial 
 
226 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 harbor, dikes, gates, and enormous centrifugal pumps, the latter 
 being able to discharge 440,000 gallons of water per minute. 
 
 Baltic and North Sea Canal. Germany has 1452 miles of ca- 
 nals and 1371 miles of canalized rivers. The most important canal is 
 the Baltic and North Sea Canal, opened in 1895 and costing $40,000,- 
 ooo ; it runs from Kiel on the Baltic Sea, southwesterly across the 
 isthmus which connects Germany with Denmark, to the south of the 
 river Elbe. It is 61 miles long, 85 feet wide at the bottom, 196 feet 
 wide at water level, and has a depth of 29*4 feet of water, affording a 
 passage for the most powerful warships of the German navy. It was 
 built by the Government and its strategic value was its chief consid- 
 eration. It gives Germany an outlet to the sea without having to 
 brave the dangers of a stormy passage around Denmark ; no small 
 consideration, for from 1858 to 1885 the storms and ice floes wrecked 
 2800 vessels, and from 1877 to 1881, 708 lives were lost on this route. 
 
 Theoretically, the whole canal is at the Baltic Sea level. It is prac- 
 tically unaffected by the tides, but the rise and fall of the North Sea 
 on the Elbe is so high that tidal locks have to be established. Storm 
 gates are required on the other end twenty-five days in the year, but 
 the tide locks at the Elbe will be kept closed except during three 
 hours of ebb tide. These locks are like ordinary canal locks and a 
 vessel can pass through without delay. This canal is operated at a 
 loss, the deficit in 1898 being $245,000 and in 1899 $108,000. 
 
 Isthmus of Corinth Canal. Until a ship canal was cut across 
 the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece all the vessels trading between the 
 Mediterranean ports of France, Spain, Italy, and Austria and the 
 ports of Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor, the Black Sea, and the Lower 
 Danube were obliged to go around Cape Matapan. The canal cuts 
 the isthmus in a straight line at its narrowest part, its length being 
 just under four miles, and reaches deep water at both ends about 225 
 yards from the shore. Its bottom width is 72 feet, width at the sur- 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 22 / 
 
 face of the water 77^ feet, depth 26^ feet. The canal is perfectly 
 straight and the navigator can see through it from one end to the 
 other. The sides of the canal from the bottom to 6^ feet above 
 the surface of the water are lined with concrete blocks to protect the 
 banks from the "wash" of passing vessels. This canal saves for 
 goods from Adriatic ports 185 nautical miles, from Mediterranean 
 ports 95 miles. It was across this isthmus that the Athenians hauled 
 their war galleys three hundred years before Christ. These vessels 
 had three banks of oars and often had crews of more than two hun- 
 dred men, and are supposed to have been of about 150 tons burden. 
 The canal was open to navigation November 8, 1893. 
 
 Canals of France. France has a good system of canals, but 
 combines very strangely some of the latest hydraulic lifts with the 
 most primitive methods of propulsion, for on some of her inland 
 waterways two men are often employed to haul a boat of from 60 to 
 i 10 tons burden eleven to sixteen miles per day. A man and a horse 
 harnessed together can haul the same boat about eighteen miles per 
 day. 
 
 Military Advantages. Plans for a ship canal from the North Sea 
 to the Mediterranean are very dear to the French heart. Since 
 England holds Gibraltar (the entrance to the Mediterranean) such a 
 canal would be of great strategic value to France in case of war with 
 her, and more especially so if France's "great and good friend" 
 Russia were to complete the proposed ship canal from the Black Sea 
 to the Baltic. Such canals would enable the two countries to con- 
 centrate their fleets either in the Mediterranean or the North Sea as 
 occasion might require, and would furnish a safe passage through 
 their own territory for the greater part of the distance. 
 
 Suez Canal. However, it is chiefly through her famous engi- 
 neer, Ferdinand De Lesseps, that France has become famous in canal 
 building. It was he that in 1858 formed the Suez Canal Company 
 
228 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 with a capital of $40,000,000. He secured from the Khedive of 
 Egypt, by a gift of a large block of the stock, the desired permission 
 to construct the canal. It was begun in April, 1859, and opened 
 with imposing ceremonies in 1869. Its length was 103 miles, width 
 at bottom 72 feet, depth 26 feet. Its total cost to 1870 was $83,- 
 000,000, but of this sum only $58,000,000 was actually expended on 
 the construction, the remainder being devoted to the financiering of 
 the project. Since then the canal has been widened, deepened, and 
 the approaches improved until it has now cost more than $100,000,- 
 ooo. The net tonnage passing through the canal in 1870 was 
 439,911. In 1880 it had grown to 3,057,421 ; in 1885, to 6,335, 753; 
 and in 1891 to 8,698,777. 
 
 The opening of the canal lessened the time necessary for voyages 
 to the East more than one half. By it the sea distance from English 
 ports to ports in India, China, and Australia was decreased more than 
 4300 nautical miles. It is interesting to note that England at first 
 strongly opposed the building of the canal, but the ways of trade are 
 peculiar, for to-day English capital controls it, having secured the 
 stock of the Khedive. The English occupation of Egypt makes the 
 canal almost exclusively an English waterway. 
 
 Tolls and Tonnage. It takes about twenty-two hours for a ves- 
 sel to pass through the canal, and the tolls are ten francs (about 
 $2.00) per net ton. In the Spanish- American war it cost Camara's 
 fleet thousands of dollars to pass through the canal and make a pre- 
 tense of reinforcing Manila. Admiral Dewey, on his passage 
 through in the Olympia paid as toll $3,516.04. The net tonnage in 
 1898 was 9,238,603, and the receipts $17,581,200, leaving a surplus 
 over expenditures of $9,757,800. The stock now sells at about five 
 times its par value. 
 
 Panama Designs. Having made an assured success of the Suez 
 Canal, De Lesseps turned his attention to the isthmus separating the 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 229 
 
 continents of North and South America. This at its narrowest part 
 is 31 miles in width. The valley of the Chagres river seemed to 
 offer the most promising passage, as the summit there is only 263 
 feet above sea level. There are many difficulties to be encountered 
 there not found at Suez. Panama, the city on the Pacific side of 
 the isthmus, has no good harbor, and the tides there rise from twelve 
 to twenty-two feet. Many small rivers descend both coasts and the 
 rainfall is exceedingly heavy. The route chosen was from Chagres 
 on the Atlantic side to New Panama on the Pacific side. 
 
 In 1879, upon the invitation of Count Ferdinand De Lesseps, 
 delegates from twenty-four countries to a canal congress assembled 
 in Paris. The congress made De Lesseps president and recommended 
 a sea level canal. Upon the adjournment of the convention the Uni- 
 versal Interoceanic Canal Company was organized by De Lesseps. 
 Subscriptions were received and a route forty-six miles in length with 
 the following dimensions planned. Bottom breadth, 72 to 78 feet; 
 breadth at water level, 92 to 164 feet; depth, 28 to 29^ feet. 
 
 Difficulties of the Work. The work was begun but the project 
 met with great difficulties. The water flow of the Chagres river during 
 the rainy season had been underestimated and caused great damage. 
 The climate was hot and a fertile field for the tropical fevers which 
 follow close upon the breaking of the soil. The different layers of 
 earth, shale, rock, etc. were at puzzling angles, and sometimes when 
 a cut was made at the foot of an eminence the whole face of the 
 elevation would seem to protest and come sliding down as fast as cut 
 away. The first estimate of the canal was about $120,000,000. By 
 1889 $200,000,000 had been expended and the money was ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 Panama Scandal and Bankruptcy. New funds could not be 
 raised and the work ceased. A committee sent to investigate re- 
 ported that it would cost $243,000,000 to complete the canal. The 
 
230 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 company failed and went into the hands of a receiver, who reported 
 in 1890 that he thought it would require $600,000,000 to complete 
 the canal. Meanwhile the French government had ordered an in- 
 vestigation, the gravest financial scandals were uncovered, and sev- 
 eral prominent in politics and finance were found guilty and punished, 
 among them De Lesseps' son Charles. 
 
 Report of International Commission. In 1894 a new company 
 was formed to complete the Panama canal. It made a minute in- 
 vestigation, requiring the services of 150 engineers for four years. 
 When the committee reported the French government invited an in- 
 ternational commission composed of ten engineers of high authority 
 from the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, and France, 
 among them the directors of the Kiel and Manchester canals, to ex- 
 amine the new estimate. The commission organized in 1896 and 
 rendered their decision December 2, 1898. They approved unan- 
 imously the plans and estimates of the French committee, which 
 declared the canal to be about two fifths completed and that it would 
 require eight or ten years and about $102,204,000 to fully complete 
 it. The new company has kept about three thousand laborers em- 
 ployed since then. They are able to do only enough to keep the 
 work from deteriorating and prevent the concession from being for- 
 feited while fresh capital is being raised. With abundant capital it 
 is thought that the work could be completed in about eight years. 
 
 De Lesseps' Career. The career of this financier, diplomat, and 
 engineer merits some notice. Ferdinand De Lesseps, born in Ver- 
 sailles, 1805, was a cousin of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon 
 III. He had brooded over the Suez canal scheme for years. The 
 emperor and empress approved his plans and this was enough to 
 arouse the prejudice and opposition of England, whose newspapers 
 and engineers pronounced it visionary and impossible. The conces- 
 sion was granted in 1856 and work was begun in 1859. The English 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 231 
 
 government opposed the project and disputed the legality of the 
 viceroy's action and through its influence the concession was can- 
 celed. In spite of all difficulties a small channel was opened August 
 15, 1865, which was widened and deepened until, November 20, 
 1869, a tide water canal 100 miles long, which Robert Stephenson 
 and other eminent engineers had to the last declared impossible, was 
 opened with imposing ceremony. De Lesseps was also the promoter 
 of the Isthmus of Corinth canal. 
 
 When the Panama scandals were exposed Ferdinand De Lesseps, 
 who knew nothing of the corrupt practices of which his son and the 
 other directors had been guilty, was indicted with the others and re- 
 ceived, February 9, 1893, a sentence of five years' imprisonment. 
 He was not in court and was ignorant of the legal proceedings, for 
 he had long suffered from paralytic strokes impairing his vitality and 
 consciousness. The pathetic picture of an old man who had done so 
 much for French honor touched the popular heart, and the knowl- 
 edge of his disgrace was kept from him. He died near Paris Decem- 
 ber 7, 1894. 
 
 English Canals. The canals of England date back to the time 
 of the Roman occupation, for the Foss Dyke, a canal of Lincoln- 
 shire, was originally made by the Romans. The improvement of 
 her internal waterways early received attention, and there are locks 
 on the river Lee more than four centuries old. It is amusing to 
 read of the quarrel between the town of Exeter, situated on the 
 Exe river, and the Earl of Devon, who in 1316 built dams in the 
 river and spoiled it as a waterway. 
 
 Manchester. It is to Francis, Duke of Bridgewater, more than 
 to any other person, that England owes the development of her inter- 
 nal waterways. In 1750, owing to the lack of transportation facili- 
 ties and ignorance concerning use of coal in iron smelting, only 
 18,000 tons of iron were produced in all England. Four fifths 
 
232 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of its iron was imported from Sweden. Roads which had been 
 fairly good during the Middle Ages broke down under increased 
 traffic. " The new lines of trade lay often along mere country lanes 
 which had never been more than horse tracks, and to drive heavy 
 wains through lanes like these was all but impossible. Much of the 
 woolen trade, therefore, had to be carried on by means of long trains 
 of pack horses, and in most cases the cost of carriage added heavily 
 to the cost of production. In the case of yet heavier goods, such as 
 coal, distribution was almost impracticable save along the greater 
 rivers of any districts accessible from the sea." * 
 
 Effect on Freight Rates. The Duke of Bridgewater owned col- 
 lieries at Worsley whose value depended on Manchester as a market. 
 To bring this coal to market, he planned a canal from his mines to 
 the river Irwell, and James Brindley executed the plans for him. 
 Encouraged by his success, the duke later connected Manchester by 
 canal with Liverpool, 35 miles away. Many vested interests fought 
 this project bitterly, and called the undertaking " the Duke of 
 Bridgewater's folly," but after . sixteen years of strenuous opposition 
 the indomitable duke won, although the strife is said to have 
 shortened his life. The gain to transportation was at once apparent. 
 The freight rate between Liverpool and Manchester fell from forty 
 shillings a ton to eight shillings a ton, a new use was found for coal, 
 and England found the richest of all markets, the market of England 
 itself. Although Great Britain has 4700 miles of canals, or more 
 than any other country in the world, a description of the Manchester 
 ship canal will answer the purposes of this article. 
 
 Manchester, ambitious for maritime trade, decided in 1884 to 
 build a ship canal 35^ miles long, connecting it with ocean naviga- 
 tion at Liverpool. The latter city had always been the port for 
 Manchester, and, fearing a loss of prestige, would not contribute any 
 
 * Green's Greater History of the English People. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 233 
 
 money to the canal scheme. With characteristic energy Manchester 
 shouldered the burden and after expending $77,000,000 on the 
 scheme opened the canal with appropriate ceremonies January. 14, 
 1894. The canal is 125 feet wide at the bottom and averages more 
 than 170 feet at water level, being wide enough for ships to pass at 
 any point. It is 26 feet deep in any part and rises by means of four 
 sets of locks, from sea level to 60 feet 6 inches at Manchester. The 
 right of way was expensive, many engineering difficulties were en- 
 countered, and the Duke of Bridgewater's canal lay right across its 
 path. This canal, that threatened to be such an obstacle, now has 
 its boats taken up in a water cradle, lifted over the Manchester canal 
 and deposited on the other side. All structures crossing the canal 
 have been placed 75 feet overhead to afford room for the rigging of 
 passing ships. 
 
 Now comes one of the strange freaks of trade, for Manchester, 
 contrary to expectation, is not a great seaport town. The local 
 shipping between it arid Liverpool has increased, but the tolls on the 
 canal average only $175,000 per year, or less than enough to pay 
 operating expenses and interest on the debt incurred, so the people 
 of Manchester are taxed to feed the " White Elephant " while Liver- 
 pool reaps great benefit from one of the great achievements of modern 
 engineering, a canal which she feared so much when first planned 
 that she would not contribute to its construction. May not the 
 Manchester ship canal hold a lesson for New York city? 
 
 Canadian Canals.* The history of Canadian canals is closely 
 linked with the political history of the country. The" first con- 
 structed were small barge canals around the rapids of the St. Law- 
 rence between Lakes St. Louis and St. Francis. These were 
 constructed by the British government during the Revolutionary 
 War to afford passage for military supplies to the Great Lakes. 
 
 * From data furnished by Prof. I. G. G. Kerry of McGill University. 
 
234 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The first lock at Sault Ste. Marie, where is now located the busi- 
 est canal in the world, was built in 1798 by a Montreal firm for 
 use in the fur trade. On both the American and Canadian sides are 
 locks free of tolls to vessels of both nationalities. The Canadian 
 Pacific and the Grand Trunk railroads pass for a short distance 
 through the United States and in exchange for the privilege of ship- 
 ping goods "in bond" through on these lines, American vessels 
 and Canadian vessels on the St. Lawrence canals are given equal 
 rights. 
 
 After the war with the United States (1812-15) Canada began 
 improvements on the canals, and in 1834 a 5-foot waterway was 
 opened from the Upper Lakes to the sea. 
 
 The Welland canal, between Lakes Erie and Ontario, was a 
 private enterprise heavily subsidized by both the Canadian and the 
 home governments. 
 
 "The Rideau canal was built entirely at the expense of the 
 British government and its route was chosen in order to be as far dis- 
 tant as possible from the American border. It was primarily a mili- 
 tary work." It established water communication between Ottawa 
 and Kingston and is to-day the largest of the Canadian canals (132^ 
 miles) but it has no towpath and only 8^ miles of it is canal proper, 
 the waterway being obtained by building large dams, forming ponds 
 above them. 
 
 After the union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841 improve- 
 ments in canal construction resulted in giving by 1849 a 9-foot water- 
 way from Lake Huron to the sea. After the Confederation the 
 government undertook the construction of a 14-foot waterway from 
 Lake Superior to the sea and the last link of this, the Soulanges 
 canal, 14 miles in length, was completed in 1900. The locks of this 
 canal are 270 feet long, 45 feet wide, with a minimum of 14 feet of 
 water. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 235 
 
 11 Generally speaking, canal construction in Canada may be said 
 to be entirely governmental, and each improvement has followed after 
 a great political crisis, as the need of better transportation facilities 
 to knit the country together was realized." Although superior to 
 the Erie canal it may be said that they have never developed the 
 traffic that was expected. 
 
 The St. Lawrence canals only are now of great importance. 
 They afford 1274 miles of navigation in Canadian waters, extending 
 from Montreal on the St. Lawrence to Port Arthur on the northern 
 shore of Lake Superior. On this route there are 7 1 miles of canal proper 
 with 47 locks, having an aggregate lift of 551 feet. The locks will 
 not accommodate vessels more than 225 feet long and of about 1800 
 tons capacity, and should be increased in length at least 50 per cent. 
 They must be closed through the winter from December 1st to May 
 1st. 
 
 Heavy Tonnage of the Welland. In 1897 the vegetable food 
 tonnage passing through the Welland canal exceeded for the first 
 time in its history that of the Erie canal. The grain rates by rail 
 from Chicago to Montreal vary from 3^ cents to 4^ cents per 
 bushel. Canal tolls are 10 cents a ton on grain and 20 cents a ton 
 on coal east bound. Wharfage at Montreal is 6 cents a ton and 
 elevator charges j cent a bushel. 
 
 From the Great Lakes to England Direct. Canals do not furnish 
 Canada adequate transportation on account of the long winter freez- 
 ing not only the canals but the St. Lawrence river. Up to June 30, 
 1898, $72,405,401 had been spent in canal construction, and $15,- 
 067,096 on repairs, maintenance, and operation. The total revenue 
 received amounted to $11,710,240. The canal system exclusive of 
 interest on capital was operated for the year ending June, 1898, at a 
 loss of $217,093. November, 1900, the steamer Monk Haven left 
 Carnegie's lake port Conneaut, with a cargo of steel billets, for 
 
236 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Avonmouth, England, by way of the Lakes and the Welland canal. 
 She is the first vessel to carry steel from the Great Lakes directly to 
 England. 
 
 The Shifting Course of Trade. The courses of grain shipments 
 are changing somewhat. November 17, 1900, the first cargo of 
 western grain to be shipped by the new Canadian route was 
 taken from the Great Northern railway elevator at Quebec. That 
 elevator has a capacity of 1,000,000 bushels, and American capital is 
 largely represented in its construction. Grain from the Northwest 
 shipped by this route is brought from Duluth by steamer through 
 Parry sound to an elevator built at the edge of deep water and hav- 
 ing a capacity of I, "2 50,000 bushels. It takes the grain directly from 
 the vessel and loads it on to the cars running over the Canadian 
 Atlantic road via Ottawa to Quebec. This route shortens the dis- 
 tance between Duluth and Liverpool 800 miles. Trains at Quebec 
 run directly into the elevator there, and steamships go alongside 
 where they have 40 feet of water. Grain is thus handled at a 
 minimum cost, for the largest ships can be easily handled at Quebec. 
 Somehow sea captains do not seem to fancy the narrow tortuous 
 route between Quebec and Montreal, and the latter city may find 
 the experience of Manchester repeated in her own case. 
 
 The Chicago drainage canal is one of the triumphs of modern 
 engineering. Chicago derives her water supply from Lake Michigan, 
 having built a tunnel out under the lake with an ''intake" a con- 
 siderable distance from the shore. However, the amount of sewage 
 discharged into the lake was so great that eventually it polluted the 
 water supply. Something had to be done, and Chicago, with charac- 
 teristic daring and enterprise, cut a canal connecting Lake Michigan 
 with the Illinois river, 34 miles away. Into this the drainage of the 
 city was turned and water admitted to dilute it enough so it would 
 not be a menace to the health of the country through which it 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 237 
 
 passed. The whole is kept constantly in motion until discharged in 
 the river. This disposal of the city's drainage frees the water supply 
 in Lake Michigan from any danger of pollution. 
 
 A Water Route, Chicago to New Orleans. Geologists say thai 
 before the glacial period Lake Michigan had a southern outlet. Cer- 
 tain it is that at high water its only barrier at Chicago is about four 
 feet of rock and two feet of gravel, and a ship canal connecting Chi- 
 cago with the Mississippi river has been many times proposed. The 
 construction of the Chicago canal was begun September 3, 1892, 
 and an open channel 22 feet deep and from 162 feet to 202 feet 
 wide was cut without locks, affording a continuous current its whole 
 length. The Des Plaines river was taken out of* its course, a new 
 bed thirteen miles long built for it, and the old bed utilized for 
 the canal. The construction involved the removal of about 40,000,- 
 ooo cubic yards of material. The right of way alone cost about 
 $2,000,000, and the total expense with interest charges January I, 
 1900, amounted to nearly $34,000,000. The canal affords passage 
 for ships of about twenty feet draft. Perhaps no very distant future 
 may see improvements in the Illinois and Mississippi rivers that will 
 give a route at least twelve or fourteen feet deep, affording direct 
 water communication between Chicago and New Orleans, to the 
 great advantage of both cities. 
 
 The busiest canal in the world is one of which probably the 
 least is heard. It is the Sault Ste. Marie, connecting Lake Superior 
 with Lake Michigan, and it carries more than double the tonnage of 
 the Suez canal. It is closed by ice during part of the year. For the 
 seven months ending October, 1900, there had passed through 
 28, 174 passengers and 23,090, 1 66 tons of freight. It is significant 
 that of this four fifths is east bound freight, consisting chiefly of 
 wheat, other grain, iron ore, and flour. Mulhall estimated the 
 wheat crop of the United States in 1895 at 490,000,000 bushels. In 
 
238 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the seven months just named there passed through this canal, of 
 which half the people on the American continent have never heard, 
 33,000,000 bushels of wheat. 
 
 The first canal in the United States was built at South Had- 
 ley, Mass., in 1/93, to enable boats to get around the falls of the 
 Connecticut river at that point. On this canal a boat ran into a 
 water-tight box, having gates at each end, and floated on the water 
 in the box, while the whole affair was hauled by cables up or down 
 an inclined way ; arriving at the other level the gates opened and the 
 boat proceeded on its way. 
 
 The Erie canal has had a greater effect on the political history 
 of a continent and' the movement of traffic and population than any 
 similar work in the world. Before it was built the only means of 
 transportation between the East and West was by horse and wagon. 
 The completion of the canal realized the dreams of Washington, 
 emphasized the difference between no transportation and good trans- 
 portation, and exerted a marvelous effect in developing the country 
 and building up its commerce. It was begun in 1791 as a private 
 enterprise but was completed as a state work and opened November 
 4, 1825. It was 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide on the surface, and could 
 float boats of 80 tons capacity, was 352 miles in length and connected 
 Lake Erie with the Hudson river. Its eastern end touches tide 
 water in the Hudson but its western end is 573 feet above sea level. 
 The water of Lake Erie does not enter the Hudson because of 
 two summits which intervene. This canal carried across the country, 
 rising and falling with the surface of the land, is built in level sections, 
 the water in each level being kept in place by gates across it, termed 
 locks. 
 
 In the first canals built by man a portage had to be made in 
 changing from one level to another, until a means was devised for 
 moving loaded boats. The sluice, the first of these inventions, con- 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 239 
 
 sisted of an inclined way down which the water ran and the boat was 
 allowed to slide down with the water or dragged up against it. On 
 the Grand canal in China boats are transferred from one level to 
 another by hauling them over such an inclined plane. 
 
 The hydraulic lock, said to have been invented by Leonardo 
 Da Vinci about 1481, exerted a profound influence on commerce and 
 made the canal system really efficient. It consists of a huge box of 
 masonry connected at different levels, closed at the ends by water- 
 tight gates, with valves in them to allow the ingress and exit of 
 water. To pass a boat downward the lower gates are closed, the upper 
 gates opened, and the lock appears as a continuation of the upper 
 level; the upper gates are then closed, the water let out through the 
 valves in the lower gates and, when the water in the lock falls until it 
 is even with the lower level, the lower gates are opened and the boat 
 goes on its way. To pass a boat upward the process is reversed. 
 This method was used for 500 years until a lock built of steel and 
 operated by compressed air was invented by Chauncey N. Button of 
 New York, who in 1891 patented the Button Pneumatic Lock, a 
 ship elevator operating as a pneumatic balance. In it thin walls of 
 steel take the place of heavy walls of masonry and frictionless mobile 
 air is used instead of ponderous and slow moving water. The locks 
 operate floating on air and moving up and down, balancing one 
 another like the pans of a scale. The operation really is weighing, 
 for the motion is caused by an excess of water in the elevated lock 
 which depresses it and at the same time elevates the lighter one. The 
 principle can be understood by immersing a tumbler mouth down- 
 ward in water. The air within the tumbler cannot escape because it 
 is lighter than water. If we take two tumblers and connect the air 
 space in each by a tube and prevent them from capsizing, we have a 
 model of the pneumatic lock, and if a weight is placed on one and it 
 is depressed, the air rushes through the connecting tube and raises 
 the other tumbler. 
 
240 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 New York state adopted these locks at Lockport, where one lift 
 of 55^ feet replaces 5 masonry locks and gains two hours of time 
 for a fleet of boats. The most famous is at Cohoes, where one lift of 
 140 feet will replace 16 locks, and save one half day's time and ^ of 
 a cent per bushel on the cost of moving grain. The channel in the 
 Mohawk river and the canal 140 feet above will be connected by a 
 gated approach in which are two huge pits 175 feet deep, 50 feet 
 wide, and 320 feet long. 
 
 THE BUTTON PNEUMATIC LOCK. 
 
 Each pit contains a gigantic steel box or caisson having no bot- 
 tom and bearing on its top a huge water-tight tank long enough to 
 hold five canal boats. Each end of the tank is fitted with water-tight 
 gates through which the boats may pass, one end of each tank making 
 perfect alignment and a water-tight joint with one of the mouths of 
 the canal. The sides of the boxes are so long that they extend down 
 into the pit a considerable distance below the water even when the 
 lock is elevated. It is plain that in each lock air will be imprisoned 
 like air underneath inverted tumblers. Because its center of gravity 
 is very high such a lock tends to tip over, and air being elastic and 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 
 
 241 
 
 affected by every change in temperature the lock cannot be held 
 stationary on contained air. Mr. Dutton's ingenuity converted the 
 elasticity of the air from a hindrance into a help and devised a means 
 of giving locks a motion that should be parallel and practically fric- 
 tionless. 
 
 The elasticity of the air was utilized by simply floating the low- 
 
 DIAGRAM SHOWING 
 
 AIR CONDUIT^ VALVE 
 
 OF THE DUTTON LOCK. 
 
 ered lock and making it displace exactly its own weight of water and 
 by causing it to displace more than its own weight of water when 
 elevated, so that it would be held firmly in position against anchors. 
 The lock might be carrying a load of thousands of tons either at one 
 end or one side and, if not supported, would tip over. To avoid this 
 the locks move up and down between strong steel towers on each 
 
242 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 side, which prevents them from tipping over, and they are made to 
 move parallel by long horizontal shafts carrying toothed pinions that 
 fit into toothed racks on the sides of the lock and similar racks on 
 those of the towers. The shafts hang on the teeth of the pinions 
 without other bearings and, as the locks move up and down, the 
 shafts roll and the pinions on them fit into the racks on the towers 
 and locks and the latter are held horizontal, no matter how unevenly 
 loaded. Connecting each lock must be a tube with an air-tight valve 
 of large size. That the locks of Cohoes might move with a speed of 
 a foot a second, an air-tight tube 13 feet in diameter was necessary 
 to connect them. To hold the locks in any desired position a valve 
 in this air pipe was necessary to prevent the free discharge of the air. 
 A mechanical valve was not feasible but the familiar water trap, 
 used in plumbing, solved the difficulty as is shown in the diagram 
 of "Air Conduit and Valve." The long shafts holding the locks 
 level show clearly in the picture of the Lockport locks. 
 
 The locks operate in pairs, one balancing the other. If side by 
 side they are said to be " parallel," but they may be set end to end, 
 when they are said to be " tandem," the lift being divided between 
 two or more, set one in advance of the other on different levels, this 
 arrangement being the cheaper. The displacement of water is varied 
 automatically by the lock according to its position, when lowest 
 displacing exactly its own weight and floating like a vessel. When 
 elevated it displaces more than its weight so that it is thrust up 
 against its anchors and held firmly to render its working safe. The 
 construction of the locks may vary with the need of the soil, a cais- 
 son working in one huge pit, where the formation is hard or in a 
 series of wells, where the soil will not sustain itself. The compressed 
 air used in operating the caissons is not discharged into the atmos- 
 phere, so there is no waste and very little leakage, an air compressor 
 keeping up the supply of what is unavoidably lost. The system 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 243 
 
 operates as follows : Suppose one lock to be elevated and connected 
 with the upper level, the other to be floating in the lower level with 
 its gates open so as to be a part of it. Boats in the upper level to 
 be locked down enter the elevated lock, those to be locked up enter 
 the lower lock. At such times the locks are held firmly in place 
 because the water in the " U" curved tube traps the air so that none 
 can pass from one lock to the other. The air under the elevated 
 lock is at maximum pressure and holds the lock firmly against its 
 anchors. Suppose 10 feet of water to be within the tank of the low- 
 ered lock and 1 1 feet of water within the tank of the upper lock. 
 Then the gates are closed, the joint broken between the elevated 
 lock and the corresponding mouth in the upper level, and the "U " 
 valve is untrapped, so that air can flow from the air chamber of one 
 lock to the other. Such flow is from the place of greater pressure, 
 i. e., the air chamber of the elevated lock, to the place of lower pres- 
 sure, i. e., the air chamber of the lower lock, which will ascend while 
 the other descends, just as occurs in a scale when weighing. The 
 lower lock will move up until it is stopped by its anchors and the 
 other will descend and come to rest, in equilibrium, in the lower 
 level. The " U '' valve is now closed by trapping it with water and 
 the elevated lock is firmly supported. The gates can be opened and 
 the boats just locked go their way. Thereupon, the newly lowered 
 lock adjusts itself automatically in the water so as to lose the excess 
 draft with which it descended; and the newly elevated lock is 
 adjusted relatively to the water surface in the upper level with which 
 it communicates, so as to take in an additional draft of water, say I 
 foot, and become heavier than and ready to raise,, by its own subse- 
 quent descent, the lock just now depressed and lightened as afore- 
 said. 
 
 The reduction in the cost of transporting wheat from Chicago 
 to New York from 1870 to 1893 made a difference of 20 cents a 
 
244 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 bushel in the price of wheat at the latter city. A ton of flour can 
 now be carried from San Francisco to Boston for less than it cost 
 one hundred years ago to carry a barrel of salt from Syracuse to 
 Albany. 
 
 Every improvement in transportation has rendered the obtaining 
 of a livelihood easier. Steam has brought Manitoba nearer to Lon- 
 don to-day than New York was to Boston a hundred years ago. In 
 days when communication by sea afforded almost the only means of 
 transportation, nations with a broken seacoast, affording numerous 
 harbors, enjoyed many advantages and ranked highest in intelligence. 
 Railroads and means of communication have changed the whole 
 world. Transportation affects every person in the land, as it affects 
 the price of what is eaten, worn, used, the cost, speed, comfort, and 
 convenience of travel, social relations, and general intelligence. It 
 carries raw materials to the manufacturer and finished products from 
 the manufacturer to the consumer. It affects the number of persons 
 employed, the wages paid them, and these in turn react on other 
 lines of occupation. It enables the laborer to go to points where he 
 is at a premium and to leave when work becomes slack, thus benefit- 
 ing himself and the fellow laborers he leaves behind ; quite a marked 
 contrast to the days when he could travel only by tramping across 
 the country with a bundle on a stick slung over his shoulder. 
 Quick and rapid means of communication and transportation helps 
 reconcile people to living farther from their loved ones. Heartrend- 
 ing as was the Galveston disaster the imagination cannot picture the 
 horrors that would have followed had the sufferers been deprived of 
 the assistance afforded by the telegraph, the railroad, and the steam- 
 ship. 
 
 Much may be said in defense of daring efforts of the steamship 
 and the railroad companies to break records. Days and weeks are of 
 little consideration to a savage, but every moment saved to an intel- 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 245 
 
 ligent nation contributes to its material wealth, and the hours of an 
 Edison may affect the well-being of a nation. 
 
 Relation of Transportation to War. Transportation is a potent, 
 frequently the decisive, factor in all military campaigns. Whatever 
 the transcontinental lines may have cost the United States, and 
 whatever scandals may have been connected with them, he would 
 have been a bold man who dared deny that their military value dur- 
 ing the war with Spain or the crisis at Peking had been worth all they 
 have cost. Quick and easy means of communication and transporta- 
 tion make the people of the world better acquainted with each other, 
 more tolerant and broad minded. Had the North and the South 
 fifty years ago been knit by railroads, telegraph lines, and commer- 
 cial interests as closely as to-day, a terrible fratricidal strife might 
 have been averted. 
 
 Railroads and Morality. Railroad and steamship systems help 
 to raise the standard of morality. No steamship company is likely 
 to employ as captain or navigating officer a man known to be ad- 
 dicted to the use of intoxicants. The train dispatcher who has 
 thousands of lives and millions of dollars worth of property intrusted 
 to his charge must be a man of good habits and steady nerves. A 
 prominent Western railroad has recently forbidden the use of tobacco 
 by a portion of its employees when on duty. A man known to be 
 given to betting or gambling is not considered the safest person in 
 the world to handle the money at the ticket office. 
 
 Great Saving by Means of Railroads. Mulhall stated in 1895 
 that the merchandise carried from day to day on American railroads 
 was equal to the total weight of the entire population. It costs about 
 thirty cents a mile to haul a ton of freight by horses and wagons 
 over the average country road at all seasons of the year. During 
 the year ending June 30, 1899, the average freight carried by the 
 railroads of the United States over one mile of track was 659,560 
 
246 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tons, at an average price of .724 of a cent per ton mile. In other 
 words, each mile of railroad saved to the nation, over the expense of 
 hauling by horses, more than $190,000. The railroads of the United 
 States carry more freight than those of any other country, but even 
 in Germany it is estimated that each mile of railroad causes a yearly 
 saving of about $31,000 to the public. 
 
 Government control of railroads is often advocated. It is urged 
 that such control would prevent the construction of all unnecessary 
 lines and the destructive effects of railroad wars. True it is that 
 about two thirds of the railroads of the United States are unable to 
 pay dividends, and such roads are a loss to their investors. But the 
 United States has never to any great extent subsidized its railroad 
 and steamship lines and other nations do this heavily. Perhaps the 
 loss to investors is no greater than the subsidies other nations are in 
 the habit of paying, and if that is true, a small group of investors 
 have borne the burden of the road, instead of its being carried as a 
 general tax upon the people at large in the form of a subsidy. It 
 has yet to be conclusively demonstrated that government control of 
 railroads is desirable. Canada began the construction of the Cana- 
 dian Pacific railroad as a public work, but was later glad to turn it 
 over to private companies, and provincial and municipal aid paid 
 about 20 per cent, of the cost of its construction. The success of 
 government administration varies with different countries. The ad- 
 ministration of some has been about as bad as it could be. Of those 
 that have tried it Germany seems the only one that is fairly success- 
 ful, and Germany as a nation is peculiarly well adapted to exercise 
 governmental supervision. Yet even there, where the results in 
 some respects are extremely good, the roads as a whole are not equal 
 to anything like the American standard of efficiency, speed, amount 
 of train service, or rapidity of development. In spite of all the 
 1 'water" that is popularly supposed to exist in the stock of Ameri- 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 247 
 
 can railroads their capitalization is less per mile than those of 
 Europe. 
 
 It is by no means certain, and perhaps not probable, that govern- 
 mental selection would secure better men for railroad management 
 than are now secured, for favoritism plays little part in the strenu- 
 ous competition of modern companies, and it is pretty certain that 
 any man who attains and maintains his position at the head of a 
 great corporation has at least some of the qualities of mind required, 
 although his moral fitness may not be so certain. 
 
 Relief for the Terrible Congestion of the City. Rapid and cheap 
 transportation will be one of the most powerful factors in overcom- 
 ing the terrible evil of the crowded tenement house system of large 
 cities. Some portions of New York city are the most thickly popu- 
 lated in the world. Numerous tenement house districts average from 
 900 to 1000 people per acre, and one block of tenements, bounded 
 by 6ist and 626. Streets and loth and nth Avenues, is said to con- 
 tain 2639 rooms, more than one half of which have no opening into 
 the outer air. An investigating committee reported that in many 
 cases there were from ten to twelve persons living in one room. 
 Such a condition of affairs is not only prejudicial to the morals of the 
 community but a menace to the general health, for contagious dis- 
 eases breaking out in such locations spread with frightful rapidity 
 and virulence. It is not to be understood that with rapid transit 
 such people would go outside the city to live. Strange to say, they 
 are the very last to move, but some not so low down in the scale 
 would go outside to better quarters, leaving a chance for others to 
 move into the places vacated and so help relieve the pressure on the 
 "submerged" districts. 
 
 Effect on Immigration and Settlement. The development of 
 steamship and railroad lines has alone made possible the settlement 
 of a large portion of the American continent. British Columbia rec- 
 
248 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ognized the importance of communication with the outside world 
 when she made her coming into the Confederation dependent upon 
 the building of a railroad. To stimulate the development of her vast 
 fields in Siberia, Russia is offering to carry settlers there 4000 miles 
 for $3.62; while to encourage the development of its western coun- 
 try, the United States so long as its government land lasted, gave 
 farms to actual settlers. It is estimated that prior to 1820, less than 
 250,000 emigrants came to the United States. For the ten years 
 ending 1830, the average of emigration was 14,343 per year. From 
 1830 to 1840 transportation systems began to feel the stimulus of 
 the railroad and the steamship, and the length of time and cost of 
 passage was so greatly reduced for that decade that the average was 
 59,912 per year. As rates cheapened it bounded to 171,325 for 
 1840 to 1850; 259,821 from 1850 to 1860; 231,482, 1860 to 1870, 
 the Civil War period ; 281,229, 1870 to 1880; 524,661, 1880 to 1890. 
 The emigrants have developed the farm lands of the West, built 
 canals and railroads, brought coal and iron from the mines, and by 
 such services added to the material wealth and prosperity of the 
 country. 
 
 The Dominion of Canada gives much attention to the subject of 
 colonization, and when in 1870 the great Northwest, until then the 
 domain of the Hudson Bay Company, passed into the possession of 
 the Canadian government the colonization of the great tract was 
 deemed of prime importance and fostered so carefully that within 
 ten years the population has doubled. The government owns most 
 of the unoccupied land there, though the Hudson Bay Company re- 
 tained one twentieth at the time of the transfer, and the Canadian 
 Pacific railroad received 25,000,000 acres as one of its bonuses. One 
 of the best proofs of the dependence of the country upon the rail- 
 road is that all along the line of any new road its land is now taken 
 up by settlers ahead of the construction of the road. 
 
TRANSPORTATION. 249 
 
 An emigrant from Europe taking steerage passage can be landed 
 in Montreal for from $25 to $28. From there he can go in a colon- 
 ists' sleeping car to Winnipeg for $22.50 and have his freight taken 
 with him at special rate or be given a pass if he brings live stock. 
 As a further incentive the Canadian Pacific railroad will refund his 
 fare if he buys land of them. At harvest time in the Northwest, 
 harvest hands can go from Montreal to Winnipeg and return for $28, 
 a trip of 1424 miles each way, and each season thousands of men 
 from Ontario and Quebec make that trip and assist in gathering the 
 wheat crop. 
 
 Many picturesque features appear in connection with the his- 
 -tory of Canadian colonization. Longfellow has immortalized one, 
 and Charles G. D. Roberts, in his <( Sister to Evangeline," has inter- 
 estingly depicted another. The United Empire Loyalists, forced by 
 the result of the Revolution to leave the United States, present a 
 striking picture and during the period when slavery existed in the 
 Great Republic a colored refugee who often traveled alone by night 
 with only the pole star as a guide, found in Canada a haven of refuge. 
 One of the most interesting incidents in the history of these move- 
 ments is that of the Mennonites who came from Russia in 1874 to 
 escape religious persecution at home. They borrowed $96,400 from 
 the government for expenses and were so industrious and well es- 
 tablished that by 1892 they had paid it all back, principal and inter- 
 est. 
 
 The great Klondike stampede in 1897-98 took place in spite of 
 all the difficulties of transportation, but resulted in the building of 
 the White Pass and Yukon River railroad, from Skagway to the 
 W T hite Horse Rapids, a distance of 112 miles. In going a distance 
 of only 21 miles this road makes a climb of 2825 feet and reaches the 
 summit of the White Pass, a performance that is justly considered 
 one of the noteworthy feats of engineering. 
 
250 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 In view of what the railroads and canals have done for Canada it 
 is very interesting to note that in 1790 Adpm Lymburner, sent as a 
 delegate by the Canadian people to England, stated that the lands 
 of western Ontario would never be settled because the Niagara 
 Falls offered an insurmountable obstacle to their commercial develop- 
 ment. 
 
 TRAFFIC ON THE CANAL. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 Its Relation to Light Its Mystery Loadstone Leyden Jar Franklin; his Kite 
 and Lightning Rod Galvani Volta Frictional Electricity Static Electricity 
 Electricity of Chemical Action Electricity of Heat Electricity of Magnetism Mari- 
 ner's Compass Discoverers and Discoveries That Made Possible the Dynamo Electric 
 Motors Measures of Electricity: Ampere, Ohm, Watt, Volt Electric Railroads Arc 
 Light Search Light Incandescent Lamp and its Inventors Electric Heat Electric 
 Welding -^Economy of the Firefly Electric Furnace Carborundum Aluminum 
 Calcium Carbide Electroplating How Storage Batteries Save Power Practical Appli- 
 cations of Electricity. 
 
 THOUSANDS of years ago it was known 
 that if a piece of amber were rubbed 
 it would attract light substances, and for 
 want of a better explanation of the mys- 
 tery it was considered to have a "soul." 
 Even the luxuriant imagination of the 
 Orient could conceive of nothing more 
 marvelous than the wonders performed 
 by the genie that Aladdin summoned by 
 rubbing his lamp, but the actual achieve- 
 ments of the scientists have exceeded the 
 wildest flights of the imagination of the 
 
 Oriental story-teller, for the magic of the genie of the lamp pales 
 into insignificance beside the work performed by the "soul" of 
 the amber. The latter with a strength that is tireless and a speed 
 that is instantaneous carries messages over the land and under 
 the sea, furnishes a light rivaling that of the sun and a heat that 
 renders that of a coal furnace cool by comparison, looks through 
 materials opaque to the human eye and pictures substances lying 
 within, records the inflections of the human voice and reproduces 
 them at the pleasure of the master it serves. 
 
 THOMAS A. EDISON. 
 
252 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Space will permit but the briefest review of this invisible force, 
 our acquaintance with which is limited to a few of its manifestations. 
 The subject of electricity has been needlessly surrounded with mys- 
 tery, aruLit is unfortunate that many writers in attempting to define 
 it have employed obscure language for the purpose of concealing a 
 lack of knowledge which they were not honest enough to admit. 
 
 A study of the phenomena of light and color practically com- 
 pels a belief in the existence of an "ether" vastly more subtle than 
 air, filling all space, and whose vibrations convey the sensation of light. 
 The investigations of numerous scientists, but more especially those 
 of Faraday, Maxwell, and Hertz, have shown that light and elec- 
 tricity possess many properties in common, and Maxwell has main- 
 tained that "light is a purely electrical phenomenon." He has 
 assumed that the ether of light is identical with the ether of electric- 
 ity and that waves of each travel with about the same velocity, 186,- 
 ooo miles per second. The investigations of Hertz and many others 
 are continually piling up evidence in support of Maxwell's theory. 
 For Hertz has actually found the waves that Maxwell assumed to be 
 present and has proved that if the right materials are used to pro- 
 duce the effects they will obey the laws of the waves of light govern- 
 ing reflection, refraction, and interference. It was but a step from 
 the discovery of the Hertzian waves to the wireless telegraphy of 
 Marconi. For all the purposes of this sketch electricity will be con- 
 sidered as energy which may appear in many guises. 
 
 Probably no other branch of science employs expressions with 
 meanings so contradictory to the principles they are used to describe. 
 The terms fluid, current, flow, charge, discharge, and numerous 
 others give a clew to the various ideas once held concerning this 
 strange force. The work of some of the pioneers in electrical dis- 
 covery will be briefly reviewed and some of the applications of the 
 force for commercial purposes described. 
 

 ELECTRICITY. 253 
 
 The Earliest Students of Electricity. Thales of Miletus, writ- 
 ing 600 B.C., mentions the magnetic property of amber, and Theo- 
 phrastus, 300 B.C., discovered the same property in the tourmaline, 
 but it was not until Dr. Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth, made 
 extended experiments and published his results that the study of 
 electrical phenomena was systematically developed. It is to Gilbert 
 that we owe the word "electricity," and he can be called the creator 
 of the science of electricity and magnetism. Gilbert made a vast 
 number of experiments and divided all bodies into two classes; those 
 which he could electrify by friction, and those which he could not 
 electrify by friction. To the first class he gave the name "elec- 
 trics " because they exhibited the peculiar power of amber, taking 
 the Greek name of that substance to designate a phenomenon it 
 showed. Gilbert studied the phenomenon of magnetism at the same 
 time and showed that opposite poles of magnetic needles attract each 
 other. He applied to the neutral middle space the term " equator," 
 which we use to-day. He recorded all his observations and issued 
 them in book form. Improvements in the art of printing made the 
 spread of knowledge easier and the publication of Gilbert's book gave 
 considerable impetus to the study of electricity. Many investigators 
 in different lands gathered new facts concerning the science and deep 
 interest was taken in it, for the age had hardly given up searching 
 for the " philosopher's stone " or the " fountain of youth." 
 
 The loadstone, an oxide of iron (Fe3O4) known as magnetite, 
 was the original source of magnetism prior to 1820. The derivation 
 of the name has been variously ascribed to the city of Magnesia in 
 Asia Minor, where it is found, or from Magnus, a Greek shepherd on 
 Mount Ida, who found the iron on his crook attracted by a mass of 
 the ore. The loadstone exhibits the quality of magnetism but does 
 not always possess polarity though a piece of steel rubbed upon it 
 will exhibit both magnetism and polarity. It was known to the 
 
254 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ancients and is referred to in the writings of Plato, Euripides, Aris- 
 totle, Pliny, and others. 
 
 Magnetite is one of the richest of the iron ores, containing about 
 72.417 per cent, pure iron, and is widely distributed, being substan- 
 tially the only ore of Sweden and Norway. It constitutes the prin- 
 cipal part of the iron ore of Canada and is widely distributed in the 
 United States. The secret of its magnetism is not known but has 
 been ascribed to the effect of the " earth currents" of electricity. 
 
 The Leyden jar, invented about 1745, marked the next impor- 
 tant gain. It seems certain that at least three and probably more 
 investigators, working independently, made the discovery at about 
 the same time, but it has come to be known by the name of the city 
 where it was most widely used at first. The device usually consists 
 of a glass jar covered with tin foil inside and out to within a short 
 distance of the top. " The mouth is generally closed by a disc of dry 
 wood through which passes a wire to the inner coating. The outer 
 end of the wire usually terminates in a small metallic ball. Its 
 essential feature is that it consists of two conducting surfaces sepa- 
 rated by a nonconductor."* The jar is charged by connecting one 
 surface with the earth and the other with an electric current. Sir 
 William Watson added the outer metal coating and was able to draw 
 from his jar a spark sufficient to fire gunpowder and to send an elec- 
 tric current through 12,000 feet of wire. So far as any instruments 
 at that time would show, the velocity of the current through the 
 wire was so high as to appear instantaneous. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin about 1747 became interested in electricity 
 through Peter Collinson of the Royal Society of London, who sent 
 him a Leyden jar. Franklin took up the subject with enthusiasm 
 and communicated the results of his work to Mr. Collinson, who 
 read his letters from time to time to the Royal Society. Franklin's 
 
 *Mendenhall, * . 
 
ELECTRICITY. 255 
 
 work was not appreciated there, and it was not until Buffon, the 
 celebrated French naturalist, caused a French translation of his let- 
 ters to be made that their merit was discovered and acknowledged. 
 Franklin's note book of November 7, 1749, says: 
 
 "Electrical fluid agrees with lightning in these particulars: i. 
 Giving light. 2. Color of the light. 3. Crooked direction. 4. 
 Swift motion. 5. Being conducted by metals. 6. Crack or noise 
 in exploding. 7. Subsisting in water or ice. 8. Rending bodies it 
 passes through. 9. Destroying animals. 10. Melting metals, n. 
 Firing inflammable substances. 12. Sulphurous smell. The elec- 
 tric fluid is attracted by points, we do not know whether this 
 property is in lightning. But since they agree in all the particulars 
 wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree 
 likewise in this? Let the experiment be made"* 
 
 Franklin's Kite and the Lightning Rod. When his letters were 
 translated the suggestions were acted upon in France and Monsieur 
 D'Alibard appears to have first drawn electricity from the clouds 
 May 10, 1752. Franklin himself performed his famous experiments 
 with the kite in June, 1752, and reported it in a letter dated 
 October 19, 1752. His discovery of the identity of lightning and 
 electricity gave him a wide reputation. He made practical use of 
 his discovery in the lightning rod, which was apparently the first 
 practical application of electricity to the service of man. 
 
 Galvani's Experiments. .Galvani, professor of anatomy in the 
 Italian College at Bologna, made about 1790 his famous experiments 
 with frogs' legs. It was discovered that the hind legs of frogs, di- 
 vested of their skins and hung on copper hooks, when swung by the 
 wind and brought in contact with an iron railing contracted as 
 though the muscles were alive. The cause was correctly ascribed .to 
 electricity but the strangest ideas prevailed concerning it. Galvani 
 
 * Mendenhall. 
 
256 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 believed that the electricity was contained within the muscles and 
 nerves of the animal itself and that the metals simply furnished con- 
 ductors for it, and from this theory arose the term "animal elec- 
 tricity." Many physiologists adopted his idea enthusiastically and 
 fondly dreamed that the mystery of life was about to be solved, and 
 miraculous curative powers were ascribed to it. " Seductive hypoth- 
 eses were built up which dazzled the mind with words devoid of 
 sense, but vanished as soon as they were tested by reason." " It 
 would seem that without any loss of dignity the present might learn 
 from the mistakes of the past and transmute its foolishness into wis- 
 dom. The advertising columns of the periodicals of the present 
 time furnish incontestable evidence, however, of the fact that the 
 people of to-day welcome mystery and deception, if not recognized 
 fraud, just as readily and with as much self-satisfaction as did their 
 ancestors of one hundred years ago." * 
 
 Alexander Volta, professor of mathematics in the University of 
 Pavia, Italy, was a contemporary of Galvani and also a student of 
 electricity. He did not accept Galvani's theory and soon produced 
 a battery called after him the voltaic pile. This he described in a 
 letter to Sir Joseph Banks in the year 1800 and produced the most 
 profound sensation in scientific circles. His battery was made of 
 discs of copper and zinc separated by layers of paper or cloth mois- 
 tened with salt .and water, and gave at once a source from which 
 electricity could be obtained at any time when wanted. Prior to 
 this the Leyden jar had been the only means of holding electricity 
 in reserve. The voltaic pile introduced a new era into electrical 
 work, for hitherto electricity had to be studied as it was suddenly 
 discharged and the greatest amount that could be had for such pur- 
 poses was limited by the capacity of the Leyden jar, while Volta's 
 battery made a continuous current readily available and greatly in- 
 
 * Mendenhall. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 257 
 
 creased the opportunity for investigation. Volta afterward changed 
 his battery by taking the plates and putting them in cups of water 
 and connecting the tops by wires, giving it the form which it prac- 
 tically retains to-day. With the general use of the voltaic battery 
 electrical progress was rapid and resulted in brilliant discoveries. 
 With it Messrs. Nicholson and Carlisle in 1800 decomposed water, 
 proved it to be composed of the two gases, hydrogen and oxygen, 
 and laid the basis of electro-chemistry. 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) also quickly entered the field 
 with Volta's battery, and by its aid decomposed the fixed alkalies, 
 and discovered numerous new substances, among them potassium. 
 He was considered to have made the most important contributions 
 to science since the time of Isaac Newton, and was knighted for his 
 discoveries. 
 
 The arc light was foreshadowed in 1802 by Sir Humphry Davy 
 and successfully demonstrated by him in 1809. Davy's discoveries 
 had aroused such enthusiasm in London that a voltaic battery of 
 2000 cells containing 128,000 square inches of surface immersed in a 
 mixture of water, nitric and sulphuric acids was put at his disposal. 
 He connected the poles with pieces of charcoal and describes his 
 experiment as follows: " When pieces of charcoal about an inch long 
 and one sixth of an inch in diameter were brought near each other 
 (within the thirtieth or fortieth of an inch), a bright spark was 
 produced, and more than half the volume of the charcoal became 
 ignited to whiteness; and, by withdrawing the points from each 
 other, a constant discharge took place through the heated air, in a 
 space equal to at least four inches, producing a most brilliant ascend- 
 ing arch of light, broad and conical in form, in the middle. When 
 any substance was introduced into this arch, it instantly became 
 ignited; platina melted as readily in it as wax in a common candle; 
 quartz, the sapphire, magnesia, lime, all entered into fusion; frag- 
 
258 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ments of diamond and points of charcoal and plumbago rapidly dis- 
 appeared and seemed to evaporate in it." * Davy had produced an 
 electric light but the large batteries necessary for its production were 
 expensive and irregular in their action, and the lighting problem was 
 forced to wait for Faraday's discovery of electro-magnetic induction 
 and the commercial development of the dynamo. The light was 
 first termed "arch light" because of the brilliant ascending arch of 
 light, and has since come to be known as " arc light." 
 
 The kinship of magnetism and electricity was generally recog- 
 nized prior to 1820, but it remained for Hans Christian Oersted 
 (17771851), a Dane, and the son of an apothecary in a little coun- 
 try village of less than 1000 inhabitants, to demonstrate their close 
 relationship. The boy wished to enter the ministry, but somewhat 
 to his disappointment though greatly to the advantage of science, his 
 father put him at work in his pharmacy when twelve years old The 
 mysteries of that simple laboratory had a wonderful fascination for 
 him, and he applied himself with such zeal to obtaining an education 
 that when twenty-two years of age he was given the degree of Doctor 
 of Philosophy by Copenhagen University. He later traveled through 
 Europe and on his return was made professor of physics at his alma 
 mater. Davy, Faraday, Oersted, and many others believed that the 
 forces of nature were much more simple and closely related -than 
 their numerous manifestations would at first seem to indicate and 
 that electricity and magnetism would be shown some day to be re- 
 lated. 
 
 Oersted's Discovery. In the winter of 1819-20, while Oersted 
 was lecturing before his class, a new idea flashed upon him. He de- 
 termined to work out the idea before the class and explained to them 
 what he was about to do. Among the apparatus before him was a 
 powerful battery and a suspended magnetic needle. Taking the 
 
 * Mendenhall. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 259 
 
 poles of the battery he joined them and placed the wire parallel with 
 and over the needle. Instantly the needle swung out of its position 
 and one of the most serviceable discoveries of modern science was re- 
 vealed. Oersted entered into his experimental work extensively and 
 published the result within a few months. Brilliant and dramatic as 
 had been his discovery it was destined to perform greater marvels in 
 the hands of a contemporary. 
 
 Andre Marie Ampere (1775-1836), a French scientist, first 
 learned September 11, 1820, that Oersted had deflected the magnetic 
 needle by a current of electricity. The force of the discovery ap- 
 pealed to him at once, and with astonishing ability he grasped the 
 subject and within a week had demonstrated and reduced to formulas 
 the fundamental laws underlying electro-dynamics. Rarely has so 
 short a time been prolific of discoveries so beneficial to mankind, and 
 Ampere stamped his name indelibly 'on electrical science, for the unit 
 that measures the current is called after him. Ampere proved that 
 the current could produce magnetic effects without a magnet and 
 that currents flowing through parallel wires in the same direction 
 attracted each other, and finally he reduced it all to mathematics. 
 The work of Oersted and Ampere made possible the telegraph and 
 the telephone. It in fact laid the greater part of the foundation 
 upon which the structure of modern electricity has been reared. 
 
 Arago (1786-1853), a French scientist, and Sir Humphry Davy 
 each independently discovered in 1820 that a copper wire through 
 which a current of electricity is passing will attract to it iron filings 
 as though it were magnetic. Arago surrounded a glass tube with a 
 coil of wire, put bits of steel inside, passed a current through the 
 coil, and found that the steel inside the tube was magnetized. Oer- 
 sted had discovered that the current of electricity would influence 
 magnetism but Arago demonstrated by his coil and glass tube that 
 electricity would produce magnetism. 
 
26O THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The loadstone was the original source of magnetism prior to 
 1820. To make a magnet it was necessary that the steel be rubbed 
 upon a loadstone or upon a magnet. Magnetism could be transferred 
 from one to another without loss just as one torch may be lighted by 
 the flame of another. The researches of Oersted, Ampere, and Arago 
 show r ed that a bar of steel could be made a magnet by passing a cur- 
 rent of electricity through it, and "the loadstone as a primary source 
 of magnetism was dethroned and a cell of Volta crowned in its 
 stead." 
 
 Sturgeon, an English electrician, a little later substituted soft 
 iron for steel, passed a coil of wire around it, sent an electric current 
 through the coil and found that the iron was a magnet as long as the 
 current of electricity kept up, but that it lasted only while the cur- 
 rent was flowing. The soft iron and the electric current gave a 
 more powerful magnet than that of steel, and, more important yet, 
 gave one that could be instantly made magnetic or non-magnetic. 
 
 Joseph Henry of Albany, later of Princeton and the Smithsonian 
 Institution, improved upon Sturgeon's magnet by winding it with 
 many coils of wire and produced one weighing sixty pounds that was 
 able to sustain a weight of more than a ton. Sturgeon varnished 
 the iron and wound a naked wire around it, the varnish acting as an 
 insulator, Henry improved the insulation by covering his wire with 
 silk. 
 
 The Galvanic multiplier was discovered by Schweigger (born 
 1830), a German scientist. Working on Oersted's experiment he 
 carried the wire over the needle, bent it, and brought it back under 
 the needle and doubled the effect of the current, and found he could 
 increase its effect each time he made a loop. It followed that a wire 
 through which a very feeble current passed might be bent into 
 enough loops so the magnetic needle would be influenced by it and 
 in this way it became possible to measure currents that before defied 
 
ELECTRICITY. 26l 
 
 all electrical instruments. Schweigger's discovery applied to the 
 thermo-battery will measure the heat of a star. It took electricity 
 out of the realm of guesswork and conducted it with something like 
 mathematical accuracy. The rapid progress the science has made is 
 in part due to such exactness, for it is evident that even workers 
 with tools would be badly handicapped if compelled to use measures 
 and scales that were crude and inaccurate, then how much more nec- 
 essary that workers in electrical science employ exact measures of 
 that strange force. It is Galvani's discovery of the " new electric- 
 ity," Volta's battery that gave the means of generating it, Oersted's 
 instrument that showed its influence upon the magnetic needle, and 
 Faraday's discovery that led to the development of the dynamo, that 
 have rendered possible the greater part of the practical applications 
 of electricity. 
 
 Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was the son of a blacksmith and 
 had but limited educational advantages. Apprenticed to a book- 
 binder at the age of thirteen, he made the most of the opportunities 
 work afforded him, and is said to have become interested in elec- 
 tricity on reading an article upon it in an encyclopedia given him to 
 bind. Seeing the boy's interest in such things, one of his father's 
 customers in 1812 gave him tickets to four lectures on chemistry 
 delivered by Sir Humphry Davy. He made careful notes of the 
 lectures and sent them to Davy with the request that he be given 
 some employment in the Institution. Davy returned the notes and 
 praised his work, but advised him to stick to his bookbinding and 
 promised him the patronage of the Institution, his own, and that of 
 his friends that he could influence. Later, needing assistance, he 
 remembered Faraday and employed him temporarily. It is hardly 
 necessary to say that all Faraday lacked was a chance, and that the 
 temporary employment became permanent, and Davy afterward said 
 that his greatest claim to the gratitude of posterity was that he had 
 
262 MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 11 discovered 'Mike' Faraday." In 1827 he succeeded to Davy's 
 chair of chemistry in the Royal Institution. Electricity had a great 
 fascination for him and after years of study he began on August 29, 
 1831, a brilliant series of experiments, and by November 24 had col- 
 lected and presented in a paper read to the Royal Society the gen- 
 eral propositions pertaining to "electro-magnetic induction," the 
 basis upon which are built many applications of electricity to man's 
 service. Another important service he performed was proving the 
 doctrine of "definite electro-magnetic decomposition." In his ex- 
 periments with polarization of light he discovered that light passing 
 through a prism could be cut off or transmitted according as it was 
 acted upon by magnetism, and called this discovery "the magnetism 
 of light." Faraday closed a long and well-spent life as much loved 
 for his manly qualities as he was admired for his scientific attain- 
 ments. 
 
 Since Faraday's death so many improvements in the practical 
 application of electricity have been made that a volume would be 
 needed to simply record the subjects and names of the inventors. 
 The methods of producing it and some of the uses to which it has 
 been applied will now be considered, the telephone and telegraph be- 
 ing treated under the subject of communication. Electricity is 
 commonly produced either by friction, chemical action, heat, or 
 magnetism. 
 
 Frictional electricity was the first recognized and is a familiar 
 form of this energy. Any substance when rubbed with a different 
 substance becomes electrified. Ordinary substances may be divided 
 for electrical purposes into three classes : those that are good con- 
 ductors of electricity, which includes all metals and carbon; those 
 which are neither good conductors nor good insulators, such as water 
 and moist bodies, wood, cotton, paper; last, good insulators, as 
 paraffin, turpentine, silk, resin, sealing wax, India rubber, gutta 
 
FLECTRICITY. 263 
 
 percha, ivory, dry wood, dry glass, mica, air at ordinary pressure 
 and temperature. In dry, cold weather the friction of a rubber or 
 tortoise shell comb on the hair will electrify the hair and cause it to 
 cling to the teeth of the comb. If a cat's fur in dry weather be 
 stroked with a dry, warm hand a crackling noise will be noticed and 
 in the dark electric sparks can be plainly seen. In winter a person in 
 slippers can slide rapidly over the carpet, electrify himself, draw a 
 spark from the hair of another person, and on touching a gas jet or 
 any bit of metal draw a spark or perhaps even light the gas. A 
 glass rod rubbed with a piece of silk will become electrified and at- 
 tract bits of paper, etc. If the rod be brought near a pith ball 
 suspended on a fine thread, the ball will leap forward to meet it and 
 if allowed to touch it will appropriate some of its electricity, be re- 
 pelled and dart away. If the silk now be substituted for the glass 
 rod, the pith ball will be attracted by that, showing that both the 
 rod and the silk are electrified but that they possess different prop- 
 erties, for here as elsewhere " opposites attract." The condition of 
 the electricity in the rod is said to be positive, that in the silk nega- 
 tive. If cat's fur be substituted for the silk and the rod rubbed 
 with it, the condition of the rod will be negative and of the fur posi- 
 tive. When a storm cloud charged with electricity passes over the 
 earth the opposite kind is induced in the earth beneath it. The 
 cloud and the earth then resemble the inner and outer covering of a 
 Leyden jar, the atmosphere corresponding to the glass of the jar. 
 If the force is sufficiently powerful a flash of lightning will burst 
 through the air and the electrical equilibrium be restored. In most 
 cases the discharges are from one cloud to another unequally 
 charged. 
 
 Static electricity, from .the Greek word meaning to stand, is 
 that which is stored up or is stationary. Dynamic electricity, from 
 the Greek word meaning power, is that which is in motion and so 
 
264 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 possessing power. The electricity with which the cloud is charged is 
 static; that of the lightning's flash, dynamic. In Franklin's experi- 
 ment with the kite, the electricity of the cloud was static, but when 
 moving in the string was dynamic, and as soon as he transferred it to 
 the Leyden jar it became static again. 
 
 If a glass marble or ball is placed on a good insulator and a glass 
 rod or a stick of sealing wax be positively electrified and brought 
 near the ball without touching, it will be found on testing the ball 
 with a. bit of pith that the side next the rod is negatively electric 
 and the side from it positively electric, and that when the rod is 
 removed the ball shows no trace of electricity, thus proving that the 
 electricity within the ball was due to the influence of the rod, or was 
 induced. It was Faraday's discovery of induction by an electro- 
 magnet that rendered commercially possible the utilization of elec- 
 tricity as a motive power where great force is required. Electricity 
 of friction is rather unmanageable and has not been applied practically 
 to any great extent. 
 
 The electricity of chemical action was discovered by Volta, 
 the current in his pile being produced by the chemical action of the 
 moisture in the layers of wet paper or wet cloth on the zinc and 
 copper plates they separated. The cell is the most familiar applica- 
 tion of Volta's discovery. It usually consists of plates of zinc and 
 copper partly immersed in water containing acid, the plates being 
 separated in the solution but connected at the top by a wire. When 
 so connected electricity is continuously evolved. The mere contact 
 of dry copper and zinc plates electrifies them, but does not produce 
 a continuous current. The copper plate is electrified positively, and 
 the zinc plate electrified negatively. In the days when the fluid 
 theory of electricity prevailed, a positive current was said to flow 
 from the copper through the connecting wire to the zinc. In the 
 cell just described water (HaO) is separated by the electric current 
 
ELECTRICITY. 265 
 
 into hydrogen and oxygen, the gases that form it. The zinc plate is 
 attacked by the oxygen set free, which combines with it and forms 
 oxide of zinc and that plate wastes away. The most of the hydro- 
 gen set free gathers in bubbles on the copper plate and retards the 
 action and is said to "polarize the cell." 
 
 Various arrangements of cells have been made to counteract this 
 action and of all such the Daniell cell was one of the first and best 
 known. In the Daniell cell the copper is usually placed at the bot- 
 tom of the jar and surrounded by a solution of sulphate of copper. 
 The zinc, cast in a form to expose much surface, and surrounded by 
 a solution of sulphate of zinc, is placed within a porous earthenware 
 cup, near the top of the cell. The hydrogen that formerly collected 
 on the copper plate now gets out of the way by uniting with the 
 copper sulphate (CuSO^, sets free the pure copper (Cu) in the solu- 
 tion and forms sulphuric acid (HaSO^. The pure copper is depos- 
 ited in a thin film over the copper plate and the chemical action at 
 this pole should be especially noted, for it is the underlying princi- 
 ple in electroplating. At the other pole the oxygen unites with zinc 
 to form zinc oxide (ZnO) and the free sulphuric acid combines with 
 the oxide and forms more zinc sulphate, thus keeping up the effi- 
 ciency of the cell. The Daniell cell was such a great improvement 
 over its predecessors that the Copley medal was bestowed on its 
 originator in 1837. Of different forms of cells there is almost no 
 end, but the Leclanch, Fuller, De La Rue, Latimer, Clark, and 
 Bunsen are among those best known and most widely employed. 
 
 The difference in electrical condition between the poles of a bat- 
 tery, one called positive and the other negative, is termed electro- 
 motive force (E. M. F.) or difference of potential. Little is known as 
 to its real cause, but it is accountable for the movement of electricity 
 in the circuit. This is measured by a unit called volt, after Volta, 
 and is the force produced by a single cell made according to certain 
 
266 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 standard specifications. Chemical action occurs whenever two differ- 
 ent metals in contact are immersed in a liquid which attacks one 
 more readily than it does the other. By increasing the number of 
 cells the difference in potential can be increased and the current 
 made more powerful. Many metals beside copper and zinc are used 
 and "in the following list of materials, when any two in contact are 
 plunged in dilute sulphuric acid, that which is higher in the list 
 becomes the positive plate or negative pole to that which is lower. 
 
 "Zinc Nickel Sulphur 
 
 Cadmium Bismuth Gold 
 
 Tin Antimony Platinum 
 
 Lead Copper Graphite " 
 Iron * 
 
 Dry cells can be prepared and the use of liquids avoided by com- 
 bining the necessary chemicals into thick pastes, and packing the 
 zinc and copper, or zinc and carbon, in them, closing the whole and 
 leaving a vent for the escape of the gas set free by chemical action. 
 Such cells are clean and well adapted for household and medical 
 purposes. 
 
 Heat can cause electricity, as was discovered by Professor See- 
 beck of Berlin about the year 1821. If a bar of antimony and a bar 
 of bismuth be joined at one end, their other ends connected by a 
 wire, and the point of junction be heated to a higher temperature 
 than the rest of the bars, a current of electricity will be set up, pass- 
 ing through the wire from the bismuth to the antimony. This 
 arrangement is called a thermoelectric couple. Other metals instead 
 of bismuth and antimony may be used. In those named in the fol- 
 lowing list each, reading downward, is positive to the one following. 
 
 Bismujth 
 
 Lead 
 
 Zinc 
 
 Phosphorus 
 
 Cobaljb 
 
 Tin 
 
 Cadmium 
 
 Antimony 
 
 Potassium 
 
 Copper 
 
 Arsenic 
 
 Tellurium 
 
 Nickel 
 
 Platinum 
 
 Iron 
 
 Selenium 
 
 Sodium 
 
 Sulphur 
 
 Lead 
 
 
 * John Munro. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 267 
 
 The strength of the current in general will increase with the 
 difference in temperature between the point of junction and the free 
 ends of the bars. The electromotive force of such a couple is much 
 smaller than in an ordinary voltaic cell, but the power of the thermo- 
 electric battery can be increased by increasing the couples, the same 
 as by increasing the cells of a chemical battery. For many purposes 
 of experimentation the thermoelectric battery possesses advantages 
 over the chemical. It is cleaner, lighter, and less troublesome to 
 handle. A very sensitive pile can be made, and piles of antimony 
 and bismuth have been made so sensitive that when measured by the 
 galvanometer they indicate the radiation of heat from certain stars. 
 Such are used to measure temperatures where thermometers would 
 not be available, as in deep sea soundings or the interiors of steam 
 cylinders or furnaces. Thermo-batteries change heat directly into 
 electricity without calling in any " third party," but the process can 
 be reversed as well, for if a current of electricity be sent through a 
 thermo-couple from the antimony to the bismuth, the point of junc- 
 tion may be cooled so low that it will freeze water. Thermo-bat- 
 teries have been used for working telegraphs, lighting houses, and 
 running small electric motors, but, as at present constructed, the cost 
 of operating is in excess of the power derived from them. 
 
 The electricity of magnetism is the form now used where great 
 force is required. Its application was first based upon the discov- 
 eries of Oersted, Ampere, Faraday, and Joseph Henry, while numer- 
 ous others have added to the store of knowledge concerning it. 
 
 The loadstone with its magnetic and directive properties was 
 known to the ancients, and the Chinese are said to have employed it 
 as early as 26 B.C. to guide their armies over the great plains of 
 China. A statue with an extended arm was carried in a car and was 
 so pivoted that it could easily revolve but, contrary to Western cus- 
 tom, it pointed toward the south instead of the north. About the 
 
268 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 beginning of the Christian era, and certainly no later than the fourth 
 or fifth century, Chinese navigators were using a rude mariner's 
 compass. There is hardly any doubt that the compass was intro- 
 duced into Europe from the East, and the Crusaders are credited 
 with having brought it into France, for it was known to the Arabs 
 centuries before it appeared in Europe. 
 
 The first magnetic needles described in European literature be- 
 long to the twelfth century. It then was a needle rubbed on a load- 
 stone, put upon a bit of straw, and floated on water, when its point 
 turning to the pole star served to guide travelers. The marvelous 
 instinct of the direction of home possessed by the carrier pigeon is 
 familiar to all and the raven has like instinct. An ancient Norse 
 historian speaks of " Flocke Vildergerser," a Viking king who sailed 
 from Norway to Iceland in 868 and took with him ravens, "for in 
 those days the seaman had no loadstone in the northern countries." 
 With the discovery of the mariner's compass came an enormous in- 
 crease in human knowledge and the world's commerce. Sailors were 
 no longer compelled to creep timidly along the coast from port to 
 port but could make long voyages out of sight of land. 
 
 The power of the magnet was also known to the Egyptians, 
 Greeks, and Romans, and was used in the temples to suspend statues 
 of the gods in mid air or to produce other effects calculated to excite 
 the awe and credulity of the worshipers. It is said that to produce 
 an effect upon his followers, Mohammed's body at his death was in- 
 closed in a metallic coffin and that when carried into a tomb made of 
 magnetic stones the coffin soared aloft and clung to the ceiling, pro- 
 ducing a most profound impression on those of his adherents who 
 had not been initiated into the mystery. 
 
 The idea that magnetism and electricity were closely related had 
 prevailed some time before Oersted made his famous discovery. Dr. 
 Gilbert, of whom mention has been made, demonstrated that the 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 269 
 
 whole earth was a great magnet and that in the magnetic needle op- 
 posite poles attracted and like poles repelled, and he also noted the 
 variation and dip of the compass. 
 
 A bar of steel rubbed upon a loadstone or another magnet be- 
 comes magnetic and if suspended the ends will show the north and 
 south poles. If the bar be cut in two, two magnets are produced 
 exhibiting the same property of polarity, and this holds true for the 
 minutest division, until it has come to be believed that in the atom of a 
 magnet one end is positive and the other negative ; in other words, that 
 all the atoms composing the magnet are arranged with their positive 
 poles pointing in one direction and their negatives in the other. 
 
 A Magnet exerts Influence all about It. If a horseshoe magnet 
 be laid on a piece of paper and iron filings 
 be sprinkled about it they tend to arrange 
 themselves in certain definite curved lines 
 which Faraday termed 'Mines of magnetic 
 force," and the space within their lines is 
 called the " field." 
 
 The close relation of magnetism to elec- 
 tricity early received attention. Oersted 
 showed if a wire be held over a magnetic 
 needle and parallel with it and a current be 
 sent through the wire toward the north, the 
 north pole of the needle would swing to 
 the left or west, and the south pole to 
 the right or east, until, if the current were 
 strong, the needle stood at right angles 
 
 with the wire. If the electric current were reversed and sent from 
 north to south the needle swung in the opposite direction and thus 
 the direction of the current in a wire could be determined by the 
 compass, and as weak currents deflected the needle but a little the 
 
 HORSESHOE MAGNET 
 AND IRON FILINGS. 
 
270 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 strength of the current as well as its direction could be measured. 
 Some influence of this sort seems responsible for the action of the 
 mariner's compass. The earth, rotating on its axis, with portions of 
 its surface unequally heated by the sun's rays, has flowing around it 
 magnetic currents and the compass stands approximately at right 
 angles to these. When magnetic storms occur the compass and all 
 electrical instruments are affected and business on telephone and 
 telegraph lines running east and west may be suspended. An un- 
 usual display of "sun spots" seems to coincide with such storms. It 
 is generally believed that the outer envelope (photosphere) of the sun 
 is a great body of white hot gas ; that some greater force from within 
 blows holes through this envelope, revealing the core of the sun as a 
 dark spot, and that the energy radiated from the core sets up 
 stronger earth currents than that radiated from the outer envelope. 
 As a famous scientist puts it, " In some way, evidently, the sun af- 
 fects the earth by radiating magnetic lines of force which are cut by 
 the earth's rotation, and so creating currents of electricity. The 
 sun is the field magnet, and the earth is the revolving armature of 
 Nature's great dynamo electric machine."* 
 
 The germ of the modern dynamo lay in Faraday's discovery that 
 a current of electricity could be produced in an insulated wire wound 
 around soft iron, by bringing the ends of the wire closely together 
 and rapidly applying and removing a magnet to and from the iron. 
 In 1831 Faraday took a hollow coil of wire, carried the ends from it 
 around a delicate galvanometer and showed by the galvanometer that 
 when a magnet was thrust into the coil a current was induced for an 
 instant in a certain direction, and when the magnet was suddenly 
 withdrawn a current was induced in the opposite direction. As ac- 
 tion and reaction are equal, if the magnet was kept stationary and 
 the coil advanced and withdrawn the same effect was produced. 
 
 * Elisha Gray. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF THE 
 DYNAMO. 
 
 The line of force about a magnet has been already mentioned. 
 A coil of wire brought within these lines and quickly withdrawn has 
 a current of electricity excited within it, not continuously but only 
 for the instant that it comes within the lines of force or passes out- 
 side them. If a wire be placed between the poles of a magnet at 
 right angles to the lines of force, as in the 
 figure shown herewith, and apparently moved 
 from the reader, an electric current will move 
 in the direction of the arrow ; if brought to- 
 ward the reader the current will move in the 
 opposite direction. If the poles of the mag- 
 net be reversed the current will also be re- 
 versed. This is the principle upon which the dynamo is founded. 
 
 Again, if an electric current be sent through the wire in the direc- 
 tion of the arrow the wire will automatically move from the reader 
 in the direction required to produce such a current. If a current be 
 sent in the opposite direction the motion of the wire will be reversed. 
 This is the principle of the electric motor, for the motor is the dy- 
 namo reversed. 
 
 Suppose a wire to be bent in the form shown in Figure A 
 furnished with a pulley, P, through which a belt, 
 B* connects it with a steam engine, this placed 
 between the poles of a magnet, N and 5. Now 
 if the armature be revolved in the direction 
 shown by arrows on the belt there will be induced 
 in sides a and b of the armature, currents having 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF the direction shown by the arrows. When side a 
 THE MOTOR. hag passed oyer and is cu tting through the lines 
 
 of force about pole 5 the current will be reversed as will that of side 
 b when cutting through the lines of force at pole N. As the wire 
 revolves the currents move first in one direction and then the other, 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and moving back and forth like this it is called an alternating current. 
 Instead of having the armature of a single wire, as used in our illustra- 
 tion, in actual practice it usually consists of several coils of wire each 
 having a soft iron core and forming electro-magnets all fastened to a 
 shaft made to revolve between the poles of powerful magnets. The 
 electro-magnets in the armature are brought during the revolution 
 close to the poles of the magnets in the field but without touching, 
 and the ends of the wire of each coil in the armature are connected 
 at the hub with separate insulated plates called commutators. The 
 commutators sift out the different currents of electricity and deliver 
 them to flat springs known as brushes, which rest upon the hub and 
 form the electrical connection between the commutators and the 
 wire that is to carry the current away. With reference to the cur- 
 rents produced there are two kinds of dynamos; one the alternating 
 and the other the continuous current. An alternating current has 
 been described and its relation to a dynamo is obvious. The con- 
 tinuous current machine has the commutators and brushes so ar- 
 ranged as to take up all the currents having one direction or polarity 
 and send them through one channel, and all the currents having the 
 opposite direction or polarity through another channel. 
 
 In the first dynamos constructed permanent steel magnets were 
 employed, but these were not only expensive but they limited the 
 power of the machine to the strength of the magnet, and made the 
 use of a dynamo impracticable where expense was an item. Later, 
 the magnets were wound with coils of wire through which currents 
 of electricity were passed by voltaic batteries. This increased the 
 strength of the magnet and so the strength of the current induced 
 within the armature, for the stronger the lines of force between the 
 magnetic poles, the stronger the current excited within the armature. 
 
 One of the most important improvements was yet to come. 
 About 1855 Hjorth of Copenhagen discarded the voltaic battery and 
 
ELECTRICITY. 273 
 
 took the current from the armature, sent it through the coils about 
 the magnets in the field, increased their strength, and by so doing 
 increased the strength of the current they induced in the armature, 
 revolving between the poles. Such a proceeding seems almost like 
 making something out of nothing. 
 
 The next great step was to do away altogether with the perma- 
 nent magnets in the field and to use soft iron cores wound with numer- 
 ous wrappings of insulated wire through which a current of electricity 
 was passed. Such magnets were far stronger than those having steel 
 cores and the gain in efficiency was marked. It had been thought 
 that permanent magnets were necessary because iron could not be 
 permanently magnetized, and if there were no magnetic force in the 
 field there would be no electricity generated when the armature was 
 revolved, but Siemens discovered that there was enough "resid- 
 ual magnetism " in the iron so that he could dispense with the steel 
 magnets. Such a machine when first started exhibits but slight 
 magnetism and produces a feeble current, but as quickly as the mag- 
 nets are reinforced by the current produced in the armature they 
 grow stronger and stronger until they reach the point of " satura- 
 tion " and the machine works at its greatest efficiency. After the 
 electro-magnets in the field have reached the point of "saturation" 
 any additional strength of the current is lost upon them for it does 
 not increase their power. 
 
 Where great power is required the electro-magnets in the field 
 are increased in number and may even make a complete circle within 
 which the armature, having as many electro-magnets as can be packed 
 within it, is made to revolve at high speed. After the fundamental 
 principles of electro-dynamics were recognized, Hjorth, Wilde, Sie- 
 mens, Farmer, Wheatstone, Varley, and Gramme had most to do 
 with their practical application to the dynamo. Of late years Wes- 
 ton, Brush, Edison, Thomson, Houston, Westinghouse and others 
 
2/4 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 have made improvements in its construction and brought it to its 
 present high state of efficiency. Such in brief has been the develop- 
 ment of the dynamo, and it has made possible the electric light, the 
 electric street car, electroplating and every branch of applied elec- 
 tricity where any considerable force is required, for though electric 
 heating, lighting, propulsion, etc., were possible with voltaic batter- 
 ies yet it was -at such an expense as to be prohibitive. The princi- 
 ples underlying the application of electricity as a motive power, 
 discovered many years before the perfection of the dynamo, were 
 obliged to wait until the art of electricity had caught up with the sci- 
 ence and some means of producing the force could be devised that 
 would render the practical application of these principles commer- 
 cially profitable. 
 
 One Point must not be Forgotten. The dynamo does not make 
 electricity. It simply transforms into electricity the power required 
 to revolve the armature. This power may be derived from a wind- 
 mill, a water wheel, or a steam engine. In ordinary practice the 
 dynamo is able to deliver an electric current equivalent to about 90 
 per cent, of the power furnished by the engine. The best practice ap- 
 proximates 95 per cent., the other 5 per cent, being the toll Nature 
 exacts in the way of friction, losses due to induction, heat, and 
 "leakage." 
 
 Electric Motors are about as old as the Dynamo. In 1826 Bar- 
 low of Woolrich made a spur wheel something like the escapement 
 of a clock and moved it by electricity. The Abbe Dal Negro of 
 Padua made in 1830 an electric pendulum. In 1828 Professor Joseph 
 Henry devised his powerful electro-magnets, prophesied the use of 
 electricity as a motive power, and in 1831 made and described a 
 crude electric motor. He was followed by Sturgeon, Davenport, 
 Jacobi, Page, and many others, but although the devices of these 
 men were interesting and from them much concerning the princi- 
 
ELECTRICITY. 2/5 
 
 pies of electricity was learned, they were not commercially prac- 
 ticable. 
 
 In 1873, at the industrial exhibition at Vienna, several Gramme 
 dynamos were on exhibition. A workman by mistake connected 
 one dynamo to another that was in operation and greatly to his sur- 
 prise saw the dynamo which he had connected begin to revolve in a 
 contrary direction. The accidental discovery was appreciated. It 
 was found that the Gramme dynamo would work equally well as a 
 motor and a much better understanding of the nature of electric 
 magnetism resulted. 
 
 Dynamos and electric motors are now constructed varying as 
 much according to the work required of them as do steam engines 
 and locomotives, and volumes have been written concerning the size 
 of the wire and the manner in which it should be wound, together 
 with other details of construction calculated to give the best results. 
 Space will not permit a technical description. It will be enough for 
 the general reader to know that a steam engine turning a dynamo 
 will produce a current of electricity and that this current of electric- 
 ity carried to an electric motor differing only in a few details of 
 structure from the dynamo will there produce mechanical motion 
 which can be used to turn machinery. 
 
 In every electric motor there are the same two parts as in the 
 dynamo: the armature and the magnetic field. The field is usually 
 produced by a different current from the same source that supplies 
 the motor. By the aid of the dynamo and the electric motor, water 
 power may be utilized by employing it to turn water wheels, the 
 latter turning dynamos. The electric current produced is sent 
 through copper wires to some point where it is to be used and there 
 taken by the electric motor and turned into mechanical force. A 
 waterfall at Lauffen, Germany, as early as 1890, transmitted through 
 a copper wire % inch in diameter 100 horse-power to Frankfort, 
 
2/6 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM 
 
 about one hundred miles away, with a loss of but 5 per cent, from 
 the wire. 
 
 Electric Railroads. With the construction of the Gramme and 
 Siemens dynamos it became possible to operate electric railroads at a 
 profit. At a central power house enormous dynamos turned by 
 huge steam engines send a powerful electric current through the 
 trolley wire, return being made by way of the earth and rails. The 
 current is taken by the car through the trolley pole to an electric 
 motor underneath the floor of the car, which, set in motion by the 
 current, revolves and, being connected with gearing on the axle of 
 the car wheels, propels the car at a speed varying with the strength of 
 the current. The speed of the motor is regulated by changing the 
 electrical pressure at the brushes of the armature. Almost any de- 
 sired speed can be attained, 130 miles per hour having been reached 
 in experiments, for the motor revolving continuously in one direction 
 has an advantage over the steam engine with its reciprocating parts 
 which must be stopped and started many times a second. 
 
 Measures of Electricity. What in electricity corresponds to 
 pressure in steam and water is measured by a unit called "volt," 
 from Volta, the inventor of the voltaic battery. A volt is the power 
 or electromotive force of one cell of a battery made according to 
 standard specifications, just the same as a cord of wood is a pile hav- 
 ing a certain length and height. 
 
 Electricity passes through some metals easier than others. Silver 
 is the best conductor and the other metals follow in the order named : 
 copper, zinc, platinum, iron, German silver, mercury; copper being 
 a pretty good conductor while iron offers nearly seven times as much 
 resistance as silver, in order to get as much electricity through a 
 copper wire as through a silver wire of the same size, the pressure 
 must be increased. The unit of measure for the resistance offered 
 by the wire is the "ohm," so named after G. S. Ohm, a physicist 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 of Bavaria, who 'discovered the so-called Ohm's law, which is that 
 the strength of the current varies directly as the electromotive force 
 and inversely as the resistance. An ohm is the resistance which a 
 column of mercury one millimeter square and 106.3 centimeters long 
 offers to a current of electricity. The resistance offered by a mile of 
 ordinary telegraph wire is about thirteen ohms. 
 
 The ampere is the unit that measures the strength of the current 
 in the wire and is named after the celebrated French electrician, 
 A. M. Ampere. It is the current from a battery having one volt 
 electromotive force, sent through a wire having one ohm of resist- 
 ance, and such a current is equivalent in mechanical energy to one 
 watt, and 746 watts are equal to one horse-power. The watt is 
 named after James Watt of steam engine fame. 
 
 The transformer is a device by which alternating currents of 
 electricity can be changed from one pressure or voltage to a different 
 one. The electric currents as sent from power plants frequently 
 range from 2OOO to 2500 volts. Such a pressure would be danger- 
 ous to take inside a dwelling, for if the insulation were faulty fires 
 would start and the presence of a wire having such a voltage would 
 be a constant menace to life, for a shock of 1000 volts would be seri- 
 ous if not fatal to a human being. The alternating currents used for 
 ordinary street lamps usually range from 1000 to 1500 volts and this 
 is a higher pressure than is necessary in the light proper, for arc 
 Tghts usually run with from 50 to IOO volts each. The change is 
 effected by the box-shaped apparatus frequently seen on electric 
 light poles. These are called transformers and by them a current at 
 a high pressure can be turned into a low pressure, in which case it is 
 a " step-down" transformer, or a low pressure may be changed into a 
 high pressure, in which case it is a "step-up" transformer. If a 
 current of water be sent under heavy pressure through a small pipe 
 and discharged into a tight box having as an outlet a much larger 
 
278 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 pipe it is plain that while the large pipe will discharge in a given 
 length of time the same amount of water as the small one, it will do 
 so at much less pressure. Such an arrangement of the pipes and box 
 might be called a "step-down" transformer. If the current of 
 water were sent through the large pipe it is plain that it would be 
 discharged through the small pipe at much greater velocity and such 
 an arrangement would be a "step-up" transformer. In the power 
 plant at Niagara the current as it comes from the dynamos is about 
 2200 volts. To transmit the power to Buffalo economically it is ad- 
 visable to send it under heavy pressure, as the "resistance" and loss 
 of force is much less proportionately, so the current is " stepped- 
 up " to about 10,000 volts, taken to Buffalo, and " stepped-down " to 
 the voltage required for that place. 
 
 The transformer itself is but a modification of the " induction 
 coil " with the core usually made of a bundle of rather coarse, soft 
 iron wires, for these wires magnetize and demagnetize more rapidly 
 than would a solid core. Around this core, called the primary coil, 
 is wound a secondary coil of fine wire. Now, if a powerful alter- 
 nating current be sent through the fine wire a current of less voltage 
 but more quantity will be induced in the coarse wire. This is the 
 "step-down" arrangement. If the current is sent through the 
 coarse wire it is " stepped-up " and goes through the smaller wire at 
 a greater pressure. 
 
 The arc light was profitably employed as soon as the dynamo had 
 been developed to where it could produce the necessary electricity at 
 moderate expense. Sir Humphry Davy noted as early as 1802 that 
 when a current of electricity was sent through two bits of carbon it 
 heated them to white heat. In 1809 he produced a magnificent 4- 
 inch arc light and exhibited it to the public in 1810, but the energy 
 when furnished by a voltaic battery was very expensive and such 
 batteries are more likely to get out of order than steam engines and 
 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 dynamos. Even after the dynamo was ready the fears and preju- 
 dices of the public had to be removed and insurance companies 
 shown that new methods of lighting did not involve more danger 
 than the methods in use. 
 
 When a current of electricity passes through a good conductor it 
 does not materially raise the temperature of the conductor, but if 
 passing through a poor conductor the temperature rises and the con- 
 ductor may become red or white hot. Suppose two pencil shaped 
 pieces of carbon in contact and a current of electricity sent through 
 them. At the small point of contact where the greatest resist- 
 ance is encountered much heat will be developed, the points will 
 glow and the air space between reach a temperature so high that it 
 becomes a conductor; then if the points be separated ever so slightly 
 a brilliant light will be produced, for though the carbons themselves 
 are hot the surface between the points offers still greater resistance to 
 the current and the arc may have a temperature of 4800 Fahrenheit. 
 Such an intense heat consumes the carbons and much ingenuity has 
 been exercised in devising some efficient method of candle feed, for 
 as the carbons waste away the arc widens until it becomes so wide 
 that the currents are interrupted and the light goes out. This makes 
 it necessary to adopt some mechanism by which the carbons may be 
 made to approach each other as they are consumed and so keep the 
 space between them constant. Usually the lower carbon is station- 
 ary and the upper one is fed down by gravity and controlled in its 
 movements by delicate electrical devices. 
 
 In arc lights produced by continuous currents the positive carbon 
 is hotter than the negative and is consumed about twice as fast. 
 The points of the carbon also differ. The negative carbon wastes 
 away to a point like a lead pencil, while the end of the positive car- 
 bon is flat or hollowed out, forming a " crater." 
 
 In arc lights produced by alternating currents these differences 
 
280 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 exist in a less degree, but the illumination varies more. Arc lights 
 are usually surrounded by a glass globe to diffuse the light and avoid 
 the striking contrast of intense light and heavy shadows, but such 
 globes cut off from 40 per cent, to 60 per cent, of the light. 
 
 The search light is another interesting example of a practical 
 application of electricity. It consists of an arc light placed in front 
 of mirrors made either of silvered glass or polished metal and curved 
 so as to focus the light. The lamp and the mirrors are mounted 
 within a cylinder hung on pivots so as to be easily turned in any di- 
 rection. The front of the cylinder is covered with thin plain glass 
 to protect the mechanism within. Search lights are made of such 
 enormous power that they may be visible 150 miles away. The one 
 on the observatory on Mount Lowe, California, said to be the most 
 powerful in use in the world, is of 3,000,000 candle power and 
 weighs 6000 pounds, yet it is so perfectly balanced in a tank of mer- 
 cury that it can be easily turned with one finger. 
 
 Fire departments of great cities now use portable search lights 
 capable of sending powerful beams through clouds of smoke and 
 steam and lighting up dark streets, the faces of walls, and interior of 
 buildings that otherwise shrouded in darkness would greatly increase 
 the danger of the valiant fire fighters. 
 
 The search light is useful to ships, for it assists in detecting land- 
 marks, reefs, rocks, and other dangers of navigation or the proximity 
 of other vessels, and the equipment of no warship to-day is complete 
 without one or more search lights. Large battleships frequently 
 carry as many as half a dozen, that all sides may be lighted up or 
 duplicate lamps provided against accident or injury in battle. By 
 the aid of the search light torpedo boats can be seen at a distance of 
 more than a mile and the boat finds in the search light and the rapid 
 fire gun a combination most dangerous for her to oppose. 
 
 The incandescent light followed as a natural consequence from 
 
ELECTRICITY. 28 1 
 
 the discovery of Davy and other scientists at the beginning of the 
 century that a platinum wire could be made white hot by sending a 
 strong enough current of electricity through it. However, the dif- 
 ficulty with such a lamp was that it was not economical, for at a low 
 temperature it turns into light only a small part of the energy sup- 
 plied it. Solids in general when heated emit red rays at 1600 
 Fahrenheit, yellow rays at 1300, blue rays at 1500, and white heat 
 at about 2000, and if the substance be heated hotter, the light 
 emitted is much greater proportionally, so it is economical to heat 
 the substance as hot as possible. The trouble with the early attempt 
 was that the most refractory metals melted at about 3450 Fahrenheit, 
 while the electric arc easily reached 4800. 
 
 We have seen that all materials offer resistance to the passage of 
 an electric current but some more than others; just as an auger will 
 bore in soft wood without materially heating the wood but if the 
 same auger be used in very hard wood heat enough may be devel- 
 oped to char the wood. 
 
 About 1840 Grove, the inventor of the Grove battery, devised 
 what was perhaps the first electric glow or incandescent lamp. He 
 described it as follows: "A coil of platinum wire is attached to two 
 copper wires, the lower parts of which, or those most distant from 
 the platinum, are well varnished ; these are fixed erect in a glass of 
 distilled water, and another cylindrical glass, closed at the upper end, 
 is inverted over them, so that its open mouth rests on the bottom of 
 the former glass ; the projecting ends of the copper wires are con- 
 nected with a voltaic battery (two or three pairs of the nitric acid 
 combination), and the ignited wire now gives a steady light. In- 
 stead of making the wires pass through the water, they may be 
 fixed to metallic caps well luted to the necks of a glass globe." 
 Other inventors were soon in the field and after the Grove lamp came 
 those of Starr-King, Farmer, and others, but they all encountered 
 
282 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the difficulty of the wasting away of the incandescent body and it 
 was not until 1877 when the Sawyer-Man lamp was produced that 
 any great activity was exhibited in this field. It was found that the 
 incandescent body of an electric lamp if exposed to the atmosphere 
 rapidly wasted away, and to overcome this difficulty Sawyer inclosed 
 the incandescent carbon in his lamp in an atmosphere of nitrogen, 
 which is not a supporter of combustion. Edison had also entered 
 the field and the strife in the Patent Office^ between him and Sawyer- 
 Man was carried to the courts and finally decided in his favor. 
 There are now many kinds of incandescent lamps, the chief differ- 
 ence being the manner in which they prepare the carbon filament. 
 The price has gone steadily down. 
 
 The light in an incandescent lamp is emitted from the carbon 
 filament and the amount depends upon the- temperature to which 
 the loop can be heated without volatilizing the carbon. Filaments 
 usually break down because the action of the current tends to dis- 
 perse minute particles of carbon and deposit them on the inner side 
 of the bulb, darkening it and shutting off some of the light. Con- 
 siderable skill and much care are required in the manufacture of the 
 filament. It is necessary to use some material that contains carbon 
 in chemical combination with some fiber. The material chosen is 
 given its proper form and then baked at a high temperature while 
 preserved from contact with the air until it is carbonized. It is then 
 heated to incandescence by an electric current in an atmosphere of 
 hydro-carbon vapor, which coats it with carbon freed from the vapor. 
 The last operation is called ''flashing" and gives it the silver gray 
 luster that is considered best for wearing. 
 
 Various materials are employed by "the different manufacturers 
 in preparing the filaments. In the Edison process they are made 
 from bamboo, while in the Swan lamp a cotton thread is drawn 
 through sulphuric acid and then carbonized and submitted to the 
 flashing process. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 283 
 
 When the filaments are ready to be mounted, the ends are elec- 
 troplated with copper so as to form a good junction, and turned into 
 loops and fastened to two platinum wires which penetrate the in- 
 terior of the glass bulb. A vacuum is then created in the bulb by 
 an air pump until the pressure within is equal to only about one 
 millionth of an atmosphere and the bulb is sealed. Platinum ter- 
 minals are chosen because platinum contracts and expands under heat 
 about the same as glass and so lessens the danger of cracking the 
 bulb. The ends of the platinum wire are carried outside and elec- 
 trical connection made with them. 
 
 A current of considerable power coming through a wire of greater 
 diameter than the thread-like filament would obviously encounter 
 resistance in passing through so small a conductor, and frail as the 
 filament is and appears it gives as much resistance as several miles of 
 ordinary telegraph wire. Only continuous currents can be used for 
 incandescent lamps and they are usually what is known as "low 
 tension" currents, ranging from 100 to 250 volts, and would not in- 
 jure a person brought in contact with them. Trolley lines usually 
 employ about 500 volts, enough to kill animals but not necessarily 
 enough to kill a human being. The voltage in lines feeding arc 
 lights has increased rapidly of late years and some lines now carry 
 high tension alternating currents ranging from 2000 to 5000 volts. 
 Such a current could start a fire or kill a person instantly. Incan- 
 descent lamps operate under water as well as in the air and so are 
 used to good advantage by divers. Since they do not deprive the 
 atmosphere of its oxygen they are especially adapted to lighting the 
 interior of mines, tunnels, dwellings, and holds of ships. 
 
 When it became apparent that the incandescent lamp was efficient 
 it struck terror to the hearts of the holders of gas stock, and on 
 October n, 1878, a veritable panic occurred at the London Stock 
 Exchange, but the field of light is broad enough for both, and the 
 market reports show that gas is still a pretty good investment. 
 
284 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Electric lighting came into use with great rapidity. A quarter 
 of a century ago it was so little used that it was an object of interest 
 and curiosity. During the year 1899 a single company, the General 
 Electric, is said to have received orders for more than 10,000,000 in- 
 candescent lamps, and it is estimated that the value of the electric 
 lighting plants in the United States alone is now equal to at least 
 $600,000,000. 
 
 Electric heating, now familiar in our electric street cars, promises 
 to become equally well known in the household wherever cleanliness, 
 convenience of handling, and instant availability will offset the in- 
 crease in cost. The heat available is ample, for the temperature of 
 an electric arc is variously estimated at from 6000 to 10,000 Fahren- 
 heit, or several times that of a coal furnace, and electrical ranges, 
 ovens, gridirons, etc., are now installed in many of the best hotels 
 and restaurants. A flatiron having within it an electric heater con- 
 nected by an insulated wire has proved serviceable. Quilts for beds 
 are made with fine wires interwoven through which a current of 
 electricity can be sent, maintaining a constant temperature most ac- 
 ceptable to an invalid. An insulated handle to which is attached a 
 loop of platinum wire heated by an electric current is frequently 
 used by physicians in place of the knife in cautery and by its aid 
 tumors or other objects can be easily excised. 
 
 Electric welding was invented and perfected by Professor Elihu 
 Thomson of Lynn, Mass., who took out his patent for the process 
 August 10, 1886. It is one of the most interesting of the recent ap- 
 plications of the alternating current. A current of low voltage but 
 large in quantity is passed through the metals where they are to be 
 joined. Since the metals cannot fit absolutely, the surface in contact 
 must be less than their whole diameter, and when the current is sent 
 through the smaller portion a higher resistance is set up at the point 
 of contact, where the temperature rises until the ends of the metals 
 

 ELECTRICITY. 285 
 
 fuse and can be forced together by simple pressure. By electric weld- 
 ing not only metals of the same kind but of different kinds may be 
 joined, as brass and iron, and a small piece may be welded at an 
 angle to a larger one ; hollow pieces such as pipes or pieces irregular 
 in outline may be welded as though they were solid, for the welding 
 heat can be produced exactly at the point where it is needed and 
 without detriment to any other part. 
 
 The firefly is not without interest to scientists, for that insect 
 presents a problem for their consideration that may well be studied. 
 It performs the marvelous feat of producing light without any accom- 
 panying heat. Professor Langley seems to have demonstrated that 
 of the waves radiated by a gas flame only 2.4 per cent, are luminous, 
 those from an electric arc reach but 10 per cent., and those from the 
 sun only 38 per cent., while the radiation of the firefly consists 
 wholly of " visible wave frequencies." 
 
 Scientists are not agreed as to the manner in which the light of 
 the firefly is produced. One eminent authority says, "The light 
 may continue long after the death of the cells and therefore it is not 
 a property of the living protoplasm as such." Another states that if 
 the luminous organs are dried and pulverized in a mortar they have no 
 glow, but if a little water be added the glow returns and is constant. 
 It can hardly be a form of combustion, for it takes place equally well 
 in a vacuum, in hydrogen gas, and in carbonic acid gas, .all of which 
 are powerless to support combustion, and the intensity of the glow 
 is not increased in an atmosphere of oxygen, which would stimulate 
 combustion. 
 
 The electric furnace is in reality an electric arc of huge propor- 
 tions and the heat developed is so intense that it fuses all known ele- 
 ments and heats carbon vapor so hot as to develop the true spectrum. 
 The furnace is simple in construction, being merely a number of 
 electrodes at each end of a firebrick structure, the connection be- 
 
286 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tween them being usually made by some form of carbon. A dynamo 
 furnishes an electric current of large quantity and moderate voltage, 
 and the carbon connecting the electrodes offers such a resistance that 
 the arc soon reaches a higher temperature than can be produced by 
 any other artificial means. 
 
 Various methods are employed to measure the temperature, but 
 a common one is to put a piece of platinum into an electric circuit, 
 increase the current until the piece is red hot or at a temperature of 
 about 1800. A delicate thermometer is then placed exactly three 
 feet from the platinum and the temperature carefully noted. The 
 electric current is then increased until the platinum becomes white 
 hot or about 3400, and the amount of electricity used recorded. 
 The same thermometer is then placed at such a distance from the 
 platinum that it will register the same temperature as before, the 
 distance is accurately measured, and from the readings of the ther- 
 mometer, the distances, and the amount of current used the temper- 
 ature of the furnace is approximately determined when is is so hot 
 that it will fuse every known substance. 
 
 Carborundum, or silicide of carbon, is a product of the electric 
 furnace and was first discovered about 1890 by E. G. Atchison of 
 Chicago when experimenting for the production of diamonds. He 
 gave it the name " carborundum," for he thought he had produced a 
 compound of carbon and corundum, but chemical analysis shows 
 that it is silicon and carbon with a trace of iron, alumina, and lime, 
 probably impurities, which give to the crystals a color ranging from 
 nearly white to deep green or blue. 
 
 The crystals are almost as hard as diamonds, insoluble in acids, 
 and do not fuse in a blowpipe flame. They are commercially valu- 
 able as abrasives, for one pound of carborundum will polish eight 
 times as much surface as the same weight of emery and will do it in 
 less time. Carborundum, being so hard, wears longer and cuts 
 
ELECTRICITY. 287 
 
 faster than emery, and carborundum paper is as much superior to 
 emery and sandpaper. Carborundum is used as a substitute for 
 emery wheels and grindstones and is made into wheels, whetstones, 
 and polishing cloths. 
 
 Carborundum furnaces are of fire brick and are usually about 
 twenty-two feet long, five feet wide, and seven feet deep, with ends 
 two feet thick. Into the brickwork of each end are built twenty-five 
 or more bars of carbon (electrodes) four inches square and thirty 
 inches long. These are connected by copper bars with the cables 
 containing the electric current. The ends and bed are permanent 
 but the side walls are temporary and are taken down each time the 
 furnace is charged. In charging, the furnace walls are built up 
 about half way and the interior filled with a mixture of the finest 
 white sand, pulverized coke, and coarse salt. An equal bulk of saw- 
 dust is added and when the current is turned on the sawdust burns 
 away and leaves the whole mass porous so the gas has a chance to 
 escape, a very necessary measure, for with all precautions explosions 
 are not unknown. A semicircular trough, about twenty-one inches 
 in diameter and half as deep, is scooped out in the mixture between 
 the electrodes and the hollow filled with coarser pieces of coke, 
 rounded up until a core is formed reaching from one set of electrodes 
 to the other. The core may be likened to the filament in an incan- 
 descent lamp, for it is through this core that the electric current is 
 (later) to be passed. The core being in position the side walls are 
 built up and the core covered with more of the mixture of sand, 
 coke, salt, and sawdust, and the whole packed down. 
 
 When all is ready the electric current is turned on. As delivered 
 by the Niagara Power Company it has a pressure of about 2200 volts', 
 but for the use of the furnace is " stepped-down " by an 1 100 horse- 
 power transformer until it has a pressure of from 100 to 250 volts. 
 About 4 per cent, of power is lost and turned into heat in the trans- 
 
288 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 former, and its equivalent of 44 horse-power has to be taken care 
 of by surrounding the transformer with a constant current of cool 
 oil to carry away the heat. About half an hour after the current is 
 turned on gas begins to appear at the sides and top of the furnace 
 and burns with a bluish flame. It is estimated that during the proc- 
 ess 5^ tons of gas are emitted, hence the necessity of the precau- 
 tions to guard against explosions and of such an arrangement of the 
 mass as will take up shrinkage as it grows less in quantity. 
 
 After 36 hours the current is shut off and when the furnace is cool 
 enough the side walls are pulled down. All the impurities having 
 been driven out of the coke by the intense heat, it is left a mass of 
 pure carbon surrounded by a shell, 10 or 12 inches thick, of beauti- 
 ful carborundum crystals, some of them one half inch on a side. 
 Outside the layer of crystals is a layer of partly-formed carborundum 
 and beyond this the mixture remains unchanged. One charge with 
 fair success yields about 4000 pounds of crystals. 
 
 The carborundum is then crushed under heavy rollers and soaked 
 in dilute sulphuric acid to get rid of the impurities, washed, screened, 
 and graded according to the use which is to be made of it. If for 
 grinding wheels, the material is mixed with a kind of clay and feld- 
 spar called "kaolin," placed in molds, subjected to hydraulic pres- 
 sure, baked, trued up, and tested. The wheels vary in size from the 
 minute wheel 1-16 inch thick and 1-4 inch in diameter, used by den- 
 tists, up to one 6 inches thick and 36 inches in diameter upon which 
 has been expended 1250 horse-power-hours of energy. 
 
 The Stassano Process was one of the first attempts to make 
 practical application of the electric furnace to the reduction of iron 
 ore. Some of the advantages of such a process as at Sault Ste. 
 Marie, for example, where nickel and iron ore are abundant and close 
 at hand, and water power available, are easily apparent, for the 
 water power can be utilized to generate electricity for the electric 
 
ELECTRICITY. 289 
 
 furnace and save the coal used in ordinary processes. The economy 
 of the world's fuel is an important subject, for immense quantities 
 are now used annually and the consumption is increasing with such 
 exceeding rapidity that the world's supply is plainly not inexhausti- 
 ble. In this process the ore is first roasted and a definite percent- 
 age of carbon, calcium, or silicon, according to the composition 
 desired, added. The mixture is then pulverized, mixed with from 
 5 per cent, to 10 per cent, of pitch, made into paste and pressed into 
 bricks. The bricks are placed in a furnace which does not differ 
 materially from the ordinary blast furnace except that there is an 
 electric arc at the bottom which furnishes the heat, and the whole 
 process of fusing is about like that ordinarily practiced. No fuel 
 except the pitch employed in making the bricks is used, and about 
 3000 horse-power-hours of energy will produce a ton of metal. 
 
 Aluminum is also produced by the aid of the electric furnace. 
 It is said that in 1883 there were only 83 pounds of aluminum pro- 
 duced by this method while in 1898 the output was raised to more 
 than 5,000,000 pounds and the price so materially decreased that 
 aluminum cooking utensils are now made. In view of the many 
 absurdities afloat concerning the use of cheap aluminum for structural 
 purposes, it is well to remember that aluminum is not so marvelously 
 strong. Its tensile strength, square inch for square inch, is only 
 about the same as that of cast iron, one half that of wrought iron, 
 or one fifth that of the best steel. Aluminum is light, and, taking its 
 specific gravity as a unit, steel is 2.95 times, brass 3.45 times, cop- 
 per 3.6 times, and lead 4.8 times as heavy. A bar of aluminum 
 shows an ultimate tensile strength of about 28,000 pounds per square 
 inch; a bar of the best steel of the same diameter shows a tensile 
 strength of more than 150,000 pounds per square inch, so that not 
 only section for section but weight for weight aluminum is inferior 
 in tensile strength to steel. 
 
290 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Electroplating is another practical application of electricity. 
 Daniell is said to have noticed that the copper deposited on the cop- 
 per plate in his voltaic cell reproduced even the minutest scratches 
 on the plate, and his discovery has been called the beginning of the 
 art of electroplating. In 1838 Jacobi described the principles to a 
 scientific society of St. Petersburg, and in 1839 ' m a letter to Fara- 
 day told how he obtained copper plates which were exact copies of 
 the medals or designs from which they had been taken. However, 
 the early history of electroplating is enveloped in considerable dis- 
 pute. It has been claimed that it originated with Volta and Wollas- 
 ton, that in 1805 Brugnatelli, a pupil of Volta, gilded two large sil- 
 ver medals, and that in 1834 Sir Henry Bessemer electroplated lead 
 castings with copper. A knowledge of it has even been ascribed to 
 the Egyptians. In the temples and tombs of Thebes and Memphis, 
 vases and urns have been found bearing a plating of copper which 
 presents to the microscope the appearance of galvanic deposits. 
 
 If two clean pieces of metal, as platinum, be put in a solution of 
 copper sulphate and a current of electricity sent through them cop- 
 per will be deposited upon the negative or cathode pole, i. e., the 
 pole by which the current leaves the solution. By maintaining the 
 strength of the solution and keeping up the current, a plating of 
 any desired thickness may be deposited which when removed will 
 give an exact reproduction of the original. In taking an impression 
 of a medal, it is given a coating of varnish, shellac, or sealing wax, 
 covering all except the portion to be copied, placed in the bath as a 
 cathode pole, and the current of electricity turned on. An inverted 
 impression is produced from which a direct copy can be made by the 
 same process. In ordinary practice it is customary to reproduce a 
 design by making a mold from plaster of paris, moldine, or some 
 similar substance, brushing it over with black lead to render it a con- 
 ductor of electricity, and from this mold an exact reproduction of the 
 original design can be obtained. 
 
ELECTRICITY. 29 1 
 
 Electroplating is much used in making plates for bookwork, for 
 electrotypes give better and sharper impressions than stereotypes. 
 A wax mold made from the engraving or page of type is brushed 
 over with powdered graphite to render it a good conductor and cop- 
 per then deposited by the ordinary method of electroplating. Fine 
 iron filings can be dusted on the wet graphite surface of the mold 
 and the solution of copper sulphate poured upon it and gently stirred 
 with a soft brush. A film of copoer is almost immediately formed 
 over the entire surface, for the acid unites with the iron to form 
 sulphate of iron, and deposits the copper. 
 
 In electroplating where the jobs are of considerable magnitude 
 sheets of wax are run through a shaving machine which produces a 
 sheet of uniform thickness. The surface of the sheet is rubbed with 
 graphite dust to prevent it from sticking to the type 01 the engrav- 
 ing and the type or engraving also dusted with graphite is forced 
 into the sheet to the desired depth. The mold is removed, the 
 blank places built up with hot wax so that those surfaces will not 
 touch the paper in printing, the mold again dusted with graphite and 
 the iron filings applied, great care being taken to see that the whole 
 surface of the mold is covered. It is then used as a cathode pole 
 in a bath of copper sulphate and left there until a deposit of copper 
 is formed thick enough so it can be taken off and laid face down on 
 a plane surface. The back of the copper sheet is next brushed over 
 with a solution of chloride of zinc, and sheets of tin foil are laid on 
 and melted and molten type metal poured on until the plate has been 
 given a thickness of about one eighth inch. Plates can be coated 
 with a solution of iron almost as hard as steel, making them very 
 durable, and in Europe this method is employed with excellent re- 
 sults to make plates for printing bank notes. 
 
 The same principles are employed in gold, silver, and nickel 
 plating, and the process has been brought to such a degree of perfec- 
 
292 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM 
 
 tion that silk, laces, fruit, and flowers even have been plated. The 
 method has greatly reduced the cost of books, maps, medals, and 
 similar designs, for the original design can be preserved and electro- 
 types made from it as often as required, each of which is an exact 
 reproduction of the original. 
 
 It has been a boon to mankind by saving many human lives, for 
 prior to the discovery of electroplating one of the methods of gilding 
 was to dissolve gold in mercury until a paste was formed, apply the 
 paste with a brush to the article to be gilded, then heat it in an oven 
 to evaporate the mercury, leaving the gold to adhere. This method 
 was attended with fearful mortality for the fumes of the mercury 
 killed off the workmen rapidly. 
 
 An electric cartridge, designed as a substitute for dynamite and 
 smokeless powder in the mines, has been invented by an Italian elec- 
 trician. He uses carbonates of potash and chloride of ammonia and 
 causes the explosion by the electrolytic effect a current of electricity 
 has upon those chemicals. One advantage claimed for the cartridge 
 is that it is perfectly safe and inert until acted upon by the electric 
 current, so there is no danger connected with its handling, neither 
 are isolated magazines necessary for its storage. 
 
 The storage battery, secondary battery, or accumulator, as it is 
 variously called, plays an important part in the economy of electric 
 power and is largely responsible for the increasing use of electricity. 
 In the chain formed by the steam engine, the dynamo, and the stor- 
 age battery, the dynamo takes the mechanical energy from the steam 
 engine, turns it into electricity, sends it into the storage battery, and 
 by its electrolytic action builds up certain chemical compounds in 
 the batteries, so unstable that they seem to unite under compulsion 
 and fly apart whenever an opportunity is given them. The energy 
 will remain in the form stored until the poles of the battery are con- 
 nected, but when connected in a circuit the compounds are disasso- 
 
ELECTRICITY. 293 
 
 ciated and the same electrical energy produced with which the 
 battery was charged less the losses inseparably connected with the 
 transformation of force. 
 
 The difficulty encountered by investigators in "polarization of 
 cells" has been mentioned. In 1801 Gautherot, a French scientist, 
 remarked that if a polarized cell was allowed to rest and afterward 
 connected, a feeble current was set up in the opposite direction. 
 
 In 1812 Ritter constructed a secondary pile made of alternate 
 discs of copper and moistened cardboard, from which when charged 
 by a voltaic pile he drew electricity. 
 
 The first storage battery of commercial importance was con- 
 structed by Gaston Plante, in 1860, who rolled two lead plates sep- 
 arated by a heavy piece of cloth into the form of a cylinder and 
 immersed them in a 10 per cent, solution of sulphuric acid. A cur- 
 rent of electricity was sent through them for several hours and the 
 usual chemical changes due to electrolysis occurred, an oxide of lead 
 forming at the pole where the current entered and a spongy deposit 
 of lead at the other pole. When the current was stopped and the 
 poles of the battery were connected, a decided current appeared 
 having the opposite direction. The name "storage battery" is not 
 really a good one for it does not work like a voltaic cell but rather 
 like a clock spring, which, being wound up by the power of the cur- 
 rent sent from the dynamo, relieves itself of the tension at the first 
 opportunity and discharges very nearly as much energy as was re- 
 quired to charge it. 
 
 In 1880 Camille A. Faure made an important improvement in 
 storage batteries by substituting lead plates covered with the higher 
 and lower oxides of lead instead of the plain lead sheets of the Plante 
 system and saved the battery the work of making its own oxides. 
 Many minor improvements have been made since then, consisting 
 chiefly in alloying the plates with bismuth and giving them a spongy 
 
294 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 cellular structure so as to hold the greatest amount of red lead with 
 the least amount of weight. 
 
 The use of storage batteries has doubled every year for the 
 past decade, and a single concern (The Electric Storage Battery 
 Company) turns out in one year batteries to the value of $2,387,- 
 
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 ELECTRIC STORAGE BATTERY, SHOWING CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 049.91. They make batteries which are remarkably light and effi- 
 cient. The sheets are made from a combination of lead and zinc 
 chlorides and are cut into ribbons one fourth inch wide. The positive 
 plates (grids) are made with circular holes, into each of which is forced 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 295 
 
 a spiral coil of the ribbon. The grid is then exposed to chemical 
 action which removes the zinc and produces lead oxide and metallic 
 lead in so porous a form as to expose a great surface to the action of 
 the battery fluid. The negative grids are made with square holes 
 and filled with solid lead. The cells, each containing one more neg- 
 ative than positive element, are set in tanks made either of glass, 
 
 .MINUTES 
 
 FIGURE i. 
 
 hard rubber, or sheet lead resting on carefully insulated supports. 
 Such batteries when charged are used by merely switching them into 
 line where the power is needed. 
 
 Storage batteries are especially economical for small street car 
 lines where at one time nearly all the cars may be at a standstill, 
 making almost no demand on the power plant, and the next instant 
 ail in motion and perhaps climbing heavy grades, and testing the 
 
296 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM 
 
 highest efficiency of the generator. Before storage batteries were 
 used to supplement the engines, the power plant had to be equal to 
 any emergency, necessitating the use of engines almost continuously 
 producing as much power as would be required at any instant. Now 
 smaller engines costing less both to purchase and operate are used 
 with storage batteries. The batteries are charged when the load on 
 the engine is light and drawn upon for reserve when the temporary 
 demands are greater than the engines can supply. 
 
 Reference to Figure i shows plainly the Economy. The ir- 
 regular lines show the actual electric current required and the actual 
 current developed in five minutes at an electric railway power house. 
 The upper line shows the power used by the cars. The first minute 
 started with 100 amperes, rose rapidly to more than 150, sank to 
 nearly 50, rose in sparks to almost 250 and fell back to 10. During 
 the first 10 seconds of the second minute the demand rose from 10 
 amperes to nearly 250, as is shown by the straight peak, and aver- 
 aged high for the whole minute. It is evident that such extreme 
 fluctuations would be a severe strain on the engines. Let us look 
 
 o 
 
 at the power line. Aided by the storage batteries, the demands on 
 the generator ran pretty steadily with little fluctuations from 75 to 
 80 amperes, for the batteries took care of the sudden demands for 
 power. 
 
 A steam engine works most economically when a small amount of 
 steam can be admitted to the cylinder at each stroke and allowed to 
 expand. When great demands are made on the engine more steam 
 is admitted, but the engine then works by direct pressure from the 
 boiler, which is not an economical method, for the steadier the load 
 the more economically can the engine be operated. 
 
 In Figure 2 the middle curve shows the variations in the current 
 required to operate a street car line for five seconds. If a dynamo 
 alone were to supply the energy it would need to be capable of 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 297 
 
 furnishing enough power to safely cover the highest peak, or more 
 than 300 amperes, and when the line required less than the greatest 
 amount there would be power going to waste. Here is where the 
 storage battery comes into play. The upper curve in Figure 2 is 
 almost like the middle curve, but through it runs the line marked 
 
 FIGURE 2. 
 
 "o," which represents the average load. When the demands for 
 power are above this line the battery takes care of them. When 
 the demands are for less than an average load the battery is being 
 charged while the engines are kept running pretty steadily, as shown 
 by the lower curve, relying on the battery to take care of sudden 
 demands for power and to store up energy when the load is less than 
 the average. 
 
298 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 During the course of the day the batteries receive enough cur- 
 rent at odd times so that in some plants the engines can be shut 
 down at midnight and not started until seven o'clock in the morning, 
 the batteries carrying all the night load. This gives the engines a 
 much needed rest for inspection, repairs, etc. In many electric 
 lighting plants the engines are run only from 4 P. M. until midnight, 
 the batteries supplying all the lights used after that hour and through 
 the day. 
 
 In large street railway and lighting systems it is economical to 
 produce all the power at one central power plant, but cables large 
 enough to carry the amount of current demanded at the extreme 
 ends of the lines are expensive and may cost from $i to $2 a foot. 
 By. installing storage batteries at points near the ends of the line a 
 surplus of power is there held in reserve equal to any sudden demand 
 that may be made upon it. 
 
 Hotels and apartment houses frequently maintain a private 
 power plant for lighting and elevator service. When the current for 
 the elevator is taken directly from the generator, the supply for the 
 lights varies so much that the continual fluctuation caused is seri- 
 ously objectionable. In such a plant as that of the Waldorf-Astoria 
 Hotel, where there are 27,000 electric lights and 21 electric elevators, 
 this is an important consideration. A storage battery in such cases 
 supplies the sudden demands of the elevator, furnishes a steady 
 current for the lighting system, and economizes by equalizing the 
 load on the engines and shortening the necessary running time. 
 
 For automobiles and for propulsion and for lighting small boats 
 such batteries are especially well suited, as they are noiseless, pro- 
 duce no smoke, dirt, or odor, and their weight in a boat carrying bal- 
 last to preserve its center of gravity is no objection, for the storage 
 batteries can be substituted in part for the ballast. 
 
 In reducing aluminum by the aid of electricity Targe iron vats 
 
ELECTRICITY. 
 
 299 
 
 lined with carbon are employed. Over each vat is a framework 
 through which project numerous large carbon rods about 20 inches 
 long and 2 y 2 inches in diameter. The vats are filled with alumina, 
 an oxide of aluminum, together with certain other materials, an'd the 
 electric current is turned on. A large current of a low voltage is 
 employed and the heat evolved is used only to melt the materials, 
 for the electricity does its work in this case by its electrolytic action. 
 The oxygen set free is thrown off as a gas and the metallic aluminum 
 in a melted state sinks to the bottom of the tank and is dipped out 
 by large iron ladles and poured into molds. The current, usually 
 not exceeding seven or eight volts, is not dangerous to the person, 
 for the human body is such a poor conductor that it is able to resist 
 such a current, just as a thin armor might repel a light, slow moving 
 projectile, but be pierced by one of a higher velocity. 
 
 Calcium carbide is another important product of the electric fur- 
 nace. It is a compound of carbon and calcium, a white metal, not 
 found in a natural state but existing chiefly in the form of carbonate 
 of lime. Unslaked lime is ground into fine powder, then mixed with 
 powdered coke or carbon in such a proportion that when the union 
 takes place one atom of calcium will unite with two atoms of carbon 
 and form calcium carbide. (Ca C 2 .) The mixture is then put into a 
 crucible in which is a powerful electric arc, which melts the mixture, 
 throws off the oxygen, and unites the calcium and carbon. Calcium 
 carbide is used to generate acetylene gas in large quantities. The 
 gas is composed of two atoms of carbon and two atoms of hydrogen 
 (C 2 H 2 ) and when water is added to calcium carbide it decomposes 
 the water and the carbon and the hydrogen unite, forming acetylene 
 gas and leaving a residuum of slacked lime. 
 
 Electricity half a century ago was practically applied only in the 
 telegraph. To-day the world would seem lost without it. In that 
 familiar illustration, the street car, we find it performing three dif- 
 
300 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ferent kinds of work ; heating, lighting, and propelling. A quarter 
 of a century ago it was just making its appearance in the commercial 
 world as a motive power and to-day it is a rival of steam. However, 
 it can rarely be independent of the black slave, coal. In lands 
 where coal is expensive and water power abundant and cheap it can 
 compete with the steam engine, but it must be borne in mind that 
 electricity is simply a form of energy which must be paid for. The 
 best dynamos working under a full load are capable of turning into 
 electricity 95 per cent, of the power applied to them. This if sent 
 through a wire for a considerable distance will lose in the wire from 
 5 per cent, upward. If transformers are used to step-up or step- 
 down the current, a loss is sustained thereby ; the electric motor 
 which takes the current and turns it into mechanical energy is about 
 as efficient as the dynamo, so another loss of 5 per cent, occurs. It 
 is probable that some means of conducting electricity for long dis- 
 tances without such great waste will eventually be devised, every 
 waterfall harnessed, its power turned into electricity and conveyed 
 where it can turn motors not only to run the usual machinery but to 
 cool rooms, bake bread, run sewing machines, and perform the thou- 
 sand and one other things connected with the laborof the household. 
 The steam engine can turn into electricity only about 15 per 
 cent, of the power latent within the coal, and a fortune awaits the man 
 who can utilize the large margin wasted and turn coal directly into 
 electricity. Chemists have demonstrated that it is possible but have 
 been unable to perform it profitably. However, electricity has made 
 such rapid strides that at the close of the century it was estimated 
 that in the United States the capitalization in electrical appliances 
 was about equal to the national debt. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 Iron Ore, how mined, transported, and smelted Steel and Its Relation to Modern 
 Progress Crucible Process Bessemer Process Open-Hearth Process Advantages 
 of Each Process How Steel Castings are Made Alloys Testing Machines First Iron 
 Works in America First Iron Works in Canada Ore Deposits of Canada and Newfound- 
 land Iron and Steel Production of the World Bridges Reasons for High Buildings 
 and How they are Built. 
 
 A A T'HEN primitive man subjugated fire he achieved a great victory 
 over natural forces, but when he applied its magic touch to 
 the dull sodden mass of iron ore that lay hidden in the bog or on 
 the mountain side, he laid the corner stone of the foundation upon 
 which the structure of our civilization is reared. No other discov- 
 ery has been so beneficial to man as the mastery of iron and its 
 derivative, steel. If the statement seems strong, picture society with 
 those metals removed. With them would vanish the railroad, the 
 steamship, the steam engine, the telegraph, the telephone, mills, 
 factories, firearms, agricultural machinery, all tools with cutting 
 edges, the instruments of the astronomer, the chemist, the surgeon, 
 and the whole fabric of civilization reared by the rise of intelligence 
 above brute force. 
 
 The early ages of antiquity have been commonly divided into 
 the stone, bronze, and iron, but some metallurgists think that iron 
 should take precedence over bronze and encourage the supposition 
 that bronze was a substitute for rather than a forerunner of iron. 
 
302 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 An eminent English metallurgist says, " It has always appeared 
 to me reasonable to infer from metallurgic considerations that the 
 age of iron would have preceded the age of bronze. The primitive 
 method, not yet wholly extinct, of extracting iron from its ores, is a 
 much simpler process than that of producing bronze and indicates a 
 much less advanced state of the metallurgic arts. In the case of iron 
 all that is necessary is to heat the ore strongly in contact with char- 
 coal ; whereas, in the case of bronze, which is an alloy of copper and 
 tin, both copper and tin have to be obtained by smelting their 
 respective ores separately to be subsequently melted together in due 
 proportion and the resulting alloy to be cast in molds requiring con- 
 siderable skill in their preparation." * 
 
 The Scriptures ascribe the working of iron to Tubal-cain, and 
 it is certain that it was known to the Assyrians and Egyptians at a 
 very early period in the history of the world. The Israelites labored 
 in iron furnaces under their Egyptian taskmasters, and since iron ore 
 is not found within the borders of Egypt it speaks volumes for the 
 civilization and commerce of a country that could at that age gather 
 the ores from a distance. 
 
 Rich iron ore is now found in Algeria near the site of ancient 
 Carthage, and it is reasonable to suppose that the Carthaginians a 
 thousand years before Christ were not behind their Egyptian neigh- 
 bors in the knowledge of the use and manufacture of iron Chinese 
 literature says that it was known in that country two thousand years 
 before Christ, and in that other cradle of early civilization, the Val- 
 ley of the Euphrates, iron ore of considerable richness is yet found. 
 It seems but characteristic of England that at the advent of the 
 Christian era, English ships were carrying English iron to conti- 
 nental markets. 
 
 It is not within the scope of this article to take up the history of 
 
 * Dr. John Percy. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 303 
 
 iron, but rather to trace it as it comes from the mine until it appears 
 as a finished product applied to the service of man. The Lake 
 Superior district has been selected for description because the meth- 
 ods of mining, handling and transportation there employed repre- 
 sent the very acme of scientific organization. 
 
 Lake Superior Iron Ore. Perhaps the richest iron deposits in 
 the world are found surrounding Lake Superior. The strata there 
 make a great dip and the lake occupies the depression, the bottom 
 of it being 406 feet below sea level. The ore appears on both 
 sides of the lake, but the beds on the northern side are deeper than 
 on the southern side and are not yet much worked. Those on the 
 southern side may be divided into five districts. The first, at 
 Marquette, Michigan, was opened in 1845 an d the ore was re- 
 duced in local forges, the adjacent forests furnishing cheap charcoal 
 used in the process; but with the increasing demands for iron and 
 the change from the charcoal to the coke process it became cheaper 
 to ship it to blast furnaces situated near coal mines, and in 1856 the 
 first important movement toward the furnaces of Pennsylvania began, 
 5000 tons of ore being shipped that year. 
 
 The second district, that of Menominee, Michigan, was discovered 
 about 1848, but no considerable shipments were made from it until 
 1880. The Gogebic district lies both in Michigan and Wisconsin 
 and was discovered about the time of the preceding and opened in 
 1884. The Vermilion range of Minnesota was discovered in 1866 
 and by 1884 was in full operation. 
 
 The richest district and most easily accessible ore is also in 
 Minnesota and is known as the Missabi range. A little ore was 
 obtained from this range in 1850, but the mines were not systemati- 
 cally developed until 1892. Now the output from that district 
 exceeds that of the others combined, and in 1899 it was estimated 
 that there was in sight, in the Missabi district alone, no less than 
 
304 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 400,000,000 tons of ore that needed only to be shoveled into the cars. 
 " Among the movements of raw materials in the commercial organ- 
 ization of iron and steel manufacture the most noteworthy in the 
 amount of materials handled, in the methods of handling them, and 
 in the scope of the mark reached by them is the movement of iron 
 ores from the territory along the western and southern shores of 
 Lake Superior to the southern shore of Lake Erie and thence to 
 the furnaces of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio where the coal 
 deposits lie. This movement is in fact the most important feature 
 in the American ore trade as well as one of the conspicuous features 
 of the internal commerce of the whole country. From mine to 
 furnace the ore is carried from 800 to 1000 miles in barges and ves- 
 sels, carrying from 7000 to 9000 tons of ore each, at the rate of more 
 than 3,000,000 tons per month." This ore is moved at a fuel cost 
 of about Y? ounce of coal per ton-mile and at a speed of 10 miles an 
 hour, while, according to the War Department reports, the average 
 cost for five years of moving a ton of freight a mile on the Great 
 Lakes has been less than one tenth of a cent, and for 1898 the cost was 
 .79 of a mill. There is probably no other similar freight movement 
 in the world, for the iron ore alone that passes through the canals at 
 Sault Ste. Marie is greater than the net tonnage of the Suez Canal, 
 and both in point of magnitude and in method of handling it well 
 represents the highest excellence in mine management and water 
 transportation. In 1899 the iron ore output of the world was 84,064,- 
 ooo tons, of which the Lake Superior district produces 18,251,804 
 tons or nearly 22 per cent, of the total production of the world. 
 
 " In this age of engineering and industrial marvels nothing is 
 more striking than the methods employed in the transportation of 
 iron ore from the mines in the district surrounding Lake Superior 
 to the furnaces in the Mahoning Valley and the vicinity of Pitts- 
 burg. Almost every link in the whole system is unique. Nowhere 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 305 
 
 else in the world is freight moved so cheaply as on the Great Lakes, 
 and nowhere else are cargoes transferred from cars to ships and from 
 ships to cars with such rapidity. The whole plan of handling iron 
 ore from the time it is taken from the ground until its conversion 
 into pig iron has, by reason of the economy of time and money 
 involved, excited the admiration of the great numbers of foreign 
 engineers who have within the past few years visited the lake dis- 
 trict, and has been one of the principal factors in introducing a 
 proper appreciation of the possibilities of American competition in 
 the future." * 
 
 There are four systems of mining in general use in the Lake 
 Superior districts; namely, overhead stoping, caving, milling, and 
 steam shoveling. In overhead stoping a shaft (tunnel) is sunk into 
 the rock underlying the vein of ore but always with a firm wall of 
 rock between it and the deposit of ore. The ore is found in veins 
 between strata of rock and the strata and veins do not run horizon- 
 tally but dip, and as the shaft runs parallel with the vein it is always 
 at a slant. One of these shafts, 21 feet wide and 7 feet high, has 
 already reached a depth of more than 1000 feet, but the shaft is not 
 pushed any faster than the removal of the ore requires. 
 
 When a shaft has reached the proper depth, usually 62 feet below 
 the top of the ore to be removed, a horizontal "heading " or gallery 
 is driven through the rock wall between the shaft and the vein of ore 
 and through the ore to the rock on the opposite side. In this main 
 heading a number of cross headings 12 feet long are driven at right 
 angles to the main heading. This maps out a block of ore 62 feet 
 high, 24 feet wide, and as long as the vein is thick. The miners, 
 beginning at the bottom of the 62-foot block, remove the ore with 
 picks and throw it behind them, from whence it is carried away or 
 left to form a basis for other workmen to stand on and attack the 
 
 * Waldon Faucett in the Engineering and Mining Journal. 
 
306 MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 wall of ore at a greater height. As fast as the ore is removed heavy 
 timbers are placed in position to sustain the overlying mass and pre- 
 vent caving in. A good illustration of the whole operation would be 
 to suppose gangs of men working on the under side of a gigantic 
 stairway of ore, a crew of men digging away at the back of each 
 step. When the block has been worked out, one of the short head- 
 ings is pushed out on one side an additional twenty-four feet, the ore 
 overlying it left as a pillar to help hold up the roof, and another 
 block or room like the first is worked out beyond it 
 
 When the two rooms separated by the pillar of ore have been 
 worked out the timber is collapsed by dynamite and the pillar of ore 
 worked out by the caving method. The shaft is then sunk sixty-two 
 feet further and the operations repeated until such a depth is reached 
 that the difficulty of pumping out the water which floods the mine 
 renders further work unprofitable. 
 
 The caving system is a safer method than overhead stoping 
 because the timber supports are never more than seven feet high as 
 against the sixty-two feet in overhead stoping. In the caving sys- 
 tem a vertical shaft is sunk into the rock to the depth of 100 feet 
 just outside the body of ore. At the bottom of the shaft a heading 
 is driven through the rock and ore from which a system of horizontal 
 headings branch out until enough surface has been covered to furnish 
 all the ore that can be profitably hoisted through one shaft. After 
 the headings are finished the miners begin at regular intervals along 
 them and dig holes resembling wells, only they are commenced at the 
 bottom and progress vertically until they reach the top of the body 
 of ore. These wells are called " rises" and are about 3^ feet wide, 
 7 feet long, and as deep as the mass of ore blocked out, usually 100 
 feet. Each rise contains a ladder-way and a "chute." On reach- 
 ing the top of the body of ore the rises are connected by well tim- 
 bered tunnels 7 feet high, and when these are completed a slice 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 307 
 
 7 feet thick is taken off the top of the ore bed, thrown down the 
 chutes, hauled through the headings to the shaft, and hoisteT^Ko the 
 surface. As fast as the ore is removed the overhanging mass of rock 
 is supported by vertical timbers seven feet in height. When the 
 first layer has been removed timbers are laid over the floor to make 
 a solid roof for the next slice. Dynamite is exploded under the sup- 
 porting timbers and the overlying mass of rock and earth sinks seven 
 feet and falls upon the timber floor prepared to receive it and act as 
 a roof for the next operation. So slight a fall is not likely to cause 
 as much damage as the 62-foot drop of the overhead stoping 
 method. The miners begin work under the timber roof and remove 
 another layer of ore and repeat the method. 
 
 Milling is a modification of the caving system, but here the 
 entire overlying material is removed or stripped off and the miners 
 at work on top of the ore are in a deep pit instead of a cave and 
 have the advantage of open air, good ventilation, and sunlight. 
 There is no extensive timbering and the danger of caving in except 
 along the side is avoided. The great expense involved in removing the 
 overlying material if the ore is not near the surface is the great draw- 
 back to this method. The caving method is usually the cheapest and 
 the one most widely used where deep-seated ores have to be removed. 
 
 The steam shoveling method is the most rapid of all, but can- 
 not be used unless the ore comes within 40 or 50 feet of the surface. 
 The average depth of the Missabi deposit is not more than 20 feet 
 from the surface and excellent drainage can be secured from deep 
 cuts. One layer or cut taken out by the steam shovel lays the ore 
 bed bare, and all that is then necessary is to shovel it directly into 
 the cars, for the ore is not very dense and blasting is not often 
 necessary. After the covering is removed railroad tracks are built 
 right into the heart of the deposits and extended as the operations 
 demand. The ore is usually removed in steps from 20 to 30 feet 
 
308 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 high, and on each step is laid a track with three branches ; one for 
 the steam shovel, one for the cars being loaded, and one for empty 
 cars and switching, so that no time is lost, for it is desirable to keep 
 the steam shovels steadily at work. 
 
 Description of the Steam Shovel. The steam shovel deserves a 
 few words of description for it performs an enormous amount of 
 work, lifting five tons of ore at a stroke, and filling a 2 5 -ton car with 
 five shovelfuls. One shovel has been known to take 5825 tons of 
 ore from the bed and load it on a car in one day of nine hours. The 
 car on which the machine is mounted is strong, solid, heavy, and 
 about the size of an ordinary passenger car and contains a boiler and 
 the engines necessary to operate the shovel. From the end of the 
 car projects an arm at an angle of 45 degrees pivoted so that it can 
 be turned through three fourths of a circle. At the end of the arm 
 is a movable beam to the lower end of which is affixed the bucket, 
 a massive steel affair resembling a gigantic coal hod. From the 
 lower side of the open end of the bucket project a number of great 
 steel fingers. 
 
 In operating, the shovel is pressed against the bank near the bot- 
 tom and as the shovel is drawn against the bank with an upward 
 sweep the fingers loosen enough ore to fill the bucket. The whole 
 is then turned on the pivot until the bucket hangs over the car at 
 the other side, a chain is pulled and the contents of the bucket fall 
 out through a trapdoor at the bottom, into the car. This shovel 
 performs the work formerly done by men with wheelbarrows and re- 
 quires ten men to operate it and 500 pounds of coal each hour to 
 feed the engines, but it has reduced the cost of mining at the Missabi 
 range from $1.05 a ton to 20 cents a ton. The mines are operated 
 continuously but the lakes and canals are open for navigation only 
 seven months in the year, so the winter output is stacked up in great 
 piles awaiting the opening of the shipping season. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 309 
 
 Special cars with trapdoor bottoms are used for hauling the ore. 
 These cars are hauled to the ore docks on a trestle over the ore 
 pockets. When in the proper position the trapdoors are opened and 
 in a twinkling the whole carload is deposited in the ore pocket. 
 
 Ore docks, especially constructed for the needs of the traffic, are 
 built at the water's edge so that vessels can come immediately along- 
 side them. An ore dock is in itself a novel sight, ranging in length 
 from a few hundred feet to more than 2000 feet and rising from 50 
 feet to 73 feet above the water. Two docks at Duluth are each 2336 
 feet long and have a united storage capacity of more than 126,000 tons 
 of ore. The structure resembles a huge trestle on top of which is laid 
 a track for the ore trains. The bottom of the trestle is many feet 
 above the deck of the ship and is divided by partitions into compart- 
 ments called "pockets," from each of which an inclined "spout" 
 leads out to where it can discharge by the force of gravity the con- 
 tents of the pocket directly into the hold of the waiting vessel. 
 
 An ore fleet of several hundred vessels, mostly of steel con- 
 struction, many of them between 400 and 500 feet in length, and 
 carrying from 5000 to 8000 tons, takes the ore from the Superior 
 docks and distributes it among the southern ports of Lake Erie. 
 Until the advent of the Rockefeller interests in the iron trade all 
 classes of vessels were pressed into carrying ore, but now it is chiefly 
 carried by those especially designed to carry the greatest weight at 
 the least expense during the short season. Since the mines and the 
 furnaces must be kept continuously in operation, the transportation 
 facilities must be able to carry as much in seven months as the fur- 
 naces will use in a year, and as all time not spent in actual travel is 
 so much time lost, the loading and discharging of the vessels is car- 
 ried on with the utmost dispatch, some of the great companies even 
 preferring to send their boats back empty, rather than take time to 
 load them with coal or other freight for the return trip. 
 
310 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Two types of vessels have been evolved. One has a flat deck 
 with the boilers and engines as far astern as possible and the bridge, 
 masts, and deck houses piled up in the space forward. All the in- 
 tervening space is left for the ore, and to afford easy access to the 
 hold, hatchways are placed with their centers 24 feet apart, nearly 
 the whole length of the deck. These vessels carry about 6000 tons 
 of ore when drawing 16 feet 8 inches of water, no greater draft 
 being possible on. account of the lack of water in the locks of the 
 canal at Sault Ste. Marie. Whalebacks represent the other class. 
 These are of the same general build and dimensions except that the 
 top of the vessel is rounded, which saves material, allows the sea to 
 break over it easily and is said to give a stiffer vessel and more cargo 
 room for the same weight of hull.- The whalebacks are usually 
 operated in trios, one being provided with the engines and the other 
 two taken in tow. In Rockefeller's " Bessemer Fleet," a single en- 
 gine is thus able to take two barges in tow, and steam the whole 
 course at an average speed of 1 1 miles an hour, moving cargoes rep- 
 resenting 20,000 tons of ore. 
 
 When an ore boat arrives empty at the ore dock it is placed so 
 that the hatchways are opposite the alternate ore pockets. Spouts 
 leading from the pockets are lowered over the hatchways, a gate is 
 opened, and ihe ore is precipitated into the hold. When one set of 
 pockets is emptied the boat is moved ahead twelve feet and the ore 
 in another set discharged. All this time trains of loaded cars from 
 the mines may be running on to the trestle and discharging their 
 load of ore into the pockets and so directly into the boat. A vessel 
 can be loaded at the rate of from 1000 to 1600 tons per hour and it 
 is seldom that a boat spends more than two or three hours in getting 
 its load. The unloading at the lake ports, though not quite so rapid 
 as the loading, is performed without waste of time. 
 
 So many novel methods and new machines have been introduced 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 31 I 
 
 in handling ore that these lake ports receive frequent visits from en- 
 gineers from other parts of the world interested in such subjects. 
 One of them says: 
 
 " The ore is unloaded on all of these docks by machines of one 
 of three general types; namely, the whirler or revolving derrick, an 
 automatic unloader, or the bridge-tramway type of hoisting and con- 
 veying machinery. The latter is in by far the most general use. 
 The apparatus is found in many different forms but in all the gen- 
 eral characteristics are the same. In each case there is an elevated 
 bridge or tramway which spans the dumping ground or railway 
 tracks on which are the cars to be loaded. On this travels a trolley 
 to which is attached a bucket capable of holding about one and one 
 half tons of iron ore. In some instances the machine is operated by 
 one engine and in others by two, it being possible in the case of the 
 latter to hoist and convey the buckets simultaneously. The bridge 
 tramways are frequently built in plants of three or four bridges, each 
 bridge being supported in front by an independent pier which per- 
 mits it to be moved so as to suit the hatches of a vessel. The huge 
 buckets are loaded by gangs of men in the holds of the vessel and 
 when they have made the trip along the tramway the contents are 
 discharged automatically. In some instances round trips have been 
 made from the hold of a vessel to the extreme end of the bridge and 
 back, a distance of 600 feet, in less than a minute." 
 
 Machines for Handling Ore. " The machines on which the best 
 records have been made are what are known as 'direct unloaders.' 
 These machines, instead of the long bridges, have bridges of about 
 40 feet in length and aprons which extend over the vessel side of 
 the dock to an equal length. There is room for three railroad tracks 
 under the cantilevers and two under the machine, and yet the buckets 
 have to travel but a comparatively short distance. 
 
 " The whirlers or revolving derricks are of the ordinary type, and 
 
312 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 are of course not nearly as speedy, while the automatic unloader 
 previously mentioned is as yet too much of an experiment to permit 
 many predictions regarding its usefulness. Suffice it to say that it 
 is designed to do away with the shoveling of the ore into buckets 
 by men in the vessel holds. One of these machines has been erected 
 on the Carnegie docks at Conneaut, and it is hoped to bring it to a 
 state of perfection in a short time. It is now reported that two 
 more of these machines have been ordered. 
 
 "The automatic unloader consists primarily of a clam shell type 
 of shovel attached to a mast which revolves in a complete circle, 
 and in which an operator is stationed. The mast is in turn attached 
 to a walking beam by which it may be lowered through the hatch of 
 a vessel. When the shovel has been closed it is lifted from the ves- 
 sel and run back over the car into which the ore is to be loaded. It 
 is claimed that when perfected the machine will handle fully 300 tons 
 of ore per hour. 
 
 " With the bridge tramway apparatus at present in use some 
 very surprising records have been made. At almost any of the Lake 
 Erie ports, vessels carrying cargoes of from 3000 to 5000 tons are 
 unloaded in a single day, and next season it will be possible at the 
 better equipped docks to take 7000 or 8000 tons of ore from a boat 
 in nine or ten working hours. Some of the best records which have 
 thus far been made are as follows: 4284 tons from the steamer Yale 
 in eight and one half hours; 4867 tons from the barge Aurania in 
 nine and one half hours; 5025 tons from the steamer Watt in nine 
 hours; 5226 tons from the steamer Stephenson in nine and one 
 quarter hours, and 5500 tons from the steamer Linn in nine hours." 
 
 The Cantilever Crane. For years it has been apparent that the 
 ancient wheelbarrow method of unloading iron ore was wasteful, 
 but when in 1883 Alexander Brown proposed to the ore men to do 
 this work with an enormous cantilever crane they regarded the price 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 313 
 
 he asked for his machine as prohibitive, but with something of the 
 same faith in his machine that Watt and Boulton had in their engines 
 when they offered to accept in payment one third the saving in coals, 
 the manufacturers of the crane agreed to wait for their pay until the 
 saving in cost of unloading, over the wheelbarrow method, had 
 equaled the price of the machine. Their faith was well founded, for 
 the machines were paid for before the first season had expired and 
 there are now in operation along the lakes more than 200. 
 
 Enormous cranes with trusses 353 feet in length were used on 
 the Chicago drainage canal, where one machine made a record of 
 handling 900 cubic yards of material in a day, taking it from a chan- 
 nel 36 feet deep and dumping it on top of a bank 80 feet high. 
 
 THE CANTILEVER CRANE. 
 
 The cantilever crane is a huge truss or beam balanced at the 
 middle with a track extending the whole length, on which a traveler 
 or small carriage runs. The traveler can be stopped at any point 
 and from it a pulley with a wire cable running through it can be raised 
 
3H T HE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 or lowered. To the pulley can be attached anything to be removed, 
 and in handling ore it carries a large bucket that holds over a ton 
 and a half. 
 
 The truss rests on a heavy car that contains the machinery for 
 operating the whole apparatus. Ordinarily a track parallel with the 
 work to be done is laid, on which the car supporting the truss runs 
 back and forth about twice as fast as a man can walk. In unloading 
 ore ships, the ships tie up at a wharf parallel to a track on which the 
 crane runs. The crane is brought opposite the hatchway from which 
 the ore is taken. The traveler is run out until it is over the hatch- 
 way, a bucket attached to the pulley is lowered, filled with one 
 mighty scoop, and raised toward the traveler, which may be already 
 starting back on its journey to the other end of the truss 100 or 200 
 feet away, and perhaps the whole machine will be moving over the 
 track laid for it to some other point where the ore is to be deposited. 
 Electricity is used as a motive power and the whole operation is con- 
 trolled by one man. 
 
 The cantilever crane is economical in power and time. With 
 revolving cranes the whole machine has to be started, stopped, and 
 started the other way with every load of the .bucket. In the can- 
 tilever, the truss remains stationary and only the bucket and traveler 
 do the moving. Such cranes are used at the Duquesne furnaces of 
 the Carnegie Steel Company to carry ore from the piles where it is 
 stored to the furnaces. These cranes have a reach of 236 feet and at 
 each movement carry seven tons of ore. 
 
 The load that the crane can safely support depends upon the 
 position of the traveler. At the extreme end of the beam about 8000 
 or 9000 pounds may be carried with safety, the amount increasing 
 rapidly as the traveler goes toward the center. In shipbuilding the 
 traveling crane is especially efficient. A high trestle is made on 
 which the carriage runs and cantilevers long enough to reach from 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 315 
 
 any part of the ship are used. Steel plates, beams, engines, and 
 machinery are by its aid very quickly deposited just where they are 
 desired and the cantilever has come to be a recognized necessity in 
 every well appointed up-to-date shipyard. 
 
 ORE HOISTING AND CONVEYING MACHINERY AT THE PENNSYLVANIA COMPANY'S 
 DOCKS AT ASHTABULA HARBOR, OHIO. 
 
 Built by the King Bridge Co. The aprons which are lowered over the hatchways are seen on the right and 
 the stock piles are to be seen on the left. Between them are the tracks where the ore is loaded directly 
 on the cars. 
 
 In 1899 the price of iron ore at the mine in the Lake Superior 
 district ranged from 78 cents to $1.41 a ton, and No. I foundry pig 
 iron sold in the market at from $12 to $25 a ton, averaging for the 
 year $19.36. Since the cost of the ore at the mine is such a small 
 part of the cost of the finished product, it is easy to see how every 
 improvement in methods of mining, loading, shipping, unloading, or 
 carrying by rail have aided materially in reducing the price and mak- 
 ing it possible for American iron to enter foreign markets. Among 
 these improvements' none is more marked than the substitution of 
 the cantilever crane for the wheelbarrow. 
 
3l6 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 In order to reduce the cost of the iron ore delivered at their 
 works in Pittsburg, the Carnegie Company purchased a road running 
 from their own docks at Conneaut, Lake Erie, to their furnaces at 
 Duquesne, a distance of 153 miles, and carried the ore on a road 
 controlled by their own company, handled in solid trains, and at such 
 a saving that it gave the lowest ton-mile cost of any road on the 
 American continent reporting to the interstate commerce commis- 
 sion. They also employed the latest and best machinery not only to 
 unload their boats in Conneaut harbor but also at the other end of 
 the line to transfer the ore from the cars to the stock piles and from 
 the stock piles to the furnaces. 
 
 The mechanical ore unloader on their docks at Conneaut takes 
 up 10 tons of iron ore at a bite and will transfer 300 tons of ore per 
 hour from boats to cars. Working in the hold of a ship it will re- 
 move from 90 per cent, to 95 per cent, of the ore there and requires 
 only two men to operate it and three men to remove the ore from 
 the inaccessible parts of the ship and bring it where the machine can 
 get at it. Much of the ore is smelted at Cleveland, Lorain, and 
 other Lake Erie ports, but the greater part of it is carried to Youngs- 
 town, Pittsburg, Duquesne, and other points where fuel is cheap and 
 convenient, for the fuel and limestone required weigh more than the 
 ore. 
 
 Electro-Magnetic Concentration of Iron Ore. Iron is not 
 mined in a pure state but has associated with it impurities or materi- 
 als known as " gangue " which in the furnace form slag or dross, and 
 if these are allowed to go into the stock pile they must be trans- 
 ported, handled, melted, fluxed, and disposed of at the furnace at 
 great expense, while if the ore can be carried first to a separator 
 these may be gotten rid of and only the remainder known as " con- 
 centrates " handled. If an ore containing 50 per cent, of iron be 
 passed through a separator that can increase the amount of iron to 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 317 
 
 65 per cent., it will enable an average furnace to so increase its out- 
 put as to materially lessen the cost per ton, and as the concentrate 
 runs more uniformly than the crude ore, it is much better suited 
 for steel making. Sulphur and phosphorus are found in some ores 
 and if present, except in small quantities, render the iron unfit for 
 steel making. 
 
 Magnetic Separators. Several methods have been employed to 
 remove the impurities from the iron ore, the better to fit it for the 
 furnace. Among other means, magnetism has been employed and 
 patents for magnetic separators were issued a half century ago, but 
 as they used an electric current from a voltaic battery to produce 
 their electro-magnets, they were not a financial success, and for this 
 reason were impracticable until after the invention of the dynamo. 
 Since that time many patents for magnetic separators have been 
 taken out, but one issued to Edison in 1880 is the basis of the com- 
 mercially successful ones. Since Edison's patent many improve- 
 ments have been made, the more recent being those of Wetherill, 
 1896, and Payne, 1900, but they all work on the same principle. 
 The ore as it comes from the mine is crushed between heavy rollers 
 until the pieces are small enough to be readily acted upon by strong 
 electro-magnets. It is then allowed to fall in a thin sheet, passing 
 in its course within the field of the magnets. These exert enough 
 influence on that part of the ore that is rich in iron, so that, instead 
 of falling in a straight line, it is drawn a little to one side, and sepa- 
 rated from the worthless portion. This was the method employed 
 by Edison, who set up thin knife-edged partitions where the stream of 
 falling sand separated, caught in troughs that portion rich in iron, 
 and led it away. The ore was made to fall from a considerable 
 height and pass in its course before several magnets. Although what 
 was saved was rich, yet some was lost that was worth saving. 
 
 Another type of machine carried the ore on a broad belt under 
 
3l8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the magnet, the magnetite being lifted out of the mixture and the 
 non-magnetic mass carried off and dumped by the belt. Between 
 the first belt and the magnet was run a second belt at right angles, 
 and the ore, striving to reach the magnet, was caught by the under 
 surface of the second belt and carried out of the field. 
 
 Each of these methods required powerful magnets with a broad 
 surface exposed at the pole, and of course as the magnetic field was 
 spread out it became weakened and less effective. 
 
 Wetherill's improvement consisted in making more powerful mag- 
 nets and bringing the poles down to a tapering form, so as to de- 
 crease the area. He arranged his magnet so that the poles were in 
 the same horizontal plane and very close together, and passed over 
 each pole a belt with a narrow gap intervening between the poles. 
 The ore was fed from above and falling between the poles that part 
 not subject to magnetic attraction dropped through, but the mag- 
 netite, trying to reach the poles of the magnet, struck the belts, 
 clung to them, and was carried out of the magnetic field. This ma- 
 chine was a marked improvement and was able to separate 95 per 
 cent, of iron from the magnetite at one operation. The machine 
 was slightly modified and the ore fed from the under side in handling 
 very finely pulverized ore. 
 
 Since the iron is not distributed uniformly throughout the ore a 
 saving is sometimes effected by crushing it very finely. A piece of 
 ore y^ inch in diameter containing magnetite and " gangue " in 
 the proportion of three to five will go into the tailings, but if it be 
 crushed finer some of the resulting small pieces may contain 
 magnetite in. the proportion of five to three and these will be saved. 
 
 Separating Sand from Iron. At some places on Long Island 
 sand is found -containing 26 per cent, of the finest iron known, but 
 it has with it titanite iron, a substance that renders it unfit for smelt- 
 ing. When Edison discovered that titanite was less magnetic than 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 319 
 
 pure iron he made a separator consisting of a V-shaped box with a 
 slit in the bottom through which the sand fell in a sheet before a 
 strong magnet that deflected the pure iron in falling enough so it 
 could be separated from the rest. The machine cost about $700 
 and with a boy to run it could treat 100 tons of sand a day and ex- 
 tract from it about 20 tons of fine iron ore at a cost of about $i a 
 ton, while the ore was worth $6 a ton. 
 
 IRON SMELTING. 
 
 The iron which we see in use in everyday life is not found in 
 that form in the mines, and even in the arts pure iron is almost un- 
 known, for the whole range of iron and steel is a series of alloys, of 
 which carbon is the one that affects its physical wants most, although 
 nickel, chrome, and manganese each have their special action upon it. 
 The iron of trade is obtained from ores which are oxides of that 
 metal, mixed with lime, clay, rock, or other impurities, and to be 
 worked profitably must contain at least 20 per cent, of iron. 
 
 PRINCIPAL IRON ORES. 
 
 NAME COMPOSITION PERCENTAGE OF IRON 
 
 1. Magnetic iron ore Iron and oxygen 72.41 
 
 2. Red hematite Iron and oxygen 70 
 
 3. Brown hematite Iron, oxygen, and water 61.6 (water 12) 
 
 4. Spathic iron ore Iron, oxygen, and carbonic acid 48.2 
 
 5. Black-Mnd Iron, oxygen, carbonic acid, 20 to 35 (coal 
 
 clay, and coal 10 to 25) 
 
 The principal iron ores of commerce are reduced by heating them 
 with some form of carbon, as charcoal, coal, or coke. The carbon 
 unites with the oxygen, passes off as gas, and the metallic iron 
 melts, tends to free itself from other impurities and falls to the bot- 
 tom of the furnace. In common practice layers of iron ore, coke, 
 and limestone are put into a furnace, fire applied, and the whole 
 blown with powerful blasts of air to produce great heat, hence the 
 
320 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 name "blast furnace." The limestone and other impurities are put 
 in as a flux to guard the iron and help carry off the impurities. 
 
 The origin of the reduction of iron is lost in the mystery sur- 
 rounding the ages before history began. The first method may have 
 been merely to build up a pile of layers of ore and wood and set fire 
 to the mass. This would give a small quantity of fairly good iron 
 at a great waste of time, ore, and fuel, but in an age when the latter 
 were not important considerations. Probably the next step was to 
 build the pile on an elevation where it would be exposed to currents 
 of air. Next, to concentrate the heat, a hole may have been dug in 
 the ground and the pile built in that, and the next step would be 
 a tunnel leading from the pit and pointing in the direction of the 
 prevailing wind. When the bellows was invented its application to 
 the furnace was an easy step. 
 
 The cut shows an illustration of a very ancient method employed 
 in India. The furnace is built of clay and at the bottom are two 
 
 hollow bamboo tubes, the rude pro- 
 genitor of the modern tuyere. A 
 goatskin bellows with a hole in its 
 cover connects with each tube. To 
 the cover is attached a string lead- 
 ing up to a spring pole. The work- 
 man operates it by drawing up the 
 PRIMITIVE IRON FURNACE, INDIA. bellows> covering the hole with 
 
 his heel, stepping upon it, depressing it by his weight and forc- 
 ing the air it contains through the bamboo into the furnace. The 
 furnace is fed from the top with ore and fuel as required, and the 
 impurities in the form of slag run off through an opening at the side 
 near the bottom, the metal falling into a hollow at the bottom of the 
 furnace. Such was the method employed in India at Chalybia, from 
 which we derive our modern " chalybeate." 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 321 
 
 The Persians are said to have invented the bellows in the form 
 now known, to have introduced the use of charcoal, and made con- 
 siderable improvements in iron smelting. One of their furnaces, at 
 its best but "a basin shaped hole, 6 to 12 inches in depth, and 12 
 to 24 inches in diameter, was first made in the earth ; this cavity 
 was then lined with moistened charcoal dust, which was well rammed 
 to make it as dense as possible ; the hearth thus formed was then 
 filled with charcoal, on which was placed a layer of crushed ore, and 
 over this alternate layers of fuel and ore until the heap was of the 
 desired height ; the outside of the mass of charcoal and ore was then 
 incased in a covering of rough stones laid in a mortar of clay and 
 sand, or, in some cases, it was merely plastered over with a thick 
 layer of such mortar; care was always taken to have a hole near the 
 bottom, just above the edge of the hearth, for the insertion of a tube 
 of baked clay to serve as a tuyere, and a second hole at the top for 
 the escape of smoke and gases. Fire was then introduced at the 
 tuyere and the bellows connected, a gentle blast being used until all 
 the moisture of the ore and the covering of the heap was driven off. 
 As soon as this was accomplished, the blast was increased and the 
 heat thereby augmented. At the end of several hours, a mass of 
 metallic iron weighing twenty to thirty pounds was found at the 
 bottom of the hearth, from which it was removed by tongs and forged 
 by sledge hammers into the desired shape, several reheatings being 
 required. The iron obtained was not usually over 20 per cent, of 
 that in the ore, and only the richest ores were used." 
 
 For many centuries the iron furnaces of Europe were of the 
 most primitive kind, and although a good quality of iron and steel 
 was produced in them the quantity was limited. The only changes 
 of importance up to the middle of the eighteenth century were the 
 enlargement of the furnaces and the substitution of water power to 
 drive the blast. Even at that time the best furnaces were of very 
 
322 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 simple character and the modern blast furnace is distinctly a product 
 of the nineteenth century and more especially of the latter half of 
 that century. 
 
 The Use of Coke Begun. Until 1735 charcoal was almost uni- 
 versally used as a reducing fuel, but at that date coke was success- 
 fully used in the manufacture of pig iron by Abraham Darby of 
 England, and by 1750 its use had become general in that country. 
 Its introduction into America was much later, and although the first 
 rolling mill in Western Pennsylvania, built at Plumsock in Fayette 
 County, in the heart of the present Connellsville coke region, at- 
 tempted in 1817 to make use of a kind of coke they met with little 
 success. In 1835 gray forge iron was successfully made in Pennsyl- 
 vania by the use of coke and it soon became generally used and 
 greatly increased the production of iron. William 
 Firmstone, who was born in England and emi- 
 grated to America in 1835, is generally credited 
 with having introduced into America the hot air 
 blast and the use of coke in the manufacture of 
 
 Cote. 
 
 '892 
 
 iron. 
 
 Some reasons why charcoal was so generally 
 used in the United States were : the lack of trans- 
 portation facilities for bringing iron ore and coke 
 i together, the fact that not all the bituminous coal 
 discovered was suitable for making coke and its 
 manufacture was not well understood, the country 
 was poor and had an abundance of timber of which 
 the settlers were glad to get rid, and, finally, char- 
 coal iron was popularly supposed to be the best. 
 
 The accompanying cut shows the remarkable 
 increase in size as well as the change in outline 
 in the blast furnace within a period of a half century. Not so very 
 
 GROWTH IN SIZE OF 
 BLAST FURNACES. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 323 
 
 long ago it was thought that massive stone walls were necessary to 
 confine the heat in the furnace, but the walls have become thinner and 
 thinner until now they are a mere shell of iron lined with fire brick. 
 
 The fire brick so extensively used in iron smelting need to be 
 frequently renewed, not because they are burned out by the fire, for 
 the brick are infusible at ordinary furnace temperatures, but because 
 the iron unites with the silica in the brick, forms a melted slag, 
 and the bricks become spongy and are eaten away. It is essential 
 that fire brick contain as little lime, soda, potash, and other sub- 
 stances likely to fuse with the iron as possible, so a peculiar kind of 
 clay, deposited as fine sediment where rank vegetable growth has 
 absorbed a large proportion of the undesirable elements, is em- 
 ployed. In the brick made from the plastic clay of New Jersey the 
 material is first burned, then ground and mixed with enough plastic 
 clay to form bricks, when it is molded and again burned. Such 
 brick are able to withstand great heat but possess 
 little power to resist mechanical stress, so are used 
 only to protect from the action of the fire the other 
 materials having other necessary qualities. 
 
 The interior of a blast furnace has something the 
 same outline as a lamp chimney. The straight part 
 at the bottom of the chimney is called the " hearth," 
 the sloping sides up to where it reaches its greatest 
 diameter are called "boshes," the lower part of the 
 hearth is called the " crucible," and at theupperpart 
 
 of the hearth are from one to many openings called 
 
 PARTS OF BLAST 
 
 "tuyeres," through which the blast of hot air is in- FURNACE. 
 troduced. The shaft proper above the boshes is frequently built 
 upon iron pillars and stands permanently, while the boshes and 
 hearth are taken down and relined or changes made in them without 
 affecting the shaft. The furnace is charged through the top and is 
 
324 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 closed by a cone-shaped iron cover held in place against an annular 
 projection by the pressure from within and a counterweight from 
 without. 
 
 The Process of Smelting. The charge, made up of crushed ore, 
 coke, limestone, and any other materials that the quality of the 
 ore to be smelted requires, all arranged in the right proportion for 
 the grade of iron to be made and the kind of ore that is used, is 
 placed on top of the cone and when needed the cone is lowered a 
 few inches, the material slides down its sloping sides, the cone is 
 drawn back and the opening closed, thus saving for later use the 
 heated products of combustion that were formerly allowed to escape. 
 Before the charge is introduced the furnace is heated by a charge of 
 fuel, and once warmed up it may continue in operation for a year or 
 more without being allowed to cool down. The charge is admitted 
 to the top slowly until the furnace is almost full and then fed just 
 fast enough to take the place of the iron and slag drawn off from 
 below, the fuel and waste escaping as gas. As the fire consumes the 
 fuel at the bottom and the charge descends it passes through several 
 well-defined zones. Starting at the top unchanged it grows hotter 
 and hotter, the moisture is driven off, until finally the ore is roasted 
 and becomes magnetic oxide of iron, the most favorable condition for 
 reduction. The coke and the flux still remain substantially un- 
 changed, but when the charge reaches the boshes the temperature 
 has risen to the point where the fuel ignites, and the hottest part of 
 the furnace is soon reached. Here the ore is melted and its oxygen 
 driven off. The flux, suited to the character of the ore and planned 
 so that it melts at the same time, coats each little iron globule and 
 prevents it from being immediately oxidized and so carries it safely 
 past the danger zone. Continuing its descent past the tuyeres the 
 iron goes to the crucible at the bottom of the hearth, where it 
 accumulates, and the flux being lighter floats on top and protects it 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 325 
 
 from the oxidizing influence of the blast above. At certain intervals 
 the iron and flux are drawn off through small holes at the bottom of 
 the hearth, the iron being run into the bed and made into pigs and 
 the flux drawn off out of the way and allowed to cool, when it is 
 called "slag," for which a variety of uses has been found. 
 
 Since some blast furnaces are as much as 90 feet in height it 
 might seem that the immense weight of the charge would crush 
 down the fire and smother it, but the charge is actually buoyed up 
 by the enormous pressure of the air blast blown in through the 
 tuyeres, the weight of the air being literally more than twice the 
 weight of the charge. 
 
 A fairly typical blast furnace is Furnace F of the Edgar 
 Thomson Steel Works near Pittsburg. It is 80 feet high, 22 feet 
 in diameter at the boshes, its hearth is 1 1 feet in diameter, and 
 the furnace has a capacity of 18,000 cubic feet. It produces on 
 an average 351 tons of pig iron per day and burns 1756 pounds of 
 coke for every ton of iron produced. A writer describes the air 
 blast supplying it as follows: 
 
 " Heating the 25,000 cubic feet of air supplied per minute to a 
 temperature of 1200 degrees Fahrenheit, its volume would be in- 
 creased to 85,000 cubic feet ; and on the supposition that the fur- 
 nace is blown by seven tuyeres, each seven inches in diameter, this 
 torrid air would rush through each tuyere (under a pressure of nine 
 pounds per square inch) at the rate of 12,143 cubic feet, and having 
 the enormous lineal velocity of 45,417 feet per minute. This 
 velocity is over five times that of the most violent tornadoes, and 
 the pressure is more than 25 times greater. Should a blast of equal 
 pressure and velocity come from unfathomed space and envelop the 
 earth, it is absolutely certain that no living beings nor loose materials 
 would be left upon its rock ribbed skeleton, which, stripped of its 
 flesh and blood, fields and forests, lakes and oceans, would be hurled 
 
326 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 into a new orbit and made to assume revolutions and rotations 
 whose amplitude and duration it is impossible to imagine or de- 
 scribe." 
 
 When enough molten iron has accumulated in the hearth a plug 
 of fire clay is knocked out and the metal runs out into a bed of sand 
 through which a main channel is cut, with smaller channels leading 
 off from it at right angles. The smaller channels are known as 
 " sows " and from these branch at right angles a series of short chan- 
 nels known as " pigs," where the iron cools, the cooling being some- 
 times hastened by a man with a hose, after which it is broken into 
 small pieces and loaded on the cars. 
 
 It costs on an average about 20 cents a ton to take care of the 
 iron after leaving the furnace till it is loaded on the cars. A bed of 
 sand has some objectionable features. The silicon in the sand tends 
 to unite somewhat with the melted iron and renders it unsuitable for 
 making the best steel. To overcome this difficulty and to reduce 
 the cost of handling, casting machines are made consisting of a line 
 of connected traveling molds arranged in the form of an endless belt 
 and carried on rollers. The molten iron is drawn from the furnace 
 into great ladles and poured from these into the molds as they come 
 moving past, the size of the stream being just enough to fill the 
 molds as they pass under the ladle. Passing on in their course the 
 molds are carried down a slight incline to a level where the bottoms 
 are brought in contact with the top of the water in a long tank. As 
 they continue their course the track dips more and more until the 
 mold passes entirely beneath the water. The track emerges and 
 rises high enough to allow the pigs of iron to drop into cars ready to 
 receive them at the other end, and as the wet molds travel back 
 under the tank for a fresh charge at the ladle they pass through a gas 
 furnace which dries the molds and deposits on them a coating of soot 
 that prevents the molten iron from sticking to them when they turn 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 327 
 
 up at the ladle to receive another charge. In this machine the only 
 hand labor required is that regulating the flow of iron from the ladle, 
 and the cost of handling the pigs has been reduced from 20 cents to 
 5 cents a ton. 
 
 Pure iron, a curiosity of the laboratory, is of a white silvery 
 color, has a beautiful luster and is very soft and tough. When sub- 
 jected to heat in the presence of oxygen, it burns long before the 
 melting point is reached, but in the absence of oxygen it fuses at 
 about 3000 Fahrenheit. 
 
 Pig iron is iron containing from I ^ per cent, to 7 per cent, of 
 carbon, which renders it brittle and fusible at a comparatively low 
 temperature. Pig iron is made in three varieties: gray, mottle, and 
 white, and is classed in eight grades beginning with gray and ending 
 with white. The gray is coarse, granular, and soft ; the white finely 
 crystalline, and as hard as the hardest steel, "the difference being due 
 mainly to the different combinations of the carbon in its make-up. 
 Pig iron fuses at from 1922 to 2192 Fahrenheit, according to its 
 grade, and its average chemical composition is about as follows: - 
 
 Combined Carbon 0.91 per cent. 
 
 Graphitic Carbon . . . . i .92 per cent. 
 
 Silicon i .8 1 per cent. 
 
 Phosphorus 33 per cent. 
 
 Sulphur, 25 per cent. 
 
 Manganese i . 28 per cent. 
 
 Pure Iron 93-5 P er cent. 
 
 100.00 per cent. 
 
 Cast iron is practically the same as pig iron except that it has 
 been reheated and cast into the desired form. If hammered cold it 
 breaks and cannot be welded like wrought iron. Malleable iron is 
 cast iron, made by puddling or boiling and hammering or squeezing, 
 thus getting rid of some of the impurities, until it can be hammered 
 cold without cracking. 
 
328 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Puddling is the process of ridding the pig iron of some of its im- 
 purities and superfluous carbon by melting it in a reverberatory fur- 
 nace and forcing through it a blast of hot air, and at the same time 
 stirring the molten fluid. By this operation a large part of the car- 
 bon that rendered the metal brittle is burned out and the particles of 
 iron have enough cohesion so that they can be formed into balls and 
 squeezed in machinery or into blooms (bars or ingots) and hammered. 
 This product when remelted and cast will stand considerable ham- 
 mering when cold without cracking. 
 
 Wrought iron is made by the same process only the puddling is 
 stopped sooner and the working carried farther. It contains less sil- 
 icon and carbon than cast iron, but more of these substances than 
 malleable iron. Wrought iron fuses at from 2732 to 2912 Fah- 
 renheit, but before reaching the point of fusion becomes white and 
 .pasty, and when two pieces of iron in this condition are brought in 
 contact, the surfaces adhere and the masses can be united, forming a 
 " weld." It is this property of welding that renders wrought iron so 
 valuable in the arts. The phosphorus and sulphur, undesirable 
 substances within the iron, cannot be burned out without burning 
 the iron, and as silicon melts at a less heat than the iron, the mass is 
 heated to the melting point of silicon and rolled, hammered, and 
 squeezed, when, under the influence of pressure, the liquid silicon, 
 phosphorus and sulphur unite and are squeezed out of the iron in the 
 form of cinder or slag, the working being continued until the desired 
 degree of purity has been reached. 
 
 The methods by which wrought iron is produced from pig iron 
 are chiefly the inventions of Henry Cort of England, who, in 1783- 
 84, introduced puddling grooved rolls to take the place of hammering 
 and the reverberatory furnace. He first melted his iron and caused 
 the fierce flame of the furnace to pass over the iron, the flame in its 
 course being bent back by the roof of the furnace (reverberated) and 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 329 
 
 passing over the face of the molten metal burned out the carbon and 
 reduced the necessary amount of working. Rogers introduced a cast 
 iron bed cooled by air instead of the sand bed used by Cort. Neilson 
 of Glasgow in 1828 took out a patent for heating the air blast before 
 introducing it into the furnace and by this method greatly in- 
 creased the furnace capacity. Neilson's method was used at first 
 wholly for the manufacture of pig iron, but probably gave a hint to 
 Kelly, Bessemer, Mushet and Siemens. 
 
 Steel means more than any other metal to modern progress, 
 for it enters into nearly every manufactured product, either as a 
 component part or in the construction of the machine which pro- 
 duced it. Articles with the widest difference in size, shape, and uses 
 are made from it, ranging from the finest cambric needle or the hair- 
 spring of a watch to the armor of a battleship or the largest cannon, 
 yet it is only the last quarter century that has seen the introduction 
 of steel for articles of any considerable weight. Steel was known at 
 an early age and the sword plates of Damascus were famous before 
 the birth of Christ, while the steel of India, " wootz," is almost as 
 famous and perhaps as old. Although the steel maker of the present 
 is not able to produce any better steel in small quantities than his 
 early progenitor, and in fact finds it difficult to equal him, yet he is 
 able to make it in such large quantities of uniform quality that it 
 rivals iron in cheapness and far exceeds it in strength and rigidity. 
 
 Steel is a peculiar metal in composition, lying about midway 
 between cast and malleable iron. It contains less silicon, sulphur, 
 and phosphorus than either, and its carbon is present in a definitely 
 known proportion ranging from ^ per cent, to 2 ^ per cent., the 
 carbon rendering it hard and brittle. Steel fuses at from 2372 to 
 2552 Fahrenheit, dependent upon the amount of carbon it contains. 
 Steel possesses the peculiar property of tempering, that is, its con- 
 dition of crystallization can be set in several forms by heating the 
 
33 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 steel to a certain temperature and then suddenly cooling it. It is 
 this property of tempering that makes it possible to give steel almost 
 any degree of hardness and renders it fit for springs and tools with 
 cutting edges. The ancients are said to have possessed the secret 
 of tempering copper, now considered as one of the lost arts. When 
 the steel is heated there is formed on its surface an oxide of iron, the 
 color of which is a sure index to the temperature to which the steel 
 has been raised. 
 
 "The effects of temper vary with the nature of the steel, and 
 are much more pronounced, as the steel is more carbonized and 
 homogeneous. The increase of resistance produced by oil temper 
 varies from 79 to 12 per cent., according to Kirkaldy, a very high 
 authority, in the case of high steels tempered at a high tem- 
 perature and low steels tempered at a medium temperature. Oil 
 temper increases the homogeneity of medium steel by destroying 
 the crystalline texture which the latter frequently presents in the 
 central parts of specimens, and increases its resistance to percus- 
 sion. 
 
 " The following table, from tests made by the Navy Department, 
 will give an idea of the effect of oil temper on the physical proper- 
 ties of mild or medium hard steel, for example: 
 
 ELASTIC STRENGTH TENSILE STRENGTH ELONGATION 
 
 Before 
 
 After 
 
 Before 
 
 After 
 
 Before 
 
 After 
 
 tempering 
 Tons 
 
 tempering 
 Tons 
 
 tempering 
 Tons 
 
 tempering 
 Tons 
 
 tempering 
 Tons 
 
 tempering 
 Tons 
 
 13 
 
 29.2 
 
 26.8 
 
 45.2 
 
 -737 
 
 433 
 
 13 
 
 2 7 .8 
 
 2 7 .8 
 
 46.0 
 
 .707 
 
 345 
 
 12 
 
 26.0 
 
 2 7 .6 
 
 39-6 
 
 .713 
 
 .420 
 
 12 
 
 2 5 .8 
 
 28.0 
 
 41.0 
 
 .633 
 
 .480 
 
 13-77 
 
 34-15 
 
 28.11 
 
 49.8 
 
 .596 
 
 .260 
 
 12. l8 
 
 34-8 
 
 26.9 
 
 49.4 
 
 5 6 4 
 
 .202 
 
 "Thus it will be seen that the elastic strength is more than 
 doubled, the tensile strength raised more than 60 per cent., while the 
 elongation is reduced over 40 per cent. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 331 
 
 " The annealing process reduces the tensile and elastic strength 
 from 10 to 15 per cent., and restores the ductility, as measured by 
 the elongation, from 25 to 40 per cent." * 
 
 Another method of tempering steel is to melt alloys which fuse 
 at a known temperature, then plunge the steel into the melted mass. 
 The following table shows the color and temperature of steel for dif- 
 ferent tempers and the proportions of lead and tin that would melt 
 at the temperature required to give steel dipped in it the right 
 temper. 
 
 TEMPER TEMPERATURE ALLOY 
 
 Pale straw 420 Fahrenheit 7 lead to 4 tin 
 
 Straw 450 " 8 " " 4 " 
 
 Straw yellow 480 " 8^" " 4 " 
 
 Nut brown 500 " 14 " " 4 " 
 
 Purple 530 " 19 " " 4 " 
 
 Bright blue 580 " 48 " " 4 " 
 
 Deep blue 590 " 50 " " 2 " 
 
 Blackish blue 640 " All lead 
 
 The constitution of iron and steel is clearly shown by dissolving 
 each in chlorine gas. Chlorine unites readily with the iron, but does 
 not affect the slag, so dissolves out pure iron leaving a skeleton of 
 slag in exactly the position it had occupied in the iron, sometimes 
 showing the slag to be grouped in such a way as to materially weaken 
 the iron. A piece of steel so treated will leave no skeleton, the slag 
 showing only in a small amount of sediment. 
 
 The crucible process of making steel is the oldest of the modern 
 methods, for it consists simply in melting wrought iron in the presence 
 of carbon in crucibles, and it was in this way that the Indian 
 " wootz " was made. The melting point of wrought iron is so high 
 that it was difficult to reach in the early furnaces, so steel was ordi- 
 narily made by heating wrought iron in a furnace with charcoal, the 
 heated metal taking up carbon enough from the charcoal to form 
 
 *Ingersoll's " Text-Book of Ordnance and Gunnery." 
 
332 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 steel. This method was known as " carburizing" or "cementation," 
 and the steel was called "blistered bar" and formed the steel of 
 commerce until about 1770, when Huntsman succeeded in melting it 
 in a crucible and produced cast steel. 
 
 Prior to 1855 cast steel was made entirely by the crucible proc- 
 ess, and Krupp, the famous gun maker of Essen, Germany, was the 
 
 largest producer. The difficulties 
 connected with this method were 
 great, for only about 90 pounds of 
 steel could be made in one crucible 
 and many crucibles had to be used in 
 making a casting of large size. If a 
 crucible were poured before it were 
 quite ready, the steel would not have 
 the right composition, and if held 
 over a few minutes the steel would be 
 burnt. This meant that all the cruci- 
 bles must be ready to pour at the same 
 instant. Difficult as was the process, 
 Krupp brought it to such a high state 
 of perfection that in 1851 he showed 
 an ingot weighing about 5000 pounds at the London Exhibition; and 
 in 1873, at Vienna, he displayed a similar ingot made by the crucible 
 method, which weighed 115,000 pounds. However, it is exceed- 
 ingly doubtful if Krupp's ingots were without flaws for in 1857 Sir 
 William Armstrong was unable to find a perfect ingot of only 350 
 pounds weight from which to make a cannon. 
 
 The Bessemer process of steel making consists of forcing a 
 blast of air through a crucible (converter) containing melted cast iron, 
 and so burning out the excess of carbon and making the cast iron 
 directly into steel. In 1855-56 Sir Henry Bessemer took out pat- 
 
 ALFRED FRIEDRICH KRUPP. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 333 
 
 SIR HENRY BESSEMER. 
 
 ents in England for a process of changing cast iron directly into 
 steel by blowing atmospheric air through the molten metal. In 
 1856 he secured two patents in the United States but was imme- 
 diately confronted by the claim of priority 
 of William Kelly, an iron maker of Eddy- 
 ville, Kentucky, who was granted a patent 
 in interference which operated as a bar to 
 the patents granted Bessemer. Kelly showed 
 that as early as 1847 ne had experimented 
 with air blasts and had produced the wrought 
 iron from cast iron. Kelly had not made 
 steel and Bessemer was not successful until 
 reinforced by the discoveries of Mushet and 
 Goransson. 
 
 " Robert F. Mushet, after Bessemer's 
 process had failed in 185556 to successfully manufacture the steel, 
 took out a patent September, 1856, for a process of adding to melted 
 cast iron which had been decarbonized and desiliconized by a pneu- 
 matic blast a triple compound of carbon, iron, and manganese, and 
 the addition of from I per cent, to 5 per cent, of this compound to 
 the cast iron mentioned at once overcame the obstacle which had 
 been fatal to the success of Mr. Bessemer. Bessemer had decarbon- 
 ized and desiliconized melted cast iron but he had not been able to 
 retain or restore the small quantity of carbon that was necessary to 
 produce steel, and in the oxygen of his powerful blast he had given 
 to the contents of his converter an element which prevented the pro- 
 duction of even good iron. Mr. Mushet's invention regulated the 
 supply of carbon and eliminated the oxygen."* 
 
 Mushet's British patents lapsed, and became public prop- 
 erty, owing to his poverty and other unfortunte circumstances. 
 
 * Swank. "Iron in All Ages." 
 
334 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Neither Kelly, to whom a broad United States patent was issued 
 covering the idea of forcing air through molten iron, nor Bessemer, 
 was able to produce good steel without the aid of Mushet's dis- 
 covery, and yet the latter died poor and unknown while Bessemer 
 was knighted by Queen Victoria for his invention and received 
 royalties aggregating $500,000 a year. He acknowledged some 
 moral obligation to Mushet by allowing him an annuity of 300. 
 
 In 1890, at the international meeting of the Iron and Steel In- 
 stitute of Great Britain, Verein deutscher Eisenbuttenleute, and the 
 American Institute of Mining Engineers, Sir James Kitson, presi- 
 dent of the Institute, read a letter from Sir Henry Bessemer giving 
 a description of the process, but Bessemer did not even mention 
 Mushet's name. 
 
 But even with Mushet's improvement, only iron ore that was 
 practically free from phosphorus could be used for making Bessemer 
 steel. Two English chemists, Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy 
 C. Gilchrist, took out a patent November, 1877, for a lining of a 
 Bessemer converter made from a mixture of calcined dolomite and 
 tar. This lining neutralized the phosphorus in the iron and made it 
 possible to make good steel out of ores that were before considered 
 unfit. These latter linings are called "basic" in contrast with the 
 older " acid" linings. In the United States patents for a process of 
 dephosphorizing iron were issued to Reese of Pittsburg in 1866, and 
 as the process covered by the patents of Kelly, Mushet, Bessemer, 
 Reese, and Thomas and Gilchrist were all necessary for the profitable 
 manufacture of steel in America, they were finally consolidated and 
 became the property of stock companies; the consolidation resulting 
 in a large reduction of fees and royalties, the business of making 
 Bessemer steel in the United States progressed with great rapidity. 
 
 The method now known as the Bessemer process uses a huge 
 steel flask called a "converter" made from steel plates lined with 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 335 
 
 some refractory material perhaps a foot thick, the flask having a capac- 
 ity from eight to twelve times as great as the charge it is to contain so 
 as to allow the metal to boil. The flask swings on trunnions like a 
 cannon and is fitted on the sides with a rack and pinion gearing, by 
 which it can be tipped at any angle, while in the bottom are numer- 
 ous holes through which blasts of air are driven into the molten 
 
 o 
 
 metal. The pig iron, melted in a blast furnace, is drawn off into a 
 large ladle and poured into the converter. The air blast is then 
 turned on and the oxygen in the blast uniting with the silicon and 
 carbon in the iron, the mass bubbles and boils furiously and rises to 
 such a heat as to easily melt an additional 10 per cent, of scrap iron. 
 When the silicon burns the flame from the mouth of the flask is 
 rather dull, but when the carbon is given off the flame increases in 
 brilliancy and becomes an intense white roaring blaze, the seething 
 metal dashing about, shaking the flask and its foundations. As the 
 carbon burns out the flame goes down, and this is the critical mo- 
 ment, for a mistake of a few seconds may ruin the charge because 
 the right amount of carbon for the steel is contained within the 
 charge of spiegeleisen and it is necessary to burn out all the carbon 
 that was in the pig iron before the spiegeleisen is introduced. When 
 the proper moment has arrived the spiegeleisen is added, the blast 
 shut off, the converter given a few mighty shakes to thoroughly mix 
 the contents, and the entire charge poured out into a great ladle, 
 from which it is run into molds and cast into ingots. 
 
 The usual charge of a Bessemer converter is eight tons, so 
 the process is not practicable for the production of larger castings 
 owing to the mechanical difficulties in the way of bringing two or 
 more converters to readiness for pouring at the same instant. How- 
 ever, it is the method most used for the manufacture of steel rails 
 and structural steel, and it requires great skill, for if the blast is shut 
 off too soon imperfect steel is produced, and if continued too long 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the metal is burnt and the charge rendered useless. As the entire 
 time taken in a single blast is not over thirty minutes, an error of a 
 few seconds is enough to spoil tons of steel. 
 
 Although since Bessemer's invention great improvements have 
 been made in the art of steel making, he is justly regarded as a 
 pioneer and " benefactor of his kind," for as his method went into 
 general use it seemed as though new blood had been infused into the 
 arteries of the world's trade. Larger engines were made, steel rails 
 became practicable, stronger and better ships were made. Steel en- 
 tered generally into the structure of buildings, making them larger, 
 lighter, cheaper, better, and rendering the ground on which they 
 stood more valuable. In whatever line steel had been used it was 
 now available at a less price, a boon to all. It is impossible to con- 
 ceive the number of accidents averted and the human suffering saved 
 by using it with its greater strength in the place of iron. 
 
 The open-hearth or Siemens-Martin process is the one now 
 usually employed for making the largest steel castings. Charles 
 William and Frederick Siemens, natives of Hanover but residents of 
 England, took out in 1856 patents for a furnace where gas was em- 
 ployed instead of the direct heat of the fuel and in 1861 made cast 
 steel by the aid of the furnace. About the same time Emile and 
 Martin of France took out various patents for inventions which were 
 applicable to the manufacture of steel by the Siemens furnace. The 
 open-hearth process did not originate either with Siemens or the 
 Martins, for Heath and others, as early as 1845, na d made steel in a 
 similar manner, but it was the invention of the gas furnace by 
 Siemens that made the process profitable. 
 
 The open-hearth process has an advantage over the Bessemer 
 process in that it can keep the melted mixture indefinitely until ex- 
 periments with test portions determine the exact quality of the steel ; 
 its installation is more economical and it also uses up the scrap steel 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 337 
 
 and rail ends which accumulate at a Bessemer furnace, and can use 
 worn out steel rails. It is estimated that in the first 35 years of 
 their operation the Bessemer and open-hearth processes increased the 
 production of steel more than a hundredfold. 
 
 The open-hearth 'method introduced into the United States in 
 1868 is the method now used in making castings of almost un- 
 limited size, for the capacity of the furnace is practically unlimited 
 and the product of several maybe turned into one mold. The open- 
 hearth furnace is a large fire brick structure, near the top of which is 
 the " bed " or " container " for the metal. Below this, on each side 
 of the furnace, are two perforated checkerwork walls of fire brick, 
 through one of which hot air is forced and through the other, gas. 
 The furnace is heated by forcing in the air and gas and igniting 
 them above the bed or container. The products of combustion are 
 drawn out through the checkerwork at the other side of the furnace, 
 heating it, as they pass, to a high temperature. After the current 
 has passed in one direction for twenty minutes it is reversed. The 
 gas and air, passing between fire brick just heated by the other cur- 
 rent, arrive at the furnace at such a high temperature that a great 
 saving of fuel is made. The gases from this combustion are carried 
 through the checkerwork on side number one and heat it up by the 
 time side number two has become cool. This reversal of current is 
 made every twenty minutes throughout the entire " heat," which 
 lasts from twelve to fourteen hours. 
 
 The charging of the furnace is done by a special machine usually 
 operated by electricity. The one at the plant of the Bethlehem 
 Steel Company picks up with a twenty-foot arm a box containing 
 7000 pounds of charging material and holding it "at arm's length" 
 carries it into the furnace, empties it, and withdraws the box with no 
 apparent effort. The charge is made up of scrap iron, scrap steel, 
 pig iron, and ore in proportions that will secure the exact chemical 
 
 
338 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 composition desired. Six or eight hours are required to melt the 
 charge and from four to six more to reduce it to the right condition 
 for pouring. During this latter period samples are taken out at 
 frequent intervals and analyzed. By this means the exact condition 
 can be known and the process watched step by step, rendering the 
 result more certain than other more or less " guess-at-it " methods, 
 while the longer time taken lessens the chance of error. 
 
 Large steel castings successfully produced represent so many 
 difficult problems solved that they may well be considered triumphs 
 of the steel maker's art. When molten steel is poured into a mold 
 several difficulties have to be overcome to obtain a perfect casting. 
 The worst are called piping, blow-holes, surface cracks, internal 
 cracks, and segregation. Piping is well illustrated by the freezing of 
 water in a tumbler, the ice beginning to form on the outside, the 
 particles drawing away from the center and leaving it hollow. The 
 same thing occurs in the mold when steel is changing from a liquid 
 to a solid state, except that steel begins to solidify at about 2500 
 Fahrenheit. As it cools at the outside of the mold it contracts and 
 tends to draw the material away from the center and unless this is 
 prevented, instead of having a solid ingot one will form with a hole 
 in the center perhaps running from end to end. This defect is called 
 a "piping." 
 
 Segregation is the tendency of the steel to squeeze out the other 
 constituents as it cools. These, being lighter in weight than the 
 iron, collect in the pipe or float on the top, and of course with the 
 alloys squeezed out the steel is inferior. 
 
 Irregularities in cooling set up such stresses that cracks often 
 occur on the surface, or, more deceptive and dangerous yet, inter- 
 nally, just as wood checks in seasoning. When the molten metal is 
 poured into the mold air is carried with it and during the cooling 
 gases are formed which tend to produce cavities or blow-holes. Sub- 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
ARMOR PLATE INGOT. 
 
 Showing a nickel steel armor plate ingot cast for the port plate of U. S. battle ship Iowa. 
 Manufactured by the Bethlehem Steel Company. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 339 
 
 jecting the metal to an enormous pressure while it is in a molten 
 condition seems to be the most successful method of overcoming 
 these difficulties. 
 
 When the metal is ready to pour, a fire-clay plug in the bottom 
 of the furnace is knocked out and the metal run into a huge ladle or 
 car which carries it to the mold. A casting for a large gun contains 
 almost twice as much metal as appears in the finished product. 
 The extra amount is to allow for compression, forging, machining, 
 and enough extra length for test pieces. 
 
 The mold is built up of large, strong steel rings, placed one 
 above the other, firmly bolted together and placed on a firm base 
 mounted on wheels so that it can be moved about. The mold is 
 heated, the ladle swung over it and the molten metal poured into it 
 with such precautions as will to some extent prevent the formation 
 of "blow-holes." Next the mold with its load of metal is placed 
 under a monster press and the " Whitworth Fluid Compression" 
 process begins. At the Bethlehem Steel Works a press with an 
 upper head weighing 135 tons, a lower head weighing 125 tons, and 
 capable of exerting a pressure of 7000 tons is used for this purpose. 
 Under this enormous pressure air bubbles are forced out, blow-holes 
 cannot form, piping cannot occur, and segregation is reduced to a 
 minimum. This pressure is kept up until the ingot has solidified, 
 and as a result gives a solid, flawless mass of steel which maintains 
 the intended chemical composition. 
 
 The steam hammer and hydraulic press play important parts 
 in the manufacture of steel, but the hammer is being rapidly driven 
 out of business by the press. As recently as 1891 the Bethlehem 
 Steel Company built the largest steam hammer in the world, stand- 
 ing 70 feet above the floor, the hammer head, weighing 125 tons and 
 having a stroke of 20 feet, falling upon an anvil of metal which 
 weighed 2150 pounds, and yet the progress of a single decade has 
 rendered obsolete this $1,000,000 hammer. 
 
) 
 
 / 
 
 34O THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Figure I shows the result of hammering a piece of steel. Only 
 the surface is worked and is longer than the center, producing a V- 
 shaped end. This sets up strains within and may even 
 split or tear loose from the center, rendering the piece 
 useless. Again, working only the surface does not de- 
 velop the strength of the interior and produces an in- 
 Hg.1. ferior article. 
 
 Figure 2 shows the result produced by using a steady pressure 
 which causes the metal to " flow" and bulge out in the 
 center, thus showing that the entire thickness of the 
 forging is acted upon by the pressure. 
 
 The piping and segregation, likely to occur in large 
 Fig.2. ingots, are now removed whenever possible by boring a 
 hole through them and making them into hollow forgings. A shaft 
 in this way can be decreased 25 per cent, in weight and the material 
 improved so much in quality that the loss of strength will be only 
 about 6 per cent., and this is the method commonly employed for 
 propeller shafts for steamships. 
 
 Large shafts must be reheated many times before the forging is 
 completed, and as each reheating may take from two to three days, 
 a saving of time is no small item. Reference to 
 Figure 3 shows that the distance from c to d is 
 less than half the distance from a to b. By 
 boring out the center a greater surface is exposed 
 to the heat and less than half the thickness of 
 metal has to be heated, so a saving of time and 
 fuel is effected. When large, solid forgings are heated the surface 
 metal expands faster than the core and sometimes cracks loose from 
 it ; in cooling, the outside contracts faster than the core and some- 
 times cracks on the surface. These troubles are obviated by remov- 
 ing the core. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 34! 
 
 Annealing. If a steel ingot is cooled slowly from the point 
 where it begins to get solid the temperature falls to between 1200 
 and 1300 Fahrenheit and there remains stationary for a time. This 
 point is known as the recalescent point, and chemical and physical 
 tests show that a change in the physical structure of the steel occurs 
 at that point and there the process of crystallization seems to come 
 to a halt. Now if the steel be heated to any point below the 
 recalescent point the crystallization will not be changed. If the 
 steel be allowed to cool slowly, it forms large crystals, and if it then 
 be heated above the recalescent point the crystallization will be 
 found smaller than before. Now since the temperature can wholly 
 change the crystallization of a piece of steel it is plain that heat 
 bears an important part in manufacture. When steel is suddenly 
 heated and put under the hammer or press and forged the crystals 
 are driven about and made to assume positions not natural to them 
 and, when cooled quickly, internal strains are set up, greatly reducing 
 the strength of the material. If the forging then be heated slowly 
 and allowed to cool slowly it gives the particles within a chance to 
 rearrange and adapt themselves to their new environment and re- 
 lieves the piece of these strains. After annealing the forging can 
 again be heated and tempered, for it is not necessary to raise it to a 
 high temperature to temper it. 
 
 Alloys. The tensile strength of a piece of metal is the pull or 
 tension required to break it. The elastic limit is the pull it will 
 endure without permanently stretching. Nickel as an alloy increases 
 the elastic limit more than it does the tensile strength, that is, in a 
 good grade of common steel the elastic limit would be about 47 per 
 cent, of the tensile strength, but in the propeller shafts of the cruiser 
 Brooklyn, where nickel steel was employed, the elastic limit is 63 per 
 cent, on a tensile strength of 93,000 pounds per square inch, Later 
 improvements have been made and now the tensile strength of 
 
34 2 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 propeller shafts for torpedo boats frequently runs over 100,000 
 pounds per square inch, with an elastic limit 68 per cent, of the 
 tensile strength. It is because nickel added to steel increases its 
 tensile limit that nickel-steel armor is able to withstand the heavy 
 shocks of the projectiles from powerful guns without breaking, 
 whereas ordinary steel as hard but not having the same toughness 
 would crack and break up. 
 
 Chromium and tungsten in moderate amounts are used as alloys 
 with steel, to impart special hardening properties, rendering it useful 
 for cutting tools and for armor-piercing projectiles. Manganese in 
 any considerable quantity makes steel so remarkably tough and hard 
 as to render machining impracticable. Aluminum seems to increase 
 the fluidity of steel and aids in preventing the formation of blow- 
 holes in castings. Much attention has been given to alloys and 
 many patents issued covering them. 
 
 Testing Steel. Before a large quantity of steel is accepted by 
 any important manufacturing plant one or more pieces from each 
 batch of steel are taken out and subjected to certain tests and if they 
 do not come up to the standard the whole batch is rejected. It is 
 important to know just how much stress any material will stand with- 
 out changing its form. Engineers call this the elastic limit, and if 
 the elastic limit is exceeded the steel changes its shape,, becomes 
 weakened, and never returns to its original form. Usually the test 
 pieces are about two inches long and one half inch square at the part 
 to be tested, the ends being left larger so as to afford a good grip for 
 the jaws of the testing machine. The test piece is cut out the full 
 size and then machined down in the middle instead of forging, for if 
 it were forged there would be more work done and it would not 
 show the true quality of the mass it was supposed to represent. 
 The testing machines as now built record accurately a pull or a push 
 as the case may be, ranging from a fraction of an ounce to millions 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 343 
 
 of pounds. The test piece is placed in the jaws of the machine and 
 the force gradually applied until the piece begins to stretch. This 
 should require from 29,000 to 60,000 pounds per square inch in 
 good steel. More force is applied until the piece is drawn out and 
 broken and for this a force of from 58,000 to 90,000 pounds should 
 be required. The variation is due to the fact that there are many 
 kinds of steel each with characteristics of its own. As a rule the 
 poorer grades stretch most, but even the better ones will stretch 22 
 per cent, before breaking. The broken ends are examined with a 
 microscope, the hardness tested, a chemical analysis made and the 
 exact proportion of each ingredient found out. 
 
 The testing machine made for the government by A. H. Emery 
 is probably the most accurate in the world. It is employed at the 
 Watertown Arsenal and can exert a pressure of more than 1,000,000 
 pounds or a pull of more than 800,000 pounds. The machine will 
 test a bar 31 feet long for compression and 37 feet 3 inches long for 
 tensile strength. The ram or straining cylinder is 20 inches in diame- 
 ter and has a 24-inch stroke. The Union Bridge Company of 
 Athens, Pa., has one with a capacity of 1,224,000 pounds that can 
 break a bar 40 feet long, while the Phoenix Bridge Company of Phce- 
 nixville, Pa., has one with a capacity of 2,160,000 that can break a 
 bar 45 feet long. Smaller testing machines of the same type are 
 used elsewhere, and many other varieties, but the Emery is recog- 
 nized as having no superiors. Its accuracy is so generally recognized 
 that the large manufacturing establishments constantly compare their 
 machines with that at the Watertown Arsenal, just as a man com- 
 pares his watch with a chronometer. The machine itself is too com- 
 plicated to be described within the limits of this article, but the 
 stresses are produced by a movable ram. If great force is required, 
 the ram is operated by hydraulic pressure; if the strain is to be a 
 light one, screw power is used. Great force is sometimes necessary 
 
344 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 for small pieces, as wire, small rods, etc., show a higher tensile 
 strength than the same material in larger pieces. A link of iron 5 
 inches in diameter was broken with a stress of 36,000 pounds per 
 square inch. The same metal in the form of an inch bar required 
 60,000 pounds to break it, hence the very obvious necessity of hav- 
 ing a machine strong enough to break large pieces. 
 
 Enormous as is the strength of the Emery machine, its deli- 
 cacy is no less amazing. It can exert a compressing force of 1,000- 
 ooo pounds and the next minute crack egg shells and nuts placed 
 between its jaws. It can pull in two an iron bar 5 inches in diame- 
 ter and immediately after measure the force required to break a 
 horse hair and show how much the hair stretches before it breaks. 
 If a violin string be attached and strained until it gives a musical 
 tone it will measure the exact amount of force required to change its 
 pitch. 
 
 The specifications for every important building, bridge, or ma- 
 chine nowadays constructed state tests which the materials must 
 undergo. The efficiency of the structure and the safety of the pub- 
 lic demand that these tests be carefully and accurately made and that 
 materials be able to support much greater loads than are likely to be 
 placed upon them in actual service. The weight of a bridge across 
 a stream, the pressure of the wind, and the weight of the loads the 
 bridge must sustain can be pretty accurately estimated. Plans can 
 then be drawn for a bridge of certain dimensions, requiring materials 
 to stand tests that give a margin of safety. In building a cannon 
 the weight of the projectile and the force of the powder charge can 
 be accurately determined and, if the strength of the materials be 
 known, a gun produced that can be safely used. It was the neces- 
 sity for accurate information of this kind that brought out the vari- 
 ous testing machines which have culminated in that of Emery. 
 
 Taylor-White Tool Steel. An important gain in the working 
 

 IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 345 
 
 of metals was lately made at Bethlehem, Pa., because the forge de- 
 partment of the Bethlehem Steel Company exceeded in capacity 
 the shop where the forgings were finished. An enlargement of the 
 shop, likely to cost a million or more dollars, seemed necessary. 
 Before spending the money, however, it was decided to make ex- 
 periments to see if the capacity of the shop could not be increased 
 by improving the tools. It was while experimenting on the tools 
 used in the lathes that Messrs. Taylor and White made their im- 
 portant discovery that steel of a special composition could be so 
 tempered that it would retain its cutting edge at a temperature twice 
 as high as the limit of steel from which tools are usually made. 
 Ordinarily, steel loses its temper for cutting purposes at about 
 500 Fahrenheit but the Taylor- White steel holds its temper up to 
 noo or 1200 degrees and will actually work in the lathe cutting 
 good smooth chips after the friction of the work has raised the tool 
 to a dull red heat. The gain was evident. Where they formerly 
 cut 8 feet 11 inches a minute they can now cut more than 25 feet, 
 increasing also the depth and the width of the cut. The number of 
 pounds of metal removed per hour averaged under the old process 
 in October, 1898, 31.18 pounds per tool; in May, 1899, with new 
 process, 81.52 pounds per tool ; in January, 1900, 137.3 pounds per 
 tool. The cutting speed had been raised 183 per cent, and the 
 metal removed increased 340 per cent. The line shafts of the shop 
 that formerly ran at 90 revolutions per minute were speeded up to 
 250 revolutions per minute, and the forge was pushed to its utmost 
 capacity to keep the shop supplied with forgings. The $1,000,000 
 addition contemplated had been saved but in the experiments more 
 than 200 tons of steel forgings had been cut into chips, with an ex- 
 penditure for material and labor of over $100,000. 
 
 The Taylor- White tool steel is softer than that of other self-hard- 
 ening steels, and 4-inch bars can be successfully treated by the proc- 
 
346 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ess. The same process improves Mushet and other self-hardening 
 steels but not in the same proportion that it does the special com- 
 position of the Taylor- White steel. 
 
 The use of iron was unknown to the inhabitants of America 
 prior to the discovery of the continent by the white man. The in- 
 habitants of Mexico and Peru who were most advanced in the arts 
 of civilization used copper as a substitute, while among the North 
 American Indians, stone was used. Archaeologists have found in 
 the ancient mounds of Ohio masses of meteoric iron from which im- 
 plements and ornaments were made by hammering, and the Green- 
 land Eskimos made knives and other weapons from native ore found 
 in Greenland, but always by hammering, not by melting and casting. 
 The first iron ore discovered in America was that found by an ex- 
 pedition to North Carolina in 1585 fitted out by Sir Walter Raleigh 
 to make a settlement at Roanoke. Hariot, the historian of the 
 colony, says, "The ground by rockie which by the triall of a minerall 
 man was founde to hold iron richly. It is founde in manie places of 
 the countrey else." But Raleigh's colonists were in search of gold 
 and were not interested in iron. 
 
 The records of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, show that in 
 1608 Captain Newport " sailed from Jamestown with a cargo of iron 
 ore, sassafras, cedar posts, and walnut boards." Skilled workmen 
 were sent to the Virginia colony and the construction of a furnace 
 was begun, but the foreman died and the others were killed off by 
 the Indians. No further attempt to manufacture iron appears to 
 have been made there for almost a hundred years, but in the next 
 century Virginia became prominent in the manufacture of iron. 
 
 The first successful iron works in America were established near 
 Lynn, Massachusetts. "In 1643 Mr. John Winthrop came from 
 England with workmen and stock to the amount of ^1000 for com- 
 mencing the work. A foundry was erected on the western bank of 
 
IRON AND STEKL WORKING. 347 
 
 the Saugus river." This was near Lynn, and it was the first iron 
 foundry established in America. The first iron article made from 
 native iron ore in America was cast here in 1645. It was 
 an iron pot weighing two pounds thirteen ounces, and 
 holding a little less than one quart. 
 
 A furnace built at Middleboro, Mass., in 1758, was 
 operated for many years and is said to have cast shot 
 used in two wars, furnishing; those for the Constitution in First iron Article 
 
 Manufactured in 
 
 her conflict with the Guerriere. 
 
 The first iron foundry at Pittsburg was built about 1805 on the 
 site of the present post office. In 1812 it was turned into a cannon 
 foundry for the general government, making shot, howitzers, and 
 cannon. This foundry is credited with having furnished the supplies 
 for Perry's fleet on Lake Erie and Jackson's army at New Orleans. 
 
 William Penn encouraged the manufacture of iron in his colo- 
 ny, where it was produced at least as early as 1692, and Pennsylvania 
 soon achieved the prominent place in the iron industry which she 
 has since so ably maintained. 
 
 For some reason ironmasters and their descendants played a very 
 prominent part in the history of the new country. Washington's 
 father was interested in iron furnaces in Maryland and Virginia. 
 Lincoln was descended from Mordecai Lincoln, an ironmaster of 
 Scituate, Mass. Franklin, if not directly interested in the manu- 
 facture of iron, at least had friends who were, and the celebrated 
 stove invented by him in 1792 was cast at the Warwick furnace on 
 French Creek, nineteen miles from Reading. The same foundry was 
 afterward active in casting cannon. 
 
 Ethan Allen was also interested in the manufacture of iron, and 
 Generals Greene and Morgan were the sons of ironmasters, while 
 several of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were con- 
 nected with some branch of the industry. One of them, George 
 
348 MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Taylor, born in Ireland, was so poor that to get to America he was 
 obliged to sell his services and go as a " redemptioner." He after- 
 ward worked in a most humble capacity in an iron furnace, yet be- 
 came, himself, an ironmaster and a man of wide influence. Ericsson 
 owed no small part of his success with the Monitor to the support 
 given him by his financial backers, John A. Griswold and John A. 
 Winslow. There can be no reasonable doubt that the executive 
 ability required to manage the great iron and steel manufacturing es- 
 tablishments of to-day could achieve distinction in the political field. 
 
 The first iron works in Canada were established at St. Maurice 
 near Three Rivers in the province of Quebec. Count Frontenac in 
 1667 discovered iron ore and in 1672 reported that he had com- 
 menced to mine it at Three Rivers for export to France. He strongly 
 urged the development of the mines and the establishment of fur- 
 naces and foundries. " King Louis XV. gave a royal license in 1730 
 to a company to work the iron ores of St. Maurice and the vicinity, 
 and advanced 10,000 livres for aid in erecting the furnace, etc. No 
 work being done, he took back the license and in 1735 granted it to 
 a new company, which received 100,000 livres in aid and in 1737 
 built a blast furnace. In 1743, however, the works reverted to the 
 crown and were worked for the king's profit/' * 
 
 The St. Maurice works continued in active operation until 1760, 
 when Canada passed into the possession of the British government. 
 Then for nearly a hundred years the crown leased the works to vari- 
 ous companies. They were finally closed in 1883 because the ore and 
 fuel had become exhausted. But the St. Maurice furnace, erected 
 in 1737 and closed in 1883, had the longest record of service of any on 
 the American continent. 
 
 Canada is rich in ore deposits and is rapidly developing her 
 mineral resources which she has wisely fostered by government aid. 
 
 *Dr. T. Sterry Hunt. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 349 
 
 "The bounty act of June 29, 1897, provides that premiums shall be 
 paid on iron and steel products as follows: " On steel ingots puddled 
 into bars and pig iron a bonus of $3 per ton is to be paid, provided 
 at least 50 per cent, of the steel product is made from Canadian pig 
 iron. On steel ingots and derived product not made from Canadian 
 pig iron, a bonus of $2 per ton is paid. The act of August 11, 
 1899, extended the bounty to June 30, 1907, but at a diminishing 
 rate of premium as follows : After June 30, 1903, the above premiums 
 will be paid on only 90 per cent, of the respective products, and for 
 each successive year on a smaller per cent, of the output, namely, on 
 75 per cent., 55 per cent., 35 per cent., and 20 per cent., ending 
 with June 30, 1907. By that time presumably the experimental 
 stage of production will have ended and the industry will be on a 
 self-sustaining basis." '"" 
 
 In less than a quarter of a century the output of pig iron in 
 Canada has increased more than 25 fold. In 1892 Canada exported 
 three tons of iron valued at $95; in 1899, more than 2000 tons 
 valued at more than $50,000. The United States takes about three 
 fifths of Canada's export. The following table shows the output of 
 Canadian pig iron from 1876 to 1899, the amount exported and its 
 value from 1892 to 1899. The stimulus of the bounty in 1897 is ap- 
 parent : 
 
 Year Tons produced Year Tons produced Tons exported Value 
 
 1876 4,000 1888 22,209 
 
 1877 i3>5 l88 9 24,823 
 
 1878 16,000 1890 25,697 
 
 1879 16,500 1891 20,153 
 
 1880 23,000 1892 30,294 3 $95 
 
 1881 18,500 1893 46,948 12 330 
 
 1882 21,500 1894 62,522 
 
 1883 32,000 1895 31^692 259 6,202 
 
 1884 29,389 1896 52,052 1,940 453 6 3 
 
 1885 25,770 1897 33,254 2,627 65,555 
 
 1886 26,180 1898 75,920 2,403 61,029 
 
 1887 39,717 1899 100,926 2,188 5>767 
 
 * Commerce and finance 
 
350 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The ore beds of Newfoundland are wonderfully rich in red 
 hematite, the Wabana beds being 3 miles long, several hundred feet 
 wide, and with about 35,000,000 tons in sight (1901), while their 
 proximity to tide water and ease of working renders them dangerous 
 competitors for mines not so advantageously situated. The ore can 
 be taken from the mines and placed on board ship for about 25 cents 
 per ton, the freight to Canada 25 cents more; to Europe or the 
 United States, only 50 cents per ton. Germany and the United 
 States are extensive purchasers of Newfoundland ore. 
 
 Russia has almost boundless deposits of iron ore that are practi- 
 cally untouched, but as they lie so far from the seaports and her 
 transportation system is so poorly developed, she is not likely for 
 many years to become a serious competitor of the leading nations. 
 
 In the following table the first column gives the decades of the 
 nineteenth century, the second the population of the United States 
 for the corresponding decades, the third the approximate production 
 of pig iron, the fourth the average number of persons to each ton 
 produced. 
 
 Year Population Tons of Iron Produced Inhabitants per Ton 
 
 1810 7,240,000 54,000 134 
 
 1820 9,655,000 2O,OOO 483 
 
 1830 12,866,000 165,000 78 
 
 1840 17,063,000 315,000 54 
 
 1850 23,192,000 565,000 41 
 
 1860 3 [,443,000 900,000 35 
 
 1870 38,558,000 1,865,000 21 
 
 l88o 50,156,000 4,295,OOO 12 
 
 1890 62,481,000 9,202,703 7 
 
 1900 76,295,220 13,620,703* 6t 
 
 In 1 8 10 only one ton of iron was produced for every 134 people; 
 at the close of the century more than a ton was produced for every 
 
 1899. ^Commerce and Finance. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 351 
 
 6 inhabitants, and as but comparatively little of it was exported as 
 raw material practically all of it was used to improve means of com- 
 munication or transportation, or entered as finished products into the 
 industrial life of the nation. It is safe to say the value of the iron, 
 steel, and articles manufactured from them for a single .year exceeds 
 the entire wealth of the country at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The production and consumption of iron bear a close relation to 
 the prosperity and wealth of a country, for with these is indissolu- 
 bly linked the transportation system and its manufacturing and agri- 
 cultural interests. The United States has risen within a quarter 
 century from a comparatively low position in the iron industry to the 
 greatest iron producing country in the world. But a short time ago 
 articles of iron manufacture played but a small part in her exports; 
 now they constitute more than 50 per cent, of the manufactured arti- 
 cles exported. Her locomotives wake the echoes in the Highlands 
 of Scotland, the steppes of Russia, the forests of Brazil, and the land 
 of the Pharaohs. American typewriters go to every civilized coun- 
 try on earth and markets for manufactured goods that were supposed 
 to have been controlled by the older countries are now witnessing 
 the advent of American manufactures. Improved machinery, econ- 
 omy in methods, and great organizations have increased so immensely 
 the production of the United States that the home markets are no 
 longer sufficient, and American goods are now knocking at the doors 
 of all the markets of the world. 
 
 The following table shows by tons the pig iron production 
 of the five leading countries of the world. Has it no significance 
 that the production of France, like its population, shows but little 
 increase, while that of her rival, Germany, progresses by leaps and 
 bounds? 
 
352 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Years United States Great Britain Germany France Russia 
 
 1870 
 
 1,665,179 
 
 5,963,515 
 
 1,391,124 
 
 1,178,114 
 
 359.531 
 
 1875 
 
 2,023,733 
 
 6,365,462 
 
 2,029,389 
 
 1,448,272 
 
 427,182 
 
 1880 
 
 3,835,191 
 
 7>749233 
 
 2,729,038 
 
 1.725,293 
 
 448,411 
 
 1885 
 
 4,044,526 
 
 7,415,469 
 
 3,687,434 
 
 1,630,648 
 
 527,536 
 
 1890 
 
 9,202,703 
 
 7,904,214 
 
 4,658,451 
 
 1,962,196 
 
 926,482 
 
 1895 
 
 9,446,308 
 
 7.703,459 
 
 5,465,414 
 
 2,003,868 
 
 1,452,380 
 
 1896 
 
 8,623,127 
 
 8,659,681 
 
 6,372,575 
 
 2.339.537 
 
 1,612,069 
 
 1897 
 
 9,652,680 
 
 8,796,465 
 
 6,881,466 
 
 2,484,191 
 
 1,868,671 
 
 1898 11,773,934 8,609,719 7,312,766 2,525,075 2,222,469 
 
 1899 13,620,703 9,305,319 8,142,017 2,567,388 2,672,492 * 
 
 England has done more than any other country to bring to its 
 present high state of perfection the iron industry. An able authority 
 credits her as follows : 
 
 " The whole world is indebted to England and Scotland for the 
 inventions which gave a fresh impetus to the manufacture of iron in 
 the eighteenth century. Payne and Hanbury, who first succeeded 
 in rolling sheet iron ; Darby, who first successfully and continuous!)^ 
 used coke in the blast furnace; Huntsman, who invented the process 
 of making steel in crucibles; Smeaton, who invented cast iron blow- 
 ing cylinders; and Cort, who invented grooved rolls and the puddling 
 furnace, were Englishmen ; while Watt, who perfected the steam 
 engine, was a Scotchman. It is also indebted to the same countries 
 for most of the inventions of the present century which have further 
 developed the manufacture of iron and increased the demand for it, 
 and which have almost created the manufacture of steel. Stephen- 
 son, the Englishman, improved the locomotive in 1815, and in 1825 
 the first passenger railroad in the world was opened in England, his 
 locomotive hauling the trains. The railroad is the greatest of all the 
 consumers of iron and steel. Neilson, the Scotchman, invented the 
 hot-blast in 1828; Crane, the Englishman, applied it to the manu- 
 facture of pig iron with anthracite coal in 1837; Nasmyth, the 
 Scotchman, invented the steam hammer in 1838 and the pile driver 
 
 * Commerce and Finance. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 353 
 
 in 1843; an d Bessemer, the Englishman, invented in 1855 the proc- 
 ess which bears his name and is the flower of all metallurgical 
 achievements, a share in the honor of this invention, however, being 
 fairly due to the co-operating genius of Robert F. Mushet, also an 
 Englishman but born of Scotch parentage. The Siemens regenera- 
 tive gas furnace, which has been so extensively used in the manufac- 
 ture 'of iron and steel, is also an English invention, although the 
 inventors, Sir William and Frederick Siemens, while citizens of Eng- 
 land, were natives of Hanover in Germany. 
 
 "It is only just to add that Sir Henry Bessemer, although born 
 in England, is the son of a French refugee who settled in England 
 during the French Revolution of 1789, and that Benjamin Hunts- 
 man, the inventor of the process for manufacturing cast steel in 
 crucibles, was the son of German parents, although himself born in 
 England. Mr. Goran F. Goransson, of Sandviken, Sweden, also 
 assisted in perfecting the Bessemer process. It was, however, enter- 
 prising and sturdy England which nursed the genius of the great in- 
 ventors we have mentioned who were of continental birth or extrac- 
 tion, and it was in England that the ripe fruits of their inventions 
 were first abundantly gathered."* 
 
 BRIDGES. 
 If Milton's information was accurate when he said, 
 
 ' Deep to the roots of Hell the gathered breech 
 They fastened, and the mole immense brought on, 
 Over the foaming deep, high-arched, a bridge 
 Of length prodigious, joining to the wall 
 Immovable of this now fenceless world," 
 
 we may conclude that the first bridge was a military bridge built by 
 Satan for the purpose of maintaining the advantage he had gained, 
 and extending from his dominions through Chaos to the Earth. But 
 
 *Swank. " Iron in all Ages." 
 
354 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 OLD ROPE BRIDGE IN THE ANDES. 
 
 Milton does not give the exact date of this engineering feat, neither 
 have antiquarians been able to find the earthly abutment, so the 
 history of bridges may be presumed to commence with some later 
 date. 
 
 It has been held that the art of bridge building is an instinct 
 
 transmitted from primitive 
 ancestors. Certainly the 
 suspension bridges made 
 of thongs of rawhide and 
 ropes of vegetable fiber 
 which were early used in 
 Chili and Peru were not 
 many steps removed from 
 the interlacing boughs of 
 the adjacent trees of trop- 
 ical forests. 
 
 It is impossible to say when or where the first bridge was 
 built, but wooden bridges were described at least as early as I2OO 
 B. C., and Homer in his poems speaks of bridges. Until the 
 archives of Egypt and Assyria yield their knowledge, the history of 
 bridge building must be held to have begun with the Romans, al- 
 though the wickerwork bridges of India are mentioned as far back as 
 the history of the country goes. 
 
 Suspension bridges made of iron chains and more than 500 years 
 old are in use in Japan to-day, although made in a time when iron 
 was so valuable to the civilized nations that the natives of Scotland 
 made frequent raids into England largely for the sake of the iron they 
 were able to carry off as spoil. Iron truss bridges had been in 
 use in Japan for 200 years when Stephenson was building his tubular 
 bridge. 
 
 The Romans held the art of bridge making in such great rever- 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 355 
 
 ence that when the first stone arch of the Pons Sublicius was thrown 
 across the Tiber at Rome on the site of the famous wooden bridge 
 defended by Horatius, a special order of priests was established to 
 foster the art, and those who belonged to the order had 
 important privileges, while the title " Pontifex " was one 
 of the greatest honors. 
 
 The oldest bridge in the world is the 
 Roman bridge, Pont du Gard, at Mines, 
 France, built by M. Agrippa in the year 19 
 B. C. It is 873 feet long and 160 feet high, 
 has three tiers of arches, and is still in use. 
 
 The longest stone arch bridge ever made 
 was built in 1380 by Visconti over the 
 Adda river near Terezzo, Italy, the top of 
 the arch rising 88 feet above its ends in a 
 span of 25 i feet. 
 
 The longest existing span of solid ma- 
 sonry is that of the Cabin John bridge near 
 Washington, D. C. It is 220 feet long and 
 was built in 1859 to carry an aqueduct 9 feet in diameter to furnish 
 the water supply for the national capital. The upper surface of the 
 water conduit is covered and forms a fine roadway. The bridge was 
 begun in 1857 and finished in 1864 at a cost of $254,000. It is 450 
 feet long with a span of 220 feet, the top of the structure being 
 about 100 feet above the bed of the stream. 
 
 Joseph Melan invented a bridge combining a steel arch with the 
 stability of masonry. By this method a steel arch is constructed in 
 position and imbedded in concrete, which solidifies and makes an arch 
 of almost solid stone with a steel skeleton, thus doing away with the 
 vibration of the steel arch while the concrete stiffens the structure 
 and protects the steel within from the air and moisture. Such a 
 
 NATURAL BRIDGE, VA. 
 
356 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 bridge at Steyr, Hungary, has a span of 137.76 feet, the arch rising 
 only nine feet. The Cabin John bridge and the Niagara bridge are 
 good illustrations of the arch bridge. 
 
 The old London bridge, once the only bridge across the Thames, 
 was so narrow that two carts could not pass on it, so in 1671 a 
 troublesome, progressive gentleman, name unknown, applied to the 
 House of Commons for permission to build another bridge and pre- 
 cipitated one of the warmest debates that ever occurred in that 
 body. It was urged by its opponents that the bridge would remove 
 the condition which forced commerce to flow through London ; that 
 it would make the skirts of the city too large for the body; that it 
 would impede navigation ; that it would render the city ungovern- 
 able ; that if permission were granted to build one bridge some one 
 would soon want to build a third, and no one could tell where the 
 pernicious practice would end. Such sound reasoning prevailed and 
 London waited until 1750 for a second bridge. 
 
 The first iron bridge of considerable size, with the exception of 
 the chain bridges of Japan and short suspension bridges used by 
 miners in the North of England, was begun at Lyons in 1755 but 
 abandoned because the material was too costly. The next to be at- 
 tempted and the first to be carried to completion was built in 1777 
 over the Severn at Coalbrookdale, England. It was made of cast 
 iron in the form of an arch and had a span of 100 feet 6 inches. 
 Through some error in the plans it cracked soon after it was erected, 
 but this corrected the error and it is still used and considered safe. 
 
 Philadelphia in 1787 wanted a bridge over the Schuylkill but 
 there could be no pier in the river on account of the great masses of 
 ice which had carried away such structures on other occasions. 
 With characteristic daring Tom Paine agreed to build an iron bridge 
 with an arch of cast iron made in segments and long enough to reach 
 from bank to bank, 236 feet. He went to England to superintend 
 

 IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 357 
 
 the casting of the bridge at the Rotherham works in Yorkshire. 
 The pieces were cast, shipped to London, and set up for trial, and 
 proved entirely satisfactory. The bridge occasioned considerable 
 comment but at this juncture the French Revolution absorbed Paine, 
 heart and soul, and the bridge was left to look out for itself and 
 sold by the makers. However, the Schuylkill was spanned at Chest- 
 nut street by a cast iron bridge, erected in 1863. It had two spans 
 of 1 80 feet each, and was the largest cast iron bridge in America, but 
 has since been replaced by a cantilever. 
 
 The suspension bridge appeared in China, like so many other 
 things, at a very early date, but the suspension bridge with its road- 
 way attached to the cables and not lying directly upon the cables is 
 an American institution, and the first one having such a construction 
 was erected by Jacob Finlay in 1801 over Jacob's creek at Greens- 
 burg, Pennsylvania. Finlay employed as cables two chains passing 
 over towers 70 feet apart, and hung the roadway, I2J^ feet wide, to 
 these chains. 
 
 The first wire suspension cable is believed to be that of White 
 and Hazard, who in 1816 constructed a footbridge across the Schuyl- 
 kill river above Philadelphia. Until this time chains had been used 
 as cables in all suspension bridges, but they employed cables made 
 of six wires, each wire y% inch in diameter. The bridge had a span 
 of 408 feet and cost only $125. A toll of one cent per passage was 
 charged and only eight people were allowed upon the bridge at one 
 time. The progress of 67 years is well shown by comparing the 
 first wire cable bridge with the greatest. 
 
 The Brooklyn bridge has the longest span of any suspension 
 bridge in the world, its central span being 1595.5 feet wide and 135 
 feet above the water. The work was begun January 2, 1870, and 
 the bridge opened to the public May 23, 1883. The bridge with its 
 approach is 6537 feet long, or more than ij miles. It was planned 
 
358 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM." 
 
 and begun by John A. Roebling, but in the early part of the work 
 an accident resulted in injuries to his foot, lockjaw (tetanus) set in, 
 and he died. His son, Washington A. Roebling, took up the work 
 and carried it to its completion. 
 
 The roadway of this bridge is supported by four great cables 
 each 15^ inches in diameter. Each cable is composed of nineteen 
 strands and each strand is made of 278 steel wires of No. 7 gauge, so 
 that each cable contains 5296 wires galvanized and oil coated, closely 
 bound together. The wire in each skein is continuous and passes 
 from one anchorage across the river to the other 139 times, at each 
 turn passing through an eyepiece. Each turn is of exactly the same 
 length so as to give the same tension, and it was found that if some 
 wires were " regulated" (adjusted) at sunset and others at noon it 
 made a difference of two feet or more between the wires at the mid- 
 dle of the span, so the regulating was done between daylight and 
 sunlight to avoid the sun's influence, and forty wires a day, laid and 
 regulated, was a good average. After the nineteen skeins were laid 
 and regulated they were gathered together, the odd skein in the mid- 
 dle, the other forming two circles about it and the whole firmly 
 bound with wire closely wound spirally the whole length of the cable. 
 
 The ends of the cable are fastened to anchorages 930 feet inland 
 from the bottorr of each tower. Each anchorage is 90 feet deep, 
 119 feet by 132 feet at the base, made of solid masonry and weighs 
 120,000,000 pounds. The anchor plates are of cast iron 16.5 feet 
 wide, 17.5 feet long, and 2.5 feet thick, connecting with the cables 
 by gigantic chains of 18 links abreast, each link 12 feet 5 inches 
 long, extending in a curve upward toward the tower. For the an- 
 chor to be pulled out the entire mass of masonry would have to be 
 overturned and the bridge would give way long before sufficient 
 power could be brought to bear to do this. 
 
 The cables pass from the anchorage over the tops of two granite 
 

 IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 359 
 
 towers 278 feet high, one on either shore. The foundations of the 
 New York tower go down 78 feet and rest on solid rock. Near the 
 top of each tower is an immense cast iron plate covering nearly the 
 whole area. On this plate are a number of rollers bearing the sad- 
 dles over which the cables run. Such an arrangement allows a free 
 movement of the saddle caused by the expansion and contraction of 
 the cable due to the changes in temperature. The original cost of 
 the bridge was about $15,000,000 and the receipts from it for the year 
 ending 1893, $1,590,140.03. The total cost of the Brooklyn bridge 
 up to December 2 1, 1897, was about $21,000,000. The bridge of 
 Hazard and White was the humble progenitor of the bridge over 
 which pass, every day, more people than lived in any city on the con- 
 tinent at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The plans for 
 another suspension bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn over 
 the East river have been approved by the War Department. This 
 bridge is estimated to cost $15,833,000. 
 
 There are other famous suspension bridges. One built by Tel- 
 ford across the straits of Menai and connecting the mainland of 
 Wales with the island of Anglesea, was at its completion, 1826, con- 
 sidered one of the wonders of the world. The span was 579 feet, 
 the greatest length ever attained up to that time. The roadway was 
 supported 100 feet above high water by four chains made of massive 
 links of wrought iron 7 feet in length, passing from towers 194 feet 
 high, the chains having their ends firmly anchored in solid masses of 
 masonry back of the towers. 
 
 The gorge at Niagara, one of the greatest challenges Nature 
 ever offered to the bridge builder, has been the scene of the romance 
 of bridge building in which Homan Walsh, a boy expert as a kite 
 flyer, played no small part. When the first bridge across the gorge 
 was projected, how to get the first wire across was something of a 
 problem. The boy and his kite were enlisted, and he entered enthu- 
 
360 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 siastically into the scheme. As the wind blew from the Canadian 
 side he crossed over there in midwinter and soon had his kite high 
 in the air on the American side, but, contrary to his expectations, 
 the wind did not die down toward evening, but increased in velocity, 
 and so for hours the boy moved about in the cold, clinging coura- 
 geously to his kite string. Signal fires were lighted on both sides and 
 about midnight the wind began to slacken, the kite to settle, and in 
 an hour or so the sound of cheers told him that his kite was found, 
 but so much string had been let out that the floating ice in the river 
 caught and broke it. The drifting ice closed the ferry and kept him 
 a prisoner for eight days, but on arriving on the American side he 
 found his kite in good condition and made another attempt, which 
 was successful. The slender kite string served to draw across a 
 cord, and this in turn a stronger until one was obtained strong 
 enough to carry across the gorge the first wire cable and the work of 
 construction was begun. A basket was hung to the cable and served 
 to support the workmen and also for passenger traffic. Passengers 
 were ferried over in it at $i a passage, the receipts some days amount- 
 ing to $125. 
 
 A suspension bridge for railroad service was soon decided upon 
 and John A. Roebling selected as the engineer. Iron was so ex- 
 pensive that the cables only were of that material, the towers even 
 being built of wood, for it would have cost a small fortune to have 
 transported iron to Niagara, which was then ''away out West." 
 This double decked structure was completed in 1855 but in 1880 all 
 the woodwork of the bridge was removed and replaced by steel with- 
 out interrupting the traffic or meeting with a serious accident. 
 
 The demands of travel having outgrown the capacities of the 
 bridge it was in 1896 replaced by a steel arch of 550 feet span, com- 
 pleted August 27, 1897, the work having been carried on without in- 
 terrupting traffic, and it stands to-day the longest steel arch in the 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 361 
 
 world. The transformations which this one bridge has undergone 
 form a series of most interesting and wonderful exhibitions of 
 mechanical skill and daring. The Niagara river has been and is 
 spanned by other bridges, but none have had such interesting ex- 
 periences as this. March 8, 1899, the body of Roman Walsh was 
 brought to Niagara for burial, and the train that carried it passed 
 over the steel arch built on the site where half a century before his 
 kite string had formed an international bridge between the United 
 States and Canada. 
 
 THE NIAGARA STEEL ARCH. 
 
 The perfection of the suspension bridge is largely due to John A. 
 Roebling, who remedied its lack of rigidity and the swaying 
 produced by wind by introducing a system of stays and stiffening 
 trusses. He built the first suspension bridge across Niagara in the 
 face of almost unanimous predictions of failure by British engineers, 
 for all the suspension bridges erected in Great Britain had up to that 
 time been deficient in rigidity. One or more of them had been 
 blown down, and Stephenson's tubular girder was most popular 
 there for long spans. 
 
 The girder type of bridge is the strongest form for long spans yet 
 devised. The simplest illustration of this type is a tree trunk lying 
 
362 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 across a water course. The principle has been elaborated in bridge 
 building and architecture until the tree trunk has been changed into 
 large beams (chords) connected by braces and tension rods forming a 
 truss that may look almost like lattice work. The ends of the girder 
 rest upon foundations at the river bank prepared for it. In common 
 practice these are called " abutments " as distinguished from de- 
 tached portions of masonry erected between the abutments called 
 " piers." Suppose a space of a few feet to be bridged and a plank 12 
 inches wide and three inches thick thrown across it. If the plank were 
 not strong enough and another placed beside it, the two, if the 
 weight were equally distributed, would bear twice the load of the 
 first. If one plank be placed on top of the other and the two spiked 
 firmly together they will bear not twice but four times the original 
 load. If the under plank be set up on edge and the upper plank 
 spiked to it making a letter "T," it will support seven times the 
 original load. If the planks be sawed in two, giving four boards 1.5 
 inches thick and a foot wide, and these be nailed together in the form 
 of a long box it will support nineteen times the original load. 
 Robert Stephenson, so prominently identified with the early his- 
 tory of the locomotive, applied this principle to bridge building. 
 
 The Tubular Bridge. A suspension bridge at Conway failed and 
 Stephenson applied to Parliament in 1846 for permission to build a 
 bridge of a new design of which he was the inventor. The permis- 
 sion was secured and in 1847 the Conway Tube bridge was begun. 
 It was made of boiler iron plates four to eight feet long, about two 
 feet wide, and five eighths inch thick, put together and riveted by hand, 
 forming a tube 412 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 25 feet high in the 
 middle. It weighed 1300 tons, gave satisfaction, and is still in use. 
 The Victoria bridge at Montreal was Stephenson's masterpiece. This 
 is a quadrangular tubular bridge 16 feet by 22 feet in cross section and 
 I J^ miles long. It was completed in 1859 and cost about $7,000,000. 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 363 
 
 The tubular bridge served its purpose but it is now known that a 
 
 different arrangement of the metal will give greater strength for the 
 
 same weight. The amount 
 
 of material and workmanship 
 
 required render them the 
 
 most costly of all structures, 
 
 and both the Britannia and 
 
 the Victoria bridge ruined the 
 
 companies that built them. 
 
 The first steel bridge in 
 the world was that built by 
 
 Captain James B. Eads across THE BRITANNIA TUBULAR BRIDGE ACROSS 
 
 ,, <- T THE MENAI STRAITS. 
 
 the Mississippi at St. Louis. 
 
 Although the inventions of Bessemer, Mushet, Kelly, and others had 
 made steel available in place of wrought iron since 1858, it was not 
 until 1874 that the St. Louis bridge was completed. This structure 
 gave birth to a new industry, the manufacture of structural steel, and 
 the condition of the art at that time was such that more steel was 
 rejected than was used. Special machines were invented and built to 
 test the materials, and the accurate knowledge now possessed of the 
 physical properties of steel is more the result of the building of this 
 bridge than of any other one structure. Each span is composed of 
 four arches formed of steel tubes nine inches in diameter. Each tube 
 is straight but wedge-shaped pieces at the joint give form to the arch. 
 The arches are held together as well as apart by a system of diagonal 
 steel braces and tension rods. There are three spans in the bridge : 
 the center 5 I 5 feet, and the end spans 497 feet each. 
 
 The longest bridge in the world was the lattice girder bridge 
 built over the Tay in Scotland. It was 10,396 feet in length, lack- 
 ing only fifty-five yards of two miles. It was completed in 1877 at 
 a cost of 350, ooo, but went down the night of December 28, 1879, 
 
364 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 carrying with it a passenger train and seventy-five passengers. A 
 board of inquiry reported that the failure was caused by faulty con- 
 struction and that there were no understood rules or requirements 
 existing in Great Britain regarding the computations of wind pres- 
 sure, although in France an allowance of fifty-five pounds per square 
 foot, and in the United States fifty pounds per square foot, was gen- 
 erally required. It was replaced in 1887 by the Tay viaduct, 10,780 
 feet long, which holds the record as the longest bridge in the world. 
 It is of the same type as the original but much stronger. 
 
 The cantilever bridge holds the record for the greatest distance 
 spanned. The cantilever, a beam, a truss, or a girder, balanced at 
 some point near the middle, is extensively employed in bridge build- 
 ing as well as in architecture and hoisting machinery. If a stick be 
 broken across the knee the fibers of the wood farthest from the knee 
 are put in tension while those nearest are forced together or put into 
 a state of compression. When the ends of girders are placed on 
 abutments the weight puts the tops of the girders in compression and 
 the lower parts in constant tension. Paradoxical as it may seem, 
 the strength of a girder is just about doubled by an arrangement that 
 turns it upside down and cuts it in two at the middle, for the cantilever 
 is made by balancing a girder by its center on a pier instead of raising 
 its ends on the piers, and puts the top in tension and the bottom in 
 compression. The center of the truss is made higher than the ends, 
 which to some extent hang from the center. The roadbed, instead of 
 running over the top or on the bottom of the truss as it does in the 
 girder type, runs right through the center of the cantilever. 
 
 The Forth bridge, a cantilever type, has two spans of 1710 
 feet, each exceeding in length by more than 100 feet the greatest 
 span of the largest suspension bridge in the world. The Eiffel 
 Tower represents the greatest height achieved by man's daring, yet 
 with its boasted height of nearly 1000 feet it could be laid length- 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 
 
 365 
 
 THE FORTH BRIDGE. 
 
 wise on one of the spans of the Forth bridge and lack 700 feet of 
 reaching from pier to pier. The bridge stands on three piers which 
 support the 5 3,000 tons of steel of which it is built. Each of the great 
 cantilevers rises 340 feet above the piers, or 361 feet above water 
 level. The base of the foundation is 91 feet below the water level, 
 and the distance from the 
 base of the foundation to 
 the top of the cantilevers is 
 greater than that of the high- 
 est building in the world. 
 Wind pressure that wrecked 
 the Tay bridge has here an 
 allowance of 56 pounds per 
 square foot made for it, and with the greatest rolling load to which 
 the bridge will ever be subjected and a hurricane blowing, the bridge 
 would be able to sustain a load four times as great. The bridge was 
 opened March 4, 1890, and cost 4,000,000 or nearly $20,000,000. 
 This great structure, which may be justly considered the most gigan- 
 tic piece of mechanism in the world, stands as a monument to its 
 builders, William Arrol and Company of Glasgow. 
 
 Enormous as are the cantilevers of the Forth river bridge it is 
 evident that the system has not reached its limit, for experiments 
 conducted by the United States government determined that it was 
 practicable to reach a span of 4335 feet, or more than four fifths of 
 a mile. 
 
 The Kinzua viaduct, on the Bradford branch of the New York, 
 Lake Erie, and Western railroad, furnishes a sample of the expense 
 of keeping pace with the demands of progress. The viaduct is 301 
 feet above Kinzua creek, has a length of 2052 feet, and is supported 
 by 20 steel towers resting on foundations of masonry. The bridge 
 cost but $275,000 and was completed in 8^ months from the 
 
366 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 time work was commenced on the foundation, all the steel being put 
 in place between May 5 and August 20, and during the whole opera- 
 tion no more than 125 men were employed at one time. It was 
 built to sustain the heaviest engines and cars laden with the lumber 
 and soft coal of Western Pennsylvania. The engines then in use 
 weighed 103,400 pounds, the boilers carried a steam pressure of 125 
 pounds per square inch, and the cars had an average capacity of 
 about 40,000 pounds. After eighteen years of service the bridge 
 was rebuilt, although in excellent condition, giving place to a far 
 stronger one because the demands of traffic had called into action 
 locomotives weighing 190,000 pounds with boilers carrying a steam 
 pressure of 200 pounds per square inch and cars having a hauling 
 capacity of 100,000 pounds. In other words, the car capacity had 
 increased from 100 per cent, to 150 per cent, and the weight of the 
 engine more than 80 per cent. 
 
 The Pecos viaduct of the Southern Pacific railroad, one of the 
 highest in the world, is 2180 feet long, has 48 spans, and was built 
 
 by 67 men in 87 days. The 
 rails are 328 feet above the 
 water and the viaduct is the 
 highest one on the North 
 American continent. Bolivia 
 has at Loa a viaduct 800 feet 
 long and 336 feet high. This 
 is the highest in South Amer- 
 ica. At Garabit, France, 
 there is one 1852 feet long 
 
 and 406 feet high ; the high- 
 THE GARABIT VIADUCT. 
 
 est in the world. Germany 
 
 has one of the highest bridges in the world. The Mungsted bridge 
 over the Wupper river furnishes a passage for the Solingen-Remscheid 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 367 
 
 railroad. It is 1640 feet long and the top of the rails are 354 feet 
 from the water underneath. It is a steel bridge of the arch type, the 
 top of the arch rising 225 feet above its base. It has a span of 557.6 
 feet, second only to that of Niagara. 
 
 Another famous viaduct is that over the Gokteik gorge in Bur- 
 mah to furnish a direct railroad line from Rangoon to China. Al- 
 most insurmountable obstacles were connected with the work, for 
 the bridge is 150 miles from any seaport and everything had to be 
 transported overland. The viaduct is about 2300 feet in length and 
 in some places more than 320 feet high. The contract was awarded 
 to the Pennsylvania Steel Company of Steelton, because time was 
 an important factor and the Steelton Company would agree to com- 
 plete the work in half the time asked by their closest competitor. 
 When the difficulties surrounding the work are taken into considera- 
 tion it may be considered as one of the great feats of modern en- 
 gineering. 
 
 A Bridge for the Soudan. Late in 1898 the British government 
 decided to build, for the benefit of Kitchener's expedition in the 
 Soudan, a bridge across the Atbara river, a large tributary of the 
 Nile. The designs were drawn in London and submifted to Ameri- 
 can and British bidders, but when reviewed by the engineers on the 
 spot the plans were shown to be impracticable and telegrams were 
 sent the bidders asking how quickly they could make delivery of a 
 bridge according to new specifications. Owing to labor troubles, the 
 British firms could not guarantee delivery under six months and the 
 contract went to an American firm that agreed to put the bridge on 
 board the vessel in New York harbor in six weeks. The contract 
 was signed January 30, 1900, and in thirty-seven days the complete 
 bridge was turned out, five days ahead of contract time. The follow- 
 ing is an extract from General Kitchener's speech at the ceremony of 
 opening the -bridge : 
 
3^8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 " In November and December every effort was made to place the 
 order for the superstructure in England, but it was found impossible 
 for British firms to supply so big an undertaking in the time allowed. 
 This matter is one of considerable regret to me personally. I think 
 it demonstrates that the relations between labor and capital in our 
 country are not such as to give sufficient confidence to capitalists to 
 induce them to run the risk of establishing great up-to-date work- 
 shops with the plant necessary to enable Great Britain to maintain 
 her proud position as the first constructing nation in the world. 
 Well, gentlemen, where Englishmen have failed I am delighted to 
 find our cousins across the Atlantic have stepped in. The opening 
 of this bridge to-day is due to their energy and ability and the power 
 they possess in so marked a degree of turning out works of this mag- 
 nitude in less time than can be done by anyone else. I congratulate 
 the American foremen and workmen on the excellent success which 
 has crowned their efforts in the erection of this bridge in the heart of 
 Africa, far from their homes, during the hottest months of the year, 
 and depending solely upon the labor of men speaking a foreign 
 tongue. They have shown by their work the real grit they are 
 made of." 
 
 The New Bridge at Quebec. Quebec is to have a bridge of the 
 cantilever type crossing the St. Lawrence river. It will have a cen- 
 tral span of 1800 feet, which when completed will be the widest span 
 in the world, exceeding that of the Forth bridge by about 100 feet 
 and of the Brooklyn bridge by about 200 feet. The contract for the 
 bridge has been let to the Phoenix Iron and Steel Company of Phce- 
 nixville, Pennsylvania, and the structure is to cost $4,500,000. 
 
 Bridge building has been reduced almost to an exact science, 
 the last decade having seen great gains in this direction. The 
 greatest disasters, those of the Tay bridge and at Ashtabula, have 
 been shown by investigating committees to be due to faulty con- 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 369 
 
 struction that to-day would be recognized and at once corrected, and 
 bridges are now planned to carry from four to ten times the load 
 likely to be required of them. 
 
 A steel bridge made of good material, with the demands upon it 
 within a reasonable margin of safety, will last for centuries if the 
 steel is protected by coats of paint from corrosion. The popular be- 
 lief that a crystallization insidiously saps the strength of steel has no 
 foundation in fact, and is a fiction pure and simple. Steel protected 
 from corrosion can lose its life only by being strained beyond its 
 elastic limit, and if the bridge is designed so that none of the parts 
 are strained beyond this limit such a bridge will outlast most nations. 
 
 Some of the Longest Bridges in the World. The following is 
 a list, although incomplete, of some of the longest bridges in the world. 
 In general the lengths given include the approaches as well as the main 
 spans. 
 
 New Tay Viaduct, Scotland 10780 feet 
 
 Ohio River Bridge, Cairo, Illinois 10560 " 
 
 Forth Bridge, Scotland 8295 ' ' 
 
 Missouri River Bridge, Kansas City, Mo 7633 " 
 
 Hudson River Bridge, Poughkeepsie, N. Y 6770 " 
 
 Victoria Bridge, Montreal, Canada 6520 " 
 
 New Susquehanna Bridge, Havre de Grace, Md 6315 " 
 
 East River Bridge, Brooklyn 5989 ' ' 
 
 Cincinnati and Newport Bridge, Ohio River 59 2 5 ' ' 
 
 Wooden Bridge at Columbia, Pa 53^6 " 
 
 Cincinnati and Covington Bridge 53^o ' ' 
 
 Rapperswyl Bridge at Lake Zurich 5333 ' ' 
 
 Ohio River Bridge, Louisville, Ky 5280 ' 
 
 Volga Bridge, over the Sysrau, Russia 4947 " 
 
 Moerdyck Bridge, in Holland 4927 " 
 
 Dneiper Bridge, Jekaterinoslaw, Russia 4213 " 
 
 Kiew Bridge, over the Dneiper 3607 ' ' 
 
 Barrage Bridge, Delta of the Nile 3353 " 
 
 Kronprinz Rudolph Bridge, Vienna 3266 " 
 
 Dneiper Bridge, near Krementchoug, Russia 3 2 5 " 
 
 Bommel Bridge, over the Meuse, Holland 3060 " 
 
370 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 SKY SCRAPERS. 
 
 The closing decade of the nineteenth century witnessed a start- 
 ling revolution in architecture. Fifteen years ago the modern steel 
 
 skeleton building existed only in 
 the constructive imagination of 
 the most progressive architect. 
 Ten years ago it was just coming 
 into use. To-day it is so common 
 as to attract no attention. 
 
 Tall -buildings are almost as 
 old as architecture itself, but 
 the tall building that can be put 
 to practical use is a modern in- 
 vention. The base of the great 
 pyramid covers more than 13 
 acres of ground and its height 
 reaches 45 I feet. Ancient Rome 
 had tenement buildings 12 stories 
 high at the street front, 15 or 
 more at the rear, and these be- 
 came so dangerous that Augus- 
 tus limited their height bylaw to 
 60 feet on the street front. The 
 ruins of Pompeii show that the 
 height of some upper stones was 
 about 4 feet, 3 inches. Picture 
 the result of overcrowding in such 
 rooms in an age that knew noth- 
 ing of sanitary engineering! Nero's fire effectually wiped out the 
 most wretched of these buildings and he remodeled the plan of the 
 city, made wide streets in place of narrow alleys, and issued an edict 
 
 THE PARK Row BUILDING. 
 
HIGH BUILDING, STEEL SKELETON IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION, 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 3/1 
 
 that no house should be more than twice as high as the width of the 
 street on which it stood. 
 
 St. Peter's at Rome is a monument not only to the Apostle but 
 to the architectural skill and daring of thirteen centuries. It is so 
 enormous that figures fail to convey any adequate idea of its true 
 size. The distance from the doors to the apse is a little more than 
 y& mile. It is ^ mile from the pavement to the lantern in the 
 cupola, and the top of the cross is 476 feet above the pavement. 
 Eighty thousand people can be seated within this vast cathedral, 
 where 50,000 seem but a slim attendance. On the square, ellipse, 
 and steps in front of the cathedral an army of 200,000 men could be 
 drawn up in military order. Those employed in its decoration or 
 construction comprise some of the greatest names in painting, sculp- 
 ture, or architecture, and they have produced the most magnificent 
 church building in the world. 
 
 The highest building in the world composed of masonry is the 
 Washington monument, a plain shaft 500 feet high, 55 feet square at 
 the base, 30 feet square at the top, surmounted by a pyramidion 55 
 feet high, giving a total height to the monument of 555 feet from the 
 ground. But its walls are so immense and cumbersome that they 
 would never do in a building intended for practical purposes. Such 
 buildings are monuments upon which the world's great architects and 
 sculptors have written the records of their achievements, but this 
 utilitarian age has little use for monuments in business and the mod- 
 ern steel sky scraper that has risen in response to the demand for a 
 more concentrated office life is quite a different structure. 
 
 The tendency of mankind seems to be to gather within as small 
 working limits as possible. Even in the walled cities of the Middle 
 Ages space became so valuable that nearly all the houses were built 
 to the extreme height allowed by law, or until limited by the 
 strength of the materials then employed. Our complex civilization 
 
372 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 offers no exception to this tendency, in spite of all the arguments and 
 dangers attendant upon the concentration of a population. The con- 
 ditions exist and must be met. 
 
 The Reason for High Buildings. Time was when nearly all 
 business was transacted in scattered offices located in widely 
 separated stores, factories, or warehouses. The stores, factories, 
 and warehouses have grown larger, offices have been divorced from 
 them and grouped together in enormous buildings erected for that 
 especial purpose within large cities. The office is located where it 
 can be in closest touch with the greatest number of prospective 
 buyers. The factory or warehouse is located where the shipping 
 facilities are best and the running expenses lightest. It is usually 
 many miles from the office, often in another state or province, not 
 unfrequently in another country. By grouping the offices of 
 numerous different enterprises within a large city, time is saved, 
 business can be transacted much more satisfactorily, working hours 
 shortened, opportunity given for leisure and self improvement, vaca- 
 tions made possible, all to the benefit of the office using part of 
 our population. The business man at his desk in Ottawa can, with- 
 out leaving his office chair, talk with a customer in Washington. 
 The man in New York can communicate with London in the morn- 
 ing and get a reply before going to luncheon. 
 
 Better service can be given and the sanitary conditions made 
 better at less cost in a large building because of using larger, hence 
 more economical power, heating, lighting, and ventilating plants 
 than can be profitably maintained in smaller buildings. 
 
 One argument much used against tall buildings containing 
 enough population to make an average sized country town is that 
 they cause a great congestion in street traffic. Suppose two ar- 
 rangements of offices, one in which 500 offices are contained in five 
 buildings, the other having them all in one building. The represen- 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 373 
 
 tatives of these offices all doing more or less business with each other 
 must meet, and to get from office to office, use the street to get 
 from building to building. In the modern arrangement the repre- 
 sentatives of one office need not leave the building to visit every one 
 of the other 499 offices. Inasmuch as the representatives of various 
 allied industries tend to group themselves together in one building 
 or district, this is not a theoretical but a practical proposition, and it 
 needs no argument to prove that the big office building tends to re- 
 lieve rather than increase street congestion. The concentration of 
 office population shortens the distance from office to home and there- 
 fore shortens the average haul per passenger on street railway lines. 
 If this population were scattered over a large area, as in the old 
 style of office buildings, much valuable time would be lost in this 
 daily trip. The tall office building also increases the profit in operat- 
 ing street railways, because, while they serve the same number of 
 people, less power is required on account of the less average distance 
 traveled by each person. 
 
 Enormous Prices for Land. In the business and office districts 
 of our large cities ground is so valuable that, to get a fair income on 
 the investment, every inch of renting space possible must be utilized. 
 The boundaries of the building lot being fixed, the only way to in- 
 crease the renting space is to make the building taller. The ground 
 on which the Manhattan Life Building in New York stands was pur- 
 chased for $157.02 per square foot; and that under the American 
 Surety Building cost from $176 to $282 per square foot. Every inch 
 of land between King William's statue and Trinity square in London 
 cost over $150 per inch, or at the rate of $950,000,000 per acre. 
 Small wonder that the "skyscraper" shot up as soon as the in- 
 ventors had made steel strong enough to hold the structure together 
 and cheap enough to render its purchase possible. In the year 1880, 
 land in Cannon street, London, sold for $30 a square foot, but in 
 
374 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 i86 the same land could not be bought for $75 a square foot. The 
 rental of the corporation property in Liverpool in 1672 was only 
 $62, while to-day it furnishes a revenue of $62,500,000. In the 
 same city land was recently purchased at #1130 per square yard for 
 an addition to the Stock Exchange. Such enormous land values 
 rendered obsolete the building of four or five stories. They stimu- 
 lated the inventive faculty of the best engineers to devise a plan that 
 would give, in proportion to the ground area, the greatest floor space 
 consistent with the requirements of strength, ventilation, lighting, 
 heating, and protection from fire. Nothing less could enable such 
 an investment to pay a dividend. 
 
 Overcoming Difficulties. But many substantial, practical dif- 
 ficulties interposed themselves between the desirability and the 
 feasibility of tall buildings. Tenants do not like to climb long flights 
 of stairs. Their reluctance to do this called out that high speed 
 vertical railroad, the passenger elevator. This was not the only dif- 
 ficulty to be overcome, for if a building were made higher its walls 
 must be made thicker and stronger, to carry the added weight. Soft 
 brick will crush under a pressure of about 300 pounds per square 
 inch; ordinary brick under a pressure of 2500 pounds; the best 
 pressed brick, 7000 pounds; and granite, 20,000 pounds. The 
 builder has also to reckon with the disintegrating effects of frost, 
 heat, and moisture, and it is not safe to subject such materials in a 
 building to more than one tenth the strain they will resist in a test- 
 ing machine. The resisting power of the material practically limited 
 the high building to six, eight, or ten stories, for the lower walls 
 must be thick, almost solid, occupying much valuable renting space, 
 rendering large windows impossible and consuming enormous quanti- 
 ties of building material. For a time it seemed as though a city had 
 reached the limit of its growth in thickness and must expand in its 
 other dimensions, length and breadth. Masonry gave splendid op- 
 

 IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 375 
 
 portunity to make beautiful buildings, but architectural beauty is 
 rather a secondary object with the building speculator, when the 
 purchase price of his land would cover every square foot of it with 
 gold coin. He wants to make his building beautiful enough to at- 
 tract tenants, but his artistic aspirations are not wont to soar beyond 
 the point where the beauty of his structure will not add to the 
 revenue received from it. 
 
 Throughout all the history of invention it is noticeable that great 
 improvements come only in response to urgent need. The steel 
 skeleton method of building , solved the building problem, and the 
 improvements which greatly reduced the cost of steel made this 
 method practicable. As an example of the rapidity of this reduction 
 in price, steel beams delivered in Chicago in 1892 cost $64 per ton; 
 in 1894 the price under the same conditions was $30 per ton. Steel 
 furnished a building material which was both cheap and efficient and 
 by the use of which many of the old difficulties could be overcome. 
 
 Previous to 1885 cast iron had been used to a limited extent in 
 building, but it is at best a very unsatisfactory material except for 
 pedestal blocks and work of that class. Steel, costing only a trifle 
 more, will give the same strength with a much less weight and much 
 greater security, for it is not so liable to flaws and defects as cast 
 iron. 
 
 Wrought iron was used in some of the early skeleton frames, but 
 its inferiority in strength, weight, and stiffness to steel, and the 
 cheapening of steel, soon drove it out of use. The first American 
 building in which steel beams were exclusively used was the Science 
 Hall of the University of Wisconsin. In 1888 the first steel lintels 
 in a high building were used in the Tacoma Building in Chicago. In 
 the same city in 1889 steel columns were first used in the erection of 
 the Rand-McNally Building. Metal skeletons had not yet been en- 
 tirely depended upon and were largely experimental. But the result 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of the experiments were so satisfactory that in 1890 architecture un- 
 derwent a revolution and we can justly say that from that year dates 
 the era of steel buildings. 
 
 In a steel skeleton building the old order changes, yielding 
 place to new," for instead of the walls supporting the framework of 
 the building the framework supports the walls, and the latter need 
 be no thicker than are necessary for protection and fireproofing. The 
 walls of each story are supported not by the walls underneath but by 
 huge steel beams which are a part of the skeleton. The walls are 
 connected not at the bottom but at any point where it is most con- 
 venient and construction may begin simultaneously at three or four 
 different levels. Wall building in mid-air has an uncanny appearance 
 to the uninitiated. 
 
 St. Peter's required 1300 years for its completion, dating from 
 its first basilica, but our modern sky scrapers are often projected, 
 begun, and completed in a single year. In the sky scraper the base- 
 ment, cellar, or sub-cellar usually contains the machinery necessary for 
 the running of the building; the ground floor is occupied by stores 
 or large banking establishments, the second story by large offices, 
 those from the third story upward are made nearly alike, form the 
 main bulk of the building, and are the smallest offices, which deter- 
 mine the " unit" of construction. Above all comes the attic, an im- 
 portant part, for it contains many things essential to the welfare of 
 the house. 
 
 Calculating for a " Sky Scraper." The unit, usually deter- 
 mined by the size of one or the combined size of two or three 
 small offices, decides the floor plans, and in planning the building 
 two points must be ever kept in mind; first, strength; second, util- 
 ity. Columns necessary to the stability of the building are so dis- 
 posed that they will coincide with the walls and partitions as far as 
 possible, although in very large rooms their exposure cannot be 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 377 
 
 avoided without jeopardizing the strength of the building, which must 
 be maintained at all times. The architect plans the building from 
 below upward, and then beginning at the top works down to verify 
 his figures and calculate the exact weight of the building, or "dead 
 weight," which includes the steel work, the wall, partitions, floors, 
 woodwork, plumbing, machinery, and every permanent fixture in the 
 building. Each floor is calculated separately for no two floors ex- 
 actly agree. To the total dead weight a liberal amount is added as 
 a factor of safety. The "live weight," also added to the dead 
 weight, covers all movable articles, as furniture, books, safe, stock, 
 apparatus, used by the occupants of the building and the weight of . 
 the occupants themselves. The building laws of New York city fix 
 this at IOO pounds per square foot of floor space. This is far above 
 any live weight actually attained in practice, the heaviest loads in ' 
 Boston showing only 40.2 pounds per square foot, while the average 
 was slightly over 33 pounds. 
 
 The site of the proposed building is next examined, deep holes 
 bored if necessary to determine the material underlying. Bed rock 
 is the most satisfactory base, but it sometimes lies so deep that it is 
 not practicable to go down to it. Sand and gravel properly treated 
 make an excellent base and are often built upon. Many Chicago 
 buildings rest upon hard clay. The character of the ground being 
 determined, the foundation is planned to suit the existing conditions. 
 
 The problem of the foundation being out of the way, attention is 
 turned to plans for heating, lighting, power, plumbing, ventilation, 
 and, last but not least, the decoration of the building in such a man- 
 neras not to conflict with its utility, and all these details are worked 
 out before a single spadeful of earth is turned. The work of the 
 architect being finished that of the engineer begins. 
 
 Foundations. In a large city "excavation" means more than 
 merely making a hole in the ground, for the buildings erected in 
 
3/8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 years past are light when measured by modern standards, so their 
 foundations have been "floated" and rest on more or less soft earth 
 at the depth of only a few feet below the surface. When excavations 
 for the foundations of a sky scraper are made next one of these old 
 buildings, the earth swells out or "flows " at the side and unless pre- 
 vented the old foundation shifts and the building topples over. 
 
 The pneumatic caisson is one of the most satisfactory methods 
 of overcoming this difficulty. The caisson is a huge steel tank 
 turned bottom upward, and of such size that the area of its roof is 
 equal to that of the pier to be supported. All joints are made prac- 
 tically air-tight, the sides and the roof are strongly braced and in the 
 roof are cut two holes, the larger about 3 feet in diameter, in which 
 is fitted an upright steel tube of varying length. Within the tube is 
 an air lock, i. e., a chamber with two sets of doors opening downward. 
 Men from the outside enter the air lock by the upper door, close it, 
 the air is turned on until the pressure in the chamber is equal to that 
 of the caisson underneath, when the lower door is opened and the 
 men descend. In arising the process is reversed, a lock full of 
 compressed air being lost at each operation. The air lock also 
 affords an opportunity for the men to become accustomed to the 
 change of pressure, for it is highly dangerous for them to pass 
 directly from the high pressure within the caisson to the atmospheric 
 pressure without, and workmen are liable to attacks of caisson 
 disease, which often produces paralysis and even death. Through 
 the small hole in the roof, usually 4 inches in diameter, a vertical 
 pipe is passed terminating in a right-angled elbow about on a level 
 with the lower edge of the walls of the caisson. 
 
 The caisson is usually brought to the building site ready-made, 
 placed exactly over the spot it is intended to cover, and of its own 
 weight sinks a short distance. Workmen enter it and dig away the 
 earth underneath and hoist it out through the top; the caisson sinks 
 

 IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 3/9 
 
 until its roof is on a level with the ground. Then the bricklayers 
 begin and build on top of the caisson a pier of the same size. The 
 heavier the pier becomes the deeper the caisson sinks, the men inside 
 continually digging away underneath it that it may settle. The 
 bricklaying is all done on the ground level and there is no expense 
 incurred in hoisting or lowering this material. As soon as the same 
 depth as that of the adjoining foundations is reached the air lock is 
 closed and the work then begins under compressed air, which prevents 
 the shifting of the adjacent ground and the entrance of water. 
 When it becomes difficult to keep up an even pressure in the caisson 
 and remove the excavated material by way of the air lock the material 
 is pulverized and thrown in front of the mouth of the small pipe, a 
 valve in the pipe is opened, and the material literally blown out. 
 The operation of digging out below and building on above is con- 
 tinued until the desired depth is reached. When bed rock is struck, 
 if the rock is level nothing is done to it, but it usually slopes, and if 
 the slopes be gentle its face is roughened to prevent the material 
 resting upon it from sliding. If the slope is considerable the rock is 
 either cut to a level or into steps. The large tube and the small 
 pipe are continued upward as fast as the pier is built, and when the 
 caisson rests upon bed rock and the brickwork of the pier is finished, 
 the interior of the caisson and the pipe is filled with concrete and the 
 pier completed without disturbing in the least any of the surrounding 
 structures. The sinking of one caisson does not interfere with the 
 sinking of another one close by and one large air compressor can be 
 profitably employed to supply several caissons, thus saving expense 
 and time. 
 
 A foundation built on piles is frequently employed where the 
 bed rock is at a great depth and the weight to be supported not ex- 
 cessive. Piles are long straight timbers from 8 to 18 inches in 
 diameter and from 20 to 40 feet long. They support the weight 
 
380 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 resting upon them either by being driven through soft, yielding ma- 
 terial to hard strata underneath, in which case they sustain a verti- 
 cal pressure, or by the friction which their sides offer to the material 
 in which they are driven. 
 
 Sand piles are sometimes used in soft earth free from water. 
 These are made by siriking holes six or eight inches in diameter sev- 
 eral feet and filling them with sand, the sand being free to move. 
 The weight of the foundation resting upon it is distributed to the 
 sides as well as the bottom and if the soil underneath be kept from 
 spreading sidewise the foundation is a fairly good one. 
 
 Wooden piles driven under water will practically last forever. 
 Excavations in the Thames have brought to the surface in good con- 
 dition wooden foundations placed there in the fifteenth century and 
 a Viking ship of the tenth or eleventh century was excavated in Nor- 
 way in 1875 with its timber perfectly sound. 
 
 Steel grillage is often used in soft soil, as in that of Chicago. 
 The area of the foundation must be great enough so each square foot 
 will not be called upon to carry more than I y 2 or 2 tons. After 
 the excavation has been made a thick layer. of concrete is put in. 
 On this is placed a tier of parallel steel rails which have been heated 
 and dipped in hot asphalt or coal tar to protect them from rusting. 
 The spaces between the rails are tamped full of concrete, a second 
 tier of rails are laid on at right angles and the process repeated until 
 the desired depth has been obtained. 
 
 In big buildings it is essential that every inch of area be utilized 
 and the walls are therefore set exactly even with the boundary line. 
 But it would never do to rest all the weight of a modern sky scraper 
 on the outer edge of a foundation, for the latter would tip over 
 under its load. The cantilever (Figures I. and II.), so extensively 
 used in bridges, is here employed except that it is turned upside 
 down. The pier is built with its center some distance inside the 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 381 
 
 party line, and the wall does not rise on the pier but on the short 
 
 arm of the cantilever, for which the pier acts as a fulcrum. The 
 
 long arm of the cantilever is carried back 
 
 under the building and there helps support Yiel F' TT 
 
 central columns or is anchored to a central 
 
 pier. It can be truthfully said that the 
 
 walls of a modern building do not even rest 
 
 upon the foundation. 
 
 Many buildings extend several stories below ground and these 
 stones are usually filled with the machinery necessary for running 
 the building, but many of the spaces are coming to be used as barber 
 shops, restaurants, and offices. Such possess the advantage of an 
 equable temperature and freedom from noise and dust. It would 
 not be surprising if the next revolution in architecture consisted in 
 digging deeper into the earth instead of building higher into the air. 
 White glazed tilings for walls, electricity for light, steam for heat, 
 forced draft for ventilation, and an efficient elevator service render it 
 entirely possible. 
 
 The steel used in the skeleton of a sky scraper must be of good 
 quality and the building regulations of cities usually make provision 
 for its test, and the specifications of any important building are sure 
 to provide for it. In a general way the framework may be said to 
 be divided into two parts, the vertical and the horizontal. The 
 vertical part consists of columns ; the horizontal, of beams, girders, 
 and lintels. The steel work is not made solid, for that would be too 
 heavy and expensive, and greater strength in proportion to the 
 weight can be obtained by building up the columns from several 
 pieces. 
 
 Cross sections of three forms of column construction are repre- 
 sented by Figure III. The beams are usually rolled solid and the 
 form most commonly employed is the I beam, so called because its 
 
382 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 cross section is the shape of the capital letter " I." This form gives 
 the maximum strength with the minimum material. Columns are 
 made as long as the height of two stories and so arranged that they 
 will break joints at alternate floors, thus giving a much stiffer struc- 
 Bg.Hi. ture than if the joints were all 
 
 on the same level. The found- 
 ation piers are usually capped 
 by a thick granite pier stone 
 
 
 upon which is placed a huge 
 cast iron pedestal to receive and distribute the pressure equally over 
 the entire area' of the pier. On the pedestal is set the column base 
 made of steel and strong enough to support all the weight above. 
 All iron and steel work is carefully protected from moisture, usually 
 by giving it a coat of hot asphalt, and the steel work receives at least 
 two coats of protective paint. 
 
 Usually the framework of each floor is practically completed be- 
 fore that of the next is set up. The parts are hoisted to their places 
 by aid of derricks and bolted together until they can be riveted. It 
 speaks wonders for the accuracy of modern workshops that the steel 
 skeleton of a building can be planned in one city, manufactured in 
 another, shipped to and set up in a third, and the whole found to 
 accurately agree. As soon as the beams are in place the gang of 
 riveters take up their work. Numerous portable forges are located 
 at convenient places, the rivet is heated, tossed to the riveter, who 
 presses the trigger of a pneumatic hammer, and the rivet is headed 
 in an instant. 
 
 Wind pressure must be allowed for if the building is to exceed 
 75 feet in height. An allowance of 30 pounds is usually made for 
 each square foot exposed, a pressure sufficient to blow an empty 
 freight car off the track. 
 
 The rapidity with which the steel skeleton can be erected is as- 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 383 
 
 tonishing. The Fisher Building of Chicago has a frontage of 100 
 feet on two streets and 70 feet 6 inches on a third. The first piece 
 of structural steel was set in this, October 3, 1895, and nineteen 
 stories, including the attic, were put in position in 26 days, 5 days 
 being lost on account of bad weather. 
 
 As soon as the framework of a floor is set and riveted the work of 
 building the walls and the floor is begun at once, and by the time the 
 roof is on nearly all the walls and floors are completed and the fin- 
 ishers are at work in the lower stories. In some buildings the lower 
 floors have been finished and used before the roof was completed. 
 The capital invested, from which no return can be obtained till the 
 building is rented, renders the economy of time essential and the 
 work is so thoroughly systematized and skillfully planned that but 
 little time is lost. 
 
 Fireproof buildings do not exist if we are to understand by fire- 
 proof a building that cannot be injured by fire. Steel skeletons 
 under the influence of heat expand, lose their rigidity, and collapse 
 under their load. Special precautions are taken to construct the 
 building so that different divisions can be isolated. Fire resisting 
 floors are used, metal doors employed at frequent intervals along the 
 passages, the openings from one story to another made as few as 
 possible, apparatus within the building for fighting fire, all tending 
 to reduce danger. Tiling for floors of offices and corridors and alumi- 
 num or some other metal for finishings, in place of wood, reduce fire 
 risks. 
 
 The steel skeleton is protected by a layer (walls) of some incom- 
 bustible material, usually fire brick or terra cotta. Granite and 
 marble are not good fire resisting materials; under the influence of 
 heat marble crumbles into dust. Fire brick can withstand intense 
 heat, as witnessed by their use in iron and steel smelting. Terra 
 cotta, which is almost as good, is made by mixing fire clay with saw- 
 
384 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 dust and molding the mass when plastic into any desired form, for 
 intricate figures are easily molded from it and it has come to be 
 largely used in place of stone carvings in decorated buildings. When 
 molded, the terra cotta is subjected to an intense heat, which bakes 
 the clay and burns out the sawdust, leaving a light, strong, porous, 
 fire resisting material of the shape and size desired. The fire brick, 
 of which protective walls are made, are pressed in such shape that 
 they bond or interlock in the wall and are set in cement mortar which 
 hardens and becomes almost as strong as the brick itself. An air 
 space is left between the brick and the steel, for air is one of the 
 best nonconductors of heat. Fire brick are expensive and for a large 
 building may easily cost $50,000. 
 
 Fireproof floors have been the subject of numerous patents. The 
 general principle is about as follows. The parallel steel floor girders 
 are connected at right angles by lighter floor beams dividing the floor 
 space into regular rectangular spaces. These spaces must be covered 
 by the floor and over them bars are hung from beam to beam, or 
 arches are built of hollow fire brick to form a base on which a layer 
 of concrete coming 2 inches above the floor girders is spread, and on 
 the concrete are set wooden stringers to which the rough flooring is 
 nailed. On the lower edge of the beams a heavy horizontal wire 
 netting is hung to which is attached the metal lath which in turn 
 supports the plaster of the ceiling. The modern roof amounts prac- 
 tically to another floor. 
 
 Windows of Steel and Glass. All skylights and most exposed 
 windows are of glass, made with a network of steel wire pressed inside 
 it, so if the glass is broken the pieces do not fall out but stay in 
 place. The wire increases the strength of the glass and reduces the 
 danger of fire from exposed windows, but most windows are further 
 protected by rolling steel shutters or ironclad doors. 
 
 Spaces in the walls are left for steam pipes, gas pipes, electric wire 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 385 
 
 conduits, plumbing, and water pipes, as well as for the ventilating 
 system, all hidden away in the walls so that they may not take up 
 valuable floor space. The Manhattan Life Building has 10^ miles 
 of piping and 35 miles of electric wires. Electricity is generally em- 
 ployed for lighting and most large buildings have their power and 
 lighting plants. Steam heating is most satisfactory, and modern 
 buildings are now furnished with cooling systems so that not only is 
 the cold of winter kept out, but the heat of summer is made bearable. 
 
 The elevator or vertical railroad is the heart of the sky scraper 
 and through this channel flows several times each day the circulating 
 life of the building. Upon the efficiency of this system depends the 
 success of the building, for tenants do not like to climb stairs. Two 
 general systems of elevators are used, the hydraulic and the electric. 
 Very tall buildings have "way" and "express" elevators. One set 
 of elevators stops at each one of the first ten floors, another set makes 
 the first stop at the eleventh and stops at every floor up to the twen- 
 tieth ; the third will not stop until the twenty-first floor is reached 
 and will serve the floors above that level. Freight elevators are also 
 required, moving much slower but with a great lifting capacity. 
 
 The air cushion, one of the best safeguards against accidents 
 in the elevator service, has the bottom of the elevator shaft made 
 air-tight, into which the elevator fits closely, so if the cab falls it is 
 brought to a gradual stop by the cushion effect of the air in the bot- 
 tom of the shaft. Numerous safety devices have been invented in- 
 tended to grasp the guides at the sides of the shaft and stop the cab, 
 but serious accidents which occur from time to time show that the 
 system is not yet perfect. In "The Rookery," a modern office 
 building of Chicago, one of the first built and by no means the larg- 
 est, there are ten passenger elevators for the 3200 people in the 
 building. An account kept from day to day shows that from 22,000 
 to 2 3,000 passengers are carried, enough to make quite a respectable 
 
386 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 small city. " 'The Rookery' is a town within itself. It has in the 
 basement its own power plant, its own pumps, its own heating ar- 
 rangements, its own electrical service. It has its own carpenters, its 
 own painters, its own plumbers, and every mechanic necessary is em- 
 ployed in the building permanently. They start from the roof and 
 work down to the ground as regularly as the years roll on. By the 
 time they reach the ground itself, or the basement, the top of the 
 building is in a condition to need their work once more, and they 
 repeat the process, so that the building, after its twelve or thirteen 
 years of life, is practically as good as it was on the day it was built." 
 
 The Masonic Temple of Chicago has 20 stories, 14 elevators, 
 and rises 274 feet above the sidewalk. It was built in 1891 and cost 
 58 cents per cubic foot. The Ames Building of Boston, the highest 
 in l^ew England, has 13 stories and is 186 feet from the curbing to 
 the top of the cornice. Broad Street station of the Pennsylvania 
 railroad is the tallest business building in Philadelphia, being io 
 stories high in the tallest part and rising at one corner to a height 
 240 feet above the curbing. 
 
 The Pulitzer Building, the home of the New York World, when 
 built in 1890 was the tallest business building in the world. It is 15 
 stories high, cost $1,500,000 and measures 375 feet from the bottom 
 of its foundations to the top of the flagstaff. The following table 
 gives the number of stories and the height of some other famous 
 New York buildings: 
 
 Stories Height 
 
 Ivins Syndicate Building 39 { 3g feet to jorftop 
 
 Manhattan Life Building 17 j 24 ^ 
 
 St. Paul Building 26 308 
 
 Amerian Surety Building 23 306 
 
 American Tract Society Building 21 306 
 
 Empire Building 20 304 
 
 Commercial Cable Building 21 304 
 
 Bowling Green Building 19 272 
 
 New York Life Building 12 270 
 
 Central Bank Building 15 219 
 
 Waldorf-Astoria Hotel 16 214 
 
 tower top 
 roof top 
 tower top 
 
 6 inches 
 to tower top 
 
IRON AND STEEL WORKING. 387 
 
 The Boston South Terminal station occupies 3 5 acres of ground, 
 of which 13 acres is covered by the building itself. It seems but ap- 
 propriate that this structure, built to accommodate a traffic unknown 
 less than a century ago, should stand on made ground, for its whole 
 site was not so very long ago covered by the ocean. The train shed 
 is 602 feet long, 570 feet wide, and covered by one vast self-support- 
 ing roof, the trusses of which are of the cantilever type. The tracks 
 are arranged in two decks, the long distance traffic coming in at 
 ordinary level and the local traffic into the huge basement directly 
 underneath and having a double track loop so that incoming trains 
 may discharge their passengers, reload, and pass out without the 
 usual trouble of making up a train, such a gain that a train can be 
 discharged every minute. This two story arrangement of tracks is 
 an innovation and a great saving, for while it cost but 6 per cent, 
 additional to construct, it about doubled the capacity of the station. 
 
 The subway in which the local trains run is 7 feet below high 
 tide, and the floor of this huge basement, about 10 acres in extent, 
 is supported by 26,000 cedar piles, on top of which is placed a layer of 
 concrete and ten layers of tar paper, each layer separated by tar 
 compound. The whole is covered with an additional layer of con- 
 crete, making a water-tight floor nearly 3 feet in thickness. Around 
 the sides, to shut off the water, a sheet piling made of plank 40 feet 
 in length was driven, and the whole backed up by brick walls. The 
 whole structure rests upon piles, of which 43,000 were used. 
 
 Compressed air with electric control operates the 250 single 
 switches, the 37 double slip switches, the 283 movable frogs, and 150 
 semaphore signals. Two hundred signal lights are employed. The 
 building in its highest part is five stories high, the decoration of the 
 frontage and entrance rendering it not only imposing but beautiful. 
 About 750 trains arrive and depart daily, and in 1900 2i,OOO,OOO 
 passengers passed through its portals. 
 
3 88 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Some idea of the immensity of the structure can be gained from 
 the fact that 150,000 square feet of glass, in which is imbedded a 
 network of steel wire, was used for its roof. The wire not only 
 makes the glass stronger and better able to bear up under loads of 
 snow and ice but renders it possible to make it much lighter, a con- 
 siderable item when the weight of the whole roof is taken into con- 
 sideration. Sixteen million bricks were used in the structure and 200 
 acres of surface required painting, and the putty alone, 200 tons, 
 weighs more than the fleet with which Columbus discovered America. 
 
 This station, costing $12,000,000, takes the record for the largest 
 one on the continent from St. Louis, and is probably the largest in 
 the world. 
 
 NICKEL. STEEL INGOT CAST FOR THE TUBE OF 126-TON GUN. 
 Manufactured for the United States Army by the Bethlehem Steel Co. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Evolution of Armor and the Different Processes Contest between Armor and Gun 
 Projectiles Evolution of the Metallic Cartridge Evolution of the Rifle Evolution of 
 the Revolver Automatic Pistols Evolution of the Modern Cannon The most Power- 
 ful Gun in the World Rapid Fire and Machine Guns Evolution of the Modern War 
 Ship " Constitution " Compared with the " Oregon " Classes of Ships and the Work 
 for which Each is designed Torpedoes Submarine Boats Military Explosives 
 Smokeless Powder and Its Influence on Modern Warfare Cordite Lyddite Gun 
 Cotton Nitroglycerin Explosive Gelatin. 
 
 T 
 
 'HE "Massacre of Sinope"called 
 attention to the necessity of 
 armor to keep out the destructive 
 explosive shell which not only pene- 
 trated the ship's side but burst into 
 fragments, killing and wounding 
 those in its vicinity, while the 
 powder charge which it contained 
 set fire to everything inflammable. 
 Then began a battle royal between 
 
 the gun maker and the armorer with first honors for the armorer. 
 The first thin plates of wrought iron armor were plainly superior 
 to the gun. 
 
 In the famous battle between the " Monitor " and the " Merri- 
 mac," the armor of neither ship was penetrated, and some of the 
 American monitors employed in the Civil War received a great num- 
 ber of hits without being much damaged; Weehawken 187 hits, Mon- 
 tauk 214 hits. It was the gun maker's turn next and he produced a 
 rifle cannon firing a long heavy cast iron projectile instead of a round 
 shot. This penetrated the plate and scored the first victory for the 
 gun. The armorer, seeing he must defeat the projectile by breaking 
 
39 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 it up, welded a steel face over his wrought iron plate and produced 
 " compound armor." The British warship Inflexible is to-day carry- 
 ing 24 inches of compound armor. Her name is well chosen but it 
 would be better if her armor were more elastic, for the development 
 of the Palliser cast steel shot with a " chilled" point broke up com- 
 pound armor. 
 
 The Siemens process of steel making rendered large masses of 
 steel available for the armorer and it was used in place of iron. The 
 gun maker replied with the steel projectile. Then came the addition 
 of three per cent, to five per cent, nickel to the armor, making it 
 tough and less likely to crack, only to be met in turn by a projectile 
 to which chromium had been added, making it even tougher. 
 
 The Harvey process was the armorer's reply. It consists in 
 placing the face of the steel armor on^a layer of charcoal, covering 
 the other side with a bed of sand, and subjecting the whole mass to 
 intense heat for from five to twenty-seven days. The carbon from 
 the charcoal penetrated the face of the armor an inch or an inch and 
 a quarter and rendered it extremely hard, while the back of the armor 
 retained all the toughness of the original steel. Armor then scored 
 a decided victory, for Harveyized armor was easily superior in thick 
 plates to twice, and in thin plates to two and a half times, its thick- 
 ness of wrought iron. 
 
 The gun maker had not been idle but had called to his assistance 
 the powder maker, and smokeless powder took a hand in the contest. 
 This did not give such a severe strain to the breech of the gun and 
 so required less metal there, and the gun maker applied the weight 
 thus saved to the muzzle, changed the length of his gun from 30 cal- 
 ibers to 50 calibers, and with the progressive burning smokeless 
 powder raised the velocity of, his projectile and gave it a greater 
 penetrating force. Meanwhile the armorer was not resting on his 
 laurels. He was building enormous steel hammers, annealing, re- 
 
fc 
 
 D 
 
 o 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 39! 
 
 forging, and tempering his armor, thereby materially improving its 
 resisting power. 
 
 As an example of the expense connected with the manufacture of 
 vast quantities of steel armor, the Bethlehem Steel Company bought 
 of the Canet Company of France the right to use certain secret 
 methods of armor making and built a 125-ton steam hammer, the 
 largest one ever made, to reforge their armor. A comparatively 
 recent improvement, called the Krupp process, has rendered this 
 hammer obsolete and the investment a loss, for the armorer goes 
 back a step farther and applies enormous hydraulic pressure to his 
 steel while it is in a molten state. 
 
 To-day the short gun is obsolete and the speed of the projectile 
 has been raised from 2000 feet to 3000 feet per second. The 
 armorer has made it possible to give protection by thin armor to 
 about all parts of the ship and has produced armor an inch of which 
 is equal to 3.35 inches of wrought iron. On the proving ground, 
 where armor and guns are tested under the most favorable conditions, 
 the gun is able to penetrate the best armor, but the conditions of the 
 proving ground are not those of battle. For example, by inclosing 
 the hardened point of his projectile in a soft steel cap the gun maker 
 increased his penetration 15 to 20 per cent. The armorer claims 
 the steel cap is of advantage only when the shot strikes at nearly 
 a right angle, and that at a greater angle, instead of being an aid, 
 it is a hindrance. 
 
 The gun maker has derived great assistance from smokeless 
 powder, but the recent armor made by the Carnegie Company accord- 
 ing to the Krupp process, for the Russian battleship built by the 
 Cramps Company, showed great resisting power. A high English 
 authority says : " Our 12-inch gun perforates 36.8 wrought iron at 
 the muzzle, but our best gun would hardly cut through the actual 
 barbette plates of this ship. We should prefer to attack such a 
 
392 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ship elsewhere with common shell." If the fine, sharp point of the 
 projectile can be preserved it . renders the penetration of an armor 
 plate much easier. If the face of the armor plate can be hardened 
 until it will break up the point of the projectile it has achieved its 
 purpose. 
 
 Capped or soft-pointed shot are popular in America ; not so 
 abroad. The cap is a piece of soft steel placed over the point of the 
 shot with a layer of lubricant between them. On striking the armor 
 the cap dishes it to its elastic limit and the shot passes through the 
 cap aided by the lubricant and attacks the plate after the cap has 
 
 pushed it as far as it will 
 spring, and the plate has left 
 only the local resistance. The 
 cap further aids by tending 
 to hold the steel in the pro- 
 jectile point together as the 
 hoops about a barrel hold the 
 staves. 
 
 Projectiles for modern can- 
 non are known as common shell, 
 armor -piercing shell, and shrap- 
 nel. 
 
 Common shell are made of 
 cast or drawn steel with thin 
 walls so they will hold a large 
 bursting charge. Finegrained 
 
 black powder, rifle powder, is preferable as an explosive charge if 
 used against woodwork, as it sets fire to it. Common shell are used 
 against earthworks, buildings, or unarmored sides of ships. They won 
 the victory at Santiago for "if a ship can be set on fire, riddled with 
 small shot, driven to surrender in a few minutes by the attack of ex- 
 
 FORGED STEEL COMMON SHELL. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCItNCE. 
 
 393 
 
 Weight of 
 Shell 
 
 Weight of 
 Bursting Charge 
 
 I lb. 
 
 250 grains 
 
 3 Ibs. 
 
 600 
 
 
 3 Ibs. 
 
 900 
 
 
 6 Ibs. 
 
 145 
 
 
 33 Ibs. 
 
 2 lb 
 
 
 50 Ibs. 
 
 3 
 
 
 100 Ibs. 
 
 3/^ 
 
 
 250 Ibs. 
 
 10 
 
 
 500 Ibs. 
 
 3 
 
 
 850 Ibs. 
 
 60 
 
 
 850 Ibs. 
 
 36 
 
 
 uoo Ibs. 
 
 5 
 
 
 plosive shell on her upper structure, the protection of her so-called 
 vital parts has availed her nothing. This [Santiago] indicates the 
 great value of shell fire attack against ships which afford an opening 
 for it." The following table gives weight of common shell and usual 
 bursting charge: 
 
 Gun 
 
 i-pdr. and 37 mm. R. C. 
 47 mm. R. C. 
 
 3-pdr. 
 
 6-pdr. 
 
 4-in. 
 
 5-in. 
 
 6-in. 
 
 8-in. 
 ic-in. 
 
 i2-in. Cast Steel 
 i2-in. Forged Steel 
 i3-in. Forged Steel 
 
 On armor-piercing shell have been lavished the greatest care and 
 the best mechanical ingenuity 
 of the age. They are made 
 of the best steel with special 
 alloys, are reforged, annealed, 
 tempered with acids, tempered 
 in gas, capped with a soft 
 nose ; in short, every improve- 
 ment that the ingenuity of 
 man could devise has been ex- 
 pended upon them. The point 
 is made extremely hard and 
 the walls about the point 
 heavy, growing thinner tow- 
 ard the base. The interior is 
 
 bored out, to relieve the internal tension caused by forging, temper- 
 ing, etc. An armor-piercing shell is expected to penetrate soft steel 
 
 FORGED STEEL ARMOR-PIERCING SHELL. 
 
394 TH E MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 without losing its point or being materially deformed. The cavity 
 is closed by screwing into the base a steel plug. To insure a tight fit 
 in the gun a groove is cut around the base of the shell and into this 
 a copper band is forced by hydraulic pressure. The shell is made 
 nearly the exact diameter of the bore of the 'gun and the copper 
 band somewhat larger. When driven by the explosion of the pow- 
 der up into the bore of the gun, the copper, being soft, is forced into 
 the grooves of the rifling, forms a gas-tight joint so the hot powder 
 gases cannot 'escape, and as the projectile travels through the bore 
 of the gun the copper band clings to the grooves and the lands of 
 the rifling and gives the spinning motion to the shot which prevents 
 it from tumbling end over end in its flight. The walls are so strong 
 and the cavity so small in a shell designed to pierce heavy armor 
 that the small charge of gunpowder it would hold is not likely to 
 burst the shell. Some high explosives like jovite or gun cotton must 
 be used if it is to carry an explosive charge. A single armor-piercing 
 shell may easily cost from $300 to $500. 
 
 Shrapnel shell are named after their inventor, Lieutenant Shrap- 
 nel of the British army, who brought them out about the beginning of 
 the nineteenth century. Shrapnel are made of cast steel with thin 
 walls, the cavity filled with small leaden balls, packed in sulphur inclos- 
 ing a small bursting charge of powder. Shrapnel is used against boats 
 and exposed bodies of men, and the bursting charge is intended to 
 explode before reaching the target, scattering the balls and driving 
 them forward. The sulphur is used merely to hold the balls in place. 
 Shrapnel is not very effective against men in trenches, but it makes 
 them keep their heads down and so prevents a return rifle fire. 
 Common shell are more effective on trenches than shrapnel, but men 
 are not much more apt to be hit in firing position than when lying 
 down, hence common shell do not keep down return rifle fire. 
 Common shell loaded with lyddite were largely used in South Africa 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 395 
 
 but high explosives seem to waste the most of their energy in tear- 
 ing the shell into very small bits, and lyddite shells were a disappoint- 
 ment. Against masses of men on open ground shrapnel is a partic- 
 ularly destructive charge. 
 
 Fuses. All shells may be exploded by a fuse either at the nose 
 or at the base. The general classes are time and percussion fuses. 
 A time fuse can be set so as to explode the bursting charge at any 
 time after leaving the gun ; percussion fuses are exploded whenever 
 the projectile strikes an obstacle. Time fuses for shrapnel may be 
 set at thirds of seconds up to fifteen seconds. Many styles of fuses 
 are used and their action is too intricate to be described within the 
 limits of this book. 
 
 The Gathmann shell, invented by Louis Gathmann of Chicago 
 for firing gun cotton as a bursting charge, is made with a strong head 
 and thin walls; the copper band is placed at the junction of the 
 head and body of the shell instead of at the base, and the base is 
 closed by a movable gas-tight plug or piston. When the gun is dis- 
 charged the pressure drives the base plug against the gun cotton, and 
 so the pressure within the shell balances the pressure on the outside 
 and allows thin shells to be used, giving room for a larger bursting 
 charge. The theory was not verified in the test for the shell burst 
 before leaving the bore and wrecked the gun. 
 
 A special gun was ordered to further test the theory, which 
 assumes that large quantities of powerful explosives bursting against 
 a ship will wreck it. The experiments do not bear out the theory. 
 A shell with thin walls certainly cannot penetrate any considerable 
 thickness of armor, and 307 pounds of wet gun cotton lying right 
 against a sample of the Kearsarge side armor was exploded and only 
 burned the face of the plate a little. Chickens were placed at vary- 
 ing distances. One 43 feet away was struck by a piece of the shell and 
 killed, but its feathers were not blown off; one just the other side of 
 
396 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the armor plate was not hurt at all. It was evident the explosion 
 would have had no effect on an armored vessel or the crew within it. 
 
 The destructive effects popularly ascribed to high explosives 
 have not been realized. In 1871, at the Stowmarket Gun Cotton 
 Works, England, 27,000 pounds of dry gun cotton exploded. The 
 noise of the explosion was heard for 30 miles, the shock was felt for 
 7 miles, yet a man standing on the railway 76 yards from the maga- 
 zine was blown over a hedge, stripped of all his clothing, but un- 
 injured. 
 
 Experiments with shells exploded in wooden boxes show that 
 high explosives seem to waste much of their energy in tearing the 
 shell into small bits. In general, then, a shell charged with gun cot- 
 ton would break into the greater number of pieces and kill and wound 
 more men, and the shell charged with gunpowder would break into 
 larger pieces, which would cause more destruction to neighboring 
 structures. Gunpowder also sets fire to anything inflammable, gun 
 cotton does not. 
 
 The ablest authorities at present hold that gun cotton as a burst- 
 ing charge has no advantages over gunpowder commensurate with 
 the increased risk attendant upon its use. Further, it is not safe to 
 fire with as high velocity projectiles charged with gun cotton, which 
 means for them an increased trajectory and less chance of hitting 
 the target. 
 
 Energy of Gun Fire. Two English writers, Lord Brassey and 
 Admiral Colomb, each independently introduced in 1896 a new stand- 
 ard for measuring gun power of vessels, i. e., " energy of gun fire 
 per minute." The power of the gun is the force its projectile exerts. 
 This force is termed energy and is measured by the number of tons 
 it could lift one foot at each discharge, hence called foot-tons. The 
 32-pound carronade of Nelson's time had a velocity of 750 feet and 
 its spherical shot an energy of about 125 tons. The new 1 2-inch 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 397 
 
 naval gun has a velocity of 2854 feet and its 85O-pound projectile a 
 muzzle energy of about 48,000 tons; i. e., the force with which the 
 projectile leaves the gun would be sufficient to lift that many tons 
 one foot. Such is the progress of a single century. The new 4-inch 
 rifle cannon has a projectile weighing 32 pounds, the same weight as 
 that of the old carronade, but will penetrate as great a thickness of 
 wrought iron at 1200 yards as the old carronade could penetrate of 
 wood at its muzzle. 
 
 Velocity in foot-seconds means the number of feet a projectile 
 flies in a second. Its rate of speed at the muzzle of the gun is 
 called muzzle velocity. Sound travels 1 100 feet a second, and a 
 bullet from the best modern cannon almost three times as fast as 
 sound. There are several reasons why high velocity is desirable. If 
 the target is in motion a swift moving bullet will reach it before it 
 has time to move far. All projectiles are deflected somewhat by 
 currents of air, and the projectile that flies a given distance in the 
 shortest time is deflected less than one moving slower. 
 
 The Penetration increases almost as the Velocity. It is a good 
 "rule of thumb" that a projectile will pierce its caliber of wrought 
 iron for each thousand feet of its velocity. For example, a 4-inch 
 projectile moving a thousand feet a second would pierce a plate of 
 wrought iron 4 inches thick. The same projectile moving two thou- 
 sand feet a second would pierce a plate 8 inches thick. The greater 
 the velocity the flatter the path of the projectile. 
 
 The Trajectory. The path in which the projectile travels is called 
 its trajectory. A great deal of misinformation exists on this point, 
 as well as confusion, as to the term " point blank." Projectiles are 
 subject to the same force of gravitation as all other matter, and the 
 "law of falling bodies " is operative here as elsewhere. If a pro- 
 jectile is in the air one second the force of gravity will cause it to 
 fall 161*2 feet, and instead of moving in a straight line from the 
 
398 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 muzzle of the gun to the point where it strikes it moves in a curve, 
 i. e., at its highest point, 16 T V feet above that straight line. If its 
 flight occupies two seconds of time its curve will be greater, for 
 gravity will then cause it to fall 48 j{ feet, and the bullet at the high- 
 est point in its flight will be 48^ feet above a straight line drawn 
 from the muzzle of the gun to the point where it finally strikes. 
 This curve is so great that at long ranges the marksman must be a 
 good judge of distance or he will shoot over or under his target. 
 
 Explosives, no matter how powerful, cannot suspend the force of 
 gravitation. They can only make the bullet travel faster and so in a 
 flatter curve. 
 
 Danger space is that part of the path in the flight of the bullet 
 that is neither too high nor too low to strike the target. It is evi- 
 dent then that a man standing where the bullet reaches the ground 
 might be wounded in the feet; standing nearer to the gun he might be 
 wounded in the head. The distance from the point where he would 
 be struck in the feet to the point where he would be struck in the 
 head is termed the "danger space." The higher the velocity, the 
 straighter the path of the ball and the longer the danger space, and 
 smokeless powder, by giving a higher velocity, has increased the 
 danger space and rendered it less necessary for the gunner to be a 
 correct judge of distance. 
 
 Rifling is the term applied to the spiral channels cut in the bores 
 of modern small arms and cannon. The ridges of the metal within 
 the base are called lands, the channels are called grooves. The lands 
 cut into the projectile as . it passes through the bore, force it to 
 rotate as it follows the spiral of the lands and give it a spinning 
 motion when it leaves the gun. Elongated shot are preferable to 
 round because they offer less resistance to the air in proportion to 
 their weight. If an elongated shot were fired from a gun with a 
 perfectly smooth bore the shot would go tumbling end over end like 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 399 
 
 a club thrown from the hand, but if caused to spin rapidly as it 
 leaves the bore it can be kept point first in its flight. 
 
 Shooting with rifles for prizes was practiced at Leipsic as long 
 ago as 1498. A Swiss edict of 1563 prohibited rifling because it 
 caused quarrels among contestants at shooting matches. Old rifles 
 show that many were cut with grooves, so rifling was probably con- 
 sidered an aid in overcoming the difficulties of fouling caused by 
 burnt powder and its value in preserving the point on flight of long 
 projectiles not recognized until later. The process as applied to can- 
 non is a comparatively recent one, dating from about the middle of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 The Lancaster guns of England, which preceded the guns of 
 Armstrong, instead of having a bore that was round, made the bore 
 elliptical and twisted it to give the rotation to the projectile. The 
 Whitworth rifling was an hexagonal bore twisted, with projectiles to 
 fit. It was an improvement and accurate, but expensive to make. 
 Lord William Armstrong was the first to successfully apply the pres- 
 ent system of rifling to cannon. Armstrong's first gun was a breech 
 loader with projectiles made of lead. Lead proved too soft and the 
 projectiles were changed to cast iron covered with lead. This not 
 giving satisfaction they were made of cast iron with studs or projec- 
 tions on them to fit into the grooves of the rifling, but when fired 
 the studs broke up and the shot jammed and ruined the gun. 
 
 Compression Band. An American later brought forward the 
 copper band now used about the base of the projectile and success 
 was assured, for the band answered two purposes; it made the pro- 
 jectile slightly larger than the bore and being of soft metal was forced 
 into the grooves of the rifling and gave the spinning motion to the 
 projectile, while at the same time it made a gas-tight joint between 
 the projectile and the bore of the gun and kept the powder gases 
 from escaping until the projectile had left the gun. Rifling has 
 
400 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 made possible the use of projectiles with a length five or six times 
 their diameter. 
 
 Evolution of the Metallic Cartridge. In the flintlock musket 
 a piece of flint held in the hammer was made to strike against steel 
 so arranged that the resulting sparks fell upon powder within an 
 appendage on the outside of the gun called the pan, and the flame 
 was communicated from the pan to the powder charge within the 
 bore. The device was clumsy, misfires were frequent, and the gun 
 was useless in storms of rain or snow. The chemist was called to 
 the aid of the soldier and showed him how to get fire from fulminate 
 of mercury, " formed by the action of a solution of mercury in nitric 
 acid on ordinary alcohol. It consists of very fine lustrous gray crys- 
 tals which, when dry, are extremely sensitive to all kinds of shock 
 and explode violently when struck, heated, rubbed, or pressed be- 
 tween hard surfaces." It was known to chemists long ago, but it 
 remained for Bayen, army physician to Louis XV., to make known 
 in 1774 its explosive qualities. Inventors at once began to experi- 
 ment with it. Colonel Pauly of the French army in 1808 produced 
 a cartridge containing the fulminate of mercury for its ignition. By 
 1818 the metal cap had been perfected. Percussion locks soon came 
 into use and the piece of flint was discarded. 
 
 Cartridges were probably invented by the French, who wrapped 
 the bullet and powder in a piece of paper and dispensed with the 
 cumbersome powderhorn, leaving the cartridge to be ignited by per- 
 cussion. In 1836 Lefrancheux, a French inventor, perfected a car- 
 tridge containing the bullet and the powder charge inclosed within a 
 paper shell. The base of the shell was of metal inclosing a cap, and 
 a small brass rod ran from the cap to the hammer of the gun. The 
 rod, struck by the hammer, exploded the cap, which ignited the 
 powder charge. By 1853 Flobert had perfected the small breech cap 
 which bears his name, and a little later an Englishman, Ely, improved 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 40 1 
 
 upon the cap by filling it with gunpowder; but it was left for the 
 Americans to bring the metallic cartridge to its present high state of 
 perfection. 
 
 The Smith and Wesson Company, the manufacturers of the fa- 
 mous revolvers of that name, patented in 1854 the first central fire 
 metallic cartridge containing the cap, the powder charge, and the 
 lubricated bullet. This was used in their revolvers and was soon 
 made applicable to all small arms. Prior to the metallic case the 
 leakage of gas in breech-loading small arms had been a serious defect, 
 but the metallic cartridge shell made the best kind of a gas check 
 and overcame the difficulty. The process has grown until fixed am- 
 munition is made for rapid fire cannon as large as the 6-inch gun 
 with its hundred pounds projectile. In fact it made possible the 
 rapid fire cannon and the machine gun, without which the battleship 
 would be at the mercy of the torpedo boat. 
 
 " Prior to the Civil War all inventive thought was concentrated 
 on the gun as the primary factor. But when the center-fire metallic 
 cartridge was developed presto ! Science had put on its seven 
 leagued boots. The change to the breechloader took place at a 
 bound." 
 
 Importance of the Cartridge. " The ordinary notion is that 
 powder and ball are mere accessories to the gun ; that the gun is the 
 all-important and substantive thing, while the cartridge is a minor in- 
 cident. So all-prevailing has this idea been in times past that even 
 the most expert have not only been influenced by it, but sometimes 
 governed by it. The truth is the opposite. The cartridge is primary 
 and antecedent, the gun secondary and consequent." * 
 
 The Evolution of the Rifle. In primitive times the weaker man 
 must have shunned encounter at close quarters with a stronger an- 
 
 * Historical Sketch of the Ordnance Department, U. S. A., Major C. E. Dutton, 
 U. S. A. 
 
402 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tagonist, and if " necessity is the mother of invention," the need of 
 something to equalize his powers stimulated him to develop weapons 
 that would kill at a distance. As his mechanical ingenuity developed 
 he passed from throwing stones and clubs to the spear and the sling, 
 and the bow and cross bow may not improperly be styled the early 
 ancestors of the modern rifle. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, at a match held in England in 1792 
 between the long bow and the flintlock musket of the day, the long 
 bow carried off the honors for accuracy at 100 yards. During the 
 American Revolution it was once seriously proposed to arm part of 
 the soldiers with bows and arrows because they were cheaper than 
 muskets, could throw projectiles faster, and were nearly as accurate. 
 
 The " Brown Bess " was a famous flintlock musket introduced 
 by William of Orange into the English army and used for a century 
 and a half. With it Wellington won his victories and the British 
 troops were armed with it until after the accession of Queen Victoria 
 to the throne. It must have required a man of some courage to fire 
 it without flinching, for the bullet was ^ of an inch in diameter, 
 weighed more than an ounce, and the charge was four and a half 
 drams of powder. The cumbersome flintlock with which it was 
 equipped allowed the priming powder within the pan to get wet, 
 which rendered the gun useless in rain storms. Hence we see the 
 peculiar aptness of Cromwell's famous injunction, " Trust in God but 
 keep your powder dry." Further, it was some time after the trigger 
 was pulled before the powder charge exploded and that rendered ac- 
 curate holding and shooting difficult. Small wonder that officers ex- 
 horted their men to wait until they could see the whites of the eyes 
 of their opponents before firing. Probably the old musket had a 
 penetration of two or three inches of wood, and in those days a rail 
 fence or a haycock made a breastwork not to be despised, while an 
 antagonist at 200 yards distance was comparatively safe. With the 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 403 
 
 musket about one shot a minute could be fired and the necessary ac- 
 companiment of a soldier was a powderhorn, a bullet pouch, a ram- 
 rod, some wadding, and a piece of flint. The powder had to be 
 turned into the gun, the bullet and wadding rammed down, the 
 cover of the pan lifted, priming powder poured in, the trigger pulled, 
 and the gun held on the .mark until the charge exploded. In wet, 
 drizzly weather the gun was useless as a firearm and became simply 
 a " good handle to a bayonet." Indeed the bayonet was a weapon 
 largely relied upon in those days. 
 
 To-day, the powderhorn, the bullet pouch, and the flintlock 
 hang on the wall as curios or are found only in museums, preserved 
 as mementos of the past. The modern soldier has a breech-loading 
 magazine rifle that can kill a man at two and a half miles. The piece 
 of flint has given place to a few grains of fulminate of mercury in a 
 brass shell containing both the powder charge and the bullet. His 
 ammunition may be soaked in water without affecting its efficiency 
 and can be used in all kinds of weather. He is able to fire his rifle 
 so rapidly that he cannot carry ammunition enough to last him an 
 hour, and instead of two or three inches of wood affording protec- 
 tion to an enemy an ordinary tree in the forest is unable to do so, 
 for his gun has a penetration of from 30 inches to 60 inches of 
 wood. Bayonet charges in massed bodies are figures of speech or 
 figments of the imagination. To attempt one would be suicide. 
 The extreme range and great accuracy of the gun are fast turning 
 the bayonet into a trowel for intrenching purposes. The new rifle 
 has rendered a change in battle formations necessary. British 
 grenadiers have been known to charge in such perfect alignment that 
 a cannon ball has knocked the muskets out of the hands of nearly a 
 whole file.. To-day such tactics would be simply murder, and 
 charges are made in short rushes, a few men at a time springing up, 
 running a few yards and throwing themselves flat on the ground to 
 escape the deadly fire. 
 
404 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Smokeless powder in long range rifles has rendered it possible 
 for a comparatively small number of good marksmen under cover to 
 inflict terrible loss upon opponents forced to attack in the open, as is 
 evidenced by the late South African war. So deadly has rifle fire be- 
 come that it may cause the adoption of bullet proof shields large 
 enough to afford protection for a man's head and shoulders when 
 lying prone. Such shields of steel plates an eighth of an inch thick 
 have already been made in England for the Japanese navy. 
 
 The modern rifle has come up step by step until it is a weapon 
 of extreme precision, for chance has been eliminated until it now 
 plays but a small part ; and what is progress but the elimination of 
 chance? 
 
 The limits of this article will allow only a brief mention of the 
 most prominent types in the development of modern small arms. 
 Firearms were regularly introduced and issued to the English army 
 in 1471, and for centuries the smooth bore was preferred to the rifle 
 because, although not so accurate, it could be more readily loaded, 
 for it was difficult to drive down a close fitting round ball in a rifle 
 after it had been fired a few times without cleaning. Napoleon en- 
 deavored to improve the musket and detailed Colonel Pauly for that 
 purpose, who in 1812 designed a breechloader with the swinging 
 block. This was pronounced too complicated. Dreyser, who had 
 worked in Colonel Pauly's shop, brought out in 1836 a gun which 
 had a bolt driven by a spiral spring in place of a hammer. From it 
 the Prussian needle gun was evolved and the needle gun was the par- 
 ent of the bolt guns of to-day. 
 
 Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, in 1798 began 
 the manufacture of muskets for the United States. He undertook 
 the work at the special request of Thomas Jefferson, secretary of 
 state of Washington's cabinet. The improvements he made in con- 
 nection with that work have perhaps been as beneficial to mankind 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 405 
 
 as his more famous invention. It was he that devised the system of 
 hardened patterns, called jigs and templets, by which cutting tools 
 are guided to make all pieces of work alike. It is by means of this 
 system that the parts of all high grade machines are made inter- 
 changeable. " In presenting his views to Mr. Jefferson in reference 
 to the feasibility of making all arms interchangeable, Mr. Whitney 
 met with the most violent opposition, both English and French 
 ordnance officers ridiculing the idea as an impossibility, and claiming 
 that each arm would be a model and would cost, at least, one hun- 
 dred dollars." Whitney proved his system practicable. " The Eng- 
 lish War Department was forced to adopt the same system, and put 
 it to practical use in 1855 by importing a large amount of American 
 machinery. Since that date other European governments have 
 adopted the same general system, which is made specially necessary 
 in the proper manufacture of breech-loading small arms. The ad- 
 mirable series of inventions used in this system of Mr. Whitney's 
 remains now, like the cotton gin, the same as when first invented, 
 no practical change taking place in eighty years, notwithstanding the 
 inventive genius which has been at work during that period of time. 
 No patents have ever been taken out for the Whitney inventions, but 
 they have been freely given to the public, and have saved the United 
 States government large sums of money by lessening the cost, and 
 perfecting the manufacture and repairs of firearms." * 
 
 The Springfield Arsenal was opened in 1800, Whitney's sys- 
 tem established, and the manufacture of the Springfield musket com- 
 menced, modeled after the French Charville flintlock. In fact, 
 until the needle gun came out French models in firearms were 
 everywhere pretty generally followed. 
 
 In 1811 the United States issued a patent to John H. Hall of 
 North Yarmouth for a breech-loading rifle, and in 1816 one hundred 
 
 *" American Inventions." General Norton. 
 
 - 
 
406 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of these were made and issued to the army. This is worthy of note 
 as being the first breech-loading rifle issued to any military body. 
 It was used with great success in the Black Hawk and Seminole 
 wars, and one special and significant advantage claimed for it was 
 that the parts were interchangeable. This seems to have stimulated 
 American inventors, for prior to 1860 more than two hundred patents 
 had been granted for breech-loading small arms, and, with the excep- 
 tion of the needle gun, good authorities have claimed that every arm 
 of a breech-loading system used in Europe is of American origin, 
 many being of American manufacture. Indeed, in 1878, Mr. James 
 Lee, an American inventor, submitted to an army board a plan for a 
 solid or detachable magazine underneath the receiver of the gun. 
 Prior to this all magazine guns had carried the cartridges under the 
 barrel or in the stock. Mr. Lee's gun was in so crude a state that it 
 could not be tested at that meeting, but made a favorable impres- 
 sion. It was patented in the United States and Europe. The idea 
 found favor in 187.9 Abroad anc j ^ j las come back to us under such 
 foreign titles as Mauser, Mannlicher, Krag-Jorgensen, etc. 
 
 The Minie Ball. Between 1840 and 1850 Captain Minie in- 
 vented the bullet of that name. It consisted of a hollow base with 
 an iron cap which, being driven in by the force of the explosion, ex- 
 panded the base of the bullet and made it fit the rifling. The Brit- 
 ish government paid him ,20,000 for his invention and rifles 
 became pretty generally adopted as military arms. 
 
 In 1853 the Enfield Rifle appeared in England. It was a com- 
 posite gun embodying the good points of all submitted by the com- 
 petitors who had hoped to have their models adopted. It was fairly 
 accurate up to 600 yards, which at that time was considered a very 
 long range. This gun is especially interesting because when issued 
 to the native troops of India it caused the mutiny of 1857- The 
 ball and powder being inclosed in a greased paper the natives were 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 407 
 
 led to believe that the lubricant was made from cows' and pigs' 
 grease for the especial purpose of defiling all good Hindoos and 
 Mohammedans. "The Hindoo regards the cow with religious ven- 
 eration, and the Mohammedan looks upon the hog with utter loath- 
 ing. In the mind of the former, something sacred to him was pro- 
 faned ; in that of the latter, something unclean and abominable was 
 forced upon him." 
 
 In 1842 Prussia adopted an improvement of Dreyser's gun and it 
 afterward became famous as the Prussian needle gun, and it is 
 popularly credited with having been largely responsible for the suc- 
 cess of Germany in her war with Napoleon III. In this model the 
 hammer was discarded and a bolt resembling an ordinary door bolt 
 with a needle-like projection took its place. The bolt closed the 
 breech of the gun and was actuated by a heavy coil spring. The 
 cartridge was made of strong paper and contained the powder charge 
 and bullet. At the base of the bullet was a patch of detonating 
 powder. When the bolt was drawn back it compressed the coil 
 spring. When the trigger was pressed the bolt propelled by the 
 spring shot forward, driving the needle through the charge of 
 powder and striking the fulminate at the base of the bullet, which in 
 turn ignited the powder charge. The bolt guns of the present are 
 improvements of the needle gun. 
 
 In the Franco-German War of 1870 the Prussian needle gun 
 was opposed to the French chassepot. A special interest is at- 
 tached to the latter for it has been charged that Napoleon III. made 
 a mistake in selecting it as a national arm and that its defects were in 
 a large measure responsible for his defeat and downfall. It was a 
 bolt gun with a bullet weighing 380 grains, propelled by 85 grains of 
 powder. It had an extreme range of 1800 yards, which may have 
 been the reason why it was selected, but even at TOO yards it was in- 
 ferior to the Prussian needle gun in accuracy. In the face of the 
 
408 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 successful use of metallic cartridges in the American Civil War, the 
 cartridge employed by Napoleon was a weak paper one and when 
 pushed into place by the bolt the walls frequently broke up and the 
 cartridge exploded prematurely. No lubrication was provided for 
 the bullet and after firing a few rounds it was often difficult to get a 
 new cartridge into place. 
 
 In England, Sir Joseph Whitworth applied his peculiar style of a 
 six-sided projectile fitting in a bore of the same shape to small arms. 
 At the first meeting of the " National Rifling Association," July i, 
 1860, Queen 'Victoria opened the tournament with a shot at 400 
 yards from a Whitworth rifle, resulting in a bull's eye within an inch 
 and a half of the center. The rifle was considered accurate but too 
 expensive. 
 
 The American Civil War strained the resources of the North to 
 the fullest extent, and never before had a large army such a curious 
 medley of weapons, and the confusion arising from the use of so 
 many kinds of ammunition was serious enough. At the close of the 
 war there were over twenty different kinds in service. 
 
 The Sharps rifle was one of the best and 100,000 of them were 
 used. It was invented in 1848 by Christian Sharps, was improved, 
 until, about 1857, it appeared as about the first practical breech- 
 loading rifle. It was used in the Kansas struggle, where it was highly 
 esteemed for the rapidity and accuracy of its fire. From it eight or 
 ten shots per minute could be fired, making a regiment armed with 
 it equivalent to two or three times their number armed with muzzle 
 loading guns. It was a single loader. 
 
 The Spencer, patented in 1860, appears to have been about the 
 first successful magazine gun. The stock was hollow and contained 
 a tube running from the butt plate to the lock mechanism. This 
 magazine would hold nine cartridges, and a spiral spring at the butt 
 forced them one at a time up to the lock mechanism as needed. The 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 409 
 
 bullet was half an inch in diameter and weighed an ounce. The arm 
 could be fired seven times in ten seconds and was used with great 
 success in the Civil War. It was considered that men armed with it 
 were equal to five or six times their number armed with muzzle 
 loaders. When first used in battle it aroused great interest, the 
 Confederates saying in joke that the Federals loaded all day Sunday 
 and fired the rest of the week. 
 
 The Springfield rifle, adopted by the United States after the close 
 of the Civil War, was several times improved until its manufacture 
 was discontinued in 1892 upon the adoption of the Krag-Jorgensen. 
 It is a single shot breech loader with a caliber of .45, an extreme 
 range of 3500 yards and a velocity of 1300 feet with a 512 grain lead 
 bullet. Thirty-four shots can be fired with it in two minutes. The 
 objection to the gun is its heavy recoil and high trajectory, making 
 the " danger zone" shorter, but beyond a thousand yards it has a 
 striking force greater than any of the high velocity small bores, and 
 at that range the wounds inflicted by it are more severe. Fitted 
 with a smokeless cartridge it has been used in the Philippines and 
 there preferred by some officers to the Krag. 
 
 The Krag-Jorgensen rifle was invented by Colonel Krag, chief of 
 ordnance of Norway. The United States pays him a royalty of 
 $1.00 on each gun. This is a 5-shot magazine gun of .30 caliber; 
 weight of bullet, 220 grains; powder, 40 grains; extreme range, 
 4000 yards; muzzle velocity, 3000 feet. The bullet is a steel shell 
 filled with lead to give it weight. The gun is accurate and can be 
 used as a single loader, holding in reserve, for an emergency, the five 
 shots in the magazine. The wounds made at short range by all small 
 caliber guns of high velocity are frightful. As the range increases 
 and the bullet loses its velocity the wound becomes a small clean 
 puncture. 
 
 To-day all the armies of the great powers are equipped with 
 
410 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 small bore high velocity rifles. There has been a steady decrease in 
 caliber from the .75 Brown Bess musket to the .70 Minie, .57 En- 
 field, .50 Spencer, .45 Springfield, .303 Lee-Metford, .30 Krag, .275 
 Mauser, .236 Lee Navy. The latter caliber is too small and the 
 United States navy has adopted the one used by the army. 
 
 The grooves of the early rifle had only a slight twist and the 
 large caliber bullets were made of lead hardened with tin or anti- 
 mony. With the introduction of more powerful charges and increased 
 velocity it was necessary to increase the fwist from the one turn in 
 22 inches of the Springfield, to the one turn in 10 inches of the Krag, 
 to preserve the end on flight of the bullet. It then became necessary 
 to cover the bullet with a metal stronger than lead to hold to the 
 rifling and now a thimble-like shell of cupro-nickeled steel is pretty 
 generally used with the inside filled with lead to give it the required 
 weight. The rifles of the different nations are so equally matched 
 
 THE K RAG-JORGENSEN U . S. RlFLE CONTRASTED WITH OLD FLINT LOCK. 
 
 that any decided improvement in the cartridge of one might easily 
 render that weapon superior in range, penetration, velocity,- and ac- 
 curacy to all the others. Any of them will penetrate, at a short dis- 
 tance from the muzzle, from 40 to 60 inches of pine boards and from 
 one half inch to an inch of wrought iron. Although very accurate 
 shooting cannot be expected of any of them beyond 1000 yards, 
 
THE I7TH CENTURY. 
 
 THREE BARRELED ITALIAN FLINTLOCK REVOLVER LOADED WITH LOOSE POWDER 
 
 AND BALL. 
 
 This weapon had to be primed each time it was fired and the barrels turned by hand. It was unserviceable 
 in wet weather and had an effective, although not accurate, range of about 50 yards. 
 
 THE 20TH CENTURY. 
 
 THE LATEST MILITARY REVOLVER OF THE SMITH AND WESSON COMPANY. 
 
 This weapon uses fixed ammunition, can be fired faster than a shot a second, and is effective and accurate at a 
 greater distance than were the muskets with which Wellington defeated Napoleon. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 411 
 
 most of them have an extreme range of at least two miles, with suf- 
 ficient remaining energy to kill at that distance. 
 
 The following table shows the rifles used by the principal powers 
 of the world. They are all bolt guns using bullets covered with a 
 metal patch ranging in hardness from copper to steel: 
 
 
 
 
 Cartridges 
 
 
 
 Country 
 
 Name of Gun 
 
 Caliber 
 
 in 
 
 Sighted 
 
 Muzzle 
 
 
 
 
 Magazine 
 
 to 
 
 Velocity 
 
 Austria- Hungary 
 
 Mannlicher 
 
 315 
 
 5 
 
 2133 
 
 2II 5 
 
 Belgium 
 
 Mauser 
 
 3 OI 
 
 5 
 
 2190 
 
 I 9 68 
 
 Canada 
 
 Lee-Enfield 
 
 33 
 
 10 
 
 2900 
 
 22OO 
 
 China 
 
 Lee 
 
 303 
 
 
 22OO 
 
 24OO 
 
 Chili 
 
 Mauser 
 
 2 7 6 
 
 5 
 
 2400 
 
 2285 
 
 France 
 
 Lebel 
 
 3'5 
 
 8 
 
 2l87 
 
 2I9O 
 
 Germany 
 
 Mauser 
 
 3" 
 
 5 
 
 2242 
 
 2IOO 
 
 Great Britain 
 
 Lee-Metford 
 
 33 
 
 10 
 
 2900 
 
 2200 
 
 Italy 
 
 Carcano 
 
 256 
 
 6 
 
 2IOO 
 
 2320 
 
 Japan 
 
 Muratta 
 
 3i5 
 
 8 
 
 2800 
 
 I9OO 
 
 Mexico 
 
 Mo n dragon 
 
 256 
 
 8 
 
 2603 
 
 2362 
 
 Russia 
 
 Mannlicher 
 
 299 
 
 5 
 
 2500 
 
 
 Spain 
 
 Mauser 
 
 276 
 
 5 
 
 22OO 
 
 2285 
 
 Turkey 
 
 Mauser 
 
 301 
 
 5 
 
 2190 
 
 I 9 68 
 
 United States 
 
 Krag-Jorgensen 
 
 300 
 
 5 
 
 2200 
 
 2300 
 
 Although the first practical working revolver was invented and 
 brought out within the memory of men now living, the idea itself 
 is half a thousand years old. A cut is shown of an Italian revolver 
 of the seventeenth century and revolving firearms are even centuries 
 older than this. The pistol shown in the cut has three barrels turn- 
 ing about a central pivot. The barrels were turned by hand and a 
 spring catch held them in the proper position for firing. The ap- 
 plication of the idea appeared toward the close of the fourteenth 
 century and was so much in advance of its time that it had to wait 
 five centuries for the metallic cartridge to be invented to complete 
 its efficiency. 
 
 It remained for a Connecticut Yankee, Colonel Samuel Colt, to 
 make his name a household word and bring out in 1835 the 
 
4 I2 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 practicable revolver that could be used, having a cylinder that 
 revolved when the hammer was drawn back. In the first Colt 
 revolver the six chambers were bored nearly through 
 the cylinder, nipples for percussion caps screwed in, 
 and the chamber loaded with powder and ball. So 
 popular was the arm that in ten years from Janu- 
 ar)', 1856, more than half a million had been sold. 
 11 Mr. Samuel Colt, on August 2, 1830, shipped as 
 a sailor on the ship Carlo from Boston to Calcutta, 
 and on this trip made the first model of his revolv- 
 ing pistol." His English patent was issued De- 
 cember 8, 1835, an d his United States patent Feb- 
 ruary 25, 1836. The first revolver, called the 
 " Texas " pistol, was a .34 caliber with a concealed 
 trigger, and so popular in Texas and Mexico that 
 they were often sold for $100 each. 
 
 The chambers of the Colt revolver, as 
 remarked, were not bored entirely through 
 the cylinder, and it took the inventive genius 
 of the age another twenty years to remove 
 the last quarter inch of metal. 
 Rollin White finally accomplished 
 this and to him a patent was issued 
 April 3, 1855, for a cylinder open 
 from end to end. White had in- 
 tended to load each chamber with 
 powder and ball, close the rear 
 end with a wad having a hole in 
 its center for the fire from a per- 
 COLT'S FIRST REVOLVER. cussion cap fixed on the frame to 
 
 pass through and ignite the powder charge. The said fire had an 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 413 
 
 inconvenient way of passing to more than one chamber at once and 
 his plan was not a success. Smith and Wesson secured his patent 
 and in 1860 produced the first practicable metallic cartridge revolver 
 ever made. Their revolvers are unexcelled in accuracy, quality of 
 material used, and beauty of finish. 
 
 The Smith and Wesson and the Colt revolvers are easily the best 
 in the world. The larger models of either of these will in the hands 
 of an expert make a better target at 200 yards than the Springfield 
 rifle in the hands of the average militiaman. Many difficult mechan- 
 ical problems are encountered in the manufacture of the revolver, for 
 the joint between the cylinder and the barrel can never be made gas- 
 tight, and it is difficult to always bring the chamber of the cylinder 
 into perfect alignment with the bore, at the moment of firing. Al- 
 though the principle on which the revolver is built is thus defective, 
 it is surprising to see how closely mechanical ingenuity has ap- 
 proximated the ideal and produced a weapon that is deservedly pop- 
 ular. 
 
 Automatic Pistols. The automatic pistol made its appearance 
 not long after the automatic machine gun. The first were the 
 Mannlicher and the Mauser, each patented in the United States in 
 1897. These have the magazine underneath the barrel, in front of 
 the trigger. They use smokeless powder and metal jacketed bullets, 
 have a high velocity and great penetration with an extreme range of 
 more than half a mile. The gas pressure at each discharge furnishes 
 the power to eject the shell, reload the weapon, and cock the piece 
 ready for another shot. The heavy trigger pull, which seems a nec- 
 essary accompaniment of these pistols, is not conducive to extreme 
 accuracy; they are essentially military arms and have not the ex- 
 treme accuracy of target pistols and revolvers. They are widely used 
 by officers of the German army and to some extent by those of the 
 British. 
 
414 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The automatic Colt pistol, a later pistol of American invention, 
 is of the Browning patent, manufactured in France by a French com- 
 
 * 
 
 pany and in America by the Colt Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing 
 Company of Hartford, Connecticut. This weapon is made in two 
 calibers, .38 and .32, using a special rimless cartridge with a jacketed 
 bullet. In the larger caliber it has a muzzle velocity of about 1300 
 feet per second and a penetration of about n inches of pine. The 
 magazine is in the grip and contains seven cartridges, and the seven 
 can be fired in if seconds. The arm is remarkable for its extreme 
 
 COLT AUTOMATIC PISTOL. 
 
 simplicity and the small number of parts, and 
 is probably as accurate as the average military 
 revolver. To operate the weapon the slide 
 covering the barrel is drawn back and a spring 
 returns it to its former position. These move- 
 ments cock the weapon and insert a new 
 cartridge. A pull of the trigger releases the hammer and discharges 
 the piece. A slight portion of the recoil is utilized to eject the 
 cartridge, cock the piece, and load a fresh cartridge in position ready 
 for firing. Each discharge leaves the weapon ready for firing as long 
 as there is a cartridge in the magazine. The pistol is provided with 
 safety devices that insure safety in handling. The manufacturers 
 have apparently considered it wise to fit it with a fairly heavy trigger 
 pull until the public become accustomed to it. 
 
 Evolution of the Modern Cannon. The first appearance of can- 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 415 
 
 non is enveloped in the gloom of the Dark Ages. Some of the ear- 
 liest cannon were made of bars of iron held together by hoops, much 
 like the staves of a barrel. All of the earliest forms were crude 
 in the extreme, were not mounted on carriages, and were rolled 
 about like saw logs. When in action the breech rested on the ground, 
 the muzzle was propped up with blocks. After the application of 
 trunnions or arms to cannon, the date of which is uncertain, they 
 could be mounted on wheels, moved, and aimed. 
 
 OLD CANNON OF GORDON'S BATTERY, SEVASTOPOL. 
 
 Moors Introduce Artillery. There is evidence to show that the 
 Moors were the first to introduce cannon into Western Europe and 
 they are said to have been employed against Saragossa, A. D. 1118. 
 Cannon were used by Henry III. of England against the Duke of 
 Gloucester in 1267, by the Spaniards against Cordova in 1280, and 
 the expense account of Edward III. of England (born 1312, died 
 1377) shows that cannon were used in his wars. Ferdinand IV. of 
 Spain used cannon when he captured Gibraltar in 1309. 
 
 Nelson's Flagship. In few things does the progress of the cen- 
 tury show more marked improvement than in military arms. The 
 Victory, Nelson's flagship, the most famous of British men-of-war, 
 carried thirty 42-pounders and 32-pounders, thirty 24-pounders, 
 
416 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 forty 12-pounders and two short 68-pounder carronades. All these 
 guns were simple cast iron tubes. They were placed on clumsy 
 wooden carriages mounted on low wooden wheels or trucks. The 
 breech of the gun was purposely left heavy and the gun elevated or 
 depressed by prying up the breech with handspikes and putting a 
 wedge-shaped block of wood under to hold it in the right place. 
 The same handspikes moved the entire carriage about to point the 
 gun left or right. The recoil was not controlled, only limited, by a 
 stout rope called a breeching running through a ring in the end of 
 the cannon, the ends being tied to ring bolts in the ship's side. 
 'Each time the gun was fired it recoiled as far as the breeching would 
 permit, was then loaded and by means of tackle and handspikes 
 shoved back into place for another shot. Mechanical progress had 
 not reached the stage where it could give a close fit to the bore of 
 the gun and the projectile. The latter, simple, round, cast iron, 
 solid shot, taken just as they came from the foundry, frequently 
 fitted so loosely that if the muzzles of the guns were depressed they 
 would fall out, and a roll of the ship might leave half the guns of a 
 broadside loaded only with the powder charge. When fired, the 
 loosely fitting shot went bounding from side to side through the bore 
 of the gun, and the side by chance hit last determined the direction 
 of its flight. The range was so short and the guns so inaccurate 
 that Nelson, in 1801, reported adversely on a plan to put sights on 
 them, saying, " I hope we shall be able to get so close to our enemies 
 that the shot cannot miss the object." Every operation was per- 
 formed by the simple and direct application of manual labor and 
 fourteen men comprised a full gun crew for a 32-pounder. To-day, 
 aided by modern appliances, twelve men will man two 1 3-inch guns 
 in the turret of a battle ship handling guns and carriages weighing 
 180 tons and steel shell weighing 1 100 pounds. 
 
 " Constitution's" Guns. The most powerful gun on the famous 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 417 
 
 Constitution was a 32-pounder, not differing materially from those on 
 Nelson's ship. It appears to have cost about $375, which would just 
 about pay for one forged steel armor-piercing shell, weighing iioo 
 pounds for a modern 1 3-inch rifle. The extreme range a century 
 ago was about three miles. To-day the extreme range of the 16- 
 inch rifle is over twenty miles and the cost of firing it once is $865. 
 
 Even fifty years ago the long 68-pounder was about the best gun 
 and its cast iron spherical shot could strike a blow at 1000 yards 
 equivalent to 452 tons. To-day the blow from the shell of a 16- 
 inch rifle is equivalent to 88,000 tons, and a bursting charge may be 
 carried with it sufficient to wreck the machinery of the stoutest bat- 
 tle ship afloat. It will be interesting to note the principal steps in 
 military progress leading up to this modern giant. 
 
 Evolution of the Modern Gun. Military service owes a large 
 debt to Gribeauval, chief of the French artillery in 1765. At that 
 period field guns were so rude and heavy as to now seem almost 
 worthless. He reduced their weight and made it possible to move 
 them about ; among other numerous improvements he fitted the shot 
 to the bore more accurately, thus increasing the gun's range and 
 rendering it far more effective. His system, adopted in 1774, made 
 the French artillery of the next generation superior to any in the 
 world. Napoleon himself was an artillery officer of the Gribeauval 
 school. 
 
 Prior to 1812 hollow shot filled with an explosive to burst the 
 shell into pieces and increase its destructive effect had been fired 
 only from mortars. These were short guns throwing a shot high into 
 the air with the expectation of its falling upon or near the target. 
 Colonel Bomford in 1812 devised a long-chambered gun by means of 
 which shells were fired directly at the object. This was called a 
 " columbiad." The idea was not further developed in America, 
 but General Paixhans, a celebrated artillerist of France, brought up 
 
418 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 in the school of Napoleon, carried the idea further, and in 1819 per- 
 fected it. Explosive shells from Paixhans guns used at the Siege of 
 Antwerp, 1832, were effective. Paixhans was an engineer of great 
 merit and much in advance of his time. He advocated the applica- 
 tion of steam and armor to battle ships. Critics of other nations rid- 
 iculed his plans mercilessly, saying, " He jumps to the conclusion 
 that steam vessels having begun by being servants to the line of bat- 
 tle ships will in the end become their masters." " His suggestion of 
 vessels shielded with iron to afford security against the effects of 
 shells fired horizontally, only shows that speculative theoretical ideas 
 when exerted in pursuit of a favorable object may be carried so far 
 as to refute themselves." 
 
 Progress Arrested. Paixhans had tried his guns on the hull of an 
 old ship and his own countrymen believed in him so much that in 1830 
 the French had nine steamships armed in part with Paixhans' new 
 guns. By 1850 the gun had progressed as far as the mechanical skill 
 of the age would permit. In 1844 a 1 2-inch wrought iron gun 
 burst on board the United States war ship Princeton, killing the Secre- 
 tary of State, the Secretary of the Navy, and several others. The 
 material was proved defective, but iron makers at that time could not 
 produce wrought iron in large quantities that would sustain the shock 
 of fine grained powder. Rodman removed that difficulty. 
 
 In the fifties Krupp, the famous gun maker of Germany, and Lord 
 William Armstrong of England, each tried to make steel guns. 
 Lord Armstrong has said that it was only after eight trials that he 
 was able to find a piece of steel weighing 350 pounds and 6 feet long 
 that did not develop flaws when boring it for a gun of 1.88 inches 
 caliber. The art of steel making was at such a low state that he 
 was " obliged to accept the fact that steel was not yet ripe enough 
 for the process of gun making, and was compelled to use wrought 
 iron." 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 419 
 
 Rodman and Initial Tension. To General Rodman is due the 
 discovery of the principle of initial tension. Molten iron or steel in 
 cooling tends to cool first on the outside and leave hollows and flaws 
 in the center (see " Piping" under Steel Manufacture) causing in- 
 ternal stresses within the mass. General Rodman conceived the idea 
 of casting the gun hollow and cooling it from the inside. It worked 
 well and the Rodman cast iron gun was the best of its kind in the 
 world. There is now in one of the parks of Brooklyn a Rodman 
 gun with a 2O-inch bore. 
 
 Steel manufacture improved somewhat with the Bessemer proc- 
 ess and gave large masses of steel from which guns with a steel tube 
 clasped by wrought iron bands were made. The Siemens Open- 
 Hearth Process of steel making, giving yet larger ingots, made it pos- 
 sible to use steel for the whole gun. 
 
 Our present cannon is made upon the " built-up" principle and 
 consists of gigantic steel tubes or hoops expanded by heat and 
 shrunken over each other. The principal parts are the tube, a hol- 
 low steel forging extending the full length of the bore ; the jacket, 
 covering about two fifths of the tube ; the jacket hoops, shrunken 
 over the jacket ; and the chase hoops, shrunken over that part of the 
 tube in front of the jacket. 
 
 Principle of Initial Tension. This method is an application of 
 Rodman's idea of initial tension. Suppose a half dozen hoops were 
 placed one within another and fitting closely. An expansive force 
 exerted within the inner hoop would burst it before much stress fell 
 upon the next hoop and the stress being delivered from one to an- 
 other successively, hardly more force would be required to burst all 
 the hoops than to burst any one. Suppose another arrangement of 
 the hoops, by which the inner hoop is clasped by the second and the 
 second clasped tighter by the third, and so on to the outer one. The 
 expansive force then exerted within the innermost hoop must be suf- 
 
420 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ficient to burst all of them combined. The built-up gun is based on 
 that principle. "It is generally conceded that no possible thickness 
 can enable a cylinder to bear a continual pressure from within greater 
 on each square inch than the tenacity of a square inch bar of the same 
 material; that is to say, if the tensile strength of cast iron be 12 tons 
 per square inch, no cast iron gun, however thick, could bear a charge 
 which would strain it beyond that point ; for on the first round the 
 interior layer would be ruptured before the outer portion could come 
 into play, and every succeeding round would tend to make matters 
 worse/'* 
 
 The Steel in a Gun must be of the Best Quality. In battle the 
 gun may be hit by projectiles ; in firing, the rifling will be subjected 
 to enormous stress, and the gases formed by the exploding powder 
 have a destructive effect upon the steel. The United States uses 
 steel made by the " Siemens Open-Hearth Process," subjected to the 
 Whitworth process of fluid compression. When the steel is melted 
 it is poured into a strong cylinder and subjected to hydraulic pres- 
 sure, which squeezes out the gas or air bubbles within the casting 
 and makes the metal much denser and devoid of flaws. Severe tests 
 of the metal are made, and it must stand pressure of from 46,000 to 
 50,000 pounds to the square inch, without a permanent change in form. 
 In its test for tensile strength it must stretch at least 15 per cent, be- 
 fore giving way under a stress of from 70,000 to 100,000 pounds to 
 the square inch depending upon the part of the gun for which the 
 steel is to be used. The "tube" is cast solid, then bored and a 
 heavy steel shaft (mandrel) passed through on which the tube is sub- 
 jected to hydraulic pressure or hammer forging to enlarge and elon- 
 gate it. It is then roughly finished, tempered in oil, and sent to the 
 gun factory. Tempering makes the steel tougher, adds to its ten- 
 sile strength, and makes it more elastic and harder. Upon arriving 
 
 * Ingersoll " Text Book of Ordnance and Gunnery." 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 
 
 421 
 
 at the factory the tube is put into an enormous lathe and turned to 
 exactly the required diameter, then placed upright in a pit adjoining 
 a furnace wherein the jacket is to be heated. The jacket is carefully 
 bored out until its inner diameter is slightly smaller than the outer 
 diameter of the tube. It is placed within a chamber, where it is 
 heated by air blown through a white hot furnace burning crude oil. 
 It is subjected to this for about twenty-nine hours until its tempera- 
 ture is raised to about 600 F. It is carefully measured to see that 
 it is expanded enough to go over the tube, seized by a powerful 
 crane, raised, swung and lowered over it at about the rate of a foot 
 a minute until it clasps the rear part of the tube and extends back of 
 it far enough to form the s'crew 
 box which is to contain the 
 breech mechanism. When in 
 the desired position, the interior 
 of the gun is cooled by streams 
 of water circulating through the 
 bore. When thoroughly cool it 
 is replaced in the lathe, the other 
 parts carefully turned to a new 
 diameter and the other hoops 
 shrunk on. Each process is ex- 
 pensive and requires the great- 
 est care and highest skill. 
 
 The breech of the gun is 
 closed by a steel plug threaded 
 and screwed in. The accompany- 
 ing cut shows a Weling type of 
 breech mechanism for a 1 2-inch 
 
 gun. The inner part of the jacket that projects over the rear of the 
 tube is cut away into a series of steps, as shown in the illustration, 
 
 BREECH BLOCK. CLOSED AND OPEN. 
 
422 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and in all but the deepest of these screws threads are cut. The 
 breech plug has a corresponding series of steps and threads. There 
 are three blank places in the screw box and three on the breech 
 plug. When the plug is swung into position coinciding with the 
 bore of the gun, it can be pushed directly into the screw box, and 
 when given a turn of one twelfth its diameter, the threads of each 
 step of the breech plug interlock with the threads of the next higher 
 step of the screw box and the breech is securely closed. 
 
 Reference to the cut shows the breech plug with a round head 
 and a dark ring separating it from the threaded portion. The head 
 is a mushroom-shaped piece of steel and is allowed a slight to-and- 
 fro motion. The dark ring is a pad composed of 65 parts of asbes- 
 tos and 35 parts of pure mutton tallow. The explosion within the 
 powder chamber forces back the steel mushroom against the pad, 
 which under pressure is forced out at the sides and forms a gas-tight 
 joint that prevents the escape rearward of the gas from the powder 
 chamber. 
 
 The Weling system is an improvement over the old styles that 
 cut away half of the threaded portion, for it gives a greater bearing 
 surface and allows a lighter breech plug, easier to handle, requiring 
 but one twelfth of a turn to unlock and affording a material gain in 
 rapidity of action of loading. 
 
 The earliest cannons were breechloaders, but the system was 
 discarded because the mechanical art of the age was not equal to 
 producing, a gas-tight joint. The modern mechanism is the product 
 of the last half century. The gun is fired through a vent in the 
 mushroom stock, and either a friction primer or an electric firing 
 apparatus can be used. 
 
 The most Powerful Gun in the World. On April 7, 1900, at 
 the Watervliet Arsenal, a record breaking feat in mechanical engineer- 
 ing was performed and the jacket shrunk upon the most powerful 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 423 
 
 gun in the world and one that is likely to hold that record for a long 
 time. The shrinking was a most delicate operation. The gun, with- 
 out jacket, weighed 102,000 pounds, the jacket 76,000, and the dif- 
 ference between outside radius of the gun itself and inside radius of 
 the jacket after heating was only six one hundredths of an inch. To 
 lift the 34-ton mass of hot steel out of the furnace, swing it up over 
 the gun and lower it safely into position was not an operation to be 
 attempted by novices. Any inequality in heating, an error of the 
 merest fraction of an inch in measurement, or the least variation of 
 alignment between the axis of the hot jacket and the tube in the pit 
 during the operation of assembling, would have ruined the result of 
 months of preparation. 
 
 The 1 6-inch gun consists of a forged steel tube, 49 feet 6 inches 
 long, on which are first shrunk what are known as the chase hoops, 
 hollow steel cylinders extending from the muzzle nearly back to the 
 trunnions. Back of the chase hoops comes the jacket, on the for- 
 ward end of which is placed the locking ring. Back of this on the 
 jacket are placed the jacket hoops. Thus the rear third of the gun 
 is of four thicknesses, the middle of three, and the muzzle end of 
 two. 
 
 The total weight of the gun is 126 tons, its length 49 feet 6 
 inches, the diameter of the breech 6 feet 2 inches, the bore 16 inches, 
 and the theoretical range 20.76 miles. To attain this range the 
 highest point of its flight is five miles, or as high as any mountain in 
 the world. The total weight of forgings for the gun as received from 
 the steel works was 358,000 pounds. Finished, the gun weighs 
 about 282,000 pounds, leaving 76,000 pounds of steel removed from 
 different parts during manufacture. 
 
 The projectile for this gun is 64 inches long, and requires a 
 powder charge of 1060 pounds. A pressure of 36,000 pounds to 
 the square inch is developed at discharge. The cost of one round 
 
424 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 for the gun is $865. The breech mechanism of the gun is beautifully 
 simple. A few turns of a crank just below the breech on the right 
 side does all the work of withdrawing and swinging back the breech 
 block, which weighs not less than a ton. 
 
 Great Guns of the World. It was once planned to have eighteen 
 of these gigantic guns defend the entrance to New York harbor, but 
 the 12-inch gun has been improved so much that it is probable this 
 monster gun will be the only one of its kind manufactured. Other 
 nations have made guns of larger caliber but not so powerful ; Italy 
 one of 1734 inches, France 16*^ inches, England 16^ inches, but 
 in range, weight of projectile, and force of the blow the Watervliet 
 gun surpasses them all. The advocates of the gun claim that no 
 ship afloat can stand the terrible crushing effect of one of its pro- 
 jectiles, while their opponents say the gun is too expensive and that 
 it is extremely unlikely that a ship in motion could be hit by it. 
 
 Recoil. When in the chamber of a cannon there is exploded 
 half a ton of powder behind a projectile weighing more than twice 
 as much, the effect is terrific and the backward pressure from it is as 
 great as the force that moves the projectile forward. If this force 
 were not controlled in a gun mounted on a ship it would tear the 
 ship apart or drive the gun through the deck. 
 
 The cannon of holiday occasions with which the boys are familiar 
 have projections or arms called trunnions on which the guns rest, 
 but no trunnions ever forged could unaided withstand the recoil from 
 a large cannon, and even if the trunnions held they would only tear 
 the deck out of the ship. The 1 6-inch gun recoils with a force 
 sufficient to raise 88,000 tons one foot, for it throws a projectile 
 weighing as much as a team of horses higher than the highest moun- 
 tain in the world and twice as far as from Albany to Troy. More 
 space can be given to a gun on land than in the crowded turret of a 
 ship and various means of counteracting the recoil that might be 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 425 
 
 serviceable for guns in forts would not do on ships. This backward 
 motion of the heavy guns of a ship is intended to be stopped within 
 a distance not exceeding three times the diameter of the gun's bore. 
 The 13-inch gun, then, will be allowed to recoil no more than 39 
 inches. The recoil is controlled by means of pistons working in 
 "recoil cylinders." The 13-inch gun in the cut has four recoil 
 cylinders fastened to the sleeve, with piston rods fastened to the 
 rear of the gun. The piston head is attached to the piston rod and 
 is in the front part of the cylinder when the gun is fired. The recoil 
 cylinders are stationary. When the gun is fired it slides back in 
 the sleeve and draws the piston rod and head back through the 
 cylinder. The cylinders are filled with water for the heavy guns and 
 a mixture of water and glycerine for the lighter ones. Grooves are 
 cut in the inner surface of the recoil cylinder and as the piston head 
 starts back the water passes through the grooves, but in the back 
 part of the cylinder the grooves grow shallower until they disappear, 
 the resistance to the piston head becoming greater and greater until 
 the gun is brought to a stop with a recoil of only three times its 
 caliber. The water in front of the piston head escapes at 600 pounds 
 pressure through a valve and a hydraulic engine forces water into the 
 cylinder in the rear of the piston head, which drives it to the front of 
 the recoil cylinder and returns the gun to its former position " in 
 battery." The number of cylinders and their positions vary with 
 different guns but the principle is the one most often used for the 
 large ones. Some guns recoil up an inclined path and return by 
 force of gravity. Rapid-fire guns frequently use the piston principle 
 with recoil springs to return the guns to place instead of a hydraulic 
 engine. 
 
 Heavy guns used for harbor defense are now mounted on disap- 
 pearing gun carriages. In the Buffington-Crozier carriage the gun is 
 held on four long arms moved by hydraulic or pneumatic machinery. 
 
426 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 M 
 
 It is loaded beneath the level of the parapet over which it is raised, 
 remains but an instant to be fired, and then disappears from sight. 
 On this carriage the 12-inch gun can be pointed in a complete circle 
 in i^ minutes and the gun has been fired nine times in fifteen min- 
 utes, aiming when depressed, and making a good target. Disappear- 
 ing gun carriages, mines, and heavy breech-loading mortars have 
 increased materially the resources of the defense. The disappearing 
 carriage is at present receiving considerable criticism. 
 
 Modern mortars differ from breech-loading rifles only in length. 
 They pass through the same processes of construction, load at the 
 breech, and are rifled. They fire explosive shells at a high angle. 
 The shell is expected to describe a huge curve and descend upon 
 the practically unprotected deck of the attacking ship. The thick 
 armor of a ship is carried on the sides to withstand direct fire; the 
 limited amount of armor a ship can carry makes it possible to give but 
 little protection against vertical or "plunging " fire. 
 
 The 12-inch mortars defend- 
 ing the harbor of New York (see 
 cut) are placed in pits beneath 
 the surface of the ground. Their 
 location is unknown to the gen- 
 eral public and there is nothing 
 visible at a distance to indicate 
 their presence. The field de- 
 fended is laid off into a series of 
 MORTAR BATTERY IN NEW YORK HARBOR. i ma gi n ary squares, and the gun- 
 ner in the pit trains the mortar to bear upon any particular square as 
 directed. It is not ne'cessary that the gunner see the enemy; his 
 movements can be directed from a distance by telephone. The mor- 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 427 
 
 tar throws a shell 12 inches in diameter, weighing 1000 pounds, carry- 
 ing within it a bursting charge of 100 pounds. They fire at an angle 
 of from 35 to 65 and have an effective range of five or six miles. 
 This half ton of steel falling from the clouds would easily penetrate 
 the protective deck of any ship afloat, and even if it didn't explode 
 in the magazines or machinery compartments, would pass on through 
 the bottom of the ship. N 
 
 With the old style gun, the crew at each discharge must get out 
 of the way of the recoil, a wet sponge must be run through the guns 
 after each shot to put out any lingering sparks of fire before placing 
 the powder charge, the charge and the shot must be rammed down 
 by hand, the gun run out by tackle and handspikes, pried about until 
 it pointed as nearly right as they could guess, and after all these 
 operations had been performed, fired with a hot iron or a match. 
 Now, ammunition for rapid-fire guns is put up in metallic cases like 
 revolver cartridges, the sponge is not required, the barrel of the gun 
 alone recoils, the sights have been removed from the barrel and 
 placed on the carriage, and the gun pointer simply keeps his sights on 
 the target, pays no attention to the loading of the gun, and squeezes 
 an electric bulb when the gun is ready to be fired. The new gun 
 fires twenty or thirty times as fast as its old type. 
 
 The great weight of breech mechanism, powder, and projectile 
 precludes making rapid firers of the extremely heavy guns, but the 
 reduced weight of smokeless powder with lighter and simpler breech 
 mechanism has brought improved 6-inch, 8-inch, and Q-inch guns 
 into this class. On the Chilian cruiser Blanco Encalada four rounds 
 were fired in 62 seconds from an 8-inch gun and the ammunition 
 taken from the magazine below the protective deck. In the English 
 navy a crew at drill fired an Elswick 8-inch gun three rounds in 28 
 seconds. On board the Royal Sovereign a 13. 5 -inch gun was fired 
 seven rounds in twelve minutes, making six hits on a target at a range 
 
428 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of 1600 to 2200 yards, while the ship was steaming at eight-knot 
 speed. A similar gun on the Empress of India fired four rounds in 
 six minutes. 
 
 Range. The effective range and the extreme range of great guns 
 differ widely. Guns on board ship cannot give extreme elevation of 
 more than 17 for the portholes are not large and the gun in its 
 recoil would strike the deck. The effective- range there is about six 
 miles. On land guns may be given a greater elevation with nothing 
 in the way of their recoil, and the 6-inch gun may have a range of 
 7*4 miles; the 8-inch, 9 miles; the lo-inch, n miles; the 12-inch, 
 1 1 2 miles. 
 
 i6-iNCH RIFLE MADE AT WATERVLIET, THE MOST POWERFUL GUN IN THE WORLD. 
 
 Compared with 2o-inch Rodman gun (at the right) and soo-pound Parrott gun (at the left). Courtesy of the 
 Scientific A merican. 
 
 Several years ago, on Krupp's range at Essen, Germany, a 9.45 
 Krupp gun with an elevation of 45 attained a range of 12.42 miles. 
 In its flight the projectile rose 4.6 miles above a straight line and at 
 this point the highest range of mountains in America interposed 
 between the gun and its target would not have intercepted the flight 
 of the shot. At Shoeburyness, England, in 1888, the year of the 
 Queen's Jubilee, a 9.2-inch wire wound gun threw a 380 pound pro- 
 jectile with a muzzle velocity of 2360 feet an extreme range of 12.4 
 miles. It is believed that the 1 6-inch rifle from the Watervliet 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 429 
 
 Arsenal will throw its 2370 pound projectile propelled by 1060 pounds 
 of powder with an initial velocity of 2300 feet a second, nearly 21 
 miles, the projectile in its flight reaching a height between 5 and 5 ^ 
 miles above a straight line. Such shots are fired only for experi- 
 mental purposes. With the target in motion the range must be 
 much shorter to do effective work. 
 
 "Large-caliber Gun Firing is pretty Expensive Work. Accord- 
 ing to recently published figures for same a 1 3-inch gun firing an I ioo : 
 pound shell consumes 550 pounds of brown prismatic powder, cost- 
 ing for a single discharge $165. The common 13-inch shell is said to 
 cost $i 16.63. Armor-piercing projectile costs $418. To these items 
 must be added cartridge box, primers, freight, etc. , amounting to about 
 $15, or $296.63 for the common shell discharge and $588 for the dis- 
 charge of an armor-piercing projectile. As the 1 3-inch gun can be 
 fired about twenty-five times in an hour, the work of one gun for an 
 hour may cost the government $15,000. The 8-inch gun costs about 
 $65 for each shot; the 5-inch rapid-fire costs $33 ; the 6-inch breech 
 loading shot costs about $40, $14 being for the powder; and each 
 round of a Hotchkiss 6-pounder gun is estimated to cost $5.70, and 
 a i-pounder, $1.12. Whitehead torpedoes cost $3100 each." 
 
 When an elongated form was substituted for a spherical one it 
 greatly increased the weight of the projectile. The old 32-pounder 
 was a 6-inch smooth bore gun with an energy not often exceeding 
 200 tons. It would not shoot as far or as accurately as the rifle of 
 the modern soldier. The 32-pounder of to-day is a 4-inch rifle 
 
 
 
 cannon having a muzzle velocity of 3000 foot-seconds and capable of 
 perforating 2% inches of the best armor at 3000 yards. The 6-inch 
 gun, corresponding in caliber with the old 32-pounder, uses a 100- 
 pound projectile having a muzzle velocity of 2900 foot-seconds and a 
 muzzle energy of 5800 tons, and is capable of penetrating more than 
 four inches of the best armor at 3000 yards. The following table 
 
430 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 shows the elements of the 1899 models of naval guns using smoke- 
 less powder and uncapped armor-piercing shells striking at right 
 angles to the target. 
 
 Calibers of Guns 
 
 3-inch 
 
 4-inch 
 
 5-inch 
 
 6-inch 
 
 8-inch 
 
 10-inch 
 
 12-inch 
 
 Length . . calibers 
 
 CQ 
 
 CQ 
 
 en 
 
 CO 
 
 4 C. 
 
 
 
 Weight tons 
 
 o 87 
 
 2 C.6 
 
 J^ 
 7 4 
 
 J 
 
 ?8 
 
 5-J A 
 
 C.2 
 
 Weight of projectile . . .pounds 
 Muzzle velocity. . .foot-seconds 
 Muzzle energy .... foot-tons 
 
 H 
 3,000 
 874 
 
 32 
 
 3,000 
 
 T QQQ 
 
 60 
 2,900 
 
 -7 COT 
 
 TOO 
 2,900 
 
 c..8i8 
 
 250 
 2,800 
 
 I 1 6O2 
 
 OJ-4 
 500 
 2,800 
 27 2O4 
 
 J* 
 850 
 2,800 
 46 4 C.7 
 
 Perforation at muzzle, Har- 
 vey ed nickel steel . . . .inches 
 Perforation at muzzle, Krupp 
 armor inches 
 
 4.19 
 
 5.-JC 
 
 6.12 
 4 QO 
 
 7-51 
 6.01 
 
 9-35 
 
 7.71 
 
 13-57 
 10 66 
 
 18.57 
 
 14 86 
 
 23.42 
 
 l8 74 
 
 Remaining velocity at 1000 
 yards foot-seconds 
 
 2,328 
 
 2,477 
 
 2,460 
 
 2, Cl6 
 
 2, e-ji 
 
 2,1:87 
 
 2 6lQ 
 
 Perforation at 1000 yards of 
 Harveyed nickel steel, inches 
 Perforation at 1000 yards of 
 Krupp armor inches 
 Remaining velocity at 2000 
 yards foot-seconds 
 
 2. 9 8 
 2.38 
 I 806 
 
 4-77 
 3-91 
 2 O46 
 
 6.03 
 4.82 
 
 2 O87 
 
 7-74 
 6.19 
 2 181 
 
 11.86 
 9.49 
 
 2 288 
 
 16.71 
 13.37 
 
 -7QI 
 
 21.42 
 16.84 
 24 C.O 
 
 Perforation at 2000 yards of 
 Harveyed nickel steel, inches 
 Perforation at 2000 yards of 
 Krupp armor inches 
 
 2.13 
 I. 7O 
 
 3.68 
 
 2 Q4 
 
 4.85 
 
 i 88 
 
 6.40 
 
 512 
 
 10.37 
 
 8 10 
 
 ^'jy 1 
 15.04 
 
 12 O7 
 
 19.60 
 
 15 68 
 
 Remaining velocity at 3000 
 yards foot-seconds 
 Perforation at 3000 yards of 
 Harveyed nickel steel, inches 
 Perforation at 3000 yards of 
 Krupp armor . inches 
 
 1,401 
 1.52 
 
 1.22 
 
 1,690 
 2.8 5 
 
 2 28 
 
 1,771 
 3-89 
 i. ii 
 
 1,893 
 
 5-3 
 4 24 
 
 j.j<_ 
 2,068 
 9.06 
 661 
 
 -"J 
 2,209 
 
 13.53 
 
 10 82 
 
 2,291 
 17.92 
 
 M,-1A 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 With capped projectiles an increased thickness of from 15 to 20 
 per cent, may be perforated. 
 
 The Maxim, the Driggs-Schroeder r and the Hotchkiss are the 
 smaller rapid-fire guns used in the United States navy to make up 
 the secondary battery of war ships. They range in size from the i- 
 pounder to the 12-pounder and use fixed ammunition. The 3- 
 pounder semi-automatic gun has a speed of 40 shots per minute and 
 the fully automatic gun a speed of 70 shots per minute. The same 
 device can be applied to and materially increases the speed of the 6- 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 431 
 
 pounder gun. Maxim has also perfected a fully automatic 9-pounder 
 gun that fires 60 shots in a minute. All these guns have a high 
 velocity and are able to pierce an inch or two of steel at the distance 
 of a mile. They can make a good target at 3000 yards and are a 
 very effective reply to the torpedo boat " the dread that must be 
 halted when afar." When the 6-pounder guns were tested prior to 
 purchase by the government, the Hotchkiss fired 28 rounds in one 
 minute, 83 rounds in three minutes; the Maxim, 20 rounds in one 
 minute, and 65 rounds in three minutes; the Driggs-Schroeder, 34 
 rounds in one minute and 83 rounds in three minutes. The honors 
 are supposed to be about even between the Hotchkiss and the 
 Driggs-Schroeder. The latter gun is made by the celebrated firm of 
 Cramp Brothers of Philadelphia. The accuracy of the gun is re- 
 markable. Ten rounds were fired at a target 26 feet by 40 feet, at a 
 distance of a mile, all hitting the target, and the most of them pretty 
 close to the center of impact. 
 
 Guns of a yet smaller caliber using the ammunition regularly 
 issued for small arms are called machine guns. Of these the Catling 
 is the earliest and best known. It was invented in 1861 by Dr. 
 Richard Jordan Catling. It consists of ten (sometimes five) barrels 
 revolving about a central pivot, something like the cylinder of a 
 revolver, each barrel being fired as it comes opposite a given point. 
 The gunlocks are of the bolt principle and each 'barrel has its own 
 bolt, firing pin, and cartridge extractor. With the improved Accles 
 feed 1200 rounds per minute can be fired. If an accident occurs to 
 the mechanism of one barrel the other nine can yet be used. The 
 gun is operated by turning a crank and its projectiles have about the 
 same range, velocity, arfd penetration as the soldier's rifle using 
 the same cartridge./ ^It can be trained with far more accuracy than 
 small arms from the shoulder. It has no rrerves to be disturbed in 
 the din, confusion, and carnage of the battle field." The gun was 
 
43 2 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 perfected in time to be used during the close of the Civil War arid 
 gave excellent satisfaction. 
 
 In the Franco-German war a few of them repulsed a charge of 
 the best trained soldiers of the German army. In 1898, in the land 
 battles before Santiago, Lieutenant Parker took a battery of Gatling 
 guns to the front, 100 yards in advance of the firing line, and clearly 
 demonstrated that they were equal in firing efficiency to a regiment 
 of soldiers. Having ten barrels the Gatling does not heat as do 
 single barrel guns, and as many as 63,000 cartridges have been fired 
 in a single test without stopping to wipe out the barrels. The gun 
 complete with carriage and limber weighs about 600 pounds, or 
 rather less than a piece of ordinary field artillery. 
 
 The Gatling can be used to deliver a high angle fire to trenches. 
 With the gun elevated 85 degrees the bullets describe a curve and 
 descend point downward, striking 500 yards from the gun with a force 
 sufficient to penetrate two or three inches of timber. The gun can 
 be used for this purpose up to its extreme range, the greater the 
 range the less the elevation required. Two Gatling guns with steel 
 shields to protect the operator are furnished each regiment of 
 United States infantry. 
 
 The Maxim uses the force of recoil to operate the piece. If a 
 cartridge is put in position and the trigger pressed, the gun continues 
 to shoot as long as the trigger is held back and the ammunition in 
 the magazine lasts. It is claimed that with this gun as many as 700 
 rounds per minute have been fired. It has but one barrel, which is 
 surrounded by a water jacket to keep it cool. The gun can be made 
 to use the ammunition issued for military rifles. 
 
 The Colt automatic is a new machine gun which has recently 
 sprung into notice. It has a thick barrel and does not heat so rap- 
 idly from firing as guns with lighter barrels, and the larger surface of 
 the barrel radiates the heat faster and so the barrel has no water 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 433 
 
 jacket. All that is necessary to operate it after the first shot is to 
 keep the finger pressed on the trigger and the gun aimed, and it will 
 continue to fire at the rate of 400 shots per minute until all the car- 
 tridges are exhausted. This gun is not operated by hand as is the 
 Gatling, or by force of the recoil as is the Maxim, but near the muz- 
 zle is a small vent from which, when the projectile has reached its 
 
 COLT MACHINE GUN. 
 
 highest speed, a small portion of the gas is allowed to escape into a 
 gas cylinder fitted with a piston, and from this, motion is transmitted 
 to operate the breech mechanism. Such a system is said to give 
 simpler and stronger mechanism then one employing the recoil to 
 operate it. The gas employed does not decrease the range and 
 accuracy of the gun for it is not used until the projectile has 
 attained its maximum velocity. "The hammer of this gun is also 
 
434 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 used as a piston for an air pump which forces a strong jet of air into 
 the chamber and through the barrel, removing all residue or un- 
 burned powder after the empty shell is extracted." The United 
 States government tests require for it a speed of at least 400 rounds 
 per minute, but the guns used by the British government are " tuned 
 up" to 500 shots per minute. It is a model of neatness and accu- 
 racy. In a recent test, it in one minute placed 185 shots within a 
 12-inch circle at a distance of 300 yards. Another strong feature is 
 that the gun alone weighs but 40 pounds, with its trip'od and mount- 
 ings complete only 94 pounds, and so can be carried about wherever 
 
 infantry can go and use the same ammunition as the soldier. " For 
 
 
 
 use in cavalry service, this gun, fitted to a light tripod, can be carried 
 
 by a trooper in a cavalry boot, the whole equipment being readily 
 transported and handled in action by one man." The gun has given 
 a good account of itself in the Philippines, in South Africa, and in 
 China, its light weight rendering it available where heavier guns 
 could not be carried. 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN WAR SHIP. 
 
 The application of steam as a motive power to war ships has 
 brought forth some marvelous changes. 
 
 The Old vs. the New. The sailing vessel was helpless in a calm. 
 Ships starting from different ports to meet at a given point on a 
 certain day had no assurance they would be able to arrive in time. 
 Their only weapon, the gun, was of so crude a type that it to-day 
 seems insignificant. It had no sights, or only those of the rudest 
 kind, for its range was so short that they were hardly thought neces- 
 sary. To-day it is fitted with the finest telescopic sights that will 
 show buttons on uniforms miles away. Its round cast iron solid shot 
 would not penetrate the side of a battle ship except at closest range. 
 Modern projectiles will penetrate a yard of wrought iron and each 
 
THE "CONSTITUTION/ 
 
 THE "OREGON." 
 TYPICAL BATTLESHIPS OF THE FIRST AND LAST OF THE I9TH CENTURY. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 435 
 
 carry a bursting charge sufficient to have wrecked the flagship of 
 Nelson. The torpedo was then a dream of the most sanguine in- 
 ventor and the ram an impossibility to a ship with sails. 
 
 Independence of Steam. Machinery has changed all this. The 
 steam engine has made the war ship practically independent of wind 
 and tide. It can proceed in a straight line continuously and arrive 
 at its destination at a given date, while the sailing vessel went zig- 
 zagging with the varying winds and might lie motionless for days 
 becalmed. By machinery huge masses of iron are easily handled 
 that could not have been moved by hand. Rolling mills and steam 
 hammers have made possible the construction of iron ships. As first 
 applied to navigation, steam power could not be used successfully in 
 the battle ship. The huge paddle wheels were easily damaged by shot, 
 and they took up the room on the sides of the ship that should have 
 been occupied by the heaviest guns. With the perfection of the 
 screw propeller and the disappearance of the paddle wheel a new era 
 was inaugurated. Under the most favorable circumstances, the' sail- 
 ing vessel might make fourteen or fifteen knots per hour for a short 
 time. Torpedo boats now make more than forty miles an hour. 
 " Nelson, in his three months' chase after Villeneuve, made an aver- 
 age of 93 miles per day." The United States cruiser Columbia 
 steamed from Southampton to New York, over 3000 miles, at an 
 average of more than 500 miles per day. 
 
 Nothing Perfect. In spite of the marked progress of the age, 
 the ship builder is constantly reminded that for him there is no such 
 thing as finality, for the triumphs of the gun maker frequently ren- 
 der his ship obsolete almost as soon as it is launched. 
 
 " Constitution" vs. " Oregon." It will help us to understand 
 clearly the progress that has been made in war ships if we compare 
 one of the best of one hundred years ago with one of to-day. We 
 will select the Constitution and the Oregon. Our schoolbooks have 
 
436 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 made us familiar with the brilliant war reco&J&of the one, and the 
 long voyage around South America and splendid performance at San- 
 tiago of the other are still fresh in our memories. The Constitution 
 was built wholly of wood ; the Oregon of iron and steel. The Con- 
 stitution depended for motive power on her vast expanse of snowy 
 sails, stretched on towering masts and tapering yards. In a calm, 
 she was helpless. The masts of the Oregon seem like rudimentary 
 organs and she is driven by engines of enormous horse power, mak- 
 ing her independent of wind or tide. The one was a picture of grace 
 and beauty; the other is a bare, grim fighting machine. 
 
 Dimensions. The Constitution was 173 feet long, 44 feet wide, 
 had a displacement of about 1576 tons, a complement of 475 officers 
 and men, and cost $302,718. The Oregon is 348 feet long, 69 feet 
 3 inches wide, has a displacement of 10,288 tons, a complement of 
 463 officers and men, and cost $6,575,032.76. The Constitution was 
 lighted by smoky battle lanterns, inclosing a tallow candle, whose 
 rays penetrated into the darkness but a few yards ; beyond that all 
 was gloom. A boat attack by night was a favorite maneuver in 
 those days. The Oregon is lighted by electricity and equipped with 
 powerful search lights that can render visible the buildings of a city 
 ten miles away. All the work on the old ship was performed by 
 hand labor; on the new one machinery propels the ship, hoists the 
 anchor, turns the turrets and aims and fires the guns; hand labor is 
 at a minimum. The Constitution mounted 54 guns; the Oregon has 
 but 1 6 in her main battery. The weight of all the shot in one broad- 
 side of the Constitution was 684 pounds. * A single shell from the 
 13-inch guns of the Oregon weighs iioo pounds. The shot of the 
 Constitution would not penetrate the thinnest armor of the Oregon. 
 One shot from the 1 3-inch guns of the Oregon develops enough 
 power to lift the Constitution bodily more than twenty feet. 
 
 * Her shot were short in weight. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 437 
 
 Commander's Personal Prowess. A century ago, the com- 
 manding officer stood on deck in plain view and encouraged his men 
 by voice and example. In hand-to-hand encounters, even his per- 
 sonal prowess might become a factor. To-day the commander is 
 shut up within a steel conning tower, intended to be impenetrable 
 to shot ; only a few officers see him, and his orders are transmitted 
 by means of speaking tubes, telephones, and electric bells. 
 
 Range of Guns. The guns of the Constitution had an accurate 
 range of less than a mile ; the Oregon, in pursuit of the Cristobal 
 Colon off Santiago, threw 1 3-inch shells over and beyond the latter 
 ship at a range of more than five miles. The need of armor to de- 
 fend a ship from such destructive missiles is manifest. 
 
 Antiquity of Armor. The idea of armor for ships is an old one. 
 The galleys of the early Greeks and Romans were frequently 
 strengthened by bands of iron which sometimes met at the prow and 
 formed a ram. The Norse "Sea Kings" hung the shields of their 
 soldiers along the sides of their galleys, and later the knights of St. 
 John covered their ships with lead. Of all metals, this would seem 
 the least suitable unless it were for protection against some of the 
 liquid forms of Greek fire. Coming to more modern times, the float- 
 ing batteries used by the Spanish when besieging Gibraltar, in 1783, 
 were protected by heavy walls of timber, strengthened by thick- 
 nesses of hide and bars of iron. The old time line-of-battle ship was, 
 in a sense, armored, for her sides were made heavy and solid about 
 the water line to withstand shot. The go-gun ship had ribs of 1 6-inch 
 oak timber, only a few inches apart, covered on the outside with 
 planking eight inches thick and inside seven inches. 
 
 The First War Steamer. During the War of 1812 between 
 Great Britain and the United States, Robert Fulton proposed to build 
 an impregnable floating battery, propelled by steam, able to drive 
 away the blockading squadron at the mouth of the Delaware. 
 
438 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Congress authorized the construction of such a vessel. The craft was 
 peculiar enough to be interesting aside from the fact that she was the 
 first steam war ship and larger by tons than any other steamer pre- 
 viously launched. The official report of the government inspector 
 says: 
 
 " She is a structure resting upon two boats, keels separated from 
 end to end by a canal fifteen feet wide and sixty-six feet long. One 
 boat contains the caldrons of copper to prepare her steam. The vast 
 cylinder of iron, with its piston, levers, and wheels, occupies a part 
 of its fellow; the great water wheel revolves in the space between 
 them; the main or gun deck supporting her armament is protected 
 by a bulwark four feet ten inches thick, of solid timber. This is 
 pierced by thirty portholes, to enable as many 32-pounders to fire 
 red hot balls; her upper or spar deck, upon which several thousand 
 men might parade, is encompassed by a bulwark which affords safe 
 quarters. Her machinery is calculated for the addition of an engine 
 which will discharge an immense column of water, which it is intended 
 to throw upon the decks and all through the ports of an enemy. 
 With lOO-pounder columbiads, two suspended from each bow, so as 
 to discharge a ball of that size into an enemy's ship ten or twelve 
 feet below the water line, it must be allowed that she has the appear- 
 ance at least of being the most formidable engine of warfare that 
 human ingenuity has contrived." 
 
 Effect of Blockade. The keels were laid in a New York ship 
 yard June 20, 1814, the boat was named Fulton the First, and 
 launched October 18, 1814. The low state of the treasury and de- 
 pression of public credit delayed the completion. Then, too, there 
 were no cannon at New York suitable to arm her and twenty guns 
 had to be dragged by horses over the wretched roads between Phila- 
 delphia and New York because of the presence of a blockading fleet 
 at the mouth of the Delaware. In spite of all these difficulties and 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 439 
 
 the death of Fulton (Feb. 20, 1815) she made her first trial June I, 
 1815, nine months after her keel was laid. 
 
 " She was found capable of opposing the wind, of stemming the 
 tide, and of being steered among vessels riding at anchor though the 
 weather was boisterous and the water rough. Her performance dem- 
 onstrated the success of Fulton's idea, and that a floating battery 
 composed of heavy artillery could be moved by steam." 
 
 The war having closed, no trial of her fighting qualities was pos- 
 sible. She was used as a receiving ship at Brooklyn navy yard until 
 1829, when she was blown up. 
 
 After the War of 1812 the development of home industries and 
 internal improvements offered such a wide and profitable field to 
 American ingenuity and industry that not much attention was paid 
 to naval affairs. America seemed to be content with the building of 
 wooden frigates similar to those that had distinguished themselves in 
 single combat with vessels of the same rating in the British navy. 
 Correspondingly little was done abroad and for more than a genera- 
 tion the experimental work of a few great engineers constituted 
 nearly the whole sum of naval progress. 
 
 Stevens Family of Inventors. The Stevens family stand promi- 
 nent among those advanced pickets of mechanical progress. For 
 generations they were famous American engineers, and different 
 members of the family were contemporaneous rivals of Fitch, Fulton, 
 Bomford, Ressell, Paixhans, and Ericsson. 
 
 Twin Screw Propeller. In 1804 Col. John C. Stevens of 
 Hoboken, N. J., fitted out a steamboat with a double screw. It 
 went from Hoboken to New York and return with an average speed 
 of four miles an hour; for a short distance at the rate of seven or 
 eight miles an hour. His propeller was a crude four-bladed one and 
 his engine was not large enough to develop the power required to 
 make his boat a success. (This engine is now preserved in the 
 
440 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Stevens Institute of Technology at Hoboken.) In 1812 he planned 
 for the defense of New York a circular fort which was to be plated 
 with iron and revolved by machinery, and the same year submitted 
 a plan for a boat closely resembling the now famous Monitor type, 
 also to be ironclad. This is said to be the first plan for a fully 
 armored ship. A little later his son, Edwin A. Stevens, who after- 
 ward founded the Stevens Institute of Technology, made a series of 
 experiments with 6-pound cannon to determine the resisting power 
 of iron plates. 
 
 Stevens Battery. Another son, Robert L. Stevens, designed 
 the Stevens battery in 1832. After a time a government board ap- 
 proved the plan, its construction was authorized, Congress voted an 
 appropriation of $250,000, and its keel was laid in 1843. 
 
 As originally planned, it was to be 250 feet long, 28 feet wide, 
 covered with 4*^ inches of armor, which the experiments of the 
 Stevens brothers had proved would resist the 64-pound cannon of 
 that day at 30 yards. Triumphs of the gun maker necessitated 
 changes in the vessel from time to time, until her dimensions were 
 nearly doubled, and a square movable turret added, but the gun 
 made such rapid improvement that the craft was unable to keep pace 
 and was never completed, but was broken up and sold in 1881. It 
 was the first ironclad steamer projected, and cost the Stevens family 
 upwards of two million dollars. 
 
 Forced Draught. Forced draught was another great improvement 
 made by the Stevens brothers and patented April, 1842. It con- 
 sists in making all entrances into the fire room air tight, then forcing 
 in air by powerful fans until the pressure becomes all the firemen 
 can endure. By this means air is forced into the furnaces, causing 
 the fires to burn furiously, raising the steam pressure, and making 
 higher speed possible. In the famous chase off Santiago, when the 
 coal passers were falling unconscious in the stifling fire rooms of the 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 441 
 
 Oregon, the engineer asked the captain to fire a gun that the men 
 might think they were in action, knowing the excitement of battle 
 would make them forget their physical exhaustion. 
 
 Ericsson's Propeller. One of the most important improvements 
 in naval engineering was the adaptation of the screw propeller to the 
 war ship, for the screw is small, powerful, simple in construction, not 
 easily injured, and so far beneath the water as to be secure from shot 
 and shell. Rude ones were tried about as early as the paddle wheel, 
 but it remained for John Ericsson to first produce a really servicea- 
 ble one. His boat, the Francis B. Ogden, was given a trial on the 
 Thames river, April, 1837, and attained a speed of ten miles an 
 hour. The Lords of the Admiralty witnessed the trial but did not 
 approve of the scheme. 
 
 Its Reception in England. Sir William Symonds, Chief Con- 
 structor of the Royal Navy, said: " Even if the propeller had the 
 power of propelling the vessel, it would be found altogether useless 
 in practice because, the power being applied in the stern, it would 
 be absolutely impossible to make the vessel steer." 
 
 Ericsson in America. Francis B. Ogden, U. S. consul to Liver- 
 pool, and Captain Stockton of the United States navy, induced 
 Ericsson to emigrate to America. A new war ship, the Princeton, 
 was authorized, and Ericsson designed her engines, placed them be- 
 neath the water line, fitted her with a screw propeller and coupled 
 the shaft directly to the engine. " For the first time in a vessel of 
 war the machinery was placed below the water line, out of reach of 
 shot," and again a marked advance was made. The French at once 
 gave Ericsson's agent an order for a propeller, which they fitted to 
 the war ship Pomone, and the British navy changed the plans of the 
 steamer Rattler, almost ready to be launched, from the paddle wheel 
 to a propeller of another type. 
 
 The Revolving Turret. The period seems to have been a 
 
442 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 prolific one for military ideas, and we find Theodore S. Timby, of 
 Dutchess county, New York, presenting in 1841 a model of a metallic 
 revolving tower. He filed his caveat with the patent office January 
 1 8, 1843, an d the same year completed and exhibited an iron model. 
 A little later he presented a model to the Emperor of China 'through 
 the American representative, Caleb Cushing. In 1848 a commission 
 of Congress made a favorable report to the Secretary of War upon 
 Timby's proposed system, and when the Civil War broke out he had 
 been granted patents for "a revolving metallic tower" and for a 
 "floating battery to be propelled by steam." His claim was so 
 good a one that when Ericsson began the construction of the 
 Monitor, a United States court granted Timby an injunction, restrain- 
 ing Ericsson from proceeding until he should have paid Timby a 
 royalty for the use of his invention. Timby settled with Ericsson 
 and his financial backers, Bushnell and Delameter, for $100,000. 
 
 The Lesson of Sinope. An added stimulus was given to inven- 
 tion by the Battle of Sinope, November 30, 1853, where a Turkish 
 fleet, armed with guns firing solid shot and anchored under the pro- 
 tection of a shore battery, was annihilated within an hour by a Rus- 
 sian fleet armed with smooth-bore shell guns. The carnage on the 
 Turkish side was frightful and the loss to the Russians but slight. 
 It was not a battle, it was a massacre. It was after this that Sir 
 John Hay said, " The man who goes into action in a wooden ship is 
 a fool, and the man who sends him there is a villain." The succeed- 
 ing year the English and French wooden ships were roughly handled 
 by the shore batteries in an attack on Sevastopol. 
 
 The long shell gun then loomed up as a most dangerous weapon, 
 and the question of armor for ships received earnest attention. The 
 French, keenly alive to the spirit of the age and mindful of the 
 severe lessons they had received, were the first to actually complete 
 armored floating batteries. In 1854 they constructed and hurried to 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 443 
 
 the Crimea three floating batteries with a speed of four knots an 
 hour, armed with 5<D-pound Paixhans guns and protected by four 
 inches of iron. These rendered their best service at the Battle of 
 Kinburn, October 17, 185$, where without material damage to them- 
 selves they steamed in close under the guns of the Russian fort and 
 were the chief factor in compelling its surrender. 
 
 Era of Ironclad Begins. This was the first appearance in actual 
 warfare of the ironclad and her superiority was proved beyond a ques- 
 tion of doubt. "It is with the Crimean War that the age of the 
 ironclad may be said to begin." 
 
 First Sea-going Ironclad. The Crimean War over, France at 
 once proceeded to construct an iron-plated frigate. She took La 
 Gloire, a wooden two-decker, removed the upper deck and used the 
 weight thus gained to carry a belt of 4^ inch iron armor extending 
 from end to end. She had no ram, but carried the iron plates for- 
 ward to strengthen her bow. This ship was fitted with sail and steam 
 power, armed with shell guns, could make 13 knots an hour, and was 
 the first sea-going ironclad to be completed. Others soon followed, 
 and so industrious were the French that in 1861 they had a more 
 powerful navy than England. 
 
 English Turret Ship. The English did not remain unmoved. 
 In 1859 they produced the Warrior, made of iron and especially 
 designed to carry armor. She was 420 feet long, and had a great 
 patch of plate 218 feet long and 4^ inches thick over her battery and^' 
 water line covering about half her length. In 1860 Captain Coles 
 of the English navy submitted a plan -of a ship to carry nine con- 
 ical turrets, each to contain a pair of guns. The plan was not 
 accepted. The first English turret ship was the Royal Sovereign, a 
 three-decker cut down to Captain Coles's plan, plated on the water 
 line and above with 4^ inch iron. Four turrets were placed on her 
 decks protected by armor ten inches in front tapering to five inches 
 
444 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 in the rear. The forward turrets carried two guns each and the 
 others each one gun. The turrets were not mounted on a spindle as 
 in the Monitor but their bases rested on rollers and the whole was 
 slowly turned by hand power. She was tried July, 1864, and ac- 
 cepted soon afterward. The Coles type of turret is the one in use 
 to-day. 
 
 American Civil War. At the breaking out of the Civil War the 
 Federal Government had but one available war ship on the Atlantic 
 coast. The control of the Mississippi river was of the utmost im- 
 portance, and for this gunboats were necessary. Their need was so 
 urgent that time was of the greatest consideration. Captain James 
 B. Eads of St. Louis, afterward a famous engineer, undertook to 
 construct in sixty-five days seven gunboats, each carrying 2 ^ inches 
 of armor and propelled by a paddle wheel at the stern fitted into a 
 recess in the hull for the sake of protection. Only a courageous man 
 would have dared undertake such a contract and only one of surpass- 
 ing executive ability could have carried it out. During a period 
 famous for tremendous exertion and remarkable achievement this 
 mobilization of constructive forces by Captain Eads stands preemi- 
 nent. " Rolling-mills, machine shops, foundries, forges, and saw- 
 mills were all idle. The engines that were to drive this, our first 
 ironclad fleet, were yet to be built. The timber to form the hulls 
 was uncut in the forest ; the huge rollers and machinery for making 
 their iron armor were not yet constructed." 
 
 Military Value of Telegraph. "The signatures were scarcely 
 dry upon this important contract before the work was actively begun 
 through telegraphic orders issued from Washington. Special agents 
 were dispatched in every direction, and sawmills were simultaneously 
 occupied in sawing the timber required in Kentucky, Tennessee, Illi- 
 nois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and Missouri, and railroads, steam- 
 boats, and barges engaged for its immediate transportation. Nearly 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 445 
 
 all the largest machine shops and foundries in St. Louis, and many 
 small ones, were at once set at work day and night, and the telegraph 
 lines between St. Louis and Pittsburg and Cincinnati were occupied 
 frequently for hours in transmitting instructions to similar establish- 
 ments in those cities for the construction of the twenty-one steam 
 engines and five and thirty steam boilers that were to propel the 
 fleet. Within two weeks not less than four thousand men were en- 
 gaged in the various details of their construction. Neither the 
 sanctity of the Sabbath nor the darkness of the night was permitted 
 to interrupt it. On the I2th of October, 1861, the first United 
 States ironclad, with her boilers and engines on board, was launched 
 in the Missouri in forty-five days from the laying of her keel. The 
 others followed in rapid succession. An eighth vessel, larger, more 
 powerful, and superior in every respect, was also undertaken before 
 the hulls of the first seven had fairly assumed shape. In less than 
 one hundred days one individual put in construction and completed 
 eight steamers, capable of steaming nine knots an hour, each heavily 
 armored, fully equipped, and all ready for their armament." 
 
 These were the first ironclads the United States used in warfare 
 and in the curved armor deck of Captain Eads we have the prototype 
 of the present protective deck. 
 
 Ericsson's " Monitor." Another remarkable feat of naval engi- 
 neering was shortly to follow. Ericsson's Monitor was authorized in 
 1 86 1. She was especially designed to navigate shallow harbors and> 
 rivers and to be impregnable to the fire of forts. She was 173 feet 
 long, 41 feet wide, drew 10 feet of water, and displaced 1255 tons. 
 She had a speed of nine miles an hour, and was protected on the 
 sides by five and on the turret by eight iron plates each one inch in 
 thickness. The rolling mills of the day could not turn out heavier 
 plates. The turret was 20 feet in diameter and 9 feet high and 
 afforded protection to two ii-inch smooth bore guns firing with 15 
 
446 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 'pounds of powder a i66-pound shot. She was a combination of the 
 Stevens floating battery, the Timby turret, and the Ericsson screw 
 propeller, and cost $275,000. She was completed in 118 days from 
 date of contract and her memorable conflict with the Virginia (Mer- 
 rimac] in Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862, was the first battle in the 
 world between ironclad ships. 
 
 ERICSSON'S "MONITOR." 
 
 "Monitor" vs. " Puritan." While her best directed shots would 
 rattle like hail on the Harveyized steel armor of the Puritan, the 
 largest monitor of to-day, a single shell from the powerful lO-inch 
 breech-loading rifles of the latter would crush the flimsy iron plates 
 of the old Monitor like an egg shell and bursting inside create 
 frightful havoc. And this is the improvement of but a few decades. 
 
 How War Ships are Classified. The boy who asked his father 
 the difference between a battle ship and a cruiser, and was answered 
 that the battle ship was one named after a state and the cruiser one 
 named after a city, may have been satisfied for the moment, but his 
 confidence in his father's infallibility must some time receive a rude 
 shock. 
 
 Displacement. One may take up a newspaper and read that the 
 construction of a ship has been authorized of a definite displace- 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 447 
 
 ment to carry as thick armor and as heavy guns as are practicable. 
 The displacement alone, unless the cost be attached, is usually the 
 only definite quantity named and is now the weight of the ship com- 
 plete. It is measured by the weight of water she displaces when 
 afloat and is not to be confused with tonnage, which means how 
 much she can carry. 
 
 Usually the basis for the designer is the displacement, which may 
 be likened to a bank account, in exchange for which he may have 
 certain things whose total weight must not exceed his proposed dis- 
 placement. These are the hull, engines, fittings, provisions, coal, 
 stores, ammunition, armor, guns, etc. Their total weight is limited 
 to the displacement, but in what proportion shall he dispose of 
 them? That will depend upon the character of the ship he is to 
 build. 
 
 Class Requirements. If a cruiser, to catch unarmed merchant- 
 men, speed is the prime requisite. If a cruiser capable of overcom- 
 ing other cruisers she is likely to meet, more allowance will be made 
 for armor and guns. If a battle ship, armor and guns will receive the 
 first consideration. If a torpedo boat, to steal unseen upon an 
 adversary in a night attack, the maximum speed and the minimum 
 size will be required. All these types make fairly distinct classes 
 with well marked duties. 
 
 Duties of a Cruiser. To harass commerce by capturing un- 
 armed or lightly armed merchantmen and also by creating such 
 terror that merchantmen will not dare put to sea when the cruiser is 
 known to be abroad. 
 
 To protect commerce by "convoying" or accompanying as a 
 guard merchant fleets through dangerous parts of a route or from 
 port to port. 
 
 To protect commerce by clearing hostile cruisers from the route. 
 
 To attack unprotected coasts or those but poorly fortified, or by 
 
44 8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 their threatening presence compel the enemy to retain ships and men 
 for defense that he would otherwise use in an attack elsewhere. 
 
 To carry on small wars at a distance where a powerful fleet is not 
 needed, and to- make reprisals. 
 
 To act as scouts, to be the " eyes of the fleet." It is important 
 that they have great speed to do this, as after an enemy is sighted 
 every hour of time or fraction thereof that may be given the oppos- 
 ing commander for preparation is valuable. 
 
 To keep up communication between a squadron and the base of 
 supplies. 
 
 To form the front, rear, and wings of a fleet when in motion, and 
 to be the first to discover the enemy. 
 
 To make blockades effective by being able to catch the fastest 
 merchantmen. To be sure, the monitor Terror did capture a prize 
 off Havana, but it was because the prize was within range of the 
 monitor's guns when discovered. A hunter doesn't often use a bull 
 dog to catch a fox. 
 
 Commerce Destroyer. If the cruiser is to act as a commerce 
 destroyer she must have speed enough to catch the fastest merchant- 
 men afloat and sufficient gun power to overcome them when caught. 
 That she may have speed, the most powerful engines must be given 
 her, and that she may keep at sea for a long time large supplies of 
 coal must be carried, while enough protection must be given to the 
 " vital parts " of the cruiser to defend them from any guns the mer- 
 chantman is likely to carry. 
 
 The parts that must be defended are the engines, the magazines, 
 and the steering gear. Protection is given by placing the "vitals" 
 of the ship below the water line, because few projectiles excepting 
 plunging shot at close range will penetrate much below the water, 
 and by covering them overhead with a steel " protective deck." 
 
 Protective Deck. This protective deck, usually extending the 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 449 
 
 whole length of the ship from side to side, much resembles a huge 
 inverted platter. On the sides and ends it is below the water line, 
 but it slopes or curves upward from the sides, until over the middle 
 part of the ship it is as high, or a little higher, than the water, and 
 presents a flat, or nearly flat, surface, like the bottom of the platter. 
 This deck is made of finely tempered steel, ranging in different ships 
 from one to six inches in thickness. The slopes are thickest and are 
 intended to present an inclined surface from which shot and shell 
 will glance without penetrating. Along the middle part of the ship, 
 between the slopes and the outer wall, bunkers (coal bins) are 
 arranged. These also assist in protection, for a foot of coal is equal 
 to about one inch of wrought iron or half an inch of mild steel for 
 this purpose. Below the protective deck everything may be consid- 
 ered pretty safe from shot and shell. The protected cruiser does 
 not mount heavy guns. If as large as 4-inch or 6-inch they are 
 placed on the highest deck and protected by circular gun shields of 
 steel armor attached to the gun carriage and revolving with it. The 
 shield is usually of face-hardened steel about four inches in thickness, 
 and can successfully resist common shell. If larger than 6-inch guns 
 are carried they are generally placed within a turret. 
 
 Along the sides of the ship (broadside) and projecting through 
 portholes are other guns, and the space in front of these is usually 
 protected by light armor. 
 
 Having provided for defense against shot and shell, provision 
 must be made against attacks from the ram and the torpedo or acci- 
 dents to the hull. In cruising on an unknown coast reefs and shoals 
 not down on the chart may be encountered, or in darkness or fog 
 collision with another vessel may occur. In such an emergency the 
 double bottom comes into play. The inner and the outer walls of 
 the hull are from one to three feet apart and the space intervening is 
 divided into numerous little water-tight chambers. Beneath the pro- 
 
45O THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tective deck there are several partitions running across the ship 
 (transverse bulkheads) and usually one or more partitions running 
 the whole length of the ship (longitudinal bulkheads). These divide 
 the ship into numerous compartments opening into each other by 
 water-tight doors which can be quickly closed and the ship kept 
 afloat indefinitely with several compartments flooded, if no damage is 
 done to her engines. The Brooklyn has one hundred and forty such 
 compartments. The double bottom and water-tight compartments 
 saved the famous Oregon when, hurrying to the assistance of those 
 threatened by the Boxers, she struck an unmarked reef on the Chi- 
 nese coast. A Chinese cruiser whose commanding officer had no 
 sympathy with the Boxer movement came to her assistance and ren- 
 dered valuable aid. A Russian war ship shortly appeared and the 
 commander intimated to Captain Wilde of the Oregon that he should 
 be compelled to seize the Chinese cruiser. Captain Wilde is reported 
 to have said, " Well, I'm a bit embarrassed just now but our guns are 
 in good condition and we've plenty of ammunition." The cruiser re- 
 mained unmolested. 
 
 Inside the armor belt and reaching from the protective deck to 
 above the surface of the water extends a wall (cofferdam) of cel- 
 lulose. This is frequently made from corn pith and possesses the 
 peculiar property of swelling rapidly when exposed to water, so a 
 shot hole on the water line, if not too large, would be speedily closed 
 by the cellulose. 
 
 The engines are such as give the greatest power with the least 
 possible weight, the cost of fuel not counting for so much as in a 
 ship used for purely commercial purposes. So powerful are the 
 engines of a large cruiser that they could drive the machinery to 
 furnish the electric light for five cities of 50,000 inhabitants each. 
 Her enormous coal bunkers hold hundreds of tons of coal that she 
 may make long voyages without being compelled to put into port. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 45 I 
 
 To recapitulate : The protected cruiser is protected against the ram, 
 torpedo, and reef by her double bottom and belt of corn pith ; her 
 vitals, liable to injury from shot, are covered by the protective deck 
 and sheltered by the water; her broadside guns are protected by 
 armored casements; her guns on deck by gun shields and lightweight 
 turrets. Any of this armor can be penetrated by the heaviest guns 
 of a battle ship, and the commerce destroyer must be able to show a 
 clean pair of heels to anything she cannot whip. Dewey's flagship, 
 the Olympia, is a protected cruiser. 
 
 The armored cruiser should be able to brush away hostile com- 
 merce destroyers and leave the route clear for merchantmen or to act 
 as guardian of them. She is a pretty formidable fighting machine, 
 and might occupy a position in the reserve of a fleet next the fight- 
 ing line. In her is found high speed and greater displacement, 
 heavier guns, and thicker armor than, in the protected cruiser. In 
 addition, she has about her water line a belt of armor probably seven 
 and a half feet wide and from two to twelve inches thick extending 
 above and below the water. This may extend completely around 
 her or along her sides far enough to cover the most vital parts of the 
 ship. It is this side armor that gives her the name " armored 
 cruiser." The ammunition hoists (elevators), passing from the 
 magazines beneath the protective deck up to the turrets, unless 
 inclosed within a tower, are protected by an armored tube from three 
 to ten inches in thickness. The great quantity of coal that her 
 powerful engines require, and other considerations, have hitherto 
 forbidden protecting the space between the turret and protective 
 deck by armor, but the coal is arranged along her sides so as to give 
 some protection, and improvements. in the resisting power of armor 
 make it possible each year to give more protection fora given weight. 
 The. cofferdam of cellulose, made from corn pith, or some similar 
 substance, is thicker than in the protected cruiser and the hull heavier 
 
452 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and stronger. She has a double bottom like the cruiser of the 
 other class. Some armored cruisers are now made larger than battle 
 ships and mount pretty heavy guns, in the British navy 9-inch, in 
 the French p.^inch, in the German 9.4-inch, in the Spanish 11.2- 
 inch, in the United States 8-inch. 
 
 For the purpose of giving a wider arc of fire to guns mounted on 
 the broadside they are frequently placed within bay-windowlike 
 structures called "sponsons." By such an arrangement they can be 
 fired nearly ahead or astern. Guns in the bow of the ship may look 
 out of ports which have been notched, depressed, or cut in to allow the 
 gun to be trained directly ahead. An arrangement somewhat similar 
 is sometimes made for those along the side, to give greater freedom 
 of motion, and ports of this character are said to be "recessed." 
 The heavy guns are placed within the turrets. 
 
 The turret is common to the cruiser, the monitor, and the battle 
 ship, and is a circular steel tower with openings called portholes 
 through which guns project. It rests on heavy rollers and is made 
 to turn by machinery so as to point the guns in any desired direc- 
 tion. 
 
 The turret was the strongest feature of the original monitor and 
 is desirable because it places the heavy guns over the center of the 
 ship, where they least disturb the balance and can be protected with 
 less weight in armor. A gun in a turret is equal to a gun on either 
 broadside and all economy of weight thus gained can be used to give 
 better armor protection to the ship or more powerful engines giving 
 higher speed. Electricity is the motive power most commonly 
 used to rotate the turrets. Within each turret are usually placed 
 two heavy guns which are moved by machinery and fitted with a 
 peculiarly effective mechanical device for sighting. Between the guns, 
 looking through slits in a projection in the top of the turret (sight- 
 ing hood), stands the operator who is to aim the guns. In front of 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 453 
 
 him and looking through two small openings are two cross hair 
 telescopic sights of the best construction. By turning small hand 
 wheels he can move these sights to the right or left, can elevate or 
 depress them, until they bear on the target. As though connected 
 by a chain of sympathetic nerves, the guns, by a peculiar refinement 
 of mechanism, are made to move in the same direction as the tele- 
 scopes in the sighting hood and when the cross hairs of a telescopic 
 sight cover the vulnerable point in the target the corresponding gun 
 in the turret is properly aimed. Then by means of electricity the 
 gun can be instantly fired. The guns of the Victory, Nelson's flag- 
 ship, were moved with a handspike, sighted by guess, and fired with 
 a match. 
 
 Electricity, steam, or hydraulic power supply the force required 
 to move the guns and the machinery of the turret. Since powerful 
 shells exploded underneath the turret would injure the mechanism, 
 it is desirable that something like a gigantic steel tube, or well, with 
 walls of heavy armor, reach from the base of the turret to the protec- 
 tive deck, to protect the machinery and furnish a safe passageway for 
 the ammunition from the magazines below the protective deck under- 
 neath the water to the guns above. 
 
 The barbette is a steel tower intended to protect the heavy 
 rollers on which the base of the turret rests, the machinery for turn- 
 ing it, the guns within the turret, and all the machinery connected 
 with them. The guns look out over the top of the barbette and, in 
 most battle ships, it extends down to the protective deck. Within 
 this, like a smaller tube within a larger one in a spyglass, is placed 
 the turret, mounted on heavy rollers, with suitable machinery for 
 turning it. 
 
 The barbettes show plainly in the pictures of many battle ships, 
 and look like large hoops encircling the turrets at the base. Only 
 the heavy guns of a ship are placed within turrets. 
 
454 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The armored cruiser must have speed sufficient to catch anything 
 but the very fleetest commerce destroyers, and coal endurance suf- 
 ficient to make long voyages from home. Cruisers have a high free- 
 board ; that is, they stand well out of the water, mounting their 
 guns twenty-five feet or more above the water line, which enables 
 them to be used in rough weather. In this respect they possess a 
 marked advantage over a monitor and a coast defense battle ship, 
 whose guns might sometimes be almost underwater, or their muzzles 
 so far depressed that, if fired, their projectiles would strike the tops 
 of the waves between them and their target. On this account a 
 naval officer has said, " In a high sea the Brooklyn [armored cruiser] 
 could knock seven bells out of the Oregon [battle ship]." 
 
 The Conning Tower. Back of the forward turret, and high 
 enough above the deck to give a good view over all, is the " conning 
 tower," an armored steel tower, pierced by narrow slits through 
 which the commanding officer watches the progress of the' battle and 
 directs the movements of his vessel. This tower contains the battle 
 steering wheel and is connected by electric bells, speaking tubes, and 
 telephones with every portion of the ship with which the captain 
 will need to communicate. The conning tower should be strong 
 enough to resist the ordinary fire to which it is likely to be subjected, 
 and the electric wires communicating with it are, to protect them 
 from shot, usual-ly run through an armored tube until they pass be- 
 neath the protective deck. Above the conning tower is usually 
 found a rather frail structure, not built to resist shot and shell, called 
 the "chart house," from which the- ship is navigated, except in 
 battle. 
 
 Military Masts. Cruisers of this class carry what are known as 
 "military masts." These are not intended for the use of sails, but 
 are hollow, tapering steel structures, about which are built one or 
 more platforms or balconies, where riflemen and machine guns are 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 455 
 
 placed. The fire from these is expected to sweep off the men from 
 the exposed positions of the hostile ships. Cruisers are also furnished 
 with powerful electric search lights, frequently of 100,000 candle 
 power or more, which can be turned so as to throw their rays in any 
 direction and render visible objects miles away. The electric search 
 light and the small rapid-firing gun are the war ship's defense against 
 her small but terrible enemy, the torpedo boat. 
 
 The armored cruiser is not expected to engage the battle ship 
 unless the conditions are such as to give her some advantage to make 
 up for her lighter guns and thinner armor. If the battle ship were 
 injured so that she could not fire all her guns, or if water had en- 
 tered some of her compartments and thrown her off an even keel, so 
 but few of her guns could be pointed in some particular direction, 
 the cruiser might by reason of her superior speed take this position 
 and remain where, without great damage to herself, she could pour 
 in a destructive fire upon the disabled battle ship. In general the 
 cruiser trusts to her speed to keep away from anything she cannot 
 whip. The Brooklyn and the New York are good types of the 
 armored cruiser. 
 
 The battle ship built to fight and not to run carries the most 
 powerful guns and the best armor consistent with her displacement 
 and seagoing requirements. The battle ship is usually larger than 
 the armored cruiser, the hull is stronger and perhaps has a triple 
 bottom divided into numerous water-tight chambers reaching up to 
 and forming a shelf on which her armor belt rests. She has a heavy 
 protective deck, an armor belt from seven to eight feet in width and 
 from eight to eighteen inches in thickness. Above the protective 
 deck transverse armored bulkheads (partitions) are built fore and aft 
 to stop the enemy's shells, which might come in at the stern and bow. 
 Along the sides, above the armor belt connecting the bulkheads, 
 sufficient armor is placed to keep out medium gun fire ; that is, com- 
 mon shells and projectiles from guns six inches and smaller. 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Since this armor must be so heavy (perhaps one third of the 
 entire displacement of the ship is given to it), it is impossible to com- 
 pletely cover the ship with it, and so we find it in the form of a huge 
 steel box (redoubt) extending far enough ahead and astern to include 
 within its walls the machinery moving the turrets, the ammunition 
 hoists, and the most important parts of the ship above the armored 
 deck. It is expected that considerable portions of the bow and 
 stern above the protective deck may and probably will be shot away 
 in action, but this might be done without much damage or loss of life 
 and the battle ship still be able to maintain a most formidable resist- 
 ance. The destruction of the unarmored bow might impede the speed 
 of the ship and cause her to steer badly, and water coming in here or 
 at the stern might put the battle ship on an uneven keel, perhaps to 
 such an extent that she would be troubled to bring her guns to bear 
 on an enemy. In such positions she would present an inviting target 
 for the attack of the torpedo boat or the ram. 
 
 The batteries of our battle ships are known as primary and 
 secondary. In the primary battery are the large guns from 8-inch 
 to 13-inch, with which she will attack the thick armor over the vitals 
 of her opponents and the opposing heavy guns. The primary bat- 
 tery must be supplemented by smaller rapid-fire guns from 4-inch to 
 8-inch and with these she will attack the unarmored or thinly armored 
 portions of the opposing ship and the portholes through which the 
 heavy guns look out. 
 
 The secondary battery is made up of smaller rapid-fire guns, 
 such as Maxim, Nordenfeldt, Hotchkiss, Driggs-Schroeder, Colt, or 
 Gatling, whose projectiles range in size from that of a rifle ball up to a 
 12-pounder, and fire from 30 shots a minute for the former to 400 or 
 1 200 shots a minute for the small machine guns. With these she 
 sweeps away men from the exposed positions on the hostile deck and 
 defends herself when attacked by the torpedo boat. 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 457 
 
 The battle ship of to-day represents a compromise of conflicting 
 requirements. Since the advent of horizontal shell fire, there has 
 been a continuous struggle between the shipbuilder and the gun 
 maker until the modern battle ship is a huge floating mass of com- 
 plicated machinery. Besides the engines used to propel her she may 
 have a hundred others. Separate engines steer the ship, hoist the 
 boats, raise the anchors, turn the dynamos, pump water, compress 
 air, furnish power for the machine shop, hoist ammunition, move 
 guns, turn turrets, ventilate the ship, and even distill water for the 
 use of the engines and crew, for drinking water is no longer carried 
 in water casks ; in a word engines do what was formerly done by 
 hand labor and do it better. It is no longer sufficient for the com- 
 manding officer to be merely a good sailor and a stout fighter. 
 Brains and technical training of a high order are necessary to com- 
 mand this intricate mass of machinery, containing more than a mile 
 of steel tubing, with boilers giving an acre of heating surface. The 
 ship, if used as a ram, could strike a blow that would lift 200,000 
 tons a foot high. The skill required has dignified subordinate posi- 
 tions until we find warrant machinists paid $1200 per year, and chief 
 gunners, chief carpenters, chief boatswains as high as $1960 per year. 
 Small wonder that the battle ship has the confidence of her designers. 
 
 The " Monitor," a boat of peculiar construction built by John 
 Ericsson, has come to designate a type. The type characteristics 
 are the turrets mounting heavy guns, low sides (free board), thick 
 armor, low speed, and light draft. The spectacular appearance of 
 the first Monitor at a critical moment seems to have given the type a 
 higher value in the eyes of most Americans than its abilities justify. 
 It is a most useful vessel within its sphere, but that sphere is limited. 
 As harbor defense boats they can render excellent service. Secre- 
 tary Long has said, " There is no advantage to be gained by build- 
 ing ships of this description. Such a vessel cannot attain to high 
 
458 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 speed. It can neither overtake nor escape from a battle ship. Its 
 comparative smallness of target, usually mentioned as one of its chief 
 advantages, is apparent rather than real, for that feature of the bat- 
 tle ship which changes the size of the target, although vulnerable, is 
 not indispensable to the safety or fighting efficiency of the vessel. 
 The chief defect to be found is the serious disadvantage under which 
 its guns are fought in any but the smoothest water." 
 
 Originally, the monitors were planned to carry only heavy guns, 
 but the appearance of the torpedo boat compelled the building of a 
 superstructure to carry search lights and rapid-fire guns. Of course 
 guns in this position are as much exposed on the monitor as on any 
 type of ship. 
 
 The Idea of Submarine Attack is not New. In the War of the 
 Revolution a submarine boat attacked a British man-of-war in New 
 York harbor, and in the War of 1812 Robert Fulton devised and ad- 
 vocated the use of the spar torpedo which a half century later men 
 like Lieutenant Gushing used with terrible effect. 
 
 In the Civil War the Torpedo Boat Played a Prominent Part. 
 It appeared as a small boat with a spar in the bow to which was at- 
 tached a torpedo to be exploded on contact. One of the most suc- 
 cessful attacks was on the United States ship Minnesota. A small 
 launch fitted with a long spar at her bow, to which was attached the 
 torpedo arranged to explode upon contact, steamed, in the darkness 
 of night, through the blockading fleet without its identity being dis- 
 covered, although frequently challenged by lookouts. The Minnesota 
 was found, the torpedo was lowered, the spar run out, and a dash 
 made for her side. Although the torpedo was loaded only with gun- 
 powder, the explosion was terrific, and resulted in such severe damage 
 to the Minnesota that she was compelled to be docked. The torpedo 
 boat escaped in safety. 
 
 It was in a simillar boat and with a spar torpedo, that Lieutenant 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 459 
 
 Gushing, of the United States navy, made his successful attack upon 
 the Confederate ironclad Albemarle. In the absence of the search 
 light and the small rapid-fire gun, such boats in the hands of fearless 
 men were a dreaded and dangerous enemy on dark foggy nights. 
 
 Late in the sixties the Whitehead torpedo was introduced and 
 special boats designed and armed with it. They were made small, 
 for the safety of the boat depended upon not being discovered. 
 Heavy guns cannot be moved quickly and the gun maker replied to 
 the torpedo boat's challenge with the small rapid-fire gun and the 
 machine gun, the powder maker contributed smokeless powder, and 
 the electrician produced the search light. Under favorable circum- 
 stances the torpedo has an effective range up to 800 yards, and the 
 boat must get at least that close before being discovered and de- 
 stroyed. Once discovered she will be exposed to a veritable -shower 
 of small projectiles. Her existence depends on making this ex- 
 posure as short as possible, and everything has been sacrificed to ex- 
 treme speed until the boat is a mere steel shell driven by engines on 
 which the best machinists have exhausted their ingenuity. To 
 obtain speed the size has been increased until the very object for 
 which it was originally intended may have been defeated. The high 
 speed at which they move throws up a bow wave that is visible even 
 in a dark night. English boats driven by the Parsons steam turbine 
 have made more than forty miles an hour. 
 
 The Torpedo Boat Destroyer, as its name suggests, is a larger 
 boat, built to afford protection against hostile torpedo boats. There 
 is much difference of opinion as to the merit of torpedo attack. No 
 vessel has yet, when in motion at sea, been destroyed by the torpedo 
 and torpedo boats can do little against the battle ship whose second- 
 ary battery is in good shape. The torpedo boat's time in battle will 
 come toward the close of the action, when the ships are partially dis- 
 abled, the crews tired, and the rapid-fire battery dismounted or 
 
460 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 silenced; then, after a ship is disabled, perhaps on uneven keel, she 
 will fall an easy prey to the torpedo boat. 
 
 The Torpedo Boat has a very real Influence upon Naval "War- 
 fare. The knowledge that a harbor is defended by such a fleet and 
 the danger that the floating batteries costing millions of dollars will 
 be destroyed by the insignificant yet terrible little enemy will make 
 an attacking squadron cautious. The constant strain upon the 
 nerves in keeping a lookout and the very fear that torpedo boats 
 incite well repay their construction, should they render no further 
 service. 
 
 " She's a floating boiler crammed with fire and steam, 
 
 A dainty toy, with works just like a watch; 
 A weaving, working basketful of tricks 
 A pent volcano stoppered at top notch. 
 She is Death and swift Destruction in a case 
 
 (Not the Unseen, but the Awful plain in sight). 
 The Dread that must be halted when afar; 
 She's a concentrated, fragile form of Might; 
 She's a daring, vicious thing 
 With a rending deadly sting 
 And she asks no odds nor quarter in the fight ! " 
 
 Automobile Torpedoes. The rapid-fire gun and later the de- 
 velopment of the electric search light and smokeless powder rendered 
 the spar obsolete and inventive talent turned itself to producing a 
 torpedo that could be used at longer range. 
 
 The Whitehead, the one now most generally used, appeared in 
 crude form in 1868. As perfected it is a long fish-shaped shell hav- 
 ing three compartments. The first chamber, called the warhead, is 
 detachable and contains the explosive charge and the means of ex- 
 ploding it. The warhead is kept in the ammunition magazine and 
 attached to the torpedo only when ready for action. Wet gun cot- 
 ton is the explosive usually chosen because it is more powerful than 
 most and one of the safest. The wet gun cotton in a warhead has 
 been known to be struck in action by a shell without exploding. It 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 461 
 
 is exploded by the detonation of another explosive, a fulminate of 
 mercury primer igniting a small quantity of dry gun cotton being 
 the means usually employed. The second chamber contains the 
 compressed air cylinder, which furnishes the motive power to turn 
 the propeller, and the third chamber the machinery for turning the 
 screw propeller at the stern. Modern torpedoes are from 14 inches 
 to 1 8 inches in diameter, from 11 feet to 18 feet long, are charged 
 with 120 pounds to 220 pounds of wet gun cotton, and can run 
 about 800 yards, the greater part of the distance at a 3O-knot rate. 
 A torpedo is thrown from a torpedo tube by a light charge of gun- 
 powder, and the machinery within it being set in motion it at once 
 begins to propel itself, hence the name automobile. Much skill is re- 
 quired in the use of the torpedo. If fired at a target which is in 
 motion allowance must be made for the changed position of the target 
 by the time the torpedo reaches it and the " acquired motion" of 
 the boat from which the torpedo is fired must be considered. The 
 modern torpedo is an intricate piece of machinery and costs complete 
 about $3100. 
 
 The Howell torpedo is the invention of an American and differs 
 from the Whitehead chiefly in having within it a heavy balance 
 wheel in place of the compressed air motor. Before launching, the 
 wheel is spun up to a high speed and its momentum is employed to 
 drive the torpedo's screw propeller. 
 
 Submarine boats, or the plans for them, first appeared about 400 
 years ago. William Bourne of England in 1604 designed one which 
 was never built. A German, Cornelius Van Drebbel, tried one on 
 the Thames in 1624 in the presence of King James I. The boat 
 was moved by oars passing through the sides, the openings being 
 made water-tight by leather stuffing boxes. It is said that the boat 
 could be completely submerged and the air ''kept pure by means of 
 liquids." During the next hundred years a few attempts were made, 
 
462 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 but these resulted frequently in the loss of life of the inventor. The 
 first American submarine boat dates back to the time of David 
 Bushnell of Saybrook, Connecticut, who in 1775 designed and made 
 a turtle-shaped cask about 7^ feet in diameter, large enough to con- 
 tain a man and air to sustain him for 30 minutes. The boat was en- 
 tered by a water-tight trap door at the top and carried a heavy lead 
 weight at the bottom which could be detached by the operator and 
 allow the boat to come to the surface quickly. It was steered by a 
 small rudder and propelled by a screw propeller turned by. hand. 
 This was apparently the first appearance of the screw propeller in 
 navigation. Its course was directed by a compass, and a water gauge 
 showed the depth of submersion. A bottle containing phosphorus 
 furnished the light by which to read the compass and water gauge. 
 Water was admitted into compartments to sink the cask to the re- 
 quired depth and expelled by two force pumps. The torpedo con- 
 sisted of a cask containing the clockwork and 150 pounds of gun- 
 powder attached by a short rope to a wood screw which was to be 
 screwed into the hull of the ship to be destroyed. In this boat an 
 officer named Lee in 1776 made an attack on a British 5<D-gun ship 
 near Governor's Island in New York harbor, but the wood screw 
 striking a bolt in the hull it failed to fix the torpedo. The operator 
 was forced to come to the surface and abandon his torpedo, which 
 later exploded, causing little damage but much alarm. In 1801 
 Robert Fulton designed and operated in Brest harbor, France, a sub- 
 marine boat in which he remained submerged for one hour. In 1814 
 he suggested the form of spar torpedo which was used in the 
 American Civil War. That contest brought out the famous Con- 
 federate " cigar boat," the immediate prototype of the Holland. 
 She was propelled by machinery, driven by hand, and caused to dive 
 or ascend by means of horizontal rudders on her sides. Although in 
 her experiments she sank four times, each time with the loss of her 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 463 
 
 entire crew, it was never difficult to find adventurous spirits to man 
 her. The fifth and last experiment resulted in the sinking of the 
 United States war ship Housatonic. The "cigar boat" also disap- 
 peared and with her the greater part of her crew. 
 
 In 1886 Nordenfeldt brought forward in Stockholm a boat driven 
 by steam power which could dive for five minutes at a time. Lieu- 
 tenant Peral of the Spanish navy in 1888 presented for trial a boat 
 named after him. Storage batteries furnished the motive power. 
 France later produced submarine boats, but all of these lose their 
 sense of direction when the course is changed under water and are 
 compelled to come to the surface to get new bearings. 
 
 Experiments with submarine boats having by 1887 attracted con- 
 siderable attention, the United States navy issued a circular calling 
 for plans of a submarine boat that would show a speed of fifteen 
 knots on the surface, eight knots when submerged, and capable of 
 running thirty hours on the surface and two hours submerged. The 
 boat was required to turn within four times her length and to sink in 
 thirty seconds. Several boats were presented for trial in response to 
 the circular. 
 
 It remained for John P. Holland, an American inventor, to de- 
 sign the first satisfactorily working submarine boat. It (the Holland) 
 is 55 feet long, 10^ feet in width, and displaces 75 tons. The hull 
 is cigar-shaped and made of steel. It is double, with numerous 
 compartments in which are stored gasoline for fuel, and others, called 
 trimming tanks, into which water can be admitted through valves. 
 The water is used as ballast and can be blown out by compressed air. 
 When moving on the surface the power is furnished by a gasoline 
 engine; when submerged, by storage batteries. The engine and the 
 dynamo are each attached to a common shaft operating a screw pro- 
 peller. Storage batteries weighing 21 tons are located near the 
 middle of the ship well toward the keel and so far below the center 
 
464 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 THE " HOLLAND" CRUISING. 
 
 DIVING. 
 
 ~ 
 
 JUST DISAPPEARING. 
 
 COMING UP. 
 
 of buoyancy that they aid in 
 keeping her right side up. 
 With all her crew and stores 
 aboard the boat has only her 
 turret and about 18 inches of 
 the hull above the water. She 
 then has an excess of buoy- 
 ancy of about 250 pounds and 
 water is admitted or blown 
 out of her trimming tanks to 
 keep her buoyancy at this 
 point. In this condition the 
 influence of her horizontal 
 rudders will cause her to dive 
 or to ascend. If when sub- 
 merged an accident should 
 occur to her propelling ma- 
 chinery she would rise to the 
 surface. 
 
 The gasoline engine has 45 
 horse power and the storage 
 tanks hold five tons of gaso- 
 line for fuel. The engine can 
 run the dynamo and charge 
 the storage battery in eight 
 or ten hours, and the battery 
 will furnish 50 horse power 
 for six hours, enough to en- 
 able the boat to run sub- 
 merged about fifty miles. 
 The boat contains air pumps 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 465 
 
 for supplying compressed air for machinery, guns, and crew. When 
 submerged she uses the exhaust from the steering engines to keep 
 good the atmosphere breathed by the crew. In her bow is a sub- 
 merged torpedo tube from which can be thrown the regular 1 8-inch 
 Whitehead torpedo (see Whitehead torpedo in text). She carries in 
 addition two pneumatic guns; one forward, one astern. The one 
 astern will propel under water with an energy of 750 tons a shell con- 
 taining 100 pounds of dynamite. The gun forward can fire similar 
 shells through the air and has a range of 1800 yards. To use the 
 forward gun the boat would need to go to the surface but remain 
 only an instant, for the recoil from the gun when fired would force 
 the boat under water and out of reach of the enemy's projectiles. 
 The pneumatic guns have a bore of 8^4 inches and can be fired by 
 powder and air, or air alone may be used. One pilot, one electri- 
 cian, one engineer, and two torpedo experts form the crew. She has 
 a telescopic turret that can be projected three feet above the water 
 in a second or two, or, remaining wholly under water, a tube can be 
 thrust up containing a camera obscura which will reflect upon a white 
 sheet of paper in the turret a picture of the harbor or sea for miles. 
 
 Several trials were given the Holland and although at the first 
 she showed considerable merit, yet it was not until November 9, 
 1899, that the board reported "every requirement fulfilled," and 
 said, "The Holland is a successful and veritable submarine torpedo 
 boat, capable of making a veritable attack upon an enemy unseen 
 and undetectable." There is no reason to consider the submarine 
 boat as unsafe. Indeed, in war it has many more chances than a 
 torpedo boat and it can be made almost absolutely safe. Its crown- 
 ing virtue is that it makes blockading almost impossible. In the 
 maneuvers of the American squadron off Newport, she showed that 
 she possesses about all the good qualities ever claimed for her. 
 
 In view of the successful performances of the Holland, it is inter- 
 
466 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 esting to read that a European of high authority said in 1898, " The 
 Americans, in attempting to solve at one blow all the problems in- 
 volved in a submarine torpedo boat, have accumulated too many 
 difficulties." 
 
 As a harbor defense boat, the fear she would inspire in a block- 
 ading squadron would alone be worth a whole fleet of monitors. 
 After viewing her successful performances a naval officer declared 
 that she had shown "the worse than worthlessness of the present 
 above water torpedo system, its methods, theories, and appliances, 
 the need of a deliverance from its absurdities and from the fool's par- 
 adise of its false security." 
 
 " She is the only kind of an inexpensive draft that can move up 
 to a battle ship in daylight in the face of her fire and in spite of her 
 force of defenders and force the ship to move off or receive a torpedo. 
 An inexpensive boat with a crew of five that can within a limited 
 field prevent operations attempted by an expensive battle ship with 
 a crew of some hundreds surely has a tactical place in naval warfare." 
 An officer says of her, "When a shot or two through her stack 
 intimated that the enemy were getting her range, she would out fires, 
 douse stack, seal up, head so as to intercept the ship's'course, dive, 
 and make a run at five fathoms below the surface of about 500 yards, 
 and then rise till the top of her turret or that of her camera-lucida 
 tube above water gave a view of the enemy. Gun fire would be 
 employed against her, but the chances of its proving effective are 
 hardly worth considering, when it is remembered that she would pre- 
 sent as a target only a few square inches of armored turret or the top 
 of her camera-lucida tube for a few seconds at a time, in unexpected 
 and impossible-to-predict places. The small chance of disaster^ due 
 to gun fire would certainly not be enough to deter, when escaping, it 
 would mean the defeat of 500 men in an expensive battle ship by 
 five men in an inexpensive boat. When the boat arrived within 300 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 467 
 
 yards of the ship, she would make her final dive, deliver her bow 
 torpedo from her axial tube, pass under the ship if her direction were 
 good enough and at such close quarters she could hardly miss 
 and as the light through the water gave notice that the ship were 
 passed, the stern torpedo would be delivered against the ship's hull. 
 The attack could always be avoided by the ship's steaming away at 
 speed, for the boat could not chase submerged for any length of 
 time faster than eight or nine knots, though she could make short 
 runs at twelve ; but if the boat chased the ship away she could be 
 considered to have given a good account of herself." 
 
 Gunpowder. The claims of Roger Bacon, 1267, and Bartholdus 
 Schwartz, 1320, to the invention of gunpowder, are not considered 
 well founded. The origin of gunpowder is lost in the mists of 
 antiquity, but a prevailing belief seems to ascribe its birthplace to 
 Southern China or Northern India, where saltpeter is found in large 
 quantities. The Chinese used it to propel rockets two thousand 
 years ago. The exact formula, saltpeter 75, charcoal 15, sulphur IO, 
 was known to the Arab chemists of the eighth century. 
 
 The action of gunpowder is based on the well known laws of 
 combustion, the usual manifestations of which are heat, light, and 
 gas. A piece of wood will burn more rapidly if reduced to shavings, 
 because oxygen, which constitutes about one fifth of the atmosphere, 
 is necessary to combustion, and more of it is brought into contact 
 with the shavings than if the wood be solid. An explosion is a rapid 
 combustion ; a detonation is a rapid explosion. The phenomena of 
 an explosion, like a combustion, are heat, light, and gas. Heat ap- 
 plied to water converts it into steam, causing it to occupy 1700 times 
 its former space. Man utilizes this law and calls the result power. 
 The heat in an explosion acts upon the particles of gas in the same 
 way as in steam causing them to occupy still more space. An ex- 
 plosive is a substance or a mixture of substances which when heated, 
 
468 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 struck, or subjected to the shock of an explosion results in the ex- 
 tremely rapid formation of great quantities 'of highly heated gases. 
 That explosive is the most powerful which will produce the greatest 
 volume of gas at the highest temperature in the shortest time. The 
 definitions of mixture and compound are familiar. 
 
 Mixture and Compound. The ingredients of explosive mixtures 
 are mixed mechanically and may be separated by mechanical means. 
 Black powder is a mixture. The ingredients of explosive compounds 
 are united chemically and can be separated only by chemical means. 
 Smokeless powder is a compound. Black powder is made by mechan- 
 ically mixing in the proper proportions saltpeter, sulphur, and char- 
 coal. With every explosive it is necessary to have something to 
 burn (a combustible) and something to feed the flame with great 
 quantities of oxygen (an oxidizer). The charcoal is the combustible 
 and the saltpeter the oxidizer. The sulphur makes the mixture burn 
 at a lower temperature. The proportions of the ingredients vary 
 with the purpose for which the powder is to be used. These are 
 separately pulverized, carefully weighed, and then placed within a 
 gun-metal or copper barrel (drum) having an axle with arms. The 
 barrel is turned in one direction and the arms revolve in the other. 
 The charge is thoroughly mixed for five minutes. It is next slightly 
 moistened with water and ground under heavy rollers. This is called 
 "milling" and the product called " mill cake." It is done to bring 
 all the ingredients into the closest possible union with each other. 
 Water is put in to prevent dust, to aid the mixing, and to reduce the 
 effects of a possible explosion. The mill cake is then made into 
 powder meal by being passed through two pairs of toothed rollers. 
 The powder meal is then placed in a press box, where it is made into 
 hard slabs called " press cake." 
 
 Processes. Milling and pressing are the most important processes, 
 for to burn quickly the ingredients must be thoroughly mixed and 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 469 
 
 brought together as closely as possible. To burn uniformly it must 
 have a uniform density, and milling and pressing bring the particles 
 into closer union and regulate the density. Unless it burns uniformly 
 it will not shoot accurately. The press cake is then placed in the 
 granulating machine, consisting of toothed rollers of varying size 
 which break it into grains of the size required. The powder is next 
 passed through revolving reels covered with canvas cloth, where the 
 dust is removed. It is then ready for glazing, which is done by 
 placing 100 pounds of powder with y 2 ounce of graphite in an oaken 
 barrel and revolving rapidly for six hours. This gives it a high gloss 
 and makes it less likely to absorb moisture from the air. 
 
 Good black powder should be hard, of a uniform color without 
 any specks of saltpeter or sulphur, free from dust, and should not 
 soil the hands. The size of the grains of powder depends upon the 
 caliber of the gun in which it is to be used, varying from the finest 
 grains for small pistols, to grains an inch or more in diameter for 
 heavy cannon. With ordinary cannon powder it has been found that 
 seven eighths of the entire charge is consumed before the shot passes 
 over one third the length of the bore. This action causes excessive 
 pressure at or near the breech of the gun and very little at the muz- 
 zle. For the purpose of reducing the initial strain and getting a 
 more progressive pressure, cannon powder is pressed into grains of 
 varying shapes ; a six-sided figure with holes through the mass seems 
 to give the best results. 
 
 Brown powder, also called from its color " cocoa powder," is a 
 variation from black powder, consisting in general of a mixture of 
 about 80 parts saltpeter, 15 parts of wood, not wholly charred, and a 
 little sulphur, and sometimes about 4 per cent, of sugar is included. 
 Brown powder proved superior to black powder for guns of large cal- 
 iber; which superiority was supposed to be due to the fact that the 
 charred wood contained more oxygen than the charcoal, and so pro- 
 
470 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 duced a greater volume of powder gas, aided by the carbon, hydro- 
 gen, and oxygen present in the sugar. 
 
 Such is black or brown gunpowder, and with comparatively 
 slight changes it has fought the battles of centuries. Used in the 
 musket of one hundred years ago it gave the soldier a hard " kick," 
 threw the bullet only a moderate distance, and that in a curve that 
 differed greatly from a straight line. Its materials were not all con- 
 verted into gas, a large portion being left to foul his gun and render 
 his shooting inaccurate, while the puff of black smoke revealed his 
 position to the enemy. Batteries in action have been enveloped in 
 such dense smoke that they have been captured by the bayonet 
 charge of the enemy approaching unseen. Some things may be said 
 in its favor. Its behavior is pretty uniform and its shooting on this 
 account accurate. Its gases also are not very destructive to the bore 
 of the gun. 
 
 The cannon charge of black powder was bulky, weighing one 
 half as much as the projectile. Seeking to find a substitute that 
 should occupy less space in the powder chamber and yet give the 
 required velocity, the chemist eliminated nearly all those parts of the 
 charge not actually used, and converted the remainder almost wholly 
 into gas. He fairly stumbled upon smokelessness and barely recog- 
 nized then the feature that is now a much desired object. The gain 
 was evident. The new charge weighed less, it took up less space in 
 the cannon, permitted the saving of weight at the breech, where the 
 gun was heaviest, for instead of giving a sudden blow to the pro- 
 jectile, as did black powder, it pushed it not only the whole length of 
 the gun but even after it had left the muzzle. The metal saved at 
 the breech of the cannon was added to the muzzle and gave a taper 
 glistening tube one third longer, throwing its projectile with less 
 strain, faster, farther, in a flatter curve, with more energy and 
 greater penetration. The smokeless feature gave the gunner a bet- 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 471 
 
 ter chance to aim and the torpedo boat can no longer steal up cov- 
 ered by the smoke of battle. 
 
 Smokeless Powder. " As to the use of smokeless powder in the 
 Springfield .45 caliber rifle the fact is known that its pressures run 
 very high in small arms, frequently exceeding 40,000 pounds per 
 square inch in our army magazine rifle. It is only by dint of 
 supreme effort, and after years of careful and exhaustive experi- 
 ments, that a smokeless powder has at last been found suitable for 
 the .45 caliber Springfield rifle ; one which may not overtax a breech 
 mechanism calculated originally to resist a pressure of not more than 
 24,000 pounds per square inch. An increase of the black powder 
 charge (70 grains) now used, by about 10 grains, will exceed the 
 safety limit in the Springfield, although the pressure due to the use 
 of black powder in this arm is moderate and uniform. We use this 
 word " uniform" advisedly, as it is a well established fact that the 
 pressure due to the use of smokeless powder in small arm rifles 
 under certain and not very abnormal circumstances, are quite varia- 
 ble ; in fact, we may say that at times they are treacherously incon- 
 sistent, and demand an exceedingly stable and positively resisting 
 breech block, something akin to that of the Sharps rifle or bolt 
 system/' 
 
 Smokeless powder has come to stay, but there is yet room for im- 
 provement. Its susceptibility to extremes of heat and cold affects 
 the accuracy of its shootmg. It sometimes behaves in the most be- 
 wildering manner. The service charge has been known to give a 
 pressure of 70,000 pounds in the .236 navy rifle. If in response to 
 the frantic howls of some newspapers such powder had been issued 
 to the volunteers of the Spanish war there would have been more 
 American soldiers killed by bursting guns than by Spanish bullets. 
 Beginning with 1892 Congress was asked every year for an appropria- 
 tion for small caliber guns and smokeless powder but it turned a deaf 
 
472 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ear and the appropriations were so inadequate that the magazine 
 guns were supplied only to the regular army and the smokeless 
 powder cartridges available for practice averaged two per man per 
 day and left none in reserve. The country had been warned of this 
 plight by the chief of ordnance as far back as 1893. 
 
 Most smokeless powders are made from preparations of gun cot- 
 ton or nitroglycerin, explosives that are so sudden and violent in 
 their action that it is necessary to mix them with a " restrainer" to 
 retard combustion. 
 
 Smokeless powder injures the gun in two ways: by wash and by 
 erosion. Wash is the cutting away of the gun by columns of gas at 
 a high temperature and under heavy pressure escaping rapidly past 
 the side of the projectile. Erosion is the eating of the surface of the 
 gun by the particles of gas moving rapidly at a high temperature 
 under great pressure. Erosion takes place chiefly a short distance 
 in front of the powder chamber, not in the powder chamber, where it 
 is not in motion, nor at the muzzle, where the temperature is re- 
 duced. Wash occurs at any point in the gun where the gas can get 
 past the projectile. 
 
 Cordite, the smokeless powder used by England, consists of 
 nitroglycerin 58, gun cotton 37, vaseline 5. It is highly destruc- 
 tive of the bore of the gun but is not so markedly injurious to small 
 calibers. A high English authority says, " Our heavy guns wear so 
 intolerably fast that we cannot reckon on the velocities we assign to 
 them for any considerable number of rounds." England at least has 
 more trouble in this respect than other nations acknowledge. She 
 alone uses cordite. The smokeless powder used by Germany con- 
 tains about 25 percent, nitroglycerin. 
 
 A new smokeless powder of the pyro-cellulose type used by 
 the United States navy seems to give excellent results and to be 
 somewhat in advance of that of any other nation. Extremes of 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 473 
 
 heat, cold, and moisture seem to affect it but little, and the depart- 
 ment reports that it gives low pressure and high velocity, while thus 
 far erosion is almost an unknown quantity. As a comparison, where 
 the old style brown powder gave a velocity of 2000 feet with 15 tons 
 pressure, the new powder with but little more pressure gives a veloc- 
 ity of 3000 feet, thus throwing its projectile farther, faster, in a 
 flatter curve, and with greater energy and penetration. This powder 
 has worked so well that the service velocity has been raised from 
 2000 feet per second to 2800 feet for the heavy guns and 3000 feet 
 per second for the cannon of smaller calibers. A 4-inch gun was 
 fired 66 1 times and a 5 -inch gun 666 times with this powder without 
 causing enough wear to be detected by the most delicate gauges in 
 use at the proving grounds, a remarkable gain over the perform- 
 ances of any other powder. Its good qualities are attributed to its 
 producing an unusually large volume of gas at a much lower tem- 
 perature. 
 
 Lyddite, used by the English as a bursting charge for shells in 
 their South African war, is practically identical with melenite, which 
 the French* used as a bursting charge. They are both made from 
 soluble gun cotton dissolved in ether and acted upon by picric acid. 
 Until recently they have not been regarded as very stable. Armor- 
 piercing shells loaded with jovite as a bursting charge have been fired 
 through four inches of hardened armor and exploded in the rear of 
 the plate, showing that such projectiles could be fired through the 
 side of a ship and exploded within, where their destructive effect can 
 be easily imagined. 
 
 Powder in small grains burns so quickly that large cannon cannot 
 withstand the resulting shock. This feature brought the making of 
 large guns to a standstill until General Rodman, the eminent artil- 
 lerist, discovered that by making the grains larger, pressing the pow- 
 
 *The first successful smokeless powder was developed in France. 
 
474 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 der harder, and perforating it, he could control its combustion, for as 
 a piece of powder grows smaller in burning it has less burning surface 
 and generates jess gas. Rodman, by perforating large powder 
 grains and firing them from the inside, made the burning surface in- 
 crease as the powder was consumed and constantly increased the 
 volume of gas generated. The same principle is used to-day with 
 smokeless powder. 
 
 Gun cotton was first manufactured by Schonbein in 1845 Dut 
 proved dangerous to handle until rendered safe by purifying, pulping, 
 and compressing it. It is made by steeping pure dry cotton in a 
 mixture of the purest and strongest nitric and sulphuric acids. 
 Waste from the spinning rooms of cotton mills is usually employed. 
 This is thoroughly cleansed and dried. Sulphuric and nitric acid in 
 the proportion of three to one are mixed and allowed to cool. One 
 part of cotton is then immersed in ten parts of the mixture for ten 
 minutes. The cotton is removed, nearly all of the acid squeezed out, 
 and the cotton put in an earthenware crock for twenty-four hours to 
 " digest." It is then removed, washed, and wrung out, afterward re- 
 duced to pulp, when it is again washed in fresh water and then in water 
 containing lime, caustic soda, and marble dust to neutralize any acid 
 that might remain. It is then molded into little rectangular blocks 
 each with the corners cut off and a hole made through its center. 
 Gun cotton before being made into pulp differs but little from ordi- 
 nary cotton. It is harsher to the touch and less flexible. The 
 blocks are saturated with water and packed in the torpedo cases. 
 Containing 30 per cent, of water they can be exploded only by the 
 detonation of dry gun cotton placed in contact with them. To 
 develop the force of gun cotton it must be strongly confined and 
 unless so confined is not very sensitive to shock. Cold has little effect 
 on it. It explodes at a temperature of 360 Fahrenheit. Compressed 
 gun cotton in small quantities may be safely lighted in the hand, 
 
MILITARY ART AND SCIENCE. 475 
 
 placed on the ground, and the flame extinguished by pouring water 
 on it. 
 
 Liquid Air as an Explosive. Those engaged in exploiting liquid 
 air have urged the use of that article as an explosive, claiming for it 
 a pressure of 12,000 pounds per square inch, but a cubic foot of gun 
 cotton can be detonated in 1-2000 part of a second and the mass 
 converted into gas which before it expands exerts a pressure of more 
 than 800,000 pounds per square inch. Although one of the most 
 powerful explosives it is the safest known. 
 
 Nitroglycerin was discovered in 1847 by A. Sobrero. Cotton 
 and pure glycerin are chemically about the same, and nitroglycerin 
 is made from glycerin as gun cotton is made from cotton, by mixing 
 pure glycerin with the purest and strongest nitric and sulphuric 
 acids. Any fatty impurities in the glycerin used make the com- 
 pound unstable and are a fertile source of accident. Nitroglycerin 
 is made by mixing about 600 pounds of nitric acid with about iioo 
 pounds of sulphuric acid in a leaden tank and letting it cool for 
 twelve hours. This is then run into a cast iron tank surrounded by 
 a larger tank filled with water. Within the smaller tank are spiral 
 pipes through which cold water circulates to keep down the temper- 
 ature. Two hundred and forty pounds of glycerin in the form of 
 spray is then mixed with the acids. This is a dangerous proceeding; 
 considerable heat is evolved, the temperature must be watched, and 
 if it goes above 80 Fahrenheit the operation is suspended. After the 
 charge has been mixed it is allowed to remain for a few minutes. 
 The nitroglycerin soon forms, rises to the surface, and is separated 
 from the acid mixture. The nitroglycerin is then washed with 
 fresh water and afterward with a solution of carbonate of soda until 
 all traces of the acids are removed and the compound shows an alka- 
 line reaction. Freshly made by the Mowbray process it is a creamy 
 white, opaque, oily liquid, but after standing it "clears" and becomes 
 
476 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 transparent and colorless or nearly so. As found in commerce it is 
 yellow or brownish yellow. It does not mix with and is not affected 
 by cold water. It has a sweet, pungent, aromatic taste and is an 
 active poison. The fumes from it produce violent headaches. 
 
 Pure nitroglycerin is not sensitive to friction or moderate per- 
 cussion except when pinched between metallic surfaces. When 
 confined and struck a smart blow it explodes on account of its 
 incompressibility. When in a state of decomposition, however, it 
 may be extremely sensitive and become exceedingly dangerous, the 
 slightest shock causing a violent explosion. Decomposition may be 
 detected by its turning a greenish color or by its changing blue 
 litmus paper to red. In a frozen state nitroglycerin becomes insen- 
 sitive and is safely handled in that condition. 
 
 The incompressibility of liquid nitroglycerin is a dangerous 
 quality and the liquid is inconvenient to handle. To make it safer 
 and jmore convenient some material that will absorb and retain it is 
 used. It then passes under the general name of dynamite, giant 
 powder, etc. The igniting point of dynamite is about 360 F. Ig- 
 nited in small quantities in the open air it simply burns fiercely. 
 Large quantities would explode. Dynamite freezes at 40 F. and in 
 this condition is not easily exploded. 
 
 Explosive gelatin, the most powerful explosive of all, is made 
 by dissolving by the aid of heat four to eight parts of soluble gun 
 cotton in ninety-six to ninety-eight parts of nitroglycerin. It then 
 becomes a honey yellow color varying in consistency from jelly to 
 tough leather. Unconfined it burns freely but does not explode. If 
 confined it explodes violently. Its ignition point is 399 F. if 
 heated slowly; if heated rapidly, 464. In a frozen state it is ex- 
 tremely sensitive to shock; unfrozen, not very sensitive. Military 
 explosive gelatin is made by mixing camphor with it, which in- 
 creases the elasticity and makes it less sensitive to shock. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 
 
 Gold Where It is Found How Obtained Its Use in the Arts Its Use as Money 
 
 The Cyanide Process The Gold Fields of South Africa Silver How Obtained 
 
 Largely a By- Product Its Use in the Arts Its Use as Money Copper Mining 
 Marked Increase in the Use of Aluminum Coal the Basis of our Industrial Life The 
 World's Coal Production and its Equivalent in Man Power Natural Gas Gas Manu- 
 facturing Water Gas Fuel Gas Coal Tar Petroleum First Oil Wells How Oil 
 Wells are Drilled The Largest Oil Well in the World John D. Rockefeller's Defense 
 of the Standard Oil Company. The Wells Light. 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 GOLD was probably the earliest metal known to 
 man, and its ductility, malleability, beautiful 
 appearance, and indestructibility have made it prized 
 in all ages. It is rarely found pure but often alloyed 
 with silver; portions of the famous Comstock lode of 
 Nevada assaying gold 55.37, silver 42.87. A cubic 
 inch of pure gold weighs a little more than 10 Troy 
 ounces and is worth $209.38. One ounce is worth 
 $20.67 an d can be beaten out so thin as to cover 189 
 square feet of surface. One grain made into gold 
 leaf will cover more than 50 square inches or can be 
 drawn into wire 500 feet long. 
 
 Gold occurs in the rock formations of nearly all 
 geological periods, from the earliest to the latest, but 
 it is chiefly in the slates and shales of the middle, 
 secondary, and paleozoic periods that the greatest 
 deposits lie. When gold is found between broken 
 strata it is usually associated with 
 quartz and the veins vary in width 
 from a few inches to several feet. / 
 
 Placers are the superficial de- 
 
478 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 posits of sediment by the action of water. Veins occur where, 
 owing to some convulsion of nature, cracks have been made in the 
 strata and gold with its accompanying medium (veinstone) is forced 
 into the crack. A vein is usually vertical or nearly vertical, and 
 exhibits many vagaries. One side may be fairly rich in gold and 
 the other side, but a few inches away, barren. In general, gold in 
 veins is found in " chutes" or " chimneys " extending nearly vertical. 
 A quartz vein hundreds of feet in length may have in it a gold bear- 
 ing column only a few feet long but extending vertically hundreds 
 of feet. Geologists explain these chutes or chimneys on the theory 
 that hot water or vapors once escaped through fissures in the rock and 
 lined their passageway with gold as soot is deposited in a chimney. 
 
 Gold as it occurs in nature is either "free-milling" or "rebel- 
 lious." The former is so denominated because it is easily extracted 
 from its ores, as metallic gold or as a simple salt of the metal which 
 yields readily to reduction. Rebellious ores are those in which it is 
 especially difficult to separate the gold they contain into a metallic 
 form. Deposits which contain gold in so slight a quantity that the 
 gold obtained does not pay for its removal are also called rebellious. 
 There are vast deposits of this class ; for even a ton of sea water 
 holds one grain of gold in solution, and the brick clay underlying the 
 city of Philadelphia contains gold. Improved methods may eventu- 
 ally render it profitable to work them. 
 
 Placer Mining is certainly the cheapest, simplest, and probably 
 the oldest method of obtaining gold. It was the method employed 
 by the North Bloomfield Mining Company of North California and 
 allowed them to pay dividends on deposits that assayed but 3 cents 
 per cubic yard. Prospecting, searching for new ore deposits, is nearly 
 all done by the placer method. The prospectors usually go in pairs, 
 pausing to wash out a panful of dirt here and there wherever their 
 practiced eyes find any indications of gold. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 479 
 
 Panning is the simplest method of mining, for all the tools 
 required are a large, shallow iron pan and a shovel. A shovelful of 
 earth is placed in the pan, the pan nearly filled with water, and a 
 vigorous rotary motion given to it, which dissolves the earth and 
 throws the mud and gravel out over the edge of the pan. The gold, 
 if there is any, being heavy, sinks to the bottom and the process is 
 continued until nothing remains but the few glittering specks of gold 
 in the bottom of the pan. The method is slow and laborious but is 
 the first employed in any new field, and many fortunes have been 
 made by it. 
 
 The rocker, a piece of mining apparatus, resembling a flat cradle 
 with a handle at one corner, is set so that the head is higher than 
 the foot and has across the lower end a strip of rawhide with the 
 hair on, the hair pointing toward the head of the cradle. A few 
 shovelfuls of earth are thrown in, the water added gradually, and the 
 cradle shaken. The material that is lightest and presents most sur- 
 face to the action of the water is carried away. The heavier parts 
 sink; the gold, if any, goes to the bottom. If the miner calls chem- 
 istry to his aid and sprinkles mercury on the rawhide he increases the 
 returns; for mercury has a great affinity for gold and absorbs all that 
 comes within its reach. 
 
 The " long torn " is a rocker drawn out to many times its original 
 length to afford greater capacity and a chance for a more thorough 
 washing of the materials. Placer mining is available only for the 
 gold that has been torn out of the veins and deposited by the action 
 of water. 
 
 Hydraulic Mining. The prospector with his pan, rocker, and 
 ''long torn " skimmed over the surface and left untouched the gravel 
 beds of ancient streams that are frequently covered by beds of lava. 
 The bulk of gold in California and Australia is now obtained from 
 ancient valleys, narrow channels or depressions guarded by walls of 
 
480 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 rock which must be pierced to get to the deposit. This is often 
 done by running a tunnel from a lower adjoining valley so as to get 
 the necessary grade to carry away the material and the water used 
 in washing it out. This form of mining, known as hydraulic mining, 
 originated in California in 1852, and the most gigantic mining engi- 
 neering feats are displayed in connection with it. Millions of dollars 
 are sometimes spent before the investment becomes a paying one and 
 an abundance of water at a sufficient head, large deposits, and a sit- 
 uation that gives room for the disposal of the tailings or waste, are 
 necessary. Water for this purpose has been carried 100 miles or 
 more; mountains have been tunneled to make a passage for it, 
 flumes have been hung along the face of precipices and inverted 
 siphons constructed by which it was carried to the bottom of a valley 
 and up again over the top of the next range of hills, making a dip of 
 2000 feet. Great dams are built to store up the water of the rainy 
 season against the season of drought. Whole rivers are appropriated 
 and the water delivered into working reservoirs from one to several 
 hundred feet above the point where the nozzle is to be located. The 
 water supply having been secured, a flume or pay channel is built to 
 the lowest part of the deposit, having sufficient slope to allow the 
 escaping water to carry away the material. 
 
 The North Bloomfield Company of California expended $1,250,- 
 000 to bring the water to the bed. More than 100 miles of ditches 
 and reservoir were constructed for the water supply alone, and to 
 reach the deposit a tunnel nearly 8000 feet long and from 6 to 8 feet 
 wide and high was constructed. The water is carried down iron 
 pipes to the bottom of the deposit and there delivered under a pres- 
 sure of from 100 to 500 feet, the nozzle throwing streams from 2^ 
 to 9 inches in diameter with a power sufficient to toss about, like 
 pebbles, rocks weighing hundreds of pounds. In this way enormous 
 quantities of the material are literally torn to pieces and the gold is 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 481 
 
 carried away in the resulting torrent of gravel and muddy water 
 which rushes down the flume. Across the bottom of the flume tim- 
 bers with narrow spaces between them are set up, or flat stones on 
 edge, to form eddies and allow the gold to settle as the stream passes. 
 Blankets with a hairy nap especially constructed for this purpose, or 
 rawhides, with the hair uppermost, are "fastened along the bottom, 
 and frequently charged with mercury, which seizes the gold in passage. 
 Washing may continue for days, weeks, or months and then the time 
 for a " clean-up "comes. The water is stopped and as soon as the 
 flume is dry the; rawhides, blankets, and so on, are taken up, shaken 
 over clean sheets or rubber blankets, the gold amalgam obtained, put 
 into^K still, the mercury distilled, condensed,, and made ready for use 
 again, and the gold heated and fused into a solid ingot ready for 
 market. 
 
 The enormous power of the streams used almost surpasses be- 
 lief. The late Stephen J. Field, in speaking of them at a supper at 
 which several noted men were present, found his remarks received 
 with good-natured incredulity and for his hearers' benefit set about 
 gathering information. He says, " At the Spring Valley Hydraulic 
 Gold Mine, in Cherokee, Butte Co., Cal., our largest stream was 
 through an 8-inch nozzle under 311 feet vertical pressure, delivered 
 by about }4 mile of 2 ^ foot iron pipe, and I have seen ons of those 
 streams, at, say, 20 feet from the nozzle, move a bowlder weighing 
 2 tons in a sluggish way, and throw a rock of 500 pounds as a man 
 throws a 2O-pound weight. No man that ever lived could strike a 
 bar through one of these streams within 20 feet of discharge, and a 
 human being struck by such a stream would be instantly killed, 
 pounded into a shapeless mass." 
 
 The pan, the rocker, the long torn, and hydraulic mining are 
 suited only in placer mines, which, though at times rich, are soon ex- 
 hausted, yet these surface deposits are often guides to rich ore de- 
 posits contained in veins. 
 
482 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Shaft Mining. The outcropping of the vein being found, if con- 
 sidered rich enough to warrant the outlay, a shaft is sunk deep 
 enough to reach the vein in its pristine condition, and the system of 
 mining adapted to the conditions is begun. Some shafts are sunk to 
 enormous depths, and veins are frequently worked more than 2000 
 feet below the surface and yield fabulous amounts. The Eureka, a 
 quartz mine of Colorado, paid more than $2,000,000 in dividends in 
 less than 10 years. The Idaho, a mine adjoining it, was worked to a 
 depth of 2100 feet and paid $1,250,000 in five years. 
 
 Reduction of Ore. When the gold-bearing rock is raised to the 
 surface it is reduced by crushers or stamps. Crushers are strong 
 machines with a pair of heavy jaws faced with case-hardened steel ; 
 the jaws open wide enough at the top to take in the largest pieces of 
 rock from the mine, and at the bottom approach to a narrow slit. 
 As the jaws close, the rock is broken somewhat, and when the jaws 
 are opened it falls a little to be again crushed until it emerges 
 through the slit almost as fine as powder. One machine can crush 
 from 400 to 500 tons of rock in a day. 
 
 Stamp mills divide the ore more finely and render accessible 
 smaller particles of gold. The stamps are like gigantic mortars and 
 pestles, the latter being able to strike a blow of 30 tons or more. 
 They are arranged along in a row or battery and steam or water 
 power is employed to run them. The ore is fed into the trough, 
 which serves as a common mortar for all the pestles, being divided 
 as it passes from one stamp to another until it emerges mixed with 
 water as " slime." Various machines, known as vanners, jiggers, 
 tables, rotaries, and many others, each suited to a special case, are 
 employed to "concentrate" the slime, though, if it is free-milling 
 ore, there is usually mixed with it while under the stamps, mercury, 
 which unites with all the gold with which it comes in contact, and by 
 passing the pulp or slime from the battery over an amalgamated 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 483 
 
 per plate the gold amalgam is "held out." The slime is then passed 
 over to the concentrating machines, which separate the gold from 
 the rest of the rock, and the residue is smelted, chlorinated, cya- 
 nided, according to the method deemed best for the particular case. 
 
 Gold nuggets of great size are uncommon and their discovery is 
 pure luck. Usually there is not much gold in their immediate vicin- 
 ity and they seem to be strangers who (jO[_J) pRODUCT 
 have drifted from their homes and pre- 
 
 loOo 
 
 served their identity because of their 
 great size. Miners, toiling for years with l887 
 poor results, have been known to go mad 
 
 1695 
 
 on unearthing a big nugget. Super- 
 stitious miners believe that bad luck fre- 
 quently accompanies the nugget and 
 there are many remarkable coincidences well calculated to strengthen 
 their belief. 
 
 The largest nugget ever found is accredited to New Zealand, 
 where, in 1852, one weighing 223 pounds 4 ounces is said to have 
 been found and sold for $5 5,000. 
 
 Australia seems to have produced the greatest number of large 
 nuggets. The famous "Blanch Barkly" weighed 146 pounds. The 
 "Ballarat" nugget weighed 184 pounds 8 ounces and sold for 
 $41,000. 
 
 The largest American nugget was probably that found at Camp 
 Corona, Tuolumne County, California, November 18, 1854. Oliver 
 Martin and a partner had prospected for months without success, and 
 severe weather coming on, the partner, unable to withstand the pri- 
 vations, sickened and died. Martin, weak as he was, tried to give 
 him a decent burial and began digging a grave at the foot of a tree, 
 when he unearthed a nugget as thick as a man's body. He was so 
 weak he could not get it out of the ground, so covered it up, and 
 
484 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 burying his friend near by set out for help to secure his treasure. 
 The nugget weighed 151 pounds 6 ounces, and sold for $36,270. 
 
 One Daniel Hill had more than his share of luck. In 1866 he 
 found a nugget which sold for $17,000 and in 1871 one which sold 
 for $14,000. Perhaps his find " drove him to drink" for he died in 
 jail of delirium tremens. 
 
 Cyanide Process. Early in the nineteenth century it was known 
 that potassium cyanide would dissolve gold and the method was used 
 
 for years in gold plating. In 1887 patents 
 were issued in Great Britain, and in 1889 in 
 the United States, to McArthur and Forrest, 
 for a " cyanide process " of treating gold ore. 
 They roasted with an alkali or alkaline salts 
 tne ore to ke treated, employed a dilute solu- 
 tion of potassium cyanide, and precipitated 
 the gold out of the solution by the use of 
 the zinc. This method obtains from 90 per 
 cent, to 97 per cent, of the gold present and 
 THE PROSPECTOR. hag made valuable> mines that cannot be prof- 
 
 itably worked by any other existing methods. 
 
 If the cyanide process had not been discovered the late South 
 African war would probably never have taken place, for the Wit- 
 watersrand mines of South Africa were not especially profitable until 
 the cyanide process was put in operation there. There are more 
 than forty cyanide plants in South Africa and the cyanide process is 
 best adapted to the working of those ores that are the least suited to 
 other methods. It is easy enough to get the gold into a solution, 
 the cyanide solution does that, but the trouble comes in ridding the 
 solution of its gold. Many methods have been devised for the 
 purpose, the fact that there are so many showing that few of them 
 are satisfactory. Several methods are employed to precipitate the 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 
 
 485 
 
 gold contained in the solution, one by sending an electric current 
 through it; another by adding zinc shavings and an excess of potas- 
 sium cyanide, when the gold unites with the zinc and is heated to a 
 red heat, which oxidizes the zinc and leaves the pure gold behind. 
 There are numerous modifications of the method, each requiring the 
 highest skill in their adaptation to the particular kind of work in 
 hand, but the process in one form and another has grown until the 
 Witwatersrand produced in 1897, just before the outbreak of the war, 
 3,034,678 ounces of gold valued at $62,726,794.26. 
 
 SILVER. 
 
 Silver was one of the earliest metals known to man and is very 
 widely distributed. A list of 122 metalliferous minerals, exclusive of 
 silver ores, analyzed, showed silver to be present. It is found in sea 
 water, and it is calculated that the 
 ocean contains at least 2,000,000 
 tons of the metal. It is found as- 
 sociated with all native gold ores, 
 ranging from less than I per cent, 
 to nearly 50 per cent. The silver 
 ores of the Comstock lode of Ne- 
 vada contain about 43 per cent, of 
 silver. The gold of California aver- 
 ages about 12 per cent, of silver. It is an important constituent of 
 most copper mines, often constituting about 10 per cent., the great 
 Anaconda mine of Montana producing in three years more than 40,- 
 000,000 ounces of silver as a by-product, or nearly as much as the 
 whole world produced for 1871. 
 
 The greater part of commercial lead is obtained from galena (lead 
 and sulphur), and silver is nearly always associated with galena. 
 
 HOTEL IN NEW MINING CAMP. 
 
486 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Silver is also found with sulphur, arsenic, antimony, chlorine, 
 bromine, and iodine. 
 
 The production of silver has greatly increased within the past 
 century, aided largely by improved mining machinery and improve- 
 ments in the chemistry of mining, which allowed it to be separated 
 from the other substances with which it was found in combination, 
 for some lead ores can now be worked for silver that contain less than 
 one third the amount necessary for profitable working half a century 
 ago, and as the demand for lead has enormously increased, an in- 
 creased production of silver was of necessity bound to follow. 
 
 The first ten years of the nineteenth century the world used 
 91,000 tons of copper. The last ten years of the same century saw 
 3,643,000 tons used, and it is estimated that at least 25 per cent, of 
 copper is obtained as a by-product from the refining of gold and 
 silver. Associated as silver is with such a large variety of minerals, 
 its production has been materially increased by the improved methods 
 of obtaining each mineral. It possesses, in this respect, a marked 
 advantage over gold, which is not so widely associated with other 
 metals. 
 
 Silver in the Arts. While some inventions have greatly increased 
 the production of silver, others have tended to make it less widely 
 used in the arts. Silver was once highly esteemed for table service, 
 and silver plate was looked upon almost as a profitable investment, but 
 in modern times solid silverware has been to a very great extent re- 
 placed by wares covered with a layer of pure silver by the electro- 
 plating process. Within the last quarter-century, aluminum, once far 
 more valuable than silver, has been produced so cheaply that it is 
 now taking the place of silver to a marked extent in toilet articles, 
 gilding, etc. 
 
 The following table shows the production of silver and gold for a 
 period of years and the ratio of silver to gold by weight. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 
 
 487 
 
 PRODUCTION OF GOLD AND SILVER FROM 1493 TO l8 7 2 - 
 
 1493-1520 
 
 1521-1544 
 
 1545-1560 
 1561-1580 
 1581-1600 
 1601-1620 
 1621-1640 
 1641-1660 
 1661-1680 
 1681-1700 
 1701-1720 
 1721-1740 
 
 I74I-I76O 
 
 1761-1780 
 1781-1800 
 1801-1810 
 1811-1820 
 1821-1830 
 1831-1840 
 1841-1850 
 1851-1855 
 1856-1860 
 1861-1865 
 1866-1870 
 1871-1872 
 
 Estimated by Dr. 
 
 Adolph Soetbeer. 
 
 (ozs. of Gold) 
 
 (ozs. of Silver) 
 
 5,22I,l6o 
 
 42,309,400 
 
 5,524,656 
 
 69,598,320 
 
 4,377,544 
 
 160,287,040 
 
 4,398,120 
 
 192,578,500 
 
 4,745,340 
 
 269,352,700 
 
 5,478,360 
 
 271,924,700 
 
 5,336,9oo 
 
 253,084,800 
 
 5,639,110 
 
 2 35,530,900 
 
 6,954,180 
 
 216,691,000 
 
 6,921,895 
 
 219,841,700 
 
 8,243,260 
 
 228,6150,800 
 
 12,268,440 
 
 277,261,600 
 
 15,824,230 
 
 342,812,235 
 
 *3>3 1 3>3 1 5 
 
 419,711,820 
 
 11,438,970 
 
 565,235,580 
 
 5,715,627 
 
 287,469,225 
 
 3,679,568 
 
 173,857,555 
 
 4,570,444 
 
 148,070,040 
 
 6,522,913 
 
 191,758,675 
 
 17,605,018 
 
 250,903,422 
 
 32,051,621 
 
 *4 2, 44 2, 986 
 
 32,431,312 
 
 145,447,142 
 
 29,747,9!3 
 
 177,009,862 
 
 31,350,430 
 11,182,028 
 
 215,257,914 
 126,634,028 
 
 Ratio of 
 Silver to Gold 
 
 8 to 
 12 
 36 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 47 
 4i 
 3i 
 3i 
 
 27 
 
 22 
 21 
 3 1 
 
 49 
 5 
 47 
 32 
 29 
 14 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 ii 
 
 The last edition of the Universal Cyclopaedia gives the following 
 
 table: 
 
 Years 
 
 1871 to 1875, mean 
 
 1876 
 
 1877 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 
 1880 
 
 1881 
 
 1882 
 
 1883 
 
 1884 
 
 1885 
 
 1886 
 
 1887 
 
 1888 
 
 1889 
 1890 
 1891 
 1892 
 1893 
 
 Annual Product, Kilogrammes 
 Gold Silver 
 
 I7394 
 165,956 
 
 179,445 
 185,847 
 
 167,307 
 163,515 
 158,864 
 148,475 
 144,727 
 I 53, I 93 
 159,289 
 
 159,741 
 159,155 
 159,809 
 
 185,809 
 181,256 
 189,824 
 196,234 
 236,570 
 
 1,969,425 
 2,323,779 
 2,388,612 
 2,551,364 
 2,507,507 
 2,479,998 
 2,592,639 
 2,769,065 
 2,746,123 
 2,788,727 
 2,993,805 
 2,902,471 
 2,990,398 
 3,385,606 
 
 3,901,809 
 4,180,532 
 4,479,649 
 4,945,237 
 5,031,488 
 
 Ratio of Silver to 
 Gold by weight 
 
 11.3 
 14.0 
 13.3 
 13.7 
 15.0 
 15.2 
 16.3 
 18.6 
 19.0 
 18.2 
 18.8 
 18.2 
 18.8 
 21.2 
 
 21. 
 23.1 
 23.6 
 25.1 
 21.3 
 
488 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Silver versus Gold. Since the last date given above the les- 
 sened demand for silver and improvements in methods, which have 
 rendered it profitable to work low grade gold ores, have increased 
 the relative production of gold. The greater rapidity with which 
 gold is obtained by placer mining sometimes influenced the legal 
 relation of value between those two metals and its bearing upon 
 prices, commerce, and civilization. The relative value of gold and 
 silver as fixed by law or commerce has varied widely. Silver was pro- 
 duced largely in Europe and gold largely in Asia, and it naturally fol- 
 lowed that the metal had a higher relative value in the land where it 
 was not produced. .Thus in 1717 the ratio in Europe was as 15 to I, 
 
 in China and Japan as 9 to I. Egyptian 
 records dating back to 1600 B. C. give a 
 ratio of 13.33 to l - Japan when opened 
 to commerce in 1854 valued silver much 
 higher than did Europeans, and traders 
 took advantage of this to exchange silver 
 for gold and carry millions of dollars of 
 the yellow metal out of that country. In 
 nearly all silver ores there is some gold, 
 
 and in nearly all gold ores some silver. In 
 ON THE DUMP. 
 
 three hundred and fifty million dollars' 
 
 worth of metal produced from the Comstock lode of Nevada, nearly 
 one half in value consisted of gold. For this and other reasons it is 
 impossible to determine the original average cost of producing gold 
 and silver from all the mines during any reasonably long period of 
 time. If recent statistics are to be trusted, both metals are pro- 
 duced on an average at a loss. Such is alleged to have been the 
 case in California, Australia, and Nevada, countries whose combined 
 product has equaled in value nearly $3,000,000,000. 
 
 In the principal producing countries the United States, Mex- 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 489 
 
 ico, Chili, and Peru mining is free and there are no official returns 
 of the production, which is therefore a mere matter of conjecture. 
 In the United States it is customary to value the silver bullion at 
 one sixteenth that of gold. This unduly swells the value of the con- 
 jectural product of this country more than one fourth. 
 
 Inquiries as to the quantities of silver used in the arts have, met 
 with little success, and statistics so obtained are defective ; but the 
 total production of silver in the western world being estimated at 
 $7,000,000,000, about $1,500,000,000 remains in coins, consequently 
 nearly four fifths have been consumed in the arts, lost, and so on, or 
 exported. On the whole it appears quite safe to estimate the aver- 
 age consumption of silver in the arts and through wear and tear and 
 loss as fully equal to three fourths of the production. Hence it is 
 evident that any influence tending to lessen or increase considerably 
 the use of silver in the arts would affect materially the amount avail- 
 able for coinage. 
 
 COPPER. 
 
 Copper, a metallic element widely distributed, was one of the 
 first metals used by man. The Romans obtained it from the Island 
 of Cyprus, from which its Latin name, cuprum, was derived. The 
 development of 'electrical engineering has greatly increased the de- 
 mand for copper, for next to silver it is the best conductor of electric- 
 ity, pure copper standing about 93 in a table where silver stands at 
 100, and its remarkable ductility makes it easy to manufacture it into 
 wire for electrical conductors. Copper wire is the core of every sub- 
 marine cable. 
 
 Alloys. Numerous alloys of copper are highly useful in the 
 arts. Brass is copper alloyed with from 25 per cent, to 35 per cent, 
 of tin. Gun metal, copper and 10 per cent, of tin. Bell metal, 
 copper with about 25 per cent, of tin; a little zinc is sometimes 
 
49 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 added. Bronze, about 91 per cent, copper, 2 per cent, tin, 6 per 
 cent, zinc, I per cent. lead. Pure copper mixed with 3 per cent, 
 of aluminum produces an alloy that is whiter than aluminum and 
 resembles silver, but mixed with 5 per cent, to 10 per cent, of alumi- 
 
 num t ^ le a ^ ^ as a 
 
 color, is very hard, elastic, 
 I and does service under the 
 name of ''aluminum bronze." 
 German silver is made by 
 alloying copper with nickel and zinc. 
 
 Use of Copper in Shipbuilding. Copper 
 is extensively used as sheathing for ships. 
 The vegetable growth of tropical waters that 
 adheres to a ship's bottom causes a scale to 
 form on the copper, which falls off when much 
 weight is attached to it. This keeps the bot- 
 tom of the ship much freer from vegetable 
 growth than it would otherwise be. The in- 
 fluence of such growth on a ship's speed is 
 often well illustrated. The Spanish ships, 
 which were rated at 20 knots an hour, were, 
 owing to their foul bottoms and Spanish en- 
 gineers, unable to make 15 knots an hour off 
 Santiago. The British battle ship Terrible, 
 hurrying troops from Hong Kong to Taku to 
 
 HIGHEST CHIMNEY IN THE rescue'the British in Pekin, made the distance, 
 WORLD, 35* FEET HIGH, lgoo mileS; ftt a speed of on[y ^ knots an 
 
 JUENVERj i^/OL. 
 
 hour instead of the 22 knot speed of her trial 
 trip. This well illustrates the value of copper sheathing. 
 
 The first decade of the nineteenth century used 91,000 tons of 
 copper, the last ten years, 3,643,000 tons. The copper production 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 491 
 
 of the world for 1899 was 4^8,347 tons f 2240 pounds each, of 
 which the United States produced a trifle more than 55 percent. 
 Of the production of the United States more than two thirds comes 
 from Michigan and Montana, and each state is represented by a 
 mine famous the world over, Michigan by the Calumet and Hecla, 
 Montana by the Anaconda. The Anaconda mine produced in the 
 three years, 1895 to 1898, 550,962 tons of copper, 40,658,103 
 ounces of silver, and 135,244 ounces of gold. 
 
 Lake Superior Mines. The copper mines of the Lake Superior 
 district have been famous for many years and the presence of copper 
 was discovered there by Father Marquette in 1660. The copper 
 ore is there found in veins lying at an angle of about 45 degrees. 
 To reach the veins, shafts of enormous size have been sunk. 
 
 The Red Jacket shaft of the Calumet and Hecla Company, 14 feet 
 by 22*/2 feet in cross section, is 4900 feet deep, or almost a mile, 
 and is probably the deepest shaft in the world, its depth being 
 exceeded only by some artesian wells. A shaft in the Tamarack, a 
 neighboring mine, when completed will be 6000 feet. According to 
 preconceived ideas the temperature in the Red Jacket shaft should 
 increase with the depth, but, strange to say, the temperature at the 
 bottom never varies far from 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The vein con- 
 taining the ore is about 8 to 10 feet wide and the shaft is divided 
 into six compartments, in each of which a load of 10 tons can be 
 hoisted at the rate of 1500 feet per minute, making a total hoisting 
 capacity of the shaft of 180,000,000 foot-pounds a minute. For this 
 purpose, extremely powerful engines are employed, and each engine 
 is duplicated so that the shaft may never be blocked in case of an 
 accident to an engine. 
 
 Copper Refining. The copper ore as it comes from the mines is 
 crushed and smelted into impure copper, which is cast into ingots or 
 cakes called " blister copper." In this condition it always contains 
 
492 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 considerable silver and usually a little gold together with other 
 metallic impurities, such as arsenic, etc. These cakes are sent to the 
 refineries, where as many of the impurities as can be profitably re- 
 moved are taken out, for very nearly pure copper is required in the 
 arts, and minute fractions of one per cent, of some impurities would 
 make a marked difference in its power to conduct electricity. 
 
 The electrolytic method of refining copper is now the one by 
 which more than half the refined copper of the United States is pro- 
 duced. It was patented by James Elkington in 1867, but the 
 method was not employed in the great copper refineries until about 
 1887. Within a few years a considerable reduction in the cost of 
 refining copper has been made, due chiefly to economy in the use of 
 power and the handling of the material. 
 
 When the blister copper is received at the refinery, samples are 
 assayed and the cakes are then cast into plates (anodes) weighing 
 about 275 pounds each. These are suspended in tanks in a fluid 
 consisting of a 16 per cent, solution of bluestone (copper sulphate) to 
 which 5 per cent, of sulphuric acid is added. The cathode plates 
 for the battery are made of pure copper sheets .04 inch thick. The 
 method is similar to that employed in electroplating. When the 
 electric current is turned on, the copper in the solution is set free and 
 deposited on the cathode sheet. The sulphuric acid freed by the 
 reaction attacks the anode and forms more copper sulphate. The 
 solution is carefully watched, tested, and kept up to the standard. 
 When the anode plates are destroyed the current is stopped, the 
 cathodes removed, cleaned, melted, and cast into any form desired 
 for the market. The gold, silver, and copper from the anodes fall to 
 the bottom of the tank during the electrolytic action and form what 
 are known to the trade as "slimes." The pieces of the anodes are 
 screened out and remelted, and the slimes are treated by various 
 processes which recover the gold, silver, copper sulphate, and arsenic. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 493 
 
 ALUMINUM. 
 
 In 1724 a German chemist named Hoffman declared that the 
 bases of the alkaline earths were metals, and some were soon recog- 
 nized, but aluminum was so elusive that it was not until 1754 that 
 Margraff proved its existence, and not until 1854 that St. Claire de 
 Ville of Paris was able to produce a bar of the metal. The Paris 
 Exposition of 1865 exhibited a bar of it labeled " Silver from Clay." 
 It then cost $200 a pound. Improved methods have greatly reduced 
 its cost until it is now a familiar object and has quite an extensive 
 use in the arts. Next to silicon it is the most abundant of metals, 
 being found in every clay bank and the cost of reducing it to the 
 metallic state is all that keeps up the price, for no such thing occurs 
 in nature as an aluminum nugget or aluminum dust. Professor 
 Clarke of Washington estimates that the crust of the earth contains 
 7.81 per cent, of aluminum and 5.46 per cent, of iron, and if alumi- 
 num were as easy of reduction as iron, it would cost much less than 
 the latter metal. 
 
 Distribution. Aluminum exists in the greatest quantities on the 
 surface, which is accounted for upon the supposition that when the 
 earth's crust was in a fluid form, the lighter metals floated on 
 the surface, and as aluminum was one of the lightest it was caught in 
 the top layer when the crust solidified. 
 
 Common clay, a mixture of about half silica and half alumina 
 (aluminum and oxygen) with a little water and some minor sub- 
 stances, does not seem closely related to the precious stones but 
 amethysts, sapphires, rubies, and topazes are only forms of alumina. 
 Mica contains 20 per cent, of alumina, clay 21 per cent., emery 31^ 
 per cent., corundum S 2 /4 per cent., bauxite, the usual ore from 
 which the metal is now reduced, from 28 to 3 I ^ per cent. Emery 
 and corundum, although rich in aluminum, are valuable in themselves 
 as abrasives. Aluminum cannot be easily derived from clay because 
 
494 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the oxygen holds it in too firm a grasp, so bauxite (H6A1 2 O6) is the 
 common source. Aluminum ranks after silver, gold, and platinum 
 as the least alterable of the metals. 
 
 Aluminum is only 2^ times as heavy as water, while iron is 7^ 
 times as heavy, copper 9 times, lead 11 times, and gold 19 times. 
 Its electrical conductivity compared with silver is 50, and it can be 
 beaten into sheets 5-100,000 of an inch thick, in which form it is 
 used in book making. 
 
 The following table shows how the price of aluminum has fallen 
 with improvements in the methods of extracting it: 
 
 1855 $200.00 a pound 1888 $5-OO a pound 
 
 1856 82.00 " " 1890 3.00 " " 
 
 1857 21. oo " " 1891 .50 " " 
 1860 12. oo " " 1893 .40 " " 
 1883 8.50 " " 1900 .33 " " 
 1887 8.00 " " 
 
 Methods of Extraction. Charles M. Hall of Oberlin, Ohio, and 
 Heroult of France, each independently and at about the same time, 
 April 2, 1889, devised very simple methods for the extraction of 
 aluminum. The Hall method uses a containing vessel lined with 
 carbon, the lining of which serves as the cathode for the electric cur- 
 rent. Suspended in the middle of the container is another piece of 
 carbon, the anode, that does not touch the sides. When the electric 
 current is forced through, the anode is slowly oxidized. Into the 
 container is put a mixture of the fluorides of aluminum and sodium, 
 two poor conductors of electricity, and when they have been melted 
 by the heat of the electric current, alumina (aluminum oxide, AhC^) 
 is shoveled into the bath and at once dissolved. The current attacks 
 the alumina and separates it from the oxygen. Hall's method, first 
 established on a considerable scale in 1888, has greatly reduced the 
 price of the metal. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 
 
 495 
 
 ON THE TRAMWAY. 
 
 COAL. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say that coal represents the heat of the 
 sun absorbed by the growth of vegetation of a time long past, which 
 later, buried under water, earth, or rock, under- 
 went a process of decomposition and distillation, 
 and produced the dark, unassuming 
 object sometimes called " bottled sun- 
 shine " and " black slave." Some idea 
 of the wonderful luxuriance of the for- 
 ests of the coal age may be formed 
 when we consider that if the forests 
 of to-day were to be put through the 
 same process they would yield a layer 
 of coal only two or three inches thick, 
 while some coal beds of Germany aggregate nearly 300 feet, and in 
 the United States single veins are found from 60 to 100 feet in thick- 
 ness. 
 
 Its Contribution to Civilization. This dark shiny object, so 
 familiar that it often attracts no attention, contains within it won- 
 derful possibilities and has a most fascinating history. If it had not 
 been discovered and utilized, much of our boasted civilization of the 
 twentieth century would be impossible. It serves man in many ways, 
 for its sphere of usefulness is not restricted to furnishing heat, and 
 its derivatives are almost innumerable. In short, it sometimes seems 
 as though almost any chemical compound present in existing vegeta- 
 tion can be duplicated in that of a pre-historic age. Coal, with its 
 history, its chemical compounds, its latent force, claims at once the 
 attention of the botanist, the zoologist, the chemist, the physicist, 
 the physician, and the manufacturer. 
 
 The coal beds have preserved so well the exact outline of the 
 ferns, the leaves of the trees, the grains of the wood, the mosses on 
 
496 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the bark, and the forms of animal life then existing, that the 
 scientist is better acquainted with the flora and fauna of the car- 
 boniferous age than the average layman is with that of the present. 
 
 Mineral coal is part of a long series beginning with woody fiber and 
 ending with graphite. Different stages in its manufacture are repre- 
 sented by peat, lignite, bituminous coal, anthracite coal, asphaltum, and 
 graphite. Among the other products are petroleum and carbonic 
 acid and carbureted hydrogen gases. 
 
 Peat is formed in morasses and bogs by accumulating decayed 
 vegetable matter until the bottom layers become darker and denser, 
 have some of the gaseous elements driven out by pressure, and par- 
 take of the nature of coal. A vertical section of a peat bog shows 
 every stage of the process. Peat is extensively used for fuel in some 
 countries but it is inferior to lignite. 
 
 Lignite is the next step, and represents vegetable fiber from which 
 more of its gaseous substances have been distilled. It shades off 
 from brown woody fiber into bituminous coal, and in general may be 
 said to come between peat and true coal. The heat value of lignite 
 is greater than that of peat, but in general less than that of the true 
 coal, although some of the best lignites are better than the poorer 
 coals. The most of the coals found in the western part of the North 
 American continent are classed as lignites, and it is interesting to 
 note that portions of lignite beds which have been subjected to great 
 heat and pressure, as from volcanic sources, have sometimes been 
 developed into true anthracite with its characteristic hardness and 
 glitter. 
 
 Bituminous coals (soft coals) are the products of a slow distilla- 
 tion which has rid the fiber of more of its gaseous constituents than 
 in lignite and have not been subjected to the enormous pressure and 
 influence of heat that produce the anthracite. The volatile matter 
 of bituminous coal ranges from about 18 per cent, to 50 per cent, of 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 497 
 
 the mass. Coke is made from that grade of bituminous coal which 
 will cake or melt and adhere into a mass when burning. Furnace 
 coals are those that do not exhibit this caking feature when burning 
 and can therefore be used in blast furnaces. Cannel coal is rich in 
 gas but poor in heating power and is a favorite household fuel for the 
 open grate. Coking coals and cannel coals are not adapted to iron 
 smelting. 
 
 Anthracite is the hardest variety of coal and has a characteristic 
 glitter that the softer grades do not possess. Anthracite is coal that 
 has been subjected to greater heat and pressure and has so driven off 
 more of the volatile elements, until it contains only 3 per cent, to 5 
 per cent, of volatile matter and frequently 95 per cent, or more of 
 pure carbon. - It burns slowly, emitting intense heat, little flame, and 
 almost no smoke. China is said to possess considerable fields of an- 
 thracite yet unexploited. 
 
 Pennsylvania produces 53 times as much anthracite as all the rest 
 of the world, yet nature has wasted 99 per cent, of what Pennsyl- 
 vania once had, for the coal now left in the hills of Pennsylvania was 
 once the bottoms of the valleys. Geologists have said that at a 
 remote period the coal bearing strata of that state were thrown up into 
 vast undulations or huge wrinkles, and that the action of the weather 
 and the water washed down the higher parts and deposited them in 
 the valleys and in the sea. The water courses formed where the 
 greatest wear had been, with the result that rivers now flow where 
 mountains once stood and mountains now stand where valleys once 
 were, and in this wear and tear all but about one per cent, of the 
 original coal deposits were torn down and deposited as ''ooze" in 
 the valleys and the sea. 
 
 The anthracite production of the United States is equal to its gold 
 and silver supply, and when we consider how vitally important coal 
 is in the production of iron and steel and for furnishing power for 
 
498 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 factories the question may well be asked, is not the coal of as much 
 importance as the precious metals? 
 
 Graphite is coal deprived of all its gaseous matter, retaining but 
 little of its carbon together with all its ash. It is practically incom- 
 bustible and of no use as a fuel. 
 
 Coke Manufacture. When bituminous coal is heated in an oven 
 nearly all the volatile matter is drawn off and the remainder is known 
 as coke. Only those kinds of bituminous coal are available for coke 
 that melt and run together when heated. Coke is hard and gives a 
 ringing sound when struck, and is spongy, due to the formation of 
 the gas. When manufactured as a by-product at gas plants it is used 
 for heating or the production of steam. Coke, especially manufac- 
 tured, is used to melt pig iron in cupolas and smelt iron, copper, or 
 lead in blast furnaces. Coke was first successfully used in the man- 
 ufacture of pig iron by Abraham Darby of England in 1735, and 
 although he produced an excellent quality of iron, the charcoal 
 interests raised such a hue and cry that it did not come into general 
 use for some years. William Firmstone is credited with having been 
 the first (1835) in tne United States to make pig iron from coke. 
 
 Coking in England and the United States is carried on in the 
 11 beehive" oven. The beehive is 10 or 12 feet in diameter, and 
 from 6 to 8 feet high, usually built of stone and lined with fire brick. 
 There is an opening at the top for the escape of the gases and the 
 admission of the charge and one at the side closed by an iron door 
 through which the finished product is drawn. The average charge 
 is 3)4 to 4 tons of raw coal. The first time the oven is charged it is 
 necessary to ignite it, but after the oven is once started, the heat 
 from the adjacent walls ignites the gases in the coal, causing a puff 
 like a powder explosion. After 24 hours the air supply is shut off, 
 and nothing left but the holes for the escape of the gas. Furnace 
 coke is heated about 48 hours and foundry coke about 72 hours. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 499 
 
 The ovens are arranged in the form of numerous cavities in a oank, 
 having steps like a terrace. On the top step runs a track carrying the 
 cars or carts of coal which charge the ovens through openings in the 
 top. On the second step are the workmen, who with iron rakes 
 draw out the coke, quench it with water and load it into freight cars 
 on the step below. The coal is not consumed, but, like the process 
 of converting wood into charcoal, only burned enough to drive off the 
 volatile matter. 
 
 Continental Europe is much ahead of Great Britain and the 
 United States in the economical management of her coke ovens, 
 which are massive structures of fire brick with side and bottom flues 
 arranged to utilize and consume gases wasted by the beehive 
 method. They work much quicker, yield more coke from a given 
 amount of coal, and are able to use coal of a poorer grade. The util- 
 ization of the by-products has become so important that some con- 
 cerns offer to convert coal into coke in exchange for the permission 
 to utilize the waste gases, tar, and ammonia. 
 
 The United States census report of 1850 shows but four coke- 
 making establishments and these were at Connellsville, Pa. The 
 industry grew rapidly, and in 1871 the H. C. Frick Coke Company 
 was organized, which now controls the output of that region. The 
 company, consisting of H. C. Frick, A. O. Tinsman, and Joseph 
 Rist, purchased 300 acres of land near Mount Pleasant and erected 
 50 ovens. In 1900 it had grown to a capitalization of $10,000,000, 
 and controlled 80 per cent, of the 20,462 ovens, employing 25,000 
 men, in operation in that region, a wonderful tribute to the energy 
 and executive ability of the managers. The Connellsville region has 
 been the scene of much violence, but the coal lands which 25 or 30 
 years ago were selling for $15 an acre are now bringing from $2000 
 to $3000 an acre and are hard to get at that price. 
 
 Coal Supply and Consumption. When we consider the enormous 
 
500 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 rapidity with which the consumption of coal is increasing, the supply 
 of the world's fuel may well merit a little consideration. In 1831 
 the annual coal production of Great Britain was 24,000,000 tons. 
 The estimated production of 1901 was 240,000,000 tons. In 1831 
 Great Britain consumed one ton of coal for each inhabitant. In 1901 
 the coal consumption was six times as great, and the rate of increase 
 was fifteen times as great as the increase of population. In 300 
 years England has produced 10,101,000,000 tons of coal and it has 
 been predicted by those who delight in taking a gloomy view of 
 things that by 1945 her coal mines can no longer be worked at a 
 profit and that she will be compelled to obtain her fuel from some 
 other country, perhaps China, for in China there are vast fields of 
 coal that have not been worked at all. Just at present the problem 
 is receiving a great deal of attention, for the mines of Great Britain 
 are no longer able to produce enough for the consumption of that 
 country and Pennsylvania coal has been used to generate gas to light 
 foggy London. 
 
 In 1840 the United States consumed about one ton of coal to 
 every six persons. To-day she is using eighteen times as much, and 
 the increase since 1890 alone has been more than 50 per cent. It 
 was estimated by General Wistar some time ago that if the coal con- 
 sumption of the United States increased 10 per cent, annually for 25 
 years, then 5 per cent, annually for 50 years and 3 per cent, annually 
 for 25 years following, it would in 100 years, i. e., in 1991, practically 
 exhaust the estimated supply. Well, since 1891 the coal consump- 
 tion has exceeded his calculations. As the magnitude of the problem 
 dawns upon the industrial world and fuel increases in price, various 
 economies will be practiced. It is estimated that for every ton of 
 coal produced I l / 2 tons are wasted in the form of dust, slack coal, 
 and pillars of coal left to support the roof. Considerable quantities 
 of coal dust are now mixed with tar, pressed into bricks, and used as 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 5OI 
 
 fuel. The enormous volumes of gases daily going to waste from the 
 blast furnaces can be utilized by gas engines, converted into elec- 
 tricity, and distributed where it will furnish motive power for facto- 
 ries of various kinds. Germany is doing this, but it is believed that 
 2,000,000 horse power is annually wasted in the escaping gases from 
 the blast furnaces of Great Britain. In making each ton of coke, 
 8000 cubic feet of gas is given off and only half of it consumed. 
 All the best plants now utilize their blast furnace gases. 
 
 Some Interesting Equivalents. Coal has crept so quietly and 
 unobtrusively into the industrial life of the world that many of us 
 rarely stop to consider how important it has become. Every ton of 
 pig iron ready for export represents at least two tons of coal, and 
 every ton of iron or steel bars, six or eight tons of coal. Our 
 modern systems of transportation could not do without it, for it is 
 estimated that the locomotives of the United States and Canada now 
 consume at least 64,000,000 tons of coal annually, or as much as the 
 annual production of the whole world not so very many years ago. 
 One half the bituminous coal of the United States is used on rail- 
 ways and steamships. Trade and industry would be paralyzed if 
 deprived of its help. Burned in the furnaces of the quadruple ex- 
 pansion engines of an ocean, freighter, a piece of anthracite the 
 size of a hickory nut develops power enough to propel one ton of 
 the vessel's displacement one mile. It is not uncommon for freight 
 carrying vessels of from 10,000 to 12,000 tons displacement, moving 
 at from 10 to 12 knots an hour, to average from .032 to .039 of a 
 pound of coal per ton of displacement per knot. On land the best 
 modern engines will with one pound of coal do the work of one 
 horse for an hour. Mulhall says,' " Human energy is by common 
 consent fixed at 300 foot-tons daily for a man, 200 for a woman, and 
 100 for a child between 10 and 16 years of age." If the figures of 
 this famous statistician are correct, and if all the able-bodied working 
 
502 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 men of the world were enslaved and compelled to labor arduously 10 
 hours a day 300 days in the year for the benefit of society, they 
 could not begin to carry the burden borne by coal. One pound of 
 coal most advantageously employed would perform the work of 33 
 such slaves for an hour. Suppose such a slave to be pumping water 
 at the mouth of a mine in competition with an Allis engine: 
 
 One pound of coal=one horse-power-hour (1,980,000 foot-pounds). 
 One horse-power-hour=33 man-power-hours (60,000 foot-pounds). 
 2240 pounds of coal=73,92O man-power-hours. 
 73,920 man-power-hours= 7392 lo-hour days of labor. 
 7392 lo-hour days of labor=24.64 years of labor. 
 
 One ton of coal at the mouth of a mine weighs 2240 pounds and 
 can be bought for a dollar, hence it follows that such a slave compet- 
 ing with a steam engine at the mouth of a mine would be required to 
 work 24.64 years to do as much as one ton of coal, or at the rate of 
 about four cents a year. 
 
 The world's production of coal and lignite for the last year of the 
 nineteenth century approximated 725,000,000 tons. The earth's 
 population is estimated at 1,500,000,000 souls. Suppose that the 
 poorer grades of coal and lignite as nearly equal the energy contained 
 in the best grades of coal, as the women, infants, lame, halt, and 
 blind of the earth's population equal the power of the able-bodied 
 men: if then this coal were consumed under the most economical 
 conditions, it would give energy equivalent to 53,592,000,000,000 
 man-power-hours, to equal which, the entire population of this planet 
 would be compelled to toil 35,728 hours or 3,572 lo-hour days, or 
 1 1.9 years of 300 days labor. 
 
 To sum it up, the coal production of a single year is able to per- 
 form as much work as the entire population could do in more than 
 10 years. Does Civilization owe any recognition to the genius of 
 the inventors which has brought " Steam Engine, Coal & Co." to 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 503 
 
 such a high state of efficiency that the world's commerce has in- 
 creased more than 1200 per cent, in a century, while its population 
 has only rather more than doubled? Yet all this is not obtained 
 without effort or danger, and the coal that warms a cheery home is 
 not infrequently obtained at the risk or even loss of life or limb of a 
 workman, who toiled hundreds of miles away, thousands of feet 
 below the surface, and faced terrors which only the initiated can fully 
 appreciate and understand. 
 
 Dangers and Fatalities in Mining. The report of the govern- 
 ment inspector of British mines for the decade 1880-90 showed that, 
 to say nothing of those injured, about one thousand miners were 
 killed annually in the mines of Great Britain. A fertile source of 
 accident from falling bodies are tree trunks in a vertical position, the 
 wood of which decayed and left the bark to be turned into coal while 
 the hollow was filled with shale, sandstone, etc. When the coal 
 underneath is removed all that holds the mass of sandstone and shale 
 in place is the adhesion of the thin rind of coal, bark, and when this 
 gives way the trunk falls of its own weight, frequently with disas- 
 trous results, for such formations are of frequent occurrence, and in 
 the dim light of the mine it is often impossible to discern them. In 
 the early days of coal mining explosions of fire damp were ascribed 
 by the superstitious miner to supernatural agencies. Near the end 
 of the eighteenth century Spedding discovered that a red heat would 
 not ignite fire damp; it must be brought in actual contact with 
 flame. Humboldt in 1796 and Clanny in 1806 invented lamps in 
 which the air that fed the flame was made to bubble up through a 
 liquid, but the lamp was cumbersome, expensive, unpopular, and the 
 workmen, ignorant and heedless, went on merrily with their naked 
 lights until Sir Humphry Davy in 1815 brought out his safety lamp. 
 That invention with its improvements has saved thousands of lives, 
 for " The introduction or exposure of a naked light for even so much 
 
504 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 as a second is sufficient to cause an explosion of the mass. Doors 
 are blown down, props and tubbing are charred up, and the volume 
 of smoke rushing up by the nearest shaft and overthrowing the 
 engine house and other structures at the mouth conveys its own sad 
 message to those at the surface, of the dreadful catastrophe that has 
 happened below. Perhaps all that remains of some of the workers 
 consists of charred and scorched bodies scarcely recognizable as 
 human beings. Others escape with scorched arms or legs and singed 
 hair to tell the terrible tale to those who were more fortunately 
 absent." * To render the calamity, if possible, still worse, a flood of 
 choke damp (carbon dioxide) is caused by the combustion of the fire 
 damp, and the horrors of suffocation are added to the terrible scene. 
 World-Production of Coal. The following table shows the- world's 
 production of coal and lignite at the close of the century. It is 
 highly significant that three countries, the United States, Great Brit- 
 ain, and Germany, produce 80 per cent, of the world's coal and 70 per 
 cent, of its iron. 
 
 Country Years Tons Percentage 
 
 United States 1899 230,838,973 31.96 
 
 Great Britain 1899 220,085,303 30.47 
 
 Germany 1899 135,824,427 18.81 
 
 France 1898 32,356,104 4.48 
 
 Belgium 1899 21,917,740 3.04 
 
 Austria- Hungary 1898 375786,963 5.23 
 
 Russia 1898 12,862,033 1.78 
 
 Sweden 1898 ' 236,277 .03 
 
 Spain . 1899 2,742,389 .38 
 
 Italy 1898 34i,3 2 7 -5 
 
 Canada 1899 4.076,779 -57 
 
 South African Republic 1898 1,938,424 .27 
 
 Natal 1898 387,811 .05 
 
 India 1898 4,136,813 -57 
 
 Greece 1898 17,310 
 
 New South Wales 1899 4,597,028 .64 
 
 Other Australasia 1898 1,601,968 .22 
 
 Japan 1897 5,647,7s 1 -7 8 
 
 Algeria 1898 200 
 
 ' All other countries ^99 4,849,380 .67 
 
 Total 722,245,000 100.00 
 
 * Edward A. Martin. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 505 
 
 .GAS MANUFACTURE. 
 
 (i Often have I swept backward in imagination six thousand 
 years, and stood beside our Great Ancestor, as he gazed for the first 
 time upon the going down of the sun. What strange sensations 
 must have swept through his bewildered mind as he watched the last 
 departing ray of the sinking orb, unconscious whether he should ever 
 behold its return. Wrapt in a maze of thought, strange and start- 
 ling, his eye long lingers about the point at which the sun had slowly 
 faded from his view. A mysterious darkness, hitherto unexperi- 
 enced, creeps over the face of nature. The beautiful scenes of 
 earth, which, through the swift hours of the first wonderful day of his 
 existence, had so charmed his senses, are slowly fading one by one 
 from his dimmed vision. A gloom deeper than that which covers 
 earth steals across the mind of earth's solitary inhabitant."* 
 
 For thousands of years the labor of man practically ceased with 
 the going down of the sun, and his wood fire or his torch were his 
 first crude efforts to extend the day for his labor or amusement. 
 The rude lamp made from a shell partly filled with the fat from the 
 game he killed or the oil from the fish he caught, with fibers of bark 
 or a rush for a wick, succeeded the torch. The contrast between 
 the surrounding gloom and the dim light of such a lamp is not 
 greater than between the lamp itself and the artificial light apparatus 
 of to-day. 
 
 Coal Gas. If any vegetable or animal matter be inclosed in a 
 retort and raised to a red heat it will give off gas, water, tar, and 
 leave a residue of coke or charcoal. This is the principle employed 
 in the manufacture of illuminating gas. Coal had been used for hun- 
 dreds of years before the practical application of coal gas was made 
 for lighting purposes. William Murdoch of Cornwall in 1792 lighted 
 his house with gas made- from coal. In 1798 he lighted the shops of 
 
 *Gen. O. M. Mitchel. 
 
506 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 -> 
 
 Boulton, Watt and Co., and the system gradually came into use, 
 although some rather serious accidents retarded its rapid adoption. 
 The House of Parliament was lighted by gas in 1813, the streets of 
 London in 1815, and those of Paris shortly afterward. Gas was used 
 in Baltimore in 1816, in Boston in 1822, in New York in 1825, and 
 the manufacture of gas was probably the greatest crfemical enterprise 
 of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Process of Manufacture. In the making of coal gas, caking 
 coal is commonly used. It does not give so rich a gas as the cannel 
 coal, but it is abundant and cheap, and the coke produced can be 
 used for other purposes. The coal is placed in retorts heated by a 
 coke fire. From the retort a tube (standpipe) leads upward to the 
 hydraulic main, a tube or reservoir kept half filled with tar. That 
 the gas may not rush backward when the retort is opened, the end of 
 the standpipe empties two or three inches below the level of the tar, 
 which forms a gas check. In the hydraulic main the hot gas deposits 
 a part of its ammonia, water, and tar, and then an exhauster working 
 on the principle of an air pump, forces it through a series of bent 
 tubes called the condenser, where it gives up more of the tar, water, 
 and ammonia, which are led off to separate receptacles. The gas 
 next passes through the washer, where jets of water remove more 
 tar, ammonia, and sulphur, and then to the purifier, where lime re- 
 moves the sulphur compounds and carbonic acid. From the purifier 
 it passes to the gas holder, a familiar object in every city. A good 
 illustration of the gas holder is a tumbler inverted in a basin of water, 
 the tumbler being kept afloat by the imprisoned air underneath it. 
 When the gas reservoir is full the gas holder is buoyed up, but as the 
 gas is used it settles down and preserves a constant pressure of gas 
 in the lines, a very desirable consideration. 
 
 Water gas, introduced about 1875, is produced by decomposing 
 steam by intense heat and mixing the hydrogen evolved with carbonic 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 507 
 
 oxide gas. The resulting mixture has enough heat but little 
 illuminating power, so it is enriched by passing it over hot coke on 
 which crude petroleum is being volatilized. This converts the mix- 
 ture into a permanent illuminating gas at much less cost than coal 
 gas. The gas can be made as rich as desirable, but ordinarily it 
 would appear as though the manufacturer of water gas had taken a 
 lesson from his milkman. Water gas derives its name from the fact 
 that three fifths of its weight and three fourths of its bulk is made 
 up of the oxygen and hydrogen obtained from the steam. Ordi- 
 narily, it has neither the illuminating nor the heating power of coal 
 gas and is also more poisonous. 
 
 Fuel gas, or producer gas, is a by-product in the manufacture of 
 water gas. It is not available for lighting purposes but can be used, 
 as its name indicates, for fuel, although it has not the heating power 
 of either coal or water gas. 
 
 Natural gas is the gaseous form of bitumen and was known to the 
 Fire Worshipers of Persia thousands of years ago. The burning 
 springs of Asia Minor and fires of Baku on the shores of the Caspian 
 have been described by travelers ever since the days of Marco Polo. 
 On the North American Continent, burning springs were early no- 
 ticed, especially by the French missionary explorers. Apparently, 
 the first attempt to use natural gas was at Fredonia, N. Y., where in 
 1824 wells were dug into the rock strata and the gas utilized for heat 
 and fuel. 
 
 Some idea of the earth's strata is necessary to understand the 
 theories now generally accepted for natural gas and petroleum. 
 These suppose the strata of the earth to be bent or deflected, form- 
 ing folds or wrinkles. If in such a formation there is an impervious 
 layer of rock or coal underlain by a thick stratum of porous rock or 
 loose formation, we have, if petroleum be present, the necessary 
 conditions for a " gas pocket." (See illustration.) 
 
508 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 NATURAL GAS. 
 
 Location. Oil and gas do not lie in open and free pockets, but 
 are held in the porous rocks as water is held in a sponge. Neither is 
 oil always found accompanying gas, but it usually is rrbt far distant. 
 The gas, being lighter, is always at the top of the c^rve (anticline). 
 
 Next comes a stra- 
 Earth's Surface. a. lr . $ '\ \\ \A ' 
 
 place by the pressure 
 of salt water of a 
 peculiar bitter taste. 
 In the diagram, if a 
 well be drilled at #, 
 gas will be obtained 
 and as it is held there 
 under pressure from 
 the oil and water, when a vent is offered it rushes out with consider- 
 able force. If the anticline is tapped at b, oil instead of gas will be 
 obtained, and if the well were continued deeper, salt water would be 
 found. In fact, nearly every oil well yields some salt water, and 
 some oil wells that have become exhausted, are profitably worked as 
 salt wells. The pressure under which the gas is stored is sometimes 
 so enormous that the flow from the wells cannot be controlled for a 
 considerable time after gas has been "struck." It is not an uncom- 
 mon thing for a strong " gaser " to shoot the whole "string of 
 tools" out of the hole through the derrick, and when it is recalled 
 that a string of drilling tools weighs anywhere from 2000 to 4000 
 pounds, the force required may be realized. The gas accompanying 
 oil wells is frequently a troublesome factor when it comes time to 
 lower the " torpedo " to " shoot " the well. Gas wells are drilled in 
 the same manner as those for oil, which will be described later. The 
 gas is conveyed from the well in a "pipe line " made of joints of 
 iron tubing the ends of which screw into " collars," frequently form- 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 509 
 
 ing a continuous line many miles in length, enabling the gas wells of 
 one state or province to furnish light or heat for the cities of an- 
 other. 
 
 Natural gas is a poor illuminant but has great heating power, and 
 for a time was so extensively used for manufacturing purposes, nota- 
 bly at Pittsburg, that it materially reduced the output of coal and 
 became a factor in industrial life second only to coal and the steam 
 engine. But the supply is gradually failing and manufacturers are 
 being forced to return to coal. 
 
 PETROLEUM. 
 
 The petroleum industry, although a development of the last half 
 century, deals with an article -that has been known in other lands 
 from time immemorial. In China it was in use before the dawn of 
 written history, and the famous petroleum springs near Baku on the 
 western shore of the Caspian Sea have been known from the earliest 
 times. Pliny and Herodotus each knew or had heard of petroleum, 
 and in the city of Genoa, centuries agcr, a kind of petroleum oil was 
 used in the rude lamps of the time. 
 
 Even gold mining, with all the romance which envelops it, cannot 
 parallel the sudden transitions from poverty to wealth, or the specula- 
 tion and feverish excitement attendant upon the development of a 
 new oil field. Perhaps a worthy historian of the industry may arise 
 able to do justice to the prospectors, who, like Mother Carey's 
 chickens, have been flitting here, there, yonder, dipping now into 
 the soil of this part of the country, now into that, or making trips to 
 foreign lands, and all the while keeping the telegraph wires and 
 cables hot with quivering, exciting messages to one another of their 
 pilgrimages in search of that fascinating article, petroleum, whose 
 by-products are almost as multitudinous as the sands of the sea. 
 
 Petroleum an Incidental Product. It seems strange that a prod- 
 
5io 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 uct now of such value was once considered by those that encoun- 
 tered it as big a nui- 
 sance as the forests 
 which the early settlers 
 cut into logs and 
 burned to get out of 
 the way. In the first 
 half of the nineteenth 
 century numerous salt 
 wells were drilled 
 along the western slope 
 THE CITY OF OIL TANKS. of the Alleghanies, and 
 
 frequently the mine owners were forced to abandon the scene because 
 of the appearance of a green slimy substance that accumulated on 
 pools, canals, and reservoirs, greatly to their disgust. In 1854 Dr. 
 Gesner obtained an illuminating oil from coal, and a Long Island 
 company was formed to manufacture a species of kerosene for illum- 
 inating purposes with such startling success that within a few years 
 there were numerous enterprises of the kind set up within the soft 
 coal fields, destined to become obsolete and a loss to their investors 
 because of the recognition of the value of petroleum. In 1857 
 twelve barrels of petroleum were shipped to New York, and this is 
 said to be the beginning of its history as an illuminant. Never be- 
 fore in the history of commerce has an industry so quickly sprung in- 
 to life and unparalleled activity as this. Witness the following table : 
 
 Year 
 
 Production 
 
 Lowest Monthly 
 
 
 Barrels 
 
 Average Price 
 
 1859 
 
 1,873 
 
 $20.00 
 
 1860 
 
 547,439 
 
 2-75 
 
 1870 
 
 5,308,046 
 
 3-15 
 
 1880 
 
 26,027,637 
 
 .80 
 
 1890 
 
 33,163,513 
 
 .67^ 
 
 1898 
 
 60,568,081 
 
 
 Highest Monthly 
 Average Price 
 
 Average 
 Yearly Price 
 
 Wells 
 Completed 
 
 $20.00 
 
 $20.00 
 
 
 19.25 
 4-52^ 
 
 9.60 
 3-89 
 
 
 .0 5 
 
 .86^ 
 
 4217 
 6435 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 51 I 
 
 Producing Areas. Now there are annually produced, according * 
 to the office of the Geological Survey, more than 5,000,000,000 gal- 
 lons of petroleum, of which amount 2,500,000,000 are from the 
 United States, 2,250,000,000 from Russia, and the remainder dis- 
 tributed among a dozen different countries, including Austria, 87,- 
 000,000; Sumatra, 72,000,000; Java, 30,000,000; Canada, 29,000,- 
 ooo. Numerous single oil wells have within twenty years produced 
 oil to the value of more than $1,000,000, and when the capital invest- 
 ed is taken into consideration the dividends of the richest gold mines 
 of the world cannot compare with the returns from the liquid wealth. 
 
 Rock Oil Company. When the value of petroleum came to be 
 appreciated the famous Rock Oil Company, 1855-56, was the earliest 
 in the field, but there were so many hindrances to its success that it 
 almost became a byword. It was with this company that Edwin L. 
 Drake was connected as an employee, afterward decorated with the 
 title of " Colonel" to help give dignity to the company. Meeting 
 with no success the company was afterward merged into the Seneca 
 Oil Company with Drake as president. The company had a capital 
 of $1000 and paid its president a salary equal to its capital and from 
 this humble beginning in a little more than a generation sprung 
 petroleum capitalizations equal to more than $500,000,000, with 
 30,000 miles of pipe line, more than 10,000 tank cars, and 100 ocean 
 steamers. 
 
 Drake's first derrick in the Pennsylvania oil field was erected near 
 Titusville in the summer of 1859. ^ was boarded to the top and 
 resembled nothing in the world as much as a clumsy Cleopatra's nee- 
 dle minus its hieroglyphics. The men lived, slept, ate, worked, 
 within this one building, and the president of the company secured 
 accommodations for himself, his wife, two children, and the horses 
 for about $i a day, a fairly good indication of the wealth of the con- 
 cern and the luxury of the country. 
 
512 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The men worked with tools weighing 300 pounds attached to a 
 spring pole. The efforts of the workmen pulled down the end of the 
 pole and caused the drill to strike a blow. On releasing their hold, the 
 elastic force of the pole raised the tools ready to be drawn again for 
 another stroke. They drilled through 47 feet of gravel and 22 feet 
 of shale rock without success and stopped Saturday night at 70 feet. 
 The capital and credit of the concern were about exhausted and 
 Drake was in the depths of gloom and despair. Sunday, Drake 
 strolled over to his well and was rendered speechless at the sight, for 
 from the opening was issuing steadily a stream of dark and viscous 
 wealth. The news rapidly spread and soon the hill was black with 
 excited people running coatless, hatless, coming on horseback, or 
 driving in on anything that would hold to wheels to view the phe- 
 nomenon ; and well they might be interested, for within 48 hours 
 the well was pumping 20 barrels an hour and the oil was worth $20 
 a barrel. The production fell off in a few weeks to less than ten 
 barrels a day, its total output the first calendar year being only 1800 
 barrels. The tools used in this first and famous well were years 
 afterward purchased by Lewis Emery, Jr., and are now on exhibition 
 in a museum in Bradford, Pennsylvania. The news of Drake's suc- 
 cess spread rapidly and numerous wells followed, but they were all 
 put down by the primitive method of the spring pole and were very 
 shallow indeed compared with the depths now reached. 
 
 With a strange fatality that seems inseparably connected with that 
 business, many operators stopped short, discouraged and poverty- 
 stricken, when only 20 or 30 feet from what later developments have 
 proved was almost fabulous wealth. For some reason Drake neglect- 
 ed the golden opportunities lying at his very feet and failed to secure 
 other territory. 
 
 Present System of Operation. The inventive genius of the 
 operators devised the present system, which came into general use 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 
 
 513 
 
 ^fQ /?^ff gri 
 
 STRING OF TOOLS. 
 
 about 1866-68. It consists of a derrick about 
 20 feet square at the base and from 75 to 80 
 feet high, having in the top a pulley over 
 which a cable passes, to one end of which is 
 attached the "string of tools" 60 feet or more 
 in length and weighing from 2000 to 4000 
 pounds. The other end of the cable is at- 
 tached to a horizontal shaft upon which it is 
 wound or unwound at will, the power being 
 furnished by steam engines of from 15 to 25 
 horse power. Directly over the center of the 
 derrick and the hole to be drilled, is one end 
 of the walking beam, about 25 feet in length, 
 balanced over the Samson post. The cable 
 is clutched by a device attached to the end of 
 the walking beam within the derrick, the other 
 end of the walking beam being attached by a 
 pitman to a wheel turned by the steam engine. 
 This imparts a pumping motion to the walking 
 beam, which raises and drops the tools a few 
 inches and pounds the rock into fine frag- 
 ments. 
 
 The usual "string of tools" is made up 
 of a bit 4 feet long, 5 ^ inches in diameter, 
 and weighing about 150 or 175 pounds. The 
 bit, a steel drill with which the hole is 
 pounded in the rock, is removed from time 
 to time, heated in a blacksmith's forge, ham- 
 mered into shape, and retempered. The bit 
 screws into an auger stem, a shaft about 40 
 feet long and weighing from I2OO to 1500 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 pounds. The auger stem is to preserve the vertical position of the 
 drill and by its weight give force to the blow of the bit. The jars 
 are huge flat steel links 6 or 8 feet long and weighing 300 or 400 
 pounds, the links of which play into or slide 
 upon each other and have a movement of 
 about 9 or 10 inches. They divide the string 
 of tools into two parts. Above the jars 
 comes the sinker-bar, another shaft 15 to 20 
 feet long and weighing about 600 pounds. 
 The weight of the sinker-bar is to give effi- 
 ciency to the upward jerk of the upper half of 
 the jars, the chief use of the jars being to 
 loosen the bit in the hole, for if it sticks a 
 direct pull is of little use and may break the 
 cable, leaving the whole string of tools in the 
 well. 
 
 Accidents frequently occur, especially at 
 
 in screwing tools together : 8, i , i <-pi i i ,, i 
 
 drilling cable held by clamps great depths. The tools may be caught by 
 
 and hung from temper-screw 
 
 above; 9 , gauge used when sliding strata of rock and pinched. A new 
 
 dressing 8-inch bit. L 
 
 bit a trifle larger than the old one may stick 
 
 in the hole, or the tools or rope may break in two, leaving a mass of 
 steel to be removed before further progress can be made. Almost 
 anything can be removed by the proper "fishing tools," and there 
 are innumerable clever devices designed to grasp rope, wood, or 
 metal, and tighten their hold as they are withdrawn, and when it is 
 remembered that all this may take place in a hole 2000 or 3000 
 feet deep and only 5^ inches in diameter something of the skill 
 required and ingenuity exercised can be imagined. 
 
 When a hole a few feet in depth has been made the tools are re- 
 moved, water is turned in if necessary, and the bailer or sand-pump, 
 an iron tube with a valve in the bottom, is lowered. This is so con- 
 
 PRINCIPAL DRILLING 
 TOOLS. 
 
 i, 8-inch bit; 2, 5^ inch bit; 
 3, auger-stem ; 4, jars ; 5, 
 sinker-bar ; 6, rope-socket ; 7, 
 one of a pair of wrenches used 
 in screwing tools together : 8, 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 515 
 
 structed that when the tube rests in the bottom of the hole the valve 
 opens and the pounded rock and water enter. When the sand-pump 
 is raised, the valve closes, and the whole is drawn to the surface. 
 The tools are lowered and the process repeated. As the well pro- 
 gresses, lengths of pipe or casing of nearly the same diameter as the 
 hole are lowered and forced in to shut off the surface water and pre- 
 vent caving. The casing is usually carried down until it rests on 
 the first oil-bearing stratum of rock, known colloquially as "first 
 sand." 
 
 " Striking Oil." If the " sand " is porous rock or more open 
 formation and contains oil in great quantities, under heavy pressure 
 from the salt water it may gush forth in a stream as high as the top 
 of the derrick and flow hundreds of barrels an hour. The Matthew 
 and Mevy wells of McDonald, Pennsylvania, the largest in the Ap- 
 palachian field, are credited with a flow of 1500 barrels a day, and 
 the late gusher struck near Beaumont, Texas, has been variously 
 estimated at from 15,000 to 25,000 barrels per day. The wells 
 drilled in the loose gravel formation of the Baku region, which Peter 
 the Great wrested from Persia 200 years ago, are said to have yielded 
 from 50,000 to 60,000 barrels daily. 
 
 " Shooting" a Well. In order to break up the porous rock and 
 give the bottom of each well a larger draining surface a quantity of 
 nitroglycerin ranging from 10 to 100 quarts, according to the char- 
 acter of the " sand," is lowered to the right depth. The well, if it 
 does not contain enough oil, has oil poured into it to aid in confining 
 the force of the explosion. When all is ready the go-devil, a cast 
 iron weight, is dropped, which falling upon a cap explodes the nitro- 
 glycerin. The oil above the torpedo is thrown out and bursts in a 
 column high above the derrick, descending in a greenish golden 
 shower, producing in the sunlight a picture not easily forgotten. 
 The oil in the immediate vicinity of the bottom of the well is driven 
 
5 i6 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 back in the porous rock by the force of the explosion and then the 
 reaction forces it out and the well is to " flow." 
 
 Changes in the formation take place within surprisingly short dis- 
 tances and a non-productive well (duster) was drilled within 300 feet 
 
 of the Mevy well at McDonald while the latter 
 
 was yielding 15,000 barrels a day. Enormous 
 prices have been paid for land that was good pro- 
 ducing territory, for a single well during its history 
 has been known to produce 700,000 barrels of oil 
 valued at more than $4,000,000. Land from 
 which farmers could scarcely wring a living and 
 would have been glad to sell for a song, have 
 yielded fortunes to their successful purchasers. 
 George Noble leased 16 acres in 1860 in a little 
 valley lying along Oil Creek, paying for the lease 
 $600, and soon after refused $100,000 for a half 
 interest, and his profits from his production, with 
 the prices of crude oil ranging from $4 to $13 a 
 barrel, ran up into the tens of thousands daily. 
 Near Oil Creek one man bought a $50 lot and in a few weeks sold it 
 for $5000. Not many rods away a purchaser drilled until he became 
 discouraged and gave it up. Later developments showed that he 
 was within 17 feet of $1,000,006. The Copley well, one of the latest 
 (1900) Eastern gushers in West Virginia, yielded for months 100 
 barrels an hour, yet a well sunk only I j miles away proved a com- 
 plete duster. 
 
 When Drake's well was first put down near Oil City there were 
 hundreds of farms lying along Oil Creek, from which for two genera- 
 tions the inhabitants had hardly obtained a decent living. Some of 
 the ridiculous sights to be seen can be well imagined when such peo- 
 ple were suddenly transformed into millionaires. 
 
 OIL WELL FLOWING 
 
 AFTER HAVING 
 
 BEEN SHOT. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 517 
 
 "Coal Oil Johnnie." " Among the remarkable characters which 
 the oil excitement brought into prominence was 'Coal Oil Johnnie,' 
 as he was nicknamed ; the adopted son of a poor widow in Ve- 
 nango County, Pennsylvania, upon whose farm the valuable grease 
 was found by the thousands of barrels; and unfortunately she died 
 without being able to finish her peculiar son's education. Being 
 only twenty years old at the time of coming into his inheritance, he 
 proceeded to sow the wind most luxuriously; and it was less than 
 five years before he was putting in his valuable time in reaping the 
 whirlwind. He squandered thousands of dollars a day, hired ballet 
 dancers, gave suppers costing thousands of dollars and with the 
 most unheard-of courses; raced at night from one brothel and 
 gambling den to another as fast as his feet could carry him. He 
 used to walk the streets with bunches of greenbacks in the button- 
 holes of his coat. Some were blown out by the wind, many were 
 snatched from his person as he walked unconcernedly along; now 
 and then, for the sake of variety, he plucked others from his pockets 
 and threw them off into space, to the speechless delight of boot- 
 blacks, street sweepers, laborers, policemen, servant girls, and all 
 nations, ages, sexes, and colors. Even the dogs followed him with 
 longing eyes. Thousands of attempts were made to reach his 
 pockets. The slightest appeal for aid, whether deserving or not, 
 was responded to with a generosity that fairly took away the breath 
 of the applicant; sharpers followed at his heels whenever he ap- 
 peared on the streets, and thrust their presence upon him at every 
 corner; he once took a fancy to a certain minstrel troupe and pur- 
 chased for them an outfit which fairly blazed with costly decorations 
 and ornaments. 
 
 " On one occasion he went into a hotel where the clerk and his 
 aids failed to recognize his importance and treated him coolly. 
 Angered, he pulled out from some concealed corner of his rather 
 
5l8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 disreputable-looking person a roll of greenbacks and demanded the 
 price of the house including servants and fixtures. The bewildered 
 proprietor, for whom the frightened clerk at the desk promptly sent, 
 thinking he was dealing with a maniac, named a price ; and 
 'Johnnie ' laid down the price on the desk, and promptly ordered the 
 offending clerk and a porter or two who had offended him to * dust 
 and be lively about it/ He then took possession and indulged with 
 a few of his chosen comrades, for a day or so, in some of the wildest 
 and most ridiculous exploits of eating, drinking, sleeping, and 
 carousing that the world has ever heard of, and then presented the 
 house to a clerk who struck his fancy. 
 
 " But he could not like Tennyson's brook 'go on forever'; for 
 after a few years of this rapid living, Mr. John W. Steele, teamster, 
 as he was originally known, was glad to accept the position of door- 
 keeper to the very minstrel troupe which in his halcyon days he had 
 so generously fitted out with a golden equipment." 
 
 Storage and Transportation of Oil. Ordinarily, each well has a 
 tank of its own with a capacity of 250 barrels connected with the 
 well by a 2-inch pipe. A larger pipe connects this tank with one of 
 perhaps 10,000 barrels capacity. Pipe lines made of lengths of 
 wrought iron pipe, capable of withstanding a pressure of 2000 pounds 
 per square inch, screw into collars and form a continuous line, often 
 reaching hundreds of miles. These lines connect the oil fields with 
 the cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, Buffalo, New York, 
 Jersey City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Enormous iron tanks 
 capable of holding 40,000 barrels are placed at intervals along such 
 lines and the oil forced by powerful pumps through forests, over 
 mountains, across valleys, under rivers, from station to station across 
 the continent. 
 
 Pumping stations are from 25 to 30 miles apart and consist of a 
 boiler house of brick, with large tubular boilers of 80 or 100 horse 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. $19 
 
 power, and great pumps that can force 25,000 barrels a day through 
 three i6-inch pipes from one station to the next. 
 
 Petroleum is rich in paraffin, which has a tendency to adhere to 
 the pipes and clog them. To remove this a clever piece of mechan- 
 ism called a go-devil is used. It is hinged with a ball and socket 
 joint that allows it to follow any of the bends in the pipes, and fitted 
 with steel knives on a spindle that are caused to turn as the oil passes 
 through. As the go-devil is forced forward, the knives revolve and 
 scrape away the obstructions. 
 
 For the European trade especially constructed oil tank steamers, 
 costing half a million dollars each and with a carrying capacity of 
 2,700,000 gallons of oil, are used. 
 
 The striking of storage tanks by lightning is not uncommon, for 
 the large masses of metal with the ascending columns of light, warm 
 gas form excellent conductors of electricity, and a huge oil tank 
 in flames presents a sight never to be forgotten. In the case of a 
 burning tank, cannon kept in reserve are brought out, the tank 
 pierced by shot and the oil diverted into streams near by and run off. 
 
 The United Pipe Line Association now owns more than 3000 
 miles of pipe, iron tanks with a capacity of more than 35,000,000 
 barrels, and over 100 pumping stations, a remarkable contrast with 
 the first efforts to gather the oil when tanks, barrels, boxes, bottles, 
 cans, pans, and even old hats were used, and the liquid wealth carried 
 by hand or hauled about by ox teams. Mules, horses, or camels 
 with buckets or tubs are still used to some extent for the transporta- 
 tion of oil in the Caspian district. An elaborate system of book- 
 keeping and accounting enables the transportation companies to 
 receive into the line the oil of hundreds of producers. 
 
 If a producer wishes to draw off 100 or 200 barrels into one of 
 the great storage tanks in the valley he signals the gauger in the 
 service of the storage company, who measures the height of the oil 
 
520 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 in the great tank, then the valves are thrown open, the oil from the 
 well is received until the flow ceases. Another measurement of the 
 height of oil in the receiving tank is taken and the difference between 
 the two levels accurately determined to within a minute fraction of a 
 barrel and placed to the credit of the producer, who receives a certifi- 
 cate from the storage company. The certificates can be deposited 
 in a bank like checks or negotiated like any form of business paper, 
 can be used as collateral security, are subject to transfer by indorse- 
 ment, and form an important factor in banking, commerce, and oil 
 trade circles. 
 
 Our debt to petroleum is greater than appears at first thought, 
 for kerosene is the light depended upon in country homes and small 
 villages where gas plants and electric lights are not available. The 
 difference between the light furnished by tallow candles or smoky, 
 ill-smelling whale oil lamps and the light of a " Rochester burner," 
 using kerosene oil, needs only to be seen to be fully appreciated. 
 Good artificial light not only saves the sight and prolongs the 
 hours for work or amusement, but it has also prevented suffer- 
 ing and loss of life, for the petroleum industry practically put out of 
 business the whale fishery with its attendant train of privations, 
 wrecks, and losses of life. The whales had been so diminished in 
 number that whalers were compelled to make long voyages to the 
 Arctic, where frequently frozen in the ice they remained through the 
 long dreary Arctic winter, their crew suffering untold privations from 
 the lack of suitable food, then scurvy with its awful ravages 
 appeared, boats were often overturned by angry whales, and vessels 
 were caught in ice floes. Such were a few of the horrors and a part 
 of the price that was paid for the whale oil lamp. The by-products 
 of petroleum are so numerous that a single volume could hardly do 
 them complete justice; but vaseline, paraffin, asphaltum, lubricating 
 oils, and gasoline are the best known. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. $21 
 
 The Wells light is a very simple apparatus for using the vapor 
 of kerosene, and is remarkably efficient. It consists of a steel tank 
 of a size that can be easily handled and the burner connected with 
 the tank by an iron tube. A valve in the connecting tube is closed 
 and the tank pumped about two thirds full of kerosene. This com- 
 presses the air within the tank and gives a pressure of 25 pounds or 
 more. The burner is then heated and the valve in the connecting 
 tube opened. The pressure within forces a fine stream of kerosene 
 through a series of tubes arranged in spiral form and heated so hot 
 that by the time it reaches -the end of the spiral, the kerosene is not 
 only vaporized, but made into a gas, when it ignites and burns under 
 high pressure, forming a long, solid flame which gives out great light 
 and heat. An 800 candle power light can be obtained by the use of 
 half a gallon of kerosene per hour, and if the kerosene be increased 
 to i y 2 gallons per hour, 4000 candle power can be developed. The 
 whole apparatus is easily moved about and is well adapted for many 
 kinds of mining, excavating, and factory illumination, as the size of 
 the flame can be varied at will. It possesses such great heating 
 power that by its aid locomotive tires can be set without removing 
 the trucks from the engine frame. The lamp has made possible the 
 working of forces of men in the open air where other forms of light 
 are not suitable or available. 
 
 The Standard Oil Company. A few words concerning the oldest 
 and strongest combination of capital and brains that the American 
 continent has seen outside of railroad operations may not be out of 
 place. The history of the Standard Oil Company is so interwoven 
 with that of the petroleum industry that one cannot be followed 
 without taking some notice of the other. Mr. Carnegie says, " The 
 only people who have reason to fear trusts are those who trust 
 them." The late Lord Chief Justice Russell of England said that in 
 seven years the losses to the public through failures of trusts had 
 
522 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 been "no less a sum than 28,159,482 ($136,855,082), made up of 
 losses of creditors dealing with such companies, 7,696,848 ($37,- 
 406,681), and of loss to the wretched contributors or shareholders 
 20,462,634 ($99,448,401), and when we recollect that these are the 
 figures relating only to companies wound up compulsorily and that 
 they exclude cases of reduced capital and losses in relation to com- 
 panies whose present value represents a very few shillings or pence in 
 the pound of their par value, you will see that the loss to the public 
 is enormous." 
 
 But the Standard Oil Company has been managed with such con- 
 spicuous ability that it has avoided all the shoals and rocks upon 
 which others have foundered and is the accepted standard from 
 which arguments in support of the trust idea are usually drawn. It 
 has been attacked often and furiously by the press and the pulpit, 
 blackmailed by state legislators and legal functionaries, and so much 
 has been said and written both in abuse and praise of it that it is 
 small wonder if the average citizen looks upon it with distrust or even 
 fear. But persons whose minds are trained in economic thought and 
 who hold that man is not totally depraved find it hard to believe 
 that such a matchless organization can be founded solely upon a 
 basis of bribery and corruption. 
 
 Mr. Rockefeller was summoned before a congressional commis- 
 sion appointed to investigate the trust problem, and given a series of 
 questions to which he replied in writing. The following is his answer 
 to the question as to what induced the first combination of firms in 
 the oil business. 
 
 Testimony of John D. Rockefeller. "The desire to unite our 
 skill and capital in order to carry on a business of some magnitude 
 and importance in place of the small business that each separately 
 had theretofore carried on. 
 
 "As the business grew and markets were obtained at home and 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 523 
 
 abroad, more persons and capital were added to the business and 
 new corporate agencies were obtained or organized, the object being 
 always the same to extend our business by furnishing the best and 
 cheapest product. 
 
 " I ascribe the success of the Standard to its consistent policy to 
 make the volume of its business large through the merits and 
 cheapness of its products. It has spared no expense in finding, se- 
 curing, and utilizing the best and cheapest methods of manufacture. 
 It has sought for the best superintendents and workmen, and paid 
 the best wages. It has not hesitated to sacrifice old machinery and 
 old plants for new and better ones. It has placed its manufactories 
 at the points where they could supply markets at the least expense. 
 It has not only sought markets for its principal products, but for all 
 possible by-products, sparing no expense in introducing them to the 
 public. It has not hesitated to invest millions of dollars in methods 
 for cheapening the gathering and distribution of oils, by pipe lines, 
 special cars, tank steamers, and tank wagons. It has erected tank 
 stations at every important railroad station to cheapen the storage 
 and delivery of its products. It has spared no expense in forcing its 
 products into the markets of the world, among people civilized and 
 uncivilized. It has had faith in American oil, and has brought to- 
 gether millions of money for the purpose of making it what it was, 
 and holding its markets against the competition of Russia and all the 
 many countries which are producers of oil and competitors against 
 American oil." 
 
 Advantages of Combining. " Much that one man cannot do 
 alone two can do together, and once admit the fact that co-operation, 
 or, what is the same thing, combination, is necessary on a small 
 scale, the limit depends solely upon the necessities of business. Two 
 persons in partnership may be a sufficiently large combination for a 
 small business, but if the business grows or can be made to grow, 
 
524 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 more persons and more capital must be taken in. The business may 
 grow so large that a partnership ceases to be a proper instrumen- 
 tality for its purposes, and then a corporation becomes a necessity. 
 In most countries, as in England, this form of industrial ^combina- 
 tion is sufficient for a business co-extensive with the parent country, 
 but it is not so in this country. Our Federal form of government, 
 making every corporation created by a state foreign to every other 
 state, renders it necessary for persons doing business through corporate 
 agency to organize corporations in some or many of the different 
 states in which their business is located. Instead of doing business 
 through the agency of one corporation, they must do business through 
 the agencies of several corporations. If the business is extended to 
 foreign countries and Americans are not to-day satisfied with home 
 markets alone it will be found helpful and possibly necessary to 
 organize corporations in such countries, for Europeans are prejudiced 
 against foreign corporations, as are the people of many of our states. 
 These different corporations thus become co-operating agencies in 
 the same business, and are held together by common ownership of 
 their stock. 
 
 "It is too late to argue about advantages of industrial combina- 
 tions. They are a necessity. And if Americans are to have the 
 privilege of extending their business in all the States of the Union 
 and into foreign countries as well, they are a necessity on a large 
 scale and require the agency of more than one corporation. Their 
 chief advantages are : 
 
 "I. Command of necessary capital. 
 
 "2. Extension of limits of business. 
 
 "3. Increase of number of persons interested in the business. 
 
 "4. Economy in business. 
 
 "5. Improvements and economies which are derived from 
 knowledge of many interested persons of wide experience. 
 
MINERAL INDUSTRIES. 525 
 
 11 6. Power to give the public improved products at less prices 
 and still make profit for stockholders. 
 
 " 7. Permanent work and good wages for laborers. 
 
 " I speak from my experience in the business, with which I have 
 been intimately connected for about forty years." 
 
 Pipe Lines. " We soon discovered as the business grew that the 
 primary method of transporting oil in barrels could not last. The 
 package often costs more than the contents, and the forests of the 
 country were not sufficient to supply the material for an extended 
 length of time. Hence we devoted attention to other methods of 
 transportation, adopted the pipe line system and found capital for 
 pipe line construction equal to the necessities of the business. To 
 operate pipe lines required franchises from states in which they were 
 located, and consequently corporations in those states, just as rail- 
 roads running through different states are forced to operate under 
 separate charters. To perfect the pipe line system of transportation 
 required in the neighborhood of $50,000,000 of capital. This could 
 not be obtained or maintained without industrial combination. 
 
 "The entire oil business is dependent upon this pipe line system. 
 Without it every well would be shut down, every foreign market 
 would be closed to us. The pipe line system required other improve- 
 ments, such as tank cars upon railways, and finally the tank steamer. 
 Capital had to be furnished for them, and corporations created to 
 own and operate them. Every step taken was necessary in the busi- 
 ness if it was to be properly developed. 
 
 " The dangers are that the power conferred by combinations may 
 be abused, that combinations may be formed for speculation in 
 stocks rather than for conducting business, and that for this purpose 
 prices may be temporarily raised instead of being lowered. 
 
 "These abuses are possible to a greater or less extent in all com- 
 binations, large or small, but this fact is no more of an argument 
 
526 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 against combinations than the fact that steam may explode is an ar- 
 gument against steam. Steam is necessary and can be made com- 
 paratively safe. Combination is necessary, and its abuses can be 
 minimized ; otherwise our legislators must acknowledge their incapac- 
 ity to deal with the most important instrument of industry. 
 
 " Hitherto most legislative attempts have been an effort not to 
 control, but to destroy, hence their futility." 
 
 CRIPPLE CREEK. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 
 
 Electric Telegraph Heliograph Contributions of Morse First Telegraph Line in 
 
 America Wireless Telegraphy Submarine Cables Uses of Cables Telephone 
 
 Wireless Telephony Phonograph Telautograph Moving Picture Machines Postal 
 Service Canadian System Postal Union Free Delivery Pneumatic Tube Postal 
 Service Trans-continental Mails Pony Express Two-cent Rate to the Philippines. 
 
 ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 
 
 OR countless centuries man has striven to quicken 
 his means of communication with his fellow- 
 and from time immemorial has employed for 
 that purpose sight and sound, but the 
 use of electricity is the gift of the nine- 
 teenth century. The fleet-footed mes- 
 sengers and the couriers in relays so 
 
 often mentioned in Greek history, the 
 
 HENRY'S TELEGRAPH. r i i c*- iir i*. c- j 
 
 fiery cross which Sir Walter Scott de- 
 scribes in his " Lady of the Lake," war drums, trumpets, and alarm 
 bells, all were used. Light is immensely superior to sound in speed, 
 and signal beacons burning on mountain tops were used so early that 
 tradition says that when ancient Troy fell, in the eleventh century 
 B. C., Agamemnon conveyed the news to Clytemnestra, his wife, by 
 a chain of signal beacons stretching from Mount Ida to the palace of 
 the queen. 
 
 The semaphore, the first really efficient telegraph, was invented 
 by Claude Chappe and adopted by the French government in I/94- 
 As adopted, it consisted of a vertical post with a movable arm to 
 which were attached two smaller pivoted arms. By different move- 
 ments of these arms 98 distinct signals could be made. The system 
 
528 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 was soon in general use throughout Europe and nearly every nation 
 had its semaphores placed on towers 4 or 5 miles apart forming long 
 lines. Nicholas I. of Russia constructed one at an expense of mil- 
 lions of dollars, with 220 stations, running from the Austrian frontier 
 to St. Petersburg. 
 
 The heliograph is a system of conveying signals by the use of 
 flashes of sunlight from mirrors. Its use in South Africa during the 
 heroic siege of Ladysmith has rendered the term familiar. Messages 
 can be sent in this way for a surprisingly long distance. The French 
 have employed it between the islands of Mauritius and Reunion in 
 the Indian Ocean, the stations being on mountain tops 133 miles 
 apart. The United States Signal Corps on the top of Mount Un- 
 compahgre, Colorado, has communicated with Mount Ellen in Utah, 
 183 miles away. The British navy uses calcium and electric lights 
 for similar purposes, and at the siege of Paris calcium lights aided by 
 lenses and reflectors were frequently employed to send messages 
 from one station to another 20 miles or more away. The army and 
 navy of all civilized nations are now able to telegraph by means of 
 flash lights and signal flags. 
 
 As soon as it became known that electricity could be transmitted 
 for a considerable distance through a conductor, various attempts 
 were made to utilize it for telegraphic purposes. What is generally 
 accepted as the earliest suggestion of this kind appeared in Scotf s 
 Magazine, February 1st, 1753, in which the writer proposes to em- 
 ploy as many wires as the letters of the alphabet, having at the end 
 of each wire a letter and a suspended pith ball. The ball would 
 move when a current of electricity was sent through the wire and 
 signal the letter to be employed, and words were to be spelled out in 
 this way. It is to be regretted that the author of the first practical 
 suggestion of an electrical telegraph has never been identified. 
 
 Claims of Morse. The name of Samuel F. B. Morse seems to 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 529 
 
 many people to stand for everything connected with the modern 
 telegraph. Great credit is due Morse for the energy, the will 
 power, and remarkable perseverance he displayed in securing rec- 
 ognition and adoption for the telegraph, but he had very little part 
 in the construction of what constitutes the electric telegraph of 
 to-day. The first electric telegraph ever constructed was that of 
 Le Sage at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1774. He used 24 wires, each 
 named after a letter of the alphabet and fitted with an electroscope 
 which moved when an electric impulse was sent through the wire. 
 In 1796 Salva in Spain worked by static electricity a line 26 miles 
 long. Soemering of Munich operated a telegraph in 1807, using 
 Volta's cells, and published accounts of it in scientific journals and 
 exhibited it to learned societies. In England Sir Francis Ronalds 
 had in 1816 a line 8 miles long, the wire of which was suspended on 
 silken strings. When he tried to interest the British government he 
 received the reply, "Telegraphs of any kind are now wholly unneces- 
 sary and no other than the one now in use will be adopted." All 
 these were imperfect and expensive machines, and it was not until 
 after the discoveries of four great men that the modern telegraph be- 
 came possible. 
 
 Essential Parts of the Telegraph. In the electric telegraph of 
 to-day there are four things necessary: the battery, the conducting 
 wire, the electro-magnet, and the instruments for sending and re- 
 ceiving messages. The battery was made possible by the discoveries 
 of Galvani and Volta, which have been described, and made practi- 
 cable by the Daniell cell. It had been known for some time that 
 currents of electricity could be sent through considerable lengths of 
 wire, and Weber discovered in 1823 that he could pass an electric 
 current through a copper wire carried over the houses and steeples 
 of Gottingen without insulating it. For the electro-magnet, the 
 work of four men was required: Oersted (Danish), who in 1819 
 
530 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 first detected the effect of the electric current on a magnetic needle ; 
 Arago (French), who in 1820 discovered that the current could gen- 
 erate magnetism ; Sturgeon (English), who produced the first electro- 
 magnet ; and Henry (American), who was the first to operate an 
 electro-magnet at a distance. Barlow, an eminent English scientist, 
 had tried in 1824 to apply Sturgeon's magnet to the telegraph but 
 failed because, as he says, " I found such a sensible diminution with 
 only 200 feet of wire as at once convincd me of the impracticability 
 of the scheme," and the only practical application made of the dis- 
 covery of Oersted was the use of a magnetic needle deflected at 
 will to the right or the left by an electric current. By the use of a 
 code signals could be sent. 
 
 Prominent Experimentalists. Gauss and Weber in 1833 set up 
 such a telegraph at Gottingen. Cooke, who afterward became fa- 
 mous for his connection with the needle telegraph, applied in 1837 
 to Faraday for information that would help him to work an electro- 
 magnet at a distance. Faraday referred him to Wheatstone, who 
 pronounced his plan impracticable. In 1837 Cooke and Wheatstone 
 took out an English patent for an electric telegraph by which signals 
 were given by electric needles. It is difficult in these days of instan- 
 taneous communication to realize how little nations knew of each 
 other three fourths of a century ago, for six years before Wheatstone 
 had pronounced the electro-magnet impracticable, Professor Joseph 
 Henry of the Albany Academy strung more than a mile of wire 
 about the walls of that building and set up an electro-magnetic tele- 
 graph which he describes as follows: "I arranged, around one of 
 the upper rooms in the Albany Academy, a wire of more than a mile 
 in length, through which I was enabled to make signals by sounding 
 a bell. The mechanical arrangement for effecting this object was 
 simply a steel bar, permanently magnetized, of about ten inches in 
 length, supported on a pivot, and placed with its north end between 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 531 
 
 the two arms of a horseshoe magnet. When the latter was excited 
 by the current, the end of the bar, thus placed, was attracted by one 
 arm of the horseshoe and repelled by the other, and was thus caused 
 to move in a horizontal plane, and its farther extremity to strike a 
 bell suitably adjusted." This was the first sounding telegraph in 
 the world. 
 
 "In 1835 Professor Henry, who had been called to Princeton 
 College, constructed a line and worked it as it is to-day worked, 
 with a relay and local circuit, so that at that period all the problems 
 had been worked out. But, like the speaking telephone in its early 
 inception, no one appreciated its real importance. Henry himself 
 did not think it worth while to take out a patent."* 
 
 Wheatstone and Cooke were knighted by Queen Victoria for the 
 invention of an electric telegraph that has been superseded by that 
 outlined years before by Henry. Henry's Princeton line in the Phil- 
 osophic Hall used one wire, one end of which terminated in the well 
 at his home and the other in the earth at his laboratory in the college 
 buildings. It was not until 1837 that Steinheil at Munich worked 
 his electric telegraph by a single wire, using the earth as part of a 
 circuit. We will allow Professor Henry to speak for himself. "At 
 the time of making my original experiments in electro-magnetism in 
 Albany I was urged by a friend to take out a patent both for its ap- 
 plication to machinery and to the telegraph; but this I declined 
 on the ground that I did not then consider it compatible with the 
 dignity of science to confine the benefits which might be derived from 
 it to the exclusive use of any individual, "f 
 
 Contributions of Morse. In 1832 Morse began work on the elec- 
 tric telegraph, and in 1837 exhibited a line at the University of the 
 City of New York in Washington square, by which signals were sent 
 
 *Prof. Elisha Gray. 
 
 t " Joseph Henry and the Magnetic Telegraph." Edward N. Dickerson. 
 
532 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 by electricity. He was aided in this work by Professor John W. 
 Draper. Morse had interested Judge Stephen Vail of Speedwell, 
 New Jersey, who furnished the money for the enterprise and whose 
 son, Alfred Vail, assisted Morse in his work, and for whom a large 
 share of the credit has been claimed. The code called by Morse's 
 name is said to have been invented by young Vail from suggestions 
 given him by printers as to the order in which the letters of the alpha- 
 bet were most used. In 1843 Congress made an appropriation of 
 $30,000 to build an experimental line for Morse between Baltimore 
 and Washington, and over this line was sent the famous message, 
 " What hath God wrought."* 
 
 The first telegraphic line in America was thrown open to the 
 public April I, 1844. The tariff was one cent for four words. 
 " During the first four days the receipts amounted to one cent. This 
 was obtained from an office seeker, who said that he had nothing 
 else than a twenty-dollar bill and one cent, and, with the modesty of 
 his class, wanted to see the operation free. This was refused because 
 against orders. He was then told that he could have a cent's worth 
 of telegraphy, to which he agreed. He was gratified in the following 
 manner: Washington asked Baltimore, '4 ? ' which meant in the list 
 of signals, ' What time is it ? ' Baltimore replied, '-I,' which meant, 
 1 one o'clock.' This was one character each way, which, according 
 to the tariff, would amount to half a cent. The man paid his one 
 cent, declined the change, and went his way. This was the revenue 
 for four days. On the fifth 12^ cents were received. The sixth 
 was the Sabbath. On the seventh the revenue ran up to 60 cents; 
 on the eighth, $1.32. On the ninth they were 1.04." f. This is an 
 
 *The code known as the Morse code is as follows . A. B ...C.. .D .. 
 
 E . F . . G . H . . . . I . . J . . K . I M N . O . .P 
 
 Q . . . R . . . S . . . T U . . V... W. X . - . . Y . . ..Z... . & . ... 
 
 i . .2.. ..3... .4.... 5 -6 7 
 
 t James D. Reid, " The Telegraph in America." 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 
 
 533 
 
 interesting commentary on the progress of the time, for numerous 
 wires and dozens of offices are now required to conduct the tele- 
 graphic business between these two cities. 
 
 A BCD 
 
 CLOSED CIRCUIT SYSTEM WITH "WAY" STATIONS AND "RELAYS." 
 
 The working of a Morse telegraph is simple when understood. 
 Suppose a properly insulated wire to connect Ottawa with Washing- 
 ton, each end being connected with the earth and forming a circuit 
 as shown in the figure herewith. When 
 the keys at both ends are closed the bat- 
 teries are in action and the electro- 
 magnets attract the armatures or keepers. 
 If either key is opened the current stops, 
 the electro-magnets no longer attract 
 the armatures, which are drawn away 
 by a spring, giving forth a click that con- 
 veys an intelligible sound to the operator. 
 
 Relays and repeaters are used because 
 it is difficult to send an electric current 
 through so long a line, 400 miles for iron 
 wire being about the limit. Suppose a 
 relay station established at Toronto ; the 
 electric impulse arrive's there like a courier, out of breath and ex- 
 hausted, but has sufficient strength to operate a battery there, which 
 
 MORSE'S FIRST TELEGRAPH 
 INSTRUMENT. 
 
534 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 sounds out the message distinctly and hurries forward the signal to 
 another relay station that may be located at Buffalo, that in turn 
 forwards it to New York or Philadelphia, thence on its way to Wash- 
 ington. It is the weak current's ability to close the circuit of a 
 strong battery and wake up and set in motion a fresh courier that 
 gives the name " relay" to the system. 
 
 The first Morse telegraphs employed a register which made a 
 series of dots and dashes on paper from which the message was read, 
 but gradually the operators came to be able to read by sound, and 
 that is the method now most used the world over. 
 
 Other and Later Systems. The needle system of Cooke and 
 Wheatstone, used in England before Morse had prevailed upon Con- 
 gress to build his experimental line, was soon followed by the chem- 
 ical telegraph of Bain, the printing telegraph of House, and later 
 that of Hughes. But they are all too complicated to be described 
 within the space to which this article is limited, and although print- 
 ing and automatic systems are used in America to some extent the 
 greater part of the work is done by sound writing and copied either 
 by hand or typewritten. 
 
 Morse counted himself happy to be* able to get one message over 
 the line at a time, but soon half a dozen inventors were trying to in- 
 crease the capacity of the line for work, although it was not until 
 1872 that' Joseph B. Stearns of Boston invented a condenser which 
 made possible duplex telegraphy. Now it is possible to use the same 
 wire at the same time for carrying many messages in both directions, 
 without their interfering with each other in the least. The apparatus 
 by which this is effected represents the combined effort of the great- 
 est minds of electrical science. The time required to transmit an 
 electrical signal over an ordinary line is less than 1-500000 of a sec- 
 ond, and the human mind and hand cannot approach such speed, 
 hence the signals do not interfere with each other. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 535 
 
 Edison developed and put in operation about 1878 a quadruplex 
 system by which four messages could be sent over the same wire at 
 the same time. This, of course, immensely increased the capacity 
 of the wire to do business and is said to have added $15,000,000 to 
 the value of the Western Union Telegraph Company alone. Other 
 methods employ something like a typewriter that punches holes in a 
 paper tape. When a series of messages have been thus prepared the 
 tape is run through a machine having electrical connection with a 
 telegraph line, and metal points or brushes drop into the holes and 
 transmit an electrical impulse that at another office signals the letters 
 which the holes in the tape represent. With this or a similar system 
 it has been found possible to transmit more than 1000 words a min- 
 ute over a line. 
 
 Printing Telegraph. Royal C. House invented in 1846 a print- 
 ing telegraph, by which the message was printed on a slip of paper. 
 This has been perfected and developed until to-day it is represented 
 in the broker's office by a "ticker" on which is printed automat- 
 ically the market quotations of different securities. 
 
 The Pollak-Virag system of multiplex telegraphy calls pho- 
 tography to its aid. To put the message in sending form, a pa- 
 per tape is run through a machine which is perforated in two lines, 
 the upper line for the dashes, the lower line for the dots of the 
 Morse code. The tape when prepared is run rapidly over a wheel 
 electrically connected with the telegraph line. Pressing upon the 
 tape are two small brushes, one for the dash line and one for the dot 
 line. The first is connected with the positive pole of a battery and 
 the second with the negative. The only limits to the number of 
 words that can be sent are the speed with which the wheel can be 
 turned and the number of signals that can be sent over the wire with- 
 out confusion, but the speed of the wheel is only a question of 
 power and gearing and the number of signals is practically unlimited, 
 
536 . THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 for as many as 500,000 distinct signals can be sent each second. At 
 the receiving station is a mirror galvanometer upon which the light 
 from a small incandescent lamp falls. The mirror turns and throws 
 the rays in one direction for dots and in the other for dashes. The 
 rays, brought to a point by a convex lens and falling on a rapidly 
 moving sensitized, paper ribbon, are there photographed. The sensi- 
 tized paper can be developed in four minutes and the message read as 
 though it were a cable message. In a test at Berlin before represen- 
 tatives of the Hungarian, French, and American government 220 
 words were transmitted in 9 seconds, and 122,000 words per minute 
 have been transmitted by this system between Chicago and Buffalo. 
 
 Telegraphing to Moving Trains. As we have seen in the study 
 of the dynamo, at the instant of the starting or stopping of an 
 electric current a secondary impulse is set up. The same thing 
 occurs whenever a current passes through a telegraph wire, and this 
 impulse is communicated to objects near by and from them passes to 
 the earth. Edison employed the metallic roofs of cars to receive 
 this induced current from the wire. A battery placed in a moving 
 car has within its circuit an intensifying coil, a " buzzer," and a tele- 
 phone receiver. As the induction impulse occurs only with the 
 making and breaking of a telegraphic current it cannot be used for 
 the Morse code, so the impulses are gathered into a "buzzer" and 
 read by a telephone instead of the Morse register. This had several 
 successful trials before it was installed for a time on the Lehigh 
 Valley railroad, but as there was not much demand for it commer- 
 cially it was withdrawn. However, it is practicable and awaits only 
 the call for its services. 
 
 Wireless telegraphy is now an accomplished fact and many able 
 electricians have contributed to bring it about. In 1864 Clerk Max- 
 well declared that electricity and light differed only in the length of 
 the waves (those of light being the longer) having the same velocity, 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 537 
 
 186,400 miles per second. Heinrich Hertz, a German scientist, in 
 1888 proved the truth of Maxwell's theories and showed that 
 alternating currents of high frequency in an open circuit could be 
 conveyed away from the circuit as electric waves. He further dem- 
 onstrated that waves of electricity can be reflected and refracted 
 like waves of light and that at a certain intensity air became a good 
 conductor. 
 
 The coherer made the practical application of "Hertzian waves" 
 possible. Varley in 1866 noticed that the dust of black lead sprinkled 
 between the poles of a battery intercepted the current, but when the 
 current was made powerful enough, the black lead dust became com- 
 pact and formed an excellent conductor. Onesti in 1885 observed 
 the same phenomenon in powdered copper, and in 1891 Branley of 
 Paris brought out a coherer in which this principle was applied and 
 he also discovered that the conductivity of the particles could be 
 destroyed by shaking or tapping them. Dr. Lodge of London 
 added to the knowledge in 1894, and in 1899 Marconi, an Italian 
 residing in England, successfully established communication across the 
 English Channel, 32 miles, since which time the range of the system 
 has been extended to about 100 miles. 
 
 The improved coherer is a glass tube about I j inches long and 
 i- 12 of an inch internal diameter. Within this are two silver elec- 
 trodes which fit the tube and approach within a minute fraction of an 
 inch of each other. The space between the electrodes is filled with 
 fine nickel and silver filings, the merest trace of mercury, and the air 
 within the space exhausted to within i-iooooo part. 
 
 >It is operated as follows : A powerful battery with an induction 
 coil sends a current to two brass spheres about three inches in diam- 
 eter nearly touching each other. A spark leaps from one sphere to 
 the other and sends out waves which travel through the atmosphere 
 and act upon the coherer at a distance, causing the fine filings be- 
 
538 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tween the electrodes to become compact and furnish a good con- 
 ductor of electricity. The electrodes are part of a local battery, the 
 current of which has been waiting for the space between the poles 
 within the glass tube to be bridged so that it can pass. When an 
 electric impulse from the brass balls passing through the air acts upon 
 the dust between the poles of the coherer and converts it into a good 
 conductor, a circuit is established in the local battery, which, by con- 
 necting with a relay, can be made to sound a signal like an ordinary 
 telegraph receiver. 
 
 In the Marconi coherer a little hammer is made to fall with a 
 slight tap upon the glass tube and at the jar the particles of dust fall 
 apart ready to be again acted upon by the electric impulse from afar. 
 Such an impulse, almost too feeble to be computed, is sufficient to 
 change the filings between the poles from a barrier to a conductor of 
 electricity that will furnish passage for the waiting current of the 
 local battery. In actual service the waves are caught by a single 
 wire or a network of wires insulated and raised vertically above the 
 ground on a tall mast, the greater the height the greater the distance 
 from which signals can be received. The waves, when caught, cause 
 electrical vibrations to be carried down the mast to the coherer. 
 The transmitters and receivers can be so delicately adjusted or "at- 
 tuned " to each other that the receiver will take messages only from 
 its own transmitter, and thus absolute privacy can be secured. The 
 energy of a Marconi sending apparatus is sufficient to produce an arc 
 light of 1000 candle power, and sensitive as is the coherer to influ- 
 ences almost immeasurable, it cannot compare in its delicacy with 
 the human eye. 
 
 Advantages of Marconi System. The Marconi system of wire- 
 less telegraphy can never become a successful competitor with present 
 commercial methods because only fifteen words a minute can be 
 transmitted by it. But it has great possibilities in other lines. The 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 539 
 
 ships of a squadron equipped with it might in the night run past 
 threatening batteries and communicate with each other without dis- 
 playing any telltale signals that would draw the fire of the enemy. 
 Crowded ocean passenger steamers equipped with such an apparatus 
 could communicate with lighthouses or signal stations located on 
 dangerous reefs even through the fog and the darkness. A well 
 equipped Marconi system would have allowed the besieged ministers 
 at Pekin to communicate with the relief force at Tien-Tsin, and 
 would have thus relieved much of the anxiety that prevailed during 
 that period of mystery and fear. 
 
 Humanitarian and Utilitarian Aspects of the Telegraph. If 
 the canals, railroads, and steamship lines are the muscles of a nation, 
 the telegraph may not inaptly be styled its nervous system. It has 
 annihilated distance and practically enables a man to make his voice 
 heard at the uttermost ends of the earth. It alleviates human suffer- 
 ing by calling the physician or surgeon to the bedside, or by hurrying 
 aid to an accident or a great disaster like that at Galveston. It 
 makes possible far-reaching commercial transactions. It is invalua- 
 ble in directing the operations of any large organization, military or 
 otherwise. It deters from some crime by the knowledge that win- 
 dows, doors, and safes may be guarded by burglar alarms, and it 
 enables the forces of law and order to communicate so quickly and 
 freely as to render the escape of a criminal almost impossible. A 
 general in the wilds of Africa found he must have a bridge to cross a 
 river before the rainy season opened and the stream rose. By means 
 of the electric telegraph he communicated with the leading manu- 
 facturers of Europe and America and the bridge was ordered, con- 
 structed, and placed on board a vessel in New York harbor ready for 
 shipment in less time than would have been required to send and 
 receive an answer by mail. 
 
 It is impossible for society to estimate the value of the telegraph's 
 
540 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 contributions to human happiness and comfort or the saving effected 
 in time and labor. The close of the century saw (exclusive of the 
 ocean cables) more than 100,000 telegraph offices, 3,000,000 miles of 
 telegraph wire, and 365,000,000 messages sent annually. 
 
 SUBMARINE CABLES. 
 
 Beneath the bosom of the North Atlantic lie fourteen submarine 
 cables that throb with the messages of the Old World and the New. 
 
 CABLE MAP OF THE WORLD. 
 
 Three cables underlie the South Atlantic, connecting South America 
 with Europe and Africa, and numerous others connect Great Britain 
 with her Indian, African, and Australasian possessions. It lacks but 
 a solitary cable across the Pacific to girdle the globe, and the demand 
 for it is so great that it will soon be forthcoming, either as the "All 
 British Cable " or an American cable connecting Hawaii, Guam, and 
 the Philippines. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 541 
 
 
 Although no longer ago than 1866 the first permanently successful 
 
 transatlantic cable was completed, there are now no less than 1500 
 distinct sections of submarine telegraphs with an aggregate length of 
 about 180,000 miles and estimated to have cost $250,000,000. 
 
 Early Experiments. It is impossible to determine who first 
 broached the subject of submarine cables and there are many claim- 
 ants for that honor. Certain it is that a submarine cable was laid by 
 Captain J. B. Sleeth under the Ohio river to Paducah, Kentucky, 
 in 1845. This cable was an iron wire wrapped with strips of canvas 
 soaked in pitch. It worked well for a time but the insulation was 
 affected by the water and electric losses became so great that it was 
 rendered useless. Cyrus W. Field offered Captain Sleeth financial 
 backing in experiments relating to insulation, but the offer was de- 
 clined and the cable not patented. 
 
 The same year that Captain Sleeth laid his cable Messrs. John 
 and Jacob Brett laid before the British Government a plan for a cable 
 connecting Europe and America, but the spirit that had refused rec- 
 ognition to Sir Francis Ronalds's electric telegraph a generation 
 before still prevailed and pronounced this plan wholly impracticable 
 and disdainfully rejected it. 
 
 Atmospheric air, under ordinary conditions, is not a good con- 
 ductor of electricity, and telegraph wires suspended above the earth 
 need insulation only at points of contact, but when carried under 
 water insulation is necessary and this was the greatest problem to be 
 solved before submarine cables of great length could be laid. In 
 1847 gutta percha was brought to the notice of the electrician and 
 soon adopted as an insulator 
 
 In 1850 the English Channel was vanquished by a cable 25 miles 
 in length connecting Dover and Calais. It was a single wire covered 
 with gutta percha but it was too weak to stand the strain and soon 
 broke. A year later a second cable composed of four copper wires 
 
542 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 each insulated with gutta percha reinforced by ten iron wires was laid, 
 worked successfully, and has furnished the model for all subsequent 
 cables of that character. 
 
 Transatlantic Cable. In 1854 Cyrus W. Field, to whose in- 
 domitable energy, personal magnetism, and courage every submarine 
 transatlantic cable is a monument, determined to form a company to 
 connect Valentia, Ireland, with Heart's Content, Newfoundland, a 
 
 distance of a little more than 1600 
 miles. To his enthusiasm and great 
 common sense Mr. Field united a 
 high reputation as a financier. He 
 employed eminent electricians who, 
 through courtesies shown, were able 
 to unite for experimental purposes 
 various lines laid over land and un- 
 der water aggregating about 2000 
 miles, and proved that through a dis- 
 tance greater than across the Atlan- 
 tic four signals a second could be 
 sent. The Atlantic Telegraph Com- 
 pany was organized December 9, 
 1856, with a capital of $1,750,000, 
 and in 1857 a cable was manufactured. The British and American 
 governments, which had given some financial aid, loaned the battle 
 ships Agamemnon and Niagara to aid in laying the cable. The Niagara 
 sailed from Ireland, but when she had steamed westward 360 miles a 
 sudden strain on the paying machinery caused the cable to snap, and, 
 to the great dismay of all on board, $500,000 worth of cable vanished 
 from sight and lay in the bottom of the Atlantic at a depth of over 
 two miles. The ships returned to Valentia with flags at half-mast. 
 Not discouraged, Field secured money for a new attempt, more cable 
 
 CYRUS W. FIELD. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 543 
 
 was made, and in May, 1858, 3000 statute miles of cable was divided 
 in halves and coiled in the holds of H. M. S. Agamemnon and the 
 U. S. S. Niagara. The two grandest battle ships of the time met in 
 mid-ocean June 25, 1858, and on June 26 the cable was spliced and 
 three miles paid out when an accident occurred to the machinery of the 
 Niagara and the cable broke. A new splice was made and 40 miles 
 was paid out when another break occurred. A third splice was made 
 with the agreement that if more than 100 miles was paid before an- 
 other break occurred both ships should return to Valentia ; 200 miles 
 was paid out and hopes were running high when a break occurred 20 
 feet from the stern of the Agamemnon. The ships met at Valentia. 
 Still undiscouraged, Field secured a new supply of cable, recoaled 
 the ships and again started on his mission. July 29 a new splice 
 was made in mid-ocean, and as the cable was paid out signals were 
 constantly sent from ship to ship by means of the cable, and on the 
 morning of August 5, 1858, the ends were landed at opposite sides 
 of the Atlantic, the European terminus in Trinity Bay, Valentia, 
 Ireland, and the American terminus in Bull's Arm, Trinity Bay, New- 
 foundland. On August 16, 1858, at 11.12 A. M., the first message 
 was transmitted. It was as follows: 
 
 " Directors Atlantic Telegraph Co., Great Britain, to Directors in 
 America. Europe and America are united by telegraph. Glory to God in 
 the highest ; on earth peace, good will toward men. ' ' 
 
 Then followed a message from Queen Victoria to President 
 Buchanan. 
 
 "To the President of the United States, Washington : - 
 
 "The Queen desires to congratulate the President upon the successful 
 completion of this great international work, in which the Queen has taken 
 the deepest interest. 
 
 ' ' The Queen is convinced that the President will join with her in fer- 
 vently hoping that the Electric Cable which now connects Great Britain with 
 
544 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the United States will prove an additional link between the nations whose 
 friendship is founded upon their common interest and reciprocal esteem. 
 
 "The Queen has much pleasure in thus communicating with the Presi- 
 dent, and renewing to him her wishes for the prosperity of the United 
 States." 
 
 The President replied, 
 
 "Washington City, Aug. 16, 1858. 
 " To Her Majesty, Victoria, Queen of Great Britain : 
 
 " The President cordially reciprocates the congratulations of Her Maj- 
 esty, the Queen, on the success of the great international enterprise accom- 
 plished by the science, skill, and indomitable energy of the two countries. 
 It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than 
 was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle. 
 
 " May the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven, prove to 
 be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, 
 and an instrument destined by Divine Providence to diffuse religion, civili- 
 zation, liberty, and law throughout the world. In this view will not all 
 nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in the declaration that it shall 
 be forever neutral, and that its communications shall be held sacred in pass- 
 ing to their places of destination, even in the midst of hostilities? 
 
 (Signed) " JAMES BUCHANAN. " 
 
 Great excitement prevailed and Field was the hero of the hour, 
 but the cable worked with continually increasing difficulty, and at 
 the end of 23 days after 732 dispatches had passed over the wire it 
 becarne mute forever, and those who had so ardently praised Field 
 but a few days before as hotly reviled him. Nevertheless, one of 
 the last dispatches from the London War Office, countermanding the 
 movements of the two regiments in Canada, had saved England an 
 outlay of $250,000, and this fact was urged as showing the commer- 
 cial value of a cable. 
 
 Like the Grecian giant who, thrown to earth, rose with strength 
 redoubled, Field seemed to derive nothing but inspiration from fail- 
 ure and set about organizing another company, but the unrest in 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 545 
 
 financial circles that preceded the American Civil War and the 
 struggle that ensued delayed the next trial until 1865. The war had 
 shown that a cable would have prevented many misunderstandings 
 between England and America, and the London Times afterward 
 said, "We nearly went to war with America because we had no tele- 
 graph across the Atlantic." 
 
 The cable of 1865 was much larger and stronger than the other. 
 The core of the 1858 cable weighed 107 pounds to the mile, that of 
 the new one 300 pounds to the mile, and the insulation was calculated 
 to be 100 times greater. 
 
 The " Great Eastern." The risk and inconvenience of dividing 
 the cable between two great vessels had been shown, and Brunei's 
 Great Eastern was chartered for the occasion, a work for which she 
 showed herself particularly serviceable. On July 23, 1865, the shore 
 end of the cable at Valentia was spliced to the cable coiled within the 
 tanks of the Great Eastern, and the largest vessel afloat began her 
 journey westward. Electrical instruments tested the cable from time 
 to time as it was paid out. Three times faults were found, the cable 
 brought in over the bows, repaired and lowered, but at the fourth at- 
 tempt, when 1 1 86 miles had been laid and the ship was only 606 
 miles from the end of its journey the cable broke. For nine days 
 they grappled, and three times the cable was hooked and partially 
 raised when the grappling ropes broke and away rushed the grappling 
 irons, rope, and cable to the bottom of the ocean. It was only 
 after there was not enough rope left to reach the bottom that a buoy 
 was placed to mark the spot where the cable and their hopes lay 
 buried, and Field steamed back to England to face the men whose 
 capital lay at the bottom of the ocean. 
 
 With almost incredible courage, persistence, and persuasive power 
 he explained, pleaded, argued, and so prevailed upon the capitalists 
 that the Anglo-American Telegraph Company was organized Decem- 
 
546 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 
 her 24, 1865, and in fourteen days a capital of more than $3,000,000 
 had been pledged. A new cable was made and on July 13, 1866, the 
 Great Eastern again connected a cable within her hold with the shore 
 end at Valentia, steamed westward and' after an uneventful voyage 
 landed the cable end at Heart's Content, Newfoundland, July 27, 
 1866. The electrical connection was satisfactory and the cable at 
 once went into operation. To make the triumph still greater the 
 Great Eastern steamed back to where the cable had been lost in 1865, 
 and after twenty days' fishing secured the end, made a splice, and on 
 the 8th of September landed the second cable's end at Heart's Con- 
 tent, thus within 37 days completing two cables, both in working 
 order, across the Atlantic. 
 
 Cyrus W. Field was born at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Novem- 
 ber 30, 1819. When sixteen years 
 of age, with $8 in his pocket he 
 left home to make his fortune, and 
 served as errand boy in A. T. Stew- 
 art's store in New York city, one 
 year for $50. Eighteen years there- 
 after he was worth $250,000. 
 
 Field died July 12, 1892, and 
 during the closing months of his 
 life was able to keep up the pay- 
 ments on his life insurance policies 
 only through the kindly aid of a 
 friend, J. Pierpont Morgan. 
 
 Later Efforts. Field's efforts 
 LAYING ATLANTIC CABLE. smoo thed the way for his succes- 
 
 sors, until now the laying of an Atlantic cable attracts no more at- 
 tention than the building of a great bridge or the launching of 
 a new battle ship, and competition has reduced cable tolls from one 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 
 
 547 
 
 pound ($4.86) to one shilling (25 cents) per word. The laying in 
 1894 of the third line of the Commercial Cable Company occupied 
 but 20 days. This cable was laid by the especially equipped tele- 
 graph ship Faraday, on board of which 1700 miles of cable was 
 coiled in three large tanks. At sea, the cable was run out over a 
 large pulley at the stern of the ship. Between the tanks and the 
 stern it passed over retarding mechanism which consisted of several 
 wheels and a large brake wheel around which it passed several times. 
 It then passed under the dynamometer, where the stress on the cable 
 was accurately measured. During the whole time that the cable was 
 being made and laid, electrical tests were made, so as to be sure that 
 everything was in order, for a single fault would ruin the whole cable. 
 When all conditions are favorable a cable can be laid at the rate of 
 about seven nautical miles an hour. 
 
 Mechanism of Cables. Nearly all the great mileage of sub- 
 marine cables has been manufactured in England on the banks of the 
 Thames. Modern cables are made in four sizes according to the 
 depth of water in which they are laid. The smallest, for 
 deep sea service, is ^-inch in diameter; for somewhat 
 lesser depths a larger (i^-inch) size is used. The next 
 
 size is i y^ inches in diameter, 
 and the land ends of all are 
 about 2 T/2, inches in diameter. 
 The core in each is of the 
 same size, the difference in 
 diameter being due to extra 
 thickness of the coverings. 
 A submarine cable is made 
 up of five layers. The inner 
 one (core) is made up of a strand of twisted copper wires which con- 
 stitutes the conductor of the electric force. For the purpose of 
 
 SECTIONS OF SUBMARINE CABLE. 
 
548 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 insulation the core is covered with a layer of gutta percha. The 
 third layer is a covering of tarred jute yarn wound in a spiral manner 
 to protect the insulation from damage by the fourth layer, which is 
 made of steel wires laid close together and slightly twisted, so that 
 while they give the cable great tensile strength, they are also flexible 
 and elastic. Around all this is pressed a layer of a bituminous com- 
 pound to protect the whole structure from the action of the water. 
 
 A single machine performs all these operations, the core being 
 fed to it in the form of copper wires, which the machine twists into 
 the proper form and then presses the covering of gutta percha firmly 
 around it. Next the jute yarn is fed in, and then the steel wires, 
 each wire being pressed into its exact place and given the desired 
 twist by the machine. The cable is then passed under a spout from 
 which runs the melted bituminous compound, and is led into a circu- 
 lar press which sets it firmly to its proper shape and size, after which 
 the cable is coiled in large iron tanks in which it is kept under water. 
 
 Gutta Percha is the hardened milky juice derived chiefly from a 
 large tree which grows in Borneo and some other islands of the East 
 Indies. It becomes soft and pasty at a temperature of about 115 
 Fahrenheit and can then be molded into any form desired. The 
 cable running from Brest, France, to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is 
 3250 miles in length, and yet the electric current finds it easier to 
 traverse this immense distance through the copper wire of the cable's 
 core than to pass through the quarter inch of gutta percha which 
 covers it, for, compared with copper, gutta percha is about 1-60,000,- 
 000,000,000,000,000 as good a conductor of electricity. The supply 
 of gutta percha is limited. It is reported that the gutta percha 
 of Sumatra and Borneo is nearly exhausted owing to the reckless 
 manner in which the trees have been cut, and German experts 
 consider the Philippines the next field for the cheap and profitable 
 production of gutta percha. The insulation required for the third 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 549 
 
 Commercial Cable raised the price of gutta percha 50 per cent, in 
 the markets of the world. If to furnish insulation for a cable 2500 
 miles in length was difficult, what will be the cost of gutta percha for 
 an All-British or American cable 7000 or 8000 miles in length to 
 cross the Pacific ? 
 
 Breaks in cables are frequent, and deep sea cables are disabled 
 so often in the East Indian Archipelago by earthquakes as to attract 
 little attention. If a break or leak occurs the electrician calculates the 
 distance to it by the capacity and resistance of the remaining portion 
 of the wire. Resistance is the retardation that the wire causes in the 
 passage of a current of standard intensity. Capacity is the amount 
 of electricity a given amount of wire can hold and then give up at 
 one discharge. When the cable is laid the resistance and capacity 
 per mile, or even per foot, are determined. If the cable breaks in 
 two, electricians measure the resistance of the remaining portion and 
 by proportion calculate the distance to the break. A repair ship is 
 then sent to the spot and the immense fishing job commences, for the 
 ends of the cable may lie at a depth of a mile or two. A four- 
 pronged grapnel is attached to a rope with a wire center making 
 electrical connection with the grapnel. Where each prong joins the 
 shank is a push-button that connects with the core of the rope. The 
 grapnel is lowered and dragged across the bottom of the ocean. If 
 it catches the cable the latter sinks into the hollow of the hook- 
 shaped prong, presses the electric button, which signifies its capture 
 to those on board by ringing a bell. An old and deteriorated cable 
 must be handled with great care, and such jobs require patience and 
 skill of a high order. 
 
 A Famed Point. On Cape Canso, the most eastern point of 
 Canada, is situated the little village of Hazel Hill, which, though 50 
 miles by road and 30 miles by water from the nearest railroad station, 
 is still the best informed point in America, for every item of impor- 
 
550 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tant news from abroad is known here before it reaches the sanctum of 
 the most enterprising editor on the continent. Three cables of the 
 Commercial Cable Company are landed here and, hardly a mile away, 
 four cables of the American Cable Company. Fifteen thousand five 
 hundred miles of ocean cables center here, and the news service of 
 the whole world depends in a large measure on the delicate machinery 
 at this point being kept in perfect working order by men who live and 
 work in this isolated but far from lonely spot. 
 
 The McGill University at Montreal in 1891 set about determining 
 the exact longitude of Montreal and other points on the Atlantic 
 seaboard, reckoning from Greenwich, England. To work out the 
 calculations it became necessary to know the exact time it took to 
 send a telegraphic signal across the Atlantic, and for this purpose a 
 circuit was established and the signal flashed from Montreal to 
 Greenwich and return, 8000 miles, in one second. With the Pacific 
 cable established, completing the electric chain, the highest flights of 
 the imagination of the poet, " I'll put a girdle 'round the earth in 
 forty minutes," will have been more than realized by the genius of 
 the inventor. In practical operation, of course, more time is re- 
 quired. In 1884 a communication sent from New York to London 
 and an answer returned in 45 seconds, held the record for some time, 
 but in October, 1894, a message was sent by the third Commercial 
 Cable from New York to London and an answer received in 5 sec- 
 onds. September 21, 1894, a Manchester company sent a message 
 to Victoria, British Columbia, over the lines of the Commercial Cable 
 Company to the Canadian Pacific Telegraph Company and received 
 a reply in 90 seconds. The total distance is 13,000 miles. 
 
 The deepest cable in the world is that laid in 1896 from New 
 York to Cape Haytien with the Southern line connecting with South 
 America and Santiago de Cuba. During the land battle of Santiago 
 a message was sent from the White House to the battlefield and an 
 answer returned in 12 minutes. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 551 
 
 Uses of Cables. Cables play an important part in the strategy 
 of war. The importance of the cable service while Cervera's squad- 
 ron was playing "hide-and-seek" during the Spanish-American war 
 has not yet been forgotten. For lack of a cable on January 8, 1815, 
 thousands of brave men were killed and wounded at New Orleans 
 because they did not know that a treaty of peace had been signed at 
 Ghent fifteen days before. 
 
 Prior to the laying of the Atlantic cable, communication between 
 New York and London might require anywhere from two weeks to a 
 month, depending upon the weather. The New York Herald, under 
 the management of the elder Bennett, fitted out swift dispatch boats 
 to meet transatlantic ships some distance from New York harbor, 
 catch the latest news from Europe, and hurry into the city with it for 
 the exclusive benefit of that paper. To-day the Paris and New 
 York editions of the same paper contain practically the same world 
 news. The commercial world has become so accustomed to the 
 cable that it would seem almost impossible to do without it. Trans- 
 actions involving millions of dollars depend on each day's cable 
 news. 
 
 An All-British Cable is now determined upon for the Pacific and 
 when completed will give Britain the most extensive and perfect 
 telegraphic system in existence, placing the nation in direct com- 
 munication with all her colonies encircling the globe and with the 
 fortified and garrisoned coaling stations of Hong Kong, Singapore* 
 Trincomalee, Colombo, Aden, Cape Town, Simon's Bay, St. Helena, 
 Ascension, St. Lucia, Jamaica, Bermuda, Halifax, Esquimalt, King 
 George's Sound, and Thursday Island. It will also connect the fol- 
 lowing " defended ports," Durban, Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Cal- 
 cutta, Rangoon, Adelaide, Melbourne, Hobart, Sidney, Newcastle, 
 Brisbane, Townsville, Auckland, Wellington, Lyttleton, Dunedin. 
 This Imperial Cable system means the laying of 25,000 miles of 
 
552 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 cable at an expense of about $30,000,000. The British Pacific 
 cable, the expense of which is to be borne by Canada, Australia, and 
 the Home Government, will run from Vancouver on the Pacific coast 
 of the Dominion of Canada, southwesterly about 3561 nautical miles, 
 including slack, to Fanning Island, about 1000 statute miles south of 
 Honolulu. The island is a coral reef only two or three feet above 
 high water except in a few places, where it rises to about 10 feet. 
 Picture the life of the operators in such a place, cut off from all so- 
 ciety, but receiving each day the news from the capitals of the world. 
 The cable will run from Fanning to Fiji Island, 2098 miles; Fiji 
 Island to Norfolk, 961 miles; Norfolk to Queensland, Australia, 834 
 miles. Total, 7454 miles. 
 
 As a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, so a cable is no 
 faster than its slowest section. The section from Vancouver to Fan- 
 ning is 400 or 500 miles longer than any other cable in existence, and 
 cable speed decreases as the square of the distance. Hence a cable 
 twice as long as another will have but one fourth the speed. 
 
 For the control of the sea ships, naval bases and coaling stations 
 are required, and that they may work together and with the greatest 
 efficiency sure, means of communication are necessary. A high Brit- 
 ish authority has said that the value of the English navy is increased 
 more than one half by the system of submarine cables wholly under 
 British control, connecting the colonies, coaling stations, and forti- 
 fied ports. 
 
 An American Pacific cable affording communication with the 
 Sandwich Islands and the Philippines is so necessary that it probably 
 will soon be forthcoming. At present cables from Washington to 
 Manila go : "To New York by land ; to Valentia, Ireland, by cable ; 
 to Brighton, England, cable and land ; to Havre, France, cable ; to 
 Marseilles, land ; to Alexandria, Egypt, cable ; to Suez, Egypt, land ; 
 to Aden, Arabia, cable; to Bombay, India, cable; to Madras, land; 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 553 
 
 to Singapore, Malayan Peninsula, cable; to Saigon, Cochin China, 
 cable; to Hong-Kong, cable; to Manila, Philippine Islands, cable. 
 Distance 14,000 miles. Number of transmissions fourteen."* The 
 present cable rates to Manila from Washington are $2.38 per word, 
 the government rate $2.255 P er word, right of way messages three 
 times the regular rate. 
 
 The War Department's messages to and from the Philippine 
 Islands for five months averaged $27, 114.12 monthly, 90 per cent, of 
 which went to foreign corporations, or much more than enough to 
 pay the interest on a Pacific cable. The following table shows two 
 routes proposed, the distance direct plus 10 per cent, allowance for 
 an extra length or slack that must be given to the cable. 
 
 Miles Miles 
 
 San Francisco to Honolulu 2286 San Francisco to Honolulu 2286 
 
 Honolulu to Midway Island 1254 Honolulu to Wake Island 2205 
 
 Midway Island to Guam 2523 Wake Island to Guam 1435 
 
 Guam to Dingala Bay, P. I. 1496 Guam to Dingala Bay, P. I. 1496 
 
 Total via Midway Islands 7559 Total via Wake Island 7422 
 
 The longest link of this cable would be less than the cable run- 
 ning from Brest, France, to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and would 
 give greater sending speed than the long link of the British cable 
 running from Vancouver to Fanning Island. If both cables were 
 completed, a cable 1000 miles in length connecting Fanning Island 
 and Honolulu would be of great advantage to both countries as it 
 would still allow communication in case a cable were broken by acci- 
 dent or cut in course of war. 
 
 Wake Island is situated in north latitude 19 8', east longitude 
 1 66 3 i'. It is a low sandy island three miles wide and five miles long 
 inclosing a lagoon. The island contains no fresh water, has but little 
 
 *Capt. G. O. Squire. 
 
554 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 vegetation, is surrounded by reefs, and is swept over by spray and 
 probably by breakers during heavy storms. 
 
 Guam is the largest and most southern of the Ladrone group of 
 seventeen islands, and has a population of about 9000. The island 
 has many low mountains ranging from 1000 to 1600 feet in height. 
 The soil is fertile and the climate healthful. 
 
 The receiving and sending apparatus of a submarine cable is 
 most delicate. Although after Admiral Dewey cut the cable con- 
 necting Manila with Hong-Kong he buoyed both ends, he had no 
 instruments nor was able to devise any by which 'he could establish 
 cable communication. With the ordinary Morse instruments hardly 
 a word a minute could be sent, and the use of strong currents is 
 extremely objectionable. 
 
 The siphon recorder, invented by Lord Kelvin, consists of an ink 
 siphon, one end dipping into the ink, the other suspended and touch- 
 ing a paper ribbon caused to move like the tape in a stockbroker's 
 ticker. A powerful current of electricity sent through the ink causes 
 it to flow very readily and the ink siphon forms part of a delicate 
 piece of mechanism, which, like a magnetic needle, sways to right or 
 left under the impulse of positive or negative electric currents and 
 forms a zigzag line from which the message is read. 
 
 The mirror galvanometer is a minute mirror about %& of an inch 
 in diameter with a tiny magnet cemented to its back, the whole 
 weighing not more than a grain, and suspended by a silk fiber. A 
 lamp is placed so that its rays fall upon the mirror. The magnet on 
 the suspended mirror yielding to the attraction of positive or nega- 
 tive currents rotates the mirror slightly and throws the rays of light 
 upon a screen and their position to the right or left of a central point 
 conveys intelligible signals to the operator who receives the message. 
 The mirror galvanometer is also the invention of Lord Kelvin, who 
 did more than any other man to render submarine cables efficient. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 555 
 
 THE TELEPHONE. 
 
 Millions of dollars spent in litigation might have been saved had 
 a clerk in the United States Patent Office Department been gifted 
 with second sight and entered the hour of an application for a caveat 
 " of a new art of transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically," filed by 
 Professor Elisha Gray, and an 
 application for a patent "for 
 the electrical transmission of 
 sounds or noises of any kind," 
 filed by Alexander Graham 
 Bell. Both applications were 
 filed February 14, 1876, and 
 the records do not show whether the caveat preceded the application 
 or vice versa. The patent for a telephone was issued to Bell. Con- 
 tests in the Patent Office and courts followed, not only with Gray, but 
 with Edison, Berliner, Richmond, Holcombe, Dolbear, Volker, and 
 others, and the decisions of the courts were always in Bell's favor. 
 
 The telephone in its simplest form consists of a flat soft iron core 
 having four permanent steel magnets arranged in pairs on opposite 
 sides. One end of the core projects beyond the magnets and re- 
 ceives a wooden spool around which is wound numerous coils of silk- 
 covered wire. A soft iron spacing-piece separates the opposite ends 
 of the magnet, the ends of the wires from the coil are carried back 
 to the other end, and the whole is inclosed within the familiar rubber 
 handle with the two set screws at the end to which conductors are 
 fastened. A round cap screws on to the handle and holds in position 
 a thin plate of soft iron brought as closely as possible to the core of 
 the magnet without touching it in any of its vibrations. 
 
 Bell's first telephone had a diaphragm made of gold beater's skin, 
 to which was glued a circular piece of clock-spring. Words spoken 
 before this drumhead set it in vibration as it approached and receded 
 
556 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 from, the core of the magnet and affected the magnetism and so set 
 up slight variations in the strength of the electric current passing 
 through the coil of the magnet. The wires from the coil were con- 
 tinued to another station and attached to an apparatus precisely sim- 
 ilar and reproduced in the second instrument vibrations of the dia- 
 phragm that coincided exactly with the vibrations of the first, and 
 so reproduced the like sounds that caused those of the first. 
 
 The apparatus first described will reproduce sounds and is com- 
 monly used as a receiver, but the transmitter is the work of Blake, 
 
 Hughes, Gray, Edison, 
 Berliner, and others, and 
 is a more delicate instru- 
 ment. When the trans- 
 mitter was produced the 
 telephone sprang into im- 
 mediate use. The improve- 
 ments consisted in the dis- 
 covery that if a piece of 
 carbon is rested lightly 
 upon another and an elec- 
 tric current passed from 
 one to the other in a circuit 
 in which there is a Bell 
 telephone receiver, the re- 
 ceiver will respond to the 
 finest sounds in the vicinity of the carbon, because where two car- 
 bons touch, the contact is imperfect and the slightest disturbance of 
 the current, of necessity, varies the resistance of the circuit, and this 
 variation operates to produce sounds from the receiver. In the 
 ordinary telephone that hangs on the wall, the transmitter is in the 
 little box into which the talking is done. 
 
 UNDER SIDE OF A TELEPHONE SWITCHBOARD, 
 SHOWING OVER 2,000 WIRES. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 557 
 
 Unsolved Problems. As yet it has not been found practicable 
 to send several telephonic messages simultaneously over the same 
 wire and so long distance telephone wires cannot carry the amount 
 of business of telegraph wires. The longest lines affording direct 
 communications by telephone are: Boston to Omaha, 1556 miles; 
 Boston to Kansas City, 1609 miles; Boston to Little Rock, 1793 
 miles. No really efficient instrument that will act for the telephone 
 as the "relay" does for the telegraph has yet been invented, and the 
 foregoing results have been achieved only by using large, pure, hard- 
 drawn copper wires instead of iron. It is impossible with present 
 instruments to communicate vocally through a submarine cable more 
 than 27 miles in length. 
 
 Metallic Circuit. When the telephone first came into use much 
 difficulty was experienced in using a single wire when laid near tele- 
 graph or electric wires because of the induced currents set up. The 
 telephone is one of the most sensitive of electrical instruments and 
 suffers from electrical disturbances too feeble to be felt by almost any 
 other, hence is easily affected by any "induced currents" in its 
 vicinity. To protect it from such influences it has been found desir- 
 able to employ, instead of a single wire running from station to sta- 
 tion and connecting with the ground at the end, a metallic circuit. 
 The circuit comprises two insulated wires of the same cross section 
 laid together with a slight twist so as to average always the same dis- 
 tance from any disturbing wire. 
 
 The telephone has been a great boon to the Chinaman, who had 
 no alphabet or written signs that could be reduced to a simple 
 telegraphic code, and the sharp, high-pitched, jerky voice of the 
 Chinaman seems particularly well fitted for long distance telephone 
 business. 
 
 Arrangements are now made by which telegraphic and telephonic 
 messages may be sent over the same line simultaneously. The tele- 
 
558 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 phone does not interfere at all with the telegraph, but the latter 
 produces a buzzing or knocking rather disagreeable to the hearer, but 
 that feature is being overcome. 
 
 Although the telephone business dates only from 1877, one com- 
 pany alone, the Bell, had in 1900 1239 exchanges, 1187 branch 
 offices, more than 1,000,000 miles of wire and more than 25,000 em- 
 ployees. 
 
 Wireless telephony is now an accomplished fact and employs 
 simpler methods than the system of wireless telegraphy to which 
 Marconi has given his name. In an address delivered in 1900 before 
 the British Association, Sir William Henry Preece stated that his first 
 experiments in wireless telephony were made in February, 1894, 
 across Loch Ness. The trial showed that it was possible to exchange 
 speech across the loch at an average distance of i J/$ miles. " The 
 sensation created in 1897 by Mr. Marconi's application of Hertzian 
 waves distracted attention from the more practical, simpler, and older 
 method. In 1899, I conducted some careful experiments on the 
 Menai strait. No special apparatus seems necessary. The ordi- 
 nary telephonic transmitters and receivers were used. It became 
 desirable to establish communication between the islands or rocks 
 known as 'the Skerries' and the mainland of Anglesey, and it was 
 determined to do this by wireless telephony. The bottom of the 
 channel is too rough and the currents too violent for a cable. A 
 wire 750 yards in length was therefore erected along the Skerries and 
 another on the mainland ^ l / 2 miles in length. Each line terminates 
 by earth plates in the sea. The average distance between the parallel 
 portions of the two wires is 2.8 miles. Telephonic communication 
 is readily maintained and the service is a good one. Wireless teleph- 
 ony across the sea is now a practical and commercial system." 
 
 The Telautograph is an instrument invented by Prof. Elisha Gray 
 by which a man's own handwriting can be reproduced \\\ facsimile at 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 559 
 
 a distance, as though a man were writing with a pen having two 
 points widely separated, both moving at the same time and making 
 exactly the same motions. As the inventor says, " By this system a 
 man may transact business with the same accuracy as by mail and 
 with the same celerity as by the electric telegraph. A broker may 
 buy or sell with his own signature attached to the order and do it as 
 quickly as he could by any other method of telegraphing and with 
 absolute accuracy, secrecy, and perfect identification." It was the in- 
 ventor's idea that the telautograph should be used in connection 
 with the telephone, an ordinary switch being sufficient to connect the 
 two systems and permitting them to be used interchangeably. 
 
 Signaling through Water. The closing day of the nineteenth 
 century witnessed a successful experiment conducted by Prof. Elisha 
 Gray and Arthur J. Mundy of Boston before scientists from Harvard 
 and officers of the United States navy. A boat equipped with an 
 Soo-pound fog bell was able to transmit sounds under water at dis- 
 tances of i j, 4, 8, and 12 miles in the open sea. The electric cur- 
 rent was supplied by a small dynamo driven by a gasoline engine. 
 The bell was lowered through a well-hole in the center of the boat 
 until 20 feet below the surface of the water and made to ring con- 
 tinuously or any desired number of strokes at the will of the 
 operator. 
 
 If dangerous rocks were indicated by such a bell, a vessel might 
 be fitted with an electrical receiver which would ring a gong on 
 board the ship when approaching within range of the signal sent 
 from the bell and thus receive warning of " the perilous rock." 
 
 It is of course obvious that by equipping ships with these sound 
 producers and sound receivers, intelligible messages may be sent back 
 and forth, either between ships or between ships and the shore. 
 Again, vessels thus equipped may avoid collision by notifying each 
 other of their approach and the direction of their course. Again, 
 
560 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 light-ships can be put into communication with the shore by merely 
 anchoring a submerged receiver within a short distance of the light- 
 ship, which, being equipped with a submerged bell, can announce 
 the arrival of incoming vessels. This is a problem which has bothered 
 the government, owing to the difficulty of attaching a telegraph 
 cable to a ship which is swinging around a mooring. 
 
 The electrical receiver can be used for detecting the approach of 
 a submarine torpedo boat, the noise of which can be plainly heard at 
 a distance of several miles, the sound being intensified by the fact 
 that the submerged boat must transmit all its vibrations to the water, 
 which incloses it on all sides. Even small steam tugs on the surface 
 of the water can be heard at a distance of two miles, the click of 
 their machinery being distinctly audible. In the latter case only a 
 fraction of the sound produced by the tug enters the water, most of 
 it being transmitted through the air; but a submarine boat must 
 give all her vibratory noises to the water. As the receiver will tell 
 the direction whence the sounds proceed, the war ship thus attacked 
 may choose between running away or waiting till the torpedo boat 
 comes within range and then fighting her with her own weapons 
 under water. 
 
 Professor Gray died suddenly with neuralgia of the heart January 
 20, 1901. He was eminent for his discoveries in electrical science 
 and a party to the famous 25 years of litigation with Professor 
 Alexander Graham Bell concerning the priority of invention of the 
 telephone. Professor Gray believed that his caveat was disclosed to 
 Professor Bell after it was filed, and this and the long litigation em- 
 bittered his late years. He died poor, although he received compar- 
 atively large sums from time to time for his inventions, but invariably 
 used the money in expensive experiments. At one time his home 
 was filled with beautiful pictures and statuary, which financial re- 
 verses compelled him to sell. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 561 
 
 THE PHONOGRAPH. 
 
 The phonograph, invented almost a quarter of a century ago, has 
 become so familiar that some have lost a proper appreciation of its 
 worth. It is another one of those " accidental discoveries," but 
 like most accidental discoveries required the presence of an alert 
 educated mind, quick to see and appreciate phenomena that would 
 have escaped the attention of a duller person. Mr. Edison says of 
 the phonograph: "My discovery came to me almost accidentally, 
 while I was busy with experiments having a different object in view. 
 I was engaged upon a machine intended to repeat Morse characters, 
 which were recorded on paper, by indentations that transferred their 
 message to another circuit automatically when passed under a trac- 
 ing point connected with a circuit-closing apparatus. I found that 
 when the cylinder carrying the indented paper was turned with great 
 swiftness it gave off a humming noise, a musical rhythmic sound 
 resembling that of human talk, heard indistinctly. This led me to 
 try fitting a diaphragm to the machine, which would receive the 
 vibrations or sound waves made by my voice when I talked to it and 
 register these vibrations upon an impressible material placed on the 
 cylinder. The material selected for immediate use was paraffined 
 paper and the results obtained were excellent. The indentations on 
 the cylinder when rapidly revolved caused a repetition of the original 
 vibrations to reach the ear through a recorder, just as if the machine 
 itself were speaking. I saw at once that the problem of registering 
 human speech so that it could be repeated by mechanical means as 
 often as might be desired was solved." Such was the germ of the 
 invention, and the rest of the problem was the perfection of the 
 mechanical means of carrying out the idea, but it was ten years be- 
 fore Edison produced a machine that he was satisfied to put upon 
 the market. 
 
 The Phonograph in its early form consisted of a cylinder with 
 
562 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 spiral grooves on the surface covered with a layer of tin foil. 
 Through the center of the cylinder passed a rod on which it 
 revolved. The inside of the cylinder and the outside of the rod 
 were fitted with threads so that as the cylinder was turned it gradu- 
 ally moved toward one end of the rod and brought the whole length 
 of the cylinder opposite the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece contained 
 a diaphragm something like that in the telephone but had attached a 
 fine metal point. When the mouthpiece was spoken into, the tones 
 of the voice caused vibrations in the diaphragm and the point 
 attached made minute indentations on the tin foil surface of the 
 cylinder revolving underneath it. To reproduce the speech the proc- 
 ess was reversed, the cylinder returned to its original position and 
 again revolved. As the indentations passed rapidly underneath the 
 metal point the diaphragm was made to vibrate as before and tones 
 similar to those that had caused the indentations in the first place 
 were reproduced. The tones of the first phonograph were harsh and 
 metallic in the extreme but the most objectionable features are being 
 gradually removed or reduced. 
 
 The Graphophone, the invention of Bell and Tainter, first 
 patented in 1886, covered a great improvement in the phonograph 
 record. In this a cylinder covered with wax was substituted for the 
 tin foil. The point of the diaphragm cut a distinct groove .0006 of 
 an inch deep instead of tracing a dotted spiral line. Such a cylinder 
 was more positive in its action and more easily handled. A wax 
 cylinder once used can be put in something resembling a lathe and a 
 tiny shaving just deep enough to remove the groove of the first 
 record turned off and the cylinder used again. 
 
 The Gramophone, another talking machine, is the invention of 
 Emile Berliner, patented in 1887. Instead of a wax cylinder this 
 uses a flat disc on which is a sheet of zinc covered by a layer of wax 
 on which a needle attached to a diaphragm traces a record in a spiral 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 563 
 
 gradually approaching the center of the plate. When the record is 
 complete, the zinc plate with its wax covering is removed and the 
 surface etched with acid, when an electrotype may be made from it. 
 From the electrotype hard rubber records can be made capable of 
 giving 1000 reproductions. 
 
 About 300 patents have been issued for talking machines, and 
 making records is a well recognized business of considerable impor- 
 tance. The recorders and reproducers are instruments of great 
 nicety, using diaphragms of French glass as thin as the leaves of 
 this book, and sapphire points of extreme hardness for the stylus 
 and the turning tool that smooths the surface of the record for a new 
 speech. 
 
 Speaking machines range in price from $5 to $200, and wax 
 cylinders holding from 200 to 1200 words cost from 25 cents to 
 $3. One of the most important parts of a talking machine is the 
 motor, which must give a uniform rate of speed, and a good deal of 
 ingenuity has been lavished on this part of the machine. The speak- 
 ing machine has found a place among home amusements but has not 
 come into general business use, probably because records are not 
 made that will suffice for more than five or ten minutes' dictation, 
 hence requiring frequent changing and interruption that the business 
 man does not welcome. 
 
 Posterity is likely to set a high value upon the phonograph if it 
 can be perfected until it will preserve a true record of the natural 
 tones of the human voice. What would not the Present give for true 
 records of the Past that would reproduce for them the eloquence of 
 Pitt, Burke, Fox, Bossuet, Caesar, Cicero, or Demosthenes, the fare- 
 well address of Washington, the Gettysburg speech of Lincoln, the 
 stirring scenes of the French Revolution, or, more impressive than 
 all, that famous scene before Pilate? 
 
564 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 MOVING PICTURE MACHINES. 
 
 Moving picture machines, by whatever name known, are all based 
 upon the principle of the duration of visual impressions. Leonardo 
 da Vinci in the fifteenth century interested himself in the theory of 
 visual impressions, and the theory at one time or another has en- 
 gaged the attention of numerous scientists no less eminent than 
 Herschel and Faraday. 
 
 The duration of an impression of light on the retina of the eye 
 varies from i-io to 1-50 of a second, being longest after a short ex- 
 posure to violet light and shortest after exposure to intense yellow 
 light. Hence if a series of pictures of an object in different positions 
 are passed before the eye with an interval not greater than 1-50 of a 
 second, the impression of continuous motion is produced. 
 
 The Zoetrope, a toy invented in 1832 by Plateau, a Belgian phys- 
 icist, was one of the earliest of the family of moving picture machines. 
 Plateau's studies of vision cost him his eyesight about the middle of 
 his life, yet in spite of this, through the aid of members of his family, 
 he was able to conduct many experiments and contribute much to 
 our knowledge of how we see. 
 
 The zoetrope is a cylinder from 8 to 12 inches wide and a few 
 inches high with slits in the upper half. Around the lower half are 
 a series of pictures showing men or animals in various moving atti- 
 tudes. The cylinder rests on a base, upon which it revolves. Each 
 picture, viewed through the narrow slits in the top of the cylinder 
 as it rapidly revolves, creates a visual impression, which, before it 
 has time to fade away, is succeeded by another until the impression 
 of continuity is produced and the eye seems to behold the animals 
 executing various motions. Such toys had poorly executed pictures 
 made by hand, and it was not until the camera was pressed into 
 service that lifelike effects were produced. 
 
 Edward Muybridge. Horses in motion were first successfully 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 565 
 
 photographed in 1872 by Edward Muybridge, who was the first to 
 utilize sensitized films of gelatin bromide of silver emulsion for the 
 purpose of taking pictures of animals in motion. He arranged a 
 series of cameras beside a race track and connected the shutter of 
 each with a frail thread which broke when the horse struck it, and 
 operated the shutter, thus furnishing a series of pictures in close suc- 
 cession within a second or two of time. To better exhibit his 
 pictures he devised an instrument he called the zoopraxiscope, in 
 which a glass disc about 10 inches in diameter was employed, the 
 small pictures being mounted near its circumference. The disc was 
 made to revolve and each picture in turn thrown on the screen by 
 the aid of a projecting lantern, where they were reproduced with 
 striking effect. But there was so much expense and so many diffi- 
 culties connected with the work that it could never become widely 
 used, although it produced a profound sensation and was plainly the 
 forerunner of the kinetoscope, vitascope, and cinematograph. Among 
 artists Meissonier of France and Remington of America were quick 
 to catch the hint from the camera and reproduce it with their pencils. 
 Although their first productions excited a great deal of criticism, 
 closer observation proved them to be correct. 
 
 Kinetoscope. In 1887 while Edison was working on the phono- 
 graph the idea occurred to him of producing a machine that would 
 present a moving picture of the speaker, and in 1897 he successfully 
 realized this idea in the kinetoscope. He employed instead of Muy- 
 bridge's series of cameras a special camera (kinetograph) to take the 
 pictures. He used as a carrier for the sensitive film a long transpar- 
 ent strip of celluloid i ^ inches wide. The pictures are an inch 
 wide, a row of perforations along each edge of the strip taking up 
 the rest of the space. " These perforations occur at close and regu- 
 lar intervals, in order to enable the teeth of a locking device to hold 
 the film steady for 9-10 of the 1-46 part of a second, when a shutter 
 
566 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 opens rapidly and admits a beam of light, causing an image or phase 
 in the movement of the subject. The film is then jerked forward in 
 the remaining i-io of the 1-46 part of a second, and held at rest 
 while the shutter has again made its round, admitting another circle 
 of light, and so on until 46 impressions are taken a second, or 2760 
 a minute. This speed yields 165,600 pictures in an hour, an amount 
 amply sufficient for an evening's entertainment, when unrolled before 
 
 the eye In this connection it is interesting to note that 
 
 were the spasmodic motions added up by themselves, exclusive of 
 arrests, on the same principle that a train record is computed inde- 
 pendent of stoppages, the incredible speed of 26 miles an hour would 
 be shown." 
 
 After the film has been exposed it is developed and produces a 
 negative from which a positive is made by printing and developing 
 in the usual manner. To use the positive it is passed through the 
 slide aperture of a stereopticon fitted with a starting and stopping 
 device corresponding exactly in time with the mechanism which made 
 the exposures. The pictures can be viewed through a stereoscopic 
 glass, a magnifying glass, or the image can be projected life-size on 
 the screen in view of an audience. 
 
 The Kineto-Phonograph is simply a kinetoscope accompanied 
 by the usual phonograph machine adapted so as to work harmoni- 
 ously with it. The records for the two are taken simultaneously and 
 are reproduced in such a way that the corresponding scenes and 
 sounds are given out at exactly the same time. 
 
 POSTAL SERVICE. 
 
 The origin of the postal service dates back to the lines of cou- 
 riers established by rulers before the dawn of history, and records are 
 being continually brought to light to show that those were no mean 
 organizations and that a pretty fair system of communication was 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 567 
 
 maintained at a very early age between Assyria and Egypt. Marco 
 Polo tells us that the "Great Khan" maintained 10,000 post sta- 
 tions and more than 300,000 horses for the use of his messengers. 
 
 The first letter post for commercial purposes seems to have been 
 established by the Hanse towns, the "free cities" of northern Eu- 
 rope, early in the twelfth century, and a century later France had a 
 fairly efficient postal system established by the University of Paris 
 and one which lasted until the beginning of the eighteenth century. 
 England as early as 1252 had royal messengers, but it was not until 
 the time of Henry VIII. that the regular system of posts was estab- 
 lished in that country. James I. in 1609 forbade all persons not 
 duly authorized from carrying and delivering letters, and this was 
 the beginning of the government monopoly of letter-carrying in Eng- 
 land, but it was not until 1680 that a person in London could com- 
 municate by letter with another residing in a different part of the 
 same city. In 1/54 a monthly mail went from Edinburgh to London 
 occupying from twelve to sixteen days, and the journey was both 
 trying and perilous. Until Sir Rowland Hill began in 1837 his agita- 
 tion for cheap postage, it cost in England 8 cents to send a letter 
 any distance less than 15 miles; 10 cents for distances over 15 and 
 under 20 miles; 12 cents, over 20 and under 30 miles; 14 cents over 
 30 and under 50 miles; 16 cents, over 50 and under 80 miles; the 
 rates increasing with a rapidity that was prohibitive. In 1840 the 
 average number of letters per person in England was a little more 
 than two per year. In 1893 there were delivered an average of 46.6 
 to each person. 
 
 Canadian System. In Canada until the time of the Confedera- 
 tion in 1868 each province controlled its own postal system and the 
 rates were curious, perplexing, and not well calculated to foster the 
 development of the system, but after the Confederation the rate was 
 reduced to three cents per ounce and recently to two cents. For the 
 
568 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 year ending June 30, 1893, there were reported 8475 offices, handling 
 222,419,000 pieces of mail matter, a high average per capita. 
 Canada joined the postal union in 1879 and has an excellent postal 
 service. 
 
 In the United States only the most primitive methods at first ex- 
 isted, but gradually a postal service grew up and was established be- 
 tween the several colonies along the coast, and in 1672 there was "a 
 post to goe monthly from New York to Boston." A Post Office 
 Department was organized soon after Washington's inauguration in 
 1789, and Samuel Osgood of Massachusetts appointed Postmaster 
 General. To assist him in the arduous performance of his duties he 
 was allowed one clerk and found this more than sufficient, for there 
 were only 75 post offices and 1875 miles of postal roads in the whole 
 United States. Such was the humble beginning of a postal establish- 
 ment that has grown to be the greatest business concern in the 
 world, for according to the official report for the year ending June 
 30, 1899, there were 496,248 miles of postal routes and the mile- 
 age traveled in the course of the year was sufficient to make two 
 round trips to the sun. The total number of pieces mailed during 
 the year was 6,576^310,000, weighing 664,286,868 pounds, to carry 
 which would require 33,2 14 freight cars forming a train 300 miles 
 long and hauled by 500 locomotives. For the year ending June 30, 
 1900, there was collected at the New York post office $10,905,087. 
 As an illustration of the growth of the system and of the country, 
 the receipts for the same year at Minneapolis were $663,206, and the 
 town was first settled in 1849. 
 
 Postal Union. In October, 1874, representatives from all the 
 states of Europe, the United States, and Egypt met at Berne, 
 Switzerland, in response to the invitation of Germany, for the 
 purpose of devising a system that would give greater uniformity and 
 better service to the postal organizations of the different countries. 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 569 
 
 A system was agreed upon, a union was organized, and a central 
 post office established at Berne, under the supervision of the Post 
 Office Department of Switzerland, for the purpose of taking notice 
 of and working out all the problems of interest to the organization. 
 Such conventions are now held every three years and nearly all the 
 countries of the world have joined the union, which has brought 
 about many desirable changes, greatly increased postal facilities, 
 tended to make the countries better acquainted, and to knit the ties 
 of good feeling among nations. 
 
 Free Delivery. England, France, and Germany have " rural 
 free delivery." Such a system is possible in countries thickly popu- 
 lated, for England contains 50,867 square miles, France 204,092 
 square miles, and Germany 208,830 square miles. Experiments have 
 been made in the United States, and November 15, 1900, 2614 rural 
 free delivery routes had been located, covering 66,842 square miles, 
 divided among 44 states and territories, and serving a population of 
 1,801,524. The service has proved satisfactory and the advantages 
 are so marked that opposition is fast subsiding and the movement is 
 meeting with cordial approval and support. A farmer brought into 
 daily contact with the business world has a more accurate knowledge 
 of ruling markets and varying prices, and the values of such farms 
 are in many cases considerably enhanced. Good roads follow as a 
 natural sequence, adding still further to their value, and the material 
 and measurable benefits are signal and unmistakable. 
 
 Pneumatic tube postal service was first tried by Denis Papin in 
 London in 1667, but his experiment was so much in advance of the 
 requirements of the service that his scheme was not considered a 
 success. In 1853 a practical system was installed in London reach- 
 ing from the Founders' Court to the Stock Exchange, a distance of 
 220 yards. The first extensive system appeared in Berlin and was 
 put in operation by Siemens and Halske in 1865. It was 57^o feet 
 
570 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 long and composed of a double tube, one for sending, the other for 
 receiving, messages, and here the plan was first adopted that makes 
 the system really practicable, for one end of the line was connected 
 by a loop and the other contained an air pump which drew its supply 
 of air from the receiving tube and pumped it into the sending tube, 
 producing a partial vacuum in one tube and compressing the air in 
 the other, thus performing a double duty. 
 
 Berlin has at present 28 miles of double pneumatic tube, 2.55 
 inches in diameter. Paris has about 25 miles of tube, with carriers 
 moving at the rate of 23 miles an hour. London has 34 miles of such 
 system with tubes 3 inches in diameter, and Manchester, Birming- 
 ham, Glasgow, Liverpool, Dublin, and Newcastle all employ this 
 system for rapid distribution of the mails. 
 
 America has only about 8 miles of pneumatic postal tubes. In 
 1893 the main post office of Philadelphia was connected by 6-inch 
 tubes with a sub-station on Chestnut street. The increase in size, 
 speed, and carrying capacity made this line several times more effi- 
 cient than any previous system. 
 
 New York post office was fitted in 1897 with a system having 8- 
 inch tubes and carriers with a speed of 30 miles an hour. This 
 system in one year saved 76,312 miles ot wagon service and reduced 
 the Brooklyn delivery to three minutes where the wagons had con- 
 sumed twenty-five minutes. 
 
 Description of Pneumatic Carriers. The carriers are hollow cyl- 
 inders of metal with a packing ring at each end which prevents the 
 air passing around them. The air pressure is continuous and by 
 means of clever devices the carriers are put into and taken out of the 
 tubes without interrupting it. The transmitter can best be described 
 as a section sawed out of the tube and hinged so that its rear end can 
 be swung out and at the same time a plate swung in to close the 
 tube, and prevent the escape of air, the current going through a 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 571 
 
 switch (by-pass) which opens when the transmitter swings out. The 
 loaded carrier is pushed into the free end, the section is swung back 
 into place, the by-pass closing at the same time, and the carrier 
 starts on its journey. All the sender has to do is to manipulate 
 a lever which controls the swinging apparatus, and compressed air 
 does the rest. A loaded carrier traveling at a speed of 30 miles an 
 hour has a momentum not to be lightly trifled with, so a stopping 
 device is necessary. At the receiving station a long section of the 
 pipe is hung on trunnions. The end of this tube has a valve set to 
 allow the escape of air when the pressure exceeds that of the regular 
 tube pressure, and a "by-pass" allows the current of air to pass 
 from the receiving tube to the sending tube. When a carrier arrives 
 at the station it plunges into the blind tube and its momentum com- 
 presses the air and sets in motion a mechanism which swings the 
 tube on its trunnions and closes the end of the line. The carrier is 
 stopped by the cushion of air in the end of the tube, and the valve 
 leaves just enough pressure to force the carrier to the open end of 
 the tube and throw it out upon a table. As soon as the tube is de- 
 livered of the carrier, a counterweight swings it back into line and it 
 is ready for another carrier. 
 
 The New and the Old. A two-cent stamp will carry a letter 
 from Maine to the Philippines, a journey that would cost $300 for 
 the fare of a messenger, and a part of the way would be traveled at 
 a speed that would have no charm for a timid person. 
 
 In 1889, the time of the transcontinental mail from New York to 
 San Francisco was 5 days, 8^ hours. This was gradually reduced 
 until January I, 1899, a new system was inaugurated which regularly 
 covers the 3408 miles in 98^ hours or an average of 34^2 miles an 
 hour for the whole distance, including all stops and transfers of mail 
 bags, the latter consuming considerable time, for in Chicago they 
 are carried across the city in a wagon. The engines are changed 
 
572 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 eighteen times, the postal crews seven times, and the actual running 
 time of the train frequently exceeds 75 miles an hour for long 
 stretches. Yet all this is the work of a single generation and there 
 are men now living, notably "Buffalo Bill," who have helped carry 
 the mail on horseback from the Mississippi to the Coast before the 
 advent of the railroads. 
 
 St. Joseph News (Missouri) says: "In 1859 St. Joseph was the 
 terminus of railroad communication. Beyond, the stagecoach, the 
 saddle horse, and the ox trains were the only means of commerce 
 and communication with the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific 
 Slope. 
 
 " The discovery of the gold fields had brought sudden importance 
 to California and the demand for speedy communication was emphatic 
 and insistent. A lobbyist tried to secure a contract for carrying 
 mails overland one year for $5,000,000. William H. Russell, 
 backed by Secretary of War Floyd, resolved to give the lobby a 
 cold shower bath. He offered to bet $200,000 that he could establish 
 a line from Sacramento to St. Joseph, 1950 miles, that would cover 
 the distance in 10 days. The bet was taken and the 8th of April 
 fixed as the day of starting. Mr. A. B. Miller, Mr. Russell's general 
 manager, purchased 300 of the fleetest horses he could find in the 
 West and employed 125 men, 80 of them for post riders. These he 
 selected with reference to their light weight and their known daring 
 courage. It was essential the load should be as light as possible ; 
 the lighter the man the better. The horses were stationed from 10 
 to 20 miles apart and each rider covered 60 miles, it being necessary 
 to make a portion of the route at the rate of 20 miles an hour. Two 
 minutes was the schedule time for changing animals and shifting the 
 mails. Where there were no dwellings at a proper distance, tents 
 large enough to hold one man and two horses were provided. 
 
 "Indians sometimes gave chase but their cayuse ponies made 
 
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. 573 
 
 but a poor showing in pursuit of Miller's thoroughbreds, some of 
 which could make a single mile in a minute and 50 seconds. 
 
 " Arrangements being completed, a signal gun on the steamer at 
 Sacramento proclaimed the meridian of April 8, 1860 the hour for 
 starting when Border. Ruffian, Mr. Miller's private saddle horse, 
 with Billy Baker in the saddle, bounded away toward the foot-hills 
 of the Sierra Nevadas and made his ride of 20 miles in 49 minutes. 
 
 "The snows were deep in the mountains. One rider was lost 
 for several hours in a snowstorm, and after the Salt Lake valley was 
 reached additional speed became necessary to reach St. Joseph on 
 time. When the rider struck the Platte at Julesburg the river was 
 up and running rapidly but he plunged his horse into the flood, only 
 to see him mire in the quicksand and drown. The courier swam to 
 the opposite shore with mail bag in hand and traveled 10 miles on 
 foot to the next relay. 
 
 " Johnny Fry, a popular rider of his day, was to make the finish. 
 He had 60 miles to ride with 6 horses to do it. When the mail was 
 turned over to Fry it was one hour behind time. A heavy rain had 
 set in and Fry had only 3 hours and 30 minutes to cover the course, 
 and $200,000 might turn on a single minute. This was the finish of 
 the longest race for the largest stakes ever run in America. At least 
 5000 people gathered at the finish and turned anxious eyes toward 
 the woods from which the horse and its rider should emerge into the 
 open country, one mile from the finish. Tick, tick, went the thou- 
 sands of watches. The time was nearly up ! But nearly seven 
 minutes remained. Hark! A shout goes up from the assembled 
 multitude. 'He comes! he comes!' The noble little mare, Sylph, 
 the daughter of Little Arthur, darts like an arrow from the bow and 
 makes the run of the last mile in one minute and fifty seconds, land- 
 ing upon the ferry boat with five minutes and a fraction to spare." 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 
 
 Early History of Photography The Energy of the Sun's Rays The Chemistry of 
 Photography Photography of the Heavens Photo-Engraving Half- Tone Engraving 
 
 Roentgen Rays Crookes Tubes Homemade Apparatus for X-ray Experimentation 
 
 Paper and its Early Substitutes Papyrus Parchment Paper Making Transition 
 from Forest Tree to Newspaper The Art of Printing Its Early History The Evolu- 
 tion of the Printing Press Capacity of the Latest Press Type-setting Machines Color 
 Printing Linotype Empire Type-setting Machine Stereotyping Evolution of the 
 Modern Typewriter. 
 
 EARLY History of Photography. 
 The photograph is the product 
 of the last hundred years, and the gap 
 which separates the first rude scrawls 
 of the primitive artist on the reindeer's 
 bone from the productions of the pen- 
 cil of a Michael Angelo, is narrower 
 and represents fewer difficulties over- 
 come and problems solved than that 
 which intervenes between that pencil and the half-tone and photo- 
 graph of to-day. The difference between the work of the savage 
 with his flint tool and the artist with his pencil is only in degree and 
 not in kind, while the camera stands for mysteries solved and addi- 
 tions to the sum of human knowledge so far-reaching in their effects 
 that no man can fix their boundaries. The camera has revolutionized 
 art and made the eye familiar with things that were before invisible. 
 It preserves for man the features of his friends, and the scenes of 
 his greatest happiness. It furnishes the physician with permanent 
 pictures of the bacteria revealed by his microscope, and with it the 
 astronomer photographs stars so faint as to be invisible to the eye, 
 though aided by the most powerful telescope. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 575 
 
 It is now known that the sun's rays have three forms of energy, 
 or produce three effects: optical, thermal, and chemical. A ray 
 of sunshine passed through a prism resolves itself into the well 
 known prismatic colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, 
 violet. The heat rays are most powerful at the red end of the 
 spectrum and extend into the darkness beyond the range of the eye. 
 On the other hand, red rays affect salts of silver hardly at all, but 
 the violet end of the spectrum acts upon them vigorously, the most 
 energetic rays being in the darkness outside of the violet. ' The light 
 waves then appear to occupy the middle of the spectrum, for at 
 each end, as we have seen, are powerful rays invisible to the eye. 
 
 Photography is based primarily upon the power of the sunlight to 
 blacken the salts of silver. The camera of to-day does not differ 
 greatly in essentials from the camera obscura, which has been cred- 
 ited to numerous persons, from Roger Bacon (12 14-1294) to Leonardo 
 da Vinci (1452-1519) and Baptista Porta (1538-1615). The camera 
 obscura was often used by landscape painters to throw a real image 
 of a distant scene upon a drawing board within a dark room. The 
 pencil of the artist then reproduced the scene. The camera of to-day 
 substitutes for the drawing board a sensitized film or plate, in place of 
 the pencil employs the rays of the sun, and thus equipped, the veri- 
 est amateur obtains results that the greatest artist could not have 
 equaled. In 1566 the alchemist Fabricus discovered that horn silver 
 blackened on exposure to light, and yet hundreds of years passed 
 before the relation between the silver and the camera was perceived 
 and the pocket "kodak" made possible. 
 
 Eighteenth Century Experiments. Johann Schults of Halle in 
 1727 tried to make copies of written characters by treating paper 
 with silver nitrate and exposing it to light, but his apparatus was 
 crude and his method not successful, although his idea was clear and 
 the light of photography was apparently dawning. 
 
576 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Carl Scheele in 1777 continued experiments with silver chloride 
 and proved that the blue and violet end of the solar spectrum was 
 the most potent on the salts of silver. Jeremiah Ritter of Silesia 
 demonstrated in 1801 the existence of powerful though invisible rays 
 beyond the violet end of the spectrum. 
 
 Sir Humphry Davy in 1802 published a brief paper on the 
 " Method of copying paintings upon glass and of making profiles by 
 the agency of light upon nitrate of silver." The merit of the inven- 
 tion, as the paper showed, belonged exclusively to Thomas Wedge- 
 wood, brother of Josiah Wedgewood, the famous potter, Davy 
 simply explaining the nature of the discovery. Davy concluded by 
 saying, " Nothing but a method preventing the unshaded parts of 
 the delineation from being colored by exposure to the day is wanting 
 to render this process as useful as it is elegant." 
 
 Many investigators caught fleeting pictures on prepared paper, 
 but when exposed to the sun's rays they vanished, for the light that 
 produced also destroyed. We find the very remarkable statement 
 on doubtful authority that one Francis Eginton, in the employ of 
 Boulton and Watt, was able to give permanency not only to the image 
 of the camera obscura but also to its colors. Eginton was progress- 
 ing well with the work when the government ordered it stopped and 
 gave him a pension of 20 a year on condition that he never reveal 
 the secret, because if such a process were known the painters of the 
 country would be deprived of their means of livelihood. The mat- 
 ter is said to have been kept secret until accidentally discovered in 
 1863, but all" records of the methods had been destroyed by the 
 government in 1790, though it is claimed that a record of the 
 achievement and the picture still exist.* 
 
 The light of photography is next found shining upon Joseph 
 Nicphore Niepce about 1814. Becoming interested in the study of 
 
 * Fortnightly Review. Volumes 20-64. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 
 
 577 
 
 lithography, then newly discovered, he finally gave a metal plate a 
 thin coat of a solution of asphalt and exposed the plate to the action 
 of light in a camera, when he found those parts of the plate acted 
 upon by the light had become insoluble while the parts that had been 
 in the shadow could be washed away with oil of lavender and 
 petroleum. He next poured over the plate a corrosive acid which 
 attacked the exposed portion while the asphalt protected the other 
 parts from its action. The plate was then washed with water, the 
 rest of the film carefully removed, and when ink was pressed into 
 the lines made by the acid, photographic etching was discovered. 
 By 1826 he was able to copy engravings, but his plate required a 
 long exposure which unfitted it for ordinary photography. 
 
 The Daguerreotype. Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, a scene 
 painter, was working on the same problem and in 1829 formed a co- 
 partnership with Niepce, but unfortu- 
 nately the latter died in 1833, before 
 any complete success was attained. 
 Daguerre used a copper plate coated 
 with silver and carefully polished. This 
 he held in fumes of the vapor of iodine 
 and produced silver iodide. Exposed 
 in the camera, a fine image was taken 
 that defied all his efforts to fix. About 
 this time his wife became alarmed and 
 consulted her family physician concern- 
 ing her husband's sanity. The incident 
 reminds one of the papers said to be on file in a Baltimore court set- 
 ting forth that the relatives of Morse desired his incarceration on the 
 ground that he had asserted that it was possible to communicate a 
 long message from Baltimore to Washington within one minute. 
 Almost discouraged, Daguerre was persuaded to cease his efforts and 
 
 DAGUERRE. 
 
578 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 he locked up a number of unsuccessful plates in a closet and rested. 
 But the subject was so fascinating that he could not resist it. To 
 his surprise, when he opened his closet door each of his defective 
 plates had a permanent picture, not visible when he set them away. 
 A number of chemicals were present with the plates and he suspected 
 them of this occult influence. After a long process of elimination 
 a cup of mercury was forced to plead guilty. The vapors of the 
 
 mercury, for mercury vapor- 
 izes at ordinary temperature, 
 had been deposited on the 
 plates and in some mysteri- 
 ous way the part of the silver 
 iodide that had been struck 
 by the light had the power 
 of holding mercury while it 
 was rejected by the other 
 parts, which could be washed 
 away with a solution of com- 
 mon salt without affecting 
 the mercury tracings. The 
 daguerreotype had rewarded 
 his efforts. The French gov- 
 ernment bestowed on him a 
 
 THE FIRST SUN PICTURE OF THE HUMAN FACE, pension of 6OOO francs, and 
 DOROTHY DRAPER. 
 
 a pensjon Q 4OOO fnmcs Qn 
 
 the son of Niepce, who had assisted Daguerre in his work. 
 
 So many improvements have been made in photography that only 
 the tintype bears any close resemblance to the daguerreotype. The 
 former is made on a thin iron plate covered with black enamel, to 
 protect the iron from the corrosive action of the chemicals and to 
 furnish a black background. The picture is really a negative but so 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 579 
 
 thin that the black background of the plate shows through the light 
 portions of it and in reflected light causes it to look like a positive. 
 
 Efforts of Morse and Draper. Samuel F. B. Morse had been 
 a portrait painter and had tried unsuccessfully to take captive the 
 fleeting image of the camera obscura. Visiting Paris and hearing of 
 Daguerre, he called on him and invited him to inspect the telegraph. 
 In return Daguerre showed him the new process for making pictures 
 and Morse took back to America some of Daguerre's materials. When 
 the pension was granted, Daguerre sent Morse all the details of the 
 process, and in September, 1839, the first daguerreotype in America, 
 that of the Unitarian Church in New York city, was taken. Ama- 
 teur photographers may be interested to know that an exposure of 
 15 minutes was required. Morse tried repeatedly without success to 
 take portraits. He called to his aid Prof. John W. Draper of New 
 York University, at that time the most eminent scientist in New 
 York, and Draper succeeded, as shown by the copy of the first sun pic- 
 ture of the human face on preceding page. In the first portraits the 
 sitter must have the face dusted with white powder and sit in a strong 
 sunlight for half an hour with eyes closed without moving a muscle. 
 Draper did away with the 
 necessity of whitening the 
 face and reduced the time of 
 exposure to a few minutes. 
 Daguerreotypes were expen- f ^ 
 sive and in 1851 cost from 
 $1.50 to $15 according to 
 size and could not be copied 
 except by electro-chemical methods. 
 
 The present system of photography more nearly resembles the 
 process made public January 31, 1839, by Fox-Talbot, who discov- 
 ered a process by which any number of positives or proofs could be 
 
580 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 made from one negative. He washed a sheet of fine paper with 
 potassium iodide, dried it, washed it with silver nitrate solution and 
 a little acetic acid, and thus secured a paper charged with silver 
 iodide. Just before using, to increase its sensitiveness, he dipped it 
 in a mixture of silver nitrate and gallic acid. He exposed the paper 
 in the usual manner in the camera, "developed" it in gallo-nitrate 
 bath, and immediately upon the appearance of the picture plunged it 
 into pure water and stopped the action of the bath. He " fixed" it 
 in a bath of salt and water. The negative was next waxed to render 
 it more transparent and any number of positive prints on sensitized 
 paper could be taken from it. The glass plate was the invention of 
 Sir John Herschel in his efforts to find something more transparent 
 than the wax paper. To Herschel is also due the "hypo" fixing 
 bath. 
 
 The albumen process was the next marked improvement. It 
 was invented by Niepce St. Victor, a nephew of the "Columbus of 
 Photography." He mixed the whites of eggs (albumen) with an 
 equal quantity of water, added a little potassium iodide and allowed 
 it to settle. On flowing the mixture over a sheet of glass it gave a 
 thin sensitized film. The plate was then heated almost to the boil- 
 ing point of water, which rendered the albumen insoluble, then 
 dipped in a solution of silver nitrate and kept from the light. This 
 gave finer results than the Fox-Talbot process. 
 
 Dry plates were brought about by the efforts of numerous inves- 
 tigators to overcome the inconvenience of wet plates. The result 
 was reached by washing off the excess of silver nitrate after the bath 
 in that solution and brushing the surface of the plate with some pre- 
 servative and drying. 
 
 The collodion process was invented in 1851 by Scott Archer, 
 who acted upon the suggestion of Le Gray of Paris and substituted a 
 solution closely allied to gun cotton for the albumen of St. Victor. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 581 
 
 The plates were used while wet. The process was more certain in 
 its results than any previous one and for 25 years was the one chiefly 
 employed. Dry plates were an improvement in some ways over the 
 wet process for it made possible much out-of-door work, but required 
 a longer exposure. 
 
 The t emulsion processes employ a viscous liquid, usually gela- 
 tin, with which the necessary chemicals are actually mixed instead 
 of being deposited on the surface as in the old dry collodion plate. 
 These do not deteriorate so quickly, can be made very sensitive, and 
 are a great improvement over the wet process with all its parapher- 
 nalia of trays, baths, and bottles. It greatly increased the efficiency 
 of the camera and widened its sphere, made it applicable for use in 
 connection with the telescope and the microscope, and rapid enough 
 in its working to photograph a horse in motion, a cannon ball in its 
 flight, or a flash of lightning. Emulsion films have been produced 
 so sensitive that they are said to work with an exposure equivalent 
 to 1-5000 of a second. 
 
 The roll film carried on paper was patented in England by A. J. 
 Melhuish in 1854. In 1856 films appeared in which collodion or 
 gelatin were substituted for paper, and such films have now been 
 brought to a high state of perfection by Eastman, Walker & Co. of 
 Rochester, N. Y. The film has been a boon to travelers, enabling 
 them to "load" the camera in daylight and reduce the bulky, heavy, 
 plate holding camera to the folding pocket kodak. 
 
 We may believe that Roger Bacon was the first to describe the 
 camera about 600 years ago. Fabricus added his observations on 
 discovery of horn silver 300 years after, but it required 300 years 
 more to put the two together and form them into the pocket kodak 
 where, according to the advertisement of the manufacturers, "You 
 press the button and we do the rest." 
 
 How the Picture is Made. The rays of light from the object to 
 
582 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 be photographed pass through a lens in the front of the camera 
 which throws them upon a sensitized plate or film in the back of the 
 box. Those rays coming from the lightest color of the object to be 
 photographed have the greatest actinic power and produce a corre- 
 sponding effect upon the plate. The rays of light from the object 
 falling upon the plate have a "reducing" effect upon the salts of 
 silver. 
 
 After the exposure the plate is carefully protected from the light, 
 carried into a dark room, and " developed." The development of a 
 latent image on a photographic plate traces back to the mercury bath 
 of Daguerre. Developers continue the process of reduction set up 
 by the sunlight. In a pyrogallic bath the developer reduces the 
 silver nitrate in the film to finely divided metallic silver and deposits 
 it on those parts of the plate upon which light has acted the more 
 forcibly and in proportion to that action. The developer does not 
 affect the iodide, bromide, and chloride (haloids) of silver, and these 
 are next dissolved and washed out in the "hypo" bath, leaving an 
 image in relief of the object photographed, in which the light portions 
 appear as dark and the dark ones as light, hence the word "negative." 
 
 The positives are printed from the negatives by placing a sheet of 
 sensitized paper underneath the negative and exposing it to the sun- 
 light. The sunlight acts more forcibly upon that part of the paper 
 underneath the light portions, the darker portions protecting it 
 somewhat. The print is then removed and put in a bath which 
 washes out the salts of the silver not acted upon by the light. It is 
 then " toned " and " fixed," all these operations corresponding with 
 the "development" and "fixing" of the negative. 
 
 The photography of the heavens began with the taking of the 
 picture of the moon by Prof. John W. Draper, March, 1840. The 
 camera, fitted to the telescope, has since added enormously to 
 the knowledge of the astronomer. Rays of light from distant stars 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 
 
 583 
 
 too faint to make an impression on the human eye leave a mark 
 upon a photographic plate exposed to them for hours. The delicacy 
 and extreme precision of instruments used for stellar photographs 
 almost pass belief. For an exposure of hours, clock work mechan- 
 ism must be employed, the motions of the earth calculated, and the 
 whole so accurately timed as to come within a deviation of i-iooo 
 of an inch. As mechanicians became expert enough to devise a 
 clock that would keep a star image at one fixed point on the photo- 
 graphic plate, strange 
 wonders of the heav- 
 ens were revealed. 
 Exposures have been 
 made ten succeeding 
 nights aggregating 25 
 hours, the star being 
 photographed as near 
 the zenith as possible 
 
 to avoid the difficul- CAMERA FOR STER * OSCOP ' C WoRK - 
 
 ties experienced with the refraction of light occurring near the hori- 
 zon. What appear to the eye through the best telescopes as single 
 stars are often resolved by the camera into double stars, the tails of 
 comets are wonderfully lengthened, the spectrums of stars can be 
 photographed, and the variability of what were supposed to be single 
 stars found to be due to twin stars revolving about and at times 
 eclipsing each other. 
 
 Our Debt to the Camera. The camera has achieved results as 
 remarkable for the physician as for the astronomer. The infinitesimal 
 life revealed by the microscope has been permanently recorded by 
 the camera, and the illustrations of the text-books of the patholo- 
 gist, the histologist, and the bacteriologist show how much medical 
 science owes to photography. Society protects itself against the 
 
584 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 criminal classes by instituting rogues' galleries in every important 
 city, and the counterfeiter, who, by the aid of photography, issues a 
 fraudulent note, is by a species of poetic justice brought to bay and 
 identified by his photograph on file at police headquarters. 
 
 The camera is no less valuable to the geologist, the botanist, or 
 the engineer. A comparatively moderate pressure on a piece of 
 glass will show any alteration of the refrangibility of a ray of polar- 
 ized light. "The inventor who thinks he has devised a truss or a 
 girder of new efficiency has, therefore, only to construct a model 
 in glass to bring his plan to an inexpensive test. A beam of polar- 
 ized light sent through the glass will plainly show to the eye, and 
 register in the camera, the distribution and extent of the strain im- 
 posed by a moving load." * 
 
 Photo-engraving has aided immensely in producing cheaply, well 
 illustrated magazines. Potassium bichromate has the power, when 
 used in a gelatin emulsion, of rendering the gelatin insoluble after it 
 has been acted upon by light. A copper plate can be coated with 
 the thinnest possible film of this emulsion, exposed in a camera, those 
 portions not influenced by the light washed away and the exposed 
 part of the plate etched out with acids, leaving a picture in relief, 
 the raised portions of which take ink and act as printing surfaces. 
 
 Half-tone engraving has practically revolutionized one branch of 
 art and made it possible to issue and profitably sell for ten cents a 
 magazine so well illustrated that it could hardly have been produced 
 at any price fifty years ago. In making half-tones, the photograph 
 is taken through two glass plates having closely ruled lines laid cross- 
 wise on each other and forming a screen. Screens on which from 80 
 to 200 lines per inch are ruled are used ; the coarser ones for news- 
 paper, the finer for book and magazine work. The lines on the 
 screen are filled with a fine black substance which intercepts the light 
 
 * George lies, " Flame, Electricity, and the Camera." 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 
 
 585 
 
 that comes to the negative and an image is formed having innumera- 
 ble minute dots over the surface. These dots form raised surfaces 
 which receive the ink and print like an ordinary relief plate, but the 
 dots are so fine and so close that the suggestions of the mind come 
 to the aid of the eye and it accepts the picture as perfectly re- 
 produced. 
 
 ROENTGEN X-RAYS. 
 
 Probably no other scientific discovery has attracted such univer- 
 sal attention as that of a "New Kind of Rays," announced by 
 Professor W. C. Roentgen of Wiirzburg, January 4, 1896. The 
 Roentgen rays are developed by an elec- 
 trical discharge in a high vacuum. Geiss- 
 ler, a physicist of Bonn, about fifty years 
 ago, constructed vacuum tubes, which bear 
 his name, for experiments of this kind. A 
 degree of exhaustion of about two hun- 
 dredths of an atmosphere was used. A 
 "tube" in the sense here used is any 
 closed glass vessel having two wires sealed 
 into its sides, which are to be used as the 
 electrodes of an electric circuit, and be- 
 tween which the discharge is to take place 
 in the interior of the tube, which has been exhausted before sealing. 
 The electrode by which the current enters the tube is called the 
 anode, and the one by which it leaves is the cathode. The high tension 
 current required is usually produced by an induction coil. Brilliant 
 and beautiful color effects are produced when the current passes 
 through tubes of various kinds of glass containing various gases. 
 Geissler tubes are used only for these display purposes. 
 
 Crookes Tubes. About twenty-five years ago William Crookes 
 of England cons-tructed tubes of great variety, some very highly ex- 
 
 PROF. W. C. ROENTGEN. 
 
586 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 hausted. The phenomena exhibited by these tubes were so surpris- 
 ing and wonderful that they constituted a new class of phenomena. 
 Tubes made for repeating these experiments are called Crookes 
 tubes. They may be of cylindrical, or spherical, or of odd and fan- 
 tastic shapes. They are often exhausted to one-millionth of an 
 atmosphere, and in such cases the phenomena differ from those of 
 ordinary gases, as much as those of gases differ from liquids, or liquids 
 from solids. 
 
 In a Geissler tube, the gas in the interior glows with a colored light 
 and exhibits beautiful stratifications. As the tube is exhausted more 
 and more the glow decreases in brilliancy, and entirely ceases when 
 the exhaustion is such that only one-millionth of the original air re- 
 mains. But at this stage the glass itself begins to emit light, and it 
 is then that the tube becomes useful for the purpose of generating 
 the Roentgen rays. The striking peculiarity of the discharge in the 
 high vacuum is that the cathode is the important electrode. 
 
 The photographic part of the operation is carried out after the 
 usual manner. There seems to be but little choice between various 
 developing agents. A great amount of detail appears strongly dur- 
 ing the development which is lost in the " fixing" process, and in 
 important surgical cases the surgeon should see the plate during 
 the development in order to obtain the full benefit of the experi- 
 ment. Various developers and fixing agents have been tried to 
 overcome this difficulty, but without success. 
 
 Professor Roentgen, experimenting with a Crookes tube, had 
 placed near it a sheet of paper coated on one side with barium- 
 platinum cyanide. Such paper is a fluorescent screen. He noticed 
 that when the tube was so completely covered by black paper that 
 its rays were entirely invisible to the eye, there still passed through 
 it a mysterious energy that could illuminate his sheet of paper two 
 yards or more away. Further experiments showed that these invis- 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 587 
 
 ible rays were capable of passing through many substances opaque to 
 ordinary light, just as glass, which offers little resistance to light 
 waves, is opaque to electricity. Professor Roentgen continued his 
 experiments and found that when his hand was placed over the 
 screen the flesh was only partially opaque, the bones more nearly so, 
 and the shadow of the skeleton was outlined on the paper. His 
 knowledge of photography enabled him to catch the fleeting image 
 and make public one of the most interesting and far-reaching discov- 
 eries of a decade. 
 
 How Ordinary Experiments may be Made. A writer has said 
 persons need not be deterred from experimenting with X-rays be- 
 cause of the cost of a Crookes tube, for fairly satisfactory tubes can 
 be made for a few cents by which many interesting phenomena can 
 be studied. " A person having access to an electric lighting circuit 
 can unscrew an ordinary incandescent electric light globe from its 
 socket and set it up on a candlestick resting on a plate of glass to 
 insulate it. Next, cut a piece of aluminum foil about the size of a 
 dollar and with a little shellac fasten it smoothly on the large end of 
 the globe and procure (or make) an induction coil that will give a 
 spark at least three inches long. 
 
 "The house current can be used to furnish the current for the 
 primary of the coil. Connect one end of the secondary with the 
 aluminum foil and the other end with the bottom of the globe. 
 Then remove the globe from the candlestick and place it in the house 
 circuit for 15 minutes. The heat from the incandescent filament im- 
 proves the vacuum in the globe. Next quickly place the globe back 
 on the candlestick and start the primary on the coil. In a short time 
 the globe will commence to produce X-rays and continue to do so for 
 15 to 20 minutes." 
 
 When the X-ray was discovered in 1896 it took 30 minutes to 
 make a radiograph. Now good radiographs can be made in 1-24000 
 
588 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of a second, and in actual practice the time is less than half 
 a minute. Rarely has a new scientific discovery been so quickly 
 utilized for practical work, and it speaks volumes for the alertness of 
 the medical profession that they have at once and with one accord 
 accepted the aid of Roentgen X-rays. With it the beating of the 
 heart can be watched, bullets detected within the skull, and it is a 
 common thing to locate pieces of steel inside the eyeball within 
 sV of an inch. Broken bones are easily shown and the surgeon is 
 able after he has dressed a fracture to make a radiograph of it and 
 determine whether or not it has been successfully reduced. 
 
 The X-ray has several practical uses. It will show the presence 
 of flaws in large steel castings or the difference between a diamond 
 and paste, and is of great practical value in detecting adulterations of 
 numerous drugs and chemicals. 
 
 PAPER. 
 
 Man traced his first rude drawings on the walls of his cavern or 
 on the bones of the game that he had slain, and numerous other 
 substances were used as mediums for his communications before the 
 white sheet upon which our daily papers are printed was produced. 
 The early Assyrians used clay. Maspero says, in describing the cir- 
 cumstances of a sale of land in Assyria hundreds of years before 
 Christ: "The scribes are provided with several tablets of baked 
 clay, still soft enough to take an impression, yet hard enough for it 
 not to be easily defaced or lost once it has been made. Each scribe 
 takes one of them, which he lays flat in the palm of his left hand, 
 and taking in his right hand a triangular stylus, its point cut like a 
 bezel, commences to write. The marks obtained by gently pressing 
 the instrument upon the clay resemble a corner, or a metal nail. 
 The scribe commences on the left below the upper edge of the tablet, 
 and soon covers both sides of it with remarkable dexterity. The 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 589 
 
 two scribes engaged by the contracting parties and the one belong- 
 ing to the judge write the formulas at the same time, for every 
 public deed must be drawn out at least three times. Formerly 
 two copies only were made, and they remained in the hands of the 
 two contracting parties ; but sometimes it happened that skillful but 
 dishonest people altered the writing to their own advantage. The 
 Chaldeans invented an ingenious method of preventing frauds of this 
 kind. The tablet once sealed, they covered it with a second layer 
 of clay, upon which they traced an exact copy of the original deed. 
 The latter became inaccessible to the forgers, and if a dispute arose 
 and some alteration was suspected in the visible text, the case tablet 
 was broken before witnesses, and the deed was verified by the edi- 
 tion preserved inside."* 
 
 From such clay tablets their libraries were formed. " The books 
 of baked earth are inconvenient to hold, heavy to handle, the char- 
 acters are not clearly defined against the yellow color of the clay ; 
 but, on the other hand, a work cut upon brick and incorporated with 
 it, incurs less danger than a work written in ink upon rolls of papy- 
 rus. Fire cannot hurt it, water cannot injure it for a long time, and 
 if it is broken the pieces are still good ; provided they are not re- 
 duced to powder, they can generally be readjusted and the text de- 
 ciphered, with the exception of a few letters or some words of a 
 phrase. The inscriptions found in the foundations of the most 
 ancient temples, several of which are twenty or thirty centuries old, 
 are, as a rule, clear and legible, as though they had just left the 
 hands of the scribe who traced them and the potter who baked them. 
 The hymns, magic incantations, lists of kings, annals, hymns com- 
 posed almost at the commencement of history, thousands of years 
 before the Assyrian empire, although exposed to the accidents of 
 twenty conquests, to the destroying fury of man and the assaults of 
 
 G. Maspero, " Life in Ancient Assyria." 
 
590 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 time, have yet resisted them all, and have come down to us intact ; 
 this would certainly not have been the case had their authors con- 
 fided them to the papyrus, like the Egyptian scribes."* 
 
 The papyrus used by the ancient Egyptians is responsible for 
 many words in our language. The word " paper" is derived from 
 it, and from the Greek name of the word " byblos " we get our word 
 "bible." The Romans called papyrus " charta " or " carta," from 
 which are derived the English words "chart" and "card." Papy- 
 rus continued in use so long that the official papers of the popes were 
 written on it until the twelfth century. 
 
 The Ebers papyrus, one of the oldest authentic books, is a trea- 
 tise on medicine written during the reign of Amenophis I., probably 
 in the sixteenth century B. C. The roll is 79 feet long. Its pages 
 are numbered consecutively, and in the text are found crosses and 
 asterisks referring to footnotes. 
 
 The secret of manufacturing papyrus was guarded jealously in 
 Egypt. Under the rule of Alexander the Great it became one of 
 the chief exports, furnished the writing material for the world, mul- 
 tiplied the making of books, and gave a great impetus to learning. 
 
 Parchment is said to have been invented because Attalus, a king 
 of Asia Minor, was a great student and collected a library of over 
 200,000 volumes. Ptolemy Philometer, king of Egypt, became jeal- 
 ous of the library of Attalus, which he knew depended upon Egyptian 
 papyrus for additions to it, so he issued an edict forbidding the 
 export of papyrus. Attalus, under the spur of necessity, finally 
 made a sort of paper out of sheepskin and from improvements in the 
 process parchment was developed. 
 
 Papyrus, an African marsh plant growing in sluggish water, is a 
 large reed. The different parts had various uses; the roots being 
 used for fuel, the inside of the stalk for food, and other portions 
 
 *G. Maspero, " Life in Ancient Assyria." 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 59! 
 
 made into mats, baskets, and woven fabrics. In paper making, a 
 section of the stem as long as the width of the paper to be made was 
 unrolled and separated into its layers. The edges of the layers were 
 placed together and, possessing a natural glue-like quality, adhered 
 under pressure. When one layer had been formed, a second layer 
 with fibers crossing the first at right angles was laid. By attaching 
 the ends of the sheets together, a roll of any length could be made. 
 The rough edges were trimmed and the whole beaten with a mallet 
 until the desired degree of thinness and smoothness had been reached, 
 when it was placed under a press to drive out the water and give an 
 even surface. The operation was completed by drying in the sun. 
 The perishable nature of papyrus, on which the records of ancient 
 Egypt were written, has rendered the work of the archaeologist more 
 difficult. 
 
 Substitutes for Papyrus and Parchment. When the demand for 
 writing material became so great that papyrus and parchment could 
 not supply it, many other substitutes were tried. In the British 
 Patent Office there are hundreds of patents for materials for paper 
 making, among which may be found the following: Rags, old paper, 
 cotton, flax, hemp, wool, jute, aloe, banana, bean stalk, cocoanut 
 fiber, clover, hay, heath, hops, husks of grain, leaves, maize, sugar 
 cane, moss, nettles, straw, seaweed, thistles, silk, fur, hair, leather, 
 asbestos, and frog spawn. An old act of the British Parliament re- 
 quired the dead to be buried in woolen clothing to stimulate the 
 woolen industry and save linen for paper making. The Massachu- 
 setts General Court in 1776 required the Committee of Safety in each 
 town to appoint an officer to collect rags. Such events plainly show 
 the condition of paper making at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 The Chinese, as usual, are credited with having made paper at a 
 remote age, employing for the purpose the inner bark of the mulberry 
 
592 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM 
 
 tree, rye straw, and rags, reduced to a pulp. From them the dis- 
 covery passed to the Hindoos, Persians, the Arabs, and the Moors, 
 who carried the art into Spain, whence it gradually spread to other 
 European countries. 
 
 Roll Paper. A Frenchman, Louis Roberts, was able about 1799 
 to make a continuous roll of paper and in recognition of his discovery 
 the French government bestowed on him a. prize of 8000 francs. 
 The Fourdrinier brothers of England took up the idea and further 
 developed it and gave their name to the machine that made the pro- 
 duction of paper in large quantities possible. 
 
 Paper made from Rags. If we trace the course of a bale of rags 
 on its way through the paper mill until it appears as finished paper, 
 we shall find it is emptied into a * 'thrasher," the inner surface of 
 which is lined with spikes, and containing a drum armed with similar 
 spikes. Here nearly all the dust is shaken out of the rags and they 
 are passed to the sorting room, where all foreign substances are 
 removed. The rags are sorted according to quality and are fed into 
 the "cutter," which reduces them to, bits, whence they go to the 
 " devil," to remove any lingering dust. They are then taken up by 
 a belt, which discharges them into "boilers" containing a solution 
 of mixed lime and soda. Here the rags are continuously dissolved, 
 boiled, and leached until, when the boiler is stopped and opened, 
 "their disposition is softened by trouble and their countenance 
 blanched by fear." The pulpy mass is then run through the "en- 
 gines," machines which completely pulpify and wash it until it is fit 
 for paper making, when it is discharged into a flow-box whence it 
 issues in a thin stream on to an endless belt of wire cloth running 
 over numerous rollers. The belts have two rubber bands on the 
 edges to keep the paper from flowing out at the sides and the 
 floating fibers are made to interweave or unite by continued shaking 
 or lateral motion given to the belt, which tends to interlace the fibers 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 593 
 
 and get rid of some of the water, and as the water is removed the 
 belt passes under rollers which still further compress the fiber and 
 deliver it to a felt belt where more of the water is pressed out. It is 
 handled with the utmost delicacy, passed between numerous rollers, 
 and is soon able to sustain its own weight. It passes between hol- 
 low rollers heated by steam, which press it, finish and dry it. 
 
 Wood Pulp. Whoever holds in his hand the daily paper of any 
 great city, probably holds what was once enough wood to make 
 a club of good size. Wood pulp or wood fiber is now one of 
 the most important paper-making materials. Wood pulp is pro- 
 duced by mechanical means; wood fiber by chemical treatment. 
 To obtain the pulp, the bark and knots are removed and the wood, 
 cut into suitable length, is fed into a grinding machine, where a huge 
 grindstone tears the wood to bits and the fiber, mixed with water, is 
 carried away on a wire screen, gathered, partly dried, and shipped to 
 paper mills, where it undergoes the usual processes of " beating," etc. 
 Wood pulp can be made directly into wood pulp board, but for thin 
 paper or where strength is required it must be mixed with something 
 having a longer fiber. It can be produced very cheaply. 
 
 Wood fiber, or chemical fiber, is produced by two methods : the 
 alkali or soda, and the acid processes. In either case the wood runs 
 through machines which cut it into fine chips, whence it is carried to 
 digesters (boilers) containing chemical solutions to extract the gum. 
 Here it is subjected to considerable steam pressure and is cooked from 
 8 to 72 hours, the alkali or soda process being the quicker. 
 
 In the alkali process, caustic soda is used and the cooking kept up 
 in the digester under a steam pressure of 90 to 100 pounds from 8 
 to 10 hours. The caustic soda removes the gums and resins and 
 leaves a fiber which when washed and bleached is almost pure cel- 
 lulose, resembling cotton and having a fair degree of strength. 
 
 In the acid process the prepared wood is boiled in a solution of 
 
594 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 bisulphate of lime, which is so corrosive that the digesters have to 
 be lined with lead, glazed bricks, or some other acid-resisting coating 
 to protect the steel shell of the boiler. Under a high pressure about 
 16 hours of cooking will suffice; with the lower pressures the process 
 may occupy three days and the resulting fiber is light brown, per- 
 haps with a pinkish tinge and sometimes harsh, but usually nearly 
 white. When cooked and bleached the fiber is soft, of good color, 
 and strong. 
 
 Paper making has increased enormously within the past decade, 
 due largely to the development of the wood pulp industry, for the 
 greater part of the paper now produced is manufactured from wood. 
 Germany apparently holds the record for quick work. It is said that 
 the trees from which the wood pulp was made were standing in the 
 forest at 7.35 A. M., and cut, delivered at the paper mill, made into 
 paper, delivered at the printing office, and appeared as printed sheets 
 containing the news of the day at 10 A. M. The Philadelphia Record 
 made a trial in 1891 and issued a paper within 22 hours from the 
 time the trees were cut. The performance is marvelous enough that 
 in a few hours converts a forest tree into a black and white sheet 
 covered with the news of the world, containing perhaps a record of 
 events that transpired on the opposite side of the world while the 
 woodcutter's ax was eating its way to the heart of the tree, for such 
 news can be flashed by cable faster than a nerve can convey the sense 
 of pain, and, if received a few minutes before going to press, arrives 
 in ample time, a strange ending for perhaps one hundred years of 
 quiet forest growth. 
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 The sextuple printing press, capable of turning out more than a 
 thousand papers a minute, is a splendid tribute to the constructive 
 imagination that has raised man from the depths of barbarism. The 
 
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 595 
 
 art of writing dates back to a very early age. A description of the 
 Babylonian expedition to Nippur says, " Writing on clay tablets was 
 practiced in Babylonia long before the time of Lugal-zaggisi, it may 
 be as early as 5000 or even 6000 years B. C."* 
 
 The Assyrians, as early as Sargon (3800 B. C.), were using a rude 
 form of type to impress characters on bricks used for temples. Later 
 small cylinders, finely engraved, were used for seals, and, when rolled 
 over a plastic clay tablet, left their impress there, the first rude pro- 
 totype of the cylinder press. 
 
 The Chinese were printing from type as early as 50 B. C., but their 
 language is not well adapted to the use of movable type, for their 
 words cannot be resolved into separate elements like the alphabet 
 of Western nations. The Greeks and Romans were early acquainted 
 with engraved dies and stamping on metal. 
 
 About the last of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth 
 century, wood engraving appeared in Europe. The method was to 
 engrave a page of a book on a block and print from it. Separate 
 letters were sometimes engraved, especially initial letters and 
 pictures, and books are in existence having such initial letters and 
 pictures printed while the body of the text is in handwriting. But 
 just as America was named after a man who had more to do with 
 talking about it than discovering it, or as others prominently con- 
 nected with certain projects have become in the popular mind so 
 identified with them as to be deemed the originators or inventors 
 thereof, so the name of Gutenberg has become associated with the 
 art of printing with movable type. 
 
 Gutenberg's Press. The first book printed by Gutenberg from 
 movable type wascompleted abouttheyear 1450, and a simpler method 
 can scarcely be imagined. His printing press consisted of two upright 
 timbers, with crosspieces of wood to stay them together at the top and 
 
 *John Punnett Peters. "Nippur." 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 bottom, with intermediate cross timbers, one supporting the flat bed 
 on which the type was placed, while through another the wooden 
 screw passed, the lower point resting on the center of the wooden 
 " platen," which was thus screwed down upon the type. After 
 inking the form with a ball of leather stuffed with wool, the printer 
 spread the paper over it, laying a piece of blanket upon the paper to 
 soften the impression of the platen and remove inequalities. 
 
 OLD WOODEN FRAME ADAMS BOOK PRESS. 
 
 Such was the press of Gutenberg, using the familiar mechanical 
 principle found in the old cheese and linen presses ordinarily seen in 
 the houses of mediaeval times. Were Gutenberg to print his Bible 
 to-day, he would find virtually the same type ready for his purpose as 
 that made by him, but he would be bewildered in the maze of print- 
 ing machinery. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 597 
 
 The simple form of wooden press, worked with a screw by means 
 of a movable bar, continued in use until the early part of the seven- 
 teenth century without any material change. William Jensen Blaew, 
 a printer of Amsterdam, about 1620, passed the spindle of the screw 
 through a square block guided in a wooden frame, and from this 
 block the platen was suspended by wire or cords, the block or box 
 preventing any twist in the platen and insuring a more equal motion 
 to the screw. He also devised rollers for moving in and out the bed, 
 and a hand lever for turning the screw. Blaew's press was used in 
 England and throughout the continent, being substantially the same 
 as that Benjamin Franklin worked upon as a journeyman in London 
 early in the eighteenth century. 
 
 About the year 1798, the Earl of Stanhope made a press with a 
 cast iron frame. He also added a combination of levers which ena- 
 bled the pressman to give power to the impression, with less expendi- 
 ture of energy. The presses were heavy and cumbersome but the 
 combination of levers came into general use. 
 
 The " Columbian " Press. George Clymer, of Philadelphia, 
 about 1816 devised an iron machine entirely dispensing with screws. 
 His invention, introduced to some extent in England, was known as 
 the "Columbian" press. In 1822 an American, Peter Smith, intro- 
 duced a toggle joint in place of the levers used on the " Columbian" 
 press, but the greatest improvement of this period was made by 
 Samuel Rust of New York, who devised the " Washington " press, 
 which in principle and construction has never been surpassed by any 
 hand printing press. Its bed slides on a track and is run in and out 
 from under the platen, by turning a crank which has belts attached 
 to a pulley upon its shaft. The impression of the platen is given by 
 means of a bent lever acting on a toggle joint, and the platen is lifted 
 by springs on either side. Attached to the bed, is a "tympan" 
 frame covered with cloth and standing inclined to receive the sheet 
 
598 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 to be printed. Another frame called the "frisket" is attached to 
 the tympan and covered with a sheet of paper, having the parts that 
 would be printed upon cut away, so as to prevent the " chase" and 
 11 furniture " from blacking or soiling the sheet. The frisket is 
 turned down over the sheet and tympan, and all are folded down 
 when the impression is taken. Automatic ink rollers were -attached 
 to this machine, operated by a weight raised by the pull of the press- 
 man, the descent of the weight drawing the roller over the type and 
 returning it to the inking table while the pressman placed another 
 sheet upon the tympan. Later improvements in the inking appara- 
 tus were made by which the distribution of the ink on the rollers was 
 effected by means of steam power. The bed and platen system of 
 printing, up to the middle of the nineteenth century, was the favorite 
 method of printing fine books and cuts. 
 
 The first " power" or steam press was made by Daniel Tread- 
 well in 1822; it was later improved by Isaac Adams of Boston 
 in 1830 and by Otis Tufts of the same place in 1834. One thousand 
 sheets per hour is the maximum speed of the largest sizes of this 
 type of press. 
 
 Flat Bed Cylinder Press. The credit of actually introducing 
 into use the flat bed cylinder press is due to a Saxon named 
 Friedrich Koenig, who visited England in 1809, and through the 
 assistance of Thomas Bensley, a printer in London, devised a 
 machine which in 1812-1813 was used by him in printing, among 
 other publications, a part of Clarkson's " Life of William Penn." 
 He also devised what has proved, even to this day, to be the best 
 reciprocating motion of the type bed. In 1814 Koenig patented a 
 continuously revolving cylinder press. The part of the periphery of 
 the cylinder not used for giving the impression is slightly reduced in 
 diameter so as to allow the form to return under it freely after giving 
 an impression. He showed designs adapting it for use as a single 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 599 
 
 cylinder press and also a two-cylinder press, both for printing one 
 side of the paper at a time ; likewise a two-cylinder press for print- 
 ing both sides of the paper at one operation. This press is termed 
 the " perfecting " press, one of which was placed in the office of the 
 London Times in 1814 and which printed one side of the paper only, 
 at the rate of 800 sheets per hour. 
 
 The first cylinder press used in the United States was made by 
 Hoe and Co. It was of the pattern known as the "Single Large 
 Cylinder," the whole circumference of the cylinder representing the 
 total travel of the bed, backward and forward, the cylinder mak- 
 ing one revolution for each impression in printing and never stop- 
 ping. 
 
 Stop Cylinder Press. The press of the present day upon 
 which the finest letter press and woodcut work is turned off was 
 devised and patented by a Frenchman named Dutartre in 1852, and 
 is known as the " Stop Cylinder." The type is fastened to an iron 
 bed, which moves back and forth upon friction rollers of steel, the 
 bed being driven by a simple crank motion, stopping or starting it 
 without noise or jar. All the wearing parts are made of finely tem- 
 pered steel. The cylinder is stopped and started by a cam motion 
 pending the backward travel of the bed, and during the interval of 
 rest the sheet is fed down against the guides, and the grippers closed 
 upon it before the cylinder starts, thus insuring the utmost accuracy 
 of register. After the impression the sheet is transferred to a 
 skeleton cylinder, also containing grippers, which receives and de- 
 livers it over fine cords upon the sheet flyer, which in turn deposits it 
 upon the table. The distribution of the ink is effected partially by a 
 vibrating polished steel cylinder, and partly upon a flat table at the 
 end of the traveling bed, the number of inking rollers varying from 
 four to six. This is considered the most perfect flat bed cylinder 
 printing machine that has ever been devised. It is made in various 
 
6oo 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 sizes and is capable of one thousand to fifteen hundred impressions 
 per hour. The very finest engravings or cut work is printed upon it 
 at a speed of 700 impressions per hour. This press is used chiefly 
 for book work. 
 
 Hoe Type Revolving Machine. To meet the increased re- 
 quirements of newspapers in America there resulted the construction 
 of a press known as the "Hoe Type Revolving Machine." The 
 
 8-CvLiNDER REVOLVING HOE PRESS. 
 
 distinguishing feature of this press is an apparatus for fastening the 
 forms of type to the central cylinder, placed in a horizontal position. 
 This is accomplished by the construction of cast iron beds, one for 
 each page of the newspaper. The column rules are V-shaped; i. e., 
 tapering toward the feet of the type. The type on these beds can be 
 held firmly in position, the surface made to form a true circle and 
 the cylinder revolved at any speed required without danger of the 
 type falling out. Around this central type cylinder, from four to 
 ten impression cylinders are grouped according to the output re- 
 quired. The sheets are fed by boys, and taken from the feed board 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 6oi 
 
 by automatic grippers. Composition rollers, placed between each 
 of the impression cylinders, ink the type cylinder. The first of these 
 presses had only four impression cylinders, and the running speed 
 obtained was about 2000 sheets to each feeder, per hour, thus giving 
 with a four-cylinder machine a running capacity of 8000 papers per 
 hour, printed on one side, but in the case of a ten-cylinder machine, 
 an aggregate of 20,000 papers per hour. Newspaper printing was 
 revolutionized ; journals, before limited by their inability to furnish 
 papers, rapidly increased their issue and many new ones started. 
 The new press was adopted not only on the American continent but 
 also in Europe. 
 
 Meanwhile stereotyping was keeping pace with the development 
 of the press, and soon stereotype plates were cast on curves to 
 fit the cylinders and were used in place of type forms. This allowed 
 the duplication of the forms, the running of several machines at a 
 time, and resulted in turning out papers with extra rapidity. 
 
 Improvements in Paper and Folding. For four hundred years 
 after Gutenberg little improvement had been made, but now new 
 methods and inventions were introduced with such rapidity that they 
 can only be mentioned and not described. The profitable produc- 
 tion of straw and wood fiber added a wonderful impetus to printing, 
 and presses were devised to use with still greater speed the increased 
 supply of raw material. A folding machine was patented in 1875 by 
 Stephen D. Tucker that folded the newspapers as fast as they came 
 from the press. Constant improvements in presses were made and when 
 the " quadruple newspaper press" was constructed and placed in the 
 office of the New York World in 1887 it was thought that the limit 
 of printing capacity in one machine had been reached, for it printed 
 48,000 8-page papers an hour, cut the top, and pasted and folded them 
 .ready to be mailed. But the demand for printing seems to increase 
 with the supply, and two years later a " sextuple " press was turned 
 
602 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 out for the New York Herald, which that paper pronounces nothing 
 less than a miracle of mechanism. It is fed from three rolls of paper 
 and can print and fold 90,000 4-page Heralds in an hour, each copy 
 containing an epitome of the news of the world for the preceding 24 
 hours. 
 
 The "octuple" press succeeded that, which prints 96,0004, 6, 
 or 8-page papers an hour, or at the rate of 1600 a minute, and cuts, 
 pastes, folds, and counts them as fast as printed. Running at its 
 highest speed so fast that only one fifth of a second is required to 
 print a page this press will consume in an hour a roll of ordinary 
 newspaper 50 miles in length. In other words, the paper must move 
 as fast as an express train. Picture the amazement of Benjamin 
 Franklin could he be recalled and placed face to face with such a 
 press, and measure the gap that exists between this latest product of 
 the nineteenth century and the rude scrawls traced by the first 
 primitive artist on the walls of his cavern. 
 
 Three color printing has so many difficulties, financial, mechan- 
 ical, and chemical connected with it, that it has but lately been 
 brought to the stage where it could be made profitable for the 
 printer. A fortune awaits the man who can invent an ink with a 
 strong color and yet transparent enough to let the color from a pre- 
 vious impression shine through and enable the printer to blend them 
 into exactly the shade he desires. For three color printing, three 
 glass screens, a yellow, a red, and a violet-blue, together with a 
 camera that can take three negatives at once, are used. One screen 
 is placed before each photographic plate and of course keeps out all 
 the light except that which corresponds to its own color. From 
 these three negatives, three printing plates are made in the usual 
 manner, and each plate is inked with an ink of the same color as the 
 screen that was used before it. One impression is taken, the paper 
 allowed to dry, then another applied directly over the first so that 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 603 
 
 every part corresponds to the minutest detail, it is again dried and 
 the third plate used in the same manner. It is plain then that each 
 plate prints its particular color in the places and in the same degree 
 in which that color entered into the formation of the picture. If a 
 red be printed on top of a yellow, the yellow shines through and an 
 orange effect is produced. Blue printed on top of red gives purple, 
 and when all three colors are superimposed a neutral black is pro- 
 duced. All that is needed to make it perfect is an ink that will not 
 mix with the other inks and still be transparent enough to allow the 
 underlying colors to shine through. Some inks have been produced 
 that give very good results, and there have been several books with 
 colored plates recently issued, notably Dr. Holland's "Butterfly 
 Book," in which especially fine work has been done. There are yet 
 many difficult problems to be solved before colored printing can 
 become widely used, but the rough plans have been drawn and the 
 new century will without doubt work out the details. 
 
 Typesetting Machines. The wonderful machines just described 
 would be shorn of much of their power if they were not supplemented 
 by typesetting machines. Few who look upon a printed page 
 realize the intricate process and amount of work required to produce 
 it. Every letter, punctuation mark, and space is represented by a 
 type, and the spaces are sometimes made up of several types. For 
 the proper placing of each one of these a compositor has the follow- 
 ing distinct operations to perform. He must pick up the type from 
 a chaotic heap in the box allotted to it. He must see that it is the 
 right one and not some other type placed there by mistake. He 
 must turn it so it will be right end up and right side foremost. He 
 must place it in the "composing stick" or typeholder in its proper 
 place and order. This he must do with each individual type, and 
 when he has set enough to approximately fill the line he mi/st 
 "justify" or space it so as to exactly fill the space allotted to the 
 
604 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 width of the column. After he has set a few lines he must interrupt 
 his work and place the finished lines in the "galley," for the 
 " stick " will hold but two or three inches of the column. 
 
 Typesetting machines have dispensed with all this and have been 
 one of the most powerful factors in cheapening and increasing the 
 production of printed matter. The first patent for a typesetting 
 and type-making machine was issued in England in 1822 to Dr. 
 William Church, who claimed a speed for his machine of 75,000 ems 
 an hour, but it did not prove practicable, although many of his de- 
 vices were afterwards utilized by other inventors. The first prac- 
 tical machine in the United States was that of Clay and Rosenberg, 
 patented in 1842, but it was not favorably received by the printers. 
 Simpler machines were required. A machine invented by Mitchell 
 appeared and was used for a time, but did not come into general use 
 because there was no good "distributer" to go with it. 
 
 The Linotype Machine. For 
 newspaper working where speed, 
 economy of composition, and facili- 
 ty in "making ready" are of the 
 highest consideration, the "Lino- 
 type" machine stands preeminent. 
 This, the invention of Ottmar Mer- 
 genthaler of Baltimore, was invented 
 in 1884 and patented in 1885, with 
 several subsequent patents for im- 
 provements, and put at work in the 
 office of the New York Tribune in 
 1886 to the great astonishment and 
 alarm of the old-time compositors. 
 It is a most complicated ma- 
 chine, represents the working of many minds, and embodies 1400 pat- 
 ented ideas. It dispenses with both type and typesetters, and casts 
 
 THE LINOTYPE. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 605 
 
 a finished line ready for printing. It requires only a pot of melted 
 type metal, and an operator to manipulate a keyboard, to do many 
 times the work of a hand compositor. Although so complicated it 
 is a marvel of mechanical construction, weighs less than a ton, and 
 occupies but little floor space. So efficient is the machine that it is 
 now found in nearly all the offices of the great daily newspapers of 
 the civilized world. 
 
 Construction and Mode of Operation. In the body of tl)e ma- 
 chine is a magazine which contains about 1500' brass matrices with 
 which the machine does its work. Enough matrices placed side by 
 side to fill the space of a line form a mold just large enough for the 
 body of the type for a line, 'having along the edge of the mold 
 characters sunk into the material of the matrix. These matrices are 
 held ready for use, each character in its own compartment, in the 
 magazine at the top of the machine. The machine has a keyboard 
 like a typewriter, with 107 keys, allowing the use of that many 
 characters and requiring as many compartments in the magazine. 
 
 The operator presses a key. The matrix which is lowermost in 
 the compartment corresponding to that key is released and slides 
 down a channel from the magazine, right end out and right side up, 
 and lands on a traveling belt which carries it rapidly to a little com- 
 partment at the left of the operator, where it is rapidly followed by 
 the other matrices which are necessary to make up the line. The 
 spaces are filled by a combination matrix made up of two wedges, 
 arranged end for end. As the matrices are slid into this collecting 
 compartment, they are in full view of the operator, and, if he touches 
 the wrong key, the matrix can be extracted and the right one in- 
 serted in its place. When the line is nearly full, a bell warns the 
 operator to look out for his syllable division. When the line is com- 
 pleted, a touch of a lever presses the space wedge together and auto- 
 matically " justifies" the line. A touch of another lever sends the 
 
6o6 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 completed line of matrices hurrying away to the molding wheel. 
 Connected with this wheel is a pot of type metal, kept in a molten 
 condition by a Bunsen burner underneath. When the line of ma- 
 trices is in position on one face of the wheel, a piston-like plunger 
 descends into the pot and forces a jet of molten type metal through 
 a slot in the wheel against the face of the matrices. The metal 
 solidifies into a solid type bar, along the edge of which stand out the 
 raised letters in the position for printing. A turn of the wheel, and 
 this type bar is loosened from the matrix, and automatically trimmed 
 to the exact shape and size required. Then it is delivered to a col- 
 lecting galley, from which it is taken to make up the form. As the 
 molding wheel completes its revolution,' an arm comes down from the 
 top of the machine, seizes the line of matrices and carries it to the top 
 of the machine, placing it on the distributing bar. One end of the 
 matrix is notched in a very peculiar way, each kind of character 
 having its distinguishing notch and one notch which is common to all, 
 The distributing bar has two sets of projections forming longitudinal 
 ridges on one side. One set engages the notches which are common 
 to all the matrices. The other set fits every one of the different sets, 
 107 in all. On this bar the line of matrices is strung and moved 
 ahead by a worm gear. Soon the line comes to a place in the bar 
 where there is a gap in the ridges. Fifteen or twenty of the matrices 
 may pay no attention to the gap, but then there will come one which 
 deliberately drops out of the procession at that point and goes scur- 
 rying down to its place in the magazine, ready for use when it is 
 needed. Soon others drop out, for there are 107 of those gaps, each 
 one of which is a trap for its own particular set of notches and which 
 will not stop any other set ; nor will it let the matrix having its set 
 of notches go past. If it tries to do so, the whole machine stops. 
 The distributing bar cannot make a mistake, and the worst it can do 
 is to stop when there is an error threatened. An operator is required 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 607 
 
 at the keyboard, and all the other work is performed automatically, 
 the power being furnished by any convenient motor. The machine 
 performs its work with a never-failing accuracy so human-like that it 
 seems almost uncanny. 
 
 Typesetting machines proper actually set type ready for use I 
 instead of setting matrices. Of these the "Empire Typesetting 
 Machine" is one of the best. This machine sets type of^any size, all 
 that is necessary being to have them "nicked." The machine is 
 simple ; the working parts are few in number, are easy of access, and 
 not likely to get out of order. During the entire operation of com- 
 position, justification and transferring the line to the galley, the face 
 of the type is in plain view of the operator, making it easy to correct 
 any errors due to striking the wrong key. It can be quickly adjusted 
 to set lines of any length. The type are held in a magazine at the 
 top of the machine, containing 84 channels, one for each separate 
 character. It has a keyboard of 84 characters, and when a key is 
 touched the corresponding type is released in the magazine and car- 
 ried downward to a point where they assemble into line, and drops 
 into the line-holder in the exact order in which the keys are pressed. 
 The line-holder moves forward each time like the carriage of a 
 typewriter, leaving space to receive another type. When a word is 
 completed the operator touches a space key and a thin wedge is 
 automatically inserted between the types. When the line-holder 
 is nearly filled, a bell rings notifying the operator to finish the line 
 properly. As soon as the line is set up the operator touches a line- 
 key which automatically brings an empty line-holder into position 
 and starts the automatic mechanism which justifies the other line and 
 transfers it to the galley, these operations requiring no attention 
 whatever on his part. 
 
 Typesetting machines have not proved as popular as was at first 
 anticipated. The Empire is fitted with the " McClintock Justifier," 
 
6o8 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and its speed is limited only by that of the operator at the key- 
 board, for the machine has a capacity of 10,000 ems an hour, while 
 the average day's work of a hand compositor is only from 5500 to 
 6500 ems per day. 
 
 After the type have been used they are carried to a separate ma- 
 chine which "distributes" or assorts the 
 different letters. In this machine a page 
 or block of type matter is placed on the 
 galley of the distributer, where it is au- 
 tomatically fed into the assorting mech- 
 anism one at a time, the machinery recog- 
 nizing the different characters, each by its 
 especial "nick" only i-ioo of an inch 
 deep, and distributing it to its proper com- 
 partment. The machine works at the rate 
 of 6000 ems an hour without requiring any 
 attention from the attendant except to see 
 that it is supplied with material. The type 
 when distributed fall into trays, which an 
 |9 attendant picks up without disturbing and 
 places in the magazine at the top of the 
 composing machine ready to be used again. 
 The Empire permits the setting by the compositor of the italics, 
 small caps, and peculiar sorts of type occasionally used, and the dis- 
 tributing machine receives these and, recognizing them as something 
 foreign, deposits them in a separate channel. 
 
 Stereotyping. Before the invention of stereotypes a book ap- 
 pearing in different editions must be reset for each edition or be kept 
 continually in type with all the attendant risks of error, damage to 
 the type face, and idleness of capital invested in type. About 1725 
 William Ged, a goldsmith of Edinburgh, invented the plaster process 
 
 THE EMPIRE TYPESETTER. 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 609 
 
 of stereotyping, and a company was formed in 1731 to exploit it. 
 Two prayer books were printed for the University of Cambridge, 
 but the contract was abandoned because of the crudeness of the 
 process and the hostility the workmen displayed toward the inno- 
 vation. 
 
 Ged brushed over the form, or body of the type, with oil, in- 
 closed the edges in a box-like frame and poured plaster of paris over 
 it, forming a mold corresponding with the face of the type. The 
 mold was next removed and baked in an oven until all the moisture 
 was driven out. It was then used as a mold for molten type metal, 
 the resulting casting having the same face as the body of type from 
 which the mold was made. This method was introduced into 
 America by David Bruce of New York in 1813, and the first work 
 stereotyped was the New Testament, issued in 1814. 
 
 The Clay Process next followed. In this, the body of type 
 is locked, the face brushed with benzine or naphtha and covered with 
 a cloth. A layer about one quarter of an inch thick, of ground clay and 
 plaster of paris, is then turned down over the type and an impression 
 taken. The press is then opened, the cloth removed and another 
 and more accurate impression taken. The mold is then removed 
 and hardened by drying and a casting representing the type face 
 secured by pouring the molten type metal into it. By placing the 
 plastic mold in a curved shell, curved plates adapted to the Hoe 
 press can be made. 
 
 The Papier-Mache Process, invented by Ganoux in 1829, has 
 supplanted all others and is the process adopted by all large daily 
 papers where cylinder presses are used. If the form is a flat one the 
 face of the type may be slightly oiled, or the face of the paper 
 powdered with French chalk and the plastic sheets of papier-mache 
 laid over the type, covered on the back with a linen cloth, and beaten 
 down with fine wire brushes until a matrix is formed exactly cor- 
 
6lO THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 responding to the face of the type. The matrix is then removed, 
 dried, and used as a mold. 
 
 Better and quicker work is done by machinery. A large sheet of 
 thick, unsized paper is covered with a layer of papier-mache paste, 
 over which sheets of tissue paper are laid and carefully rolled 
 smooth by a heavy iron roller. The prepared sheet is then run under 
 a press roll where it receives the impression of the type, is taken to a 
 drying press, held under pressure while it dries, then heated for a few 
 seconds in a hot oven to remove any lingering moisture. It is then 
 placed in a casting box shaped according to the shape of the plates to 
 be made. The box incloses the bottom and three sides. A plate is 
 placed over the face with a space intervening equal to the desired 
 thickness of the stereotype, and the metal poured in at the open 
 end. It is cooled rapidly, removed, and trimmed. By this process 
 curved stereotype plates, accurately fitting the cylinders of a Hoe 
 press, have been made in six minutes. 
 
 If the printing were done directly from the face of the type the 
 resulting wear and damage would be no small item ; moreover, after 
 being stereotyped, the type can be distributed and used again, sav- 
 ing the locking up of considerable capital in idle type. 
 
 TYPEWRITING MACHINES. 
 
 The last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the develop- 
 ment of the typewriter, a machine so unique that it has lightened 
 the labors of men in business, science, education, and theology. 
 11 Wherever thought is to be rapidly, legibly, conveniently, and 
 economically expressed the typewriter is supreme." 
 
 "In business circles its desirability is assured. Lawyers and 
 journalists cannot do without it. Professional and scientific men 
 realize its worth to them. The author and thinker finds it invaluable. 
 It conserves the most potent kind of energy that of the brain by 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 6ll 
 
 reducing to a minimum the mechanical labor of writing, and distrib- 
 uting it among all the fingers of both hands. Writer's cramp disap- 
 pears where it is used. It presents the printed appearance of the 
 work to the mind at once. It is justly called 'the right hand of 
 stenographers,' as they would be crippled without it. It has 
 vastly enhanced their professional opportunities and earnings. It 
 has demonstrated in the plainest way to a multitude of busy men of 
 affairs the value of stenographic labor. It lightens their work, 
 economizes their time, and thereby increases their ability to person- 
 ally attend to matters of greater importance. They no longer need 
 to give personal attention to every detail of their correspondence. 
 The transmission of intelligence by telegraph has been revolutionized 
 by its aid. Operators no longer fear 'pen paralysis,' andean per- 
 form more work with less fatigue, and at a greater speed than here- 
 tofore. 
 
 "To educators it offers one of the most valuable assistants in the 
 training of pupils that has yet been discovered. The development 
 of the art of expression is no longer hindered by the difficulty of 
 learning to write. By its aid, the learning of composition, spelling, 
 grammar, punctuation, etc., etc., is rendered easy, and the neat and 
 orderly appearance of the work has a reflex influence upon the pen 
 writing as well as the mental organization of the scholar. Its field 
 of usefulness is unlimited." 
 
 First Experiments. The first record of anything approaching 
 the typewriter is a patent granted to Henry Mills in 1714 for "An 
 Official Machine or Method for the Impressing or Transcribing Letters 
 Singly or Progressively one after another as in Writing" but the 
 machine was not perfected and only meager details have survived. 
 
 The first patent for an American typewriter was granted William 
 Austin Burt of Detroit in 1829, but Mr. Burt is better known as the 
 inventor of the solar compass, for his typewriter was not completed. 
 
6 12 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The Burt machine consisted essentially of a segment on which were 
 the letters of the alphabet. A Burt machine could write very slowly. 
 
 In 1833 a patent was granted to Xavier Progrin of Marseilles for 
 a typewriter with separate keys by which it was hoped to write 
 "almost as rapidly as one could work with an ordinary pencil." This 
 employed a circle of type bars striking downward to a common center. 
 It had no keyboard and the bars were moved by upright rods passing 
 up through the top plate. His machine was too slow to be of any 
 practical use. 
 
 The telegraph gave considerable impetus to researches along the 
 line of writing machines and in 1841 a patent was issued to Thomas 
 Wright and Alexander Bain for a device containing some of the 
 principles of the modern typewriter, but Bain did not attempt to 
 make the machine practical and devoted himself instead to the print- 
 ing telegraph with which his name is associated. Bain's machine 
 was operated by electro-magnets. 
 
 Thurber's Patent. The first practical typewriter was invented 
 by Charles Thurber of Worcester, Massachusetts, and patented in 
 1843. It was slow and crude but had all the essential characteristics 
 of the modern machine. He was the first to place the paper on a 
 roller and give it a longitudinal motion with provision for accurate 
 letter and word spacing. A horizontal wheel carried on its outer 
 edge rods to the lower end of which were affixed type and to the 
 upper end a finger key. The wheel was turned to bring the type 
 into place and in turning inked the type by drawing the type-face 
 over inked rollers. When the finger key was pressed it forced the 
 type on the lower end of the rod against the paper on the cylinder or 
 platen and printed. Thurber's machine was never manufactured and 
 a museum at Worcester contains the only model in existence. 
 
 The next marked development was the work of a blind man, 
 Pierre Foucalt, an instructor of the Paris Institute for the Blind. It 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 613 
 
 was patented in 1849 an d printed raised letters for the use of the 
 blind. It provided for line and letter spacing and the inventor tried 
 to adapt it to ordinary work by the use of carbon paper. It was ex- 
 hibited at the World's Fair in London in 1851, excited considerable 
 attention, and was awarded a gold medal, though it does not seem to 
 have been used to any considerable extent. 
 
 The late A. E. Beach of New York, an editor of the Scientific 
 American, was the inventor of a typewriting machine which con- 
 tained many good features, but was slow in its operation, although 
 in its practical working it ' closely resembles some of the modern 
 machines. The Beach machine printed only on strips of paper, not 
 on sheets. This machine received a gold medal at the Crystal 
 Palace Exhibition in 1856. 
 
 The Remington Machine. Several other machines now followed 
 in close order, but the most important work in the field was done by 
 C. Latham Sholes, a printer and 
 editor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 
 who had associated with him, 
 S. W. Soule, a farmer and invent- 
 or, and Carlos Glidden, a man of 
 some means. The first model 
 was completed in 1867 and about 
 25 machines were made one after 
 another as the result of the joint 
 efforts of all three men. The 
 
 machine wrote accurately and with considerable speed, but did not 
 wear well. Soule and Glidden became discouraged and dropped out, 
 and Sholes associated himself with James Densmore of Meadville, 
 Pennsylvania, who furnished the money for further experiments. 
 Several patents were issued and, encouraged by Densmore, Sholes 
 continued to work on the machines and make improvements, but was 
 
614 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 not able to enlist sufficient capital to have his machines made in 
 shops equipped for work requiring such accuracy, and they did 
 not work smoothly and broke down under strain of actual service. 
 In 1873 a contract was made with the famous gun makers, E. Rem- 
 ington and Sons of Ilion, N. Y., and the machine was called, not by 
 the name of the inventor, but by that of the manufacturer, Reming- 
 ton, who consented to undertake the financial venture in an untried 
 field. The unknown inventor could well afford to sink his identity, 
 for the name " Remington " was a guaranty of good workmanship 
 and good material. 
 
 The first Remington machines were placed on the market in 1874. 
 Compared with those of to-day they were rather crude affairs, being 
 able to print only capital letters at a rate of speed but little faster 
 than could be written by hand, but the idea was there and the inven- 
 tion per se was completed. The machine was exhibited at the Cen- 
 tennial in 1876 and attracted 
 considerable attention, but 
 until 1882 comparatively 
 few machines had been sold 
 and the business seemed 
 likely to result in a failure, 
 when it was reorganized and, 
 under the management of 
 Wyckoff, Seamans and Bene- 
 dict, the name " Remington" 
 became so familiar that for 
 years many people consid- 
 ered ''typewriter" and "Remington" synonymous terms. The 
 works at Ilion were enlarged until the factory was able to turn out 
 a complete machine every five minutes. The first machine printed 
 only capitals, but by the invention of Crandall and Brooks more than 
 
PHOTOGRAPHY AND PRINTING. 615 
 
 one letter was put on a type bar and the carriage operated by the 
 shift key gave a backward and forward motion. One company could 
 not long control such a profitable business and soon others were in 
 the field evading existing patents and making improvements, until 
 now a typewriting machine is a matter of personal choice to the 
 operator and any one of a dozen will give excellent service. Among 
 those best known and in order of their appearance are the Reming- 
 ton, Caligraph, Hammond, Crandall, Yost, Smith Premier, Barlock, 
 Densmore, Williams, Underwood, and Wellington. 
 
 Manifolding. Copying inks are now made for use in typewriter 
 ribbons and typewriter pads that enable its work to be copied in the 
 ordinary letter press. 
 
 Carbon paper is made by treating paper of a light spongy tex- 
 ture with oil in which coloring matter is mixed. If a sheet of carbon 
 is placed between two ordinary sheets of writing paper and the whole 
 put in a machine, the type, while making a direct impression upon 
 the first sheet, strikes upon the back of the carbon and produces an 
 exact copy on the second sheet, and by using thin paper and increas- 
 ing the number of layers several copies can be made at once. 
 
 Special typewriters for different kinds of work are now made. 
 The " Comptometer " and the " Numerograph " are a combination 
 of typewriter and calculating machine used in banks. They write 
 columns of figures and foot up the result in an instant without error. 
 Typewriters can be made that will write shorthand characters or for- 
 eign languages, and special attachments enable them to make out 
 bills and do tabulating, while one machine in the market can be used 
 to write on blank books. The speed of a first-class typewriting 
 machine is limited only by the ability of the operator, and many can 
 write more than 100 words a minute from memorized sentences. 
 About half a million typewriters are now in use in the United States 
 alone, and the annual exports of the machine now equal about 
 $2,000,000, and its familiar click is heard in every part of the world. 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 
 
 Improvements Cheapen the Cost of Food Ancient Reaping Machine Evolution of 
 the Modern Reaper Automatic Binder Plows Early Plows and Steam Plows 
 Methods of Thrashing Grain Flail Tread Power Steam Thrasher Expense of Old 
 and New Methods Harvesting What Labor-Saving Devices Have Made Possible 
 Dairy Machinery Grain Storage and Handling How the World is Fed Grain Eleva- 
 tors How Wheat is Sold Cotton and Cotton Manufacturing Kinds of Cotton Eli 
 Whitney's Cotton Gin What It Did for the Cotton Grower Textile Machinery 
 Distaff Spindle Spinning Wheel Inventors of Textile Machinery Combated by 
 Angry Operators First Cotton Mills in America Growth of the Cotton Industry. 
 
 H E improvement 
 * in machinery has 
 not been confined to 
 any one line, but all 
 trades, industries, and 
 
 occupations have alike felt its magic touch. 
 Agriculture is no exception, and the gap is a 
 wide one that separates Maud Miiller and her 
 
 hand rake from to-day's strong steel-fingered machine drawn by 
 horses. 
 
 Every improvement in agricultural machinery that has cheapened 
 the price of bread has been so far-reaching in its effects that no limit 
 can be set to its boundaries. Any reduction in the cost of food 
 means a shortening of the hours of toil, more money for clothing, and 
 more time to give to those things which make life worth living. An 
 increased demand for any article reacts upon all the allied industries 
 which supply the labor or raw materials that enter in any way into 
 the construction of that article. 
 
 If Richard Roe is compelled to use 50 per cent, of his labor for 
 food, and improvements in farm machinery cheapen the price of his 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 617 
 
 food 20 per cent., then he has 10 per cent, of the entire proceeds of 
 his labor which he can devote to the purchase of seeming luxuries. 
 Now Richard Roe represents a large class, and suppose with his sur- 
 plus he buys so prosaic an article as shoes. This means an increased 
 demand for leather, for more cattle, for the hay to feed them, for the 
 mowing machine with which to cut the hay, for skilled workmen to 
 manufacture the machines, for lumber, iron, and steel, for coal to 
 smelt the ore, and food and clothing for the whole industrial army 
 engaged. True, a reaper takes the place of several laborers in the 
 harvest field, but see what a chain of industrial forces it sets in 
 operation. 
 
 The policies of colonization adopted by the governments of Canada 
 and the United States rapidly brought into cultivation vast areas of 
 virgin soil particularly well adapted to labor-saving machinery and 
 offered a wonderful stimulus to invention. The widespread use of 
 steam power and increased manufactures in turn stimulated agricul- 
 tural production to supply raw materials, and seeders, harvesters, 
 self-binders, gang plows, steam thrashers, mowing machines, hay 
 rakes, and cultivators have taken many a back ache out of farm work 
 and rendered it possible for one man to perform the work which only 
 a generation ago required twenty. 
 
 The first reaping machine is that described by the elder Pliny, 
 23 A. D., who says, "In the vast dominions of the Province of 
 Gaul a large hollow frame, armed with comb-like teeth and supported 
 on two wheels, is driven through the standing grain, the beasts being 
 yoked behind it, the result being that the ears are torn off and fall 
 within the frame." One would not expect this rude contrivance to 
 survive, but the same device (header) only elaborated is found, at 
 work to-day in the western wheat fields of the United States, the 
 Dominion of Canada, and the plains of Australia. 
 
 The first reaping machine of modern times is that patented 
 
6i8 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 by Pitt of England in 1786, who attached combs to, a revolving 
 cylinder and geared the cylinder to the wheels on which the machine 
 rolled over the field, tearing off the heads of the grain as it was 
 driven through. Rev. Patrick Bell, of Scotland, in 1828-1829, 
 built a .reaping machine having a reel, but employing shears to 
 cut the grain. The reel has survived. Various improvements were 
 made in England from time to time, but the harvest fields of the 
 United States and Canada were yet full of the stumps of the virgin 
 forest. 
 
 Machines of Hussy and McCormick. The first practically 
 efficient reapers were those of Obed Hussy of Maryland and Cyrus 
 H. McCormick of Virginia which appeared in the early thirties. 
 Hussy's patent was obtained December 31, 1833, and embodied the 
 
 now familiar cutter 
 bar playing between 
 double guard fingers. 
 It was drawn by 
 horses hitched in 
 front, had a side cut 
 and a platform on 
 which the operator 
 stood who raked off 
 the grain. The Mc- 
 Cormick reaper, pat- 
 ented June 21, 1834, 
 had two cutter bars 
 working in opposite 
 directions to each other and was pushed ahead by the team, although, 
 in the description of its patent, McCormick said that one cutter 
 bar could be used, and the team attached at the front of the ma- 
 chine. Although not patented until 1834, McCormick's machine 
 
 McCoRMiCK's FIRST HARVESTER. 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 619 
 
 was successfully tried in 1831. It contained V-shaped knives ar- 
 ranged on a cutter bar moving back and forth through finger guards, 
 a platform on which the grain fell, a reel to hold the grain against 
 the knives while cutting, and a projecting hand or divider which ran 
 ahead and separated the grain to be cut from that left standing. A 
 workman walked behind the machine and with a hand rake drew off 
 the grain from the platform and made it into bundles. The team 
 was attached ahead of the machine and was guided by a boy riding 
 the " near" horse. McCormick's and Hussy's machines were practi- 
 cable and from the first were successful. They were greatly im- 
 proved, displayed at the World's Fair in London in 1851 and placed 
 in competition, although Mr. Hussy was not present. The judges 
 awarded the premium to the McCormick machine and declared that 
 it was worth to the people of England as much as the exposition had 
 cost. But at a subsequent trial that year before another jury, Mr. 
 Hussy was present, exhibited his machine and obtained the award 
 over that of McCormick, and at the close of the competition the 
 Prince of Wales ordered two of Hussy's machines. 
 
 Later Improvements. Various improvements followed thick and 
 fast. Hussy patented the open-finger guard now so generally used 
 on mowers and reapers. In 1851 W. H. Seymour substituted for 
 the heavy platform the now familiar one shaped like the quarter sec- 
 tion of a circle and added a self-raker. The single arm vibratory 
 rake appeared about 1855, invented by Samuel Johnson of Brock- 
 port, N. Y. Improvements in machinery for the working of iron 
 and steel made possible the lightening of weight and the consequent 
 cheapening and improvement of the reaper until the present machine 
 drawn by a pair of horses can easily cut and throw off into gavels to 
 be bound by the workmen from eight to twelve acres of grain per 
 day. 
 
 The Automatic Binder. The reaper took the place of four or 
 
620 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 five laborers armed with cradles, and the next demand was for a 
 binder that would do away with hand labor. John E. Heath of 
 Ohio, to whom a patent was granted July 22, 1854, for binding 
 sheaves with cord, is the pioneer in this line. Other patents were 
 soon issued to other inventors, for to tie a knot in a stretched string 
 was a hard problem. Wire was substituted for cord but its use 
 proved objectionable. It got into the grain when thrashed and mag- 
 nets were necessary at the flouring mills to separate the iron from 
 the wheat. Cattle were injured by swallowing pieces of wire while 
 eating the straw, and the inventors turned once more to the problem 
 of the stretched string. Jacob Behel solved it and obtained a patent 
 February 16, 1864, for a knotting apparatus that looped the cord 
 and formed a knot, while a cord-holder retained the end of the twine. 
 Several patents were issued and many applications for patents were 
 made, but it remained for Marquis L. Gorham of Illinois to take out, 
 February 9, 1875, a patent for a thoroughly successful automatic 
 twine binder, and John F. Appleby improved upon it February 18, 
 1879. 
 
 The automatic self-binding reaper will cut the grain, bind it, carry 
 the bundles, and deposit them in a heap ready for the workmen to 
 set up into shocks. To-day with one binder and fresh relays of 
 horses it can cut 20 acres of wheat in a day. 
 
 Although in the United States only 28 patents w^re granted on 
 reapers and mowers prior to 1835, more than 20,000 have been 
 granted since, for the reaping machine combines the contributions 
 of many ingenious minds. The reaper and mower are now highly 
 specialized machines, being adapted to the climate, the soil, the 
 extent of the fields, the crops, and with especial reference to whether 
 the harvest fields are found on the hillside or on the plain. 
 
 In 1840 there were only three reapers manufactured in the West- 
 ern Hemisphere. At the end of another decade 3000 had been 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 62 I 
 
 made and now about $20,000,000 worth are being made and sold an- 
 nually in the United States alone, and in 1900 there were exported 
 about $10,000,000 worth to aid in harvesting the crops of the wheat 
 fields of South America, Australia, Europe, Africa, in fact every 
 civilized country in the world where wheat is grown. Two establish- 
 ments in Chicago alone employ 10,000 men in the manufacture and 
 sale of their machines. Three million five hundred thousand Mc- 
 Cormick reapers and harvesters have been made and sold, an equiva- 
 lent to putting in the harvest field 15,000,000 workers who were not 
 consumers and whose sole task was to harvest the crop and help lower 
 the price of bread. 
 
 Tribute to McCormick. In 1878 the French Academy of 
 Sciences bestowed a medal on Cyrus H. McCormick and elected 
 him a member of that famous body in recognition of his " having 
 done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man." 
 
 Plows used as implements for breaking up the soil were known 
 at a very early age. Certain passages of the Old Testament show 
 that at that time the shares were shod with some kind of metal, and 
 plows of some variety mounted on wheels were used by the early 
 Greeks. The modern plow with its curved moldboard to turn over 
 the soil was invented and used in Holland some time during the 
 seventeenth century, and the first steam plow appeared in England 
 in 1832. 
 
 Steam Plow. The extent to which steam power is now em- 
 ployed for the purpose of the farm is another marked feature in 
 the recent progress of agriculture. On next page is shown the 
 picture of a modern steam plow at work. This cut does not do the 
 engine justice for, under favorable conditions, it can draw 2 5 'plows 
 at a rate of three miles per hour, plowing the soil much deeper than 
 is ordinarily done by means of horses. Let us see what it costs a 
 day to run this great labor-saving machine : 
 
622 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 One engineer $3-5 
 
 Fireman 2.50 
 
 Man to drive water wagon i .50 
 
 Two horses and wagon 1 .00 
 
 Feed for horses 50 
 
 Sharpening plows 2.00 
 
 Oil for engine 25 
 
 One and one half tons soft coal 8.50 
 
 Total cash outlay $19-75 
 
 The foregoing estimate is for work on the Pacific coast, where 
 wages are high and coal expensive. The cost would be less in these 
 respects in the middle West. 
 
 BEST'S TRACTIQN ENGINE. It will do the work of 100 horses. 
 
 When we consider that it costs the Eastern farmer from two to 
 three dollars per acre to do with horses what this engine will do for 
 from 25 to 30 cents, we can understand some of the difficulties he 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 623 
 
 has in competing with the rich grain growing fields of the West. 
 Furthermore, the engine will do the work of one hundred horses and 
 when not at work isn't "eating its head off." But plowing is not 
 the only thing it will do. Equipped with harrows, it will harrow 
 from 100 to 125 acres per day; or attached to a steam harvester will 
 cufi thrash, clean, and put in sacks, ready for market, 1000 sacks of 
 grain per day at a cost of less than 50 cents per acre. By an ingenious 
 contrivance, the machine is made to use as fuel the straw from the 
 grain it thrashes. The small farmer who at thrashing time hires 
 a comparatively large force of men or "changes work" with his 
 neighbor, pays more than this for the use of the thrashing machine 
 alone. 
 
 Thrashing Machines. The earliest method of separating grain 
 from the straw was probably that of treading it under the feet of 
 horses and cattle. The familiar injunction, " Thou shalt not muzzle 
 the ox when he treadeth out the corn," certainly proves the method 
 to have been a very ancient one. Two men and four horses, under 
 the most favorable conditions, can thrash 50 or perhaps 100 bushels 
 per day. Another primitive method, that of beating out the grain 
 with the "flail," is even now used where only small quantities of 
 grain are to be thrashed. 
 
 The flail is an implement consisting of a great staff about 5 feet 
 long having at one end a "swingle" which is shorter, thicker, and 
 heavier than the staff. The staff is made of some light, strong wood, 
 and the swingle of some tough heavy wood, preferably hickory or 
 oak. A bow and a looped thong of some tough leather, such as eel- 
 skin, connects the two. The sheaves of wheat to be thrashed are 
 laid on the floor with heads overlapping and a workman with the 
 flail beats out the grain. It then has to be run through a fanning 
 mill to separate the chaff. Ten bushels of wheat being a fair day's 
 work for a man with a flail, if the crop were of any great size it 
 
624 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 might easily take the greater part of the winter for the owner to 
 thrash it. 
 
 Both these methods could be carried on only in clear dry weather, 
 and dampness and rain put an end to thrashing, for the grain be- 
 came so tough it could not be shelled. It was impossible for the 
 farmer to thrash out his grain in time to carry it to market while the 
 roads were good, or to take advantage of early prices, and these 
 methods continued in vogue until a comparatively recent time, for the 
 thrashing machine is practically the product of the last half century. 
 
 Many demands were made for improvement upon the flail, and in 
 1786 a Scotchman, Andrew Meikle, invented a thrashing machine 
 which consisted of a revolving drum about which were several rollers. 
 Taking a lesson from the dressing of flax, he attached " scutches" to 
 the drum and beat out the grain, throwing grain, chaff, and straw in 
 a heap together, but he afterward added a winnower and had a fairly 
 efficient machine capable of being turned by horse power or steam 
 power, but the machine cost ,150 easily, equal in purchasing power 
 to $2250 to-day. 
 
 So long as the comparatively small farms of Eastern United 
 States and Canada did not produce much more grain than was re- 
 quired for home consumption the primitive methods sufficed. Not 
 so when the great wheat fields of the West were opened up to culti- 
 vation ; then a cylinder armed with spiked teeth, revolving within 
 a section of a drum fitted with similar spikes, was invented. Horses 
 attached to long sweeps furnished the motive power. The sheaves 
 were unbound and fed in head first, and the grain, chaff, and straw 
 came out together and were separated by hand, but shaking screens 
 were added which separated the straw and part of the chaff from the 
 grain, and fanning mills or winnowers soon followed, by which the 
 grain was entirely separated from the chaff and seed of the weeds 
 that usually accompanied it. 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 625 
 
 The Tread Power machine next appeared. This differed from 
 the other in having a strong endless belt covered with transverse 
 slats and supported at each edge in a strong inclined frame. When 
 a horse was placed upon this inclined belt his weight caused it to 
 slide downward, and his instinctive efforts to move forward kept it 
 continually in motion and supplied the power that moved the ma- 
 chinery. But the first machines were not satisfactory, for if the 
 grain were not fed in steadily the motion ran so high that the horse 
 could not keep up and he was thrown back and frequently injured. A 
 heavy balance wheel and brake were added and overcame the diffi- 
 culty. This machine was an improvement over the flail but was not 
 equal to the demand of the times, and soon machines of greater 
 capacity driven by from eight to twelve horses attached to long 
 sweeps and moving in a circle were used. But even these could not 
 keep pace with the demand and the steam engine was brought into 
 requisition. 
 
 The essential parts of the thrashing machine of to-day are a 
 large hollow iron cylinder, the outer surface of which is armed with 
 strong curved light iron teeth which fit into similar projections in the 
 "concave," which is also armed with teeth. The bundles of grain are 
 fed into the space between the concave and the cylinder, where it is 
 shelled by the teeth, the straw passing out on to long fingers, which 
 toss it about and shake the grain out. An air blast from a revolving 
 fan blows out the chaff, and the clean grain flows in a steady stream 
 from one side of the machine. The straw is carried through to the rear 
 end of the machine and there discharged or taken by a straw-carrier, a 
 belt with transverse slats, up an inclined plane and thrown out upon 
 a stack. One of the latest devices in agricultural machinery substi- 
 tutes in place of the straw-carrier a long jointed tube 16 or 18 inches 
 in diameter, mounted at the rear of the cylinder. Through this the 
 straw is forced by compressed air furnished by the machine. One 
 
626 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 man standing on top of the separator near the rear end can raise or 
 lower the tube, turn it to the right or left, and deliver the straw to 
 any desired point on the stack ; in fact, no men at all are required 
 to stack the straw. 
 
 Harvesting Then and Now. If we look into the cost of the 
 early methods of harvesting, we find that one hundred years ago 
 grain was cut, as it had been for thousands of years, with the sickle, 
 and the cradle was just coming into use. Furthermore, the sickle as 
 then used was not materially different from that of the days of Boaz 
 and Ruth. Years ago Henry Ward Beecher said, " Fifty years ago 
 there was more back ache in harvesting one acre of wheat than there 
 is to-day in harvesting fifty acres." If this were true in Beecher's 
 time, how much more true is it now that steam has come to lighten 
 the labors of the husbandman ! The man with the sickle could cut 
 an acre of wheat in a day ; the man with the cradle could cut two 
 acres per day; with a reaper, 10 acres per day; with a header, 25 
 acres per day ; and with the steam harvester, 60 to 70 acres per day. 
 Small wonder that in the days of the sickle many a laboring man's 
 family had but a distant acquaintance with white bread. To such, 
 every advance in agricultural machinery has made possible more and 
 better food for the same amount of labor. 
 
 The cost of the different methods of harvesting estimated by an 
 English authority is as follows: 
 
 Done with a sickle. 
 
 Five sickle men at 6oc $3.00 
 
 Two assistants at 4oc 80 
 
 Wastage from weather, etc 1.15 
 
 Cost per acre, $4-95 
 
 Done with a cradle. 
 
 One cradler $1.20 
 
 One assistant 75 
 
 Wastage from weather, etc 65 
 
 Cost per acre, $2.60 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 627 
 
 Done with a binder. 
 
 Two horses $0.30 
 
 One driver 20 
 
 One machine 10 
 
 Twine 25 
 
 Wastage from weather, etc 40 
 
 Cost per acre, $1-25 
 
 By steam harvester, " " " .50 
 
 From this we see that the cradle gained over the sickle $2.35 per 
 acre; the binder over the cradle $1.35 per acre; the steam harvester 
 over the binder 75 cents per acre, and over the primitive method of 
 the sickle, $4.45 per acre; and every time the cost of production 
 has been reduced it has put more bread into the mouths of the 
 hungry. 
 
 Labor-saving devices have made it possible to plow the ground, 
 plant the crop, harvest, and deliver the grain at the elevator for less 
 than the cost of harvesting alone fifty years ago. In the wheat fields 
 of the Middle West and Northwest, the work is chiefly performed 
 by horse power, still the value of machinery used there is enormous. 
 At Fargo, North Dakota, alone, $3,000,000 worth is sold every year 
 for use in the wheat fields of the Red River valley. Many farms in 
 that region range from 5000 to 10,000 acres, or even larger, and in 
 working them man labor is reduced to a minimum. The plowing is 
 done with gang plows and the cost is seldom over 65 cents an acre. 
 One man, with a 25-foot harrow, drawn by six horses, can harrow 50 
 acres a day. Four horses pulling a 12-foot drill can cover 25 miles 
 in a day, thus planting over 37 acres. Wheat growers of that 
 region figure that after the ground is plowed it will cost them from 
 70 cents to 95 cents per acre to get in the crop. Under ordinary 
 conditions it can be harvested for 45 cents an acre and made ready 
 for the thrashing machine. Then one thrashing machine with thirty 
 men can thrash and deliver at an elevator within a reasonable dis- 
 tance at least 2500 bushels a day. 
 
628 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Less than fifty years ago this grain would have been thrashed by 
 pounding it out by hand with a flail or treading it out under the feet 
 of horses. Under average conditions it now costs the wheat farmer 
 $1.60 per acre to thrash the grain and store it in the elevator. 
 
 Under the best methods prevailing in that region to-day, the 
 entire labor cost is about $3.65 per acre, and for twenty years the 
 average on the largest farms of that district has been $5.70 per acre. 
 
 Profit and Loss. Now let us calculate the margin of profit for 
 the Red River farmers : To be added to the average labor cost are 
 all unavoidable expenses connected therewith, such as repairs, taxes, 
 cost of seed wheat, interest on capital invested in land and machinery. 
 This makes an additional operating expense of $2.85 per acre. Then, 
 under the best conditions likely to prevail, it will cost the Red River 
 farmer $8.55 per acre, per year. For the past ten years, his wheat 
 has brought him on an average 55 cents per bushel and the average 
 yield of his field has been 19 bushels per acre, making his gross in- 
 come $10.45 P er acre. Deducting from this the $8.55 total operat- 
 ing expense, he is left a margin of only $1.90 per acre. It is only 
 by using improved machinery and conducting the business on a large 
 scale and according to the best methods, that this margin can leave a 
 living profit. It is because these growers produce such enormous 
 quantities that they have such a definite influence in fixing the price 
 of grain. If the small producer finds the margin narrow for him, 
 he may console himself with the thought that those who need it are 
 getting better bread and more of it than they could if the grain were 
 produced at a price highly profitable to him. He will improve his 
 own business prospects by devoting his energies to those lines of 
 farming in which intelligent hand labor plays a large part, avoiding 
 those in which the operations are so large as to profitably employ a 
 large acreage and expensive machinery, and above all will make the 
 most of the peculiarities of his soil and climate and his proximity to 
 large markets. 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 
 
 629 
 
 Dairy Machinery. It is said that the first cheese factory in the 
 United States was that built by Jesse Williams of Oneida county, 
 New York, in 1860. The astonishing growth of the industry is well 
 shown by the report of the Department of Agriculture for 1900, 
 which states that from the milk of 1,000,000 cows, 300,000,000 
 pounds of cheese were made, having a value of $27,000,000 not a 
 bad showing for an industry only forty years old. It is estimated 
 that there are 17,500,000 milch cows in the United States, and the 
 annual value of .the dairy products aggregates $500,000,000. The 
 value of the butter alone is $257,400,000. 
 
 It is needless to say that the 
 primitive method of butter- 
 making carried on in the house- 
 hold where the tin pan, the 
 skimmer, and the dash churn 
 were employed could never 
 produce such results, and ma- 
 chinery has revolutionized the 
 dairy industry. In new milk 
 the butter fats, cheese fats, etc., 
 are in the form of minute glob- 
 ules floating in the watery por- 
 tion of the milk. In the old 
 method of butter-making the 
 milk was placed in pans and the 
 fats, being lighter, rose to the 
 top and, collecting there, formed 
 the "cream." This was skimmed 
 
 off, put in the churn and there 
 
 CENTRIFUGAL MILK SKIMMER. 
 
 stirred or beaten until the but- 
 ter fat globules cohered and gathered in a rich yellow mass. All 
 
630 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 this consumed much time and required labor not many steps removed 
 from drudgery. In the preceding illustration is shown a centrif- 
 ugal milk skimmer made by the De Laval Separator Company. 
 Through the lower pipe steam is admitted to a steam turbine in the 
 base of the machine. The milk, freshly drawn from the cows, is 
 turned into a vat and fed int'o the upper part of the machine. A 
 shaft attached to the turbine at the base of the machine runs into 
 the upper part and terminates in a pan. The milk enters the pan 
 and is rapidly whirled about. The cream with its lighter specific 
 gravity goes to the center and comes out through the upper spout ; 
 the heavier milk goes to the outside and issues through the lower 
 spout. The whole operation requires but a minute or two, does 
 away with much work and makes available the fresh skim milk 
 much better food for calves or pigs than the sour milk of the old 
 process. By the old methods the butter was made in different house- 
 holds and varied in quality according to the skill and neatness of the 
 housewife. Now " butter factories " stationed at convenient points 
 receive the milk from numerous dairies and convert it into butter of 
 a uniform grade and standard quality that meets with a ready sale 
 so ready, in fact, that the entire product is often sold in advance of 
 its manufacture and at a price relatively 25 per cent, or 50 per cent, 
 higher than could be obtained fifty years ago. 
 
 Although numerous patents have been issued for "cow milkers," 
 no manufactured article has yet been produced that could compete 
 with the natural process, and it requires the year around the constant 
 time and entire services of 200,000 able-bodied men to milk the 
 17,500,000 milch cows of the United States. 
 
 GRAIN STORAGE AND HANDLING. 
 
 The problem of feeding the world has only just begun when the 
 wheat has been grown. In a few weeks time the grain is harvested 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 63 1 
 
 and sold, but after it leaves the place of its birth in the Northwest it 
 takes such a trip as few of its producers realize, and undergoes some 
 very peculiar experiences. 
 
 After harvest and until winter sets in, all the railroads reaching 
 the wheat country are busy in carrying the crop to the nearest 
 market ; running extra trains, borrowing extra cars, and straining 
 every capacity to the utmost to take care of the crop. Its outrush 
 from the place of its production is rapid but its consumption is con- 
 tinuous and necessitates storing until needed. In the interim specu- 
 lators are busy with the market but many brokers never see a grain 
 of the wheat. For example, a train load of wheat of a certain quality 
 may be received at Montreal and stored in a great elevator, full de- 
 tails telegraphed to New York and certificates issued to the owners. 
 In an elevator in New York is wheat of a similar quality, perhaps 
 two or three years old. The owner of the Montreal wheat can take 
 advantage of sudden turns in the market by simply presenting his 
 storage certificates at the storehouse in New York, which will issue 
 him a certificate for an equal amount of New York wheat less the 
 necessary charge to cover the cost of storehousing and transporta- 
 tion, and he can sell his New York wheat as though it were the 
 identical wheat stored in Montreal. By this method the transporta- 
 tion of wheat becomes practically instantaneous. All the great 
 elevator systems are organized as thoroughly as the banks, and the 
 transfer of wheat between them adjusts itself in such a manner as to 
 keep the balances even. 
 
 Organization Reduces Price. Wheat constantly flows eastward, 
 but the warehouse system prevents unnecessary handling, for it is 
 cheaper to carry a receipt across the country than a million bushels 
 of grain. This simplifying of the transportation really is a saving to 
 the consumer, much as we hear the broker's profits deplored. Of 
 course, the grain is moved, but it makes only one trip to its ultimate 
 
632 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 destination, instead of changing hands and places at every transac- 
 tion. It is the same as the international credit system. Time was 
 when a New York merchant buying goods in London had to send a 
 man and the coin across the ocean. The ship might be wrecked, the 
 money lost, or the agent be dishonest, and in any event valuable time 
 was lost. A system of international credit sprung into being. The 
 American merchant put his money into an American bank, and the 
 English merchant put his in an English bank. The two orders were 
 sent by cable. The goods at once started for their destination and 
 as soon as they were started each merchant could go to the bank 
 and get his money, the whole operation consuming minutes where it 
 had required weeks. The banks simply exchanged the balance of 
 cash that was due either one way or the other. 
 
 Although fortunes may be made or lost by the brokers, the wheat 
 is really brought to the consumer at a less cost than would be possi- 
 ble if the old plan of direct exchange of money for goods were to be 
 followed, for this would require a vastly greater number of transpor- 
 tation systems, and the extra cost would have to be borne by the 
 producer and the consumer. The middleman's commissions would 
 increase at every turn, while the farmer would get less and the con- 
 sumer pay more to make up for the cost of the unnecessary trans- 
 portation. 
 
 Grain elevators are enormous buildings economically constructed 
 for the reception, handling, and storage of grain. They are chiefly 
 located at the ports of the Great Lakes and on the Atlantic seaboard. 
 The old method of handling grain consisted of shoveling into bags 
 the grain in the holds of ships, men carrying the bags on their backs 
 and emptying them in a warehouse, the operation requiring several 
 days. Such crude methods could not long survive, and now ma- 
 chinery will do in an hour what men could not do in a week. 
 
 The Silo plan is the latest for grain elevators. The building is 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 633 
 
 made high and the body filled with deep six-sided bins (like a honey- 
 comb) leaving no waste space. Each bin has a slanting bottom and 
 a valve at its lowest point through which it can be discharged through 
 a spout emptying into a waiting ship or car. Beneath the bins are 
 cellars, in which are the engines and part of the conveying machinery. 
 Above the bins is the machinery room, having in the floor openings 
 through which wheat is discharged into the bins. Elevators carry the 
 grain up to this floor and conveyers take it to the proper opening and 
 discharge it into the bin. When a vessel loaded with grain is brought 
 alongside this monster building, ''legs" having within them an ele- 
 vator are lowered through the hatchway and thousands of tons of 
 grain are moved in a short time. These elevators carry the grain to 
 a tower, where it is cleaned, weighed, sampled, and its quality deter- 
 mined. It is then discharged on to a conveyer which takes it to the 
 mouth of the bin prepared for it. 
 
 The conveyer is a broad belt, perhaps 18 inches in width, running 
 horizontally and passing at one end over a pulley which applies the 
 power and at the other end over another pulley which keeps a tension 
 on the belt so great that it will not sag. The belt passes over nu- 
 merous rollers, so arranged as to cause it to "trough" and prevent the 
 grain from spilling over at the side. Such a conveyer can only move 
 the grain horizontally. A belt, such as described, running at a speed 
 of 8 feet a second will move 70 tons of grain in an hour. Elevator 
 belts to carry the grain upward are fitted with numerous buckets. 
 At the lower end they pass over a bottom pulley and, as they turn 
 right side up, fill themselves with grain. At the upper end of the 
 journey they pass over a top pulley and are turned upside down, the 
 speed with which they turn throwing out the grain into a receptacle 
 provided for it. The belt and bucket elevator can move about 150 
 tons an hour. 
 
 Pneumatic elevators can be made of almost any desired capac- 
 
634 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ity. They are long, flexible, steel tubes made up of numerous 
 joints of tapering tubing and covered by a coat of rubber to render 
 them air tight. A rubber tube would not answer, for the air within 
 the elevator is exhausted until the outside atmospheric pressure ex- 
 ceeds that within by 5 pounds per square inch, enough to collapse a 
 rubber tube, while the friction of the moving particles of grain 
 would soon wear out the rubber. Within the lower end of the tube 
 is a sleeve with a space of about I j inches between it and the tube 
 proper. The sleeve extends back about two feet from the nozzle. 
 The nozzle is plunged into a mass of wheat, the air inside the tube 
 is exhausted, and the inrushing air as it passes around the nozzle 
 picks up the grains of wheat that lie in the way and carries them into 
 the tube, and the current is so strong that the grain hurries along out 
 of the hold of the ship over the side of the vessel into the ware- 
 house, and falls into a great receiver, the bottom of which is made 
 into two boxes so arranged that when one is full it turns over and 
 presents an empty one to be filled and does not allow any air to enter 
 the receiver. In turning, each full box deposits its load in the bin 
 of the weighing machine. A tube leads out of the top of the 
 elevator to an engine which exhausts the air and maintains a vacuum 
 within the elevator, 5 pounds below atmospheric pressure. This 
 system requires more power to operate it than the belt and bucket 
 plan, but handles the grain much faster, takes up less room and re- 
 quires the services of fewer men ; one man at the nozzle being all 
 required in the hold of the vessel. 
 
 The New Way. A little more than a generation ago if a Lon- 
 don merchant wanted wheat, he sent his ship to the Black Sea for it 
 and congratulated himself if the round trip was made in five months 
 and a cargo of 300 tons delivered. To-day he can send his order by 
 cable and within a week a ship can put down at his warehouse a 
 cargo of 14,000 tons of American wheat. 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 635 
 
 The wheat crop of the world for 1899 was 2,725,407,000 bushels, 
 of which the United States produced 20 per cent. ; Russia, 17 per 
 cent.; British India, 8 per cent.; France, 13 per cent.; Hungary, 
 5 per cent. ; Argentina, 3 per cent. ; and Canada, 2 per cent. Dur- 
 ing the year 1900 the United States exported barley, corn, oats, rye, 
 and wheat, ground and unground, amounting to $250,786,080, an 
 amount greater than the whole population of the country could 
 produce in months without the aid of machinery. 
 
 COTTON AND COTTON MANUFACTURING. 
 
 Cotton is the soft downy fiber clinging to the seeds of several 
 species of plants of the Mallow family. It is a tropical plant but 
 thrives best under cultivation in a temperate climate. In the United 
 States, two species are grown. 
 
 Sea-island, long-staple, or black-seeded cotton, as it is variously 
 called, thrives best in a salt atmosphere and is produced chiefly along 
 the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and in Egypt. The 
 blossom is of a rich cream color. The fiber is long and silky and 
 commands a good price. 
 
 Upland, short staple, or green-seeded cotton, is the kind most 
 widely grown. The flower is a pure white, but turns on the second 
 day to red. These varieties of cotton are annual plants and require 
 for their successful culture, a climate free from frost for six months, 
 with moderate rain during the growing season and dry sunny weather 
 when the plant is coming to maturity. The flowers produce " bolls" 
 containing numerous seeds with the lint or fiber adherent. The fiber 
 contained in a boll weighs about half as much as the seed. The yield 
 in the Southern states ranges from one fourth of a bale of 500 pounds 
 to two bales per acre. If the seed is returned to enrich the soil and 
 nothing but the lint removed and sold, cotton is the least exhaustive 
 of any crop that is extensively cultivated in the United States. 
 
636 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 There are other varieties of cotton that are perennials of a larger 
 growth, as tree cotton, but these produce only an inferior fiber and 
 are not of much importance. 
 
 The United States produces rather more than 80 per cent, of the 
 cotton of the world. Cotton sold in the United States for 33 cents 
 a pound when Whitney invented the cotton gin (1793). The lowest 
 price in one hundred years was that of 1845, when it sold in New 
 York for five cents per pound. In 1828 sea-island cotton brought 
 $2 a pound, and in 1864 short staple cotton touched $1.89, due to 
 the cotton famine caused by the Civil War. Improved methods of 
 cultivation and the use of commercial fertilizers have greatly improved 
 the staple and increased the production, while the by-products 
 from the seed have helped to pay the cost of growing the crop. All 
 these influences have tended to depress the price. The United 
 States crop of 1899 was the largest known, reaching 11,274,840 bales 
 of about 500 pounds each. The raw cotton exported for the year 
 ending December, 1900, was valued at $314,252,080, being the most 
 important export of the United States, not a bad showing for the 
 industry when we learn that in 1784 eight bags of cotton were seized 
 by the officials at Liverpool on the ground of fraudulent declaration 
 of origin, because it was certain that so much cotton could never 
 have come from America. 
 
 The Cotton Gin. It does not often fall to the lot of one person 
 to render mankind two such signal services as did Eli Whitney when 
 he introduced the modern system of interchangeability of machine 
 parts and invented the cotton gin. A character whose inventions 
 have had such widespread influence may merit a short sketch. 
 
 Eli Whitney was born Decembers, 1765, at Westborough, Mass., 
 and at an early age displayed mechanical genius of a high order. 
 Feeling the need of a liberal education he entered Yale College in 
 the face of many obstacles, in 1789, and completed his college course 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 
 
 637 
 
 in 1/92. In the autumn of that year he, as he supposed, was en- 
 gaged as a teacher in a Georgia family, but on arriving at Savannah 
 he found another teacher had been secured, and accepted the hospi- 
 table offer of Mrs. Greene, the widow of General Nathaniel Greene, to 
 make her house his temporary home. His mechanical skill found 
 
 
 
 employment in making toys for the 
 children and some embroidery frames 
 for Mrs. Greene. Soon after his 
 arrival a party of distinguished gen- 
 tlemen from the upland region came 
 to visit Mrs. Greene and were la- 
 menting the lack of some economical 
 method of separating the lint from 
 the seed of the upland cotton. Re- 
 moving the seed from one pound of 
 cotton fiber was a day's work for one 
 woman and until a cheaper method 
 could be found cotton could not be 
 profitably raised in the upland re- 
 gions. Mrs. Greene declared she 
 
 knew the man who could produce the desired machine and introduced 
 Mr. Whitney to the gentlemen. Although he modestly disclaimed 
 any belief in his ability to solve the problem, he was nevertheless so 
 much interested that he obtained some cotton in the seed and began 
 a series of experiments, although much handicapped for lack of 
 proper materials and tools. Success crowned his efforts. 
 
 Whitney's Application for Patent. Writing November 24, 1793, 
 to Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, and making application for 
 a patent, he says: 
 
 " Within about ten days after my first conception of the plan, I 
 made a small, though imperfect, model. Experiments with this 
 
 ELI WHITNEY. 
 
638 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 encouraged me to make one on a larger scale, but the extreme diffi- 
 culty of procuring workmen and proper materials in Georgia pre- 
 vented my completing the larger one until some time in April last. 
 This, though much larger than my first attempt, is not above one 
 third as large as the machines may be made with convenience. The 
 cylinder is only two feet two inches in length, and six inches in 
 diameter. It is turned by hand, and requires the strength of one man 
 to keep it in constant motion. 
 
 1 ' The main features consist of a cylinder, generally about four 
 feet long and five inches in diameter, upon which is set a series of 
 
 circular saws, about half an inch 
 apart, and projecting about two 
 inches above the surface of the re- 
 volving cylinder. A mass of cotton 
 in the seed, separated from the cyl- 
 inder by steel bars of grating, is 
 brought into contact with the numer- 
 ous teeth on the cylinder. These 
 teeth catch the cotton while playing 
 between the bars, which allow the 
 lint but not the seed to pass. Under- 
 neath the saws is a set of stiff brushes on another cylinder revolving 
 in the opposite direction, which brush from the saw teeth the lint 
 which they have just pulled from the seed. The remaining feature 
 is a revolving fan for producing a current of air to throw the light 
 and downy lint thus liberated to a convenient distance from the re- 
 volving saws and brushes." 
 
 Whitney's Struggles. Phineas Miller, who afterward married 
 Mrs. Greene, took a great interest in Whitney's machine and formed 
 a co-partnership with him. Whitney went back to Connecticut to 
 establish a shop for the manufacture of the machines and obtain 'a 
 
 WHITNEY'S FIRST COTTON GIN. 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 639 
 
 patent, but rumors of his wonderful invention had spread until the 
 greatest excitement prevailed, and one night the building in which 
 the model was kept was broken open, the machine stolen, and, before 
 Whitney could obtain his patent, machines with slight changes from 
 the original were in widespread operation. A patent was issued to 
 him in 1794 and suits for infringements were at once begun, but it 
 was almost impossible to find a jury in the cotton region that would 
 render him a verdict in accordance with the facts, and it was only 
 after many years of expensive litigation that Whitney could obtain 
 anything like justice. The United States Court of Georgia, Decem- 
 ber, 1807, rendered a decision in his favor and the judge said: 
 
 "With regard to the utility of this discovery, the Court would 
 deem it a waste of time to dwell long upon this topic. Is there a 
 man who hears us who has 
 not experienced its util- 
 ity? The whole interior 
 of the Southern states 
 was languishing, and its 
 inhabitants emigrating for 
 want of some object to 
 engage their attention and 
 employ their industry, 
 when the invention of 
 
 this machine at once 
 
 A MODERN COTTON GIN. 
 opened views to them, 
 
 which set the whole country in active motion. From childhood to 
 age it has presented to us a lucrative employment. Individuals who 
 were depressed with poverty and sunk in idleness have suddenly risen 
 to wealth and respectability. Our debts have been paid off. Our 
 capitals have increased, and our lands trebled themselves in value. 
 We cannot express the weight of the obligation which the country 
 owes to this invention. The extent of it cannot now be seen." 
 
640 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 By the time Whitney had secured favorable decisions his patent 
 had nearly expired, and an application made for renewal in 1812 was 
 refused. South Carolina voted to buy the patent right for that state 
 for $50,000. North Carolina laid a tax for five years on cotton gins 
 working within its borders and turned the proceeds over to Whitney 
 after deducting the expense of collection. Tennessee passed an act 
 taxing cotton gins but soon repealed it. The cotton gin brought 
 Whitney fame but little fortune, for the money received was swal- 
 lowed up in defending his patent. He would have been better off 
 financially had he never invented it but devoted his attention to 
 those other mechanical pursuits where he afterward exhibited such 
 great talent. 
 
 The cotton crop of the United States for 1899 amounted to u,- 
 274,840 bales, or about 5,637,420,000 pounds. The seeds were all 
 separated from this by the cotton gin. Had the hand labor method 
 been employed it would have required the services of more than 18,- 
 000,000 slave women for 300 working days. A single cotton gin 
 performs the work of thousands of pairs of hands. Does the world 
 owe anything to an inventor who has made possible so great an in- 
 dustry? 
 
 Textile Machinery. The person who invented the process of 
 spinning cotton lived so long ago that his name is not recorded in 
 history. Egyptian mummies were wrapped in cloths of the finest 
 linen, though cotton was sometimes employed and was also used for 
 the garments of the priests. The natives of Africa, Asia, and 
 America had mastered the art of making cloth from the fibers of 
 cotton long before the Europeans knew that such a plant as cotton 
 existed. 
 
 The distaff and spindle were the instruments used for spinning 
 for centuries. The spindle was at first simply a stick with one end 
 split and the other end held in the hand. A few fibers were twisted 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 641 
 
 a cord with the fingers and the end of the cord inserted in the 
 cleft. The distaff was another stick about which the raw material 
 was wrapped. That portion of the fiber between the distaff and 
 spindle was twisted and then wound upon the spindle, a new portion 
 of untwisted fiber unwound from the distaff, and the operation re- 
 peated. Although the distaff and spindle were replaced by the spin- 
 ning wheel during the reign of Henry VIII. of England, yet they 
 were in use in northern Scotland as late as 1817. 
 
 The spinning wheel consisted of a horizontal spindle made to re- 
 volve rapidly by a band from the large wheel turned by the hand or 
 foot. It is perhaps of Hindoo origin. In the spinning wheel the end 
 of the cord was fastened to the base of the spindle and the " roving" 
 (untwisted fiber) held at such an angle that it 'would wind about the 
 spindle in spirals out to the end, where it was held while a few turns 
 were given to the hand wheel which revolved the spindle and twisted 
 the thread. The wheel was then stopped, turned back a little, the 
 long spirals unwound, and the finished thread wound on the base of 
 the spindle, the last few inches of it running out in spirals again to the 
 end of the spindle, where the operation was repeated. Such was the 
 spinning wheel of our great-grandmothers and the highest develop- 
 ment of the hand power machine, requiring the constant attention of 
 one person to spin one thread. And so rapid has been the progress 
 in textile machinery that the spinning wheel and the hand loom are 
 not yet obsolete. 
 
 Thousands of patents have been issued in England and the 
 United States for textile machinery, and among so many space will 
 permit .but the briefest mention of a few that have been epoch mak- 
 ing in their influence. A strange fatality for many years seemed to 
 accompany them, and Whitney's experience with his cotton gin was 
 no exception to the common fate of inventors of cotton manufactur- 
 ing machinery. 
 
642 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The spinning jenny was invented by James Hargreaves, of 
 England, in 1763. Hargreaves was a poor weaver with a wife and 
 seven children depending upon him. Brooding at home over his lot 
 one day, the spinning wheel was overturned while' in operation and 
 he noticed that it continued to revolve. He seized the Droving" 
 and fed it on the spindle. The spindle did its work in a vertical 
 position. He then made a rude machine consisting of eight vertical 
 spindles set in a frame. The rovings were wound upon "bobbins" 
 and carried through a clasp controlled by the left hand of the opera- 
 tor, thence to the spindles. With his right hand he turned a wheel 
 having a belt running from it that turned all the spindles. He was 
 able to make eight threads within the time formerly required to 
 make one, and improvements raised its efficiency to 120 times that 
 of the spinning wheel. His neighbors, hearing of it, attacked his 
 cottage, smashed the machine, and threatened to kill him if he ever 
 made another. He took out a patent in 1770, but because he had 
 sold some machines before his patent was taken out the title was in- 
 validated and the invention became public property, while Har- 
 greaves struggled on in penury. 
 
 The fly shuttle, by which a weaver was able with less labor to 
 double his production, was invented by John Kay in 1733, but 
 everywhere that he tried to put it in operation he found the work- 
 men opposed to him. In his native town a mob broke into his 
 house, destroyed his furniture and barn,. and would have killed him 
 had not friends helped to conceal him. He died in France in ex- 
 treme poverty. 
 
 The spinning frame, throstle, or water frame, as it is variously 
 called, was patented by Richard Arkwright in 1769. This was a 
 device for spinning with rollers, the " roving " passing in succession 
 through pairs of rollers ; the forward pair had a higher motion than 
 those behind, and so drew out the roving gradually and regularly 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 643 
 
 and made a smooth, even thread. Deterred by the strong feeling 
 against invention of labor-saving machinery in Lancashire, he went 
 to Nottingham and started a factory on a small scale for the spinning 
 of hosiery yarns, but he had to fight the whole trade and every pos- 
 sible prejudice that could be incited against his machine. The 
 authorities put a double tax on cloth made from the new yarn and 
 he was involved in numerous costly lawsuits in defense of his pat- 
 ents. His buildings were burned, but his improvements enabled 
 him to produce yarn of such a superior quality that he afterward 
 acquired command of the market and was knighted by George III. 
 
 It has been stated that Arkwright is improperly credited with the 
 honor of the invention of the water frame and that patents were is- 
 sued by the English government in 1738 for the same invention to 
 one Lewis Paul, who stated that his partner, John Wyatt, was the 
 true inventor, for whom he, Paul, was acting as attorney. 
 
 The spinning mule, invented by Samuel Crompton, in 1779, com- 
 bines the invention of Arkwright's drawing rolls with the upright 
 spindles of Hargreaves. The spindles are mounted on a carriage that 
 moves back and forth at some distance from the drawing rolls, which are 
 held in a stationary frame. As the carriage travels back and forth it 
 simultaneously twists the thread and draws the rovings, producing 
 threads of great fineness and uniformity, for one of the special 
 features of the machine is the stretching and drawing out of the 
 thicker parts of the thread down to a uniform size. The news of 
 Crompton's machine spreading abroad incited a riot, and his model 
 had to be taken to pieces and hidden away in a garret. When after 
 a time he got one of his machines at work the secret was stolen from 
 him and became public property. He assigned his patent to the 
 manufacturers of Lancashire upon their promise to take up a sub- 
 scription for him, and the subscription netted him about $300, for 
 something that added millions of dollars to the wealth of Lancashire. 
 
644 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The government, in tardy recognition of his services, granted him 
 5000 in 1812, but he was then approaching old age, the money was 
 lost in unfortunate investments, and he was saved from destitution 
 in his last years only by a public subscription. 
 
 The power loom was invented in 1785 by the Rev. Edward 
 Cartwright, who also invented a wool-combing machine. " For years 
 he had to abandon his loom because of the threatening attitude of 
 the working people toward it, and his wool-combing inventions cost 
 him so much and were pirated to such an extent that he was brought 
 to the verge of ruin. Parliament in 1809 made him a grant of 
 10,000, which provided for the comfort of his declining years." 
 
 First Mills in America. Prior to 1790 the clothing in America 
 consisted almost entirely of homespun woolen and linen, for cotton 
 and silk were imported luxuries which only a very few could afford. 
 Great Britain's laws for a long time forbade the exportation of 
 machinery or drawings from which the machinery could be made, and 
 for many years the emigration of skilled workmen was prohibited. 
 While these laws were in operation Samuel Slater came from England 
 to America in 1789, disguised as a farm laborer, but bringing in his 
 head the plans of the first successful cotton working machinery ever 
 set up in America. Aided by Moses Brown, a Quaker of Providence, 
 Rhode Island, who furnished the money, the first cotton mill in 
 America fitted with Arkwright machinery was built by Slater at 
 Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1798. 
 
 In a modern cotton mill the cotton from the bale passes through 
 a complicated process before it leaves the loom. It is beaten to 
 divest it of all sand and dirt, then, while finely divided, blown against 
 a wire gauze belt which catches the fibers but allows the dirt to pass 
 through. This operation is repeated until the cotton is thoroughly 
 cleansed. It then passes through the picker, where all foreign sub- 
 stances are removed. It is again finely divided and blown against a 
 
ADVANCE IN AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY. 645 
 
 wire belt which carries it to the carding machine. The carding ma- 
 chine is a large broad wheel having its surface thickly set with wire 
 teeth. These catch the layer of cotton as it is fed in at one side and 
 carry it in and over to the opposite side of the machine, but on its 
 way the cotton is subjected to the action of four small rollers armed 
 with wire teeth and revolving in the opposite direction to the large 
 wheel. When the cotton makes its exit from the machine the layer 
 is about T <U as thick as it was when it entered, and all the fibers lie 
 parallel to the long axis of the layer. The layer is then fed into a 
 trumpet-shaped can and literally "comes out of the small end of the 
 horn" as a round, loose, and slightly twisted rope, roll, or roving. 
 As a roving it passes to the drawing frames, which reduce it in size 
 and deliver it to a machine which draws it to the required size and 
 gives it more twist. Issuing from this machine it is called the 
 " finished roving," and is ready for the mule, which imparts to it 
 the final twist and makes it ready for the loom unless a thread is 
 required of two or more strands, in which case it passes through the 
 additional process of ring spinning before it is ready to be woven. 
 
 The Growth of the Industry. In 1790 it required five days' 
 work on the part of a slave woman to remove the seed from enough 
 cotton to make a yard of calico, and the only use for the seed was 
 to enrich the soil. To-day the by-products from the seed more than 
 pay the cost of ginning. In 1790 there were only 70 cotton spindles 
 at work in factories in the United States. A hundred years later 
 there were 14,188,103, affording employment to many thousands of 
 operatives and turning out a product valued at $267,981,724. In 
 1800 the price of a pound of cotton yarn was about $1.25. For the 
 last decade it has ranged from 1314 cents to i8j^ cents. Statistics 
 taken at the close of the century show for the last decade an increase 
 of nearly 50 per cent, in the number of spindles and more than 50 
 per cent, in the number of cotton looms in operation. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 OPTICS Spectroscope and What It Tells of the Constitution of Heavenly Bodies 
 The Telescope and its Revelations Refracting and Reflecting Telescopes Great Tele- 
 scopes Microscope and the Wonders It Reveals What It has done for Civilization 
 MECHANICAL PROGRESS IN SURGERY Old Method and the New Marvelous Surgical 
 Operations Bacteria What They are and What They do Skin Grafting Surgery in 
 Cancer Operations on the Eye Vaccination HOUSEKEEPERS' DEBT TO INVENTION 
 Housekeeping a Century ago Recent Improvements in the Household Labor-Saving 
 Devices for the Preparation of Food Sewing Machines UTILIZATION OF WASTE PROD- 
 UCTS By- Produces of the Slaughter House What Becomes of the Steer Cotton Seed 
 audits By- Products Coal Tar and its Marvels Petroleum and its Derivatives Blast 
 Furnaces Coke Furnaces How TO MAKE AND PATENT AN INVENTION Profitable 
 Inventions Civilization's Debt to the Inventor MACHINERY LABOR AND WEALTH 
 Revolution in the Industrial World Does Machinery Displace Labor Inventions Create 
 Occupation Inventions Increase Production Relation of Machinery to Wages 
 Progress Entails Loss to Capital Machinery Increases Wealth Civilization's Debt to 
 Machinery. 
 
 OPTICS. 
 
 The Spectroscope. The revelations of the spectroscope are per- 
 haps received by the popular mind with more incredulity than any 
 other achievement of science. Spectral phenomena seen in rainbow 
 tints, the sparkle of jewels, the flash of cut glass, and the changing 
 hues of sunset were familiar long before Newton explained their 
 causes to the Royal Society in 1675. He admitted a ray of sunlight 
 through a small round hole into a darkened chamber and placed in 
 its path a prism whose refracting power spread the rays out like a fan 
 and exhibited its gorgeous color ranging from red, orange, yellow, 
 green, blue, indigo, to violet. 
 
 For 127 years no progress was made in that branch of knowl- 
 edge, but in 1802 Dr. Wollaston admitted the light through a nar- 
 row vertical slit and spread the spectrum out in ribbon form, its 
 many lines forming images of the slit. He discovered that the rib- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 647 
 
 bon of light was crossed in various places by dark lines, but the fact 
 excited no interest at the time. 
 
 Fraunhofer, a German optician, in 1814 rediscovered the dark 
 lines. He threw the spectrum on a screen and, examining it with a 
 telescope, was able to count 590 lines, map them, and designate the 
 most important by letters of the alphabet. 
 
 WOLLASTON'S EXPERIMENT No. i WITH THE PRISM. 
 
 The importance of the spectroscope began to dawn upon the 
 minds of scientists. In 1842 Prof. John W. Draper of New York 
 modified Fraunhofer's spectroscope, cast the lines upon sensitized 
 plates and made photographs of them, but, more important still, 
 passing to the examination of spectra of incandescent bodies, he dis- 
 covered many fundamental principles underlying that branch of 
 knowledge. Draper's discoveries enabled the astronomer to tell 
 
648 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 from the spectrum of a heavenly body whether it was solid or 
 gaseous. 
 
 Kirchhoff and Bunsen. Improvements in instruments were con- 
 stantly made, and in 1859 two German investigators, Kirchhoff and 
 Bunsen, added so much to the knowledge of the spectrum that new 
 metals were discovered by it and the identity of many of the 
 chemical elements of the heavenly bodies were revealed, for "each 
 element gives a peculiar spectrum distinguishable from all others in 
 the number, color, breadth, and grouping of its lines. So distinct 
 are they that when a compound is vaporized all its elements are at 
 once disclosed. If several substances are volatilized together all the 
 spectrum can be identified." * 
 
 The delicacy of the operations now performed with the spec- 
 troscope almost surpasses belief. It will easily detect 1-18000000 of 
 a grain of sodium, and a blood stain fifty years old containing only 
 i-iooo part of a grain of blood is revealed in its characteristic lines. 
 In Bessemer steel making the operation lasts about 20 minutes, dur- 
 ing which time the atmospheric oxygen burns away the carbon and 
 silicon from the molten cast iron and the heated gases issue in a 
 flame from the mouth of the converter. If the process is stopped 
 ten seconds too early or ten seconds too late, the whole mass is 
 spoiled. The flame changes during the process and the spectroscope 
 reveals the exact moment at which the carbon disappears and the 
 process must be stopped. 
 
 The grating spectroscope is now largely used in place of a prism, 
 for it affords a constant standard of reference and " the normal solar 
 spectrum " used as a standard is the spectroscope of the sun mapped 
 with the various dark lines in the position shown by a grating spec- 
 troscope. The production of a grating spectroscope is a matter of 
 astonishing mechanical delicacy. Such a spectroscope has a concave 
 
 * Youmans' " Chemistry." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 649 
 
 spherical surface of speculum metal on which are ruled for an area of 
 5 J^ inches by 2 inches, from 14,000 to 20,000 lines to the inch. The 
 delicacy of such lines can be better imagined than understood. It 
 may take months to make a perfect screw for the machine which 
 does the ruling, and often a year is spent in search of a diamond fit 
 for the delicate task of cutting the lines. With such an instrument 
 the solar spectrum can be extended several areas and thousands of 
 Fraunhofer lines rendered visible and photographed. 
 
 The Telescope. Historians are not agreed as to who invented 
 the telescope. Certain it is that Hans Lipperhay, of Holland, ap- 
 plied about the year 1608 for a patent for such an instrument, and 
 the Dutch authorities tried to conceal the secret of its construction. 
 
 The telescope performed its first important work in the hands of 
 Galileo, who hearing of the Dutch instrument was able by his own 
 mechanical skill and knowledge of optics to construct a better one, 
 and with it discovered the satellites of Jupiter, the crescent phases 
 of Venus, the rings of Saturn, the mountains of the moon, and the 
 spots on the sun's face. ''The invention of the telescope created 
 descriptive astronomy. Inquiries into the nature of the heavenly 
 bodies were wholly inspired by it ; it disclosed the amazing multitude 
 of the stars and opened endless vistas of research. Thus amid a 
 tumult of applause the telescopic investigation of the heavens 
 began." 
 
 The first telescopes were crude affairs with an object glass of a sin- 
 gle small lens giving a low power. When, to increase their power, the 
 lenses were made larger, "chromatic aberration " was encountered : 
 i. e., the lenses were not able to bring to an exact focus the different 
 colored light waves, and an image in distorted colors appeared. 
 
 The achromatic lens, consisting of a lens of crown glass, convex 
 on each side, in front of a concave lens of flint glass, overcame the 
 most of that trouble. "The crown lens, being convex, converges 
 
650 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the blue rays more than it does the red ones, while the flint glass, be- 
 ing concave, tends in an equal degree to diverge the blue rays away 
 from the axis more than the red ones, so that the combined effect of 
 the two is to bring the rays to a focus." No lens yet made of crown 
 and flint glass has succeeded in bringing all the rays to one focus. 
 The violet, being the most easily refracted, come to a focus nearest 
 the object glass; the red being the least refrangible, are brought to a 
 focus farthest from the object glass. The violet end of the spectrum 
 is most potent in photography, so lenses which are best for seeing 
 are not best for photography and are corrected for that purpose by a 
 third lens. 
 
 Two forms of telescopes are employed : the refracting and the 
 reflecting. A refracting telescope is one in which a system of lenses 
 receives the rays of light and brings them to a focus. A reflecting 
 telescope is one in which the rays of light are brought to a focus by 
 being reflected from the surface of a concave polished reflector. 
 
 The difficulty of manufacturing lenses led Herschel in 1779 to 
 build his reflecting telescope, with which in 1781 he discovered the 
 planet Uranus. Encouraged by his success, he, in 1789, built his 
 great reflecting telescope with which his famous catalogue of stars and 
 star clusters was made. The advantages of the reflecting telescope 
 are that color distortion does not exist because all rays are re- 
 flected from a polished surface at the same angle in which they strike 
 it ; so in theory there is no limit to its size, but there are great 
 mechanical difficulties in its construction, and if the mirrors are large 
 they are apt to be distorted by their own weight. 
 
 Refracting telescopes are now most widely used. The largest 
 reflecting telescope was that of the Earl of Rosse, built in Ireland 
 1842-1845, having a diameter of six feet, focal length of 54 feet, and 
 costing $100,000. 
 
 The Lick telescope, made by Alvin Clark and Sons, was at the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 651 
 
 time of its manufacture (1888) the largest of its kind. For the 
 object glass nineteen discs were made, tested, and discarded by Feil 
 and Mantois of Paris, before a perfect one was found. The object 
 glass has a clear aperture of 36 inches and weighs, in its cell, about 
 600 pounds. The crown-glass lens is .6 inch thick on the edge and 
 1.91 inch thick in the center. The flint lens is 1.65 inch thick on 
 the edge and .93 inch thick at the center. The lenses are not in 
 contact but are set 6.5 inches apart. The extra lens for photographic 
 work is 33 inches in diameter. 
 
 The telescope rests on a solid foundation of masonry, forming the 
 tomb of its donor, James Lick, who at his death left $700,000 in 
 trust for "an instrument that should be superior to and more power- 
 ful than any telescope made." He selected as the site Mount Ham- 
 ilton, 4209 feet above the sea and 26 miles east of San Jose, 
 California, where the air is so clear that for many months of the year 
 the stars do not twinkle. To make a road from San Jose to the 
 observatory cost $78,000; the object glass cost $50,000; the photo- 
 graphic corrector, $13,000; the mounting of the telescope, $45,000; 
 the dome, $35,000; and the observatory complete, $600,000. 
 
 The Yerkes telescope, given to the University of Chicago by 
 Charles T. Yerkes of that city, has a focal length of 64 feet, with an 
 object glass 40 inches in diameter, made by Alvin Clark and Sons. 
 This was the glass exhibited at the Chicago Exposition in 1893. 
 The Grand Equatorial of Gruenewald has an object glass 42 inches in 
 diameter. 
 
 The greatest telescope ever made is that of the Grand Luen- 
 ette of the Paris Exposition of 1900. This has a tube 197 feet long 
 with an object glass slightly over 48 inches in diameter. The lenses 
 cost $120,000 and the entire cost of the instrument is said to have 
 been more than $400,000. In this glass a decided innovation was 
 introduced. The tube is supported in a horizontal position on 
 
652 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 solid pillars. A huge reflecting mirror with regulating machinery, 
 called a siderostat, is placed near the object glass and reflects through 
 the lens the image of the object to be viewed. The mirror alone 
 weighs nearly five tons and is 6^ feet in diameter, with its fittings 
 weighing 33,000 pounds. The whole floats in a bath of mercury. 
 
 The Microscope. Awe-inspiring and magnificent as are the 
 wonders of the heavens when revealed by the telescope, the micro- 
 scope makes us acquainted with infinitesimal life no less wonderful. 
 The microscope, as a single lens, appears to have antedated the 
 telescope. We know the magnifying glass was known to the Assyr- 
 ians and Egyptians, for the excavations at Nineveh revealed a care- 
 fully ground lens of rock crystal. In Europe it was known and 
 used by Zacharias Jansens and his son as early as i$9> and the 
 single lens in the hands of Leeuwenhoeck and others made discov- 
 eries of no small importance. 
 
 The compound microscope was invented by Farncelli in 1624. 
 Like the users of the telescope, the first investigators with the com- 
 pound microscope were troubled by chromatic aberration, but the 
 achromatic objective discovered by Euler in 1776 was applied in 
 1829 by Lister, and an instrument made possible that now combines 
 the contributions of many inventors and is a triumph of the 
 optician's art. 
 
 It is impossible to estimate the benefit man has derived from the 
 microscope. Biology, botany, histology, bacteriology, embryology, 
 geology, and chemistry, all are heavily indebted to it. It figures in 
 nearly every department of the useful arts and has revolutionized 
 our understanding of the laws of life and diseases. 
 
 The surgeon's debt to the microscope can hardly be over- 
 estimated. It is by the studies in fermentation of Liebig and Pas- 
 teur, supplemented by Lord Lister's work, that surgery has been de- 
 prived of a horror second only to that banished by anaesthetics. Dr. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 653 
 
 William Keen says of sights witnessed in his early surgical days : 
 " The parched lips of the poor sufferer, tossing uneasily during sleep- 
 less nights, wounds reeking with pus, and patients dying by scores 
 from blood poisoning, from erysipelas, from tetanus, from gangrene, 
 were only too familiar sights in the preantiseptic days. Before Lis- 
 ter's day (1876) these were the dread attendants at almost every 
 operation. To open the head, the abdomen, or the chest thirty years 
 ago was almost equivalent to signing the death warrant of a patient." 
 To-day, in obscure diseases of the brain or the abdomen, if the sur- 
 geon is uncertain as to the danger within, he deliberately opens either 
 cavity to find out the exact state of affairs. The revelations of the 
 microscope that made "possible antiseptic surgery are estimated to 
 have reduced the mortality of surgical operations from 33^3 per cent, 
 to less than 5 per cent. 
 
 The Microscope Created the Science of Bacteriology. With it 
 Davaine, of France, in 1863 discovered characteristic microscopic 
 bodies in the disease of anthrax. These he named from their shape, 
 bacteria, or little rods, and gave the name to the science. 
 
 In 1 88 1 Ogston of Aberdeen discovered the bacteria of pus; in 
 1882 Koch of Berlin, the bacillus of tuberculosis; in 1883 Febleisen 
 discovered that of erysipelas; and in 1887 Nicolaier and Rosenbaum 
 discovered the cause of lockjaw. With the microscope the physician 
 is able to discover in the morbid constituents of the urine, many un- 
 erring evidences of diseases, which only a few years ago were a sealed 
 book to him. Examination of the blood puts him in possession of 
 other evidence no less important. 
 
 As a detector of crime it has aided in sending many a criminal 
 to his just punishment. A drop of blood or a single hair is by its aid 
 identified and made to furnish incontrovertible evidence. Its search- 
 ing powers render futile the finest work of the cleverest counterfeiter. 
 It has taught us how to deal with the blight of grapes and saved 
 
654 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 thousands of dollars to the vineyards of France, Germany, and 
 America. It is indispensable to the chemist, the botanist, the steel- 
 maker and the detective, and its range is so wide and its uses so 
 numerous that it would require a volume to catalogue its discoveries. 
 
 MECHANICAL PROGRESS IN SURGERY. 
 BY WILLARD SMITH, M.D. 
 
 Painless Surgery. October 16, 1846, an experiment was made in 
 the Massachusetts General Hospital at Boston. The result of that 
 experiment, as recorded on a monument, reads thus: - 
 
 "William T. G. Morton, inventor and revealer of anaesthetic in- 
 halation, by whom pain in surgery was annulled ; before whom, in 
 all time, surgery was agony ; since whom, science has control of 
 pain." 
 
 The inscription is every word true, but it tells only a part of the 
 great story of what made the improvement in the mechanical part of 
 surgery possible. Naturally, a patient looking forward to an opera- 
 tion as a season of torture almost beyond human endurance would 
 be in the worst possible condition to bear the pain, and this would 
 affect the results unfavorably. The unfortunate effects were not 
 confined strictly to the sufferings of the patient. Few surgeons 
 were hard-hearted enough to be entirely oblivious to the suffering 
 caused by an operation. With his attention distracted by screams of 
 agony, and the field of operation constantly in motion on account of 
 the writhings of the patient, it is not to be wondered at that the sur- 
 gery of that time was crude and rough as compared with that done 
 to-day. The wonder is that anything was done at all. In addition 
 to the heartrending sufferings, the old-time surgeon had to contend 
 with the unceasing flow of blood. This obscured his field of opera- 
 tion and made the utmost speed an absolute necessity, for life flowed 
 out with blood. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 655 
 
 It is now possible by the injection of cocaine into the spinal canal 
 to produce anaesthesia of the entire body below the point of punc- 
 ture. In this way all the body below the diaphragm can be deprived 
 of sensibility without depriving the patient of consciousness. By 
 this method a man might watch the amputation of his foot, if he 
 chose, but feel no pain. 
 
 Bloodless Surgery. A great deal of modern surgery is possible 
 because of the ability of the surgeon to rapidly and surely check the 
 loss of blood. This is usually done by means of the hemostatic for- 
 cep, which is simply a little pair of pincers, with roughened jaws, 
 fitted with a catch so that it will remain firmly closed. When, in 
 the course of an operation, a blood vessel is cut, the end of it is seized 
 with a forcep and the pressure stops the flow of blood at once, while, 
 at the same time, the delicate lining of the vessel is lacerated and a 
 little clot is formed which plugs the opening. Hot water, pressure, 
 applied in a dozen different ways, and many other expedients are 
 resorted to for this purpose. Many operations are performed with- 
 out the loss of a drop of blood, as, for instance, the amputation of a 
 leg or thigh. In such a case the leg is bound tightly from the toes 
 to a point well above the seat of operation with an elastic rubber 
 bandage, thus pressing all the blood out of the leg and forcing it into 
 the blood vessels of the body, where it is needed. Next, a con- 
 stricting bandage is tightly wound around the leg above the point of 
 operation to hold the blood out, and the first bandage is removed. 
 This leaves the leg entirely bloodless and any operation on it can be 
 better performed. 
 
 Many operations which are possible to-day, because the surgeon 
 can take an hour or more for them, were never thought of formerly. 
 Operations were once matters of minutes and seconds, for life hung 
 by the smallest thread. The old-time surgeon had to encounter fully 
 as great difficulties after the operation as during it. The healing of a 
 
656 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 wound without suppuration was unknown, and healing by first inten- 
 tion or without the formation of scar tissue was an impossibility on 
 account of the invariable infection of the wound. Secondary hemor- 
 rhage, from the literal rotting off of blood vessels that had been 
 tied with necessarily infected ligatures, hospital gangrene, erysipelas, 
 and a hundred other " surgical horrors" were matters of everyday 
 occurrence. They were considered unavoidable until Sir Joseph 
 Lister in 1876 showed the profession that operations were possible 
 without the subsequent formation of pus. As soon as the era of 
 experimental investigation began, surgery emerged from the chaos 
 of ignorance and empiricism and became an exact science. It is 
 now stripped of nearly all that once made it horrible. It is more 
 favorable to the patient, being painless, and thereby giving the 
 surgeon time and opportunity to do better work. It enables him 
 to do with the certainty of mechanical precision that which was 
 formerly utterly impossible. It is needless to say that the results 
 are better and that much less tissue is sacrificed than under the old 
 regime. The field of operation is perfectly stationary, thus permit- 
 ting great delicacy of manipulation ; and, more important than all 
 this, by the exercise of proper precautions the aseptic healing of the 
 wound can be made a matter of almost absolute certainty. All these 
 things make it imperative, because possible, that the modern surgeon 
 do better and more difficult work than was done by his predecessors. 
 The people have a right to demand it of him. 
 
 Bacteria are thought to belong to the vegetable kingdom, rather 
 than to the animal, but they are so near to the dividing line that the 
 distinction is of very little practical importance. They are minute 
 organisms, from .000012 to .00006 of an inch in diameter and vary- 
 ing from a spherical form to long rods. 
 
 They take an infinite variety of shapes and each kind has some 
 distinctive peculiarity in the manner in which or the conditions 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 657 
 
 under which it multiplies and grows. It is by these peculiarities 
 that the different kinds can be identified. Thousands of these little 
 fellows have been classified, but we have only begun to get ac- 
 quainted with their habits. The most common forms are cocci and 
 bacilli. Cocci are spherical and bacilli are rod-shaped. Sometimes 
 bacilli are twisted like a corkscrew and are then called spirilli. 
 
 There are several terms which are commonly used in speaking of 
 bacteria and their growth or destruction. A culture is an artificial 
 crop of bacteria, grown for some experimental purpose. A colony 
 is one of the centers of growth of bacteria in a culture. Each kind 
 of bacterium has a peculiarity of colony growth. What is a good 
 culture for one kind may be a very poor one for another. An anti- 
 septic is an agent, generally chemical, which prevents or retards the 
 growth and multiplication of bacteria; a germicide is one which di- 
 rectly destroys the bacteria ; a disinfectant is one which accomplishes 
 both purposes. 
 
 Operating on the Brain. To convey some idea of the nature of 
 a modern operation let us suppose the case of a patient who has a 
 brain tumor located in the "arm area," or that portion of the brain 
 which controls the action of the arm. After the case has been care- 
 fully studied the patient is brought to the hospital and prepared for 
 operation. The preparation consists of two parts; first, the general 
 preparation for the anaesthetic, and, second, the local preparation of 
 the head for the operation. We can dismiss the first by saying that 
 it consists of a systematic course of feeding and purging, extending 
 over a period of two or three days. The local preparation begins 
 the day before the operation with a complete shaving of the head, 
 which is then thoroughly scrubbed with green soap, water, and a 
 scrubbing brush; next, with alcohol, and then with a solution of 
 corrosive sublimate in water in the strength of about I : 2000. The 
 head is then securely bandaged in a compress wet with the corrosive 
 
658 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 sublimate solution and left thus till the next day. In the morning, 
 before the patient is sent to the operating room,. the same process is 
 repeated in every detail. In the meantime, very busy preparation 
 has been going on in the operating room. Every nook and corner 
 of the room has been thoroughly washed with strong antiseptic solu- 
 tions, and made as free from germs as is within human power. A 
 human life is at stake, and any carelessness or negligence would be, 
 in the light of modern knowledge, little short of murder. Every 
 particle of the dressings, bandages, sponges, and other articles 
 necessary to the operation has been rendered germ free. To do 
 this has required labor lasting during three days. The surgeon, 
 assistants, and nurses then go through a very thorough and rigid 
 course of preparation, so that there will be no possibility of any one 
 of them carrying infection to the patient. A chain is no stronger 
 than its weakest link. 
 
 All being in readiness, and the instruments sterilized, the patient 
 is anaesthetized and placed on the table. The dressings are removed 
 and the head given a final scrubbing, even more vigorously than be- 
 fore. Then the exact position for the operation is determined and 
 marked on the bone. A horseshoe-shaped flap, sometimes larger 
 than the palm of the hand, is cut, leaving the narrow part or pedicle 
 in such a position as to allow an undisturbed artery to carry the 
 necessary blood to it for its nutrition. The cut which marks this out 
 is made through to the bone, and then at each of the " corners" a 
 hole about half an inch in diameter is made through the skull with a 
 trephine, which is an instrument especially designed for the purpose. 
 The flap of scalp is left attached to the bone, for it is through this 
 that the bone must receive its nourishment when it is cut off from 
 its usual supply. From the hole on one side of the neck of the flap 
 to its fellow on the opposite side, inside the skull and hugging it very 
 closely indeedj a fine wire saw is passed, and the skull is sawed almost 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 659 
 
 through from the inside. Then with a mallet and sharp chisels, the 
 bone is cut through all around the line originally marked out. When 
 it is all free three levers are put under its edge and by prying it up 
 the neck or narrow part is completely broken loose and the whole 
 piece is turned back like a trapdoor, using the unsevered skin as a 
 hinge. This exposes the dura mater, or tough membrane which 
 covers the brain. This membrane is picked up with delicate forceps, 
 snipped open, and the brain is brought into view. After seeing the 
 tumor, if the surgeon decides that it can be safely removed he care- 
 fully cuts it out. All bleeding is then stopped by mechanical means, 
 and the dura is carefully stitched over the space, a small opening 
 being left through which passed the material best suited to insure 
 drainage. Lastly, the trapdoor is closed and the skin accurately 
 stitched together. The previously sterilized dressings are now 
 applied, and the patient put to bed, to be carefully watched and 
 assiduously nursed till recovery takes place. The after treatment, so 
 far as surgical measures are concerned, consists of the renewal of the 
 dressings when necessary and the removal of the drainage device at 
 the proper time. 
 
 Such, in general, are the steps in a typical surgical operation. 
 There are hundreds of details which we have not attempted to 
 describe, as well as thousands of variations to suit the individual case 
 or operation. 
 
 It used to be the rule when a bullet entered the brain not to 
 attempt to find it or get it out because it was thought that an at- 
 tempt to remove it would probably give rise to more danger than 
 the presence of the bullet itself. Now these bullets are located 
 either by the X-rays or by systematic probing and are removed al- 
 most as readily as from any other part of the body. 
 
 Skin-Grafting. Burns often leave horrible scars which, by their 
 subsequent contraction, cause great deformities. Among the worst 
 
660 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of these are the burns of the neck and chest, which cause such contrac- 
 tion of the superficial tissues as to draw and hold the mouth open in a 
 ghastly and hideous manner. Burns of the hands occur which shrivel 
 them and draw them out of shape so that they become ugly and re- 
 pulsive and are rendered practically useless. Modern mechanical 
 surgery has been able to relieve most of these unfortunates. The 
 process consists of cutting out the unhealthy scar tissue and trans- 
 planting a new skin upon the granulating surface that is obtained. 
 It is not necessary that the skin be of exactly the same kind as that 
 which formerly covered the part, for none of the skin which is actually 
 transplanted becomes a part of the permanent skin. What nature 
 requires in this case is a pattern. The granulating surface is covered 
 with a kind of cells which is very different from those which make up 
 the skin or mucous membrane. The proper variety of cells might, 
 in time, grow in from the sides of the open wound, but before this 
 necessary time could elapse a new scar would form which would be 
 just as bad as the original one, or perhaps worse. So the surgeon 
 plants on the raw surface some of the kind of cells which makes up 
 the skin. These may be taken from man or from almost any animal. 
 Some operators take little snips of skin, the size of a pin head, from 
 the whole thickness of the skin, while others prefer to shave off the 
 outer layers of the skin from an area large enough to cover the entire 
 raw surface. When the skin from the bellies of frogs is used, as it is 
 frequently, the whole area is covered. The surface on which these 
 grafts are placed is made thoroughly aseptic and every detail of the 
 operation is conducted so as to preclude the possibility of the part 
 becoming infected. If any pus appears the hope of a successful out- 
 come may as well be abandoned. * 
 
 * Dr. William Keen, in speaking of modern surgery, says: " The surgeon who does 
 not get primary union without a drop of pus, with no fever, and with little suffering asks 
 himself, What was the fault in my technic ? " 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 66 1 
 
 The grafts, whatever be their shape, size, or thickness, are 
 simply placed on the raw surface, carefully protected, and kept 
 moist. In the course of a few days, the original grafts disappear 
 entirely and at each point where they were placed will be seen a 
 small pearly point. Nature has found the pattern for which she was 
 seeking, and the tissues have begun to form the sort of cells from 
 which skin is made. In this way, the surface is covered with a large 
 number of little islands of new skin and the whole task is divided up 
 into many small tasks, for the skin grows in all directions from each 
 of these islands at the same time. The process of recovery then 
 becomes a race between the formation of healthy skin and the 
 formation of scar tissue. If the skin wins the case will be cured ; if 
 the scar tissue wins, a little gain will be made, and the operation can 
 be repeated with a reasonable hope for ultimate success. 
 
 Straightening Crooked Bones. Bow legs and knock knees are 
 unsightly and inconvenient deformities which, thanks to the progress 
 of mechanical surgery, can now be successfully treated. The opera- 
 tion is varied for each case, but, in general, the procedure is to break 
 the bones by some method, setting and holding them in the desired 
 position until they have grown to it. Club foot is cured by length- 
 ening the shortened tendons and holding the foot in the proper po- 
 sition until the tendons have healed. In some long-standing cases 
 the bones are deformed to such an extent that a wedge-shaped 
 piece of bone has to be taken out of the convex side in order to 
 allow the foot to be forced into its proper position. The treatment 
 of these conditions is a matter of mechanical ingenuity and the 
 making of the plaster of paris casts which are used to hold the parts 
 in their proper position, and which must be comfortable to the 
 patient and without dangerous pressure, gives the surgeon ample 
 chance to show his mechanical skill. It should be considered a 
 punishable neglect for parents or guardians to allow a " hunchback" 
 
662 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 to go without surgical treatment, as by proper treatment many of 
 these, unfortunates can be saved from lifelong deformity. The 
 cause of this condition is tuberculous disease of the bodies of the 
 vertebrae. It has been proved beyond question by many examples 
 that if these patients are placed in a position of absolute rest and all 
 weight taken from the spinal column, the disease process will tend 
 to abate and although perfectly healthy bone and normal movement 
 of the joints cannot be secured the progress of the disease will be 
 stayed and much of the deformity obviated. The matter assumes 
 additional importance when we consider that tuberculous processes 
 seldom arise in the lungs but usually begin in some other part of the 
 body and are transplanted to the lungs. This treatment for tuber- 
 culosis of the vertebrae is a distinctly mechanical one and has only 
 become markedly successful since a special class of physicians has 
 given close attention to the mechanics of surgery. The little patient, 
 for such patients are usually children, can be kept in a position of 
 absolute rest by strapping it down to a bed, but this deprives it of 
 the fresh air and the exercise of the parts of the body which are not 
 diseased, both of which are valuable aids to a cure. It also tends to 
 produce bedsores and all the wasting and diminution of vital force 
 which enforced inactivity causes. All that is necessary for the suc- 
 cess of this treatment is that the spine be kept in a state of rest, and 
 a large variety of apparatus has been devised which enables the con- 
 dition of rest to be maintained without enforcing the position of 
 rest. This opens up an almost unlimited field for mechanical inven- 
 tion, as each case must be studied to learn exactly what form and 
 arrangement of apparatus will keep the spine absolutely quiet and, 
 at the same time, not restrict the movements of the other parts of 
 the body. 
 
 Surgery and Consumption. A few cases of pulmonary con- 
 sumption have been treated by the operative method. It is too 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 663 
 
 early to predicate results, but much hope is entertained. As already 
 stated, tuberculosis of the spine can be arrested" by simply placing 
 the part at rest. The same rule applies to all other parts of the 
 body, but it is very difficult to secure rest in the lungs, which are 
 filling and emptying about 17 times every minute, day and night, 
 making them the most unfavorable part of the body in which to ar- 
 rest a tuberculous process. The method suggested and used by 
 Murphy of Chicago, and others, is to inject nitrogen gas into the 
 pleural cavity. There is no mystery about the action of this method 
 for it is all in accordance with mechanical common sense. The 
 nitrogen is placed between the chest and wall and the lung proper 
 and as the lung is, in some respects, like a distended elastic bag, as 
 soon as nitrogen, or any other gas, is forced into the place this bag 
 occupies the bag collapses. When the lung collapses it ceases ac- 
 tion. It is known, from actual experiment, that enough breathing 
 can be done with one lung to support life. So the other lung has to 
 do double duty for a time while the collapsed lung gets the rest it 
 needs. The nitrogen is slowly absorbed, and in the course of several 
 weeks it will all disappear and the lung will gradually and easily 
 resume its regular duties. But, in the meantime, it has been' placed 
 in the most favorable condition for the healing forces of nature to 
 put a stop to the tuberculosis and in some cases seems to succeed. 
 
 Surgery's Battle with Cancer, One of the most dreaded dis- 
 eases is cancer. If not treated, it is certain death ; treated in any 
 but the most thorough and correct manner and at the proper time, 
 the outlook is fully as gloomy ; properly treated in time, the prospects 
 for recovery are, in a large proportion of cases, very good indeed. 
 This statement could not have been made a few years ago. Modern 
 surgery has partially conquered this disease. It must be re- 
 membered that during the time when cancer is curable it is entirely 
 painless. After the pain begins, there is very small chance of re- 
 
664 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 covery, as the disease has then usually progressed so far that it is 
 beyond the power of the surgeon to do more than partially relieve 
 the pain and remove the stench. It can be treated successfully only 
 by cutting out all the diseased tissue and also all that which will, in 
 the judgment of the surgeon, sooner or later become the seat of an 
 extension of the pernicious cell growth. One of the most frequent 
 locations of cancer is the female breast. Before there is any pain 
 felt, and when there is only a slight swelling which the patient is 
 often deluded into thinking harmless, "because it does not hurt," 
 there are signs and symptoms which will enable the surgeon to detect 
 the true nature of the trouble. As soon as the disease can be recog- 
 nized is the time and the only possible time to effect a cure. To do 
 this the entire mammary gland is removed and all the muscles under- 
 lying it, until the bony wall of the chest is laid bare and clean. Then 
 the lymphatic glands around and under the collar bone are taken out 
 and the arm pit is laid open and all the glands carefully and 
 thoroughly dissected out. This latter part of the operation is very 
 delicate work and has to be done slowly and carefully. The opera- 
 tion, when properly performed, frequently requires two or three 
 hours of the best work of the most skillful surgeons, aided by their 
 trained assistants ; for nothing short of absolute and complete re- 
 moval will be of any avail. This leaves an enormous wound but it 
 can usually be almost, if not entirely, covered by loosening the skin 
 from the surrounding tissues and drawing it over the open wound. 
 If an uncovered space is left it must be covered later by skin graft- 
 ing. Notwithstanding the severity of this operation, the patient can 
 usually be out of bed in a week and can use the arm to some extent 
 in the course of three weeks. This would not be possible if anything 
 but the most rigid aseptic precautions were used. That is what 
 shortens the time necessary for recovery and what, in fact, makes 
 recovery from such a mutilation at all possible. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 665 
 
 Removal of the Stomach. The world was startled, a few years 
 ago, by the report that the entire stomach had been removed and 
 the patient had recovered. This was done and the patient did re- 
 cover entirely from the operation, but afterwards died from a recur- 
 rence of the disease for which the operation had been done, cancer 
 of the stomach. It is an unfortunate fact that when this disease has 
 progressed to such an extent that a patient will consent to have the 
 stomach removed, the tissues surrounding the stomach have usually 
 become involved, and even then the removal of the entire diseased 
 organ will not cure. The only way to cure it is to take out every- 
 thing that has gone to the bad, and everything that has been in bad 
 company, for reformation is not possible in this matter. Once an 
 organ has become the seat of the peculiar form of cell growth which 
 constitutes cancer, it cannot be cured. The only hope is to remove 
 it at once and prevent its doing any further damage by inducing the 
 same condition in adjacent organs. 
 
 The removal of the stomach has been accomplished with perfect 
 success in a number of cases, but in none of them has it been under- 
 taken as a cure. All that was hoped was that a few more months or 
 years might be added to the life of the patient. The operation in 
 itself is difficult but no more difficult than many others which are 
 performed every day and from which cures have regularly resulted. 
 
 Surgery of the Eye. The most delicate branch of surgery is the 
 surgery of the eye, and it is a branch which has made very rapid 
 progress in recent years. Hundreds of different operations, all of 
 the most delicate and precise character, are now performed on the 
 eyes and a great number of persons are given either perfect sight, or 
 some sight, who would otherwise be doomed to hopeless blindness 
 or to such imperfect sight as to render them practically 'helpless. 
 Cataract is a common eye disease which, if not treated, will cause 
 blindness, but it can now be successfully treated in the majority of 
 
666 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 cases. In the normal eye there is a little lens which is transparent 
 and which has the power of so changing its shape as to enable it to 
 focus on the retina rays of light from objects at different distances. 
 Cataract is caused by this lens becoming clouded or opaque. The 
 treatment is to remove the diseased lens. This is a most delicate 
 operation, and one in which a mistake of a hair's breadth will surely 
 and irreparably blind the patient. The lens having been removed, 
 its place is supplied by a convex glass placed before the eye, but not 
 in the eye, as many suppose. Without the help of the glass, the 
 operation would be futile because nothing but a glare of light could 
 be seen. With two or more glasses for use at different distances, a 
 fairly good vision can be obtained. Any gain whatever in the power 
 of seeing, when otherwise blindness would be inevitable, is a gain 
 worth risking a great deal to secure. 
 
 Sometimes blindness is caused by a scar on the cornea, that clear, 
 watch-crystal-like window which forms the front of the eyeball. 
 When the scar is so situated as to cover the pupil and still leave a 
 clear space at the side of it, a new pupil can be made by removing a 
 portion of the iris, thus restoring the sight. Squint or cross-eye is 
 a very unsightly affection and one which usually forces the patient to 
 use only one eye. Most of these cases can be cured by operation on 
 the muscles which move the eyeball. By a slight lengthening of 
 certain tendons and a slight shortening of others, the proper balance 
 can be restored and the patient be given a practically perfect pair of 
 eyes again. 
 
 Eyes are sometimes so badly injured or diseased as to necessitate 
 their entire removal. When this is done, there- is either a hideous 
 gaping cavity as a result, or else a glass eye is inserted. When done 
 in the old way, this glass eye always stared straight ahead, produc- 
 ing fully as disagreeable an effect on the observer as would the open 
 socket. Mr. Mules, an English surgeon, has devised an operation 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 667 
 
 which does away with this disagreeable feature. Instead of taking 
 out the whole eye, he cuts off the cornea and thoroughly scrapes out 
 all the contents of the eyeball. This leaves the hard and tough 
 shell or sclera, to which are attached the muscles which move the 
 eyeball. After the wound has healed, there is a solid stump left in 
 the socket which can be moved in any direction at will. Over this 
 is fitted a glass eye, which moves with the stump and follows the 
 movement of the other eye. The results of this operation are so 
 good that in some cases it requires a very close inspection to detect 
 that one eye is an artificial one. 
 
 Vaccination. May I4th, 1796, Dr. Edward Jenner, an English 
 physician, inoculated James Phipps with cowpox as a preventive of 
 smallpox and thus scored a triumph over one .of the most dread 
 diseases to which humanity has ever been subject. Prior to this dis- 
 covery the frequently recurring ravages of smallpox had been fright- 
 ful. In Russia it had been fatal to no less than two million persons 
 in a single year; in 1707 six per cent, of the entire population of Ire- 
 land died of the disease, and in England it was unusual to see 
 an unscarred face. Now smallpox is one of the rarest of diseases 
 and is seldom fatal under skillful treatment. Notwithstanding the 
 evidence from all sides as to the efficacy of vaccination, there have 
 not been wanting opponents to the procedure. It is impossible for 
 anyone with any acquaintance with the nature of the evidence to see 
 on what grounds such opposition is based. 
 
 Hundreds of other examples might be mentioned, but the fore- 
 going are enough to show how closely modern surgery is related to 
 mechanical progress. It is a truly gratifying thought that the pos- 
 sibilities of modern mechanics is not limited to the building and 
 perfecting of mere inanimate temples, but that it is a potent factor 
 in preserving and bettering the " Temple of the Soul." 
 
668 
 
 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 THE HOUSEKEEPER'S DEBT TO INVENTION. 
 
 The inventions of the nine- 
 teenth century have been 
 grand and far-reaching; they 
 have girdled the earth and fol- 
 lowed the stars in their 
 courses, but what they have 
 done for the women of the 
 world, laboring faithfully in 
 multitudes of quiet homes, 
 outweighs all other conse- 
 quences. 
 
 From the home emanate the qualities which make or mar a 
 nation's life; hence, whatever gives opportunity to the women who 
 make the homes, rises superior to that which gives merely financial 
 results. Science tells us that the physical part of man must be 
 sound or there will be failure in the mental part, and the mental side 
 must be healthy or the moral side will be weak; that the early 
 years, the years spent in the home, make the deepest impression on 
 the future, and these years are in the hands of the mothers and 
 home-makers. 
 
 Our grandmothers (dear old ladies) did not have even the chance 
 that the women of to-day have, to take an occasional look at Science 
 and then walk proudly in her steps. They baked, they brewed, they 
 spun, they wove, they churned, they ironed, they knit, they braided, 
 they dyed, and then they died. We fear they did not have time for 
 much else in their lives. The inventions that make many things easy 
 for the women of to-day were then unknown and Science did not 
 speak so loudly as she does now of the necessity of right physical 
 living. 
 
 In order to realize what invention has done for the home and the 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 669 
 
 housekeeper, it will be necessary to take a little trip back into what 
 Mrs. Stowe called the "jog-trot days" the days of our grand- 
 mothers and see how life ran with them. 
 
 Like Solomon's wise woman, our foremother arose with the sun. 
 It was original sin to be lazy. Satan in those days found no "idle 
 hands" with which to do "mischief." It was a matter of time to 
 make the fires in the great fireplaces, for phosphorus matches, which 
 expedite so many things for us, were not in general use until about 
 1840, and our foremother must get the spark with which to light the 
 fire by the use of flint and steel. For lighting purposes she some- 
 times used fat pine knots; then came candles which she laboriously 
 made from beef tallow ; after candles came pungent smelling whale 
 oil lamps, while many burning fluids and then kerosene oil followed 
 somewhat later. Invention had not then brought to her aid the 
 lighting and heating powers of gas and electricity. 
 
 For the breakfast, dinner, and supper of the household she had 
 to depend upon her own resources; no caterer, no canned goods 
 helped her in an emergency. Perhaps she had a smoke house and 
 salting tubs for beef and pork, and prepared her own bacon, ham, 
 beef, and fish ; for, in some way, she must be ready as cook to feed 
 her household. She preserved and pickled; she brewed beer and 
 made wine from currants, elderberries, and grapes. She raised 
 medicinal herbs and distilled potent curative essences and ointments. 
 She made butter and cheese with none of the modern conveniences. 
 Having saved her refuse grease, she went to the leach barrel and 
 with wood ashes proceeded to make lye for soap. 
 
 The " sitting room " needed a carpet and this patient, all-endur- 
 ing woman cut and sewed rags, then, from the old hand-loom came 
 an oriental looking web into the warp and woof of which were woven 
 things precious as love, courage, and faithfulness. 
 
 The custom of braiding mats was as universal as carpet weaving, 
 
6/O THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and the house-mother also braided the straw hats which her "men 
 folks" wore during the summer months, while she sometimes earned 
 money for a coveted treasure, which could not be obtained other- 
 wise, by braiding hats for the " store." 
 
 "Hannah's at the window binding shoes" was not a myth or 
 poetical fancy but a workaday fact, and by binding shoes many a 
 woman helped increase a scanty income. 
 
 When it became too dark for other work, that time might not 
 be wasted, the knitting needles were plied in nearly every home. 
 One old writer enumerates: "They knitte hose, knitte peticotes, 
 knitte gloves, knitte slieves." They knit so much that it became 
 automatic and they could knit with their eyes shut, so that, seeing 
 them, one involuntarily parodied Hood's Song of the Shirt : 
 
 " till over the stocking she fell asleep 
 But still knit on in her dreams." 
 
 At the beginning of the century knitting was universal; even as 
 late as the Civil War it was still a part of woman's work, and many 
 stockings were knit for soldiers as the homemade article better en- 
 dured the wear and tear of the march ; but the great stockinet, shirt, 
 and woolen factories have relegated this work to the things of the 
 past. 
 
 This ancestress of ours, for whom we are sorry and of whom we 
 are proud, was a manufacturer. She took the flax which had been 
 grown for the purpose and wove it into linen to make tablecloths, 
 shirting, sheets, and garments. To prepare this linen it is said that 
 over forty bleaching manipulations were necessary. She took the 
 fleece sheared from the sheep, washed, carded, and spun it, and then 
 wove it into cloth. She gathered sassafras, the bark of red oak, and 
 of the hickory nut, and with alum, logwood, and various other com- 
 pounds, dyed the cloth whatever color she desired, and from this 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 6? I 
 
 cloth she made the garments of her household. To the ceaseless 
 whirring of her wheel she might well have sung with Tennyson's 
 Enid : 
 
 " Our hoard is little but our hearts are great." 
 
 The great canning industries whereby immense quantities of 
 fruits, vegetables, meats, and other perishable stuffs are preserved 
 to feed the hungry world were then unimagined, nor had she the 
 smaller helps such as apple parers, fruit corers, and driers; but her 
 household must be fed during the barren months, so with her two 
 hands and a knife she endeavored to save as much as possible of the 
 swiftly decaying apples, pears, peaches, plums, quinces, currants, and 
 grapes by drying and preserving in various ways. 
 
 In the household of the past there was a great demand for pies, 
 which must be " shortened," and, as there were no accommodating 
 butchers to -stop frequently at her door for orders, into her day's 
 work came the task of trying out lard from such portions of our por- 
 cine friend as would yield the desired lubricant. 
 
 These are only some of the ways the woman of the past, by un- 
 sparing, unceasing labor, accomplished her many and arduous tasks. 
 
 Science makes it clear that much of this brave work was disas- 
 trous to herself and to those who came after her because the laws of 
 health were constantly violated; but, "with all her imperfections 
 on her head," as the light from the beacon of science streams back over 
 the nineteenth century, it gleams upon nothing more admirable than 
 our valiant foremother. But after a survey of our grandmother's 
 work who would be willing to again take up the white woman's 
 burden? 
 
 The home is the most fundamental fact in a man's life aside from 
 his inherited qualities, and even these come from past home in- 
 fluences, and Science, recognizing that the mother, the home-maker, 
 cannot carry burdens that strain every nerve and muscle and at the 
 
6/2 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 same time cultivate an intelligent understanding of the relationship 
 of the body to the mind, has come to her aid with inventions and 
 machinery designed to lighten her drudgery and give her time to 
 widen her outlook. The past may have been against her, but the 
 future is with her, and invention and machinery are her handmaids. 
 
 Consider some of the inventions that have a direct bearing on the 
 work of the mother and housekeeper. While many of them add to 
 the luxury of the wealthy, non-producing one tenth, most of them 
 are designed to help the nine tenths, Lincoln's ''plain people" who 
 produce the wealth and bear the burdens of their country. 
 
 Chief among modern health promoters we must count sanitary 
 plumbing and sewerage systems; also the cementing of cellars; and 
 it seems impossible to speak with too much enthusiasm of the great 
 advance made in heating and lighting. From the open fireplaces 
 with their immense logs from the later air-tight stoves, to the coal, 
 gas, steam, and electric heating and lighting of the present is a long 
 step, and few homes are now so poor that these great inventions do 
 not radiate some comfort upon them, while inventors are promising 
 still greater things for the future. This means better health in the 
 homes as well as less work and greater cleanliness. 
 
 The great modern cooking range with every possible adaptation 
 for its purpose, and providing for the use of either or both coal and 
 gas; the oil, gasoline, and gas stoves, saving heat in summer and 
 time in winter, are all comparatively recent and are among the house- 
 keeper's greatest blessings. 
 
 Perhaps in this connection, the Aladdin Oven, patented by the 
 eminent statistician of Boston, Prof. Edward Atkinson, should be 
 mentioned. Mr. Atkinson claims that "very much good material is 
 wasted in cooking" that can be saved by the use of his oven, that 
 flavors lost in ordinary cooking are retained, and that it is impossible 
 for food to be overdone or underdone. The heat is furnished by an 
 ordinary "Rochester" lamp. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 673 
 
 If we consider the water service, we find hot and cold water pipes 
 in nearly every house with bath room, a laundry with set tubs, and 
 a never-failing supply of hot water for the kitchen, laundry, and bath 
 room. The labor incident to the weekly wash is further lightened 
 by washing and wringing machines, while the self-heating flatiron is 
 an additional comfort and convenience. 
 
 Around the housekeeper and cook crowd many inventions, for the 
 cooking question is a serious one, and the conservation of the natural 
 powers is largely in the hands of the housekeeper. 
 
 The great Dr. Samuel Johnson said, " Dinner is the most impor- 
 tant event of the day," and it certainly is on that day when all the 
 dear ones come trooping home to partake of the Thanksgiving feast. 
 Then, if ever, the wise housekeeper realizes her need and calls to her 
 service all the aids that invention can give her. By telephone she 
 orders turkey and chickens, and by the aid of cold storage and fast 
 freights they have come from a distant state in fine preservation. To 
 save time and work she uses canned vegetables and has June peas in 
 November. She has only to use a can-opener and her soup is nearly 
 ready. With seven hundred patented churns on the market, this 
 housekeeper can if she wishes make her own butter, but butter from 
 the creamery is just as good and saves time; with a patented whip- 
 churn she prepares the cream for the table in a moment; with a 
 Dover egg-beater she prepares eggs for the pudding, and, as she 
 flavors it, is glad she need not make her own extracts. She bakes 
 her pies in an oven with a glass door and by the aid of an oven 
 thermometer. She makes ice cream in a patent freezer, prepares 
 potato with a patent potato-masher, brings cheese from a distant 
 factory and pickles from the neighboring store, and makes ready the 
 nuts with a patent nut cracker. Dinner having been served, the 
 washing of the dishes is quickly accomplished by the aid of a patented 
 dish-washer, and as this busy home-maker puts away the remnants 
 
6/4 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 of the food in her commodious refrigerator, she thinks what a bless- 
 ing is ice and is almost thankful that the " good old days" are in the 
 limbo of the past. 
 
 But the labor saving inventions used in preparing this dinner are 
 by no means all that lighten the housekeeper's burden. There is 
 the sausage grinder, the egg boiler, the waffle iron, the steam boiler, 
 the apple parer, the milk cooler, the centrifugal cream skimmer. 
 There is oleomargarine, lard, and the beef extracts, and in connec- 
 tion with the great help the housekeeper has received in the preser- 
 vation of food by ice, it may be said that at the present writing it 
 promises to become cheaper and more general, as an electric ice 
 machine has been invented which the inventor promises to adapt to 
 private use, so that in the near future the housekeeper can prepare 
 ice cheaply and in such quantity as may be wanted. 
 
 Science is helping to give the housekeeper time to see more of 
 the beauty of the world in which we live and to realize something of 
 the forces that make and govern it. The cook is surely among 
 those forces. A recent writer says, " Anarchists are the result of a 
 university education upon an empty stomach," so it behooves to 
 keep the world well fed. 
 
 The preparing of three meals a day, three hundred and sixty-five 
 days in the year, makes the food 'question and the inventions and 
 discoveries that touch upon it a very intimate one to the home- 
 maker, but there are other sides to the home and invention has 
 reached out a hand and lightened them all. Some of the helps may 
 appear small to others than the housekeeper but she well knows the 
 relief they have afforded her. Years ago women-were dressmakers 
 and tailors for their families, but Howe's sewing machine came in 
 1846, and, after a time, it immensely lightened the housekeeper's 
 work. A woman no longer makes the clothing worn by her husband 
 and sons, and even her own clothing is largely shop-made. With carpet 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 675 
 
 factories on the right and on the left, women have lost weaving out 
 of their lives, but some of them, like Penelope, still cling to em- 
 broidery. She cares for her carpets with the carpet sweeper and the 
 carpet renovator, and, if she prefers a bare floor with a rug here and 
 there, she will find that a machine for making rugs has been invented, 
 and in 1894 a machine for sewing carpets. If for any reason this 
 housekeeper wishes to use dyes, she need not compound them her- 
 self in wearisome ways, but she will find that brilliant dyes have been 
 prepared for her by the chemist. In place of the feather bed, she has 
 the hair mattress, and perhaps with it the folding bed which maybe a 
 bed when so needed and something else when something else is prefer- 
 able. Does the mistress wish "to set" a hen? There are incubators 
 and she would better make use of one than do as did the Reverend 
 Doctor of whom Mrs. Stowe tells, who had a fight with an old torn 
 turkey to make him perform that office, coming off second best. 
 
 The list of helps is long and every housekeeper will be able to 
 lengthen it by the addition of something that has been of exceptional 
 benefit to herself. 
 
 The numerous inventions in many lines to lighten household 
 drudgery give the housekeeper a chance to improve the quality of 
 the work which she does for those she loves best ; they give her time 
 for other things and enable her to bring what we are accustomed to 
 call the lower functions of life into the place designed for them 
 that of co-operating with all other forces to give life on earth its best 
 conditions, conditions that will lessen drudgery, want, and grinding 
 misery; that will help in building up harmony, peace, and happiness 
 in the home; that will lengthen the span of human life; whatever, 
 in fact, tends to make life in all its phases better worth living. 
 
 UTILIZATION OF WASTE PRODUCTS. 
 
 This is the day and date of the by-product, and the chemist is 
 abroad in the land, going back over the ground, making use of what 
 
676 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 was formerly wasted, until there is hardly a single staple of human 
 industry taken from the earth that he cannot duplicate with materials 
 gathered from some despised refuse. 
 
 The scales of fish such as "menhaden" and " alewives " are 
 not in themselves attractive, but they are worth #1.25 a pound, and 
 under the magic influences of a French chemist appear as pearls to 
 adorn the neck of beauty. The Lucifer match, first made in 1833, 
 uses phosphorus largely obtained from old bones. In Paris a large pit 
 is prepared into which the carcasses of animals are thrown and innumer- 
 able rats soon clean the bones, which are then used in making phos- 
 phorus. The hoofs are used in the manufacture of glue, and from 
 time to time the surplus of rats are killed, their skins made into 
 "kid" gloves, and their tendons and bones boiled to furnish the 
 gelatin wrappers for bonbons. 
 
 In 1871 a refrigerator was mounted on car wheels, filled with 
 dressed beef, and started for an Eastern market, where it arrived in 
 good condition. Its success revolutionized an industry, for it was 
 cheaper to slaughter the cattle and ship the edible portions wherever 
 needed than to ship the cattle alive. Further, it insured a better 
 quality of meat. 
 
 What Becomes of the Steer. Organized concentration means 
 economy, and large packing houses rendered possible the utilization 
 of many waste products. A steer just off the plains, weighing 1500 
 pounds, furnishes about 825 pounds of dressed beef. The horns are 
 converted into combs, buttons, and hairpins. The hard shin bone 
 is made into knife and tooth brush handles, buttons, and bone 
 ornaments. The hoof is made into hairpins and buttons. The 
 hide goes to the tanner. The hair is made into insulating felt or 
 sold to the plasterer. The feet, knuckles, hide, clippings, sinews, 
 and small bones are made into glue, gelatin, isinglass, neat's-foot oil. 
 The tail goes to the soup and the tuft of hair is used in mattresses. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 677 
 
 The tallow and grease are made into toilet and laundry soaps, washing 
 powder, and all grades of glycerin. The blood is made into buttons 
 or used to refine sugar; and all waste of a nitrogenous character from 
 the different parts of the carcass is taken to the fertilizer works and 
 converted into fertilizers, stock and poultry foods, phosphorous 
 acid, phosphorus, boneblack, black pigment, sulphate of ammonia, 
 bone oil, and many other products. It once cost the packers of 
 Chicago $30,000 a year to remove and destroy the undigested food 
 found in the stomachs of animals slaughtered there, and now it is 
 made into paper. 
 
 The pig's bristles are made into brushes and his stomach and 
 pancreas go to the laboratory and are made into pepsins, pancreatins, 
 and other medicines. The wool is taken off the sheep pelts, cleaned, 
 and sold to woolen goods and felt manufacturers. The skin is tanned 
 and made into leather. The thyroids and some other glands are 
 made into medicines. 
 
 Such is the system employed ^by the late Philip D. Armour. 
 Everything was utilized under the supervision of 'expert chemists 
 working in well equipped laboratories; the cost of food was reduced, 
 and all portions of the animal not used for food, clothes, glue, soap, 
 or in the arts and sciences were returned to the farm as fertilizers, to 
 aid in growing more grain to feed more live stock. Small wonder 
 that so great and so well organized a business made money for him. 
 
 Cotton Seed. With every pound of cotton fiber there is produced 
 two pounds of cotton seed, and this product, formerly despised, now 
 threatens to rival petroleum in the multiplicity of its uses. The 
 seed is first ginned to remove the " crapo cotton," a-short, fine fiber 
 highly prized in making gun cotton ; it next passes between rollers 
 which crack and remove the hulls from the meats. One half the 
 hulls furnishes sufficient fuel to run the mill and the remainder is sold 
 as food for cattle. The ashes from the hulls burned at the mill 
 
678 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 furnish lye or caustic acid to refine the oil. The meats are passed 
 through rolls, which reduce them to a pasty mass and are then cooked 
 so that the oil can be more easily extracted. They are then placed 
 in bags within the press and the oil squeezed out, leaving behind oil 
 cake, which is ground and sold as oil meal, even then worth more for 
 cattle food than corn. 
 
 As a cattle food, cotton seed meal will produce 41 pounds of 
 lean beef as against 31 pounds for bran, 22 pounds for peas, 12 
 pounds for corn, and 1 1 pounds for rye. As a fat producer a given 
 quantity gives 57 pounds for cotton seed, 54 pounds for bran, 50 
 pounds for peas, 68 pounds for corn, 72 pounds for rye, and 50 
 pounds for hay. 
 
 The by-products of cotton seed have been so thoroughly utilized 
 that one investigator declares they have added $1.25 an acre to the 
 value of cotton lands and detracted $1.65 an acre from the value of 
 corn lands. 
 
 The Oil has Many Uses. Shipped to Europe it returns as " best 
 olive oil." Mixed with beef-stearin (another waste product) to 
 harden it, it becomes " pure lard," and government tests have shown 
 that its food value is fully as high as hog lard with less liability to 
 become rancid. As an illuminant it ranks between sperm oil and 
 lard oil. It burns well in the miner's lamp and is largely used for 
 that purpose, but is not good for paints or lubrication. It is largely 
 used in soap making and in advertising one popular brand (Ivory) the 
 fact is stated that it is made from pure cotton seed oil. Mixed with 
 1 8 per cent, of crude india rubber it makes a good imitation and is 
 used for cheap bicycle tires. The manufactured products from one 
 ton of cotton seed are worth about $20, and the field of usefulness 
 is widening. 
 
 Coal tar is a thick black sticky compound obtained in the manu- 
 facture of illuminating gas from coal. For many years it was an in- 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 679 
 
 sufferable nuisance, with its offensive odor, and was surreptitiously 
 dumped into rivers to get it out of the way. It is not strictly accu- 
 rate to say that the coal tar colors, saccharin, etc., are contained in coal 
 tar, but rather that they are made from things derived from it. No 
 other article furnishes so many useful products. As an illustration, 
 it may be likened to a long word which the chemist resolves into 
 letters with which he spells many other words, just as the letters 
 "a," " t," and " r," may be arranged to mean " rat," "tar," and 
 "art." Almost any substance on the earth derived from a vegetable 
 product can be duplicated by the chemist with some coal tar deriva- 
 tive. The U. S. Dispensatory credits coal tar with derivatives as 
 follows: 13 solids, 40 liquids, 16 illuminating gases, 3 heating gases, 
 and ten or a dozen other things classed as impurities. From it are 
 made saccharin, a substance 300 times sweeter than sugar; picric 
 acid, from which the famous lyddite explosive is made; and artificial 
 flavoring extracts counterfeiting so cleverly almost any flavor that 
 exists in nature that only an expert taste can detect the difference. 
 It furnishes perfumes that cannot be distinguished from heliotrope, 
 queen of the meadows, cinnamon, bitter almonds, wintergreen, 
 thymol, etc. Some coloring materials that were so transitory as to 
 be thought worthless are now indispensable for tinting photographic 
 plates for colored photography. Among the drugs made from it are 
 phenacetin, antipyrin, antifebrin, quinine, exalgine, hyponol, sul- 
 phonal, and so many others that the modern physician would find.it 
 hard to name all his medicines that are " coal tar derivatives." 
 
 The coal tar colors are now more important than the natural 
 ones and constitute four distinct classes: the aniline, the phenol, the 
 azocoloring matter, and the anthracene series, in all comprising more 
 than 2000 different shades. In 1881 Prof. V. Bayer produced indigo 
 by making it from its chemical constituents, but his experiment was 
 too costly. Other German chemists took the hint and continued 
 
680 THE MAEVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the researches. To-day one company in Baden annually manufac- 
 tures as much indigo from coal tar as could be produced from 250,000 
 acres of land in India. Indigo is the chief industry of the province 
 of Bengal, and hundreds of thousands of families depend upon it for 
 existence. If the land can be made to produce food, all the better 
 for the natives. 
 
 Kerosene is but one of the numerous products of petroleum, and 
 the rest form such a list one might think it a cousin of coal tar. 
 Paraffin, vaseline, cosmoline, rhigolene (an anaesthetic), cymogene 
 (used in ice machines), gasoline, lubricating oil, fuel, benzine, asphalt, 
 etc., chewing gum, aniline dyes, and several medicines are but a part 
 of the list, and the end is not yet. 
 
 Corn, though not a waste product, now has other uses than to 
 make whisky and pork. Glucose, made from it, is converted into 
 a very good substitute for rubber for some uses. From the pith of 
 the corn stalks cellulose for the water line belts of battle ships is 
 made, and as paper can be made from anything that has a fiber, the 
 husks and stalks of the corn can be used for that purpose. 
 
 Improved methods have made it possible to work over the waste 
 heaps or " tailings" from gold mines worked years ago. When a 
 roof was put on the mint in Philadelphia the leaden covering of the 
 old roof was melted and yielded $827 worth of gold and silver de- 
 posited there by invisible fumes arising from the furnace. A wooden 
 floor used for years in the establishment of one of the largest watch- 
 case making firms of New York city was burned and yielded $67,- 
 ooo worth of gold. 
 
 Seaweed or kelp, once considered one of nature's waste products, 
 is a source of wealth. Each ton will produce 8 pounds of iodine, 
 several gallons of volatile oil, three or four gallons of naphtha, from 
 150 to 300 pounds of ammonia sulphate, and considerable quantities 
 of potassium chloride. It also furnishes products used for food, 
 drink, and medicine, and can be made into vegetable isinglass. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 68 1 
 
 Blast furnaces are now charged with extravagance. Carefully 
 conducted tests in England have shown that blast furnace gases 
 formerly allowed to escape will in the cylinder of a gas engine furnish 
 a horse-power-hour from every 100 to 120 cubic feet of gas, and that 
 the average blast furnace of Great Britain wastes 14,000 horse 
 power a week. In other words, if the power were economically em- 
 ployed it would be worth more than the iron produced. Germany 
 has become aroused and is putting in gas engines, converting the 
 waste into electricity, and using the latter for every possible practi- 
 cable purpose. 
 
 Slag from blast furnaces is made into bricks, paving-stone, tile, 
 commercial fertilizer, wool; and the end is not yet, for it contains 
 from 55 per cent, to 75 per cent, of pure oxygen. So valuable has 
 the fertilizer proved that several large steel plants have been located 
 in the midst of the purely agricultural portions of Germany. 
 
 Coke furnaces are also forced to plead guilty to the charge of 
 wasteful extravagance. It is estimated that each ton of coke made 
 by the beehive method gives off 4000 cubic feet of gas that is 
 wasted. In addition there are 20 pounds of ammonia sulphate and 
 from 40 to 100 hundred pounds of coal tar. Germany has a system 
 of coking that utilizes these by-products to such an extent that 
 their value more than pays for coking the coal, while it is estimated 
 that $20,000 a day that might be saved goes up in smoke in the coke 
 regions of western Pennsylvania. 
 
 HOW TO MAKE AND PATENT AN INVENTION. 
 Senator Platt of Connecticut has said: "Of the seven wonders of 
 the ancient world only one, the lighthouse of Pharos, was for human 
 good. The seven wonders of the modern world, the cotton gin, 
 adaptation of steam to methods of transportation, appliances of elec- 
 tricity in business pursuits, harvesters, the modern printing press, 
 
682 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 the Bigelow loom, and the sewing machine, are all for the benefit of 
 mankind. The cotton gin and the sewing machine have given the 
 human body a new skin. The steam engine is the breath and 
 muscles, and the telegraph the nervous system of the body politic. 
 In the production of the electric light man has come nearer to 
 creation than anywhere else. The epoch of news came in with the 
 Hoe press, a new dimension for cities with the vertical railway, the 
 elevator, and the era of cheap food with McCormick's reaper. 
 The typewriter is the sewing machine of thought and introduces an 
 era of legible manuscript." 
 
 The man with an original idea has a commodity which the world 
 needs and he has a right to demand and receive payment for it. 
 Many a man lives who has in his mind a vague idea of some device 
 he thinks patentable and from which he believes he could reap a 
 fortune. The majority of these dreams never assume tangible form. 
 Some die in the attempt to give them practical shape ; others pass 
 through the preliminary stages successfully and are rejected by the 
 Patent Office. The sifting process of the Patent Office disposes of 
 many. However, rather more than half the applications pass the 
 final inspection and a limited number of these actually make fortunes 
 for their owners. The difficulties in the way of carrying inventions 
 to their completeness suppress many visionaries with their impracti- 
 cable schemes but they also bury under some worthy inventions. 
 The latter are too valuable to be lost and it would be better to in- 
 spect a hundred useless ideas than to lose a single worthy one. 
 Invention is an erratic faculty. The instruments it uses are common 
 to all, but it follows no prescribed rules of practice with respect to 
 time, place, or circumstance. Some of the best products of inventive 
 genius have appeared in the most unexpected places and probably 
 always will. 
 
 Infringement Suits. On May 19, 1899, the heirs of William A. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 683 
 
 Brickill were awarded $894,633 for an infringement suit against the 
 city of New York, which had been in litigation twenty-nine years. 
 Brickill was a foreman in the New York fire department and patented 
 a feed water heater for steam fire engines in 1868, which was adopted 
 by the city. On leaving the department he asked the city to pay 
 for his device. The authorities contended that he did the work 
 while in the employ of the city. The decision is important, for the 
 courts have decided that employers are not entitled to the inventions 
 of employees unless there is a special contract to that effect. 
 
 In 1900 another suit of about thirty years standing was decided 
 against the city and $818,074.72 awarded the plaintiff for a " relief- 
 valve" that would enable a fire-engine pump to run at full speed no 
 matter how many hose pipes were connected to lead off the water. 
 The city had adopted the valve but regarded the royalties asked as 
 excessive. Thirty years of litigation ensued, resulting in a verdict 
 against the city, for it was shown that the saving in hose amounted 
 to $183,394.32 ; the saving in labor, $606,344; and the saving in 
 repairs, $28,336. 
 
 Profitable Inventions. Some patents are readily salable. The 
 German government paid the Strowger Automatic Telephone Ex- 
 change of Chicago $500,000 for the patents and right to manufacture 
 and use their automatic switch. 
 
 One of the striking peculiarities of inventions is that the profit to 
 the inventor is so often out of all proportion to the seeming value 
 of his idea. Eli Whitney lost money perfecting the cotton gin, but 
 a patent for a particular kind of fastening for kid gloves has brought 
 its owner several hundred thousand dollars. A collar clasp brings 
 the owner of its patent a royalty of $20,000 a year, while a peculiar 
 form of sleeve button which struck the popular fancy brought the 
 owner of that patent $50,000 in five years. The roller skate made 
 $1,000,000 for its owners, copper tips for children's shoes and gimlet 
 
684 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 pointed screws paid well. The man who discovered that a candle if 
 tapered at the end would fit securely into its holder, patented the 
 idea and afterwards founded the largest candle factory in the world. 
 Improvements in umbrellas netted Samuel Fox at least half a million 
 pounds. Fortunes are to be made in small and apparently insignifi- 
 cant common things. A man may have an invention which 
 seems to him of little practical value, yet it may be the very thing 
 the world wants badly enough to give a fortune in exchange for it. 
 
 " A patent may be obtained by any person who has invented or 
 discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or compo- 
 sition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, not 
 known or used by others in this country, and not patented or 
 described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country 
 before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use or on 
 sale in the United States for more than two years prior to his appli- 
 cation, unless the same is proved to have been abandoned. 
 
 " A patent may also be obtained by any person who, by his own 
 industry, genius, efforts, and expense, has invented and produced 
 any new and original design for a manufacture, bust, statue, alto- 
 relievo, or bas-relief; any new and original design for the printing of 
 woolen, silk, cotton, or other fabrics ; any new and original impres- 
 sion, ornament, pattern, print, or picture to be printed, painted, 
 cast, or otherwise placed on or worked into any article of manufac- 
 ture ; or any new, useful, and original shape or configuration of any 
 article of manufacture, the same not having been known or used by 
 others before his invention or production thereof, nor patented nor 
 described in any printed publication. 
 
 " The applicant, if the inventor, must make oath or affirmation 
 that he does verily believe himself to be the original and first in- 
 ventor or discoverer of the art, machine, manufacture, composition, 
 or improvement for which he solicits a patent, that he does not know 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 685 
 
 and does not believe that the same was ever before known or used, 
 and shall state of what country he is a citizen and where he resides."* 
 
 Inventions usually arise to fill some want. An inventor sees 
 some work done, or is engaged in doing it, and a plan occurs to him 
 by which it could be done better, quicker, or cheaper; or, using or 
 seeing used some piece of machinery, possibilities of improvements 
 in it present themselves to his mind. To avoid hopeless confusion it 
 has been found necessary for every patent office to adopt certain 
 stringent rules. It is with the hope of furnishing to some would-be 
 inventor not familiar with the subject some knowledge of the course 
 of procedure required that this article is presented. If the inventor 
 will carefully ascertain what has been done by others in the line on 
 which he is working, much valuable time and effort can often be 
 saved, for there may be later and better methods than those he has 
 seen employed or later and better machinery may be actually on the 
 market. The quickest and best way to obtain this information is to 
 consult an honest and capable (the species is not extinct) patent 
 attorney, a man whose professional training fits him to quickly 
 secure for the inventor the accurate information he needs. The 
 attorney will usually furnish this for a small fee, for if the idea of his 
 client is patentable he knows that he stands a good chance of having 
 his services retained when the idea is ripe for patenting. 
 
 The experienced solicitor can avoid pitfalls and take advantage 
 of opportunities which would be unseen by the inexperienced in- 
 ventor; can point out complications, infringements, suggest mechan- 
 ical equivalents a different manner of arriving at the same result 
 and aid in steering clear of many difficulties. After finding that the 
 proposed invention is probably patentable the next step js to perfect 
 it, for the first conception is usually rather crude and incomplete in 
 detail, and changes are frequently necessary to avoid infringement 
 
 *Rules of Practice in United States Patent Office. 
 
686 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 on another patent. If the device is of such a nature that absolute 
 secrecy is impossible in the necessary tests, the safety of the inven- 
 tion may be protected by filing a "caveat." 
 
 A caveat is in no sense a patent for a limited term, but entitles 
 the inventor for one year to receive from the Patent Office notice of 
 any application for patent likely to interfere with his right. "The 
 caveat may be renewed, on request in writing, by the payment of a 
 second caveat fee of ten dollars, and it will continue in force for one 
 year from the date of the payment of such second fee. Subsequent 
 renewals may be made with like effect." A caveat gives the in- 
 ventor more time in which to perfect his device before making final 
 application for patent. "Any citizen of the United States, or alien 
 who has resided in the United States one year next preceding the 
 filing of his caveat, and has made oath of his intention to become a 
 citizen, and who, having made a new invention or discovery, desires 
 further time to mature the same, may, upon the payment of a govern- 
 ment fee of ten dollars, file in the Patent Office what is known as a 
 caveat. The caveat must clearly set forth the object of the supposed 
 invention and its distinguishing characteristics. Caveat papers, are 
 filed in the confidential archives of the Patent Office."* The ad- 
 vantage in this provision is that it aids in establishing the question 
 of priority in case the ensuing patent should ever be contested. It 
 also lengthens the profitable life of the patent and enables the in- 
 ventor to get it in working condition before placing it on the market. 
 
 The next thing to do is to make accurate drawings and a work- 
 ing model (if the invention is one which can be demonstrated by a 
 model), and make sure that the invention will do all that is claimed 
 for it. Never apply for a patent until this has been done and the 
 practicability of the invention has been established. 
 
 It is better to intrust the application to a patent solicitor, but if 
 
 * " Patents." Hawson and Hawson. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 687 
 
 the inventor wishes to carry it through unaided he can get very com- 
 plete and explicit directions published under the title of " Rules of 
 Practice in the United States Patent Office," and which can be ob- 
 tained from that office, in Washington, D. C. 
 
 The application for a patent requires a written specification, 
 drawings (no model, unless asked for by the examiner), an oath of 
 invention, and the payment of the first government fee of fifteen 
 dollars. 
 
 "The following order of arrangement should be observed in 
 framing the specifications : 
 
 "i. Preamble stating the name and residence of the applicant, 
 the title of the invention, and, if the invention has been patented 
 in any country, the country or countries in which it has been so 
 patented and the date and number of each patent. 
 
 "2. General statement of the object and nature of the inven- 
 tion. 
 
 "3. Brief description of the several views of the drawings (if 
 the invention admits of such illustration). 
 
 " 4. Detailed description. 
 
 "5. Claim or claims. 
 
 "6. Signature of the inventor. 
 
 " 7. Signatures of two witnesses. 
 
 "The specifications must be signed by the inventor or by his 
 executor or administrator, and the signature must be attested by 
 two witnesses." * 
 
 "The specifications and claims form the most important part of 
 an application for a patent, and the part for which, most partic- 
 ularly, inventors find the services of a competent solicitor not only 
 desirable, but necessary. If the specification incorrectly or insuffi- 
 ciently describes the invention, so that persons skilled in the art 
 
 * Rules of Practice in United States Patent Office. 
 
688 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 cannot, from the description, practically make and use the invention, 
 or if it fails to particularly point out what part of the matter 
 described the patentee claims as his own invention, then the patentee 
 has failed to comply with the conditions and requirements of the 
 law, and his patent is bad. As to the claim, it is the patentee's own 
 definition of his rights, by which he must stand or fall. The law 
 will not give him more than he has chosen to claim, nor help him out 
 if he has not claimed all that he might have done. So far as ascer- 
 taining and defining the extent of the patentee's right is concerned, 
 it is his claim which constitutes the patent." * 
 
 The applicant must not expect that his claim will receive immedi- 
 ate attention, for it will be considered in its regular order. If, when 
 it has been passed upon by the primary examiner, the matter 
 claimed appears to be new, the applicant or the solicitor who repre- 
 sents him will be notified that the application is " allowed," and that 
 a patent will be issued upon the payment of the further government 
 fee of twenty dollars, provided it be paid within six months. From 
 the payment of this last fee till the patent is actually issued three 
 weeks usually elapses. The total expense is $35.00 for the govern- 
 ment fees, plus the fee charged by the solicitor, if one be employed. 
 
 If the primary examiner considers that substantially the same 
 thing as that claimed by the applicant has been previously patented 
 or described in a printed publication, he reports adversely to the 
 commissioner, who sends a letter of rejection to the applicant or 
 solicitor, stating the exact cause for the rejection. An appeal may 
 then be taken to the examiners-in-chief and from their decision to 
 the Commissioner of Patents and from his decision to the Superior 
 Court of the District of Columbia. If the applicant wishes to push 
 his claim he will do well to intrust his case to a competent lawyer. 
 
 When a United States patent has been granted, its duration is 
 
 *" Patents." Hawson and Hawson. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 689 
 
 4 'seventeen years from the date of issue, unless the inventor has, 
 before the issue of the United States patent, patented his invention 
 or caused or allowed it to be patented in a foreign country. In that 
 case the United States patent will expire with the foreign patent; 
 or, if there be more than one, with that having the shortest term." 
 
 Civilization rose from savagery and depends for its very exist- 
 ence upon the encouragement and development of the inventive 
 faculties. He is a benefactor of mankind who devises some method 
 whereby any branch of human labor may be made less irksome or 
 more productive. In return for the security in the possession of 
 life, liberty, and property which society gives to him the inventor 
 owes a debt which he should repay by putting his invention in shape 
 to be of practical use. On the other hand, society recognizes its 
 debt to the inventor and has provided a method whereby he may 
 receive payment for his invention if it is useful to society. This 
 system has two good effects: the invention is secured for the use of 
 the people and it is secured in its best possible form, for the in- 
 ventor's financial success depending upon the merits of the article and 
 its general use, he will spare no pains to make it as good as he can. 
 The United States Patent System does not pay the inventor for his 
 invention, but, on the other hand, the army of inventors pay all the 
 expenses of the Patent System. This system has for its sole object 
 encouragement of invention by affording protection to the inventor, 
 his heirs, or assigns, in the unmolested use and sale of the invention 
 for a term of years in which he may amass a fortune if the invention 
 be really valuable. "A United States patent is a contract. The 
 parties to it are the inventor on the one hand and the people of the 
 United States on the other. The inventor, by a public record, in- 
 forms the people concerning a useful discovery which he has made, 
 which must be original with him and new in the United States. In 
 return the people, by their letters patent, secure to him the exclu- 
 
690 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 sive right to make, to use, and to sell his invention for a limited 
 number of years. At the, end of that period the contract terminates 
 and the discovery belongs to all the people forever. Whether the 
 thing contrived is to underlie a great industry, or whether it is 
 merely an improved pin, the inventor, to be entitled to his patent, 
 must disclose it fully and without restriction or reservation ; so that, 
 when the patent term shall be finished, the public may be able to 
 make and use the thing as well as he himself can make and use it." 
 
 First Patent. The earliest record of any patent is the one granted 
 by Edward III. of England to "two friars and two aldermen" who 
 claimed to have discovered the philosopher's stone. Laws for the 
 encouragement of inventors gradually developed a patent system in 
 Great Britain and this system has become a parent to most others. 
 In the American colonies, each colony for a time had the power to 
 grant patents. The first one recorded seems to be that of Samuel 
 Winslow, who in 1641 was granted a ten years' patent by the Gen- 
 eral Court of Massachusetts on a process of salt making. Since then 
 over 600,000 patents have been issued in the United States. The 
 first United States patent law was made April 10, 1791, but the 
 Patent Office was not established until 1836. The cost of maintain- 
 ing the United States Patent Office is about $1,250,000 annually. 
 As there are about 43,000 applications annually for patents of which 
 26,000 are granted, the fees of the applicants more than pay the 
 expenses of the office. 
 
 Statistics gathered by Edward W. Byrn for the Scientific Ameri- 
 can show that at the close of the nineteenth century nine countries had 
 issued 1,819,906 patents, of which the United States granted 37 per 
 cent. ; France, 18 per cent. ; Great Britain, 16 per cent. ; Belgium, 9 
 percent.; Germany, 7 per cent.; Austria- Hungary, 5 per cent.; 
 Canada, 4 per cent. ; Italy-Sardinia, 3 per cent. ; and Spain, I per 
 cent. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 69! 
 
 Thomas A. Edison, to whom more patents have been issued than 
 to any other inventor living or dead, says that if he had his life to 
 live over again, he would protect his inventions by secret processes 
 rather than by patents and take his chances on the results. The 
 reason he assigns is that the delays incident to an infringement suit 
 allow the guilty party to carry on the infringement with profit for 
 a length of time which, in many cases, has almost if not quite 
 equaled the term of the patent, and has thus virtually defeated the 
 very object for which the patent was issued. The expense incident 
 to these protracted suits may be so great as to more than exceed the 
 damages recovered. Though the "secret process " method might 
 be available for much of Edison's work, implements simple in design 
 and intended for general use could not be so protected. However, 
 just as necessity stimulates invention, the urgent need of better 
 patent laws will ultimately bring the required legislation. 
 
 " The British method is to grant, as a matter of course, any 
 regular application for a patent, no matter whether the device has 
 been the subject of a former patent or not, and then to leave the 
 patentees to fight out their respective rights afterwards in the 
 courts." 
 
 MACHINERY, LABOR, AND WEALTH. 
 
 Denis Papin made a steamboat about two hundred years ago, 
 and started down a German river to go to England, but he encoun- 
 tered a prejudice none the less strong because mistaken, for the boat- 
 men, who plainly saw that this innovation meant the loss of part of 
 their livelihood, fell upon him, destroyed his boat and the inventor 
 barely escaped with his life. Such was the first appearance of the 
 power destined to revolutionize the industrial world, and such the 
 reception it encountered. This spirit has been too often exhibited 
 and has not yet wholly disappeared. The experiences of the in- 
 ventors of cotton machinery have already been detailed. One of the 
 
692 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 greatest strikes that England has witnessed appears to have had its 
 inception in the introduction, by Hiram Maxim, of a number of new 
 milling machines into the factories of the famous Vickers, Maxim and 
 Co. The machines were automatic and one man could easily run six 
 or seven. The Trade Union declared that a man must be employed 
 for each'machine, and a long and bitter struggle ensued destructive 
 and expensive alike to capital and labor. But as the innovation 
 increased the production and reduced the cost, it won, as such inven- 
 tions must win in the long run. Progress is an irresistible force 
 crushing relentlessly labor or capital that recklessly attempts to bar 
 its course. In numerous printing offices of America a similar oppo- 
 sition was shown toward typesetting machines, but such opposition 
 has only retarded and not prevented their introduction. 
 
 Does Machinery Displace Labor ? Without doubt it often 
 temporarily deprives a workman of employment, but it is no less cer- 
 tain that it sets in operation a chain of industrial forces that in the 
 aggregate result in increased production at lower price, and in the 
 increased employment of labor. The man temporarily out of a job 
 is not inclined to be philosophical, and the introduction of new 
 machinery frequently works great hardships, but the world is chang- 
 ing and demands that whatever is for the greatest good shall be 
 brought to pass, even if a few individuals must be offered up to the 
 god of progress. Labor-saving machinery has oftenest displaced 
 labor of the lowest order and has thus emancipated man from much 
 labor which was hard, brutal, and degrading. The age of ''main 
 strength and stupidity " has passed and the workman is no longer a 
 machine, but an intelligent being, whose business it is to think and 
 to control machines. 
 
 Mention has been made of the cotton gin and it will not be 
 denied that although it was a labor-saving machine it also stimulated 
 the employment of more labor than any other invention but the 
 steam engine. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 693 
 
 Prior to 1830 nearly all the inland freight was hauled in wagons 
 drawn by teams. With the advent of the locomotive the labor and 
 capital so employed was forced to seek new fields, but who will con- 
 tend that the introduction of the locomotive has not benefited labor? 
 
 A half century ago saw the introduction of machinery- into watch- 
 making. Prior to that time the work had all been laboriously per- 
 formed by hand, but soon American machine-made watches were 
 competing successfully with the best products of Switzerland. Auto- 
 matic machinery, intelligent workmen, skillful organization, have 
 enabled two companies, the Waltham and Elgin, to put out millions 
 of watches, pay out millions of dollars to their workmen, and still 
 furnish timepieces so cheaply that the laborer of to-day can carry a 
 more accurate watch than could the rich man of a hundred years ago. 
 The cheapened product has made it possible to employ far more 
 labor than the industry could have supported had it been confined to 
 hand labor. Even in a business requiring so high a degree of skill 
 on the part of the workmen as watch-making, rarely has the intro- 
 duction of automatic machinery displaced as much labor as it created 
 a demand for, and the workmen of the Elgin Company have for a 
 quarter of a century made better wages at "piece work" than the 
 average market wages for day work, while strikes among them are 
 unheard of and the best of feeling prevails. 
 
 Frequently an automatic machine is introduced that performs 
 only a part of several operations engaging a single workman. This 
 certainly means the employment of a workman for each machine, an 
 increased product, and the employment of additional workmen to 
 take care of the product. 
 
 Typesetting machines are not such unmitigated evils as com- 
 positors feared, for the officers of the Typographical Union now 
 state that in their judgment as many persons are employed in set- 
 ting type as formerly, and the manufacture and sale of the machine 
 
694 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 have given employment to fully as many persons as their introduction 
 displaced ; while the stimulus to other branches has been marked, 
 cheapening the product, increasing the production, widening the 
 sale, creating a demand for more type, employing more men to make 
 it, more paper, more stereotypers. 
 
 Before the advent of wood fiber an increased demand for paper 
 called forth that picturesque figure, the rag peddler, who, with his 
 cart and jingling tin, was- such a familiar sight as he wended his way 
 through the New England and Middle states gathering an otherwise 
 waste product. 
 
 Inventions Create Occupations. Inventions not only create an 
 additional demand for labor but frequently create occupations, wit- 
 ness the Bell Telephone Company, using a quarter of a million 
 miles of wire and furnishing employment to 25,000 people. The 
 telegraph, the electric cable, and the locomotive are other good ex- 
 amples. In 1899, the Interstate Commerce Commission reported 
 that there were 928,924 railway employees in the United States 
 alone. When electric street cars were put on between Minneapolis 
 and St. Paul, carrying people every few minutes, it was complained 
 that they had thrown men out of employment on the steam road. 
 The electric road did displace eight men on the steam road, but it 
 furnished work for 65 men on the electric line. 
 
 Suppose a new line of railroad is to be built through the North- 
 west, and men of the usual type now employed by contractors for 
 that kind of work are making " cuts " and " fills" for the roadbed. 
 The introduction of a steam shovel or of a steam ditcher will neces- 
 sarily deprive some of these men of work, but it will shorten the 
 time of the construction of the road and lighten the cost, and that 
 road when completed will give employment to a large army of 
 switchmen, brakemen, engineers, conductors, telegraphers, foremen, 
 superintendents, and managers, labor surely as valuable as that 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 695 
 
 displaced by the steam shovel. Settlers are waiting the completion 
 of the road, traffic is waiting for it, machine shops and rolling mills 
 are busy preparing its locomotives and steel rails, blast furnaces 
 are glowing, the coal and ore for all these operations is mined 
 and transported, and the quicker the roadbed can be completed 
 the sooner can all these forces be set to work. Does Machinery 
 Displace Labor? 
 
 Increased Production. Seventy years ago ruling paper with a 
 quill and ruler took 4800 hours to do what a machine now does in 
 2^ hours. The quill pen man received $i a day, the machinist 
 $3.50 a day, yet the labor cost is 85 cents as against $4. 
 
 A modern printing press can print 96,000 eight-page papers in an 
 hour, while with the best hand presses it would take a man and a 
 boy working ten hours a day 140 days to do it, and the price would 
 be prohibitive. Many other illustrations could be cited. 
 
 At the Atlanta Exposition, not long ago, five mountaineers gave 
 an exhibition of the manufacture of homespun cloth by the use of 
 the hand card, the spinning wheel, and the hand loom. Alongside 
 and in operation, was the most modern machinery for doing the 
 same work and each method employed five persons. Hand labor 
 produced 8 yards of cloth in ten hours while machinery produced 800 
 yards of better cloth in the same length of time. Comment is un- 
 necessary. 
 
 Does Increased Production Benefit Mankind ? A farmer, a 
 weaver, and a shoemaker supply each other's wants, and each in turn 
 produces a bushel of wheat, a yard of cloth, and a pair of shoes in a 
 given length of time. Suppose each introduces improved tools that 
 double his productive capacity; then it follows that in the same 
 length of time and without extra effort they can be twice as well fed, 
 twice as well shod, and twice as well clothed. If machinery increases 
 the output per man, -there must be an increase in the production, 
 
696 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 and as the supply becomes greater the price falls and brings within 
 the reach of the workmen many things that were formerly considered 
 luxuries while it permits him to have still more of the common neces- 
 sities. The workmen are in the end the consumers of their own 
 products and, as the wealth of the world i-s increased, the workman 
 gets his share of the increase. 
 
 Machinery and Wages. Labor-saving machinery has been 
 used only about 125 years and it is not strange that the early writers 
 on economics, reasoning from insufficient data, should arrive at erro- 
 neous conclusions. The relations of machinery to labor and social bet- 
 terment have been carefully studied and exhaustive researches made 
 by carefully appointed experts in various countries, and much more 
 accurate and extensive knowledge is now available. In the United 
 States the Senate Committee of Finance investigated 2 i separate in- 
 dustries represented by about 100 distinct establishments and rang- 
 ing from 1840 to 1891. Starting with the assumption that the 
 wages of 1860 were fair average wages from which all the others 
 were to be computed, those of 1840 stood 82.5 per cent. ; 1860, 100 
 percent.; 1866, 155.6 per cent.; 1891, 168.6 per cent. In other 
 words the wages of 1891 were more than double those of 1840. The 
 average annual earnings of persons engaged in manufacture men, 
 women, and children was for 1850, $247; 1860, $289; 1870, 
 $302; 1880, $347; 1890, $445. 
 
 Experiments conducted by the British Department of Labor 
 and labor bureaus of continental Europe show the same general up- 
 ward tendency of wages, the countries ranging as follows: United 
 States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany. It is an in- 
 teresting coincidence that, judged by patents issued, the countries 
 that have encouraged the improvement of labor-saving machinery 
 rank about the same, viz. : United States, France, Great Britain, 
 Belgium, and Germany. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 697 
 
 It appears that wages have, generally speaking, a constant up- 
 ward tendency. What of the necessities of life? Similar experi- 
 ments conducted by the Senate Finance Committee show that 223 
 of the leading articles of consumption fell in price from 100 per cent, 
 in 1860 to 94.4 per cent, in 1891 ; then the price and purchasing 
 power of labor in 1891 measured by the price and purchasing power 
 of labor in 1860 shows a gain of 68 per cent. The wage earner further 
 shares in the benefit of the invention, for the hours of toil have been 
 shortened from 12 and 13, to 8, 9, and 10 hours per day. 
 
 Progress Sacrifices Capital. It is true that labor-saving ma- 
 chines displace some workmen, although they create a demand for 
 many more, but such losses are not confined to labor alone. "In- 
 dustry in its march takes no care of the positions it overturns nor of 
 the distinctions it modifies. It always accomplishes its work, which 
 is to make better goods at a lower price, to supply more wants 
 and always those of a better order, and to secure for man greater 
 comforts and conveniences, not with regard for any class, but having 
 in view the whole human race. True to its instinct it has no senti- 
 ment unless it is for its own interest."* 
 
 Marked changes in industry often create a greater demand for 
 labor, yet are expensive to capital. The Bethlehem Steel Company 
 constructed, at a cost of about a million dollars, the largest steam 
 hammer in the world. It was hardly well in operation before Sir 
 Joseph Whitworth's method of " fluid compression" and hydraulic 
 press forging rendered the hammer useless for the purpose for which 
 it was constructed. Improvements in transportation have frequently 
 caused locomotives to be thrown in the scrap heap for no other reason 
 than that larger and more powerful ones might be put in their places. 
 The Kinzua viaduct was recently rebuilt at great expense, not to 
 remedy any fault in construction, but because more powerful loco- 
 
 * Carroll D. Wright, " Practical Sociology." 
 
698 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 I 
 
 motives, hauling longer trains, imperatively demanded a stronger 
 
 bridge. When the Suez canal was built it ruined many British ship 
 owners, who had millions of dollars invested in the sailing trade with 
 Australia, for the canal shortened the route enough to make it prac- 
 ticable for steam vessels. Every one is familiar with the machinery 
 discarded, not because it is worn out, but because it is outclassed by 
 improved machinery. 
 
 Machinery Increases Wealth. The steam engine, labor-saving 
 machinery, and the production of cheap steel have wondrously in- 
 creased the wealth of the world. Steel is the foundation upon 
 which the whole structure of civilization and industrial life is reared 
 and any reduction in its cost or improvement in its quality tends to 
 increase its use and consequent benefit to mankind. There is a close 
 connection between the wealth of the country and the amount of 
 iron and steel it consumes. In the United States the wealth per 
 capita in 1820 was $200, the consumption of iron and steel, 40 
 pounds; wealth in 1850, $350, iron and steel, 85 pounds; wealth in 
 1870, $700, iron and steel, 175 pounds; wealth in 1890, $1050, iron 
 and steel, 275 pounds; wealth in 1900, $1350, iron and steel, 375 
 pounds. A like relation is shown between the wealth of the world 
 and the steam power used. Mulhall, the eminent statistician, stated 
 in 1896 that the United States turned out 25 per cent, of the manu- 
 factured products of the world with 12 per cent, of the operatives, 
 " showing the great economy of labor due to the unusual use of im- 
 proved machinery." 
 
 Prior to the introduction of the Bessemer process, all nails were 
 made of iron and largely by women, and it was the proud boast of 
 Sir Henry Bessemer that he had lifted from slavery 60,000 woman 
 nail makers of England. To-day steel nails are made by machinery, 
 and so cheaply that if a carpenter stops to pick up a nail accidentally 
 dropped, he wastes more time than the nail is worth. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 699 
 
 Machinery and Savings Banks. If one may judge the con- 
 dition of the people in moderate circumstances by the reports of the 
 savings banks, the states of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connec- 
 ticut, and New York, where the factory system plays an important 
 part, compared with the states of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and 
 Minnesota, where agriculture is the chief industry, furnish important 
 testimony. Of the men, women, and children of Massachusetts 53 
 per cent, are depositors in savings banks as against 0.14 per cent, of 
 those of Wisconsin, and New York has nearly 100 times as many 
 depositors as Indiana. The following table shows the number of 
 depositors in each of the states named, the average amount of the 
 deposit, and the ratio of the depositors to the total population : 
 
 Number of Average Ratio 
 
 Depositors. Deposit. of Depositors. 
 
 Massachusetts 1,491,143 $358.01 53 percent. 
 
 Connecticut 393>*37 44 2 94 43 percent. 
 
 New York 2,036,016 452.89 28 percent. 
 
 Rhode Island 142,096 517.18 33 percent. 
 
 Indiana 21,091 267.93 0.7 per cent. 
 
 Illinois 208,992 309-95 4 per cent. 
 
 Wisconsin 2,945 I 9 2 -93 0.14 per cent. 
 
 Minnesota 51.418 234.67 3 percent. 
 
 Many of the Eastern savings banks are at a disadvantage because 
 the rate of interest in the East is lower than in the West. Con- 
 trasted with such an exhibit is the historical fact that prior to the 
 introduction of the factory system in England, pauperism was so 
 great that one fourth of the expenses of the government went to 
 their support, and that since that time it has been constantly on the 
 decline. 
 
 Division of Wealth. Mulhall estimates that the last decade has 
 made an addition of $25,000,000,000 to the wealth of the United 
 States, a saving unheard of in the history of the human race, and 
 Mr. Powers, statistician of the twelfth census, says that this is a 
 
7OO THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 greater saving than all the people of this continent were able to 
 make from the time it was discovered by Columbus to the breaking 
 out of the Civil War, and that the saving represents more houses, 
 buildings, machinery, tools, implements, clothes, and means of trans- 
 portation than the whole human race was able to add to its savings 
 from the time of Adam to the Declaration of American Independence. 
 It is not true that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. 
 The wage earner is better housed, better fed, better clothed, better 
 educated than ever before and enjoys advantages of civilization un- 
 known to employers even a generation ago, and has comforts that 
 kings of a century ago were unable to command. In 1829 nine of 
 the heaviest taxpayers of Boston owned over 8 per cent, of the wealth 
 of the city. In 1 899 the nine heaviest taxpayers of Boston owned but 
 4 per cent, of the city's wealth. In 1845 the 333 richest men of 
 Boston owned a greater portion of its wealth than do 1200 of its 
 richest citizens to-day. The wealth of the world has enormously 
 increased ; the rich are growing richer and the poor are growing 
 better off. 
 
 The globe could not support its population if deprived of the 
 benefits of the steam engine and the labor-saving machinery attendant 
 in its train. Rae, the eminent Arctic explorer, states that every 
 Indian within the territory of the Hudson Bay Company requires 20 
 square miles of land from which to make a living by hunting and 
 fishing. The Royal Geological Society a decade ago estimated the 
 world's population at 1,487,600,000, and if this is even approx- 
 imately correct there are now living in the world 620 times as many 
 people as could be supported on a civilization no lower than that of 
 the North American Indian, and Manhattan Island, which now sup- 
 ports a population of 1,850,093, would, if deprived of the benefits of 
 modern civilization, only afford a living for two. 
 

APPENDIX. 
 
 MAN'S WORK AND TRAINING. 
 
 r I ^HE choice of an occupation is of greater moment than formerly. 
 * Time was when the son followed pretty closely in the foot- 
 steps of his father and all the male members of a family were mem- 
 bers of one profession. It was easier to choose an occupation then, 
 foi the choice was limited. To-day, professions are extending their 
 invitations that were unheard of a generation ago. It seems unfortu- 
 nate that one of the most important decisions in life must be made 
 by a young man when he is the least fitted to make that decision, 
 and when it is only too likely to be influenced by mere desire or 
 ephemeral fancy rather than aptitude, fitness, and qualification, both 
 mental and physical, which should be the determining factors in the 
 selection of a profession. The occupation cannot dignify the man 
 so much as the man may dignify the occupation. It is a season of 
 unrest and change, and new lines of employment are constantly 
 being opened, offering fascinating inducements to young men, and 
 affecting materially the earnings of those in the older professions. 
 One hundred years ago it was an unusual thing, and almost some- 
 thing to be deplored, for a Harvard graduate to enter business instead 
 of taking up one of the learned professions, but all this has changed. 
 Two hundred years ago the large landowner was making the most 
 money; one hundred years ago it was the shipowner; to-day it is 
 the manufacturer, and the young man in selecting an occupation 
 should take into consideration the tendency of the times, his fitness, 
 and decide accordingly. 
 
 The great use of machinery has sprung up wholly within a cen- 
 tury and a quarter. It seems plainly evident that the present cen- 
 
702 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 tury is to witness the greatest development of industrial forces that 
 the world has ever seen. Statistics show a constant and steady gain 
 of the skilled over unskilled workers, and one is not heeding the 
 signs of the times who neglects the warning and relies on strength 
 alone, for the proportion of labor that calls only for muscular exer- 
 tion is becoming smaller and smaller. 
 
 This fact is becoming generally recognized, and the increasing 
 number of manual training schools, trade schools, technical schools, 
 technical departments attached to great universities, and institutes of 
 technology show the general trend of interest. There are a few 
 trade and technical schools on the American continent that com- 
 pare favorably with those of France, Belgium, Switzerland, Ger- 
 many, Austria, Scandinavia, but in general the European schools 
 are superior. 
 
 Manual training schools are such as, in addition to regular edu- 
 cational courses, give instruction in tool work. In trade schools the 
 great consideration is the mastery of a trade with some attention to 
 general education. The technical school bears the same relation to 
 the trade school that the high school does to the grammar school, 
 for it teaches not only the handicraft but the principles upon which 
 it is founded. Institutes of technology give a technical education 
 ranking with the universities and confer degrees on their graduates 
 as civil engineer, electrical engineer, mining engineer. 
 
 The industrial schools of Europe are fitting young men for many 
 trades with a thoroughness which seems particularly characteristic of 
 the German, and easy means of communication, quick and cheap 
 transportation, are breaking down national barriers and making it 
 constantly easier to move to the places where there is the greatest 
 demand. Australia, Canada, and the United States are looked upon 
 in continental Europe as especially promising fields and the Mecca 
 for the young man after he has finished his industrial education at 
 
APPENDIX. . 703 
 
 home. The moral is obvious the American must be equally well 
 prepared. 
 
 Medicine. It seems reasonable to believe that as the people 
 become better educated and better acquainted with the laws of life, 
 as sanitary engineering improves and as medical science continues to 
 add to its long and honorable series of victories, that there will be 
 less and less demand for physicians. The specialist will do better 
 than the general practitioner and in selecting the specialty it will be 
 well to remember the strain of modern life upon the eye, the ear, and 
 the nervous system. One of the most eminent physicians of New 
 York city says the regular physician who in five years establishes a 
 practice that supports him does well. 
 
 Law. If the young lawyer is to become eminent, certain spe- 
 cialties in law, as criminal law or some branch of corporation law, 
 seem to offer the most brilliant prospects. 
 
 Music, painting, and sculpture seem to offer better prospects than 
 ever before on this continent, for, with increasing education, wealth, 
 and leisure among the people, the artist will receive larger patronage. 
 
 The instruction in the schools of art and design range from 
 designs for wall paper and carpets to building cathedrals. The fol- 
 lowing are a few well known art schools: The Art Students' 
 League, 215 W. 57th street, New York city; tuition $4 to $12 a 
 month; a few scholarships and prizes are awarded. The New York 
 School of Art, 57 W. 57th street, New York city; tuition $5 to $15 
 a month; several scholarships and prizes are awarded. Cooper 
 Union, Astor place, New York city, has free night schools for men 
 where instruction in mechanical drawing, architectural drawing, 
 decorating, designing, modeling, etc., are given. The Pennsylvania 
 Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, has two terms of 17 weeks 
 each ; tuition $10 to $30 per term ; several valuable prizes and scholar- 
 ships are awarded. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ; tuition $i 15 
 
704 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 for a year of 33 weeks; pupils are limited to 200. The Art Institu- 
 tion of Chicago has perhaps the largest enrollment of pupils; tuition 
 $50 to $75 a year. Among others, equally meritorious, are the Art 
 Academy of Cincinnati, the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, of St. 
 Louis; the Minneapolis Academy of Fine Arts, Minneapolis; 
 Columbia University School of Architecture, New York city. 
 Nearly all of the larger colleges give some instruction in fine arts. 
 
 The Polytechnic institutes are all of comparatively recent 
 growth. The first one in the United States was the Rensselaer 
 Polytechnic Institute of Troy, N. Y., founded by Stephen Van 
 Rensselaer in 1824. 
 
 Gradually the old system of education, once ample, was shown 
 to be inadequate to meet the requirements of the changed in- 
 dustrial conditions and interests, and separate scientific departments 
 and distinct organizations for technical schools were made. Of 
 these the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale was founded in 1847; 
 the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard, 1848; the Chandler 
 Scientific School of Dartmouth, 1852; the Massachusetts Institute of 
 Technology, 1865; Cornell, 1868; the Stevens Institute, Hoboken, 
 N. J., 1871; the Rose Polytechnic School, Terre Haute, Ind., 1883; 
 the Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, O., 1891 ; Depart- 
 ment of Applied Science, McGill University, Montreal, 1878. 
 
 The trade school is a product of the nineteenth century. Before 
 the advent of the steam engine, the master workman took appren- 
 tices into his own shop and taught them the craft, and he was simply, 
 as the name implied, the master workman. But with the introduc- 
 tion of machinery he became active manager of an industrial estab- 
 lishment, and the old relations were no longer possible, hence the 
 trade schools arose to supply the deficiency. Of these, the Pennsyl- 
 vania School of Industrial Art and the School of Weaving at Crefeld, 
 Germany, are representatives of this type, which offer special courses 
 
APPENDIX. 705 
 
 in silk weaving, linen weaving, watch-making, mason work, machine 
 work, brewing, etc. The courses last from three to five years and 
 beside the trade training given, additional instruction is given 
 in mechanical drawing, free-hand drawing, mathematics, bookkeep- 
 ing, science, etc. The object of these schools is to supply a limited 
 number of graduates fitted to become superior workmen and foremen 
 rather than to train the great body of artisans. The first practical 
 trade school of the western hemisphere was founded in New York so 
 lately as 1881 and the work was at first confined wholly to evening 
 classes. Numerous schools of like character have sprung up, among 
 which is the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, and none rank higher. 
 
 A strong evidence of the value of technical training is seen in the 
 sacrifices men of experience as machinists and draughtsmen are will- 
 ing to make in order to secure it. Although there has been a rapid 
 increase in this branch of instruction during the past fifteen years, 
 it has hardly kept pace with the increasing demand. 
 
 Many of the young men who would make best use of the advan- 
 tages offered by the technical schools are not wealthy and some of 
 them are limited in general education. All such may be interested 
 in reliable information regarding the entrance requirements of the 
 technical schools, and the cost of a thorough technical education. 
 
 Professor Thurston of the scientific department of Cornell Uni- 
 versity, which may be considered as standard, writes as follows: 
 
 "To enter upon a course of study in a college school of engi- 
 neering, a good preparation in mathematics is demanded, including 
 as the first requirement, the highest of the high school branches. To 
 enter upon the full course as a candidate for a degree also involves 
 good preparation in other branches of high school study and espe- 
 cially in the modern languages; for the literature of engineering is 
 very largely to be found in the French and German languages. All 
 this means for the average man, the consecration of much valuable 
 
706 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 time, much hard work and considerable money to the task of simply 
 preparing for college; but many young men do it, earning their liv- 
 ing and paying their way to the highest and best of technical schools 
 and through them. 
 
 " Cornell University offers six hundred * state scholarships,' 
 involving no payment of tuition fees, to those who succeed in a pub- 
 lic competition held in all the election districts of the state of New 
 York at stated periods. 
 
 " Although the student in a course of college work in mechanical 
 engineering of whatever kind spends hundreds of dollars each year for 
 a number of years to secure his diploma in engineering, much may be 
 accomplished by a man of pluck and ambition, with a spirit of self- 
 sacrifice, on a comparatively small sum. In the larger cities, for- 
 tunately for this class of men, are now to be found institutions which 
 facilitate his work in self-instruction and self-education enormously, 
 and the Cooper Institute in New York, the pioneer in this grand 
 work, is a good example. Others are the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; 
 the Auchinschloss schools, New York ; the Drexel Institute, Phila- 
 delphia; the Lewis and the Armour Institutes, Chicago, and others, 
 including the best correspondence schools, in which excellent courses 
 of instruction are given. 
 
 " In some individual and exceptional cases it is possible to find a 
 way of earning something while in college. One man boasted that 
 he left college considerably richer than when he entered, and another 
 by securing and sub-letting a contract in a remote town, for an elec- 
 tric lighting plant, made a surplus of some thousands of dollars; but 
 these are not cases to be taken as giving much encouragement to the 
 average student. He must usually make a business of study and 
 study only." 
 
 F. W. Tyler, Secretary of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology, states as follows : 
 
APPENDIX. /O/ 
 
 "Any applicant needs to be well prepared in algebra and plane 
 and solid geometry as a minimum, whether for a regular or a special 
 course in engineering. Our scholarship funds are in general re- 
 stricted to regular students who have completed a year or more of 
 good work and are known to be in need. 
 
 " Many of our scholarship applicants get on for $5 per week or 
 less for room and board, although such economy involves some de- 
 gree of hardship." 
 
 G. H. Marx of Leland Stanford Jr. University, says: 
 
 " A person who has had a good, common school education, in- 
 cluding plane geometry and elementary algebra, but who cannot ful- 
 fill the requirements for entrance as a regular student, can enter the 
 university as a special student, provided he is at least twenty-one 
 years of age, and has had practical experience of a nature satisfac- 
 tory to the authorities. 
 
 "There are no scholarships which give a student financial assist- 
 ance, but a great many students support themselves throughout 
 their course. A man with a trade can earn enough in the shops 
 of San Francisco during the summer to carry him well through the 
 year. A number of our men have done this. The expenses of 
 a student exclusive of clothing and railroad fares need not exceed 
 $225 per year." 
 
 From the University of Illinois, L. P. Breckenridge writes: 
 
 *' The charges for tuition here are nominal and the cost of living, 
 including all expenses of the student both in the university and out, 
 may be easily as low as $225 to $250 a year. 
 
 " I have under consideration the advisability of establishing what 
 we might call a two years course in Mechanic Arts at the University 
 of Illinois, permitting the students to enter it with only the avowed 
 purpose of becoming mechanics rather than engineers. There seems 
 to be very little provision in American educational systems for 
 
708 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 educating mechanics. I was very much impressed by our lack of 
 this facility from what I saw in some of the German and English 
 schools." 
 
 From H. W. Spangler of the University of Pennsylvania: 
 
 ''The actual requirements for admission cover mathematics, in- 
 cluding algebra, geometry and elements of trigonometry, elementary 
 physics, English, French, German, and history. The university has 
 a few scholarships available for students residing outside of Philadel- 
 phia who are doing the full work of the course. 
 
 " The cost of a year's work at the university would be made up 
 of $200 tuition ; $25 caution money to cover breakage, with any 
 balance returned; room in the dormitory from $45 to $105 for the 
 college year; board at the university restaurant at $3.50 per week ; 
 and books and supplies, which will average $25 per year, the first 
 year's expenses being a little greater than the average because of the 
 necessity of purchasing drawing tools." 
 
 Palmer C. Ricketts, president Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 
 writes as follows : 
 
 " We require for entrance at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
 the usual elementary English branches, arithmetic, plane and solid 
 geometry, and algebra through quadratic. equations. The expenses 
 vary from five hundred dollars a year upward. This includes tui- 
 tion. We have no scholarships here but are able to give some 
 students quarters free of rent. Efficiency in shop work or drawing 
 would not help offset any deficiency in entrance requirements." 
 
 McGill University, Montreal, requires English, mathematics, and 
 French or German, or Greek or Latin, and also an examination in 
 physiography, botany, chemistry, or physics. 
 
 Instruction is given in architecture, civil engineering, survey- 
 ing, electric engineering, mechanical engineering, mining engineer- 
 ing, metallurgy, and chemistry. 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
APPENDIX. 709 
 
 There are several prizes ranging from $10 to $100 each and four 
 scholarships, one worth 150 pounds sterling. 
 
 The tuition fee is about $156 and board and lodging costs from 
 $15 to $25 per month. 
 
 A revolution has taken place in college education. Great uni- 
 versities like Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Pennsylvania accept 
 studies in the professional schools as meeting the requirements of the 
 last year in college. Yale and Harvard no longer require a knowl- 
 edge of Greek as essential to admission. A young man can be 
 admitted to full standing in the academic department of the college 
 who has no knowledge of Greek and but little of Latin, and once 
 admitted he is left free to select from a long list of studies, ranging 
 from architecture and music on the one hand to military and manual 
 training on the other, and he can obtain his degree from studies that 
 are purely practical and technical.- 
 
THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 MODERN OCCUPATIONS FOR WOMEN. 
 
 F^IFTY years ago there was one woman wage 
 earner to every ten men. The present ratio 
 is one to four. There are now about three million 
 women and girls in the United States alone who 
 earn their own livelihood. This is one of the 
 striking changes incident to the great increase of 
 business which has marked the age of invention. 
 Not only has invention enabled deft fingers and 
 quick minds to displace mere muscle but it has also 
 opened many new avenues of employment to men 
 and the work dropped by them as they have 
 reached out for something better has been picked 
 up by women. 
 
 The primeval man and woman gained a bare 
 subsistence by hunting, fishing, and tilling the 
 ground in a simple fashion, while they had at the 
 same time to contend with wild beasts and hostile 
 tribes of hardly less savage men. As the woman 
 sought places of comparative safety for her chil- 
 dren, the easier half of the work, as tilling the soil 
 and preparing the simple meals, naturally fell to 
 her. The humblest working woman of to-day per- 
 forms feats of skill far beyond the capacity of 
 primeval man, but it still remains, as it should, 
 that the most complex and arduous tasks fall to 
 men. 
 
 So long as she could, woman continued to do 
 her half of the world's work in the home, but the 
 development of machinery took the work out of the 
 home into the factory and the workers had to 
 
APPENDIX. 711 
 
 follow the work. Thus "woman's work" has gradually widened, 
 until to-day women are in business and the professions as well as the 
 industries; they are there with widening knowledge and increasing 
 ability; it is probable they are there to stay. The purpose of thia 
 article is to aid, if may be, those who wish to become self-support- 
 ing, or to earn more than their present equipment affords, by a par- 
 tial survey of the occupations now practicable for women. The aim 
 will be to give briefly an approximate idea of the necessary aptitude 
 and preparation, the expense of preparation, and the probable remu- 
 neration. 
 
 Medicine, of the learned professions, seems to be the one for 
 which women are best fitted and the "woman doctor" may be 
 found in all large towns. There is now no lack of medical schools 
 where women can study in peace, and the catalogue of any of them 
 will give the requirements. The course is from two to four years, 
 according to the statute requirements of different localities, and an 
 annual expenditure of $400 should be allowed for the tuition, board, 
 and incidental expenses of each college year. 
 
 The financial success of the woman physician depends upon her 
 personality and tact as well as upon her knowledge of her profes- 
 sion. A comfortable living is assured her when competent, if she 
 can wait a few months to build up a practice. There are compara- 
 tively few women physicians who attain a yearly income of over 
 $2500, and doubtless the average income would fall somewhat below 
 the $1000 mark. It should be remembered that this is a most 
 laborious and trying profession to those who have no natural love 
 for it. 
 
 The Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia, the Cleveland 
 Homeopathic Medical College, Cleveland, Ohio, the Toronto School 
 of Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, are some of the medical colleges 
 open to women. 
 
712 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The Law. The expense of a course in law is about the same as 
 that of medicine. 
 
 The feminine mind seems to have little aptitude for this profes- 
 sion, which keeps one so continually in touch with the seamy side of 
 life, and there are few women lawyers in offices of their own. 
 There is an opening for them, however, as assistants in the offices of 
 large law firms, where they receive salaries from $18 per week up- 
 ward, according to experience and ability. A course in stenography 
 and typewriting should be included in the preparation for such a 
 position, 
 
 Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., Boston University, Boston, 
 Mass., Osgoode Hall, Toronto, and other law schools, now give 
 young women equal opportunities with men in preparing for this 
 profession. 
 
 The Ministry. There is occasionally a woman who seems as 
 truly called to preach as was ever John the Baptist, and such usually 
 make their way and find their place. The woman who wishes to 
 prepare regularly for the ministry will now find an opening in most 
 theological schools of the various denominations outside the Episco- 
 pal and Roman Catholic. These and other churches offer "voca- 
 tions" to women in which they can make themselves useful as sisters 
 of charity, deaconesses, nurses, and in missionary work. The fol- 
 lowing institutions have departments for the training of women for 
 different branches of Christian work: 
 
 The Bible Normal College, Springfield, Massachusetts. 
 
 The Lay College, Revere, Massachusetts. 
 
 The Moody Bible Training School, Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Dentistry is being rapidly taken up by women as a profession and 
 they seem to be generally successful. Before a woman decides to 
 undertake this work she should be quite sure that she has sound 
 nerves, physical endurance, a natural aptitude for fine mechanical 
 
APPENDIX. 713 
 
 work, and that she is not in the least " squeamish." It is not agree- 
 able work at best, but it is useful and fairly remunerative. As as- 
 sistant dentist a woman may earn from $15 to $25 a week. In 
 business for herself her physical strength would hardly permit her to 
 earn more than $1500 to $2000 a year unless she attracts so large a 
 patronage as to employ assistants and make a profit from their work. 
 It is said that if the teeth of the people of the United States alone 
 were properly cared for, it would keep 50,000 dentists constantly 
 occupied. 
 
 The course in a dental college is three years, and the expense 
 about the same as that for a course in medicine. 
 
 The Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery, Philadelphia, 
 Penn., the Tufts College Dental School, Boston, Mass., the Toronto 
 Dental College, Toronto, Ontario, and many of the dental schools 
 connected with universities admit women. 
 
 Nursing is a woman's occupation by natural right, and the work 
 of the trained nurse has come to be esteemed as hardly less impor- 
 tant than that of the physician. 
 
 Training schools for nurses are to be found in connection with 
 most public hospitals. The usual course is three years. The com- 
 mon requirements are that the probationer be over 21 and under 35 
 years of age, that she have sound health, good character, a common 
 school education, and evince some fitness for the calling. While in 
 training pupils have a small monthly compensation for their services 
 as well as board, lodging, and washing, with care if ill. 
 
 Graduate nurses command from $15 to $25 a week for their 
 services, but it should be remembered that the work is too arduous 
 to admit of constant employment and that the nurse may earn no 
 more in the course of a year than a woman with smaller weekly 
 wages who seldom loses a day's pay. 
 
 Infant's Nurse. The position of a trained nurse for infants ranks 
 
714 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 with that of the trained nurse for the sick, while the work is more 
 agreeable, less wearing, and the employment less fluctuating. That 
 infant is to be counted happy who is consigned to the care of a re- 
 fined, kind, scientifically trained young woman, who will undertake 
 to carry the mite of humanity through its first year and see it safely 
 started on the difficult journey of life. Training may be had at the 
 Babies' Hospital, Lexington avenue, New York. The course is six 
 months, and the graduate, if competent and a desirable person, can 
 readily find occupation in a home of wealth at a salary of $30 to 
 $50 a month. Her duties are to take charge of the child day and 
 night, but she often has the assistance of a nurse girl and is not 
 called upon to do any housework or sewing. 
 
 Teaching as an occupation for woman is so well known that little 
 need be said of its pleasures, pains, or emoluments. Especial train- 
 ing for the work is now almost universally required, and there are 
 numerous normal schools which furnish free instruction with board 
 and other necessary expenses at reasonable rates. The course varies 
 from two to four years. 
 
 The average wage of the public school teacher is $40 per month 
 for a school year of nine months or less. Three hundred and sixty 
 dollars a year is not a munificent sum with which to meet the require- 
 ments of a woman of intelligence and culture, but teachers of the 
 higher branches, and in city schools, are well paid. In this line of 
 work, as in any, it pays to be a specialist, teaching only one or two 
 branches, as music or drawing. A special teacher usually serves sev- 
 eral schools yet carries less responsibility and encounters fewer an- 
 noyances than a teacher who has entire charge of one school. 
 
 Kindergarten teaching requires special training and commands a 
 somewhat larger salary than regular grade teaching. This is pleasant 
 work for enthusiastic lovers of children and no others have any 
 moral right to attempt it. Private kindergarten schools are numer- 
 
APPENDIX. 715 
 
 ous and a winsome, refined teacher can gather a class in almost any 
 community. Nearly all normal schools and teachers' training 
 schools have a kindergarten department. 
 
 Physical Culture. There is a growing demand for teachers of 
 gymnastics and physical culture. The requirements are a fine 
 natural figure, a thorough knowledge of anatomy and physiology, 
 and the ability to make practical application of the knowledge. 
 Aside from positions in public and private schools open to such 
 teachers, independent work can be secured in almost any town by 
 an attractive teacher who has the knack of getting people enthusias- 
 tic over her fad and who makes her classes enjoy themselves under 
 her instruction. One hundred dollars a month is not an unusual 
 salary for a good teacher in physical training, and the opportunities 
 are on the increase. 
 
 The Emerson College of Oratory, Boston, Mass., is a school of 
 high standing which has a normal course for training instructors of 
 physical culture. The full course is three years, the tuition $135 a 
 year, while from $150 to $200 must be allowed for board and inciden- 
 tals. Many of the regular state normal schools include physical training 
 in their course, tuition free. 
 
 Cookery. Cooking clubs have become so much of a fad that 
 skilled teachers find it easy to secure private classes, and, as cooking 
 is becoming more and more common as a branch of study in the 
 public schools and in educational institutions for women, there is a 
 growing field for teachers. A year's course in the normal depart- 
 ment of the New York Cooking School costs #50 for tuition, but a 
 diploma from such an institution is a great aid to the would-be 
 teacher in securing a position. 
 
 Music. The requisite for success in the world of music is the 
 natural gift, without which no amount of training will avail, and 
 there must be added to this years of study and patient practice, be- 
 
716 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 ginning in childhood or youth. Every village has its music teacher, 
 who imparts the rudiments of piano playing, and its singing master, 
 who teaches how to "sing by note." Beyond this there is hardly 
 any limit to the instruction one may receive or the amount it may 
 cost. 
 
 Nearly all colleges for women offer the best of facilities for the 
 serious study of music, either as a special course or in connection 
 with other studies, and there are schools which are entirely devoted 
 to the teaching of all classes of music and to the training of teachers. 
 One of the best known of these is the New England Conservatory of 
 Music, Boston, which offers especial advantages to lady students. 
 
 The teaching of the various branches of music gives a livelihood 
 to many women, both as instructors in public and private schools 
 and as independent teachers. The salaries of teachers in the schools 
 range from $300 to $1200 a year, while private teachers can com- 
 mand all the way from 50 cents to $5 a lesson, the ordinary price 
 being about $i a lesson. Trained singers with good voices can 
 readily obtain positions in church quartets at salaries of from $150 
 to $1200 a year, two or three hundred dollars being considered a fair 
 price. 
 
 Piano Tuning. A woman who is physically strong and who has 
 a correct ear can readily become a skillful piano tuner, and it is a 
 field of work not overcrowded. The usual charge for tuning a 
 square or upright piano is $2, a parlor grand $2.50. 
 
 The New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, offers a two 
 years' course in piano tuning at a tuition of $100 a year. 
 
 Literature is a field in which a few women find fortunes, a large 
 number make a comfortable living, a larger number eke out a bare 
 subsistence, but in which the largest number of aspirants waste time 
 and lose money. If a woman feels the fires of genius burning within 
 her soul she will write in spite of every discouragement, and if she 
 
APPENDIX. 717 
 
 is persistent her work will finally secure recognition. Ease of ex- 
 pression is natural to the gentler sex and almost any woman of edu- 
 cation and culture can write passably well regarding any subject of 
 which she has positive knowledge, but she should not mistake this 
 facility for the talent which would be her only warrant in turning to 
 literature as a means of livelihood. 
 
 Journalism demands less than the higher forms of literature and 
 offers a good field for women of wide intelligence, who have a bright, 
 original way of putting things, and the knack of rapid composition. 
 An experienced writer can command from $15 to $35 a week in 
 newspaper work, according to her ability and her success in secur- 
 ing positions of importance. 'She must expect to work her way and 
 make a place for herself. 
 
 Reporting, the first step in the career of a newspaper writer, is 
 often disagreeable work, and while there are many beginners in this 
 school of experience, there are comparatively few graduates. Still 
 the difficulties are no greater than those in the way of success in 
 almost any calling which commands equal remuneration. 
 
 Lecturers. The twenty years following the Civil War in 
 America was a harvest time for lecturers. Those who have been 
 fortunate enough to hear Lucy Stone, Anna Dickinson, Mary A. 
 Livermore, and Julia Ward Howe can but regret that their places 
 seem to go unfilled and that the popular lecturer is no longer in de- 
 mand and seldom attracts except as subordinate to a stereopticon. 
 However, in these days when a little knowledge of many subjects is 
 fashionable, there is a new field for educated, cultured women as 
 drawing-room lecturers. Women who have little time or inclination 
 for serious study or reading are glad to pay a clever woman who has 
 the knack of making herself entertaining to talk to them once a 
 week on art, literature, architecture, or some other heavy subject, 
 thus taking sugar-coated pills of knowledge in homeopathic doses. 
 
7l8 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 This is a suitable field for the college graduate or specialist who has 
 good references and a little social backing. Several weekly classes 
 of ten or more each may be formed at prices ranging from 50 cents 
 to $i per lecture, and thus afford the lecturer a very fair recom- 
 pense for her time and knowledge. 
 
 The Stage. It is the general verdict that the stage is a poor 
 place for a woman who can be reasonably contented elsewhere, and 
 unless a girl is very sure that she is a Mary Anderson or a Maxine 
 Elliott in genius, beauty, and character, she would better look else- 
 where for a means of livelihood. 
 
 The Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York, and other dramatic 
 schools in large cities, train neophytes to act the simpler parts upon 
 the stage in from six months to two years, according to the aptitude 
 of the pupil. The cost of preparation ranges from $600 to $1500, 
 including board. Of course, star actresses can command their own 
 prices and many have become wealthy. Actresses in subordinate 
 parts receive from $12 to $35 a week, but the season is brief at best 
 and employment uncertain, while expenses are necessarily heavy. 
 
 Librarians. The office of librarian is in the line of woman's 
 tastes and strength and is fairly lucrative. Most of the smaller 
 libraries are managed by women, while hundreds are employed as 
 attendants in the large libraries. Until within a few years the duties 
 of librarian could be learned only by apprenticeship in a library, but 
 now there are several recognized schools for the training of librarians 
 and assistants. The usual course is two years, and tuition about 
 $75 a year. A graduate from such a school can usually secure 
 employment at from $40 to $50 a month at the start, while promo- 
 tion comes, as elsewhere, by a combination of ability and fortunate 
 circumstances. A pleasing manner and a genuine desire to be 
 accommodating are indispensable to real success in this work, as well 
 as a love for books, general intelligence, a good memory, and 
 a faculty for being painstaking. 
 
APPENDIX. 719 
 
 There are library schools in connection with the University of 
 the State of New York, Albany, N. Y., Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 
 N. Y., Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, and the University of Illinois, 
 Champaign, 111. 
 
 Saleswomen. Despite the hard, tiresome work, long hours, and 
 small wages, the supply of this kind of labor is always far in excess 
 of the demand. Beginners receive but $2 or $3 a week, while $8 to 
 $10 is large pay for any excepting those, who, after years of ex- 
 perience, are promoted to the position of head of department. The 
 greatest prize the sales girl has to hope for is the position of buyer. 
 An expert woman buyer for a large store sometimes commands a 
 salary of $2000 a year or more, with a yearly trip to Europe (on 
 business) thrown in. Such a position demands great shrewdness, 
 foresight, and business ability, and can be attained by only the few. 
 
 Compositors. A few years ago the majority of compositors were 
 women. Now a woman has little chance of employment in any 
 of the large printing establishments unless she belongs to "the 
 Union." As a member of the union 
 she receives the same pay as a man, 
 
 vSt' f f nj"r*' jMiT^i 
 but she is not at liberty to accept less 
 
 even if it should be to her advantage 
 
 to do so, and on the basis of equal pay 
 
 men are preferred because they are 
 
 strong enough to do the incidental 
 
 lifting and other heavy work, while a 
 
 woman must be waited upon more or 
 
 less. Many of the smaller offices, PRESS FEEDER. 
 
 however, employ compositors without regard to union requirements, 
 
 and with such it is a question of skill and wages. A good compositor 
 
 can earn from $8 to $10 per week of 54 hours. A woman who can 
 
 run a linotype machine with speed and accuracy and accomplish her 
 
 set task day in and day out may receive from $15 to $18 a week. 
 
720 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 The Proof reader must have a thorough knowledge of the 
 English language, and the ability acquired by practice to read the 
 printed page rapidly and see all typographical and other errors. 
 The work commands remuneration in direct proportion to the skill of 
 the reader. A good text-book on the subject will give the technical 
 knowledge necessary but only experience in a printing office will bring 
 the practical knowledge that will command a good salary. There 
 is no better way to learn the art than to get the opportunity to serve 
 an apprenticeship in a printing office of good standing, depending for 
 advancement upon the ability to become increasingly useful. The 
 best proof readers are familiar with several languages besides English, 
 possess a great fund of general information, and have a practical 
 knowledge of typesetting. Skilled proof readers receive from $18 to 
 $35 a week. 
 
 A course in proof reading is offered by the Heffley School, Brook- 
 lyn, N. Y., covering ten weeks, at a tuition of $25. 
 
 Clerical work, including bookkeeping, stenography, and copying, 
 furnishes employment to a larger number of educated women than 
 any other calling except teaching. Schools for the teaching of com- 
 mercial branches abound, and private instruction may easily be 
 obtained. Many who enroll as students fail to complete the course 
 and secure and hold positions, and yet there are many more ap- 
 plicants than positions. There will always be a place, however, for 
 those who can do a common thing uncommonly well. 
 
 Tuition in the average business college is $10 to $12 a month for 
 a year of seven to nine months, books and stationery extra. In many 
 cities the Young Woman's Christian Association has classes in these 
 branches, as do also the public evening schools, and instruction 
 free or at nominal rates is furnished at the great industrial schools 
 already mentioned. 
 
 Unless a girl is naturally quick at figures and has a taste for them 
 
APPENDIX. 721 
 
 she is only heaping up sorrows for herself by the study of hook- 
 keeping. This work is for those naturally exact and orderly and for 
 whom long columns of figures have little terror. Wages range from 
 $6 to $18 a week, according to the requirements of the position and 
 the ability of the incumbent. 
 
 By means of the sister industries of stenography and typewriting 
 many a woman supplies herself with the necessities of life and a few 
 of its luxuries. To become a superior stenographer, a girl should be 
 naturally alert of mind and quick of motion and should be thoroughly 
 grounded in spelling, punctuation, composition, and if she also has 
 some knowledge of foreign languages, so much the better. The 
 public stenographer, private secretary, and even the office assistant 
 will find use for her entire stock of knowledge and general informa- 
 tion, and at best abundant occasion to lament her limitations. The 
 stenographer who combines skill, intelligence, and business sense 
 with an even temper, and who takes a genuine interest in her work, 
 will sooner or later win substantial recognition. The wages of office 
 stenographers who carry little business responsibility range from $6 
 to $10 a week, while a knowledge of the business gained by expe- 
 rience, with the ability to carry responsibility and direct the work of 
 others, brings from $12 to $20 a week. 
 
 Many women maintain offices of their own and the most success- 
 ful of them earn far more than if on salary in a business office. 
 Average prices are five cents per hundred words for copying manu- 
 script ; $i an hour for taking and transcribing dictation; writing 
 letters from dictation from 10 cents upward per letter, according to 
 length. Some public stenographers make a specialty of going to 
 the homes of women patrons, taking dictation of personal corre- 
 spondence, and writing it out on fine stationery in a modish hand ; 
 $2 per hour is ordinary pay for such work, but there is little op- 
 portunity for it outside of large cities. There is occasionally a 
 
722 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 stenographer who works for two or three small concerns having but 
 little correspondence each, dividing her time among them by mutual 
 agreement. 
 
 Court stenographers receive $10 a day while on duty, but the 
 work is exceedingly wearing, difficult, and disagreeable, and but few 
 women aspire to the position. 
 
 Government Clerkships. Hundreds of women are employed as 
 government clerks in the post offices and in the various departments 
 at Washington, at higher salaries than are paid for the same class of 
 work by private concerns. Appointments are based on civil service 
 examinations. Detailed information as to requirements for the vari- 
 ous positions can be obtained from the member of Congress of the 
 district to which the applicant belongs. 
 
 Telegraphy. A good telegraph operator must have a quick and 
 accurate ear and a good English education. As in stenography, a 
 knowledge of the principles may be easily acquired, but speed and 
 accuracy come only with long practice. There are schools of teleg- 
 raphy that assist their graduates in obtaining positions, but the art is 
 oftener learned by private lessons. Cooper Union, New York, gives 
 free tuition. A girl may receive in her first position a salary of 
 $25 a month, which, if she is fortunate, is gradually increased 
 until she arrives at the maximum salary of $50 a month. The 
 use of automatic machinery is lessening the demand for common 
 operators. 
 
 Telephone operator is the employment of hundreds of girls and 
 young women, but there are probably ten applicants for every posi- 
 tion. Consequently the salaries are kept low, the average being 
 about $6 a week, with the exception of the supervisors, who re- 
 ceive from $10 to $15 a week. The novice is usually put on the 
 night force at a salary of perhaps $3 a week. She is watched and 
 assisted and when competent is transferred to the day force with an 
 
APPENDIX. 723 
 
 increase of salary. The combinations to be learned are almost end- 
 less and they must be made without loss of time. The work requires 
 quickness rather than business ability or education, hence is not very 
 attractive to an intelligent, ambitious girl. 
 
 Most telephone stations have substitutes in training, to be called 
 in case of illness or any other emergency, and the vacancies on the 
 regular staff are filled from the substitute class. 
 
 Architects. A few women have made a signal success as archi- 
 tects and it appears to be one of the coming professions for the 
 occasional woman who has a natural bent for it, a well-trained mind, 
 and who can give the years of study necessary. Poor work is out of 
 place in this calling if anywhere. Architects claim that a college 
 education, supplemented by a knowledge of mechanical drawing, is 
 none too good an equipment with which to begin the study of archi- 
 tecture. A four years' course in a technical school, or two years' 
 study in an architect's office and two or three years in a good tech- 
 nical school, is necessary before a student can command a fair salary 
 as assistant, and then a year or two of hard work before attempting 
 to go into the business for herself. Architects usually receive 5 per 
 cent, of the cost of a building for designs and superintending the 
 construction. Draughting commands from $12 to $30 a week. 
 
 The New York School of Applied Design offers a course in 
 architecture to women, as does also the 'Drexel Institute in Phila- 
 delphia. One hundred dollars a year will cover tuition and the other 
 expenses are the usual ones of living. 
 
 Decorative Arts. Stand for a moment upon the corner of a city 
 street or go through a department store, and try to count the num- 
 ber of designs that meet the eye. They range from the wrapper on 
 a cake of soap to the ornamental facade of a modern business palace. 
 The cry is always for something novel, and many new designs come 
 year by year from the fertile brains of women. 
 
724 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 Designing of all kinds, illustrating, pictorial and practical, china 
 painting, wood carving, glass working, engraving, and kindred arts, 
 all give more or less profitable employment to women. There are 
 art schools in the large cities, such as the New York School of 
 Applied Design, already mentioned, and Cooper, Pratt, and Drexel 
 Institutes, where instruction is given in these various branches of art, 
 and students aided in obtaining a market for their work. It may 
 take ten years of study and practice, even when the artistic gift is 
 combined with a touch of inventive genius, to place the student of 
 the higher forms of art in a remunerative position, but for one who 
 loves the work there is some recompense in the doing. 
 
 Photography. Some of the most skillful photographers in the 
 world are now women, and women are employed almost exclusively 
 to do the mechanical work incident to photography. The wages of 
 women employed in photograph galleries range from $5 to $18, or 
 more a week. It seems almost ideal employment for women of 
 intelligence and artistic sense but unfortunately there is room for 
 only a limited number. The art of photography may be learned at 
 Cooper Institute, New York (tuition free), and at some other art 
 schools, but the usual method is to seek instruction from a practical 
 photographer. In these days of amateur photography, developing 
 and printing for amateurs furnishes not a little employment, and it is 
 work that might be done by a woman at her home with a compara- 
 tively inexpensive equipment. 
 
 Women photographers are especially successful in " taking w 
 children and some make it their entire business to go to the homes 
 for the purpose of photographing the children in home surroundings. 
 
 Millinery. The principles of this trade can be learned in an 
 industrial school but nothing short of months of practice will enable 
 the learner to do salable work, and apprenticeship is the most practi- 
 cal method. The term of apprenticeship required is usually sixteen 
 
APPENDIX. 725 
 
 weeks, divided between two seasons, and many milliners charge for 
 instruction. Wages vary from $5 to $6 a week for "makers" 
 to $15 'upward a week for "trimmers." The position of head 
 trimmer in some of the largest establishments is a very lucrative one, 
 sometimes commanding as much as $50 a week, with a yearly trip to 
 Paris for styles included, but such possibilities are for the talented 
 few. One serious drawback to this trade is that the ordinary milliner 
 can hardly escape serious overwork in the " season," and that she 
 cannot depend upon more than seven months' employment in the 
 year. The millinery business has proved attractive to the business 
 woman and many successful millinery shops are owned and managed 
 by women. The profits on all lines of millinery goods are large, but 
 it should be remembered that in a comparatively few weeks of the 
 year enough must be cleared to cover the expenses of the entire year, 
 pay interest on the money invested, and yield the equivalent of a 
 good salary. 
 
 Dressmaking is fast becoming one of the fine arts, and the modern 
 dressmaker in order to excel must be a combination of artist, designer, 
 and tailor, while her prices may be almost anything she chooses to 
 make them. Her assistants receive from $4 to $15 a week, 
 according to skill and the kind of work allotted to them. 
 
 The elements of dressmaking can be learned at industrial schools 
 and by private lessons, but months of practice must usually precede 
 living wages. 
 
 Demonstrating. The demand for effective methods of advertis- 
 ing has opened a new occupation for women. Manufacturers of food 
 products, toilet preparations, household devices, and some other 
 goods, employ women to travel from city to city and store to store to 
 demonstrate the practical worth of their goods by well known methods. 
 A competent demonstrator receives from $8 to $15 a week with pay- 
 ment of board and traveling expenses. A life of continuous travel 
 
726 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 is not ideal for a home-loving woman, but the work is not excep- 
 tionally arduous and the pay good. In most lines of demonstrating 
 women from 30 to 50 years of age can succeed better than mere 
 girls for obvious reasons. 
 
 Toilet Expert. Facial massage, manicuring, hair dressing, and 
 allied industries are yearly winning more patrons and give employ- 
 ment to an increasing number of women who act as ladies' maids to 
 the public. A woman with a thorough knowledge of one or more of 
 these industries, who is pleasing in personal appearance and agree- 
 able in manner, need have little difficulty in finding work at living 
 prices, either as assistant in toilet parlors or working independently. 
 The only way to become thoroughly proficient is by apprenticeship, 
 and advertised " schools" that promise to teach the complete art in 
 a few weeks for a large consideration should be shunned. The novice 
 must usually give her time for a year and pay for her instruction 
 besides. Of course any single branch of the business, as manicuring 
 or hair dressing, can be mastered in less time. Prosperous establish- 
 ments of this kind are to be found in every city, also women who do 
 the work in their homes or go by appointment to the homes of their 
 patrons. The best work can be done at the regular places of busi- 
 ness, where are found electrical and other useful appliances that can- 
 not be carried from house to house. Experts in the large cities 
 command high prices, but the following is an average schedule: 
 Cleansing the hair and scalp, including a simple dressing of the hair, 
 50 cents to $i ; dressing the hair elaborately, 35 cents to 75 cents; 
 chiropody, 50 cents to 75 cents per treatment; facial massage, 75 
 cents to $i per treatment. 
 
 Additional profits may be made by the manufacture and sale of 
 toilet preparations. 
 
 Soliciting. There are few occupations that bring good financial 
 returns without a considerable expenditure of time and money in 
 
APPENDIX. 727 
 
 preparation, but success in soliciting depends more upon the natural 
 ability of the solicitor than upon experience, and an investment of 
 capital varying from one to ten dollars is sufficient to start an intelli- 
 gent, well-bred woman in an independent and often lucrative busi- 
 ness. A good address, self-possession, and pleasing ways are all 
 advantageous, yet there is many a born saleswoman lacking these 
 qualifications who makes up for them by earnestness. A moderately 
 successful solicitor can earn from $15 to $20 a week, working seven 
 or eight hours a day. Usually located for several weeks in a place, 
 her traveling expenses are not heavy. Application to any reputable 
 house selling goods through agents will bring prompt and full infor- 
 mation. Many a woman suddenly thrown on her own resources 
 with immediate self 'support a necessity, has not only supported her- 
 self but educated her children by this means. As the writer of 
 a valuable book or the inventor of a useful article is considered 
 worthy of honor, so those who distribute such goods among the 
 people command respect. Unfortunately, more or less worthless 
 merchandise has been foisted upon the public in this way, but it has 
 also been the medium of sale of most of the encyclopedias, art 
 books, and other choice publications. 
 
 Life Insurance. For every woman who is self-dependent, or 
 who has others dependent upon her, "to insure or not to insure" is 
 as live a question as for a man in similar circumstances. Endow- 
 ment policies, combining the features of insurance and saving, are 
 popular with women who wish to lay by something for a rainy day 
 and at the same time provide for a loved one in case of death, and 
 this class are more easily approached and influenced to insure by 
 another woman than by a man. There are also numbers of well-to- 
 do women in the homes who might be induced to insure in favor of 
 their children or of some charitable work in which they are inter- 
 ested. Life insurance offers a good field for an intelligent, energetic 
 
728 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 woman ; a field not overcrowded and one from which she will not 
 be pushed when her locks begin to turn gray. It is not difficult to 
 secure a contract with a reliable company on a generous commission 
 basis, and the writing of one or two policies a week, as they aver- 
 age, will bring the agent a comfortable living. 
 
 Household Industries a new and appropriate title for the old- 
 fashioned " housework " are coming more and more to be recog- 
 nized as of great importance and worthy careful study. It is now 
 possible, if one has the price to pay, to secure as housemaids intel- 
 ligent young women who have received scientific training in cookery 
 and the care of a house. Such courses as are offered at the Boston 
 School of Housekeeping and also by Cooper Institute and similar 
 institutions, are putting the necessary work of the home on the plane 
 of skilled labor, making it possible for an intelligent, self-respecting 
 young woman who prefers to work in a home rather than in a factory 
 or shop to do so without loss of dignity, and at the same time have a 
 comfortable home, no expenses, and a salary of at least $20 a month. 
 
 Home Occupations. Hundreds of women are anxiously looking 
 for work by which they can earn money without leaving their homes. 
 For such the field is narrow, but the time-honored business of " tak- 
 ing boarders" will always be with us and many a woman thereby 
 keeps her home and makes her home keep her. The boarding- mis- 
 tress who has a well-kept, tasteful, and cheery house, who gives now 
 and then some little comfort or accommodation " not nominated in 
 the bond " and who offers wholesome, appetizing food, seldom lacks 
 patronage. Tact and sound judgment in buying are most desirable 
 qualifications in order to, first, win the boarders, and then to make 
 money out of them. 
 
 Dressmaking can be carried on advantageously in the home, and 
 the woman who can make a stylish gown and will accept a moderate 
 price for her work will have little difficulty in securing patronage. 
 
APPENDIX. 729 
 
 Home bakeries are not so profitable as once because of the great 
 improvement in baker's food of all kinds, but a woman who excels in 
 some one kind of difficult or fancy cooking can oftentimes work up a 
 sale for her specialty through the local grocery, the woman's ex- 
 change, by personal solicitation, or advertising. 
 
 Women living on farms or small places near cities have earned 
 money by market-gardening, floriculture, the raising of small fruits, 
 and by the keeping of poultry or bees. 
 
 Those who can do almost any one thing uncommonly well can 
 usually secure pupils, and women give home lessons in almost every 
 imaginable kind of work. 
 
 Factory Workers. Nearly one fourth of all the women engaged 
 in gainful occupations work in factories. The following are represen- 
 tative weekly wages: 
 
 Awnings, tents, and flags, $4 to $12 a week ; cotton bagging, 
 $4 to $10 a week; boots and shoes, $4.50 to $24 a week; paper 
 boxes, $5 to $13 a week; cotton goods, spinners, $3 to $6, 
 weavers, $3.75 to $12 ; woolen goods spinners, $3.60 to $6.50, 
 weavers, $3.25 to $i I ; silk weavers, $3.20 to $15. 
 
 These are a few of the common industries. They are all learned 
 by apprenticeship, payment is usually by the piece, and the wide 
 range in wages for the same kind of work is due to the difference be- 
 tween skilled and unskilled labor and in individual productive capac- 
 ity. 
 
 Preparation. The acquired ability to do some one thingwell, which 
 is the result of special preparation's becoming more and more essential. 
 This problem of preparation, calling for both time and money, is a diffi- 
 cult one for the girl to face to whom immediate self-support is a neces- 
 sity. While the most thorough and satisfactory method of preparation 
 is to attend a special school, fortunately there are ways by which an 
 ambitious, determined girl may fit herself for a gainful occupation 
 
73 THE MARVELS OF MODERN MECHANISM. 
 
 either while at home or at work. Oftentimes she can secure instruc- 
 tion from a competent person in her home town. Again, systems 
 for teaching by mail have been so highly developed as to include 
 nearly all branches of knowledge, and this method is to be commended 
 to those who cannot secure personal instruction or who cannot afford 
 to pay for it. Some of the best correspondence schools furnish com- 
 petent instruction at low cost with text-books that are marvels of 
 simplicity and clearness. This method throws the learner largely 
 upon her own resources from the start, which compels thoughtful 
 work and develops self-reliance. 
 
 Those of limited means who wish to attend art or industrial 
 schools can inform themselves as to the opportunities offered by the 
 great endowed institutions by reference to the volume " Education 
 in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States," Part 3d, a 
 deeply interesting book, although a government document, to be 
 found in any public library. It gives a detailed account of the 
 institutes in the United States, established for the purpose of aiding 
 young men and women in developing their latent ability and gaining 
 thereby comfortable self-support. 
 
 All admit that woman's noblest employment, when worthily car- 
 ried, is that of mother and home maker, the nurturer of childhood 
 and the guide of youth. If it is important that no woman assume 
 such high responsibilities with any but high motives, and never 
 chiefly for the sake of a subsistence, then should not every girl be 
 trained for that self-dependence which alone will enable her to ex- 
 ercise the freedom of choice which should be her right? 
 
 Effort is the measure of development. If " From him that hath 
 not shall be taken even that which he hath " is a calm statement of 
 the inexorable law of unused talents, then in considering an occupa- 
 tion a woman should remember that while it is always fine in her to 
 do what she has to do well it may not be fine in her to choose the 
 
APPENDIX. 731 
 
 easier task for the sake of the negative satisfaction of escaping re- 
 sponsibility. It has been the ambitious, courageous woman, who 
 has not feared to step out of the beaten path, who has cleared the 
 way for others to follow in comfort and safety. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 "Accommodation," Steamboat 211 
 
 Acetylene Gas 299 
 
 Achromatic Lens 649 
 
 Adams, Isaac 598 
 
 Advertisement of ' ' The Comet " 211 
 
 Advertisement of " The Steamboat "... 204 
 
 ^olipyle 57 , 6 1 , 70 
 
 Aerial Navigation 192 
 
 " Agememnon " 547, 543 
 
 Agricultural Machinery 34 
 
 Agricultural Machinery, Advance in. ... 616 
 
 Air Brakes 1 56 
 
 Air Ships, Count Zeppelin's Experi- 
 ments with 1 94 
 
 Air Ship, Description of Count Zeppe- 
 lin's 195 
 
 Air Ships, Early Ideas of 193 
 
 Air Ships, Importance of 200 
 
 Aladdin Oven 672 
 
 " Albatross " 224 
 
 " Albemarle " 459 
 
 All-British Cable 551 
 
 Alleghany Portage 164 
 
 Allen, Ethan 347 
 
 Allen, Horatio 129, 136 
 
 Allis Engine 52 
 
 Alloys 34 r , 342 
 
 Alloys of Copper 489 
 
 Aluminum 289, 342, 486, 493 
 
 Aluminum, Price of 494 
 
 Aluminum, Reducing 298 
 
 Aluminum, Tensile Strength of, com- 
 pared with iron and steel 289 
 
 Ampere, Andre Marie, Electro-dynan.ics 259 
 
 Ampere, Definition of 277 
 
 Amsterdam Canal 225 
 
 Anesthetics 34 
 
 Angelo, Michael 69, 574 
 
 Anglo-American Telegraph Company. . 545 
 Annealing 331, 341 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Anthracite Coal 497 
 
 Appian Way 119 
 
 Appleby, John F 620 
 
 Applied Science Department, McGill.. 704 
 
 Arago 260, 530 
 
 Arago's Discovery ' 259 
 
 Archer Scott 580 
 
 Archimedes 112 
 
 Arc Light 257, 278, 279 
 
 Arch, Longest Stone 355 
 
 Argon Gas 104 
 
 Aristotle 254 
 
 Arkwright, Richard 642 
 
 Arlberg Tunnel 164 
 
 Armor, Antiquity of 437 
 
 Armor, Harveyized 390 
 
 Armor- making, Krupp Process of 391 
 
 Armor- Piercing Shells 393 
 
 Armor- Piercing Shells, Cost of 394 
 
 Armour, Philip D 677 
 
 Armstrong, Sir William 332, 399, 418 
 
 Art Academy of Cincinnati 707 
 
 Art Institution of Chicago 704 
 
 Art Students' League 703 
 
 Artillery, Moors introduced 415 
 
 Atbara Bridge 367 
 
 Atchison, E. G 286 
 
 Atchison, Topeka and Sante Fe Rail- 
 road 135 
 
 Atkinson, Professor Edward 672 
 
 Atlantic Cable 219 
 
 Atlantic Telegraph Company 542 
 
 Attalus 590 
 
 Automatic Binder 619 
 
 Automatic Pistols 413 
 
 Automobile 183 
 
 Automobile, Advantage of the Rubber 
 
 Tire 187 
 
 Automobile Challenge Cup 191 
 
 Automobile, Electric Motor. . . . 190 
 
734 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Automobile, Final Ascendency of 186 
 
 Automobile, Means of Propulsion 187 
 
 Automobile, Opposition to 185 
 
 Automobile, Prize for military machine. 192 
 
 Automobile Race, The First 186 
 
 Automobiles, Ancient 184 
 
 Automobiles, Speed Records 191 
 
 Automobiles, Storage Batteries for 298 
 
 Automobile vs. Express Train 191 
 
 "Auto's " Hard Struggle 185 
 
 Bacilli 657 
 
 Bacon, Roger 467, 575, 581 
 
 Bacteria 656 
 
 Bacteriology 653 
 
 Bain, Alexander 53_j, 612 
 
 Balboa 146 
 
 Baldwin, Matthias W 79, 82, 88 
 
 Baldwin Locomotive Works 79, 86 
 
 Balloon, Electric Battery 194 
 
 Balloon, First Dirigible 193 
 
 Balloon, Russian Dirigible 194 
 
 Balloons 193 
 
 Balloons, Long distance records 193 
 
 Balloons, Use of in Siege of Paris 193 
 
 Baltic and North Sea Canal 226 
 
 Baltic Steamship 219 
 
 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. ..78, 132, 136 
 Bank Depositors in Agricultural and 
 
 Factory Districts 699 
 
 Barbette, The 453 
 
 Batteries, Primary 456 
 
 Batteries, Secondary 456 
 
 Battery, Storage 292 
 
 Battle Ship, Requirements 447 
 
 Bayer, Prof. V 679 
 
 Beach, A. E 165, 613 
 
 Beach Typewriter 613 
 
 Beecher, Henry Ward 626 
 
 Behel, Jacob 620 
 
 Bell Metal 489 
 
 Bell, Henry 212 
 
 Bell, Rev. Patrick 618 
 
 Bell Telephone Co 694 
 
 Bell's First Telephone 555 
 
 Bensley , Thos 598 
 
 Berliner, Emile 562 
 
 Berlin Tenements 171 
 
 Bessemer Process, Steel-Making 332 
 
 Bessemer, Sir Henry 136, 290, 332, 334, 
 
 336 353 363 4i9 698 
 
 " Best Friend of Charleston," 78 
 
 Bethlehem Steel Company. . . .338, 339, 345, 
 
 39^697 
 
 Bible Normal College 712 
 
 Bicycle, Estimated Yearly Production 
 
 of 183 
 
 Bicycle, The effect of, on good roads. . . 183 
 
 Bicycles, First, 181 
 
 Bicycles 183 
 
 Binder, Automatic 619 
 
 Birthplace of Civilization 224 
 
 Bituminous Coals 496 
 
 Black Powder 469 
 
 Blaew, William Jensen 597 
 
 Blast Furnace 323 
 
 Blast Furnaces, By- Products of 68 1 
 
 Blast, Hot Air 329 
 
 Block Signaling System 153 
 
 " Boneshaker," The 182 
 
 Bones, Straightening Crooked 66 1 
 
 Boston, Advantage of Rapid Transit. . . 171 
 Boston South Terminal Station. . ..387, 388 
 
 Boston's Subways 1 76 
 
 Boston University 712 
 
 Bourne, William 461 
 
 Boulton, Matthias 65, 73 
 
 Bounty Act, Canadian ._. . . 348 
 
 Brain, Operating on the 657 
 
 Brakes, Air 156 
 
 Brakes, Early 155 
 
 Brakes, Locomotive 155 
 
 Brake, Modern 1 57 
 
 Brakes, Westinghouse Air 156 
 
 Bramah, Joseph 203 
 
 Brandt, M 163 
 
 Brass 49 
 
 Breckenridge, L. P 707 
 
 Bremen Line 217 
 
 Brickill, William A 683 
 
 Bridge, Atbara 367 
 
INDEX. 
 
 735 
 
 Bridge, Brooklyn 357 
 
 Bridge, Cantilever 364 
 
 Bridge, Forth 364 
 
 Bridge, First Steel 363 
 
 Bridge, Girder 36 1 
 
 Bridge, London 356 
 
 Bridge, Longest 363 
 
 Bridge, Niagara 359 
 
 Bridge, Oldest 355 
 
 Bridge, Quebec 368 
 
 Bridge, Tubular 362 
 
 Bridge, Victoria 362 
 
 Bridges 353 
 
 Bridges, Suspension 353 
 
 Bridgewater, Francis, Duke of, 121, 231, 232 
 
 Brindley, James 232 
 
 British and American Steam Navigation 
 
 Company 214 
 
 British Cable, All- 551 
 
 Bronze 429 
 
 "Brooklyn," Cruiser .... 341, 450, 454,455 
 
 Brown, Alexander 312 
 
 " Brown Bess," 402 
 
 Brown, Moses 644 
 
 Brown Powder 470 
 
 Bruce, David 609 j 
 
 Buchanan, President James 544 
 
 "Buffalo Bill" 135 J 
 
 Bullet Pouch 403 | 
 
 Bursting Charge of Projectiles 393 | 
 
 Burt, Wm. Austin 61 1 j 
 
 Bushnell, David 203, 462 
 
 By-Products 676 
 
 c 
 
 Cable, First Wire Suspension 357 
 
 Cable Roads, Street 170 
 
 Cables, Mechanism of 547 
 
 Cables, Submarine 540 
 
 Cables, Uses of 551 
 
 Caisson Disease 378 
 
 Caisson, Pneumatic 378 
 
 Calcium Carbide 299 
 
 Camden and Amboy Railroad 134 
 
 Camera, Scientific Use of the 583 
 
 Cameron, Honorable Simon 132 
 
 Canada, Haven of refuge for slaves .... 
 
 Canada, Railroads of 
 
 Canadian Atlantic Express 
 
 Canadian Bounty Act 
 
 Canadian Canals 233, 
 
 Canadian Colonization, Picturesque 
 
 Features of 
 
 Canadian Iron Output 
 
 Canadian Northern Railway 
 
 Canadian Ore Deposits 
 
 Canadian Pacific Overland Railway. . . . 
 
 Canadian Pacific Railway 
 
 143, 144, 234,246, 
 Canadian Pacific Railway's Inducement 
 
 to Emigrants 
 
 Canadian Postal Service 
 
 Canadian Railroad Statistics 
 
 Canadian Railway Expenditure 
 
 Canadian Railways, The Great Era of. 
 
 Canal, Amsterdam 
 
 Canal, Busiest in the World 
 
 Canal, Chicago Drainage 236, 
 
 Canal Congress at Paris 
 
 Canal, Difficulties with Panama 
 
 Canal, Effect on Freight Rates 
 
 Canal, Erie 
 
 Canal, Grand (China) 
 
 Canal, Hydraulic Lock 
 
 Canal, Isthmus of Corinth. 
 
 Canal, Largest Canadian 
 
 Canal, Manchester 
 
 Canal, Rideau 
 
 Canal, Shifting Course of Trade 
 
 Canal, Soulanges 
 
 Canal, South Hadley, Mass 
 
 Canal, Suez 
 
 Canal, Welland 
 
 Canals 
 
 Canals, Canadian 
 
 Canals, Chinese 
 
 Canals, Early 
 
 Canals, Effect on Price of Wheat 
 
 Canals, English 
 
 Canals, French 
 
 Canals, Miles of, in Germany 
 
 Canals, St. Lawrence 
 
 PAGE 
 
 249 
 141 
 
 144 
 348 
 
 2 35 
 
 249 
 
 349 
 144 
 
 349 
 
 248 
 
 249 
 
 567 
 '45 
 MS 
 142 
 
 225 
 237 
 
 313 
 229 
 229 
 232 
 238 
 225 
 238 
 226 
 
 234 
 232 
 
 234 
 236 
 
 234 
 238 
 
 227 
 
 234 
 224 
 
 233 
 225 
 224 
 
 243 
 231 
 227 
 226 
 235 
 
736 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cancer, Surgery's Battle with 663 
 
 Cannon, Evolution of the 414 
 
 Cantilever Bridge 364 
 
 Cantilever Crane 312, 314 
 
 Carbon Paper 615 
 
 Carborundum 286, 287, 288 
 
 Car Coupler 1 53 
 
 Carlisle 257 
 
 Cartridge, Electric 292 
 
 Cartridge, Evolution of the Metallic. . . 400 
 
 Cascade Tunnel 164 
 
 Case School of Applied Science 704 
 
 Castings, How Smoothed 100 
 
 Cast Iron 327 
 
 Cast Steel 332 
 
 Cataract 665 
 
 Caveat 686 
 
 Caving, Mining 305, 306 
 
 " Celerifere " 182 
 
 Central London Railway 175 
 
 Centrifugal Milk Skimmer 630 
 
 Chandler Scientific School 704 
 
 Charcoal, Iron Smelting 322 
 
 Charleston and Hamburg Railroad 133 
 
 Chicago Drainage Canal 236, 313 
 
 China, Miles of Railroad in 225 
 
 China, Telegraph Line in 225 
 
 Chinese Canals 225 
 
 Chromium 342 
 
 Civilization, Birthplace of 224 
 
 Classification of War Ships 446 
 
 Clay Process of Printing 609 
 
 Clerkships, Government 722 
 
 Cleveland Homeopathic Medical Col- 
 lege 711 
 
 Coals, Bituminous 496 
 
 Coal Contrasted with Human Energy. . 501 
 
 Coal Gas 505 
 
 Coal Mining 495 
 
 Coal Supply and Consumption 499 
 
 Coal Tar 678 
 
 "Coal Oil Johnnie" 517 
 
 Coal Tar Colors 679 
 
 Coal, World's Production of 504 
 
 Cocci 657 
 
 Coherer, The , . 537 
 
 Coke Furnaces, By-Products 6Si 
 
 Coke, Iron Smelting 322 
 
 Coke Manufacture 498 
 
 Colt Automatic Machine Gun 432 
 
 Colt Pistol, Automatic 414 
 
 Colt Revolvers 413 
 
 " Columbia " 435 
 
 Columbia University School of Archi- 
 tecture 704 
 
 " Columbian " Press, The 597 
 
 Combustion 43 
 
 " Comet," 211 
 
 Compass, Early 268 
 
 Compositors 719 
 
 Compound Armor 390 
 
 Compound Engines 83 
 
 Compound Stationary Engine 53 
 
 Compressed Air, Uses of. .97, 98, 101, 102, 
 
 103, no 
 
 Compression Band 399 
 
 Comptometer 615 
 
 Condenser Saves, How a 57 
 
 Condensation of Steam 50 
 
 Conductors of Electricity 276 
 
 Conning Tower 454 
 
 " Constitution " 347 
 
 " Constitution's " Guns 416 
 
 " Constitution" vs. " Oregon " 435, 436, 437 
 
 Consumption, Surgery and 662 
 
 Converter Linings 334, 335 
 
 Cookery 715 
 
 Cooper, Peter 78, 133 
 
 Cooper Union 703, 722-724 
 
 Copley Oil Well 516 
 
 Copper 489 
 
 Copper for Ship-building 490 
 
 Copper Mines of Lake Superior 491 
 
 Copper Refining 491 
 
 Cordite 472 
 
 Corliss's Engine 67 
 
 Corn, By-products of 680 
 
 Cornell University 705, 712 
 
 Cost of Passage from Europe to Winni- 
 peg 249 
 
 Cost of Transportation in South Amer- 
 ica 124 
 
INDEX. 
 
 737 
 
 Cotton and Cotton Manufacturing 635 
 
 Cotton Crop of the United States for 
 
 1899 640 
 
 Cotton Gin 27, 636 
 
 Cotton Industry, Growth of 645 
 
 Cotton Mill, Modern 644 
 
 Cotton Mills, First in America 644 
 
 Cotton Product of the United States. . . 636 
 
 Cotton Seed 677 
 
 Cotton Seed Oil 678 
 
 Court Stenographers 722 
 
 Crank and Valve Gear, Invention of . . . 66 
 
 Crefeld School of Weaving 704 
 
 Crookes Tubes 585 
 
 Cruisers 448 
 
 Cruiser, Armored 451 
 
 Cruiser, Protected 451 
 
 Cruiser Requirements 447 
 
 Cunard Line 217 
 
 Cyanide Process, Gold 484 
 
 D 
 
 Daguerre, Louis 577 
 
 Daguerreotype 577 
 
 Dairy Industry, Growth of 629 
 
 Dairy Machinery . . 629 
 
 Damascus Steel 329 
 
 " Dandy Horse " 182 
 
 Dangers of Mining 503 
 
 Danger Signal 160 
 
 Danger Space 398 
 
 Daniell Cell, The 265 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry 104, no, 258, 259, 
 
 261, 278, 281, 503, 576 
 Davy's Experiments with the Arc Light 257 
 
 De Laval Separator 630 
 
 De Laval Turbine 222 
 
 Delaware and Hudson Canal 127 
 
 De Lesseps, Ferdinand 227, 228, 230 
 
 Demonstrating 725 
 
 Dentistry, Women in 712 
 
 " Deutschland," Conveniences of 216 
 
 Diamonds, Manufactured 286 
 
 Dirigible Balloon, Russian 194 
 
 Disappearing Gun Carriages 425 
 
 Displacement of Vessels 448 
 
 Distaff and Spindle 640 
 
 Division of Wealth 699 
 
 Does Increased Production Benefit 
 
 Mankind ? 695 
 
 Dominion of Canada and Colonization . 248 
 
 Drainage Canal, Chicago. 313 
 
 " Draisine " 181 
 
 Draper, Professor John W. . . 579, 582, 647 
 
 Driggs-Schroeder gun 430 
 
 Dressmaking 725 
 
 Drexel Institute 706 
 
 Dutton Pneumatic Lock . 239, 240, 241, 242 
 
 Dynamo 270, 271, 274 
 
 Dynamos and Electric Motors 275 
 
 Dynamos', Construction of First 272 
 
 E 
 
 Early Iron Works 346 
 
 Early Scribes, Methods of 588 
 
 Eastern Question, The 151 
 
 Eastern Steam Navigation Co 217 
 
 Eastman, Walker and Co 581 
 
 Ebers Papyrus 590 
 
 Edison Incandescent Lamp 282 
 
 Edison, Thomas Alva. 52, 245, 273, 535, 536, 
 
 561, 565, 691 
 
 Effect of Machinery on Labor 38 
 
 Efforts to Harness the Sun 112 
 
 Eginton, Francis 576 
 
 Eiffel Tower 364 
 
 Elastic Limit Steel 341 
 
 Electric Cartridge 292 
 
 Electric Flatiron 284 
 
 Electric Furnaces 285 
 
 Electric Heating 284 
 
 Electricity 251 
 
 Electricity, Advantages as a Motive 
 
 Power. 173 
 
 Electricity, " Animal " 256 
 
 Electricity, Frictional 262 
 
 Electricity, Many Uses of 300 
 
 Electricity, Measures of 276 
 
 Electricity, " step-up " and " step- 
 down'" processes 277, 278 
 
 Electric Light Plants in the U. S., Value 
 
 of 284 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Electric Motor Automobiles 190 
 
 Electric Quilts 284 
 
 Electric Railroads 276, 372 
 
 Electric Street Cars 30 
 
 Electric Surgeon's Knife 284 
 
 Electric Telegraph 527 
 
 Electric Welding. 284 
 
 Electro-Magnetic Concentration of Ore. 316 
 
 Electroplating 290 
 
 Elevated Railroads in New York 170 
 
 Elevators 31 , 385 
 
 Emerson College of Oratory 715 
 
 Emigrants from Europe to Canada 249 
 
 Emigration to Siberia 248 
 
 Emigration to the Northwest 248 
 
 Emigration to the West 248 
 
 Empire State Express 88, 90, 135 
 
 Empire Typesetting Machine, 607 
 
 " Empress of India " 428 
 
 Energy 40, 4 1 
 
 Energy of Gun Fire 396 
 
 Enfield Rifle 406 
 
 Engine, Corliss 67 
 
 Engine, Compound Stationary 53 
 
 Engine, Gas 92 
 
 Engine, Improvement from Accident. . 62 
 
 Engine, Newcomen's 61 
 
 Engine, Single Cylinder 53 
 
 Engine, Triple Expansion 53 
 
 Engine Waste 50 
 
 Engines, Best Records of 52 
 
 Engines, Compound 83 
 
 Engines, Multiple Expansion 53 
 
 Engines in America, The Pioneer 77 
 
 Engineering Feats, Some 138 
 
 England's Dependence on Transporta- 
 tion 119 
 
 English Canals 231 
 
 Engraving, Half-Tone 584 
 
 Engraving, Photo- 584 
 
 Ericsson's First Motor Generator 112 
 
 Ericsson, John 76, 112, 1 14, 193, 348, 
 
 439' 44i 
 
 Ericsson's Monitor 445 
 
 Ericsson's Propeller 441 
 
 Ericsson 's Sun Motor in 
 
 Erie Canal 235, 238 
 
 Evolution of the Locomotive 69 
 
 Evolution of the Metallic Cartridge. . . . 400 
 
 Evolution of the Modern Cannon 414 
 
 Evolution of the Modern Gun 417 
 
 Evolution of the Modern War Ship. . . . 434 
 
 Evolution of the Rifle 401 
 
 Evolution of the Steamboat 201 
 
 Evolution of the Steam Engine 57 
 
 Explosive Gelatin 476 
 
 Explosives, Destructive Effect of 396 
 
 Eye, Surgery of the 665 
 
 Eyes, Glass 667 
 
 F 
 
 Factory System vs. Sweating System. . . 26 
 
 Factory Workers 729 
 
 " Faraday " 547 
 
 Faraday and the Modern Dynamo 270 
 
 Faraday, Michael. . . 104, 252, 258, 261, 267, 
 
 269, 290, 530, 564 
 
 Fastest Steamship 223 
 
 Fast Trains 89 
 
 Fast Trains in Canada 144 
 
 Field, Cyrus W 541, 542, 546 
 
 Firearms, first introduced 404 
 
 Fire Brick 323, 384 
 
 Firefly 285 
 
 Fireproof Buildings 383 
 
 First American Locomotive . . 129 
 
 First American Railroad ... 1 28 
 
 First American Steamboat. 202 
 
 First Automobile Race 186 
 
 First Balloon Ascension 192 
 
 | First Bicycles 1 8 1 
 
 First Cable Road 170 
 
 I First Canal in the United States 238 
 
 | First Cotton Mills in America 644 
 
 First Electric Street Railway in Amer- 
 ica 173 
 
 First Iron Clad Vessels 444 
 
 First Iron Foundry 347 
 
 First Iron Steamships 213 
 
 First Iron Works in Canada 348 
 
 First Locomotive on Rails 72 
 
 i First Magnetic Needles 268 
 
INDEX. 
 
 739 
 
 PAGE 
 
 First Man Killed by Railroad 77 
 
 First Passenger Cars 127 
 
 First Railway in Canada 141 
 
 First Reaping Machine 617 
 
 First Remington Typewriter 614 
 
 First Revolver 412 
 
 First Rolling Mill 322 
 
 First Steam Carriage 70 
 
 First Steamboat Line in Great Britain. 211 
 
 First Steam Pumping Engine 58 
 
 First Steam Railway 125 
 
 First Steamship to cross the Atlantic. . 212 
 First Steamship Voyage around Good 
 
 Hope 213 
 
 First Steel Bridge 363 
 
 First Steamboat 202 
 
 First Steel Buildings 375 
 
 First Telegraph Line in America .... 552 
 First Trial of Maxim's Flying Machine. 199 
 
 First Typewriter 61 1 
 
 First Use of Steam Engine 60 
 
 First Underground Railroad 175 
 
 First War Steamer 431 
 
 First Wheeled Vehicles 179 
 
 First Wire Suspension Cable 357 
 
 Fish Scales 676 
 
 Fitch Steamboat 204, 207 
 
 Flail 623 
 
 Flat Bed Cylinder Press 598 
 
 Flatiron, Electric 284 
 
 Flintlock 403 
 
 Flying Machines and Balloons 196 
 
 Flying Machine, Maxim's 199 
 
 Fly Shuttle 642 
 
 Forth Bridge 364 
 
 Foss Dyke 231 
 
 " Fountain of Youth " 253 
 
 France, Canals of 227 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin.. 193, 264, 347, 597, 602 
 Franklin, Benjamin, and Electricity. . . . 254 
 
 Franklin's Notes on Electricity 255 
 
 Free Delivery of Freight in England. . . 77 
 
 Free Postal Delivery 569 
 
 Freight, Average in the U. S., 1899 245 
 
 Freight Rate in Canada 144 
 
 Fuel Economizer, Green's 54 
 
 Fuel Gas 507 
 
 Fulton, Robert. 122, 201, 203, 204, 207, 208, 
 
 2IO > 437, 439' 462 
 
 Fulton's " Clermont " 208, 209 
 
 Fulton's Ride in the "Charlotte Dundas" 2c8 
 
 "Fulton the First" 438 
 
 Furnace, Electric 285 
 
 Furnace, Iron 322 
 
 Furnace, Reverberatory 328 
 
 Fuses, Percussion ' 395 
 
 Fuses, Time 395 
 
 G 
 
 261 
 
 92, 93, 94, 95, 
 
 5 2 9 
 255 
 260 
 
 554 
 
 189 
 
 28 
 
 505 
 
 Galvani 
 
 Galvani's Experiments 
 Galvanic Multiplier. . . . 
 Galvanometer, Mirror . 
 Gas Engines ......... 
 
 Gas, Illuminating 
 
 Gas Manufacture 
 
 Gas Wells 508 
 
 Gathmann Shell 395 
 
 Catling Guns 431, 432, 433 
 
 Geissler Tubes 586 
 
 German Canals 226 
 
 German Silver 490 
 
 Gibraltar 227 
 
 Giffard Injector, The 83 
 
 Giffard, Henri 'i 93 
 
 Gilbert, Dr., Creator of the Science of 
 
 Electricity 253, 268 
 
 Girder Bridges 361 
 
 Gold 478 
 
 Gold and Silver Plating 291 
 
 Gold and Silver Production 487 
 
 Gold Mining 477 
 
 Gold Nuggets 483 
 
 Government Control of Railroads 246 
 
 Grain Elevators 632 
 
 Grain Storage and Handling 630 
 
 Gramme Dynamo as a Motor 275 
 
 Gramophone 562 
 
 Grand Luenette Telescope 651 
 
 Grand Trunk Railroad.. 142, 143, 144, 234 
 
 Graphite 498 
 
 Graphophone 562 
 
740 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gray, Professor Elisha 555, 558, 560 
 
 "Great Eastern". 217, 218, 219, 220, 545 
 
 Great Guns of the World 424 
 
 Greathead Shield 175 
 
 Greathead Tunnel Shield 165, 1 66 
 
 Great Northern Railway 135, 181 
 
 Great Western Railroad Tunnel 165 
 
 Great Western Railway 214 
 
 Green's Fuel Economizer 54 
 
 Grover Incandescent Lamp 281 
 
 Gun Cotton 474 
 
 Gun, Evolution of the Modern 417 
 
 Gun Firing, Cost of 429 
 
 Guns, Great 424 
 
 Gun Metal 489 
 
 Gun, Most Powerful 422 
 
 Gunpowder 467 
 
 Gutenberg's Press 595 
 
 GuttaPercha 548 
 
 H 
 
 Half-tone Engravings 584 
 
 Harvesting, Cost of 626 
 
 Harvesting, Old and New 626 
 
 Harveyized Armor 290 
 
 Heat Causes Motion 42 
 
 Heating, Electric 284 
 
 Heliograph 528 
 
 Henry's Improved Iron Magnet 260 
 
 Henry, Prof. Joseph 267, 274, 530 
 
 Hero 57, 61, 69, 70, 203 
 
 " Hertzian Waves " 537 
 
 High Buildings 386 
 
 Highest Building in the World 371 
 
 " Hobby Horse " 182 
 
 Hoe and Co 599 
 
 Hoe Type Revolving Machine 600 
 
 " Holland," Description of 463 
 
 Holland, John P 462, 463 
 
 Hoosac Tunnel 164 
 
 Horse Cars in America 1 69 
 
 Horse Cars in Europe 169 
 
 Horse Power 42 
 
 Hot Air Blast 329 
 
 Housekeeper's Debt to Invention 668 
 
 Housekeeping a Century Ago 669 
 
 Howell Torpedo 461 
 
 Hudson Bay Company 248 
 
 Hussy Reaper 619 
 
 Hydraulic Mining 479 
 
 Hydraulic Press 339 
 
 Illuminating Gas 28 
 
 Improvements for the Household 672 
 
 Incandescent Lamp 280, 282 
 
 Intercolonial Railroad 144 
 
 International Express 144 
 
 Invention, Housekeeper's Debt to 668 
 
 Invention, How to Make and Patent an 681 
 
 Invention, Infringement Suits 682 
 
 Invention of the Crank and Valve Gear 66 
 
 Inventions Create Occupations 694 
 
 Inventions, Profitable 683 
 
 Iron and Steel Working 301 
 
 Iron and Steel, World's Production of. . 352 
 
 Ironclad Vessels, First 444 
 
 Iron Foundry, First 347 
 
 Iron Ores 319 
 
 Iron Production of the Century in 
 
 TJ nited States 350 
 
 Iron, progress of the industry 303 
 
 Iron Smelting 319 
 
 Iron Works, Early 346 
 
 Iron Works, First, in Canada 348 
 
 Iron, Wrought 328 
 
 Isthmus of Corinth Canal. . . 226 
 
 Janney Car Coupler 153 
 
 "John Bull" 78 
 
 Journalism 717 
 
 Journey between Boston and New York 
 
 by Carriage 1 28 
 
 K 
 
 " Kearsarge " 395 
 
 Kelvin, Lord 42,554 
 
 Kerosene 680 
 
 Kineto- Phonograph 566 
 
 Kinetoscope 565 
 
 Kinzua Viaduct 366 
 
INDEX. 
 
 741 
 
 Klondike Stampede 249 
 
 Krag-Jorgensen Rifle 409 
 
 Krupp Process of Armor Making 391 
 
 Krupp Steel , 332 
 
 Labor, Does Machinery Displace 692 
 
 Lake Shore and Michigan Southern 
 
 Railroad 133 
 
 Lancaster Guns 399 
 
 Land, Enormous Prices of 371 
 
 Largest Canadian Canal 234 
 
 Largest Steamship 220 
 
 Lawrence Scientific School 704 
 
 Lay College 712 
 
 Lecturers 717 
 
 Lee Magazine Gun 406 
 
 Legal Profession, Men in the 703 
 
 Legal Profession, Women in the 712 
 
 Leyden Jar, The 254 
 
 Librarians 718 
 
 Lick Telescope 650 
 
 Light, Arc 257 
 
 ' Light, Incandescent 280 
 
 Light, Search 280 
 
 Lignite 496 
 
 Linotype Machine 604 
 
 Liquid Air 103 
 
 Liquid Air Automobiles 191 
 
 Liquid Air as an Explosive 475 
 
 Liquid Air, Cost of 105, 106 
 
 Liquid Air, Experiments with 108 
 
 Liquid Air, Power of 105 
 
 Liquid Air, Wonders of 107 
 
 Literature 716 
 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railroad. ... 77 
 
 Loadstone 253, 260, 267 
 
 "Locomobile" 187,188 
 
 Locomotive, An Experiment in Speed. . 91 
 
 Locomotive " Bessemer " 87 
 
 Locomotive Brakes 155 
 
 Locomotive, Evolution of the 69 
 
 Locomotive, First American 129 
 
 Locomotive, First, on Rails 72 
 
 Locomotive, First Passenger 74 
 
 Locomotive, Largest 87 
 
 Locomotive, record of fast trains 91 
 
 Locomotive Schedule of fastest Long 
 
 Distance Trains 90 
 
 Locomotive Schedule of fastest Short 
 
 Distance Trains 89 
 
 Locomotive, Trial Trip of first American 130 
 
 Locomotives, used in mines 86 
 
 London and Birmingham Stagecoach 
 
 Line 181 
 
 London and Edinburgh Stagecoach 
 
 Line 181 
 
 London Bridge 1 59, 356 
 
 Long Bridges, Table of 369 
 
 Long Distance Telephone 557 
 
 Long Island Railroad 183 
 
 Loss of Life on Russian Railroads. ... 151 
 
 Lucifer Matches 676 
 
 Lyddite 473 
 
 M 
 
 Macadam 181 
 
 Machinery and Savings Banks 699 
 
 Machinery and Wages 696 
 
 Machinery Displace Labor, Does 692 
 
 Machinery Increases Wealth 698 
 
 Machinery, Labor and Wealth 691 
 
 Machinery, Modern 25 
 
 Machinery, Textile 25 
 
 Magnet, Influence of 269 
 
 Magnetism 260 
 
 Magnetite, Where found 254 
 
 Magnetized Iron 260 
 
 Manchester Ship Canal 232 
 
 Manganese 342 
 
 Manifolding, Typewriter 615 
 
 Mannlicher 406, 413 
 
 Man's Work and Training 701 
 
 Manual Training Schools 702 
 
 Marconi 252, 558 
 
 Marconi System of Telegraphy 538 
 
 Massachusetts Institute of Technol- 
 ogy. 704, 706 
 
 Mauser 406, 413 
 
 Maxim Gun 430, 432, 433 
 
 Maxim's Flying Machine 197, 199 
 
 Maxwell's Theory as to Light 252 
 
742 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 McCormick Reaper 618 
 
 McGill University 550 
 
 McGill University, Entrance Require- 
 ments 708 
 
 Means of Communication 527 
 
 Measures of Electricity 276 
 
 Mechanical Progress in Surgery 654 
 
 Medical Profession, Men in the 703 
 
 Medical Profession, Women in the 711 
 
 Mennonites 249 
 
 " Merrimac " 389, 446 
 
 Mersey Tunnel 165 
 
 Microscope 652 
 
 Microscope, a detector of crime 653 
 
 Microscope, Compound 652 
 
 Microscope, The Surgeon's Debt to the, 652 
 
 Midland Railway 185 
 
 Military Art and Science 389 
 
 Millinery 724 
 
 Milling ( Mining) 305, 307 
 
 Mineral Coal 496 
 
 Mineral Industries 477 
 
 Mines, Danger of Electric Lighting in.. 109 
 
 Minie Ball 406 
 
 Mining, Coal 495 
 
 Mining, Dangers of 503 
 
 Mining, Four Systems of 305 
 
 Mining, Gold 478 
 
 Mining, Hydraulic 479 
 
 Mining, Placer 478 
 
 Mining, Shaft 482 
 
 Mining Silver 485 
 
 Mining, Terrors of Old Time no 
 
 Mining, Uses of Compressed Air in. . . 101 
 
 Ministry, Woman in the 712 
 
 Minneapolis Academy cf Fine Arts. . . . 704 
 
 " Minnesota " 458 
 
 Modern Machinery 25 
 
 Modern Machinery and Its Benefits to 
 
 Mankind 25 
 
 Modern Occupations for Women 710 
 
 Mohammed's Magnetic Tomb 268 
 
 " Monitor " 76, 348, 442, 457 
 
 " Monitor " and " Merrimac " 389 
 
 " Monitor," Ericsson's 445 
 
 " Monitor " vs. " Puritan " 446 
 
 Monk Haven ....................... 235 
 
 Monroe, President James, Trip in the 
 
 " Savannah " ................... 212 
 
 ' ' Montauk " ........................ 389 
 
 Mont Cenis Tunnel .................. 163 
 
 Montreal to Winnipeg, Cost of Trip at 
 
 Harvest Time .................. 249 
 
 Moody Bible Training School ......... 712 
 
 Morse Code ........................ 532 
 
 Morse, Samuel F. B. . 528, 531, 534, 577, 579 
 Mortars ............................ 426 
 
 Most Powerful Gun in the World ...... 422 
 
 Most Powerful Search Light .......... 280 
 
 Motor, Electric ...................... 173 
 
 Motor, Ericsson's Sun ............ in, 112 
 
 Motor, Principle of .................. 271 
 
 Moving Picture Machines ............. 564 
 
 Moving Platform vs. Elevators ........ 179 
 
 Mount Lowe Observatory Search Light. 280 
 Museum of Fine Arts ................ 703 
 
 Mushet, Robert F.. . .329, 333, 334, 353, 363 
 
 Music Teaching ..................... 715 
 
 Muzzle Velocity ..................... 397 
 
 Natural Gas ........................ 507 
 
 Naval Guns Using Smokeless Powder. . 430 
 Navigation, Importance of Steam ..... 213 
 
 Newcomen's Engine .............. ... 61 
 
 New England Conservatory of Music. . 716 
 Newfoundland Iron Ore .............. 350 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac ..... '. ....... 69, 70, 257 
 
 New York and New Haven Railroad. . . 134 
 New York Central and Hudson River 
 
 Railroad .................... .... 131 
 
 New York Central Railroad ...... 133, 135 
 
 New York Cooking School ........... 715 
 
 New York School of Applied Design . . . 724 
 New York School of Art ............ 703 
 
 New York's Subways. , .............. 176 
 
 " Niagara " ..................... 542, 543 
 
 Niagara Power Company ............. 287 
 
 Niagara Power Plant Current, how 
 
 transformed ..................... 278 
 
 Nickel ............................. 34 1 
 
 "999" .......................... 9 US 
 
INDEX. 
 
 743 
 
 Nitroglycerin 475 
 
 Northern Pacific Railroad 135 
 
 Numerograph 615 
 
 Nurse, Infant's 713 
 
 Nurse, Sick 713 
 
 o 
 
 "Oceanic" 219 
 
 Octuple Printing Press 602 
 
 Oersted's Discovery 258 
 
 " Ohm," Definition of 277 
 
 Oil Pipe Lines 518 
 
 Oil, Storage and Transportation of 518 
 
 " Old Ironsides " 79, 85, 88, 134 
 
 " Olympia " 451 
 
 Open- Hearth Process of Steel Mak- 
 ing 336,337 
 
 Operating on the Brain 657 
 
 Optics 646 
 
 Ore Deposits, Canadian 348 
 
 Ore Docks 309 
 
 Ore, Electric Magnetic Concentration of 316 
 
 Ore Handling Machinery 311 
 
 Ore, Price of 315 
 
 Ore, Reduction of 482 
 
 Ores, Iron 319 
 
 "Oregon " 435, 436, 437, 441, 450, 454 
 
 Osgoode Hall 712 
 
 " Otto Cycle " 93 
 
 Painting and Sweeping by Compressed 
 
 Air 101 
 
 Panama Canal, Report of International 
 
 Commission on 229, 230 
 
 Panama Railroad, Peculiarities of 146 
 
 Panning (Mining) 479 
 
 Paper 588, 592 
 
 Paper Folding Machines 60 1 
 
 Paper Made from Rags 592 
 
 Papier- Mache, Process of Making 609 
 
 Papin, Denis. . . . 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 69, 185, 
 
 202, 569, 691 
 
 Papyrus 590 
 
 Papyrus and Parchment, Substitute for. 591 
 Parchment 590 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "Paris " 102 
 
 Park Row Building 370 
 
 Parsons Steam Turbine 221 
 
 Passenger Cars, The First 127 
 
 Pasteur 652 
 
 Patent Attorneys 685 
 
 Patent, Cost of 688 
 
 Patent, First 690 
 
 Patent, how obtained 684 
 
 Patents issued by Nine Countries 690 
 
 Peat 496 
 
 Pecos Viaduct 366 
 
 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. . . 703 
 Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery 713 
 
 Pennsylvania Railroad 134, 135 
 
 Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art. 704 
 
 Pennsylvania Steel Co 367 
 
 Persian Methods of Iron Smelting .... 321 
 
 Petroleum 509, 510 
 
 Pratt Institute 705 
 
 Philippines, Route of Telegraph Mes- 
 sage to the 553 
 
 " Philosopher's Stone ". . . . ..... 253, 690 
 
 " Phoenix " 210, 211 
 
 Phonograph 561 
 
 Photo-engraving 584 
 
 Photograph, how made 581 
 
 Photography and Printing. 574 
 
 Photography of the Heavens 582 
 
 Piano Tuning 716 
 
 Picturesque Features of Canadian Colo- 
 nization 249 
 
 Pig Iron Casting 326 
 
 Pistols, Automatic 413 
 
 Piston 47, 48 
 
 Placer Mining 478 
 
 Placers 477 
 
 Platform, Rolling 178 
 
 Plows 62 1 
 
 Pneumatic Caisson 378 
 
 Pneumatic Carriers 570 
 
 Pneumatic Grain Elevators 633 
 
 Pneumatic Hammer 99 
 
 Pneumatic Tire 182 
 
 Pneumatic Tube Postal Service 569 
 
 Pneumatic vs. Hand Hammer 99 
 
744 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Pollak-Virag Telegraph System 535 
 
 ' ' Pomone " 441 
 
 Pony Express 572 
 
 Pope Manufacturing Co 183 
 
 Postal Service 566 
 
 Postal Union 568 
 
 Potassium, Discovery of 257 
 
 Powder, Black 469 
 
 Powder, Brown 469 
 
 Powderhorn 403 
 
 Powder, Smokeless 471 
 
 Power for Mines 109 
 
 Power, its production and use 40 
 
 Practical Efficiency of the Steam Engine 49 
 Primitive Methods of Iron Smelting. . . 320 
 
 ' ' Princeton " 44 1 
 
 Principles of the Dynamo 271 
 
 Printing 36, 594 
 
 Printing, Early , 595 
 
 Printing Press, Flat Bed Cylinder 598 
 
 Printing Press " Columbia " 597 
 
 Printing Press, Gutenberg's 595 
 
 Printing Press, Octuple 602 
 
 Printing Press, Sextuple 601 
 
 Printing Press, Stop Cylinder 599 
 
 Printing Press, Single Large Cylinder. . 599 
 
 Printing Press, " Washington " 597 
 
 Printing Processes, Modern 38 
 
 Production Benefit Mankind, Does In- 
 creased 695 
 
 Progress Sacrifices Capital 697 
 
 Projectiles 392 
 
 Projectiles, Bursting Charge of 393 
 
 Prussian Needle Gun. 407 
 
 Puddling 328 
 
 Q 
 
 Quebec Bridge 368 
 
 Quick and Cheap Transportation 119 
 
 K 
 
 Railroad, Accident to Employees. ..... 151 
 
 Railroad Consolidation, Beginning of .. 133 
 
 Railroad, how built 137 
 
 Railroad, Longest, in America 143 
 
 Railroad, Longest, in the World 149 
 
 Railroad Management, Departments 
 
 of 139, 141 
 
 Railroad, Miles of, in Canada 142 
 
 Railroad, Miles of, in Europe 135 
 
 Railroad, Miles of, in United States. . . 135 
 
 Railroad, Panama 146 
 
 Railroad, Trans-Siberian 148 
 
 Railroads 1 24 
 
 Railroads and Morality 245 
 
 Railroads, Electric 276 
 
 Railroads, Government Control of. ... 246 
 Railroads, Loss of Life on Russian.. . . 151 
 
 Railroads of Canada 141 
 
 Railroads of Germany 246 
 
 Railroads Stimulate Emigration 248 
 
 Railroads, Short Lines of 130 
 
 Railroads Statistics, Canadian 145 
 
 Railroads, Surveying for 137 
 
 Rails, Steel 136 
 
 Railway, The First Steam 125 
 
 Railways, The Great Era of Canadian. 142 
 
 Rainhill Contest 75, 77, 78, 79, 88, 186 
 
 Range of Great Guns 428 
 
 Rapid Transit 168 
 
 Rapid Transit by means of Moving 
 
 Platforms 179 
 
 Rapid Transit, Growth of 169 
 
 Rapid Transit, Political Significance of. 171 
 
 " Rattler" 441 
 
 Reading Railroad 136 
 
 Reaper, First McCormick 618 
 
 Reaper, Hussy 619 
 
 Reaping Machine, First 617 
 
 Remington, E., & Sons 614 
 
 Remington Typewriter 613 
 
 Removal of the Stomach 665 
 
 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 704 
 
 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, En- 
 trance Requirements 708 
 
 Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad 133 
 
 " Residual Magnetism " 273 
 
 Revolver, First 412 
 
 Revolving Turret 441 
 
 Rideau Canal 234 
 
 Rifle, First Breech- loading 405 
 
 Rifle, Krag- Jorgensen 409 
 
INDEX. 
 
 745 
 
 Rifle, Sharps 408 
 
 Rifle, Spencer 408 
 
 Rifle, Springfield 409 
 
 Rifles, used by different countries 411 
 
 Rifling 398 
 
 Roads, Roman 117 
 
 Rockefeller's, John D., Defense of 
 
 Standard Oil Company 522 
 
 Rocker (mining) 479 
 
 " Rocket" 126 
 
 Rock Oil Company 511 
 
 Roebling Suspension Bridge. . .' 142 
 
 Roentgen X-Rays 585 
 
 Roll Paper 592 
 
 Rolling Platform 178 
 
 Rolling Mills, First 322 
 
 Roman Roads 117, 1 18 
 
 Rose Polytechnic School 704 
 
 Rumsey's First Boat 206 
 
 Russian Dirigible Balloon 194 
 
 Russia, Introduction of Steam Naviga- 
 tion 212 
 
 Russian Iron Ore 350 
 
 Russia, Population in 1855 151 
 
 S 
 
 Safety Lamp, Davy's 1 1 r , 503 
 
 Safety Valve and Piston, Origin of 59 
 
 Saleswomen 719 
 
 Saratoga and Schenectady Railroad .... 133 
 
 Sault Ste. Marie 234, 237, 288, 304 
 
 " Savannah " 212, 219 
 
 Sawyer Man Incandescent Lamp ...... 282 
 
 Schwergger's Galvanic Multiplier 260 
 
 Scientific Schools, Requirements for 
 
 Entrance to ... 705, 706, 707, 708, 709 
 
 Screw Propeller, Origin of the 203 
 
 Sea Island Cotton 635 
 
 Search Light 280 
 
 Search Light, use to fire departments . . 280 
 
 Seaweed 680 
 
 Semaphore 1 53, 527 
 
 Sewing Machines 32 
 
 Sextuple Printing Press 60 1 
 
 Shaft Mining 482 
 
 Sharps Rifle 408 
 
 Sheffield Scientific School 704 
 
 Shell, Armor- Piercing 393 
 
 Ships, Iron 213 
 
 " Shooting " an Oil Well 515 
 
 Short Lines of Railroad 130 
 
 Shrapnel 394 
 
 Siberia, Wonders of 148 
 
 Sickles 5 1 , 69 
 
 Siemens' Discovery of " Residual Mag- 
 netism " 273 
 
 Siemens Process of Steel Making 390 
 
 Signal, Block, System 153, 154 
 
 Signal, Danger 160 
 
 Signaling through Water 559 
 
 Silicide of Carbon 286 
 
 Silo Plan of Grain Elevators 632 
 
 Silver in the Arts 486 
 
 Silver Mining 485 
 
 Silver vs. Gold 488 
 
 Simplon Pass, Tunneling under 163 
 
 Single Large Cylinder Press 599 
 
 Siphon Recorder 554 
 
 "Sinus" 214, 215,216 
 
 Skin Grafting 659 
 
 Sky Scrapers 370 
 
 Slag 68 1 
 
 Smelting, Process of 324 
 
 Smith and Wesson 401, 413 
 
 Smokeless Powder 404 , 47 1 
 
 Soemering 5 2 9 
 
 Soliciting 726 
 
 Some Engineering Feats 1 38 
 
 Soulanges Canal 234 
 
 South America, Primitive Methods of 
 
 Transportation in 123 
 
 Southern Pacific Railroad 135 
 
 Spectroscope 647 
 
 Spectroscope, Grating 648 
 
 -Speed, An Experiment in 91 
 
 Speed of Electric Cars, how regulated.. 276 
 
 Spencer Rifle 408 
 
 Spinning Frame 642 
 
 Spinning Jenny 642 
 
 Spinning Mule 543 
 
 Spinning Wheel 641 
 
 Springfield Arsenal 405 
 
746 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Springfield Rifle 409 
 
 St. Gothard Tunnel 138, 161,165 
 
 St. Lawrence Canal 235 
 
 St. Louis School of Fine Arts 704 
 
 St. Peter's 69, 276, 371 
 
 Stagecoach, Cost of Traveling by 127 
 
 Stage, The 718 
 
 Standard Oil Company 521 
 
 Stanford University, Requirements for 
 
 Entrance 707 
 
 Stassano Process of Reducing Iron Ore. 288 
 
 Static Electricity 263 
 
 Steam and Electrical Appliances 29 
 
 Steam and Machinery 28 
 
 Steamboat, Evolution of 201 
 
 Steamboat, First 202 
 
 steamboat, Fitch 204 
 
 Steamboat Traffic and Fare 210 
 
 Steam Carriage, First 70 
 
 Steam Condensation 50 
 
 Steam Engine, Essential Parts of 45 
 
 Steam Engine, Evolution of The 57 
 
 Steam Engine, Practical Efficiency 49 
 
 Steam Engine, how works 44 
 
 Steam Engines, Efficiency of Different. 57 
 
 Steam Hammer 339 
 
 Steam Navigation, Importance of 213 
 
 Steam Plows 62 1 
 
 Steam Plow, Cost of running 622 
 
 Steam Railway, First 125 
 
 Steam, Superheated 56 
 
 Steamships, Table of Great 220 
 
 Steam Shovel 308 
 
 Steel 329 
 
 Steel and Iron, Constitution of 331 
 
 Steel Casts 332 
 
 Steel Castings 338, 339 
 
 Steel Coach Springs, First Use of 181 
 
 Steel, elastic limit 341 
 
 Steel, Krupp 332 
 
 Steel Making, crucible process 331 
 
 Steel Making, open-hearth process 336, 337 
 
 Steel Making, Siemens process 390 
 
 Steel Rails 136 
 
 Steel Skeleton 375, 381 
 
 Steel, Society's Debt to 336 
 
 Steel, Tempering 329 
 
 Steel, Tensile Strength 341 
 
 Steel, Testing 342 
 
 Steel Works, Bethlehem 339 
 
 Steer, What becomes of the 676 
 
 Stenography 721 
 
 Stereotype 601 
 
 Stereotyping 608 
 
 Stevens Battery 440 
 
 Stevens Institute 704 
 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway.. 74, 125 
 
 Stomach, Removal of the 665 
 
 Stop Cylinder Press 599 
 
 Storage Battery 292, 294, 295, 298 
 
 Storage Battery, Faure's Improvement in 293 
 
 Straightening Crooked Bones 661 
 
 Strategic Value of the Baltic and North 
 
 Sea Canal 226 
 
 Street Railway Travel 174 
 
 "Striking Oil" 515 
 
 ' Stourbridge Lion " 77, 130 
 
 Sturgeon Iron Magnet 260 
 
 Submarine Boats 461 
 
 Submarine Cables 540, 547 
 
 Subways 175 
 
 Suez Canal 227, 228, 237, 204 
 
 Sun Motor, Ericsson's 1 1 1 , 112 
 
 Superheated Steam 56 
 
 Surgery and Consumption 662 
 
 Surgery, Bloodless 655 
 
 Surgery, Mechanical Progress in 654 
 
 Surgery of the Eye 665 
 
 Surgery, Painless 654 
 
 Surgery's Battle with Cancer 663 
 
 Suspension Bridges 353 
 
 Switches, how operated 1 58 
 
 Switch, Interlocking 157 
 
 T 
 
 Taylor- White Tool Steel 343, 345 
 
 Teaching 714 
 
 Teaching, Kindergarten 714 
 
 Teaching, Music 715 
 
 Teaching, Physical Culture 7 '7 
 
 Telautograph 55^ 
 
 Telegraph, Electric 527 
 
INDEX. 
 
 747 
 
 Telegraph, Essential Parts of 529 
 
 Telegraph, First, in America 532 
 
 Telegraphing Moving Trains 536 
 
 Telegraph, .Tariff on First 532 
 
 Telegraphy 722 
 
 Telegraphy, Wireless 536 
 
 Telephone 555 
 
 Telephone, Long Distance 557 
 
 Telephone Operators 722 
 
 Telephony, Wireless 558 
 
 Telescope 649 
 
 Telescope, Greatest 651 
 
 Telescope, Lick 650 
 
 Telescope, Yerkes 651 
 
 Tempering Steel 329, 330, 331 
 
 Temperature of Electric Furnace, how 
 
 measured 286 
 
 Tensile Strength, Steel 341 
 
 " Terrible" 490 
 
 " Terror," the U. S. Monitor 102, 448 
 
 Testing Machines 343, 344 
 
 Testing Steel 342 
 
 Textile Machinery 25, 640 
 
 Thermo-Batteries 267 
 
 " Thermo-electric Couple " . .' 266 
 
 Thrashing Machines 623 
 
 Three Color Printing 602 
 
 Thurber's Typewriter 612 
 
 Tire, Pneumatic 182 
 
 Tires, Automobile 187 
 
 Toilet Expert 726 
 
 Toronto Dental College 713 
 
 Toronto School of Medicine 711 
 
 Torpedo Boats 458 
 
 Torpedo Boat Destroyer 459 
 
 Torpedo Boat Requirements 447 
 
 Torpedo, Howell 461 
 
 Torpedoes, Cost of 461 
 
 Tower of London 1 59 
 
 Trading promotes Civilization 116 
 
 Trajectory 397 
 
 Tramways, why so named 125 
 
 Transatlantic Cables 542 
 
 Transatlantic Lines of Steamships 213 
 
 Transformer (electricity) 277 
 
 Travel, Difficulties of Early 127 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Transportation 115 
 
 Transportation in 1809, Cost of 123 
 
 Transportation, Cost of, in South 
 
 America 124 
 
 Transportation creates Trade 1 16 
 
 Transportation, Early 121 
 
 Transportation, Effect of Improved. ... 244 
 
 Transportation, Effect on Immigration. 247 
 
 Transportation feeds England 119 
 
 Transportation, Growth of Rail 131 
 
 Transportation in Time of George III.. 125 
 Transportation, primitive methods in 
 
 South America 123 
 
 Transportation, Quick and Cheap 1 19 
 
 Transportation, Rapid, effect on tene- 
 ments 247 
 
 Transportation, Relation of, to War. . . 245 
 
 Trans-Siberian Railroad [43, 148, 150 
 
 Transportation stimulates Emigration. . 248 
 
 Transportation, Water 201 
 
 Tread Power Machines 625 
 
 Treadwell, Daniel 598 
 
 Triple Expansion Engine 53 
 
 Tubular Bridge 362 
 
 Tufts College Dental School 713 
 
 Tungsten 342 
 
 Tunnel, Arlberg 164 
 
 Tunnel, Cascade 164 
 
 Tunnel, Constructing a 165 
 
 Tunnel, First American Railroad 164 
 
 Tunnel, Great Western Railroad 165 
 
 Tunnel, Longest in America 164 
 
 Tunnel, Mersey 165 
 
 Tunnel, Mont Cenis 163 
 
 Tunnel, Sarnia 165 
 
 Tunnel Shield, Greathead 165 
 
 Tunnel under the Thames 166 
 
 Tunnels 161 
 
 Tunneling under Simplon Pass 163 
 
 " Turbina " 221 
 
 Turbine, De Laval 222 
 
 Turbine, Parsons Steam 221 
 
 Turret, Revolving 441 
 
 Turret Ship, English 443 
 
 Twin Screw Propeller 439 
 
 Typesetting Machines 603, 693 
 
748 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Typewriters 33, 610, 611 
 
 Typewriting 721 
 
 u 
 
 Underground Railroads in London. . . . 175 
 
 Union Pacific Railroad 135 
 
 United Empire Loyalists 249 
 
 United Pipe Line Association 519 
 
 United States Production of Iron 350 
 
 United States Postal Service 568 
 
 Universal Interoceanic Canal Co 229 
 
 University of Illinois 719 
 
 University of Illinois, Entrance Require- 
 ments 707 
 
 University of Pennsylvania, Entrance 
 
 Requirements 708 
 
 University of the State of New York. . 719 
 
 Upland Cotton 635 
 
 Utilization of Waste Products 675 
 
 V 
 
 Vaccination 667 
 
 Valves, Vauclain System of 84 
 
 Valve, Working of a Slide 44 
 
 Vauclain System of Valves 84 
 
 " Velocipede " 182 
 
 Vessels, Ore. ." 309 
 
 Vesuvius 101 
 
 Viaduct, Kinzua 365 
 
 Viaduct, Pecos 366 
 
 Victoria Bridge 362 
 
 Victoria, Queen 402, 408, 53 1 , 543 
 
 "Victory" 415, 453 
 
 " Viper " 222, 223, 224 
 
 Vocal Memnon 58 
 
 Volta's Electric Battery 256 
 
 "Volt" defined 276 
 
 W 
 
 " Warrior " 443 
 
 War Ship, Evolution of the 434 
 
 War Steamer, First 437 
 
 Washington's Interest in Transporta- 
 tion Improvement 122 
 
 " Washington " Printing Press 597 
 
 Water, Decomposed 257 
 
 Water Gas 506 
 
 Water Route, Chicago to New Orleans, 
 
 Probable ................ , ....... 237 
 
 Water Transportation ................ 201 
 
 Watervliet Arsenal .................. 422 
 
 Watt, James. .51, 59, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 
 
 70, 71, 73, 99, 184,352 
 
 " Watt," Origin of Term ............ 277 
 
 Wealth, Division of .................. 699 
 
 " Weehawken " ..................... 389 
 
 Welding, Electric .................... 284 
 
 Weling Breech Block ................ 421 
 
 Welland Canal, Heavy Tonnage of. ... 235 
 
 Wells Light ......................... 521 
 
 Westinghouse Air Brakes.... 83, 102, 156 
 
 Wheat ............................. 63 1 
 
 Wheat Crop of the United States in 1895. 237 
 Wheat Crop of the World ............ 635 
 
 Wheat, Warehouse System of Handling. 631 
 Wheeled Vehicles, Progress in ........ 180 
 
 Whitehead Torpedo. ........ 101, 459, 465 
 
 White Pass and Yukon River Railroad. 249 
 White Star Line ..................... 220 
 
 Whitney, Eli .......... 174, 404, 636, 683 
 
 Whitworth Fluid Compression ........ 339 
 
 Wind Pressure on Buildings .......... 364 
 
 Wire Glass ........................ 384 
 
 Wireless Telegraphy ............ 252, 536 
 
 Wireless Telephony .................. 558 
 
 Wollaston, Dr .................. 290, 646 
 
 Woman's Medical College, Philadelphia. 711 
 Women, Modern Occupations for ..... 710 
 
 Wood Fiber ........................ 593 
 
 Wood Pulp ......................... 593 
 
 World Production of Coal ........... 504 
 
 World Production of Iron and Steel. . . 352 
 World Wheat Crop for 1899 .......... 635 
 
 Wrought Iron ....................... 328 
 
 X 
 
 X-Ray Experiments 
 
 Yerkes Telescope ........ , . ......... 651 
 
 "York" ........................... 79 
 
 Z 
 
 Zeppelin's Experiments with Air Ships. 194 
 Zoetrope ........................... 5^4 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS. 
 
 Artilleryman 389 
 
 Atlantic Type of Locomotive 8 1 
 
 Automobile . 1 90 
 
 Bessemer, Sir Henry 333 
 
 Best's Traction Engine 622 
 
 Breech Block 421 
 
 Bridge 301 
 
 Bridge, Forth ' 366 
 
 Bridge, Natural 355 
 
 Cable Map of the World 540 
 
 Camera for Stereoscopic Work 583 
 
 Cannon of Gordon's Battery 415 
 
 Centrifugal Milk Skimmer 629 
 
 City of Oil Tanks 510 
 
 " Clermont's " First Voyage 209 
 
 Closed Circuit System of Telegraph . . . 533 
 
 Colt Machine Gun 433 
 
 Colt's First Revolver 4^2 
 
 Cotton Gin, Modern . . 639 
 
 Cugnot's Carriage 70 
 
 Daguerre 577 
 
 Diagram of Forgings 340 
 
 Draper, Dorothy 578 
 
 Dutton Lock, Air Conduit and Valve . . 241 
 
 Dutton Pneumatic Lock 240 
 
 Economy of Storage Battery 296 
 
 Electric Automobile 190 
 
 Electric Current Diagram 295, 297 
 
 Electric Storage Battery 294 
 
 Empire Typesetter 608 
 
 Ericsson's Monitor 446 
 
 Fahrenheit Scale 107 
 
 Field, Cyrus W 542 
 
 First Horseless Carriage 184 
 
 First Railroad Advertisement in Amer- 
 ica. 170 
 
 First Sun Picture 578 
 
 Flying Machine, Maxim's 196 
 
 Flying Machine, Zeppelin's 195 
 
 Forth Bridge 366 
 
 Fulton, Robert .206" 
 
 Garabit Viaduct 366 
 
 Gas Engine Diagram 94 
 
 Gold Mining 477 
 
 Gold Product 483 
 
 Green's Fuel Economizer 54 
 
 Green's Fuel Economizer in Connec- 
 tion with Furnace 55 
 
 Harvesting, Old and New 25 
 
 Heaviest Locomotive in the World .... 87 
 
 Henry's Telegraph 527 
 
 Hero's Engine 58 
 
 Highest Chimney in the World 490 
 
 Hoe Printing Press 600 
 
 " Holland " 464 
 
 Horseshoe Magnet and Iron Filings . . . 269 
 
 Hotel in New Mining Camp 485 
 
 Krag-Jorgensen Rifle and Old Flint 
 
 Lock 410 
 
 Krupp, Alfred Frederick 332 
 
 Launch of the " Oceanic " 220 
 
 Laying the Atlantic Cable 546 
 
 Linotype ... 604 
 
 Locomobile , 188 
 
 Locomotive, Atlantic Type of 81 
 
 Locomotive, Heaviest, in the World. . . 87 
 
 Maxim's Flying Machine 196 
 
 McCormick's First Harvester 618 
 
 Morse's First Telegraph Instrument. . . 533 
 Mortar Battery in New York Harbor.. 426 
 
 Natural Bridge 355 
 
 Natural Gas 508 
 
 Niagara Steel Arch 361 
 
 Nickel Steel Ingot 388 
 
 " Oceanic " 219 
 
 " Oceanic " compared with Broadway 
 
 Buildings 221 
 
 Oil Well Flowing 516 
 
 Oil Well Tools 513, 514 
 
 Old Fashioned Home 668 
 
 1 ' Old Ironsides " 80 
 
 On the Dump 488 
 
750 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On the Tramway 495 
 
 Piston and Valve Diagrams 47 
 
 Pneumatic Hammer 99 
 
 Pneumatic Tools, Submarine Use of. . 101 
 
 Principle of the Dynamo 271 
 
 Principle of the Motor 271 
 
 Prospector 484 
 
 Remington Typewriter 613 
 
 " Rocket" 76 
 
 Roentgen, Prof.. W. C 585 
 
 Shell, Forged Steel 392 
 
 Shell, Forged Steel Armor- Piercing. . . . 393 
 
 Steam Engine, Essential Parts of a. ... 45 
 Steam Engine, Working Parts of a. . .46, 47 
 
 Stephenson, George 73 
 
 String of Oil Well Tools 513 
 
 " Stourbridge I Jon " 78 
 
 Stockton and Darlington Railway 75 
 
 Submarine Cable, Section of 547 
 
 Submarine Use of Pneumatic Tools . . . 101 
 
 Telephone Receiver 555 
 
 Telephone Switchboard 556 
 
 " Teutonic " in dry dock 222 
 
 Time-Table of the Philadelphia Railroad 
 
 in 1832 170 
 
 Trevithick Locomotive 72 
 
 Underwood Typewriter 614 
 
 Vauclain System of Valves 84 
 
 Viaduct, Garabit 366 
 
 Watt, James 64 
 
 Whitney, Eli ' 637 
 
 Whitney's First Cotton Gin 638 
 
 Windmill 40 
 
 Wollaston's Experiment 647 
 
 Wooden Frame Book Press 596 
 
 Zeppelin's Flying Machine 195 
 

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