[‘The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. By Charles Babbage, Esq.,
A.M., Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of
Cambridge.’ 8vo. London, C. Knight, 1832.]
Here is a work of no common interest. Its object, as stated by the
author in his introductory paragraph, is “to point out the effects and
the advantages which arise from the use of tools and machines;--to
endeavour to classify their modes of action;--and to trace both the
causes and the consequences of applying machinery to supersede the skill
and power of the human arm.” It professes to embrace, therefore, both a
very important branch of the science of political economy, and the whole
domain of the mechanical arts.
The word _manufacture_, which means fabrication by the _hand_, has
become singularly inapplicable to the thing which it is used to denote.
The human hand now performs but a comparatively small part in most of
those processes to which the name of manufactures is given; and in some
of the most stupendous and wonderful of them its aid is hardly at all
employed. Where the steam-engine plies its mighty energies, man has in
many cases little more to do than to look on. If the expression, a
manufacturing country, were to be taken in its literal sense, as meaning
a country where articles were generally made by the hand, it would be
much more truly applicable to Spain, or Russia, or Poland, or Hindostan,
or indeed to any other country of the earth, than to ours. We are, of
all others, the people who do least by the hand.
When we say, therefore, that England is a manufacturing country and that
Poland is not, we mean merely that great numbers of articles of use and
of luxury are fabricated in the former country, without any necessary
reference to the mode in which they are fabricated. But it so happens
that such articles cannot be fabricated in great abundance except by
means of machinery; and therefore we often use the term manufacturing as
nearly synonymous with mechanical, or at least as implying the extensive
agency of machinery. It should be borne in mind, however, that
agriculture is also a manufacture; and that whether a country produces
iron or corn, each branch of industry involves mechanical aid, however
we may choose to distinguish between a manufacturing and an agricultural
country.
The book upon the subject of manufactures which Mr. Babbage has now
given to the world, consists chiefly of a very large and multifarious
collection of the mechanical expedients employed in the different
branches of our national industry, arranged according to the general
principle, of which each is an exemplification. The author has in this
way furnished a work which is not less interesting to the mere general
reader than it is likely to prove valuable to the student of mechanics.
Surrounded as we are in this country by the wonders of mechanical
invention, he among us must be singularly destitute of enlightened
curiosity who feels no desire to understand the operation of those
beautiful and most effective contrivances which he everywhere sees or
hears in motion; or to trace through the various stages of their
fabrication those numberless articles of use and of ornament of which
every one of our shops, and it may almost be said of our houses, is
full. The history of some of the most apparently trivial or
insignificant of these productions, of a pin or a needle for instance,
is often a rich succession of the most exquisite efforts of
ingenuity--of the most important results obtained by the simplest means,
and of a velocity and at the same time perfection of operation which to
the unaccustomed observer would seem little short of miraculous. The
wonders of our manufactures are not less deserving of our examination,
because they are performed in the very midst of us, and may be made
perfectly intelligible to all who care to understand them.
But it is to those who are actually engaged in mechanical invention that
this volume is doubtless fitted to render the most important service.
Let the particular department upon which a person so employed is
exercising his thoughts be what it may, his success is likely to depend
in no small degree upon his general familiarity with mechanical
contrivances. It has not unfrequently happened that for want of this
diversified knowledge the inventors and improvers of machines or of
processes have devoted their solitary efforts for a long time in vain,
in attempting merely to accomplish what had already been completely
achieved in some other department of mechanical skill with which they
happened to have no acquaintance. In other cases, a contrivance
applicable to many different branches, although introduced in one of the
number, has remained unknown to the cultivators of all the others for
many years. Thus, for example, the valuable contrivance of the
fly-shuttle, although introduced into the woollen manufactory about the
year 1738, was not employed in the weaving of cottons, where it was
equally applicable, till more than twenty years afterwards. So also, as
Mr. Babbage notices, the expedient of placing the workman employed in
beating out the blades of scythes in a seat suspended by ropes from the
ceiling, to give him sufficient freedom and rapidity of motion to bring
the different parts of the iron upon the anvil in quick succession,
although introduced in the manufacture of scythes long ago, has only
been recently applied to that of anchors; “an art in which,” as he
remarks, “the contrivance is of still greater importance.” Now such a
work as the one before us is admirably calculated to prevent all this
waste of inventive labour, and to ensure the communication of any new or
valuable contrivance to all descriptions of manufactures in which it is
fitted to be available. An inventor, who has made himself completely
master of this work, will have obtained a knowledge both of all the
principal expedients which have hitherto been employed in mechanics, and
of the scientific principles upon which all mechanical devices must
depend; and a man so instructed, it may be fairly inferred, will be
likely not only to waste but little time in re-discovering what has been
already found out, but also to find his efforts in original invention
crowned with far more rapid and more satisfying success than would have
otherwise attended them.
From the multiplicity of most interesting subjects of which Mr. Babbage
has treated, the mere enumeration of which would far exceed our limits,
we select only two specimens of the entertainment to be found in the
work. The following account of a foreign manufacture would appear
incredible, if we did not know to what singular uses the instincts of
animals may be directed:--
“_Lace made by Caterpillars._--A most extraordinary species of
manufacture, which is in a slight degree connected with copying, has
been contrived by an officer of engineers residing at Munich. It
consists of lace and veils, with open patterns in them, made entirely by
caterpillars. The following is the mode of proceeding adopted:--Having
made a paste of the leaves of the plant, on which the species of
caterpillar he employs feeds, he spreads it thinly over a stone, or
other flat substance, of the required size. He then, with a camel-hair
pencil dipped in olive oil, draws the pattern he wishes the insects to
leave open. This stone is then placed in an inclined position, and a
considerable number of the caterpillars are placed at the bottom. A
peculiar species is chosen, which spins a strong web; and the animals
commence at the bottom, eating and spinning their way up to the top,
carefully avoiding every part touched by the oil, but devouring every
other part of the paste. The extreme lightness of these veils, combined
with some strength, is truly surprising. One of them, measuring
twenty-six and a half inches by seventeen inches, weighed only 1.51
grains, a degree of lightness which will appear more strongly by
contrast with other fabrics. One square yard of the substance of which
these veils are made weighs four grains and one-third, whilst one square
yard of silk gauze weighs one hundred and thirty-seven grains, and one
square yard of the finest patent net weighs two hundred and sixty-two
grains and a half.”
One of the most important manufactures of our own country is that
connected with the Press, in all its various and complicated operations.
The following account of the mode in which a great London newspaper is
prepared, will be read with interest in all parts of the kingdom:--
“Another instance of the just application of machinery, even at an
increased expense, arises where the shortness of time in which the
article can be produced, has an important influence on its value. In the
publication of our daily newspapers, it frequently happens that the
debates in the Houses of Parliament are carried on to three and four
o’clock in the morning, that is, to within a very few hours of the time
for the publication of the newspaper. The speeches must be taken down by
reporters, conveyed by them to the establishment of the newspaper,
perhaps at the distance of one or two miles, transcribed by them in the
office, set up by the compositor, the press corrected, and the papers
printed off and distributed before the public can read them. Some of
these journals have a circulation of from five to ten thousand daily.
Supposing four thousand to be wanted, and that they could be printed
only at the rate of five hundred per hour upon one side of the paper
(which was the greatest number two journeymen and a boy could take off
by the old hand-presses), sixteen hours would be required for printing
the complete edition; and the news conveyed to the purchasers of the
latest portion of the impression, would be out of date before they could
receive it. To obviate this difficulty, it was often necessary to set up
the paper in duplicate, and sometimes, when late, in triplicate: but the
improvements in the printing-machines have been so great, that four
thousand copies are now printed on one side in an hour.
“The establishment of ‘The Times’ newspaper is an example, on a large
scale, of a manufactory in which the division of labour, both mental and
bodily, is admirably illustrated, and in which also the effect of the
domestic economy is well exemplified. It is scarcely imagined, by the
thousands who read that paper in various quarters of the globe, what a
scene of organized activity the factory presents during the whole night,
or what a quantity of talent and mechanical skill is put in action for
their amusement and information[1]. Nearly a hundred persons are
employed in this establishment; and, during the session of parliament,
at least twelve reporters are constantly attending the Houses of Commons
and Lords; each in his turn, after about an hour’s work, retiring to
translate into ordinary writing, the speech he has just heard and noted
in short-hand. In the mean time fifty compositors are constantly at
work, some of whom have already set up the beginning, whilst others are
committing to type the yet undried manuscript of the continuation of a
speech, whose middle portion is travelling to the office in the pocket
of the hasty reporter, and whose eloquent conclusion is, perhaps, at
that very moment, making the walls of St. Stephen’s vibrate with the
applause of its hearers. These congregated types, as fast as they are
composed, are passed in portions to other hands; till at last the
scattered fragments of the debate, forming, when united with the
ordinary matter, eight-and-forty columns, re-appear in regular order on
the platform of the printing-press. The hand of man is now too slow for
the demands of his curiosity, but the power of steam comes to his
assistance. Ink is rapidly supplied to the moving types by the most
perfect mechanism;--four attendants incessantly introduce the edges of
large sheets of white paper to the junction of two great rollers, which
seem to devour them with unsated appetite;--other rollers convey them to
the type already inked, and having brought them into rapid and
successive contact, re-deliver them to four other assistants, completely
printed by the almost momentary touch. Thus, in one hour, four thousand
sheets of paper are printed on one side; and an impression of twelve
thousand copies, from above three hundred thousand moveable pieces of
metal, is produced for the public in six hours.”
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Footnote 1:
“The Author of these pages, with one of his friends, was recently
induced to visit this most interesting establishment, after midnight,
during the progress of a very important debate. The place was
illuminated with gas, and was light as the day:--there was neither
noise nor bustle;--and the visitors were received with such calm and
polite attention, that they did not, until afterwards, become sensible
of the inconvenience which such intruders, at a moment of the greatest
pressure, must occasion, nor reflect that the tranquillity which they
admired, was the result of intense and regulated occupation. But the
effect of such checks in the current of business will appear on
recollecting that, as four thousand newspapers are printed off on one
side within the hour, every _minute_ is attended with a loss of
sixty-six impressions. The quarter of an hour, therefore, which the
stranger may think it not unreasonable to claim for the gratification
of his curiosity (and to him this time is but a moment), may cause a
failure in the delivery of one thousand copies, and disappoint a
proportionate number of expectant readers, in some of our distant
towns, to which the morning papers are despatched by the earliest and
most rapid conveyances of each day.
“This note is inserted with the further and more general purpose of
calling the attention of those, especially foreigners, who are
desirous of inspecting our larger manufactories to the chief cause of
the difficulty which frequently attends their introduction. When the
establishment is very extensive, and its departments skilfully
arranged, the exclusion of visitors arises, not from any illiberal
jealousy, nor, generally, from any desire of concealment, which would,
in most cases, be absurd; but from the substantial inconvenience and
loss of time, throughout an entire series of well-combined operations,
which must be occasioned even by short and casual interruptions.”
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