The very small degree of antiquity to which machine tools can lay claim
appears forcibly in the sparse records of the state of the mechanic
arts a century ago.
[Illustration: GOURD, CAULDRON AND PIPKIN.]
A few tools of a rude kind, such as trip-hammers (worked by water
wheels), and a few special ones, which aimed at accuracy but were of
limited application, such as “mills” for boring cannon, or “engines”
for cutting the teeth of clock wheels, were almost their only
representatives.
The transmission of power was unthought of, except for the very limited
distances which were possible with the ill-fitted “gudgeons” and
“lanterns and trundles” of the old millwrights.
The steam-engine, however, changed all this; on the one hand the
hitherto unheard of accuracy of fit required by its working parts
created a demand for tools of increased power and precision, and on
the other it rendered the use of such tools possible in almost any
situation.
Thus, acting and re-acting on each other, machine tools and steam
engines have grown side by side, although the first steps were costly
and difficult to a degree which is not now easy to realize. James Watt,
for instance, in 1779 was fain to be content with a cylinder for his
“fire-engine,” of which, though it was but 18 inches in the bore, the
diameter in one place exceeded that at another by about 3/8 of an inch;
its piston was not unnaturally leaky; though he packed it with “paper,
cork, putty, pasteboard and old hat.”
_The early history of the pumping-engine is the history of the
steam-engine_, for originally and for many years the only way in which
the steam-engine was utilized was for pumping water out of the coal
mines of England and from the low lands of the Netherlands.
In 1698 Capt. Thomas Savery secured Letters Patent for a machine for
raising water by steam. It consisted of two boilers and two receivers
for the steam, with valves and the needful pipes. One of the receivers
being filled with steam, its communication with the boiler was then cut
off and the steam condensed with cold water outside of it; into the
vacuum thus formed the atmosphere forced the water from below, when
the steam was again caused to press upon the water and drive it still
higher.
This engine was used extensively for draining mines and the water was,
in some instances, made to turn a water wheel, by which lathes and
other machinery were driven.
In 1705 Thomas Newcomen, with his associates, patented an engine which
combined, for the first time, the cylinder and piston and separate
boiler. _This soon became extensively introduced for draining mines
and collieries_, and the engines grew to be of gigantic size, with
cylinders 60 inches in diameter and other parts in proportion.
This engine was, in course of years, used in connection with the
Cornish pump, whose performance in raising water from mines came to be
a matter of the nicest scientific investigation, and adopted as the
standard for the duty or work, by which to compare the multitudinous
experimental machines very soon introduced by many inventors.
But there is an earlier history which long antedates the achievements
of Savery, Newcomen and Watt, which belongs, however, principally to
the domain of hydraulics. Before proceeding to discuss the advancements
made within the memory of men now living, it may be well to take
a glance backward and occupy a few pages with their appropriate
illustrations, with the facts recorded in history.
It were vain to even try, to trace the advances made toward the mammoth
city pumping stations, from the early beginning hereafter described,
which have inspired the words recorded by J. F. Holloway, M. E.:
“In looking upon the ponderous pumping engines which lift a volume of
water equal to the flow of a river, sending it with each throbbing
beat of their pulsating plungers through the arteries and veins
that now reach out in every direction in our great cities, bringing
health, comfort, cleanliness and protection to every home therein, we
cannot but wonder what is the history of their beginning, what the
process of their evolution out from the crude appliances of long ago.
Just who the first man was, and by what stream he sat gazing on his
parched fields, on which the cloudless skies of the Orient shed no
rain, and where the early rising sun with eager haste lapped up the
dew drops which the more kindly night in pity over his hard lot had
shed, and who, looking on his withering grain stalks on the one side
and the life-giving waters which flowed by on the other, first caught
the inspiring thought that if one could only be brought to the other,
how great would be the harvest, we shall never know. Knowing, as we
do, that such still is the problem that confronts the toiler on the
plains of that far-off Eastern land where man’s necessities first
prompted man’s invention, it does not require a great stretch of the
imagination to conceive of such a situation, and to believe that,
acting on the impulse of the moment, he called his mate, and tying
thongs to the feet of a sheep-skin and standing on either side of the
brook, with alternate swingings of the suspended skin they lifted
the waters of the stream to the thirsty field, making its blanched
furrows to bloom with vegetation, and at the same time introducing to
the world the first hydraulic apparatus ever invented, and certainly
the first hydraulic ram ever used.”
The figures shown on the opening page of this section of the work
represent the very first utensils used for collecting and containing
water. The _gourd or calabash_ was undoubtedly the very first; it was
common among the ancient Romans, Mexicans and Egyptians, and in the
most modern times continues to be in use in Africa, South America and
other warm countries. The New Zealanders possessed _no other vessels_
for holding liquids, and the same remark is applicable to numerous
other savage tribes.
Although not strictly connected with the subject, it may be observed
that the gourd is probably the original vessel for _heating water,
cooking, etc._ In these and other applications the neck is sometimes
used as a handle and an opening made into the body by removing a
portion of it, as shown in the engraving, its exterior being kept
moistened by water while on the fire, while others apply a coating of
clay to protect it from the effects of the flame. When in process of
time vessels for heating water were formed wholly of clay, they were
fashioned after the cauldron as shown.
[Illustration: FIGS. 47-52.]
The above illustrations are representations of ancient vases; it is
curious to note their conformation to the figure of the gourd. The
first three on the left are from Thebes. _Golden ewers_ of a similar
form were used by rich Egyptians for containing water to wash the hands
and feet of their guests.
Similar shaped vessels of the Greeks, Romans and other people might be
easily produced.
In Egypt, India, Chaldea and China the _clepsydra or water-clocks_
date back beyond all records. Plutarch mentions them in his life of
Alcibiades who flourished in the Fifth Century B. C. when they were
employed in the tribunals at Athens to measure the time to which the
orators were limited in their addresses to the judges. Julius Cæsar
found the Britons in possession of them.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.—WATER-CLOCK.]
_The clepsydra is a device for measuring time_ by the amount of water
discharged from a vessel through a small aperture, the quantity
discharged in a given unit of time, as an hour being first determined.
In the earlier clepsydras the hours were measured by the sinking of the
surface of the water in the vessel containing it. In others the water
ran from one vessel to another, there being in the lower a cork or
piece of light wood which as the vessel filled, rose and thus indicated
the hour. In later clepsydras the hour has been indicated by a dial.
Fig. 53 shows a water-clock described by Hero of Alexandria, Egypt,
made _to govern the quantities of fluids flowing from a vessel_. The
note below gives the exact wording of the description which has come
down to us.
“A vessel containing wine, and provided with an open spout, stands
upon a pedestal: it is required by shifting a weight to cause the
spout to pour forth a given quantity,—sometimes, for instance,
a half cotyle (1/4 pint), sometimes a cotyle (1/2 pint), and in
short, whatever quantity we please. A B (fig. 53), is the vessel
into which wine is to be poured: near the bottom is a spout D: the
neck is closed by the partition E F, and through E F is inserted a
tube, G H, reaching nearly to the bottom of the vessel, but so as to
allow of the passage of water. K L M N is the pedestal on which the
vessel stands, and O X another tube reaching within a little of the
partition and extending into the pedestal in which water is placed
so as to cover the orifice O, of the tube. Fix a rod, P R, one-half
within, and the other without the pedestal, moving like the beam of a
lever about the point S; and from the extremity P of the rod suspend
a water-clock, T, having a hole in the bottom. The spout D having
been first closed, the vessel should be filled through the tube G H
before water is poured into the pedestal, that the air may escape
through the tube X O; then pour water into the pedestal, through a
hole, until the orifice O is closed, and set the spout D free. It is
evident that the wine will not flow, as there is no opening through
which air can be introduced: but if we depress the extremity R of
the rod, a portion of the water-clock will be raised from the water,
and, the vent O being uncovered, the spout D will run until the water
suspended in the water-clock has flowed back and closed the vent O.
If, when the water-clock is filled again, we depress the extremity R
still further, the liquid suspended in the water-clock will take a
longer time to flow out, and there will be a longer discharge from
D: and if the water-clock be entirely raised above the water, the
discharge will last considerably longer. To avoid the necessity of
depressing the extremity R of the rod with the hand, take a weight Q,
sliding along the outer portion of the rod, R W, and able, if placed
at R, to lift the whole water-clock; if at a distance from R, some
smaller portion of it. Then, having obtained by trial the quantities
which we wish to flow from D, we must make notches in the rod R W and
register the quantities; so that, when we wish a given quantity to
flow out, we have only to bring the weight to the corresponding notch
and leave the discharge to take place.”