Then there is, although not much used, the transmitting of power by
means of long steam pipes. There is also the transmission
hydraulically. This may be carried out in an intermittent manner, so
as to replace the reciprocating flat rods of old days; that is to say,
if two pipes containing water are laid down, and if the pressure in
those pipes at the one end be alternated, there will be produced an
alternating and a reciprocative effect at the other, to give motion to
pumps or other machinery. There is also that thoroughly well known
mode of transmission, hydraulically, for which the engineering world
owes so much to our president. We have, by Sir William Armstrong's
system, coupled with his accumulator, the means of transmitting
hydraulically the power of a central motor to any place requiring it,
and by the means of the principal accumulator, or if need be by that
aided by local accumulators, a comparatively small engine is enabled
to meet very heavy demands made upon it for a short time. I think I am
right in saying that, at the ordinary pressure which Sir William
Armstrong uses in practice, viz., 700 lb. to the square inch, one foot
a second of motion along an inch pipe would deliver at the rate to
produce one-horse power. Therefore, a ten-inch pipe, with the water
traveling at no greater pace than three feet in a second, would
deliver 300 horse-power. This 300 horse-power would no doubt be
somewhat reduced by the loss in the hydraulic engine, which would
utilize the water. But the total energy received would be equivalent
to producing 300 horse-power. Such a transmission would be effected
with an exceedingly small loss infliction in transit. I believe I am
right in saying that a 10 inch pipe a mile long would not involve much
more than about 14 or 15 lb. differential pressure to propel the
water through it at the rate of three feet in a second. If that be so,
then, with 700 lb. to the inch, the loss under such circumstances
would be only two per cent. in transmission. There is no doubt that
this transmission of power hydraulically has been of the greatest
possible use. It has enabled work to be done which could not be done
before. Enormous weights are raised with facility wherever required,
as by the aid of power hydraulically transmitted, it is perfectly easy
for one man to manage the heaviest cranes. Moreover, as I have said in
other places, the system which we owe to Sir William Armstrong has
gone far to elevate the human race, and it has done so in this manner.
So long as it is competent for a man to earn a living by mere
unintelligent exercise of his muscles, he is very likely to do it. You
may see in the old London docks the crane-heads covered by structures
that look like paddle-boxes. If you go to them, there is, I am glad to
say, nothing now to fill them up; but when the British Association
first met, these paddle-boxes covered large tread-wheels, in which men
trod, so as to raise a weight. Now, although I know that in fact there
is nothing more objectionable in a man turning a wheel by treading
inside of it than there is if he turn it round by a winch-handle, yet
somehow it strikes one more as being merely the work of an animal, a
turnspit, or a squirrel, or, indeed, as the task imposed on the
criminal. But, nevertheless, in this way there were a large number of
persons getting their living by the mere exercise of their muscles,
but, as might be expected, a very poor living, derived as it was from
unintelligent labor. That work is no longer possible, and is not so,
for the powerful reason that it does not pay. Those persons,
therefore, who would now have been thus occupied, are compelled to
elevate themselves, and to become competent to earn their living in a
manner which is more worthy of an intelligent human being. It is on
these grounds that I say we owe very much the elevation of the working
classes, especially of the class below the artisan, to this invention
of our distinguished president.