A pin, so common and so cheap today, was once so expensive that only the
wealthy could afford even a few. The term pin-money dates from that time
and originally came from the allowance a husband gave his wife to
purchase pins.
From an historical point of view, it appears that the need of something
with which to fasten together pieces of cloth and like material has been
met from ancient times by various devices. Among the remains of the
bronze age are found pins and brooches of bronze. In Egyptian tombs have
been found elaborate and costly pins, which range in sizes from two
inches to seven or eight inches long, and have large gold heads or bands
of gold around the upper end. Designs were often worked on these heads
and bands. The largest of these pins were probably used for fastening
the hair. Till the middle of the sixteenth century the poorer class in
England used rude skewers of wood, while the more fortunate had pins
made of gold, silver and brass. The Indians, in the ancient cities of
Mexico, satisfied their need for pins by using the thorn of the agave.
As early as 1483, pins were important enough in England to warrant the
passing of a law by Parliament prohibiting their importation. By 1540,
however, they were being imported in large quantities from France.
Parliament again passed a law regarding pins in 1543. This act provided
that “no person shall put to sale any pins, but only such as shall be
double-headed, and have the heads soldered fast to the shank of the pin,
well smoothed, and shanks well shapen, the points well round filed,
canted, and sharpened.” Some pins of good quality were made at this
time, but a large portion of those against which the legislative
enactment was directed were made of iron wire, blanched and passed for
brass pins. Only three years after this prohibitory law was passed it
became obsolete because of the improvements which had been made in the
production of these articles. England continued to receive its
supply from France until John Tilsby began their manufacture in
Gloucestershire. His business increased to such an extent that in a few
years he had 1,500 people in his employ. In 1636 the pinmakers of London
formed a corporation and established the industry of Bristol and
Birmingham. This latter city is still the center of the industry in
England.
[Illustration: THE FIRST PIN IS A FLAT-HEADED COPPER PIN PROBABLY USED
FOR FASTENING HAIR. THE SECOND IS A STAR-HEADED BRONZE PIN. BOTH ARE OF
THE TYPES WHICH HAVE BEEN FOUND AMONG THE REMAINS OF THE BRONZE AGE. THE
THIRD PIN IS A HANDMADE PIN OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY]
During this period the pins were made with two coils of wire fastened at
one end of a length of wire, the other end of which was sharpened. First
a wire, somewhat finer than that which was to be used for the pin, was
coiled around a spit on a lathe. This was cut up into sections, each
consisting of two turns. These coils were then annealed or softened and
placed in a heap. Boys stuck the ends of the pins, which had been cut to
the proper length, into this pile until a coil stuck. A workman pressed
this coil in a die to make it hold to the pin. The head was then
soldered and the other end of the pin filed and sharpened. Finally the
pin was straightened and blanched or whitened.
In the United States the colonists early felt the need of local
production. The colonial legislature of Carolina offered prizes in 1775
for the first native-made pins and needles. The first American pins were
made in Rhode Island, during the Revolution, by Jeremiah Wilkinson.
About the same time, Samuel Slocum made pins in Providence. These were
handmade with twisted wire heads.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE PIN MACHINE ROOM IN A MODERN PINMAKING
PLANT
There are many types of pin machines which make anywhere from ninety to
three hundred pins a minute, depending on the quality of the pin made.]
Pinmaking machines were first invented in the United States. During the
War of 1812, the industry was started because of the difficulty of
getting pins from England, where most of them were made. The industry
was not successful, however, till 1836, when the Howe Manufacturing
Company was formed at Birmingham, Conn. It is a curious coincident that
the first successful American pin manufacturing company, making the new
machine-made pins, should be established in the Connecticut town of the
same name as the English city which had been the center of pinmaking for
nearly two hundred years.
In 1817 a paper was filed at the patent office by Seth Hunt, describing
a machine for making pins with “head, shaft, and point in one entire
piece.” This machine, however, did not come into use. Lemuel W. Wright,
of New Hampshire, secured, in 1824, an English patent for a machine for
making solid-headed pins. This was the beginning of the present
industry. A factory equipped with Wright’s machines was established in
London, but was not successful. Daniel Foot-Taylen, of Birmingham,
purchased this equipment and secured an extension of Wright’s patents
for five years from 1838. He carried the production of machine-made pins
to a commercial basis. Wright’s machines, however, did not complete all
operations. Dr. John Neland Howe, a physician of Bellevue Hospital, New
York City, formed a company in 1832 for the manufacture of pins. This
concern was not successful, but in 1835 a second company was formed by
Dr. Howe, who had great faith in the future of the industry. Nine years
later, Samuel Slocum, of Connecticut, invented a new machine for
sticking the pins on papers.
[Illustration: THE WHITENING ROOM, WHERE THE PINS ARE CLEANED AND PLATED
In the tumbling barrels the pins are cleaned and dried by tumbling in
sawdust which has been heated in the ovens in the center background.]
Since that time there have been many pin machines developed, each
accomplishing the same result in slightly different ways. In each case a
special stiff pin wire is drawn into the machine from a large hank,
which is placed on a drum on the machine. The wire is first passed
through a series of rapidly revolving, straightening rolls which take
out all twists and kinks. The proper length of wire is fed into the
machine automatically, and the end is gripped by a set of jaws. A small
part of the end of the wire extends beyond the jaws. This is struck
several rapid blows by a die called the header. After the head is thus
formed, the wire is cut off to the proper length and is then ready to be
pointed. It is now carried along by a shaft having a screw thread, and
is made to revolve rapidly by a belt which passes over it. The end to be
pointed passes over a series of coarse, medium and fine revolving files
or cutters. The pin now drops into a pan, ready to be finished after
being inspected.
In the finishing room, the pins are put into a revolving or tumbling
barrel and are rolled in sawdust, which absorbs all the oil, leaving
them clean and bright. They are now dropped through a blower, where the
sawdust is separated from the pins. The whitening is done by boiling the
pins in a large copper kettle, which also contains layers of grained tin
and a solution of argol or bitartrate of potash. After boiling for five
or six hours, they have a thin coating of tin, which gives them their
silvery appearance. Again they are cleaned, this time being washed in
clean water, then tumbled in strong soap water, and finally tumbled in
hot sawdust to dry them. The pins are separated from the sawdust as
before. From there the pins go to the sticking department, where they
are stuck on papers as you buy them. The sticking machine is of a simple
construction, but is wonderful in operation, and requires no attention
by the operator, except to keep it supplied with pins and papers.
[Illustration: SIZES]
The pins are put into a vibrating hopper, which slopes slightly towards
the sticking machine. The conductor from the hopper to the machine is
made of two strips of steel, down which the pins, held by their heads,
slide. They are taken from the conductor by a screw thread and fed to
the carrier, which takes thirty pins at a time and places them in front
of a set of thirty punches. They are then forced along thirty grooves in
the steel clamps, which crimp the paper, and on through the crimp. Thus
a whole row of pins is stuck at once. The paper is now advanced the
proper distance, and another row is stuck. When the center of the paper
is reached, after six rows have been stuck, the machine automatically
spaces the paper so as to skip the space used for the brand name. Then
six more rows are stuck, and the operator removes the completed paper
and inserts another without stopping the machine. These papers are
inspected to make certain that no poorly made pins have gotten by the
former inspection, are rolled and packed, usually in boxes of twelve
papers each.
Pins today are made in many sizes from the 3-1/2-inch stout blanket pins
down to the fine, slender, bronze pins used by entomologists, 4,500 of
which pins make an ounce. Toilet pins are usually made in six sizes as
shown in the illustrations. Besides the common or toilet pins, there are
today numerous special bank and desk pins which are made to meet special
requirements.
Pin production in the United States has reached a high stage of
development. The number of pins made in 1914 reached the tremendous
total of 25,000,000,000. These figures are almost too great for
comprehension. If all the pin wire used for these 25,000,000,000 pins
were in one piece it would go around the earth fifteen times. Safety
pins, hooks and eyes, and hairpins, are generally made by pin concerns.
Each of these different articles require very ingenious machines. Many
of them are almost human in their operation.
* * * * *
The popular name of the prominence seen in the front of the throat in a
man is called the “Adam’s apple” because of the story in the Old
Testament, telling of the eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of
knowledge by Adam, a piece being supposed to have lodged in his throat
where the bulge appears.
[Illustration: AN ALPINE GLACIER]
[Illustration: THE MER DE GLACE
The upper view shows the method of crossing a glacier. Each of the
climbers is carrying an alpenstock, or staff with ice ax at one end and
spike at the other. The lower view is the famous sea of ice in
Switzerland.]
[Illustration: MOUNT RAINIER, WASHINGTON
One of the largest glacial systems in the world radiating from a single
peak is situated on this mountain in western Washington.]
How are Glaciers Formed?
Away up in the high valleys formed among the peaks of the tallest
mountain ranges of both the Rocky Mountains and the mountains of Alaska,
as well as those in Switzerland and European countries, the snow freezes
into great solid masses because of the intense cold, and is forced by
its own pressure into vast fields and mountains of ice. This ice is not
like that produced by the freezing of water, but resembles more a very
hard, solid form of snow, being composed of thin layers filled with air
bubbles and more brittle and less transparent than the ice we are
accustomed to see. Glaciers exist in all zones in which mountains rise
above the snow-line, that is, the height where it is so cold that there
is always snow.
We all know that if we press two pieces of ordinary ice together each
piece will melt at the place where it touches the other and just in that
same way the pressure of the ice above them causes glaciers to be
continually moving downward, frequently reaching the borders of
cultivation even. As they descend they also experience a gradual
diminution from the action of the sun and rain, and from the heat of the
earth. Investigation has shown that they move very much like a river,
the middle and upper parts faster than the sides and bottom, similar to
the way in which a mass of thick mortar or a quantity of pitch flows
down an inclined trough. The rate at which a glacier moves generally
varies from eighteen to twenty-four inches in a day.
The Glacier National Park is the latest addition to the series of great
natural attractions which the United States Government has been
acquiring for years. It lies in Northern Montana, between the Canadian
border and the line of the Great Northern Railroad, and contains about a
million acres of natural wonders, ranging from verdant valleys and
wooded heights to glacial peaks. There are numerous glaciers and
mountain lakes and the locality presents many examples of sublime
scenery. The City of Tacoma, Washington, is situated in the valley below
Mt. Rainier and commands a wonderful view of that mountain, on which
there is situated one of the largest glacial systems in the world
radiating from any single peak.
One of the most famous glaciers of the Alps is the Mer de Glace,
belonging to Mont Blanc, in the valley of Chamouni, about fifty-seven
hundred feet above the level of the sea. Those of the Andes and the
Southern Alps of New Zealand are conspicuous, and they abound in Norway,
Iceland and Spitzbergen, but it is more especially in the chain of Monte
Rosa that the phenomena of glaciers are exhibited in their greatest
wonder, as also in their most interesting phases from a scientific point
of view.
How Large are Molecules?
When a great scientist named Sir William Thomson was asked about the
size of a molecule, he replied: “If a drop of water were magnified to
the size of the earth, the molecules would each occupy spaces greater
than those filled by small shot and smaller than those occupied by
cricket balls.” That gives us about as clear an idea as it is possible
to get of the size of molecules. And yet molecules are made up of even
smaller particles, called atoms. An atom is the smallest division of
anything that we know about now.
A molecule of water is made up of three atoms. Evaporation of water
consists of the movement of these atoms in such a way as to make the
liquid water change into a gas. Freezing water into ice is caused by
making the molecules, and, in turn, the atoms, stick to each other. It
takes a great deal of power to separate the molecules in water, and for
this reason water was long regarded as something which could not be
divided up, or, in other words, a basic element, such as the oxygen in
the air.