The manufacturing progress of this country has depended, in a great
degree, on the facility possessed of making machinery of all kinds by
the aid of powerful engines worked by steam power. These engines, most
of which appear to be self-acting, forge and roll and cut and bore
beams of iron, boiler plates, and cylinders of immense size, which
it would be impossible to make by hand; and they do the work with a
rapidity and mechanical accuracy that would be otherwise unattainable.
In the progress of manufacturing invention, the small steam engine
first made by manual labour created the power to make other steam
engines of large size; and those more powerful engines supplied the
means of making still larger shafts and cylinders for engines that were
to be employed in the construction of machines of various kinds, to be
worked by the power thus accumulated.
The important advantages derived from the invention and application of
self-acting machinery, not only by the community at large, but even
by the workmen whose labour they for a time superseded, were forcibly
stated by Mr. Whitworth, in his opening address at the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers, in September, 1856:--"I congratulate you," he
observed, "on the success which in our time the mechanical arts have
obtained, and the high consideration in which they are held. Inventors
are not now persecuted, as formerly, by those who fancied that their
inventions and discoveries were prejudicial to the general interest,
and calculated to deprive labour of its fair reward. Some of us are
old enough to remember the hostility manifested to the working of the
power-loom, the self-acting mule, the machinery for shearing woollen
cloth, the thrashing machine, and many others. Now the introduction of
reaping and mowing machines, and other improved agricultural machinery,
is not opposed. Indeed, it must be obvious, to reflecting minds, that
the increased luxuries and comforts which all more or less enjoy,
are derived from the numerous recent mechanical appliances and the
productions of our manufactories. That of our cotton has increased
during the last few years in a wonderful degree. In 1824, a gentleman
with whom I am acquainted sold on one occasion 100,000 pieces of
74-reed printing cloth at 30s. 6d. per piece of 29 yards long; the
same description of cloth he sold last week at 3s. 9d. One of the most
striking instances I know of the vast superiority of machinery over
simple instruments used by hand, is in the manufacture of lace, when
one man, with a machine, does the work of 8,000 lace makers on the
cushion. In spinning fine numbers of yarn, a workman in a self-acting
mule will do the work of 3,000 hand-spinners with the distaff and
spindle.
"Comparatively few persons, perhaps, are aware of the increase of
production in our life-time. Thirty years ago, the cost of labour for
turning a surface of cast iron, by chipping and filing with the hand,
was 12s. per square foot--the same work is now done by the planing
machine at a cost for labour of less than one penny per square foot:
and this, as you know, is one of the most important operations in
mechanics; it is, therefore, well adapted to illustrate what our
progress has been. At the same time that this increased production
is taking place, the fixed capital of the country is, as a necessary
consequence, augmented; for in the case I have mentioned, of chipping
and filing by the hand, when the cost of labour was 12s. per foot, the
capital required for tools for one workman was only a few shillings;
but now, the labour being lowered to a penny per foot, a capital in
planing machines for the workman is required which often amounts to
£500, and in some cases more."
Notwithstanding the great economy of labour by the self-acting machines
now employed for doing all kinds of work, it is gratifying to find
that it has not had the effect of throwing men out of employ; for
the increased demand, consequent on the facility of production, has
more than compensated for the substitution of automaton mechanism for
handicraft.
It is extremely interesting to visit a large engineering factory, and
to witness the ease with which the masses of crude metal are wrought
in various ways, and converted by a number of seemingly self-acting
engines into other engines and machines which are, in their turn, to
become the agents of the further development of the skill and ingenuity
of man. In the new Government factory at Keyham, near Devonport, which
we believe to be one of the largest establishments of the kind in the
world, most of those powerful engines of the best construction may
be seen in operation. The completeness of the arrangements redounds
much to the credit of Mr. Trickett, the chief engineer, under whose
supervision they were made; and a walk through the factory, which is
thrown open to public inspection, will well repay a journey of many
miles. A detailed description of all its machinery would fill a volume,
but we must now limit ourselves to a bare enumeration of some of the
most remarkable features.
Numerous machines of the largest size, placed under the cover of an
extensive and lofty roof, are employed in doing everything requisite
for the fitting out of the largest steam-ships in the British navy.
Shears, put in continuous motion by steam power, are seen moving
steadily up and down, and cutting through the thickest boiler plates
without the least apparent effort, the chisel-shaped knives that cut
the metal moving just the same whether they be dividing the air or
shearing iron. Punching engines, in like manner, force holes through
iron plates an inch thick. Shaping and planing machines pare off the
tough iron as if it were not harder than cheese. Riveting machines
of different kinds bind together the plates of monster boilers with
marvellous rapidity; whilst machines for boring, for drilling, for
forging, and for doing every variety of smaller work, are to be seen
in operation in various parts of the factory.
Among the smaller self-acting engines, the forging machine for making
bolts attracts attention by the rapidity of its action. It consists of
a series of hammers placed side by side, so constructed as to shape
small bars of iron into any required form, according to the mould
of the swages beneath them, representing miniature anvils. It is
interesting to watch how readily the hot iron receives its shape under
the action of the hammers, which make about 700 strokes per minute,
the work being transferred from one to another to be progressively
finished. There is a circular saw that cuts through bars of iron
as thick as railway rails, by making upwards of 1,000 revolutions
per minute. A rivet-making machine forms the rivet, and shapes the
head to the requisite size, with great accuracy and quickness. There
are compound drilling machines, in which six drills are acting
simultaneously; hydraulic presses, that force parts of machines
together, and a great variety of other engines for the saving of time
and labour.
Not the least curious of the smaller contrivances is an apparatus which
deserves notice as a useful application of magnetism to manufacturing
purposes. Several horse-shoe magnets are attached to two endless
chains, moving over suitable wheels, and inclined at an angle of 30
degrees. These magnets at the lower end of the chain, dip into a tub
containing the mixed brass and iron turnings and filings from the
lathes and other tools, and the pieces of iron, being attracted by the
magnets, are carried away and brushed off into a box, leaving the brass
behind to be remelted.
In one department of the building are immense foundry furnaces, where
metals are melted and cast, the blast of the fires being maintained
by large rotating fans, kept in action by a powerful steam engine,
by which also the other machines are worked. The foundry is most
conveniently contrived for casting works of any required size, fixed
and travelling cranes being so stationed and arranged as to carry the
ladles of liquid metal to any part of the floor.
In another department is the smithy, where the iron to be wrought
into shape is heated in forges; and near to the forges stand the
Steam-Hammers--those gigantic Cyclops of modern times, that strike
blows, compared with the force of which the blows of the fabled Cyclops
of antiquity were but as the fall of a feather.
Ranged in a row there are four of these ponderous engines, of various
sizes; the largest hammer being so heavy as to require the power of
four tons to lift it, and when falling from a height of 6 feet nothing
can withstand its crushing blow. Yet the force of this mighty giant is
so completely under control, and may be brought to act so gently, as
scarcely to crack a nut placed to receive its fall.
The invention of the steam-hammer was the result of necessity. The
shaft of a steam engine having to be made larger than usual, no hammer
then in action by water power was capable of forging it, and Mr.
James Nasmyth was applied to, to give his aid in contriving the means
of removing the difficulty. It was then that the idea of lifting the
hammer-block by the direct action of steam occurred to him, and by a
succession of extremely ingenious devices, he at length perfected the
steam-hammer, which has been pronounced to be one of the most perfect
artificial machines, and one of the noblest triumphs of mind over
matter that modern English engineers have yet developed.
The accompanying woodcut represents the largest of the four
steam-hammers in Keyham factory. The hammer-block, _a_, weighing four
tons, is guided in its ascent and fall by grooves in two massive
uprights, which hold the whole together. The hammer-block is lifted
by the piston-rod of the steam cylinder above it, which is made of
such diameter, that the pressure of the steam on the surface of the
piston may considerably overbalance the weight of the hammer-block, and
overcome the friction of the connecting mechanism. The cylinder of the
largest steam-hammer at Keyham is 18 inches diameter, which gives an
area of 254 square inches; and the pressure of the steam generally used
being fifty pounds on the square inch, the total steam pressure tending
to force the piston up, when the whole of it is brought to bear, is
equal to five tons and a half. The force of the blow of the hammer,
when falling from its greatest height, is equal to 144 tons.
By the arrangements of levers, screws, and pipes and valves, shown in
the engraving, the steam is first admitted under the piston, and thus
acts directly in forcing it up, with the heavy hammer-block attached to
the piston rod. When the block has been raised to the required height,
it strikes against the end of a lever, which then shuts off the steam,
and allows it to escape; whereupon the hammer falls with its full force
vertically on the anvil. The end of the lever which turns off the
steam may be adjusted at any height, according to the required force of
the blow, so that the hammer may fall from a height of six feet, or be
merely raised a few inches.
[Illustration]
The steam-hammer, in the early stages of its invention, required
an attendant to turn on the steam again at the end of each stroke,
but Mr. Nasmyth ingeniously contrived the means of rendering the
engine altogether self-acting, by causing the force of the collision
to release a spring that holds down the slide-valve; and by this
contrivance a continued and regular succession of blows is maintained
without any assistance.
Not only can the force of the blow be regulated by the height to which
the hammer is lifted, but the ponderous mass may be arrested in its
descent by admitting the steam under the piston, so that a skilful
manipulator can stop it within the eighth of an inch from the anvil.
The Steam Engine itself, by which all the self-acting mechanisms of
a large factory are put in motion, is, perhaps, after all, the most
wonderful of inventions; but it does not strictly come within our
province, for Watt had perfected his great work before the close of
the last century. It was, however, not much used, excepting for mining
purposes, until after the commencement of the present; and the inventor
himself had but a faint idea of the value and vast importance of the
motive power he had placed at the command of man. So little, indeed,
was the value of steam power appreciated in the early years of its
application, that no notice is taken of the steam engine in Beckmann's
History of Inventions, though Watt had completed his condensing engines
several years before that work was published; and Newcomen's steam
engine had been at work at least sixty years.
The history of the steam engine affords a striking example of the
gradual development of an invention from vague and chimerical
notions, into an accomplished fact of astonishing magnitude. As in
the electric telegraph the dreams of the alchemist are fully realized
by the applications of scientific discovery, so in the wonder-working
powers of the steam engine one of the visionary schemes sketched in
the "Century of Inventions" is practically extended far beyond the
conceptions of its fanciful projector. How little could Beckmann have
supposed that an invention, which he considered too insignificant to be
mentioned, would, in the course of fifty years, have revolutionized the
world! It may possibly be the same, before this century is closed, with
inventions that are now neglected or despised.
* * * * *
The record in the preceding pages of some of the most remarkable
applications of science during the present century, exhibits an amount
of intelligence, of skill, and of power that seems, when viewed in its
completed form, to be superhuman. It is only by tracing each invention
to its source, and by noting the step by step advances by which it has
arrived at its present state, that we can bring ourselves to believe
that the great development of power and the display of ingenuity we
witness, can have been accomplished by ordinary men. This feeling of
admiration, at the results of human industry and inventive genius, was
strongly excited on passing through the wonderful collection of the
works of all nations in the Great Exhibition of 1851. After walking
through the long avenues, crowded with the most highly finished
manufactured goods, and with works of art, adapted to every purpose
and capable of gratifying every luxurious taste of highly civilized
life, we beheld, in another part of the building, the self-acting
machines by which many of those productions had been manufactured. We
saw various mechanisms, moving without hands to guide them, producing
the most elaborate works; massive steam engines,--the representatives
of man's power,--and exquisite contrivances, displaying his ingenuity
and perseverance; and we felt inclined to exalt the attributes of
humanity, and to think that nothing could surpass the productions there
displayed. But as if to repress such vainglorious thoughts, there
stood in the transept of the building, surrounded by and contrasting
with the handiworks of man, one of the simplest productions of Nature.
Every single leaf on the spreading branches of that magnificent tree
exhibited in its structure, in its self-supporting and self-acting
mechanism, and in the adaptation of surrounding circumstances for its
maintenance, an amount of intelligent design and contrivance and
power, with which there was nothing to compare. After examining the
intricate ramifications of arteries and veins for spreading the sap
throughout the leaf, and the innumerable pores for inhaling and exuding
the gases and moisture necessary for its continued existence; after
carrying the mind beyond the beautiful structure itself, to consider
the provisions of heat and moisture and air, without which all that
mechanism would have been useless; and having reflected on the presence
of the mysterious principle which actuated the whole arrangement of
fibres, and gave life to the crude elements of matter,--we could not
fail to be impressed with the insignificance of the most elaborate
productions of man, when compared with the smallest work of the
Omnipotent Creator.