Shaping a Tube.
In another field of ingenuity a great inventor scored a success, simply by deliberately taking a lesson from nature. James Watt, to whom the modern steam engine is most indebted for its excellence, was once consulted by the proprietors of the Glasgow Water Works, as to a difficulty that had occurred in laying pipes across the river Clyde to the Company’s engines: the bed of the river was covered with mud and shifting sand, was full of inequalities, and subject to a current at times of considerable force. With the structure of a lobster’s tail in his mind, Watt drew a plan for an articulated suction-pipe, so jointed as to accommodate itself to the shifting curves of the river-bed. This crustacean tube, two feet in diameter, and one thousand feet in length, succeeded perfectly in its operation. To-day powerful hydraulic dredges discharge through piping with flexible joints such as Watt devised; in one instance this piping is 5700 feet in length.
Narwhal with a twisted tusk. Reproduced from the Scientific American, New York, by permission.
In many another case art has used a gift of nature simply as received, and then improved upon it. In making their harpoons the Eskimo used the spiral teeth of the narwhal; finding their shape advantageous, they copied it for arrowheads. This is undoubtedly one of the origins of the screw form, of inestimable value to the mechanic and engineer.