FIG. 9–HOW AN HYDRAULIC PRESS WORKS
One man with the machine can exert as much pressure as a hundred men could without the machine. The arrows show the direction in which the liquid is forced by the action of the plunger p. The large piston P is forced up, thus compressing the paper.
FIG. 10–AN HYDRAULIC PRESS WITH BELT-DRIVEN PUMP
Newton
Sir Isaac Newton as a boy did not show any unusual talent. In school he was backward and inattentive for a number of years, until one day the boy above him in class gave him a kick in the stomach. This roused him and, to avenge the insult, he applied himself to study and quickly passed above his offending classmate. His strong spirit was aroused, and he soon took up his position at the head of his class.
It was his delight to invent amusements for his classmates. He made paper kites, and carefully thought out the best shape for a kite and the number of points to which to attach the string. He would attach paper lanterns to these kites and fly them on dark nights, to the delight of his companions and the dismay of the superstitious country people, who mistook them for comets portending some great calamity. He made a toy mill to be run by a mouse, which he called the miller; a mechanical carriage, run by a handle worked by the person inside, a water-clock, the hand of which was turned by a piece of wood which fell or rose by the action of dropping water.
At the age of fifteen, his mother, then a widow, removed him from school to take charge of the family estate. But the farm was not to his liking. The sheep went astray, and the cattle trod down the corn while he was perusing a book or working with some machine of his own construction. His mother wisely permitted him to return to school. After completing the course in the village school he entered Trinity College, Cambridge.