Great Facts / A Popular History and Description of the Most Remarkable Inventions During the Present Century

by Frederick C. Bakewell

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of self-acting machinery, not only by the community at large, but even by the workmen whose labour they for a time superseded, were forcibly stated by Mr.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.