They are designed often to afford a yielding connection between the shaft and a machine which shall prevent excessive strain and wear upon starting of the shaft. They are also often provided with a spring connection, which, in the rotation of the shaft in either direction, will operate to relieve the strain upon the shaft, or shafts, and its driving motor. Safety clutches are numerous, by which the machine is quickly and automatically stopped by the action of electro-magnets should a workman or other obstruction be caught in the machinery.
Electric auxiliary mechanism has also been devised to start or stop the main machine slowly, and thus prevent injury to small or delicate parts of complicated machines, like printing presses for instance. Clutches are arranged sometimes in the form of weights, resembling the action of the weights in steam governors, whereby centrifugal action is relied upon for swinging the weights outward to effect a clutching and coupling of the shaft, or other mechanism, so that two lines of shafting are coupled, or the machine started, or speeded, at a certain time during the operation. In order to avoid the great mischief arising sometimes from undue strain upon and the breaking of a shaft, a weak coupling composed of a link is sometimes employed between the shaft and the driven machine, whereby, should the force become suddenly too great, the link of weaker metal is broken, and the connection between the shaft thereby destroyed and the machine stopped.
To this class of inventions, as well as to many others, the phrase, “labour-saving”, is applied as a descriptive term, and as it is a correct one in most instances, since they save the labour of many human hands, they are regarded by many as detrimental to a great extent, as they result in throwing out of employment a large number of persons.
This derangement does sometimes occur, but the curtailment of the number of labourers is but temporary after all.
The increased production of materials, resulting from cheaper and better processes, and from the reduced cost of handling them, necessitates the employment of a larger number of persons to take care of, in many ways, the greater output caused by the increased demand; the new machinery demands the labour of additional numbers in its manufacture; the increase in the size and heights of buildings involves new modes of construction and a greater number of artisans in their erection; new forms of industry springing from every practical invention which produces a new product or results in a new mode of operation, complicates the systems of labour, and creates a demand for a large number of employers and employees in new fields. Hence, it is only necessary to resort to comparative, statistics (too extensive to cite here) to show that the number of unemployed people in proportion to the populations, is less in the present age than in any previous one. In this sense, therefore, inventions should be classed as labour-increasing devices.
[CHAPTER XI.]
HYDRAULICS.
The science of Hydraulics appears to be as old as the thirst of man.
When prehistoric men had only stone implements, with which to do their work, they built aqueducts, reservoirs and deep wells which rival in extent many great similar works that are the boast of their modern descendants. Modern inventors have also produced with a flourish nice instrumentalities for raising water, agencies which are covered with the moss of untold centuries in China.