 Section zero of the Romance of Modern Mechanism. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Romance of Modern Mechanism by Archibald Williams. Introduction In the beginning a man depended for his substance entirely upon his own efforts or upon those of his immediate relations and friends. Life was very simple in those days, luxury being unknown and necessity the factor which guided man's actions at every turn. With infinite labor he ground a flint till it assumed the shape of a rough arrowhead to be attached to a reed and shot into the heart of some wild beast as soon as he had approached close enough to be certain of his quarry. The meat thus obtained he seasoned which such roots and herbs as nature provided a poor and scanty choice. Presently he discovered that certain grains supported life much better than roots and he became an agriculturalist. But the grain must be ground so he invented a simple mill, a small stone worked by hand over a large one. And when this method proved too tedious he so shaped the stone's surfaces that they touched at all points and added handles by which the upper stone could be revolved. With the discovery of bronze and many centuries later of iron his workshop equipment rapidly improved. He became an expert boat and housebuilder and multiplied weapons of offense and defense. Gradually separate crafts arose. One man no longer depended on his individual efforts but was content to barter his own work for the products of another man's labor because it became evident that specialization promoted excellence of manufacture. A second great step in advance was the employment of machinery which when once fashioned by hand saved an enormous amount of time and trouble. The pump, the blowing bellows, the spinning wheel, the loom, but all had to be operated by human effort sometimes replaced by animal power. With the advent of the steam engine all industry bounded forward again. First harnessed by what? Giant steam has become a commercial and political power. Everywhere in mill and factory, locomotive, ship, it has increased the products which lend ease and comfort to modern life. It is the great ally of invention and the ultimate agent for transporting men and material from one point on the earth's surface to another. Try as we may, we cannot escape from our environment of mechanism unless we are content to revert to the loincloth and spare of the savage. Society has become so complicated that the utmost efforts of an individual are, after all, confined to every narrow groove. The days of the jack of all trades are over. Success in life, even bare sustenance depends on the concentration of one's faculties upon a very limited daily routine. Let the cobbler stick to his last is a maxim which carries an ever-increasing force. The better to realize how dependent we are on the mechanisms controlled by the thousand and one classes of workmen, let us consider the surroundings, possessions and movements of the average well-to-do businessman. At seven o'clock he wakes and instinctively feels beneath his pillow or his watch a most marvelous assemblage of delicate parts shaped by wonderful machinery. Before stepping into his bath he must turn a tap, itself a triumph of mechanical skill. The razor he shaves with, the mirror which helps him in the operation, the very brush and soap all are machine-made. With his clothes he adds to the burden of his indebtedness to mechanism. The power loom spans the linen for his shirts, the clothes for his outer garments. Shirts and collars are glossy from the treatment of the steam laundry where machinery is rampant. His boots, kept shapely by a machine-made blast, should remind him that mechanical devices have played a large part in their manufacture, very possibly the human hand has scarcely had a single duty to perform. He goes downstairs and presses an electric button, mechanism again. While waiting for his breakfast his eye rose carelessly over the knives, spoons, forks, table, tablecloth, wallpaper, engravings, carpet, crew at stand, all machine-made in a larger or less degree. The very coals blazing in the grate were worn by machinery. The marble of the mantelpiece was shaped and polished by machinery. Also the fire irons, the chairs, the hissing kettle. Machinery stares at him from the loaf on its machine-made board. Machines prepared the land, sowed, harvested, threshed, ground, and probably otherwise prepared the grain for baking. Machines ground his salt, his coffee. Machinery aided the capture of the tempting soul, helped to cure the rusher of bacon, shaped the dishes, the plates, the coffee pot. The motor-car is at the door, throbbing with the impulses of its concealed machinery. Our friend, therefore, puts on his machine-made gloves and hat and Sally's force. That wonderful motor, the product of the most up-to-date scientific and mechanical appliances, bears him swiftly over roads paved with machine-crushed stone and flattened out by a steamroller. A book might be reserved to the motor alone, but we must refrain for a few minutes' travel who's brought the horseless carriage to the railway station. Mr. Smith, being the holder of a seasoned ticket, does not trouble the clerk who is stamping pasteboards with the most ingenious contrivance for automatically impressing dates and numbers on them. He strolls out on the platform and buys the morning paper, which, a few hours before, was being battered about by one of the most wonderful machines that ever was devised by the brain of man. Mr. Smith doesn't bother his head with thoughts of the printing press. Its products are all round him, in timetables and advertisements. Nor does he ponder upon the giant machinery, which crushed steel ingots into the gleaming rails that stretch into the far distance. Nor upon the marvellous interlocking mechanism of the signal box at the platform end. Nor upon the electric wires strumming overhead. No, he had seen all these things a thousand times before and probably feels little of the romance which lies so thickly upon them. A whistle blows. The local is approaching, with its majestic locomotive, a very orgy of mechanism. Its automatic brakes, its southern parts all shaped by mechanical devices. Steamshoes, planes, lathes, drills, hammers, presses. In obedience to a little lever, the huge mass comes quickly to rest. The steam pump on the engine commences to gasp. A minute later, another lever moves and Mr. Smith is fairly on his way to business. Arrived at the metropolis, he presses electricity into his service, either on an electric tram or on a subterranean train. In the latter case, he uses an electric lift, which lowers him into the bowls of the earth to pass him on the current propelled cars driven by power generated in far away stations. His office is stamped all over with the seal of mechanism. In the lobby are girls hammering on marvellous typewriters. On his desk rests a telephone connected through wires and most elaborately equipped exchanges with all parts of the country. To get at his private and valuable papers, Mr. Smith must have a course to his bunch of keys, which, with their corresponding locks, represent ingenuity of a high degree. All day long he is in the grasp of mechanism. Not even a lunch time can he escape it, for the food set before him at the restaurant has been cooked by the aid of special kitchen machinery. And when the evening draws on, Mr. Smith touches a switch to turn his darkness into light, wrung through many wonderful processes from the stored elimination of coal. Where we to trace the daily round of the clerk, artisan, scientist, engineer or manufacturer, we should be brought into contact with a thousand other mechanical appliances. Space forbids such a tour of inspection, but in the following pages we may row here and there through the workshops of the world, gleaning what seems to be of special interest to the general public and weaving round it with a machine-made pen, some of the romance, which is apt to be lost sight of by the most marvellous of all creations, man. End of section 0. The dividing engine, measuring engines. Owing to the universal use of watches, resulting from their cheapness, the possessor of a pocket timepiece soon ceases to take pride in the delicate mechanism, which at first added an inch or two to his stature. At night it is wound up mechanically and thrust under the pillow to be safe from imaginary burglars and handy when the morning comes. The awakened sleeper feels small gratitude to his faithful little servant, which all night long has been beating out the seconds so that its master may know just where he is with regard to the enemy on the morrow. At last a hand is slipped under the feather-bag and the watch is dragged from its snug hiding place. Bother it, says the sleepy owner. Half past eight ought to have been up an hour ago, and out he tumbles. Dressing concluded, the watch passes to its day quarters in a darksome waistcoat pocket to be holed out many times for its opinion to be taken. The real usefulness of a watch is best learnt by being without one for a day or two. There are plenty of clocks about, but not always in sight, and one gradually experiences a mild irritation at having to step around the corner to find out what the hands are doing. A truly wonderful piece of machinery is a watch, even a cheap one. An expensive, high-class article is worthy of our admiration and respect. Here is one that has been in constant use for fifty years. Twice a second its little balance wheel revolves on its jewelled bearings. Allowing a few days for repairs, we find by calculation that the watch has made no less than three thousand million movements in the half-century, and still it goes ticking on, ready to do another fifty years' work. How beautifully tempered must be the springs and the steel faces which are constantly rubbing against jewel or metal. How perfectly cut the teeth which have engaged one another times innumerable without showing appreciable wear. The chief value of a good watch lies in its accuracy as a timekeeper. It is, of course, easy to correct it by standard clocks in the railway stations or public buildings, but one may forget to do this, and in a week or two a loss of a few minutes may lead to one missing a train or being late for an important engagement. Happy, therefore, is the man who, having said his watch to London time, can rely on its not varying from accuracy a minute in the week, a feat achieved by many watches. The old-fashioned watch was a bulky affair, protected by an outer case of ample proportions. From year to year, the size has gradually diminished until we can now purchase a reliable article no thicker than a five-shelling piece, which will not offend the most fastidious dandy by disarraying the fit of his clothes. The base of a small fraction of an inch is crowded all the usual mechanism, reduced to the utmost fineness. Watches have even been constructed small enough to form part of a ring or earring without losing their timekeeping properties. For practical purposes, however, it is advantageous to have a timepiece of as large a size as may be convenient, since the difficulties of adjustment and repair can increase with decreasing proportions. The ship's chronometer, therefore, though of watch construction, is a big affair as compared with the pocket timepiece, for above all things it must be accurate. The need for this arises from the fact that nautical reckonings made by the observation of the heavenly bodies include an element of time. We will suppose a vessel to be at sea, out of sight of land. The captain, by referring to the dial of the mechanical log, Tota Stern, can reckon pretty accurately how far the vessel has travelled since it left port, but owing to winds and currents, he is not certain of the position on the globe's surface at which his ship has arrived. To locate this exactly, he must learn A. his longitude, i.e. distance east or west of Greenwich, B. his latitude, i.e. distance north or south of the equator. Therefore, when noon approaches, his chronometers and sextant are got out, and at the moment when the sun crosses the meridian, the time is taken. If this moment happens to coincide with four o'clock on the chronometers, he is as far west of Greenwich as is represented by four twenty-fourths of the three hundred sixty degree into which the earth's circumference is divided. That is, he is in longitude sixty degrees west. If this moment happens to coincide with four o'clock on the chronometers, he is as far west of Greenwich as is represented by four twenty-fourths of the three hundred sixty degrees into which the earth's circumference is divided. That is, he is in longitude sixty degrees west. The sextant gives him the angle made by a line drawn to the sun with another drawn to the horizon, and from that he calculates his latitude. Then he adjourns to the chart room, where by finding the point at which the lines of longitude and latitude intersect, he establishes his exact position also. When the ship leaves England, the chronometer is set by Greenwich time and is never touched afterwards except to be wound once a day. In order that any error may be reduced to a minimum, a merchant ship carries at least two chronometers, a man of war at least three, and a surveying vessel as many as a dozen. The average reading of the chronometers is taken to work by. Taking the case of a single chronometer, it is often to be relied on for months at a time, and during that period has probably to encounter many changes of temperature. If it gains or loses from day to day and that consistently, it may still be accounted reliable as the amount of error will be allowed for in all calculations, but should it gain one day and lose another, the accumulated errors would, on a voyage of several months, become so considerable as to imperil seriously the safety of the vessel if navigating dangerous waters. As long ago as 1714, the English government recognized the importance of a really reliable chronometer, and in that year passed an act offering rewards of 10,000 pounds, 15,000 pounds, and 20,000 pounds to anyone who should produce a chronometer that would fix longitude within 60, 40, and 30 miles respectively of accuracy. John Harrison, the son of a Yorkshire carpenter who had already invented the ingenious gridiron pendulum for compensating clocks, took up the challenge. By 1761 he had made a chronometer of so perfect a nature that during a voyage to Jamaica that year and back the next, it lost only one minute, 54 and one half second. As this would enable a captain to find his longitude within 18 miles in the latitude of Greenwich, Harrison claimed and ultimately received the maximum reward. It was not till nearly a century later that Thomas Earnshaw produced the compensation balance. Now generally used on chronometers and high class watches. In cheap watches the balance is usually a three-spoked wheel which at every tick revolves part of a turn and then flies back again. This will not suffice for very accurate work because the moment of inertia varies at different temperatures. To explain this term, let us suppose that a man has a pound of metal to make into a wheel. If the wheel be of small diameter, you would be able to turn it first one way and then the other on its axle quite easily. But should it be melted down and remade into a wheel of four times the diameter with the same amount of metal as before in the rim, the difficulty of suddenly reversing its motion will be much increased. The weight is the same, but the speed of the rim and consequently its momentum is greater. It is evident from this that if a wheel of certain size be driven by a spring of constant strength, its oscillations will be equal in time. But if a rise of temperature should lengthen the spokes, the speed would fall because the spring would have more work to do and conversely, with the fall of temperature, the speed would rise. Earnshaw's problem was to construct a balance wheel that should be able to keep its moment of inertia constant under all circumstances. He therefore used only two spokes to his wheel and to the outer extremity of each attached an almost complete semi-circle of rim, one end being attached to the spoke, the other all but meeting the other spoke. The rim pieces were built up of an outer strip of brass and an inner strip of steel welded together. Brass expands more rapidly than steel with the result that a bar compounded of these two metals would, when heated, bend towards the hollow side. To the rim pieces were attached sliding weights, adjustable to the position found by experiment to give best results. We can now follow the action of the balance wheel. It runs perfectly correctly at, say, a temperature of 60 degrees. Hold it over a candle. The spokes lengthen and carry the rim pieces outwards at their fixed ends. But as the pieces themselves bend inwards at their free ends, the balance is restored. When the balance were placed in a refrigerating machine, the spokes would shorten, but the rim pieces would bend outwards. As a matter of fact, the moment of inertia cannot be kept quite constant by this method because the variation of expansion is more rapid and cold than in heat so that, although a balance might be quite reliable between 60 degrees and 100 degrees, it would fail between 30 degrees and 60 degrees. So the makers fit their balances with what is called a secondary compensation, the effect of which is to act more quickly and high than in low temperatures. This could not well be explained without diagrams, so a mere mention must suffice. Another detail of chronometer making, which requires very careful treatment, is the method of transmitting power from the mainspring to the works. As the spring uncoils, its power must decrease, and this loss must be counterbalanced somehow. This is managed by using the drum and fusee action, which may be seen in some clocks and in many old watches. The drum is cylindrical and contains the spring. The fusee is a tapering shaft in which the spiral groove has been cut from end to end. A very fine chain connects the two parts. The key is applied to the fusee, and the chain is wound off the drum onto the larger end of the fusee first. By the time that the spring has been fully wound, the chain has reached the fusee's smaller extremity. If the fusee has been turned to the correct taper, the driving power of the spring will remain constant as it unwinds, for it gets least leverage over the fusee when it is strongest, and most when it is weakest, the intermediate stages being properly proportioned. To test this, a weighted lever is attached to the key spindle, with the weight so adjusted that the fully wound spring has just sufficient power to lift it over the topmost point of a revolution. It is then allowed a second turn, but if the weight now proves excessive, something must be wrong, and the fusee needs its diameter reducing at that point. So the test goes on from turn to turn, and alterations are made until every revolution is managed with exactly the same ease. The complete chronometer is sent to Greenwich Observatory to be tested against the standard clock, and at 10 a.m. flashes the hour to other clocks all over Great Britain. In a special room set apart for the purpose are hundreds of instruments, some hanging up, others lying flat. Assistants make their rounds, noting the errors on each. The temperature test is then applied in special ovens, and finally the article goes back to the maker with a certificate setting forth its performances under different conditions. If the error has been consistent, the instrument is sold. The buyer being informed exactly what to allow for each day's error. At the end of the voyage, he brings his chronometer to be tested again, and if necessary, put right. Here are the actual variations of a chronometer during a 19-day test before being used. An average gain of just over one quarter of a second per DM. Quite extraordinary feats of timekeeping have been recorded of chronometers on long voyages. Thus, a chronometer which had been to Australia via the Cape, and back via the Red Sea, was only 15 seconds out. And the Encyclopedia Britannica quotes the performance of the three instruments of SS Oralana, which between them accumulated an error of but two to three seconds during a 63-day trip. An instrument which will cut a blood corpuscle into several parts, that's the microtome, the small cutter, as the name implies. For the examination of animal tissues, it is necessary that they should be sliced very fine before they are subjected to the microscope. Perhaps a tiny muscle is being investigated and cross sections of it are needed. Well, one cannot pick up the muscle and cut slices off of it, as you would off a German sausage. To begin with, it is difficult even to pick the object up, and even if pieces one hundredth of an inch long were detached, they would still be far too large for examination. So, as is usually the case when our unaided powers prove unequal to a task, we have recourse to a machine. There are several types of microtomes, each preferable for certain purposes. But as in ordinary laboratory work, the Cambridge rocking microtome is used, let us give our special attention to this particular instrument. It is mounted on a strong cast-iron bed, a foot or so in length, and four to five inches wide. Toward one end, rise a couple of supports terminating in knife edges, which carry a crossbar, itself provided with knife edges top and bottom, those on the top supporting a second transverse bar. Both bars have a long leg at right angles, giving them the appearance of two large T's, superimposed one on the other. But the top T is converted into a cross by a fourth member, a sliding tube which projects forward towards a frame in which is clamped a razor edge upwards. The tail of the lower T terminates in a circular disc, pierced with a hole, to accommodate the end of a vertical screw, which has a large circular head with milled edges. The upper T is rocked up and down by a cord and spring. The handle actuating the cord, also shifting on the milled screw head, a very small distance, every time it is rocked backwards and forwards. As the screw turns, it gradually raises the tail of the lower member, and by giving its crossbar a tilt, brings the tube of the upper member appreciably nearer the razor. The amount of twist given to the screw at each stroke can be easily regulated by a small catch. When the microscopist wishes to cut sections, he first mounts his object in a lump of hard paraffin wax, coated with softer wax. The hole is stuck onto the face of the tube, so as to be just clear of the razor. The operator then seizes the handle and works it rapidly until the first slice is detached by the razor. Successive slices are stuck together by their soft edges, so as to form a continuous ribbon of wax, which can be picked up easily and laid on a glass slide. The slide is then warmed to melt the paraffin, which is dissolved away by alcohol, leaving the atoms of tissue untouched. These, after being stained with some suitable medium, are ready for the microscope. The skillful user can, under favorable conditions, cut slices one twenty-five thousandth of an inch thick. To gather some idea of what this means, we will imagine that a cucumber one foot long and one-and-a-half inches in diameter is passed through this wonderful guillotine. It would require no less than seven hundred dinner plates, nine inches across, to spread the pieces on. If the slices were one-eighth of an inch thick, the cucumber, to keep a proportionate total size, would be 260 feet long. After considering these figures, we shall lose some of the respect we hitherto felt for the man who cut the ham to put inside luncheon bar sandwiches. In the preceding pages, frequent reference has been made to index screws, exactly graduated to a convenient number of divisions. When such screws have to be manufactured in quantities, it would be far too expensive a matter to measure each one separately. Therefore machinery, itself very carefully graduated, is used to enable a workman to transfer measurements to a disk of metal. If the index circle of an astronomical telescope, to take an instance, has to be divided, it is centered on a large, horizontal disk, the circumference of which has been indented with a large number of teeth. A worm screw engages these teeth tangentially, i.e. at right angles to a line drawn from the center of the plate to the point of engagement. On the shaft of the screw is a ratchet pinion, in principle the same as the bicycle freewheel, which, when turned one way, also twists the screw, but has no effect on it when turned the other way. Stops are put on the screw so that it shall rotate the large disk, only the distance required between any two graduations. The divisions are scribed on the index circle by a knife, attached to a carriage over and parallel to the disk. The dividing engine used for the graduation of certain astronomical instruments probably constitutes the most perfect machine ever made. In an address to the institution of mechanical engineers, the president, Mr. William Henry Ma, used the following words. The most recently constructed machine of the kind of which I am aware, namely one by Mr. Warner and Swassie of Cleveland, USA, is capable of automatically cutting the graduations of a circle with an error in position not exceeding one second of arc. A second of arc is approximately the angle subtended by a half penny of the distance of three miles. This means that on a 20-inch circle, the error in position of any one graduation shall not exceed one two-thousandth of an inch. Now, the finest line which would be of any service for reading purposes on such a circle would probably have a width equal to quite ten seconds of arc, and it follows that the minute V-shaped cut forming this line must be so absolutely symmetrical with its center line throughout its length that the position of this center may be determined within the limit of error just stated by observations of its edges, made by aid of the reading micrometer and microscope. I must say that after the machine just mentioned had been made, it took over a year's hard work to reduce the maximum error in its graduations from one-and-a-half to one second of arc. The same address contains a reference to the great Yerkees telescope, which, though irrelevant to our present chapter, affords so interesting an example of modern mechanical perfection that it deserves parenthetic mention. The diameter of a star of the seventh magnitude as it appears in the focus of this huge telescope is one two-thousand five-hundredths of an inch. The spider's webs stretched across the object glass about one six-thousandth of an inch in diameter. The problem thus is, says Mr. Ma, to move this twenty-two ton mass, the telescope, with such steadiness and opposition to the motion of the Earth that a star disk one two-thousand five-hundredths of an inch in diameter can be kept threaded, as it were, upon a spider's web one six-thousandth of an inch in diameter carried at a radius of thirty-two feet from the center of motion. I think that you will agree that this is a problem in mechanical engineering demanding no slight skill to solve, but it has been solved, and with the most satisfactory results. The motions are controlled electrically, and respecting them, Professor Bernard, one of the chief observers with this telescope, some time ago, wrote as follows, it is astonishing to see with what perfect instantaneousness the clock takes up the tube. The electric slow motions are controlled from the eye end. So exact are they that a star can be brought from the edge of the field and stopped instantaneously behind the micrometer wire, and stopped instantaneously behind the micrometer wire. Dividing engines are used for ruling parallel lines on glass and metal to aid in the measurements of microscopic objects or the wavelengths of light. A diffraction grating used for measuring the ladder has the line so close together that they would be visible only under a powerful microscope. Glass being tube brittle, a special alloy of so-called speculum metal is fashioned into a highly polished plate, and this is placed in the machine. A delicate screw arrangement gradually feeds the plate forward under the diamond point, particularly drawn across the plate between every two movements. Professor H.A. Rowlands has constructed a parallel dividing engine which has ruled as many as 120,000 lines to the inch. To get a conception of these figures, we must once again resort to comparison. Let us therefore take a furrow as a line and imagine a plowman going up and down a field 120,000 times. If each furrow be 8 inches wide, the field would require a breadth of nearly 14 miles to accumulate all the furrows. Again, supposing that a plate 6 inches square were being ruled, the lines placed end to end would extend for 70 miles. Professor Rowlands' machine does the finest work of this kind. Another very perfect instrument has been built by Lord Blythe's Wood, and as some particulars of it have been kindly supplied, they may fitly be appended. If a first-class draftsman were asked how many parallel straight lines he would rule within the space of 1 inch, it is doubtful whether he would undertake more than 150 to 200 lines. Lord Blythe's Wood's machine can rule 14 parallel lines on a space equivalent to the edge of the finest tissue paper. So delicate are the movements of the machine that it must be protected from variations of temperature, which would contract or expand its parts. So the room in which it stands is kept in an even heat by automatic apparatus. And to make things doubly sure, the engine is further sheltered in a large case, having double walls inter-packed with cotton wool. In constructing the machine it was found impossible with the most scientific tools to cut a toothed wheel sufficiently accurate to drive the mechanism. But the errors discovered by microscopes were made good by the invention of a small electroplating brush, which added the thinnest imaginable layer of metal to any tooth found deficient. During the process of ruling a grating of only a few square inches area, the machine must be left severely alone in its closed case. The slightest jar would cause unparallelism of a few lines and the ruin of the whole grating. So for several days the diamond point has its own way, moving backwards and forwards unceasingly over the hard metal, in which it chases tiny grooves. At the end the plate has the appearance of mother of pearl, which is in fact one of nature's diffraction gratings, breaking up white light into the colors of the spectrum. You will be able to understand that these mechanical gratings are expensive articles. Sometimes the diamond point breaks halfway through the ruling and a week's work is spoiled. Also the creation of a reliable machine is a very tedious business. 10 pounds per square inch of grating is a low price to pay. The greatest difficulty met with in the manufacture of the dividing engine is that of obtaining a mathematically correct screw. Turning on a lathe produces a very rough spiral, judged scientifically. Some threads will be deeper than others and differently spaced. The screw must therefore be ground with emery and oil introduced between it and a long nut which is made in four segments and provided with collars for tightening it up against the screw. Perhaps a fortnight may be expended over the grinding. Then the screw must undergo rigid tests. A nut must be made for it and it has to be mounted in proper bearings. The explanation of the method of eliminating errors being very technical, it is omitted. But an idea of the care required may be gleaned from Professor Rowland's statement that an uncorrected error of one three hundred thousandth of an inch is quite sufficient to ruin a grating. In the houses of Parliament there is kept at an even temperature a bronze rod, thirty eight inches long and an inch square in section. Near the ends are two wells, rather more than half an inch deep and at the bottom of the wells are gold studs each engraved with a delicate cross on their polished surfaces. The distance between the lines is the imperial yard of thirty six inches. The bar was made in 1844 to replace the standard destroyed in 1834 when both houses of Parliament were burned. The original standard was the work of Bird who produced it in 1760. In June 1824 an act had been passed legalizing this standard. It says the same straight line or distance between the centres of the said two points in the said gold studs in the said brass rod the brass being at the temperature of sixty two degrees by Fahrenheit thermometer shall be and is hereby denominated the imperial standard yard. To provide for accidents to the bar the act continues and whereas it is expedient that the said standard yard if lost, destroyed, defaced or otherwise injured should be restored to the same length by reference to some invariable natural standard and whereas it has been ascertained by the commissioners appointed by His Majesty to inquire into the subject of weights and measures that the yard hereby declared to be the imperial standard yard when compared with a pendulum vibrating seconds of mean time in the latitude of London in a vacuum at the level of the sea is in the proportion of thirty six inches to thirty nine inches and one thousand three hundred ninety three ten thousand parts of an inch. The new bar was made however not by this method but by comparing several copies of the original and striking their average length four accurate duplicates of the new standard were secured one of which is kept in the mint one in the charge of the Royal Society one at Westminster Palace and the fourth at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in addition forty copies were distributed among the various foreign governments all of the same metal as the original the French meter has also been standardized being equal to one ten millionth part of a quadrant of the Earth's meridian i.e. of the distance from the equator to either of the poles that is to thirty nine point three seven zero seven eight eight inches Professor A. A. Michelson has shown that any standard of length may be restored by reference to the measurement of wave lengths of light with an error not exceeding one ten millionth part of the whole it might be asked why should standards of such great accuracy be required in rough work such as carpentry it does not indeed matter if measurements are the hundredth of an inch or so out but when we have to deal with scientific instruments telescopes measuring machines engines for dividing distances on a scale or even with metal turning the utmost accuracy becomes needful and a number of instruments will be much more alike in all dimensions if compared individually with a common standard then if they were only compared with one another supposing for instance a bar of exact diameter is copied the copy itself copied and so on a dozen times the last will probably vary considerably from the correct measurements hence it became necessary to standardize the foot and the inch by accurate subdivisions of the yard this was accomplished by Sir Joseph Whitworth who in 1834 obtained two standard yards in the form of measure bars and by the aid of microscopes transferred the distance between the engraved lines to a rectangular end measure bar i.e. one of which the end faces are exactly a yard apart he next constructed his famous machine which is capable of detecting length differences of one millionth of an inch two bars are advanced toward each other by screw gearing one by a screw having 20 threads to the inch and carrying a graduated hand wheel with 250 divisions on its rim the other by a similar screw itself driven by a worm screw working on the rim which carries 200 teeth the worm screw has a hand wheel with a micrometer graduation into 250 divisions on its circumference so that if this be turned one division the second screw is turned only one over 250 times one over 200 of a division and the bar it drives advances only one over 20 times one over 200 times one over 250 equals one over one millionths of an inch the screw at the other end of the machine which in appearance somewhat resembles a metal lathe is used for rapid adjustment only he, Sir J. Whitworth, obtained the division of the yard by making three foot pieces as nearly alike as was possible and working these foot pieces down until each was equal to the others and placing them end to end in this millionth measuring machine the total length of the three foot pieces was then compared with a standard end measure yard these three foot pieces were ground until they were exactly equal to each other and the three added together are equal to the standard yard the subdivision of the foot into the inch pieces was made in the same way G. M. Bond in a lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute February 29th, 1884 a doubt may have arisen in the reader's mind as to the possibility of determining whether the measuring machine is screwed up to the exact tightness would the measuring bars not compress a body a little before it appeared tight workmen, when measuring a bar with calipers often judged by the sense of touch whether the jaws of the calipers passed the bar with the proper amount of resistance but when one has to deal with millionths of an inch such a method would not suffice so Sir Joseph Whitworth introduced a feeling piece or gravity piece Mr. T. M. Goodeve thus describes it in the elements of mechanism the gravity piece consists of a small plate of steel with parallel plain sides and having slender arms one for its partial support and the other for resting on the finger of the observer one arm of the piece rests on a part of the bed of the machine and the other arm is tilted up by the forefinger of the operator the plain surfaces are then brought together one on each side of the feeling piece until the pressure of contact is sufficient to hold it supported just as it remained when one end rested on the finger this degree of tightness is perfectly definite and depends on the weight of the gravity piece but not on the estimation of the observer in this way the expansion due to heat when a 36 inch bar has been touched for an instant with the fingernail may be detected one of the most beautiful measuring machines commercially used comes from the factories of the Pratt Whitney Company Hartford, Connecticut the well-known makers of machine tools and gauges of all kinds it is made in different sizes the largest admitting an 80 inch bar variations of one one hundredths of an inch are readily determined by the use of this machine it therefore serves for originating gauge sizes or for duplicating existing standards the adjusting screw has 50 threads to the inch and its index wheel is graduated to 400 divisions giving an advance of one twenty thousandths of an inch for each division while by estimation this may be further subdivided to indicate one half or even one quarter of this small amount delicacy of contact between the measuring faces is obtained by the use of auxiliary jaws holding a small cylindrical gauge by the pressure of a light helical spring which operates the sliding spindle to which one of these auxiliary jaws is attached on one side of the head of the machine is a vertical microscope directed downwards to a bar on the bed plate in which are a number of polished steel plugs graved with very fine central cross lines each exactly an inch distance from either of its neighbors a cross wire in the microscope tells when it is accurately abreast of the line below it supposing then that a standard bar three inches in diameter has to be tested the head is slid along until the microscope is exactly over the zero plug line and the dividing index wheel is turned until the two jaws press each other with the minimum force that will hold up the feeling piece then the head is moved back and centered on the three inch line and the bar to be tested is passed between the jaws if the feeling piece drops out it is too large and the wheel is turned back until the jaws have been opened enough to let the bar through without making the feeling piece fall an examination of the index wheel shows in hundred thousandths of an inch what the excess diameter is on the other hand if the bar were too small the jaws would need to be closed to trifle this amount being similarly reckoned we have now got into a region of very practical politics namely the subject of gauges all large engineering works which turn out machinery with interchangeable parts for example screws and nuts must keep their dimensions very constant if purchasers are not to be disgusted and disappointed the small motor machinery so much in evidence today demands that errors should be kept within the ten thousandth of an inch an engineer therefore possesses a set of standard gauges to test the diameter and pitch of his screw threads and nuts the size of tubes wires the circumference of wheels etc great inconvenience having been experienced by American railroad car builders on account of the varying sizes of the screws and bolts which were used on the different tracks though all were supposed to be of standard dimensions the masters determined to put things right and accordingly professors Roger and Bond and the Pratt Whitney Company were engaged to work in collaboration in connection with the manufacture of tools for minute measurements vis to one five hundredths of an inch to give an idea of what is implied by this let it be supposed that a person should take a pair of dividing compasses and lay off fifty thousand prick marks one eighth of an inch apart in a straight line to do this the line would require to be over five hundred twenty feet or nearly a tenth of a mile long imagine that many prick marks compressed into the space of an inch and you have an imperfect idea of the minuteness of the measurements which can now be made by the Pratt and Whitney Company the standard taps and dies were supplied to tool makers and engineers who could thus determine whether articles supplied to them were of proper dimensions nothing more was then heard of nuts being a trifle small or bolts a little large and so beautifully tempered were the dies made from the standards that one manufacturer claimed to have cut eighteen thousand eight hundred cold pressed nuts without any difference being perceptible in their sizes to appreciate what the difference of a thousandth of an inch makes in a true fit you should handle a set of plug and ring gauges the ring a true half inch internally the plugs half inch half an inch less one ten thousandth of an inch and half an inch less one thousandth in diameter the true half inch plug needs to be forcibly driven into the ring on account of the friction between the surfaces the next if oiled will slide in quite easily but if left stationary a moment will seize and have to be driven out the third will wobble very perceptibly and would be at once discarded by a good workman as a bad fit for extremely accurate measurements of rods caliper gauges shaped somewhat like the letter Y are used the horns terminating in polished parallel jaws such a gauge will detect the difference of one twenty thousandths of an inch quite easily so accurately can plug gauges be made by reference to a measuring machine that a gold leaf one thirty thousandths of an inch thick would be three times too thick to insert between the gauge and the jaws of the machine you must remember that in high class workmanship these gauges are constantly being used as time goes on the limit of error allowed in many cases of machine parts is gradually lessened which shows the simultaneous improvement of all machinery used in the handling of metal James Watt was terribly hampered when developing his steam engine by the difficulty of procuring a true cylinder for his pistons to work in with any approach to steam tightness his first cylinder was made by a smith of hammered iron soldered together the next was cast and board but stuffing it with paper, cork, putty, pasteboard and old hat proved useless to stem the leakage of steam no wonder considering that the finished cylinder was one eighth of an inch larger in diameter at one end than at the other Watt was in advance of his time neither machinery nor workmanship had progressed sufficiently to meet the requirements of the steam engine today an engineer would confidently undertake to bore a cylinder five feet in diameter with a variation from truth of not more than one five hundredth of an inch before passing from the subject of measuring machines which play so important a part in modern mechanism we may just glance at the electrical method of Dr. P. E. Shaw he discovered recently that two clean metal surfaces can, by means of an electric current feel one another on touching with a delicacy that far transcends that of the purely mechanical machine the mechanism he employs is thus devised a finely cut vertical screw having fifty threads to the inch has a disc graduated into five hundred parts the screw can be turned by means of a pulley string from a distance and it is thus possible to give the top end of the screw a movement of one twenty five thousandths of an inch when a movement corresponding to one graduation is made this small movement is reduced by a train of six levers the long arm of each bearing on the short arm of the one before it the movement of the last lever of the train is thus reduced to one four thousandths of that of the screw point so a movement of one over four thousand times one over twenty five thousand equals one over one hundred millionths of an inch is obtained how can such a movement be judged a telephone and voltaic cell are joined to the last lever of the train and to the object whose movement is under examination if they touch the telephone sounds an observer listens in the telephone and if the object moves for any reason he can find out how much it moves by turning the screw until contact is made again out of the many applications of this apparatus three may be given one a short bar of iron when magnetized elongates about one one millionth of its length if further magnetized it contracts these changes can readily be measured with the instrument two the smallest sound audible in the telephone is due to a movement of the diaphragm of the telephone by about one fifty millionths of an inch this has been actually measured by doctor Shaw and is by far the smallest distance ever directly recorded it is about twice the diameter of the molecules of matter three dispensing with lovers the screw alone is used for rougher work doctor Shaw has shown that one hundred thousandth of an inch is the smallest dimension visible under a microscope by fitting an electric measuring apparatus to the microscope carriage it becomes quite easy to measure minute distances the microscope contains a cross wire which when the object has been laid on the microscope stage is centered on one side of the object the electric contact screw is then advanced till it makes contact with the stage and a sound arises in the telephone a reading of the screw disk having been taken the screw is drawn in and the microscope stage is traversed sufficiently to bring the wire in line with the other side of the object once more the operator makes electrical contact and gets a second reading the difference between the two being the diameter of the object in this manner the bacillus of tuberculosis has been proved to have an average diameter of thirty one over two hundred fifty thousandths of an inch the same method is employed to gauge the distance between the lines on a diffraction grading end of section one section two of the romance of modern mechanism this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Romance of Modern Mechanism by Archibald Williams Chapter 2 Calculating Machines the simplest form of calculating machine was the abacus on which the schoolboys of ancient Greece did their sums it consisted of a smooth board with a narrow rim on which were arranged rows of pebbles bits of bone or ivory or silver coins by replacing these little counters by sand strewn evenly all over its surface the abacus was transformed into a slate for writing or geometrical lessons the Romance took the abacus along with many other spoils of conquest from the Greeks and improved it dividing it by means of cross lines and assigning a multiple value to each line with regard to its neighbours from their method of using the calculi or pebbles we derive our English verb to calculate during the Middle Ages the abacus still flourished and it has left a further mark on our language by giving its name to the court of Exchequer in which was a table divided into checkered squares like this simple school appliance step by step further improvements were made most important among them being those of Napier of Merchaston whose logarithms vex the heads of our youth and save many an hour's calculation to people who understand how to handle them Sir Samuel Moreland, Gunter and Lamb invented other contrivances suitable for trigonometrical problems Gersten and Pascal harnessed trains of wheels to their ready-reckners somewhat similar to the well-known cyclometer all these devices faded into insignificance when Mr Charles Babbage came on the scene with his famous calculator which is probably the most ingenious piece of mechanism ever devised by the human brain to describe the difference engine as it is called would be impossible so complicated is its character Dr Lardner who had a wonderful command of language and could explain details in a manner so lucid that his words could almost always be understood in the absence of diagrams occupied 25 pages of the Edinburgh review in the endeavor to describe its working but gave several features up as a bad job another clever writer Dr Samuel Smiles frankly shuns the task and satisfies himself with the following brief description Some parts of the apparatus and modes of action are indeed extraordinary and perhaps none more so than that for ensuring accuracy in the calculated results the machine actually correcting itself and rubbing itself back into accuracy by the friction of the adjacent machinery when an error is made the wheels become locked and refuse to proceed thus the machine must go rightly or not at all an arrangement as nearly resembling volition as anything that brass and steel are likely to accomplish Mr Babbage in 1822 entered upon the task of superintending the construction of a machine for calculating and printing mathematical and astronomical tables he began by building a model which produced 44 figures per minute the next year the Royal Society reported upon the invention which appeared so promising that the Lords of the Treasury voted Mr Babbage 1,500 pounds to help him perfect his apparatus he looked about for a first rate mecanition of high intelligence as well as of extreme manual skill the man he wanted appeared in Mr Joseph Clement who had already made his name as the inventor of a drawing instrument a self-acting lathe, a self-centering chuck and fluted taps and dies Mr Clement soon produced special tools for shaping the various parts of the machine so elaborate was the latter that, according to Dr Smiles the drawings for the calculating machinery alone, not to mention the printing machinery which was almost equally elaborate, covered not less than 400 square feet of surface you will easily imagine, especially if you have ever had a special piece of apparatus made for you by a mechanic that the bills mounted up at an alarming rate so fast indeed that the government began to ask why this great expense and so little visible result after seven years work the engineers account had reached 7,200 pounds and Mr Babbage had dispersed an additional 7,000 pounds out of his own pocket Mr Clement quarrelled with his employer possibly because he harboured suspicions that they were both off on a wild goose chase and withdrew, taking all his valuable tools with him the government soon followed his example and poor Babbage was left with his half finished invention a beautiful fragment of a great work it had been designed to calculate as far as 20 figures but was completed only sufficiently to go to 5 figures in 1862 it occupied a prominent place among the mechanical exhibits at the great exhibition we learn with some satisfaction that all this effort was not fated to be fruitless two scientists of Stockholm, Schoitz by name were so impressed by Dr Lardner's account of this calculating machine that they carried Babbage's scheme through and after 20 years of hard work completed a machine which seemed to be almost capable of thinking the English government spent 1,200 pounds on a copy which at Somerset House entered upon the routine duty of working out annuity and other tables for the registrar general from Babbage's wonderfully and fearfully made machine we pass to a calculator which today may be seen at work in hundreds of thousands of shops and offices it is the most modern substitute for the open till and by the aid of marvellous interior works acts as an account keeper and general detective to the money transactions of the establishment in which it is employed there are very many types of cash register and as it would be impossible to enumerate them all we will pass at once to the most perfect type of all known to the makers and vendors as number 95 the register has at the top an oblong window dotted about the surface confronting the operator R in the particular machine under notice 57 keys six bearing the letters A B D E H K three the words paid out charge received on account and the others money values ranging from nine pounds to a farthing which is a quarter of a penny these are arranged in vertical rows at the left end of the instrument is a printing apparatus kept locked by the proprietor at the right end a handle and small lever below the register are six drawers each labeled with an initial a customer enters the shop and buys goods to the value of six shillings and 11 pence an assistant to whom belongs the letter H receives a sovereign in payment he goes to the register and after making sure that his drawer is pushed in till it is locked first presses down the key H and then the keys labeled six shillings and 11 pence suddenly like two jacks in the box up-flight into the window two tablets with six shillings and 11 pence on both their faces so that the customer and assistant can see the figures simultaneously a bell of a certain tone rings draw H flies open so that he may place the money in it and give change if necessary and a rotating arm in the window shows the word cash the assistant now revolves the handle and presses the little lever from a slot on the left side out flies a ticket on the front of which is printed the date a consecutive number the assistant's letter and the amount of the sale the back has also been covered with an advertisement of some kind the ticket and change are handed over to the customer the drawer is shut and the transaction is at an end except for an entry in the shop's books of the article sold a carrier next comes in with a parcel on which five pence must be paid for transport Mr. A receives the goods goes to the register presses his letter the key with the words paid out on it and the key carrying five pence takes out the amount wanted and gives it to the carrier again a gentleman enters and asks for change for half a sovereign Mr. B obliges him pressing down his letter but no figures fourthly a debtor to the shop pays five shillings to meet an account that has been against him for some time Mr. K receives the money and plays with the keys K received on account and five shillings giving a ticket receipt lastly a customer buys a pair of boots on credit Mr. D attends to him and though no cash is handled uses the register pressing the letter charge and say 16 shillings and six pence now what has been going on inside the machine all this time let us lift up the cover take off the case of the printing apparatus and see a strip of paper fed through the printing mechanism has on it five rows of figures letters etc thus a space the letter H six shillings and 11 pence paid the letter A no shillings and five pence the space the letter B no shillings and no pence received the letter K five shillings and no pence charge the letter D 16 shillings and six pence the proprietor is therefore enabled to see at a glance one who served or attended to a customer two what kind of business he did with him three the monetary value of the transaction at the end of the day each assistant sends in his separate account which should tally exactly with the record of the machine simultaneously with the strip printing special counting apparatus has been A adding up the total of all money taken for goods and B recording the number of times the drawer has been opened for each purpose here again is a check upon the records this ingenious machine not only protects the proprietor against carelessness or dishonesty on the part of his employees but also protects the latter against one another if only one drawer and letter were used in common it would be impossible to trace an error to the guilty party the lettering system also serves to show which assistant does the most business where a cash register of this type is employed every transaction must pass through its hands or rather mechanism it would be risky for an assistant not to use the machine as eyes may be watching him he cannot open his drawers without making a record nor can he make a record without first closing the drawers so that he must give a reason for each use of the register if he used somebody else's letter the ear of the rightful owner would at once be attracted by the note of his particular gong when going away for lunch or on business a letter can be locked by means of a special key which fits none of the other five locks the printing mechanism is particularly ingenious every morning the date is set by means of index screws and a consecutive numbering train is put back to zero a third division accommodates a circular electro block for printing the advertisements and a fourth division the figure wheels the turn given to the handle passes a length of the ticket stripped through a slot prints the date the number of the ticket an advertisement on the back the assistant's letter the nature of the business done and feeds the paper onto the figures which give the finishing touch a knife cuts off the ticket and a special lever shoots it out of the slot the national cash register company for prudential reasons do not wish the details of the internal machinery to be described nor would it be an easy task even were the permission granted so we must imagine the extreme intricacy of the levers and wheels which perform all the tasks enumerated and turn aside to consider the origin and manufacture of the register which are both of interest the origin of the cash register is rather nebulous because 25 years ago several men were working on the same idea it first appeared as a practical machine in the offices of John and James Ritty who owned stores and coal mines at Dayton, Ohio James Ritty helped and largely paid for the first experiments he needed a mechanical cashier for his own business and says that while on an ocean steamer en route to London the revolving machinery gave him the suggestion worked out on his return to Dayton in the first style machine this gave way to the key machine with its displayed tablet or indicator held up by a supporting bar moved back by knuckles on the vertical tablet rod the cut, figure 1, shows the right side of this key register the action of which is thus described by the national cash register company the key A, when pressed with the finger at its ordinary position marked 1, went down to the point marked 2 being a lever and pivoted to its center pressing down a key elevated its extreme point B this pushed up the tablet rod C having on its upper part the knuckle D this knuckle D pushed up took the position at E that is the knuckle pushed back the supporting bar F and was pushed past it and held above it if the same operation were performed on another key the knuckle on its vertical rod going up would again push the supporting bar back which would release the first knuckled rod and leave the last one in its place this knuckled rod had on its upper end the display tablet or indicator G James and John Ritty claimed and proved that they invented this but the attorney for the Dayton Company formed by them in the Supreme Court was compelled to admit that this mechanism was old yet if machines built like this were exhibited elsewhere they were at most only experimental models and none of them had ever gone into practical or commercial use in fact at this time nothing had been really contributed which was useful to the public or used by the public the trouble was that the knuckles being necessarily oiled held dust and dirt which interfered with their free movement and again a 5 cent or 10 cent key would be used more than the others and hence would become more worn as a practical result the tablets did not drop when wanted and the whole operation was thrown into confusion when one tablet went up the other tablet stayed up leaving a false indication the most valuable modification now made by these Dayton inventors was to cease to rely on the knuckle to move back the supporting bar and to supply the place of this function by what became known as connecting mechanism especially designed for this purpose this was placed at the other or say the left side of the machine as you faced it cut number 2 shows this new connecting mechanism the keys when pressed perform the functions as before on the right side of the machine that is to say to ring an alarm bell etc but on the other or left side the key when pressed operated the connecting mechanism marked M, N, O, P and Q the key pressed down by its leverage pushed back a little lever Q, the further end of which pressed back the supporting bar F and released the previously exposed indicator G without relying on the knuckle to perform this function the Supreme Court of the United States said that the suggestion or idea to correct the old trouble and to accomplish this by dividing the force used and applying a portion of it to the new connecting mechanism on the left side of the machine was fine invention and that the results are so important and the ingenuity displayed to bring them about is such that we are not disposed to deny the patentees the merit of invention the combination described in the first claim was clearly new to revert for a moment to the origin of the invention Mr. John Ritty gives an account differing from that of his brother but the two can probably be reconciled by supposing that the first ideas occurred simultaneously and were worked out in common late one summer night before dispersing home a group of men were in his store one of them said to the proprietor if you had a machine there to register the cash received you would get more of it and to the statement both owner and his clerks are centred this raised a laugh but Ritty who in spite of a large business which ranged over everything from a needle to a haystack did not make much profit by his sales took the suggestion seriously and put on his thinking cap with the result that the first machine was patented and profits became very greatly increased before his machine had been perfected a rival was in the field Mr. Thomas Carney a man who had seen much life as a lumber merchant captain during the Civil War explorer and railroad promoter settled down in 1884 at Chicago to the manufacture of coin changers when in various businesses he says we used gold and silver only and it seemed to be a sheer necessity to have something of a money changer to assist us in handling it and making change the custom then was to throw the different coins into a special receptacle marked for each I invented and in my own shop built this coin changer the keys of which when touched would through the tube drop the coin into the hand as wanted at Chicago I had made five or six hundred of these coin changers but by mistake placed the price too low and after some conference I became assured that there was not enough money in it a rich Chicago manufacturer had become familiar with the urgent need of a cash register and the losses which followed in business without one the national at Dayton had then been invented but had not then been perfected as it has been since parties at Chicago agreed to put up the money if I would invent what would answer the purpose of a cash register and make a marketable machine I went home and gave the matter some hard thinking and talking with my son about the matter one night I looked up at the clock and said why Harry? there is the right thing 60 minutes make an hour 100 cents make a dollar all I have got to do is to change the wheels a little put some keys into it and there will be a thing which will register cents dimes and dollars just as that clock will register time in minutes and hours in clocks the minute wheel when it has revolved to its 60-point throws its added result of 60 minutes over onto another wheel which takes up the story with one hour in place of the old 60 minutes the first wheel then begins again and goes its round a second complete revolution of the minute wheel throws another 60 minutes in the hour and gives one more hour registered making two hours and so on I took some wheels and with pace board made hands and a machine it was very rough but I took it to my friends and explained it to them we went on but encountering difficulties and obstacles we merged our whole enterprise in the national I followed it and have since invented worked and helped along in the national cash register servers I developed the number 35 machine which the company began on and uses yet it is now in use in every civilised country for it can be made to register English money and any decimal currency in 1883 Dayton contained five families the following year Colonel Robert Patterson bought a large property in the neighbourhood and helped to develop a small town which has since grown into a thriving manufacturing centre his two sons John H. Patterson and Frank J. Patterson bought out all the original proprietors of the national cash register greatly improved the machine's mechanism and built the huge factory which employs about 4,000 men women and girls and is one of the best equipped establishments in the world to promote both an economical output and the comfort of the employees the company's buildings at Dayton cover 892,144 square feet of floor space and utilise 140 acres of ground inconvenience and attractiveness and for light heat and ventilation and all sanitary things these structures are designed to be models of any used for factory purposes a machine is made and sold every two and a half minutes in the Dayton Berlin and Toronto factories collectively according to its destination it records dollars shillings, marks cronin, corona francs, crona gildens, passatres pesos, millrace rupees or rubles registers are also made to meet the needs of the celestials and the Japanese so necessary is it for these machines to be ever improving that the company with a wisdom that prevails more largely perhaps in the united states than elsewhere offer substantial rewards to the employee who records in a book kept specially for the purpose any suggestion which the committee after due examination consider likely to improve some detail of mechanism or manufacture five departments are entirely devoted to experiments carried out by a core of inventors working with a special body of skilled mechanics new patents accrue so fast as a result of this organized research that the national company now owns 537 letters patent in the united states and 394 in foreign countries many ideas come from outside if they appear profitable they are bought and turned over to the patents department which hands them on to the experimenters these build an experimental model which differs in many respects from the types hitherto manufactured a cash register must be above all things strong so that it can bear a heavy blow without getting out of order and must retain its accuracy under all conditions the model finished it goes before the inspectors who thump it hammer it almost turn it inside out and send it back to the factory committee with reports on any defects that may have come to light if the inspectors can only knock the machine out of time they consider that they have done their duty for they argue that if weaknesses thus developed are put right no purchaser will ever be able to dislocate the machinery if he stops short of an actual brutal assault with violence next comes the building of the commercial type which will be sold by the thousand the machine goes down to the toolmakers a select board of 75 members who list all the parts and say how many drill jigs mills, fixtures, gauges, etc are necessary to make every part then they draw out an approximate estimate of the cost of producing the tools and after they have listed the parts they turn them over to the various departments such as the drafting room blacksmith's shop pattern shop foundry, etc after which the various parts are machined up then the toolmaker assembles together the various tools and makes a number of the parts that each tool is designed for so that when all the tools have done their preliminary work the makers possess about 50 machines in bits these are assembled to prove whether the tools do their business efficiently if any part shows an inclination to jam or otherwise misbehave itself the tool responsible is altered till its products are satisfactory then and only then a period of perhaps two years may have elapsed since the model was first put in hand the company begins to entertain a prospect of getting back some of the money any some up to 50,000 pounds spent in preparations but they know that if people will only buy they won't have much fault to find with their purchase preparations bring success is the motto of the NCR so the company spares no money and is content to have 25,000 pounds locked up in its automatic screw making machines alone human as well as inanimate machinery is well tended under the roof of the NCR the committee believe that a healthy comfortable employee means good and therefore profitable work and that to work well employees must eat and play well they therefore provide their boys with gardens 10 feet wide by 170 feet in length and pay an experienced gardener to direct their efforts to encourage a start bulbs, seeds slips etc are supplied free while prizes of considerable value help to stimulate competition one day 10 years or more ago Mr. Patterson saw a factory girl trying to warm her tin bucket of cold coffee at the steam heater in the workshop he is a humane man and acting on the unintentional hint he built a lunch room which contains besides accommodation for 455 people a piano and sewing machine which the women can use during their noon recess of 80 minutes a cooking school dancing classes and literary club are all available to members the company encourages its workers to own the houses they inhabit and to make them as beautiful as their leisure will permit Mr. Moseley who took over to America an industrial commission of experts in 1902 and an educational commission in the following year paid visits on both occasions to the national cash register works in a speech to the committee he said I do not know of any institution in the world which offers so beautiful an illustration of the proper working conditions as the national cash register company your president has asked me to criticize I cannot find anything to criticize in this factory I have never seen such conditions in any other factory in the world nor have I ever seen so many bright and intelligent faces as we have seen at luncheon in both the men's and women's dining rooms I believe this factory is as nearly perfect as social conditions will permit note the author desires to express his thanks to the national cash register company for the kind help given him in the shape of materials for writing and illustrating this chapter end of section 2