Measuring rules-Dividing instruments-Cathetometers Spherometers Comparators-- Micro-pantographs - Froment's-Hardy's — Peters's - Planimeters-Oppikoffer's—Ams- ler's-Laffon's-Mechanical calculation-The Arabic numerals-Counting machines-Cal- culating machines-Gerbert-Albertus Magnus-Roger Bacon-Napier-His rods—Loga- rithms--Pascal's calculating machine-Leibnitz's-Gunter's logarithmic rules-Leblond's Gattey's Calculating machine of Oprandino Musina-Of Thomas de Colmar-Capa- bilities of this machine-Babbage's difference engine-Scheutz's-Babbage's projected LIST OF PLATES. I.-ERICSSON'S HOT-AIR ENGINE-SHAW'S HOT-AIR ENGINE. II.-BELOU'S HOT-AIR ENGINE-LAUBERAU'S HOT-AIR ENGINE, PLATE III.-OTTO AND LANGEN'S GAS-ENGINE-LENOIR'S GAS-ENGINE-HUGON'S THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS. CHAPTER I. THE RELATION OF INVENTION TO INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS. MULTIPLICITY OF MACHINES AND INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES AT THE EXPOSITION-INCESSANT MODIFICATIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS RESULTING FROM THE DIVISION OF LABOR-INVENTIONS OF GREAT INDUSTRIAL IMPORTANCE ARE RARE-EXAMPLES OF SUCH-THE COTTON-GIN : ITS INDUSTRIAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES-THE STEAM-ENGINE, AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS RESULTING FROM IT-PRODUCTIVE POWER OF INDUSTRY LIMITED BY AMOUNT OF DISPOSABLE FORCE-HANDLING AND FORGING ARMOR PLATES AND OTHER GIGANTIC OBJECTS BY THE AID OF STEAM-PRECISION OF MECHANICAL PROCESSES AIDED BY STEAM— EXAMPLES OF DEGREE OF REFINEMENT OF MECHANICAL ACCURACY-WHITWORTH'S TRUE PLANES AND GAUGES-MACHINE TOOLS-INFLUENCE OF THE MACHINE TOOLS-INFLUENCE OF THE UPON THE WEALTH AND POWER OF GREAT BRITAIN-DISCOVERY AND INVENTION: THEIR RELATIONS-INVENTIONS DIRECTLY AFFECTING THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER OF THE HUMAN RACE-THE PRINTING PRESS-THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH-DIFFERENT CLASSES OF INVENTIONS. STEAM-ENGINE The Commission of the United States to the Universal Exposition of 1867, in the distribution of its labors, allotted to a committee the duty of reporting upon the new inventions in the useful arts presented in this great industrial display. The language of the resolution appointing this committee assigned no other limit to the field of inquiry which they were instructed or at least authorized to occupy, but that which was imposed by the extent of the Exposition itself. Whatever of novelty there might be found in any branch of industry, whether in respect to the processes employed or to the instruments or implements used in conducting them, would constitute apparently a legitimate subject for their investigation. This seemingly very comprehensive task was, however, essentially reduced by the appointment of other committees specially charged with the examination of large departments of industry, such as railroad engineering, steam engineering, metallurgy, the chemical arts, implements, machines and tools, &c., &c.; all of which may be considered as having been thus withdrawn from the attention of the committee on inventions. The field remained nevertheless sufficiently extensive; too extensive indeed to be properly explored by a few individuals, if every object presenting some feature of novelty which the Exposition embraced should be considered on that account to be entitled to their attention. In fact with such a view of their duties, they would have found their material exhaustless, and it would have been impossible to assign a term to their labors. So vast was the variety of interesting objects, and so wonderful the diversity of industrial operations, which a common impulse had swept together into that single spot from every quarter of the civilized world, that the visitor, in endeavoring to make his way through the maze, found himself continually bewildered; and no one could leave it, after having devoted days and even weeks to its study, without feeling how imperfect had been his survey, and how inadequate a knowledge he had been able to gather of the great whole. This will be easily understood when it is considered how large was the area over which the Exposition was spread, and how completely filled and crowded was every corner of that liberal space. The palace itself covered nearly forty acres of ground; and the park, with the broad enclosure on the shore of the Seine, embraced about eighty acres more. To this must be added the fifty acres of the island of Billancourt. In many portions of the palace the objects on exhibition were too numerous for the space allotted to the exposants, and permission had been sought and obtained to occupy with the more bulky or the more showy the space in the avenues and passages, to such an extent as considerably to obstruct circulation. The number of exhibitors exceeded fifty thousand. A visitor who should have desired to distribute his attention impartially among all these candidates for his approbation, would scarcely have been able to give to each more than the most cursory glance. The gates were opened every morning at eight o'clock and closed every evening at six. By giving a single minute to each exhibitor, and by employing faithfully all the intervening time, it would have been possible to dispose of six hundred in a day. But even at that rapid rate, it would have taken three months of unintermitted labor to complete the list. Many of these exhibitors, moreover, presented not single objects, but scores and hundreds. There is no extravagance at all in the assertion that the number of objects in the Exposition, each individually interesting and worthy, if time allowed, of a separate examination, amounted to several millions. In such a scene the attractions and the distractions are so equally balanced, that it is only after the observer has resigned himself to the necessity of passing by the greater number without an attempt at a critical notice, that he is prepared to form an intelligent judgment of those that remain. If, again, in the study of such a multiplicity of industrial processes or machines, he endeavors to make a distinction between what is justly entitled to be called original and what is familiar and common, he finds himself arrested by a new embarrassment. There is no form of industry which, in our day, is stationary for a moment. There is none which is not undergoing improvement so incessant that even while the history of the most recent advances is being written, they are beginning already to be numbered with the past, and giving place to improvements newer still. This is peculiarly the case in those great branches of industry which require for their successful prosecution the concentration of capital and the systematic division of labor. The division of labor is a practical analysis of the industrial problem into its most elementary parts; and the distribution of these parts to as many individuals brings the force of many minds or groups of minds to the study of the question of improvement under the most advantageous conditions. It is true that many workmen pursue their daily task in a manner entirely mechanical, without considering whether or not it might be accomplished in a better or a simpler way; but it is also true that the most useful modifications of many industrial processes and machines have been the suggestions of the men employed in using them, and have been the fruit of their personal experience and observation. It is further true that in large industrial establishments there exists always a facility for testing the advantages offered by a newly suggested implement or process, which does not exist elsewhere; and that therefore a new invention, if brought forward in such a field, will not have long to wait, that its merit, if it has any, may be recognized. And thus it happens that in such establishments rarely a day, and certainly never a year passes, in which successful ingenuity does not make some addition to productive power, by giving to its instruments increased efficiency, or to its products a superior quality. Such being the case, there cannot be a great industrial congress, like that assembled in the Exposition of 1867, which will not be full of what may in one sense be called new inventions; but of these the great majority will have for their basis some industrial process or machine which is not new, but is common to the entire branch of industry to which they belong. The textile arts, for example, employ a larger vari ety of machinery than any other, or, at least, than any other whose processes are capable of being fully exhibited in a place like the Exposition and under the eye of the public; yet, it may be said, generally, that the processes by which fibrous materials are prepared for the spindle or the loom are substantially the same now in kind and in order as they were in the earliest period of history, and when the art was in its most rudimentary condition. But the modes and instrumentalities by which these changes are produced have been so completely transformed that in its present condition the art would be totally unrecognizable by one who had known it only under the slow forms practiced by the Romans or the Egyptians. These transformations have been the offspring of a few great inventions, of which each in its time has marked an era in the history of this industry. But it is in the nature of great inventions that they narrow the field of activity to future ingenuity; and that while they may admit of subordinate modifications and improvements, they are but tardily, if ever, dethroned by successful rivals. Much the larger number, therefore, of the novelties in industrial art which each year introduces consists of these minor improvements; and to make an exhaustive enumeration of such, as they appear in a general exposition |