SECTION XIV.-MACHINERY EXHIBITED.

WE come now to a part of our subject which it is difficult to write about without going into minute details, and employing much pictorial illustration. Indeed, in the Exhibition itself, the department of Machinery was at once the most exciting and the most disappointing of the whole display; and in no part of the building did we find visitors so eager for explanations and assistance as in this. The raw materials of industry, and the finished products in the fine and in the useful arts, were, or appeared to be, more intelligible to the popular mind than machines, whose internal arrangements were often concealed, or whose working parts were moving lazily along, doing nothing, as in the case of the large planing, drilling and slotting machines. Even in the case of that splendid series of machines which illustrated our textile manufactures, there was a great want of explanation; and it was a frequent source of regret to us, that arrangements were not made for giving to the crowds of curious visitors, without extra charge, a few short but effective explanations. This was attempted to a certain extent in the case of cotton, by attaching labels to the several machines; but the information thus conveyed was too scanty to be of much assistance to persons unacquainted with the subject. Fortunately, it will not be necessary for us to notice at any considerable length, in this Section, the machinery of the Exhibition, since a description of the more important machines will be found in the body of our work. In a few cases, however, through the kindness of Exhibitors, we shall be able to add to the value of articles which have already appeared by noticing with some detail a few of the more complex machines.

Of all descriptions of machinery, that used by the Engineer or Machinist is the most important, for on it depends in great measure the value of machines for special objects, and, consequently, the excellence of the articles manufactured. The large tools or machines of the engineer are of modern origin, and may be said to date from the time when Watt endowed the Steam Engine with almost human intelligence, thereby leading to the necessity for accurate workmanship. About the same period also, the factory system, so vastly extended, if not introduced, by Arkwright, required machines which were to work with a precision surpassing that of human hands and fingers; and as these machines were being constantly improved by men of genius, such as Hargreaves, Crompton, Roberts, Jacquard, &c. the profession of the engineer rose into permanence and importance. But up to about the time to which we now refer, nearly every part of a machine had to be made and finished to its required form by manual labour; so that accuracy and precision depended in great measure upon the dexterity of the workman's hand, and the correctness of his eye. He had no other means of applying and guiding his tool to the work in the lathe, than his unaided muscular strength; and the exertion required in turning iron was so great, that he soon became exhausted, and his work varied with his declining strength. Occasionally he could not avoid cutting too deep, which would compel him either to go over his work again, or to leave the mark of his tool in the metal. If, however, instead of working the tool by hand, it were by some mechanical contrivance held firmly to the work, and while cutting a shaving from the bar in the lathe the tool were slid gently along, it is evident the bar would be turned quite true. These objects

are attained by the slide-rest, shown in Fig. LXV. Here the tool is held firmly by a sort of iron hand or vice, made to move in the required direction by means of the slide s, the sliding motion being given by the workman turning the screw-handle H, the depth of the cut being regulated by the under slide K, also moved by a screw handle. By the separate or combined motion of these two slides, the tool can be made to act along or across the work with perfect accuracy, the business of the workman being confined to turning the screw-handle H. The machine may also be made selfacting in various ways, as by attaching a star x to the wheel I, and an iron finger to the end of the work in the lathe at o. It is evident that for every revolution of the work, the finger

Fig. LXV.

fixed round o will bear down one of the points of the star x, the effect of which is the same as turning the screw-handle H, whereby the tool is moved along the surface of the work.

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The application of the slide-rest principle in the engineer's workshop is of very extensive use in holding, applying, and directing the motions of cutting tools to the surface of the work to be turned, planed, or otherwise cut into the six primitive or elementary geometrical figures to which all the forms met with in machines may be reduced, namely the line, the plane, the circle, the cylinder, the cone and the sphere. According to Mr. Nasmyth, the honour of the invention is due to the late Heury Maudslay, but Professor Willis has shown that it acquired the distinct and individual form in which it now exists in a slow and gradual way. In 1648, Maignan published at Rome engravings of two curious lathes for turning the surfaces of metallic mirrors for optical purposes, in which the tool is clamped to frames so disposed, that when put in motion, it is compelled to move so as to form true hyperbolical, spherical or plane surfaces, according to the adjustment: so also in the screw-cutting lathes, fusee-engines, and other machines introduced by the clockmakers, (who were the first to employ special machines for their manufactures,) tools were guided by mechanism, "yet the real slide-rest does not make its appearance until 1772, when in the plates of the French Encyclopédie, (Tom X. Pls. 37, 38, 84, 85, 86,) we find complete drawings and details of an excellent slide-rest, as nearly as possible identical with that usually supplied by Messrs. Holtzapffel and other makers of lathes for amateurs. Bramah's slide-rest of 1794, is so different and so inferior in convenience, that the two could not have had a common origin, and we must suppose that the slide-rest was not known to that ingenious mechanist." In 1784, when Bramah obtained the patent for his admirable lock, a series of original machine tools were constructed for shaping the barrels, keys, and other parts with the precision which machinery alone can give. Henry Maudslay was educated in Bramah's workshop, and was employed in making the principal tools for the locks. Professor Willis brings into prominent notice the services of Sir Samuel Bentham, in the construction of machine tools. The following notice will form an interesting addition to the details respecting block-machinery, contained in the article BLOCK, page 139.

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From General Bentham's own account it appears, that in 1791 steam-engines in this country were extensively employed for pumping mines, and for giving motion to machinery for working cotton, and to rolling-mills, and some other works in metal; but that in regard to working in wood, steam-engines had not been applied, for no machinery, other than turning-lathes, had been introduced, excepting that some circular and reciprocating saws and working tools had been applied to the purpose of block-making by the contractors who then supplied blocks to the navy; even saw-mills for slitting timber, though in extensive use abroad, were not to be found in this country. General Bentham had at this time made great progress in contriving machinery for shaping wood, as is sufficiently shown by his remarkable specifications of 1791 and 1793; and he informs us that, rejecting the common classification of works according to the trades or handicrafts for which they are used, he classed the several operations that have place in the working of materials of every description according to the nature of the operations themselves, and, in regard to wood particularly, contrived machines for performing most of those operations whereby the need of skill and dexterity in the workman was dispensed with, and the machines were also capable of being worked by a steam-engine or other power. Besides the general operations of planing, rebating, morticing, sawing in curved, winding, and transverse directions, he completed, by way of example, machines for preparing all the parts of a sash-window and of a carriage-wheel, and actually showed these and other machines in a working state in 1791 in London.

This led to his appointment as Inspector-general of Naval Works, for the purpose of introducing these and various other machines into the royal dockyards, which he immediately set about effecting. From this time (1797) the introduction of machinery for the preparation of blocks and other works in wood at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and other Government establishments, takes its origin. In 1802 the General received a most powerful and efficient auxiliary in the person of Mr. Brunel, who in that year presented his plans for the block-making machinery. His services being immediately secured, and Mr. Henry Maudslay engaged for the construction of the mechanism, the admirable series of machine-tools were finished and set to work in 1807, by which every part of the block and its sheaves are prepared.

The completeness and ingenuity of this system, the beauty of its action, and the novelty of the forms and construction of the whole of the mechanism, excited so much admiration, that the whole of the machinery in Portsmouth dockyard has usually been popularly ascribed to Mr. Brunel alone. It must not be forgotten, however, that much machinery for the performance of isolated operations had been previously employed, as well by Mr. Taylor of Southampton, the contractor for the blocks of the navy previously to 1807, as by General Bentham himself in the dockyards.

At this distance of time it would be impossible to discover the exact shares of merit and invention that belong to Brunel, Bentham, and Maudslay, in this great work. To the first we may, however, assign the

(1) Bentham's patents. "Repertory of Arts," vol. v. p. 293, and vol. x. pp. 221, 293, 367; also Memoir, by Mrs. Bentham, in Weale's "Quarterly Papers on Engineering," vol. vi.

merit of completing and organising a system of machine-tools, so connected in series, that each in turn should take up the work from a previous one and carry it on another step towards completion, so that the attendant should merely carry away the work delivered from one machine and place it in the next, finally receiving it complete from the last.

Some of the individual machines in the series had, it is true, been previously contrived and employed. Thus, the self-acting morticing-machine is distinctly described in Bentham's specification of 1793, so completely as to entitle him to the full credit of the invention of morticing-machines, whether by the process of boring a hole first and then elongating it by a chisel travelling up and down vertically, or by the process of causing the hole to be elongated by the rotation of the boring bit during the travelling of the work. The same specification describes boring-machines, some of which are similar in their arrangements to those of the block series; also the tubular gouge which is employed in the shaping-machine, and the formation of recesses, by a revolving and travelling tool, for the inlaying of the coaks.

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That most useful machine-tool the circular saw, was introduced into this country about 1790; but "where, or by whom, the wood-cutter's saw was put into the form of a revolving disc, has not been recorded." Bentham greatly contributed to the practical arrangements necessary to give it a convenient form, such as the bench, with the slit, parallel guide, and sliding bevil-guide. Brunel also introduced various new arrangements, as also the mode of making large circular saws of many pieces. The origin of the engineer's planing-machine is not known; "it made its way into the engineering world silently and unnoticed, and some years afterwards, when its utility became recognised, and men began to inquire into its history, various claimants to the honour of its invention were put forward: we can only learn, that somewhere about 1820 or 1821, a machine of this kind was made by several engineers." As to the turning-lathe, Willis states that its origin is lost in the shades of antiquity, and that " the saw-mill with a complete self-action, turned by a water-wheel, is represented in a MS. of the 13th century at Paris, and is probably of much earlier contrivance."

It would be unjust even in this slight notice to omit to mention the important influence which Mr. Babbage's calculating machine has had in cultivating that high degree of mechanical skill required in the production of machine-tools. The novelty of form, the precision of workmanship, and the frequent repetition of similar parts in the calculating machine, led at almost every step to the necessity for inventing new tools, new lathe adjustments, and new combinations of well-known appliances, and all this under the inventive genius and eminent skill of Mr. Babbage, who had to educate his workmen to a high standard before they could comprehend, far less execute, his varied designs. Hence, Mr. Babbage's workshops became a school, in which such men as Clement and Whitworth studied; by whose influence and example our Engineering workshops received a fresh stimulus, and proved themselves capable of gaining still more brilliant victories of mind over matter than they had done under the generalships of Bramah, Watt, Bentham, and Brunel. In proof of this we need only refer to our Railway System, and the Tubular Bridge.

Hence, we may be well assured that the 17,000l. of the public money expended on the small fragment of the calculating machine which is now in the museum of King's College, (and which ought to have been sent by the proper authorities to the Great Exhibition,) were not expended in vain. In lately going over Mr. Babbage's workshops in company with their illustrious owner, and seeing the long-neglected forges, lathes, carpenters' benches, &c., together with huge piles of exquisitely wrought and adjusted organs of what were once intended to enter into the construction of the calculating machine, we could not but feel that the Great Exhibition must have soothed and satisfied Mr. Babbage with the thought that the study and labour of years, together with the amount of private fortune expended by him in the public service, were largely instrumental in accomplishing those glorious results which made England preeminent in the department of Machinery.

Whitworth & Co. of Manchester exhibited a splendid series of machine-tools. In their large lathe a novelty was introduced-viz. a cutting-tool at the back of the lathe, oppo site the tool in front, the two tools being in inverted positions to each other. By this duplex arrangement the strain usually thrown by the cutters against the shaft is balanced, more correct work is produced, and in less time than in the ordinary lathe. Fig. LXVI. represents a transverse section of the lathe-bed, with the standards removed, with certain portions of the slide-rests also in section. A is the lathe-bed, в the guide-screw, and c the bottom slide-rest

DUPLEX LATHE, PLANING MACHINE, &c.

Fig. LXVI.

D

cxliii

or carriage, upon which is carried the compound top slide-rest D, in front of the lathe. A corresponding compound slide-rest E is similarly fitted on the back of the lathe; and it is this addition which constitutes the new feature in the lathe. The two slides are moved simultaneously in and out by the right-and-left-threaded screw-spindle F, so that the back and front tools G are taken in and out of cut upon the work H simultaneously. In another arrangement, two pair of cutting-tools are used, capable of being worked separately or simultaneously: the bed is of great length, of one casting, and may be used for two distinct lathes by employing an extra set of head-stocks. This lathe is chiefly employed for turning long shafting. In sliding a shaft, the two Series of tools commence in the middle of its length, and proceed in a direction right and left. In the large lathe for turning railway-wheels, the duplex principle was also introduced, four cutting-tools being employed, two acting upon opposite sides of each wheel. There are two head-stocks, each driven independently, so as to avoid all torsion of the axle in which they are fixed; and the slide-rests admit of being easily removed in getting the wheels into or out of the lathe. Two other machines exhibited by Whitworth were self-acting planing, shaping, slotting, drilling, and boring machines, of great beauty and power; also machines for punching and shearing, for wheel-cutting and dividing, for shaping bolt-heads and nuts, &c. There were four planing-machines, differently arranged according to their applications. One was furnished with a reversing tool to plane both ways, and called, from its peculiar motion, a Jim Crow machine. The table is moved end-ways by a quick-threaded screw, which allows the driving motion to be removed from the middle to the end, where it is much more convenient. This machine is adapted for horizontal, vertical, or angular motions. The second planing machine has a fixed tool, and the return stroke of the table when not cutting is made much quicker than the forward or cutting stroke. The tool is fitted with a worm segment for shaping internal curves. A third is a crank-planing machine, with a quick return motion, obtained by making the crank-pin work in a hinged lever, with a joint below so arranged that while the cut is being made, the pin is working in the long rod of the lever, near the point at which it is connected with the table; but when the return motion is made, the pin is working in the lower part of the lever, much nearer the hinge, and thus is throwing the top end and the connecting-rod at a much greater rate. Through the kindness of a friend connected with this. class of the Great Exhibition, we are enabled to lay before our readers the principle of this beautiful machine.

The disc-wheel A, Figs. LXVII. LXVIII. is driven by the pinion B, placed on the shaft of the driving pulley. This wheel carries a stout pin D projecting from one side, which pin works in a long slot in the arm c E, turning on a centre at c, and having the rod K at its upper end connected with the table or bed of the planing machine. Then, as the wheel a revolves, the arm C E will have an oscillating or to and fro motion about its centre, and the rod K will carry the table bearing the work to be planed to and fro under the cutting tool. But the two movements will be made in very different times, for it will be seen on reference to the dotted figure, that the pin revolves through the arc g h d, or of the entire circumference, while the arm moves from f'to e, but that it revolves only through d 1 g, or of the circumference, while the arm returns from e to f. The cut is made by the tool during the motion from f.to e, when the table moves slowly, and the pin being near the end of the lever arm c E is impelling the arm at the greatest mechanical advantage. But during the return stroke, when no work is to be done, the pin is working in the lower part of the slot, so as to shift the table rapidly back into a position to begin the next cut. In fact, it is obvious, that in the case sketched of the power applied is used in doing the actual work, and in moving the table back,

whereas, had the table been moved by a connecting rod applied directly from the pin F. of the power would have been used in doing work, and

employed only to slide back the bel

Mr. Whitworth also exhibited a shaping-machine adapted to flat, vertical, angular, circular, and hollow curved work; drilling machines,—one a radial drill of large size and great power. W: must also refer to the powerful self-acting planing machine exhibited by Sharp Brothers, of Manchester, and to their large lathe for turning railway-wheels, and other objects of great weight and large diameter. It is scarcely an exaggeration to state that the elegant turning lathe exhibited by Holtzapffel, with all its costly and luxurious additions and appliances, adapted to the most variegated and delicate work of the amateur, is not more precise in its results than the huge Manchester machines to which we have been referring.

Of the machines in motion, the most complete and impressive series was that contributed by Messrs. Hibbert, Platt & Co. of Oldham, for illustrating the various operations of preparing and spinning cotton. In the first operation, that of opening the entangled locks, and partially freeing the fibres from extraneous substances, a new apparatus, of American origin, was shown, in which the cotton as it comes from the bale is spread upon an endless apron, which carries it forward and delivers it to the machine, where it is drawn in between spiked and fluted rollers which loosen the matted fibres by a drawing action, instead of by the rapidly revolving beater. shown in Fig. 635 in our article COTTON; and the impurities are separated by the rotation of other fluted rollers, which revolve against the fibres as they are held by the spikes. There is also an improvement in the arrangement of the exhausting apparatus, the opened locks being made to pass over instead of under it, so that the dust removed by the draft is not allowed to pass through the sheet of lap.

Of carding engines a considerable number was exhibited; and near them was the beautiful machine employed in setting the wires or teeth into the cards which perform the work of carding. Mr. Crabtree, of Godby, near Halifax, the exhibitor, permitted us to take a copy of this apparatus, which is represented in the accompanying steel engraving. In our article COTTON, page 454, the general mode of action of this machine has been described; by readi that notice in conjunction with the following statement of the different parts, the reader will gain a tolerably correct idea of this ingenious contrivance. The working parts are mounted upon a firm base A and pedestal B of cast-iron, and the card fillet which is to be set with teeth is wound upon a feed-roller c; the other c refers to the square frame which contains all the motions. 1 is the driving-pulley on the tappit shaft, which conveys all the required motions 2 is a stopper by which the attendant can stop the machine when a wire becomes crooked r broken, or the wire-holder, 4, is exhausted of its supply; 3 the feed-leaves, which take in a proper supply of wire; 5, knives that cut the wire into short lengths; 6, 7, 8, mouth-piec.. crown, and tongue, which hold the wire until the two fingers 9 and 10 bend and form the stați and carry it into the holes in the fillet made by 11, the pricker. 12 is the crooker which bends t. staple, and forms the tooth after being put into the fillet. 13 is the cam-wheel, the form al arrangement of which determines the pattern of the card; 14 the notch-wheel, which gives motion to the taking-up catch; 15 the holding-catch, that holds 16, the brass wheel which takes