MACHINERY AND MANUFACTURES.

[‘The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. By Charles Babbage, Esq., A.M., Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge.’ 8vo. London, C. Knight, 1832.]

Here is a work of no common interest. Its object, as stated by the author in his introductory paragraph, is “to point out the effects and the advantages which arise from the use of tools and machines;—to endeavour to classify their modes of action;—and to trace both the causes and the consequences of applying machinery to supersede the skill and power of the human arm.” It professes to embrace, therefore, both a very important branch of the science of political economy, and the whole domain of the mechanical arts.

The word manufacture, which means fabrication by the hand, has become singularly inapplicable to the thing which it is used to denote. The human hand now performs but a comparatively small part in most of those processes to which the name of manufactures is given; and in some of the most stupendous and wonderful of them its aid is hardly at all employed. Where the steam-engine plies its mighty energies, man has in many cases little more to do than to look on. If the expression, a manufacturing country, were to be taken in its literal sense, as meaning a country where articles were generally made by the hand, it would be much more truly applicable to Spain, or Russia, or Poland, or Hindostan, or indeed to any other country of the earth, than to ours. We are, of all others, the people who do least by the hand.

When we say, therefore, that England is a manufacturing country and that Poland is not, we mean merely that great numbers of articles of use and of luxury are fabricated in the former country, without any necessary reference to the mode in which they are fabricated. But it so happens that such articles cannot be fabricated in great abundance except by means of machinery; and therefore we often use the term manufacturing as nearly synonymous with mechanical, or at least as implying the extensive agency of machinery. It should be borne in mind, however, that agriculture is also a manufacture; and that whether a country produces iron or corn, each branch of industry involves mechanical aid, however we may choose to distinguish between a manufacturing and an agricultural country.

The book upon the subject of manufactures which Mr. Babbage has now given to the world, consists chiefly of a very large and multifarious collection of the mechanical expedients employed in the different branches of our national industry, arranged according to the general principle, of which each is an exemplification. The author has in this way furnished a work which is not less interesting to the mere general reader than it is likely to prove valuable to the student of mechanics. Surrounded as we are in this country by the wonders of mechanical invention, he among us must be singularly destitute of enlightened curiosity who feels no desire to understand the operation of those beautiful and most effective contrivances which he everywhere sees or hears in motion; or to trace through the various stages of their fabrication those numberless articles of use and of ornament of which every one of our shops, and it may almost be said of our houses, is full. The history of some of the most apparently trivial or insignificant of these productions, of a pin or a needle for instance, is often a rich succession of the most exquisite efforts of ingenuity—of the most important results obtained by the simplest means, and of a velocity and at the same time perfection of operation which to the unaccustomed observer would seem little short of miraculous. The wonders of our manufactures are not less deserving of our examination, because they are performed in the very midst of us, and may be made perfectly intelligible to all who care to understand them.

But it is to those who are actually engaged in mechanical invention that this volume is doubtless fitted to render the most important service. Let the particular department upon which a person so employed is exercising his thoughts be what it may, his success is likely to depend in no small degree upon his general familiarity with mechanical contrivances. It has not unfrequently happened that for want of this diversified knowledge the inventors and improvers of machines or of processes have devoted their solitary efforts for a long time in vain, in attempting merely to accomplish what had already been completely achieved in some other department of mechanical skill with which they happened to have no acquaintance. In other cases, a contrivance applicable to many different branches, although introduced in one of the number, has remained unknown to the cultivators of all the others for many years. Thus, for example, the valuable contrivance of the fly-shuttle, although introduced into the woollen manufactory about the year 1738, was not employed in the weaving of cottons, where it was equally applicable, till more than twenty years afterwards. So also, as Mr. Babbage notices, the expedient of placing the workman employed in beating out the blades of scythes in a seat suspended by ropes from the ceiling, to give him sufficient freedom and rapidity of motion to bring the different parts of the iron upon the anvil in quick succession, although introduced in the manufacture of scythes long ago, has only been recently applied to that of anchors; “an art in which,” as he remarks, “the contrivance is of still greater importance.” Now such a work as the one before us is admirably calculated to prevent all this waste of inventive labour, and to ensure the communication of any new or valuable contrivance to all descriptions 131of manufactures in which it is fitted to be available. An inventor, who has made himself completely master of this work, will have obtained a knowledge both of all the principal expedients which have hitherto been employed in mechanics, and of the scientific principles upon which all mechanical devices must depend; and a man so instructed, it may be fairly inferred, will be likely not only to waste but little time in re-discovering what has been already found out, but also to find his efforts in original invention crowned with far more rapid and more satisfying success than would have otherwise attended them.

From the multiplicity of most interesting subjects of which Mr. Babbage has treated, the mere enumeration of which would far exceed our limits, we select only two specimens of the entertainment to be found in the work. The following account of a foreign manufacture would appear incredible, if we did not know to what singular uses the instincts of animals may be directed:—

“Lace made by Caterpillars.—A most extraordinary species of manufacture, which is in a slight degree connected with copying, has been contrived by an officer of engineers residing at Munich. It consists of lace and veils, with open patterns in them, made entirely by caterpillars. The following is the mode of proceeding adopted:—Having made a paste of the leaves of the plant, on which the species of caterpillar he employs feeds, he spreads it thinly over a stone, or other flat substance, of the required size. He then, with a camel-hair pencil dipped in olive oil, draws the pattern he wishes the insects to leave open. This stone is then placed in an inclined position, and a considerable number of the caterpillars are placed at the bottom. A peculiar species is chosen, which spins a strong web; and the animals commence at the bottom, eating and spinning their way up to the top, carefully avoiding every part touched by the oil, but devouring every other part of the paste. The extreme lightness of these veils, combined with some strength, is truly surprising. One of them, measuring twenty-six and a half inches by seventeen inches, weighed only 1.51 grains, a degree of lightness which will appear more strongly by contrast with other fabrics. One square yard of the substance of which these veils are made weighs four grains and one-third, whilst one square yard of silk gauze weighs one hundred and thirty-seven grains, and one square yard of the finest patent net weighs two hundred and sixty-two grains and a half.”

One of the most important manufactures of our own country is that connected with the Press, in all its various and complicated operations. The following account of the mode in which a great London newspaper is prepared, will be read with interest in all parts of the kingdom:—

“Another instance of the just application of machinery, even at an increased expense, arises where the shortness of time in which the article can be produced, has an important influence on its value. In the publication of our daily newspapers, it frequently happens that the debates in the Houses of Parliament are carried on to three and four o’clock in the morning, that is, to within a very few hours of the time for the publication of the newspaper. The speeches must be taken down by reporters, conveyed by them to the establishment of the newspaper, perhaps at the distance of one or two miles, transcribed by them in the office, set up by the compositor, the press corrected, and the papers printed off and distributed before the public can read them. Some of these journals have a circulation of from five to ten thousand daily. Supposing four thousand to be wanted, and that they could be printed only at the rate of five hundred per hour upon one side of the paper (which was the greatest number two journeymen and a boy could take off by the old hand-presses), sixteen hours would be required for printing the complete edition; and the news conveyed to the purchasers of the latest portion of the impression, would be out of date before they could receive it. To obviate this difficulty, it was often necessary to set up the paper in duplicate, and sometimes, when late, in triplicate: but the improvements in the printing-machines have been so great, that four thousand copies are now printed on one side in an hour.

“The establishment of ‘The Times’ newspaper is an example, on a large scale, of a manufactory in which the division of labour, both mental and bodily, is admirably illustrated, and in which also the effect of the domestic economy is well exemplified. It is scarcely imagined, by the thousands who read that paper in various quarters of the globe, what a scene of organized activity the factory presents during the whole night, or what a quantity of talent and mechanical skill is put in action for their amusement and information^[1]. Nearly a hundred persons are employed in this establishment; and, during the session of parliament, at least twelve reporters are constantly attending the Houses of Commons and Lords; each in his turn, after about an hour’s work, retiring to translate into ordinary writing, the speech he has just heard and noted in short-hand. In the mean time fifty compositors are constantly at work, some of whom have already set up the beginning, whilst others are committing to type the yet undried manuscript of the continuation of a speech, whose middle portion is travelling to the office in the pocket of the hasty reporter, and whose eloquent conclusion is, perhaps, at that very moment, making the walls of St. Stephen’s vibrate with the applause of its hearers. These congregated types, as fast as they are composed, are passed in portions to other hands; till at last the scattered fragments of the debate, forming, when united with the ordinary matter, eight-and-forty columns, re-appear in regular order on the platform of the printing-press. The hand of man is now too slow for the demands of his curiosity, but the power of steam comes to his assistance. Ink is rapidly supplied to the moving types by the most perfect mechanism;—four attendants incessantly introduce the edges of large sheets of white paper to the junction of two great rollers, which seem to devour them with unsated appetite;—other rollers convey them to the type already inked, and having brought them into rapid and successive contact, re-deliver them to four other assistants, completely printed by the almost momentary touch. Thus, in one hour, four thousand sheets of paper are printed on one side; and an impression of twelve thousand copies, from above three hundred thousand moveable pieces of metal, is produced for the public in six hours.”