Graham's Magazine, Vol. XLI, No. 5, November 1852

Now, it is not to be denied that on the first introduction into any factory, or class of factories, of any new labor-saving machine, by which perhaps one man is enabled to perform the work of a dozen or twenty, a large number of hands must necessarily be thrown out of work, and more or less immediate distress arise therefrom; neither is it to be admired, or held as an especial wonder, that poor men, ignorant of the operation of great principles, suffering the extremes of poverty, smarting under the idea that their right to be employed and to earn is superseded and usurped forever by the twin colossi, capital and machinery, and goaded to frenzy by the gross folly of socialist editors and journalists, should attempt to abate, what they naturally esteem dangerous and aggressive nuisances, by physical violence.

But it is certain that they do so wrongfully as regards theoretical rights, wrongfully as regards general principles and the general good, and not least wrongfully as regards their own particular welfare.

For not only is it manifestly unjust that the great mass of mankind, as consumers, throughout the universe, should be deprived of the incalculable benefit of increased supplies of necessaries at decreased prices, in order to advance the interests of a certain class of producers – not only is it manifestly absurd to dream of a return to first principles, either in arts, manufacture or science, to fancy that, once invented, elaborated and rendered public, labor-saving machinery can be abolished and thrown into compulsory disuse – but it can be shown, evidently enough, that the condition of the mechanical and manufacturing laborer is in fact improved, not deteriorated, by every successive step gained in saving labor and lowering the prices of production by the agency of machines.

Their intellectual capacity is improved; their powers of production are increased, in a much more rapid progression than their prices are lowered; and, above all, so infinitely and incalculably is the consumption of products augmented, in excess of the decrease of money values, that, the demand increasing in a ratio far greater than any arithmetical progression, the call for laborers, the increased prices of the entire production, and the command of wages by ability, skill and intellect, increase pari passu. Nor is this all; for it cannot be denied that the mechanic, the artisan and the manufacturer must necessarily rise in position, in self-respect, in social esteem, and in the natural scale of humanity, as a higher range of qualifications are required of him, and as he is compelled to advance in his own attainments and capacities, in order to keep up with the advances of the age and nation.

This is the true solution of the great problem of the laboring classes, their prospects and their condition; and this is the true reply to all the imbecile jargon of the pseudo-philosophical socialists of the French school, concerning the nobility of manual labor, and the equality, or I believe, superiority of the hand-worker to the head-worker; of the delver, the ditcher, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, to the thinker, the inventor, the creator – or in other words, of the equality, or superiority, accordingly as it may be claimed, of mere physical force, unguided by any thing of judgment or intellect, to the highest cultivation of the thinking powers, to the completest development of the loftiest human capabilities, to the largest expansion of those qualities in which, after the affections, we approximate the nearest to divinity. But there is no such thing, nor ever will be. There is no nobility, whatsoever, in the mere act and exercise of bodily labor, or even of patient industry – although in the causes, which stimulate to that exertion and lend endurance to that industry, there may be much of the very noblest.

There is, in the nature of things, no possible show of equality, much less of superiority, as between physical and intellectual ability, between the head-worker and the hand-worker; because, in the latter, the utmost powers that man can put forward are as the toils of a pigmy, a mere Lilliputian, to the enormous forces of the elephant or of the camel; while in the former, the genius of the man, and the grasp of his mental attainments, are a little lower only than those of the angels; and these are hourly making progress toward that perfectionment which never will be attained in this world; whereas, in those there has been no increase, but probably the reverse, from the days of the patriarchs to the present hour.

The world neither does, nor ever will, accept of any equality between mental and physical labors and abilities; and the only hope of raising the condition and social scale of the working-classes lies not in striving impotently to drag down those naturally, constitutionally and educationally their superiors to the lower level, but by encouraging the inferiors to aspire to the like elevation, to cultivate on every occasion their higher faculties, to aim at the attainment of capacity for head-labor in their degree, to learn to think, and not to act only, to strive, in fact, to resemble less the beasts that perish, and more the men who live forever.

Encouragement may do this, kindling the worker to a hope of better things, and showing him that such a hope is not the vain imagination of a dream, but a real, tangible possibility.

Making him discontented with his lot; leading him to misapprehend his own position and to undervalue that of his superior, can tend only to render him a very bad member of society, and a very unhappy member of the human family.

Fortunately, other and far higher causes are at work, than the Utopian dreams of visionary sophists and the sentimental false philosophy of world-reforming lunatics, for the ameliorating the condition, both physical and social, of the laborer. And one of these – nor that the least – when superadded to the increasing purposes and enlarged principles of the times – will be found, I believe, in the necessity arising from the general use of complicated machines, which is compelling the mechanic and hand-laborer to educate his head as well as to harden his hands; to develop his soul as well as his sinews, and to become himself head-worker no less than handy-craftsman. In this most desirable change, not a false pride and real ignorance of their own real position, but a clear perception and humble estimate of their own deficiencies and of the means of overcoming them, are requisite to the working-classes; and he is their true friend who insists to them on the former and assists them toward the latter – not he who mendaciously and mischievously asserts to them – as is now too frequently done – that a hodman is at least equal if not superior to a Herschel, an Irish ditcher to a Descartes or a Newton, and the meanest stoker that fires up a furnace to him whose intellect combined the various principles, and conceived the vast system, of that motive power which, in the last quarter of a century has revolutionized the world of art and science, joined ocean shores by bridges of almost continuous steamboats, and linked continents together by the iron groves and metallic wires which speed the space-annihilating messengers of steam and electricity from hemisphere to hemisphere unhindered.

To these considerations we are naturally led when we envisage the fact that these very labor-saving machines are themselves created by other machines of like principles and scarcely inferior powers, such as we purpose to introduce to our readers, by a series of cuts, with some brief explanation of their uses and principles of action, in this present article.

The unparalleled extension of rail-roads in this country, so peculiarly calculated for their creation by its natural configuration and geological structure, has called for a supply of rail-road materials, both raw and manufactured, to a degree almost inconceivable even at the present day; and so great have been the improvements recently introduced into machinery, so enormous the weight of the persons and freight to be transported, and so extraordinary the speed expected, and in fact demanded, by the traveling public, that nothing short of perfection in finish and strength will suffice, whether for marine engines, locomotives, or in fact, any power machines.

This will easily be admitted when it is considered that on all the really good and well supported lines of road, in the Eastern states more especially, the rate of travel averages from thirty to fifty miles per hour, at an average cost to each passenger of about one-and-a-half cent per the mile of distance.

We of course do not here take into account such miserable effete monopolies as some of our own interior, and some of the Southern roads, or that of the New Jersey Rail-Road and Transportation Company, the rates of which do not exceed fourteen miles to the hour, at a charge of something exceeding three cents per mile – since these are the exceptions to the rule, arising from the mistaken policy of the states through which they pass, in granting them exclusive privileges, enabling them with a minimum of speed, punctuality, civility, cleanliness, safety and comfort, to exact a maximum of fare from all who are so unfortunate as to be compelled to travel by them.

These unimproved concerns, retrogressive in the very centre of the most brilliant progression, may, however, count their days as numbered, their unhallowed and enormous gains as arrested. The latter rail-road, never exceeding the average speed of good stage-coach travel, is now so seriously rivaled by heavy omnibuses running on a plank-road, that its locomotives to-day barely draw an average of three empty cars, where six weeks since they drew from eight to ten, filled to discomfort.

Hitherto all their underhand attempts to buy up this road, by means of individual stockholders, in order to destroy its efficiency and raise the prices, have failed so signally, that it is evident that the people over whom they have so long driven roughshod will endure their insolent tyranny no longer, and they must either tranquilly submit to pass away into contempt, bankruptcy and abeyance, or they must make their road reasonably cheap, as speedy, punctual and convenient to passengers as others – which they can readily do by diverting a portion of their colossal gains from dividends and personal profits to the exigencies of the public, in laying proper tracks, adopting improved engines, employing clean, comfortable and roomy cars, guided by capable and civil conductors, all at the ordinary price of rail-road transportation on the best, fleetest, and most favored lines.

To produce this excellence and finish, tools of peculiar quality – in the form of power-machines, adapted for planing, turning, and drilling iron, cutting gears, and the like – have become actually necessary; doing their work at an incalculably lower price, and greater celerity than the ablest human hands, and with a mathematical regularity and precision which no human experience or dexterity could possibly equal.

It is the creation of these various power-tool-machines, which, as I have stated, is indispensable for the building of power-machinery of any kind; from the marine-engine, which drives the huge steamships of Cunard or Collins over the wild surges of the Atlantic, with all the punctuality, and nearly all the speed of birds of passage; from the locomotive, with its team of iron chargers, bringing the farthest west to our very doors in the oceanic cities, to the fast power-presses, which roll off the news, collected from the uttermost ends of the earth by the agency of steam and lightning, at the rate of 20,000 copies to the hour – and intellectually feeding their hundred thousand hungry readers or ere the paper is well dry – freighted with the fates of nations.

And it is to the creation of these, in their best form and utmost perfection, that the great works at Matteawan, a lovely spot, embosomed in the grandest part of the Highlands of the Hudson, are devoted; while the Depots in New York are intended to keep, at all times, on hand a large supply of tools, required by machinists of all classes, particularly needed in the railroad and machine shop, and such, in a word, as cannot be dispensed with by any of those artificers, who work upon the tough and stubborn produce of the mines.

All these tools are either manufactured by the Messrs. Leonard themselves at the “Matteawan works,” employing some three hundred and fifty hands, or furnished from the “Lowell machine shops,” where from five hundred to a thousand hands are constantly employed in this class of business; or, again, from “The Great Hadley-Falls shop,” at Holyoke; all of which establishments are represented by the same firm, and all of which turn out work, which – it is believed – cannot be surpassed, if equalled, in the world.

The first of these machines which we propose to notice, a representation of which stands at the head of this paper, is perhaps one of the most important, if not the most important of all the tools employed in the machine shop.

This engine has already been noticed in Graham, as employed in the noble press-works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., of New York – vol. XL., No. 6, p. 576. It is used for finishing the surfaces of whatever portions of the machinery must be brought to a smooth and polished face. This is done by the propulsion of the pieces of iron to be planed in a horizontal and longitudinal direction against cutting edges, which again move horizontally across the moving planes, and are pressed downward on them vertically, so as to effect the planing to the uniform depth required. The abraded portions of the metal are thrown off – from the surface of cast iron in a sort of scaly dust, from that of wrought iron in long curled shavings – and the planes can be wrought up to almost any desirable degree of smoothness and finish.

It is but a short time, comparatively, since this machine was first introduced: it is one of the most important among mechanical tools; and it is indeed a triumph of art to see one of these machines under the direction of one person, performing the usual labor of some fifteen or twenty mechanics in former times with their chisels and files. Art observes, and experience confirms the fact, that machinery can and does perform work much more accurately than the most skillful mechanic; and, perhaps, in no instance is this general principle so happily illustrated as in the performance of these machines. The usual cost of motive power is about twenty-five cents per day, per horse power, and allowing one horse to be equivalent to five men, we shall have the labor of one mechanic furnished for five cents a-day. From this it will be seen how important every invention or improvement becomes to the machine-builder, which tends to perform the usual labor on the machine by machinery.

The above cut represents a very excellent planer. There is a great degree of taste and finish employed in its design; indeed the builder may flatter himself that he has one of the best machines built in this country.

This machine, according to its size, weight, and cost, is divided into Nos. 4, 5, and 6, capable of planeing metal from four feet long, by eighteen inches wide and high, to six feet six inches long, by twenty-four inches wide and high – and weighs respectively 1000, 2,600, and 3,500 pounds.

The machine from which the design at the head of this paper is taken may be seen at No. 60 Beaver Street, New York.

This again is a highly valuable and ingenious machine; its special operation is, as its name implies, the turning of any iron work to its required round circumference and requisite degree of polish, whether it is a perfect cylinder, or of various diameters at various points.

By it, all round work for engines is formed and finished – as rods, shafts, and the like. The action of the machine is simple, easy and almost noiseless. The piece of metal is fixed in the spindle, shown in the cut above in contact with the right elbow of the spectator, and secured, longitudinally of the machine, on the sharp point proceeding from the fixture at the left end of the Lathe, behind the operator’s shoulder.

To this, the object of operation, a rapid rotatory movement on its own axis is given by steam-power, and the cutting is produced by its rotation against two steel edges impinging on it laterally, and made to travel horizontally and longitudinally on a bed, so as to cut the bar, submitted to its agency, equally throughout all its length. This instrument is also directed by one man only, while acting with the combined power of very many, and performs its work with an ease equalled only by its great exactitude.

For the benefit of those of our readers, who have no previous acquaintance with mechanism, we shall merely premise that a gear is a wheel with a toothed circumference, like watch-wheels, or what in ruder mechanism are known as cogged-wheels; and those gears, known as level gears, are such as have the toothing on the circumference not perpendicular to the plane of the diameter, but at an acute angle to it, so that when two gears of a peculiar degree of bevil are set in contact, a horizontal rotatory movement may be communicated to one by a corresponding perpendicular rotation of the other. This will be rendered comprehensible by a careful examination of the motive power of the borer in the representation of the instrument, No. 5.

The above cut represents a very cheap and simple gear-cutter. Its principal novelty consists in the use of the large gear-wheel instead of the common graduated table. It is extremely simple, and at the same time possesses all the advantages of the old machine. It will be observed that the crank is connected to the large wheel by a set of intermediate gears, every revolution of which is made to correspond with the number of teeth in the wheel to be cut. This is accomplished by a set of change gears, which accompany the machine.

The changes are made in the opposite end of the Crank Shaft.

It will be observed that one revolution of the crank bears the same relation to the number of teeth in the large wheel, as one tooth in the wheel to be cut bears to the whole number it is to contain. The number of teeth and the pitch of the wheel is consequently derived from the change gears.

When level gears are cut, the head is then set at the proper inclination, and secured by the screw which projects at the rear of the head.

The cheapness of this machine more particularly recommends it, the price being but $250, while its efficiency and regular operation are so well established as to require no further comment.

This is another admirable engine for diminishing and simplifying human labor. It is applied to the boring of all kinds of iron-work for machinery.

The perpendicular drill, as will be readily observed, is worked with a swift, rotatory movement, by means of the bevil gears at its upper extremity. By a wheel – the circumference of which only is displayed in the cut – acting upon the thread of a screw midway its length, it is pressed down upon the piece of work to be drilled.

This piece is secured upon a horizontal table placed under the point of the rotary drill, which table may be elevated or depressed at pleasure, by aid of the small lever projecting backward, which acts on a geared wheel playing on the thread of the great perpendicular screw of the main shaft.

The nature, operation, and application of power in this engine are precisely similar to those shown and explained at No. 2. But it is employed only for the cutting of screws and screw bolts, and the boring of plates, pulleys, etc., which latter operations it performs by aid of Fairmen’s Universal Chuck, which will be described hereafter. In working this lathe, the implement last named is attached to the spindle, immediately under the right hand of the operator.

The engine itself is of unusual neatness and finish.

This little engine is similar in action and principle to the cut, No. 1; the iron, to be planed, moving horizontally and longitudinally on a bed, across which the cutting edges move with a downward pressure and a lateral movement, cutting and finishing the surface to the requisite depth and degree, easily and almost to perfection.

The machine works very simply, and almost noiselessly; it is exceedingly handy, and is directed by one person; is very portable; occupies but an inconsiderable space, and does work precisely of the same description as No. 1, though of inferior dimensions in all respects.

A Chuck generally is explained as being a round plate, which is fastened on to the spindle of a lathe – see No. 5 – and is used to bore holes in round or variously shaped plates of metal. It will be observed, in the cut above, that all the upright studs converge toward the centre by one motion of the lever, so that the centre of the article to be bored must correspond with the centre of the spindle. Besides all sorts of plates, as above mentioned, the centres of gear wheels and pulleys are bored by it.

There is a beautiful principle involved in the action of this chuck, though its novelty is in some sort lost in its simplicity. Here, by a simple movement of the hand, the article to be worked is brought to its proper position; while, by the old method, the same position could only be arrived at after a series of trials; nor, in the end, is the article so firmly held, after its correct place shall have been ascertained.

The last representation we shall offer to our readers is the subjoined cut of an improved borer for the wheels of railroad cars. The extreme simplicity of its general arrangements is its most conspicuous feature, and the small space it occupies is another highly important consideration. It will chuck all sized wheels up to three feet diameter, and can bolt on wheels of yet larger dimensions.

In the cut, a car-wheel is shown set on the machine; the upright spindle which passes through it contains the cutters, and is driven by the pulley shown on the left side of the machine, which gives to the spindle-lathe its rotary and alternate motion.

The brief account here given of these very ingenious and simple machines will, it is hoped, answer the desired end of conveying to the general reader some idea of the principles of operation, the perfection, and the immense general utility of these most emphatically labor-saving engines.

We say emphatically labor-saving, because they not only spare and simplify labor by their own direct operation, but indirectly do so fifty or a hundred fold, because they are applied to the creation of those vast space-and-time-annihilating machines, which in the present day surpass the wildest and most marvelous legends of Fairy-land, of necromancers and magicians, as to the powers – incalculable and almost ubiquitous – which they bestow on their possessors, and which create wealth for the countries having sons expert to invent and use them, surpassing the gold of Ophir, and the gems of Golconda.

FORGOTTEN

  Forgotten! ’tis the sentence passed on every thing of earth;  Naught can escape the heavy doom, that in this world has birth;  The cloud that floats in azure skies, the flower that blooms so bright,  The leaf that casts a cooling shade, unnoticed pass from sight.  – Forgotten! can it be that all, the beautiful, the good,  The wise, the great, must buried be, ’neath Lethe’s waveless flood?  Must all this world’s magnificence, its splendid pomp and pride,  The fanes which man has proudly raised, and Time’s strong arm defied,  Oh! must it all return to dust, and from remembrance fade —  Will no faint memory remain, no thought, not e’en a shade?  Alas! it must; thus has it been – thus must it be again;  Who reared the lofty pyramids? Their work was all in vain!  Stricken with awe, we gaze upon those monuments to fame,  And ask, but ask unanswered, for the mighty builder’s name!  The countless tumuli outspread upon our western lands,  Who piled their shapeless forms, and why? Where are the busy hands  Which ages since heaped high those mounds? Alas! we ne’er can know;  Their names were blotted out from life long centuries ago.  And must I be forgotten thus? When earth sees me no more  Will all this working world plod on as calmly as before?  Will no sweet memory of me cling round some constant heart?  Must all remembrance of my life from every soul depart?  It must not be! Build me a tomb whose top shall pierce the cloud —  Pile high the marble! set it round with stately columns proud —  Rear me some fane, dig deep the base, outspread it far and wide,  And write my name indelibly upon its gleaming side!  Down! down! rebellious soul, not thus must thou remembered be —  Not thus a world must ages hence be taught to think of me —  Not thus would I be carried on by Time’s resistless flood;  I would not be remembered with the great, but with the good —  If in my heart one virtue live, one pure and holy thought,  If in my character one high and noble trait be wrought,  If in my life one act be found from earthly blemish free,  If one bright impulse point to Heaven, by that remember me!C. E. T.