The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, ocroBER 6,186 a

LITERATURE,

Treatise on Mills and Millwork. Part 11. By
William Fairbairn, Esq., C.E., LL.D., F.R.S.,
F.G.S., Sca- One Vol., pp. 284. Longman
and Co.
In the World's History, we may rest assured,
this last past half century will be ever borne in
remembrance as emphatically Ths Age of Engi-
neering. Within its limits how much has been
accomplished by the agency of this wonderful
science,many topographical and, even, it
might
b h
said without much extravagance, geogra-
phicalte dreanoiswformations, have been effected--is now
clearly visible far and wide over the earths surface.
The world-famous offer submitted for his accept-
ance to Alexander the Great, by the daring
adulation of the sculptor who dreamt of carving
Mount Athos into a Colossal Effigy of the Young
Conqueror, holding in the palm of one hand a
populous city, and under the palm of the other
an urn, from the mouth of which a river should
flow into the waters of the lEgoaan—lass been
immeasurably surpassed by, what may be called,
so to speak, the every-day marvels effected by
Modern Engineering. The obedient Geni
of the Arabian Tales has been literally
realised in a substantial shape by the wor.drous
fabrication of the Steam Engine. The Fiery Dragon
of the Fairy Tales again we have had actually
chained to our own cars in the palpable form of our
Locomotive. The network of iron, with which so
large a part of the habitable globe is already covered,
enables us, whensoever we list and whitherseever
we please, to travel as smoothly and as swiftly as
the Persian seated on the magical square of carpet
talked of by the Princess Scheherazade. Only that,
in lieu of having to discover the square of carpet
to sit upon, we have but to purcnase for a few
coins a tiny square of pasteboard to hold betwixt
finger and thumb. Thanks to our modern engineer-
ing, not only are the seas, and oceans, and ocean,
channels crossed to and fro continually, in despite of
opposing winds and adverse tides, while the earth's
surface is being traversed in the same astonishing
manner, only with far greater speed, and with un-
erring punctuality—but the rivers are spanned in
all directions, at almost any width or altitude ; the
solid hills are pierced with tunnels; in one instance
close at hand a double passage has been tunnelled
with perfect success under a sandy river-bed ; and
by the ingenious application of steam power to
the accomplishment of almost every one of our
manufactures, the labour of the human hand
is being every day more and more effectually
superseded by the far more delicate, rapid, and un-
erring labour of complicated pieces of mechanism,
fabricated, it is true, by that same wonder-
working hand ! Almost the last of the Great En-
gineers by whose varied genius these marvellous
changes have been brought about, almost the last
of the Great Engineers of this Great Age par excel-
lence of Engineering
is the author of the book here
submitted to our consideration. Professor Fair-
bairn's name will
go down to after times together
with the names of the noblest of his illustrious en=
gineering brother-workers, his co-operators and con-
temporaries. William Fairbairn has made good,
long since, his claim to be regarded as one having
a fair share in the merit of one of the most remark-
able masterpieces of Robert Stephenson, the tubular
bridge at the Menai Straits. As one of the recog-
nised Nesters of Physical Science, he has presided in
duo turn, and it will long be remembered with con-
spicuous ability, over the annual proceedings of the
British Association. As the clasps and medals, upon
the breast of a Warrior tell of the perilous feats by
flood and field through which he has passed, so does
the long string of symbolical initials appended to
the name of William Fairbairn, tell quite as plainly,
quite as significantly, of the good work done
by him as a master of engineering. Besides
those emblematic letters given above, at the
heading of this notice, as being selected
from the very pick of these initials, it
should bo here remarked as well, that, in addition
to many other honorary titles conferred upon him
by various learned bodies, and by various foreign
nations, Professor Fairbairn is a Corresponding
Member of the National Institute of France, and of
the Royal Academy of Turin. And though without
any star, or medal, or clasp, or ribbon as an Eng-
lishman, he wears the cross and the red silk at his
button-hole as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
It is so far fortunate, however, that this distin-
guished veteran of the bloodless battle-ground of
the science of Engineering, covered with these
honours, and justified to the full, though he would
have been in resting henceforth upon his well won
laurels, has, nevertheless, tolled as assiduously in
the collecting together of the materials of which
this remarkable Treatise is composed—a treatise
embodying so much of the fruits of his enlarged
observation and practical experience ! A work that
William Fairbairn, and William Fairbairn alone,
was in any way qualified to have written.
He himself tells us in his Preface—" My
professional career commenced just at a time when
the manufacturing industry of the country was re-
severing from the effects of a long and disastrous
war, and I was enabled, from this circumstance, to
grow up with and follow out consecutively nearly
the whole of the discoveries, improvements, and
changes that have since taken place in mechanical
science. These discoveries have been numerous and
invaluable in contributing to the development
of our industrial resources, the diffusion of
knowledge, and the extension of trade and
commerce throughout the globe. It will not
be necessary to repeat what steam, gas, and
electric telegraphs have effected both on sea
and land in the same time, and bow much we are
indebted to these agencies for the abundant com-
forts, luxuries, and enjoyments which we now
possess, as compared with the age in which our
fathers lived. It will be found on inquiry that in mills,
where these agencies are employed, and where the
manufacture of cotton, silk, flax, and wool are car-
ried on, are some of the elements to which we are
indebted for the numerous advantages which enter
into the improved state of oar social existence.
It, is to mills then, peculiarly and especially,
the learned author has here directed his attention
—and by necessity, of course, his reader's. Part
One of this Treatise, already published some time
since by the Messrs. Longman, embodied within it's
a carefully compacted, and yet at times a very de-
tailed, record of Professor Fairbairnthat
experiences,
for close upon half a century, as a mill-architect, as
a mill-wright, and as a
mechanical engineer. Part
Two `° follows suit"
by giving a minute and care-
fully exact description of the mills themselves, of
the millwork accomplished in them, and, generally
speaking, of the intricate and complicated arrange-
out of various of
our leading manufactures.
ments incidental to the carrying
The Machinery of Trans-
mission, above
all, is described in this volume
as only a master of his subject and
one so largely skilled by practice as a mechanical
engineer could well describe it. Tue Grander
Treatise, in fact, of which this comprehensive
in this portion of it, a
variety of minor treatises,
volume is part, gives us,
each complete in itself.
Treatises on Wheels, on Shafts, on Couplings—on
the Engaging and Disengaging of Gear—on Mill
Acchitecture.
Separate sections or chapters, more-
over, being
here devoted respectively to all the
numerous kinds of mills now working, in more or
less abundance, in different parts of the country—
corn mills, silk mills, flax mills, cotton mills, woollen
mills, oil mills, paper mills, and powder mills. The
whole work, or rather Part .11e of this highly
elaborated Treatise upon
supplemented with a brief but admirably succinct
account of—The Manufacture
of Iron. That
solitary addition itself
• might be particularised as
Mills and Millwork being
a masterpiece of well co
tion separately in the
form of a popular handbook.
lea
information, worthy of publ
The whole work, mpressed and invaluable
how-
ever, is, in its way, invaluable--above
engineers,
all, to the busy
and intelligent world of our mechanical
both young and old. All kinds of information they
can obtain here at pleasure in regard to everything
about 'wheels, toothed wheels of all kinds, mortise
wheels, spur wheels, the
and diameter of
wheels, the teeth of the toothed wheels, whether in-
volute, epicyeloidal or bypocycloidal, whether bevel
led or wormed—upon all the diversities of couplings,
the disc coupling, the circular
the claw coupling, pitch
half-lap coupling., And eo forth—about hammers,