The Osceola times., 1884-10-04
CANCELLED THE CONTRACT.
A Government Contractor Caught
Cincinnati Weekly Times.

Cincinnati Weekly Times.
A curious little machine in the office
Of the Chief of the Stamp Bureau of the
Post Office Department, Washington,
is the cause of the cancellation of the
contract of the New England firm with
Government for furnishing envelopes
to the Post Office Department. 1t is a
queer-looking contrivance, a cross be-
tween a set of butchers scales and or
dinary grocers' scales. or rather COM
bination of the two.
There is large dial, like the face Of
the clock, with little hand which flies
around the face pointing to the figures
at the side, which are arranged like the
figures on the clock face, with little dots
bet ween.
"You see these dots 2" said gentle
man in charge, inquiringly. "Well, the
space between those indicate one six.
teen-lhousandth of an inch. Getting it
down pretty fine, isn't ii? You see this
movable piece of iron here which comes
down with smooth surface on to this
other solid surface. Well. the raising
or lowering of that moves the pointer
which runs round the dial. To test the
thickness of sheet of paper We simply
place it between this movable piece
and the solid surface below, and when
the movable piece of iron comes down
on to the paper the hand registers the
thickness of the paper.
Delicate instrument? Well, ! should
think so. Just give me hair from your
head, will you?" he said to your cores
pondent.
He took a hair and slipped it deity
between the twoplates. The hand on the
dial followed the motions of the screw
until il stopped at the figures twenty.
Just twenty sixteen-thousandths of
an inch in diameter" he said. "Now
let me try hair from your mustache.
They are generally much larger, espec-
tally if you have not been in the habit
of shaving"
He took up a pair of scissors, and,
clipping off a hair from the mustacbe.
he placed it in position. Tne hand
stopped at 80.
Fifty sixteen-thousandths of an inch
thick" he said THAT shows the effect
| of shaving. | measured hair from the
head of gentleman, few minutes ago,
which was forty sixteen thousands thick,
but those in his mrstache were precisely
the same thickness, the reason being
that he had never shaved. Yes, that is
the machine that proved that the firm
making our envelopes was not fulfilling
its contract, !" he said, as he fell back ad-
miringly. "By this dial we can see Just
the thickness; by this lever, which is
very much like a pair of grocer's scales,
we can tell just what pressure the paper
will stand.
You see we have two other movable
pieces of iron here. with hole entirely
through both, and plunger which pass
es through that hole. We'll, we put the
paper between these pieces, which, when
they are pressed tightly together by this
lever, hold it firmly. The plunger,
which, passes through the opening in the
two pieces of IRON, encounters this paper
thus firmly held, which determines the
strength OF the paper. To know what
the pressure is We have the plunger at
tached to scale lever with a weight at
tached, like an ordinary pair Of scales,
and by moving this weight along the
lever until the paper breaks, of course
we can see just what the weight is that
made it break. See. Very simple after
you understand it. Well, that is what
the paper makers thought, after they
had lost an $4,000 contract by it. 1t
was a new thing to them, but they ac-
knowledeed that they were eaten when
they saw it,"
This delicate instrument, only recent.
ly invented, is companion piece to the
scales in the Assayer's Office of the
Treasury, by which the weight of hair
| is accurately tested