Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1893-05-30
AINE. TUESDAY MORNING. MAY 80. 1898.

tral. you will be surprised to learn thers
is device here which does away with the
need for it and takes from the comely girls
their somewhat trying occupation. It Is
an automatic telephone exchange, by
means Of which No. IL may connect him
self with No. ~ or any other number in
the exchange without the intervention Of
any hand but his own. How this is done
Is more than can understand
Wherever there is action there you will
see the people thickest. In the Woman's 5
building the Welsh girl from Swansea,
who bares her ruddy arm and perspires
under her chimney pot hat while manipu-
lating the oid-fashioned loom, never lacks
admirers. Nor does the Scotch woman
near by who makes an old spinning wheel
hum in the style which many OF us may
remember going to sleep by in the days Of
our youth. In the great transportation
department the locomotive which is set up
an inch or SO from the track and with
steam iuits cylinders has its wheels kept
in rapid motion, attracts more attention
than any other locomotive in the exhibit,
though in itself it is q rather commonplace
machine. Machinery hall draws greater
crowds than any other building. because
its exhibits are endowed with the charm
Of motion. The simplest steam engine
weaves a spell with its rapidly revolving
wheel, and the whirring dynamos fasci-
nate and mystify. Not many Of US are 50
far removed from boyhood that we are not
pleased to ''see the wheels go round"
In the greatest building that ever was,
the Hall of Manufactures, the exhibit
which has more visitors than any other is
display Of matchmaking machinery
Lucky indeed you will be If you get nesr
enough TO it to see the marvellous con-
triyances doing their work. By waiting
ten minutes for an opening in the throng
you may get within view Of the amazing
construction Of steel which acts more like
a human being gifted with infallibility of
precision of touch than like piece of ma
chinery. A long steel finger picks up \
piece of wire, passes it to another part Of
the machine, watches to sec when II has
been pared down enough to assume the
form of screw, then picks 1t up again
and passes it along to a device which cuts
and fiattens the head Of the screw; and
when this is done lifts it once more and
places it within a lathe which produces
the thread, and in this way escorts the lit
tie piece of metal from process to process
so that in the end what started In wire
has come out u delicately fashioned and
perfectly finished, though very minute,
screw for use in a watch. Another Of
these marvellous machines registers as a
thermometer registers heat and cold or
steam guage the pressure OF steam in a
boiler, the strength of the hair spring and
indicates unerringly the size and style OF
balance that will be required to keep it
in proper bounds.
The Swiss show in this building many
Of their finest watches in part made by
machinery Previous to the Centennial
exposition of 1876 they did not use any ma
chinery whatever in the manufacture of
their watches. The showing made by
ingenious Yankees at that Worlds fair
convinced the shrewd Swiss that if they
were to keep up with the procession and
have fair chance in the race for the
worlds market they would have to adopt
machinery, too. Year after year they in
troduce more and more automatic devices
to help them in the construction Of their
marvellous watches. What is going on in
this one field is going on everywhere. The
exposition is u show-placs Of the nations,
and one people learn from another now to
DO just q little better many of the things
which are their reliance in the industrial
struggle. 1t would be almost impossible
to over-estimate the importance of the fair
as an aid to the development Of processes
which will make the good things Of life
better and cheaper and therefore within
the reach Of q greater number Of people.
ROBERT GRAvEa