The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-14
TREMENDOUS PRESSURE.
. Machine on the Hydraulic Principle,
put Using Oil Instead Of Water.


FROM the Boston Transcript.
~ listener went the other day 70 see
-.--fsrful machine. a machine which
-s- 7rry a prodigious and terrible piece
+. z--frsry. but an allegory. II IS
rss q testing machine, and it is used
..s..s.-ain the resisting power Of vari-
materials. II is not content with
.-s,-e out that a beam Of oak. for in
s win bear without breaking a
rs on one spot Of hundred and
--gusand pounds, the beam must
.r---.r crushed each time the test is
5. and nore must be taken of the eX-
weight that lay upon IL at the mo-
~- ~ it's final dissolution. Day after
mis- great machine heaves and
---- itself. and bears down with slow
81 awful force upon some tough beam
-..-jz of wood; and whether the timber
-rs.-5 fatwise and needs, say, but
-~. saventy-fve tons TO crush it. or
-s-rar il IS placed eudwise, like q pill
ami win hold up twice as much
y,rt before it cries out and gives up
49, Ghost it must yield just the same
End surrender its pitiful, crushed frame
. n- photographed and studied and
..-l-af ~ pieces for the benefit Of science.
~t.- IS an very interesting. you may say.
f..tf is a mere piece Of brute machinery,
where is the allegory that You told us OF
rta- las IN the thing by the force of
a..a III u0nstrOus pressure is eXerted.
* o.I. nothing but suave, gentle, yield
n1 the emblem of sofJness and
agree 4dleness.
r-.-e IS certain piston I'm this mech
.r-m which. pressing against q guam
f..,. IL oil iu q confined space, forces this
I'D AGAINST another iron surface, which
r --r- presses forward upon the timber.
- -r.t all Jhis--crushins power is eN-
.--as br the medium of nothing but oil.
YOU watch the machine, even in the
most exciting moment of the elimination
81 rs crushing force. you cannot but be
..rs..9us that IL is the oil that is doing
The master stands over his great
h.ue his pupils grouped about.
i Hes down fiat on its great back, like
eanr brar.ng his shoulders against a
r. g. TO push with his feet. The thing
v.eh hc is pushing against is a beam
If seasoned oak. about ten inches square,
md she thing with which he is pushing
another and lenEthwise square beam
IF oak. the end of which is directly
against the side of the beam to be
crushed or at one side, apparently UNI
concerted with the machine, but i'm re-
Airy connecting with it, is an apparatus
where there are levers, comparable TO
ra throttle valve of a locomotive, and
gauge which registers accurately the
pressure that is being eXerted. A young
learner stands at these levers and this
c.r-e. and when the master says,
.rlu on more OIL" he moves a lever,
and the pressure rises. Seventy thou
sand pounds eighty thousand pounds, it
rsae rapidly The lengthwise beam is
sinking itself deep into the side Of the
v--m timber but this st.n holds out
travaiv The pressure rises to ninety
taousanl-a hundred thousand. The
watchers al gather around the center Of
The pressure In anticipation of the ca
-as.r01ha: the lengthwse timber is
squeezing INTO the solid oak Of the other
ona as one thumb might be driven into
piece Of Dhease.
But sun 30 holds. Little by little the
4 power is turned on. The young man at
s f1e gauge calls "l20.000,' 13JW0.' no.
4 Co.," $4,000 you hear the swapping OF
a myriad of tendons within the beam,
and al these sounds join in sort of low
hlzzng roar or cry, which suggests an
elemental agony One hundred and
Xfv thousand pounds-the beam sinks
'ssnsr into the flesh of its Victim--oue
B hundred and seventy thousand-"More
OLE. calls the master; and now the
era sla rises-the leugthwise beam
Itself begins to crack, and the other
4 ifam Yielding at last seems to go TO
iaoes all at once; and when the pres
SURF is removed it is taken out. twisted,
3 con,orted, rlven, pierced. crushed.
1 IS useful service, after all, though
4 seems hut an exhibition of the bru-
taA-E af mere mechanism. that the test
a ing machine and its bed Of oil have done;
for since the master began the work
F. no. if,1h .Tsa will
and only about half the weight which
The accepted authorities said they would
and; and 10y introducing a moro con-
rfatvo weighing of wood he has
doubtless saved many human lives from
destruction by the collapse of timbered
structures