The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-10-08
MACHINERY,A AND THE
DECREASE OFLAROR.

ever, that $50 900 boilers are in use in
the United Kingdom providing pow
er for industrial establishments, and it
is but measure of the possibilities of
the future to say that, owing to i'm
perfect combustion of fuel in these,
nearly ,000, 900 tons of coal are vast
ed every year in that smoke which.
while proclaiming the glory of manu-
facturers, greatly Injuries health. What
a magnificent idea it would be to cele-
brate this Queens year by saving this
coal and many weak lungs! The util-
ization of this It am power is almost
without limit in it's variety and posi-
bilities. Nature and the human anat-
omy have afforded many examples
the universal joint of the armpit, the
reciprocal action of elbow and knee !;
but there is no need to elaborate
every movement and joint is repro
duced in mechanics. 1t would be i'm
possible in the necessary limits of a
magazine article even to indicate the
methods results of themselves are
significant enough. Even here it must
be remember that that we are only at
the beginning of a new development,
for the "fudity" of electricity-the
ease with which it may be distributed,
suggests higher economp, especially
for portable machines. Thus an cleo
trio drill for boring holes in steel
plates has reduced the cost of given
amount of work from los. to 3s, and
even at that does the work of six men
ill 4 given time.
In making steel rails or plates five
men now do the work formerly requir-
ing seventeen. The wages of the
twelve are saved, for the plant soon
pays itself. Nail production has in
creased twenty fold. Each worker
makes two tons of steel rivets in day
at about one-fifth the cost of twenty
years ago. The Staffordshire potter
will make 4SO pieces of dinner plate in
dav, double that of Il few years ago,
or 80 slop jars instead of II, or $500
of the homely jugs instead Of 400, so
that an addition Of fifty per cent. to
the wage and re luction of the price
of the finished product are easily un-
derstood. Take the more familiar pin
even the pointing of is not too in
significant for mechanical genius.
Adam Smith regarded the making of
$4,000 per day by ten men as tri-
umph; now 100000 are made per
worker per day-the man starts the
machinery, it does the rest. The price
is almost too smell for the picking up
of Il lost pin to suggest thrift but
what of the old superstition that it is
unlucky to pass pin? Then there is
the pins cousin, the needle. Sixteen
machines are used to make a sewing
machine needle, but they produce 500,-
600 per week. The sewing machine
itself is the product Of nearly 200 ma
chine tools. Again, in the making Of
ho # 2 ri
ent machine operations, and in the
making "a balance wheel of a watch
weighing only I grains there are 80
separate machines. One of the ma
chimes makes each day 1900 wheels,
having 96, 900 teeth; another l 200
screws so fine that 100000 weigh only
pound. In fact the screw is made in
much less time than man would pick
up the material to make it. In each
case man, boy or girl is only needed
to act the part of policeman to the
machinery.
Art even has been mimicked; the
printers machinery has helped to i'm
prove placards, and wood carving ma
chimes are now largely utilized. A
model is necessary at first; but after
that presentible medallions, say of
Shakespeare, may be made in oak in
an hour and half, while by hand even
a mercenary artist would take sixty
hours. TO satisfy artistic taste, how
ever, the machine work is usually sup
plemented by eight or nine hours re-
touching; but withal there is gain,
and thus in our ships and the like one
finds in unexpected places clusters of
grapes or flowers, or figure studies
which please the eye AMI yet are mex
pensive. This also suggests the good
progress made in wood working plant.
A 30 foot plank may be beautifully
planed in one and half minute, while
in the long ago men would slave for
eight hours and yet not work so accu-
rately to gauge. OF course all this
means that fewer men are needed.
With modern machinery man may
do in three hours the work which oc-
cupied his fathers ten or twelve hours,
and that too without the same physi-
cal eNcrtion. Competition has neces
STATED the tools; but the capital in
vested in them has failed to reap the
same reward. Three per cent. is often
cr the rate returned than the seven to
fifteen per cent, of the long ago. On
the other hand, wages have gone up.
They are quite forty per cent. higher
than sixty years ago; hut this does