The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-05-17
TREMENDOUS PRESSURE.
a Machine on the Hydraulic Principle.
but Using OIL Instead Of Water.


but Using OIL Instead of Water.
The reporter went the other day to
see wonderful machine, a machine
which is not only prodigious and ter
rible piece OF enginery, but an allegUry.
IL IL called testing machine, and it is
used to ascertain the resisting power of
various materials. Ii is not content
with finding out that beam of oak, for
instance, will bear without breaking
pressure on one spot of 100. 900 pounds.
The beam must be utterly crushed each
time the test is made, and note must be
taken OF tho exact weight that lay upon
IL at the moment of its final dissolution.
Day after day this great machine heaves
and strains itself and bears down with
slow and awful force upon some tough
beam or block of wood, and whether the
timber is placed fiatwise and needs, say,
but paltry rs tons TO crush it, or
whether i5 DO placed endwiso, like "a
pillar, and viii hold up twice as much
weight before it cries out and gives up
the ghost, it must yield just the same
and surrender it's pitiful, crushed frame
TO he photographed and studied and
picked to pieces for the benefit of sci.
ence. That is all very interesting, you
may say, but it is mere piece of brute
machinery. Where is the allegory that
you told us of? That lies in the thing
by the force Of which this monstrous
pressure is exerted. 1t is OIL Nothing
but suave, gentle, yielding oil. the en-
blem OF softness and agreeableness.
There is a certain piston in this
mechanism which, pressing against a
quantity of oil in confined space, forces
this oil against another iron surface,
which in turn presses forward upon the
timber so that all this crushing power is
exerted by the medium of nothing but
OIL AS you watch the machine. even in
the most exciting moment of the culmi-
nation OF its crushing force, you can
not but be conscious that it is the oil
that is doing it. The master stands over
his great machine, his pupils grouped
about. 1t lies down fat on its great
back, like giant bracing his shoulder
against rock to push with his feet.
The thing which he is pushing against
is beam of seasoned Oak, about 10
inches square, and the thing with which
he is pushing is another and lengthwise
square beam of oak, the end of which is
directly against the side of the beam to
be crushed. Off at one side, apparently
unconnected with the machine, but in
reality connected with it, is an appara-
tus where there are levers, comparable
with the throttle valve of locomotive,
and gauge which registers accurately
the pressure that is being exerted. A
young learner stands at these levers and
| this gauge, and when the master says,
Turn Oh moro oil, he moves a lever,
and the pressure rises. Seventy thou
sand pounds, $4,000 pounds, it rises
rapidly. The lengthwise beam is sink
ing itself deep into the side of the VIC
| tim timber, but this still holds out
bravely. The pressure rises to 80, 600
| 100, 900 pounds. The watchers all gather
around the center of the pressure in an
| ticipation of the catastrophe; the length
wise timber is squeezing into the solid
oak of the other one as ones thumb
might be driven into piece of cheese.
But still it holds. Little by little the
power is turned OH. The young man at
| the gauge calls "120, 000, "130, 600, "
$40, 900, " "150, 000." You hear the
swapping of myriad Of tendons within
| the beam, and all these sounds join in a
| sort of low buzzing roar or cry, which
| suggests an elemental agony. One hun
| dred and sixty thousand pounds--the
beam sinks deeper into the flesh OF Its
| victim; 10, 000 "More oilp' calls TIC
master, and now the crackle rises-the
| lengthwisc beam itself begins to crack,
| and the other beam, yielding at last,
seems to go to pieces all at once. and
| when the pressure is removed it is taken
out twisted, contorted, riven, pierced,
| crushed.
1t is useful service, after oil, though
| it seems but an exhibition Of the brutal
| ity of mere mechanism, that the testing
| machine and its bed of oil have done,
| for since the master began tho work
with it he has proved that timbers vii
stand only about half tho weight whic.
the accepted authorities said they would
stand, and by introducing a moro con
sentative weighting of wood he has
| doubtless saved many human lives from
destruction by the collapse OF timberet
structures. Boston Transcript.
L