The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1904-08-26
MECHANISM vs.. BRAINS.
Substitutes Found and Patented Many
Times Each Year,

nNpSS saSn
From the corn millers little bell.
that sets up a fussy tinklins the mo-
ment the hopper uns empty. up to
the calculating machines that are now
to be found in banks and insurance Of
fees, clearing houses and o~bservatories.
there are so many mechanical substi-
tutes for brain workers that 1t Is DIM
cult at times to realize that 1t is. after
all, only mechanism and not intelli-
gence that is being evolved" said an
employe at the patent Office the other
day to a reporter.
Some of the touches OF what, for
convenience, we may call mechanical
odd of the industrial and COM
mercial world. are really quite amusing,
and they have their prototype in that
little bell of the old windmill.
There is, for instance, to be seen in
any screw factory, a different applica-
takes hold of a rod of metal, pulls it
rapidly along. gives the end Of It the
general shape Of u screw. cuts the
thread round 1T and the slot in the
head, M then ships off a perfect
screw.
If you watch the thing actually
making the screws, the idea strikes you
but when the machine comes to the
end Of its material and gives a sharp.
impatient ring of the bell, for the at
tendant to bring more, you cannot help
laughing, and o would scarcely be
surprised IL. when the man came with
another rod, the busy screw maker
gave him a sharp reprimand for mat
tention and dilatoriness. In these days
OF monographs, Of course. It would be
quite practical to make it do so.
The machine by which railway tick
est are printed, gives another amusing
show OF intelligence or what looks to
be very like II. Railway tickets are not
as might be supposed, printed In large
sheets and afterwards cut up. The
cardboard is cut into tickets first. and
they are printed one by one, afterward.
THE little blank cards are put in a
pile in a kind OF perpendicular spout,
and the machine slips a bit Of metal
underneath the bottom of the spout
and pushes out the lowest ticket in the
pile to be printed and c~onsecutively
numbered.
IT is Of no use trying to print a bad
ticket The machine finds out an inn
perfect blank in an instant, and fatty
refuses to have anything to do with it.
These axe simple Instances of a
good imitation of watchfulness and
discrimination; indeed, the latter looks
almost like conscientious care. They
afford a droll suggestion Of the trained
intelligence of the learned pig or the
performing dog; and we may find var
pus degrees of he's same. At the Uni
ted States mint they have Weighing
machines for coins to which 1t Is diff
suit to deny a very cut intelligence.
The mint apparatus is more remark
able Of the two.
THE new coins at the ,nints, how
ever, are sometimes. trif1e over weight,
| while sometimes, Of course, they are
under, SO it Is necessary to sort them
out In three categories-light, heavy
and good. This delicate business is
done with unerring precision by a long
row of wonderfully clever little ma
| chimes.
Into these machines, single piles of
shining new coins are put, and quite
automatically the mechanism takes
each coin, puts 1t into the scale and in
a fraction over two seconds-at the
rate of twenty-five a minute weighs
1t. II the coin is light, the machine
shoots 1t into its proper receptacle; If
heavy in another, and II it is of cor
rect weight, or with a margin, as they
call 1t, 1t Is pushed into a third recep-
tacle."