The Fairmont West Virginian. (Fairmont, W. Va.) 1904-1914, 1904-07-18
soNDERFtj l VAC HINES.

some Tn ut s<4ez,i to Re Presty Near
III theSsTI.fnlsins stage.
| S..F'ron the Scorn InilieT's bell that sets
up fussy linking the moment the
hopper runs empty up to the calculat-
ing machines that ARE nov to be found
IN banks and insurance offices, clearing
many mechanical substitutes for brain
workers that it is difficult Ct times
TO rea..::c IL It &, .::e2-:. 60, only
nee. tZl ret Intelligence that is
being evolved said an employee at the
patent office to a Star reporter.
E Some Of the touches of that, for
convenience, we may call mechanical
intelligence to be met with in various
odd corners of the Industrial and COM
nlercal 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
1iryT screw factory Il different angiicl-
ton Of thGt device. TIC ..ss,c<..:csc-y
tc,-es hold Of 2 rcd Of II Il. pulls it
rapidly along. gives the end of it the
general shape of a screw, cuts the
thread round it and the slot in the head
and then ships off a perfect screw.
If yoc watch tie thing actually
you that it is really piece of nechan-
ssn. but when the machine comes to
the end of its material and gives s
sharp. impatient ring of the bell for
the attendant to bring more you can
not help laughing and would scarcely
be surprised if, when the man came
with another rod, the busy screw
maker gave him sharp reprinand, for
inattention 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
cts are printed gives another amusing
little show of intelligence or what looks
to be very like it. Railway tickets are
not, as might be supposed, printed IN
large sheets and aftervard cut up. The
cardboard is cut into tickets first, and
they are printed one by one afterward.
1.-THE little blank cards are put in a
pile in Il 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 consecu tIvely
numbered.
1T is of no use trying to print q bad
ticket. The machine linda out an i'm
perfect blank in an instant, and fatty
refuses to have anything to do with |
it.
''These are simple instances Of q |
good imitation Of watch fulness and dis
crimina tion-indeed, the latter looks al
most like conscientious care. They af-
ford a drol suggestion of the trained
of the learned pig or the
performing dog, and we may find vazi-
Gus degrees of the same. At the United
States mint they have weighing ma
chimes for coins, to which it is difficult
to deny a very acute intelligence. The
mint apparatus is more remarkable Of
the two.
The new coins at the nSats, how
ever, are sometimes Il trihe over
weight while sometimes, of course,
they are under, so it is necessary 30
sort them out in three catesoz4es-lEht,
heavy and good. This delicate bust
ness is done with unerrinS precision
by Il long row Of wonderfully clever
little machines.
Into these machines single plies OF
new coins are put, and quite
the mechanism takes
each coin, puts it into the scale and in
fraction over two secondS-at the ra te
If twenty-five a minute-weiShs it. If
he coin is light, the machine shoots
t into its proper receptacle; if heavy.
INTO another. and If 1t is of correct
weight or with a margin, as they call
t, it is pushed into third receptacle"
Star.