Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-06-06
MECHANISM VS.. BRAINS.
Substitutes Found and Patented Many
Times Each Year.

From the corn miller's little bell that
sets I'D fussy tinkling the moment the
hopper runs empty, up to the calculating
machines that are now to be found In banks
and insurance offices, clearing houses and
observatories, there are SO many mechan-
ical substitutes for brain workers that 1t is
difficult at times to realize that it is. after
all, only mechanism and not intelligence
that is being evolved" said an employe at
the patent office to a Star reporter today.
Some of the touches of what, for con-
yenience we may call mechanical intelli-
gence to be met with in various odd corners
of the industrial and commercial world are
really quite amusing, and they have their
nrototype in shat little bell Of the old wind
mill.
screw factory, different applicatlon OF that
device. The machinery takes hold or a
rod of metal pulls 1t rapidly along, gives
the end of 1t the general shape OF screw,
cuts the thread round 1t and the slot in the
head. and then ships on perIecI screw.
"If YOU watch the thing actually making
the screws the idea strikes you that 1t Is
really a piece of mechanism; but when
the machine comes to the emu Oh lts ma
terial and gives sharp ampatent ring oi
the bell for the attendant to bring more.
YOU carnot help laughing and you would
scarcely be surprised If, when the man
came with another rod, the busy screw
maker gave him sharp reprimano LOT
inatteutfon and dilatoriness. In these days
of monographs. of course. it would be
quite practical to make it do so.
1.-THE machine by which railway tickets
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 afterward cut up. The cardboard Is cut
into tickets first and they are printed one
,~rha little blank cards are put in a pile
in a kind of perpendicular spout, and the
machine slips bit of metal underneath the
bottom Of the spout and pushes out the
lowest ticket In the pile to be printed and
consecutively numbered.
''It Is of no use trying to print a bad
ticket. The machine finds out an imperfect
blank in an instant and fatty refuses to
have anything to do with 1t.
These are simple instances of good
imita ton of watchfulness and dfscrimina-
ton; indeed, the latter looks almost like
conscientious care They afford a drOll
suggestion of the trained intelligence of the
learned pig OF the performing dog; and we
may find various degrees of the same. At
the United States mint they have weighing
machines for coins to which 1t Is difficult
to deny a very acute intelligence. The mint
apparatus Is more remarkable of the two.
1.-THE new coins at the mints, however,
are sometimes a trifie 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 del
icate business is done with unerring pre-
cision by long row of wonderfully clever
little machines.
Into these machines single piles of shin
ing new coins are put, and quite auto
matically 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 it. If the coin Is
light the machine shoots 1t into it's proper
receptacle; If heavy into another and if 1t
is of correct weight with a margin as
they call 1T, 1t is pushed into third re-
ceptacle."