The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-08-26
BRAIN WORKERS
AND MACHINERY

merely muscular industry will be su-
perseded by machinery. And one at
all familiar with what is being done
by mechanism must also be aware
that a great deal of mental industry
is being superseded and therefore it
may be thought that in the intellect
ual field mechanical inventions are
likely to go as far as in the muscular
That, of course is a mistake There
is no exercise of muscular energy
which cannot be more or less sue
cessfully initiated by mechanism; but
the brain work which may be taken
over by machinery is restricted with
in narrow limits that can by no pos
sibility be overstepped
Those limits, though they are very
real, are not always very obvious,
and to the casual observer it must
sometimes appear that a kind of me-
chanical intelligence is being evolved.
From the miller's little bell, that sets
up a fussy tinkling the moment the
hopper runs empty, up to the calcu-
lating machines that are now to be
found in banks and insurance offices,
clearing houses and observatories,
there are so many mechanical substi-
tutes for brain workers that it is Diff
cult at times to realize that It is, after
; all, only mechanism and not intelli-
gence that is being evolved.
. Some of the touches of what, for
/, convenience, we may call mechanical
intelligence, to be met with in va
> rious odd corners of the industrial
. and commercial world are really
quite amusing, and they have their
prototype in that little bell of the old
windmill.
The screw-Making Machins.
> There is, for instance, to be seen in
! any screw factory a different appli-
cation of that device. The machinery
takes hold of a rod of metal, pulls
It rapidly along, giving the end of it
j, the general shape of screw, cuts
:, the thread upon it and the slot in the
;. head, and then ships off a perfect
screw. II you watch the thing ac
! tually making the screws, the idea
:, strikes you that it is merely piece
of mechanism, but when the machine
comes to the end of it's material and
gives a sharp, impatient ring of bel
. for the attendant to bring more, you
experience an uncanny feeling that
the thing is human.
The machine by which railway
tickets are printed gives an exhibition
= of intelligence, or what looks very
y 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 anC
printed one by one afterward. Tit
~, little blank cards are put in pile il
- kind of perpendicular spout, and tn
;, machine slips a bit of metal under
meath the bottom of the spout anC
pushes out the lowest ticket in thu
pile to be printed and consecutivel
- numbered.
It is of no use trying to print
bad ticket. The machine finds out al
" imperfect blank in an instant an
u fatty refuses to have anything to d
AZ of the bits of card and put it into tn
u spout with the others in order L
Us see what will happen, and it refuse
III to bulge again until somebody come
Is no Inn Dull on
IN the damaged ticket and the mecf
AT anism will set briskly to work AGAR
We Higher Intelligence.
Oh However, there are far highe
ly flights of mechanical intelligence tina
H. this. The work of hundreds an
thousands of clerks has within tn
es last few years been taken owe
H. by small machines very much Xix
typewriters in appearance, by whic
columns of money in small or larg
81 items are instantly added up wit
ID none of the risk of error which evel
ay the most practiced accountants al
liable to make. There are, we wi
NJ suppose, a hundred checks to h
added. They are handed to the ope
on ator of an adding machine, by whom
rs the various amounts are registered o
'al a roll of paper by the manipulation
at keys, as in the case of the typewrite
ed and when the whole hundred check
have been printed a lever is pulle
and the sum total is shown instantl
in Among the greatest feats performe
I'd nv the cleyerest of bank clerks in N
old days was the running up Of co
of umn Of money by a single process
ne that Is, taking in columns of dollar
zee ana cents at the same time The ad
Continued on page 2l)