Part 34

This is employed in all dynamical engineering. It covers the designs of prime motors of all sorts, steam, gas, and gasoline reciprocating engines; also steam and water turbines, wind-mills, and wave-motors.

It comprises all means of transmitting power, as by shafting, ropes, pneumatic pressure, and compressed air, all of which seem likely to be superseded by electricity.

It covers the construction of machine tools and machinery of all kinds. It enters into all the processes of structural, hydraulic, electrical, and industrial engineering. The special improvements are: The almost universal use of rotary motion, and of the reduplication of parts.

The steam-engine is a machine of reciprocating, converted into rotary, motion by the crank. The progress of mechanical engineering during the nineteenth century is measured by the improvements of the steam-engine, principally in the direction of saving fuel, by the invention of internal combustion or gas-engines, the application of electrical transmission, and, latest, the practical development of steam turbines by Parsons, Westinghouse, Delaval, Curtis, and others. In these a jet of steam impinges upon buckets set upon the circumference of a wheel. It was clearly indicated by the Italian engineer Bronca, in 1629, but he was too early. The time was not ripe, and there were then no machine tools giving the perfection of workmanship required.

Their advantages are that their motion is rotary and not reciprocal. They can develop speed of from 5000 to 30,000 revolutions per minute, while the highest ever attained by a reciprocating engine is not over 1000. Their thermodynamic losses are less, hence they consume less steam and less fuel.

It is a very interesting fact that the basic invention upon which not only steam turbines and electric dynamos, but, indeed, all other parts of mechanical engineering, depend, is of such remote antiquity that we know nothing of its origin. This is the wheel which Gladstone said was the greatest of man’s mechanical inventions, as there is nothing in nature to suggest it.

Duplication of parts has lowered the cost of all products. Clothing is one of these. The parts of ready-made garments and shoes are now cut into shape in numbers at a time, by sharp-edged templates, and then fastened together by sewing-machines.

Mechanical engineering is a good example of the survival of the fittest. Millions of dollars are expended on machinery, when suddenly a new discovery or invention casts them all into the scrap heap, to be replaced by those of greater earning capacity.

Prime motors derive their energy either from coal or other combinations of carbon, such as petroleum, or from gravity. This may come from falling water, and the old-fashioned water-wheels of the eighteenth century were superseded in the nineteenth by turbines, first invented in France and since greatly perfected. These are used in the electrical transmission of water-power at Niagara of 5000 horse-power, and form a very important part of the plant.

The other gravity motors are wind-mills and wave-motors. Wind-mills are an old invention, but have been greatly improved in the United States by the use of the self-reefing wheel. The great plains of the West are subject to sudden, violent gales of wind, and unless the wheel was automatically self-reefing it would often be destroyed. Little has been written about these wheels, but their use is very widely extended, and they perform a most useful function in industrial engineering.

There have been vast numbers of patents taken out for wave-motors. One was invented in Chili, South America, which furnished a constant power for four months, and was utilized in sawing planks. The action of waves is more constant on the Pacific coast of America than elsewhere, and some auxiliary power, such as a gasoline engine, which can be quickly started and stopped, must be provided for use during calm days. The prime cost of such a machine need not exceed that of a steam plant, and the cost of operating is much less than that of any fuel-burning engine. The saving of coal is a very important problem. In a wider sense, we may say that the saving of all the great stores which nature has laid up for us during the past, and which have remained almost untouched until the nineteenth century, is _the_ great problem of to-day.

Petroleum and natural gas may disappear. The ores of gold, silver, and platinum will not last forever. Trees will grow, and iron ores seem to be practically inexhaustible. Chemistry has added a new metal in aluminum, which replaces copper for many purposes. One of the greatest problems of the twentieth century is to discover some chemical process for treating iron, by which oxidation will not take place.

Coal, next to grain, is the most important of nature’s gifts; it can be exhausted, or the cost of mining it become so great that it cannot be obtained in the countries where it is most needed; water, wind, and wave power may take its place to a limited extent, and greater use may be made of the waste gases coming from blast or smelter furnaces, but as nearly all energy comes from coal, its use must be economized, and the greatest economy will come from pulverizing coal and using it in the shape of a fine powder. Inventions have been made trying to deliver this powder into the fire-box as fast as made, for it is as explosive as gunpowder, and as dangerous to store or handle. If this can be done, there will be a saving of coal due to perfect and smokeless combustion, as the admission of air can be entirely regulated, the same blast which throws in the powder furnishing oxygen. Some investigators have estimated that the saving of coal will be as great as twenty per cent. This means 100,000,000 tons of coal annually.

Bituminous coal will then be as smokeless as anthracite, and can be burned in locomotives. Cities will be free from the nuisance of wasted coal, which we call soot. This process will be the best kind of mechanical stoking, and will prevent the necessity of opening the doors of fire-boxes. The boiler-rooms of steamships will no longer be “floating hells,” and the firing of large locomotives will become easy.

Another problem of mechanical engineering is to determine whether it will be found more economical to transform the energy of coal, at the mines, into electric current and send it by wire to cities and other places where it is wanted, or to carry the coal by rail and water, as we now do, to such places, and convert it there by the steam or gas engine.

In favor of the first method it can be said that hills of refuse coal now representing locked-up capital can be burned, and the cost of transportation and handling be saved. Electric energy can now transport power in high voltage economically between coal-mines and most large cities.

The second method has the advantage of not depending on one single source of supply, that may break down, but in having the energy stored in coal-pockets near by the place of use, where it can be applied to separate units of power with no fear of failure.

It seems probable that a combination of the two systems will produce the best results. Where power can be sent electrically from the mines for less cost than the coal can be transported, that method will be used.

To prevent stoppage of works, the separate motors and a store of coal, to be used in cases of emergency, will still be needed, just as has been described as necessary to the commercial success of wave-motors.

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Any attempt by the writer of this article to trace the progress of electricity would be but a vain repetition, after the admirable manner in which the subject has been treated in a former paper of this series by Professor Elihu Thomson.

We can only once more emphasize the fact that it is by the union of four separate classes of minds—scientific discoverers, inventors, engineers, and capitalists—that this vast new industry has been created, which gives direct employment to thousands, and, as Bacon said 300 years ago, has “endowed the human race with new powers.”

METALLURGY AND MINING

All the processes of metallurgy and mining employ statical, hydraulic, mechanical, and electrical engineering. Coal, without railways and canals, would be of little use, unless electrical engineering came to its aid.

It was estimated by the late Lord Armstrong that of the 450,000,000 to 500,000,000 tons of coal annually produced in the world, one-third is used for steam production, one-third in metallurgical processes, and one-third for domestic consumption. This last item seems large. It is the most important manufacturing industry in the world, as may be seen by comparing the coalless condition of the eighteenth century with the coal-using condition of the nineteenth century.

Next in importance comes the production of iron and steel. Steel, on account of its great cost and brittleness, was only used for tools and special purposes until past the middle of the last century. This has been all changed by the invention of his steel by Bessemer in 1864, and open-hearth steel in the furnace of Siemens, perfected some twenty years since by Gilchrist & Thomas.

The United States have taken the lead in steel manufacture. In 1873 Great Britain made three times as much steel as the United States. Now the United States makes twice as much as Great Britain, or forty per cent. of all the steel made in the world.

Mr. Carnegie has explained the reason why, in epigrammatic phrase: “Three pounds of steel billets can be sold for two cents.”

This stimulates rail and water traffic and other industries, as he tells us one pound of steel requires two pounds of ore, one and one-third pounds of coal, and one-third of a pound of limestone.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the States bordering on the lakes have created a traffic of 25,000,000 tons yearly through the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, while the Suez, which supplies the wants of half the population of the world, has only 7,000,000, or less than the tonnage of the little Harlem River at New York.

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

This leads us to our last topic, for which too little room has been left. Industrial engineering covers statical, hydraulic, mechanical, and electrical engineering, and adds a new branch which we may call chemical engineering. This is pre-eminently a child of the nineteenth century, and is the conversion of one thing into another by a knowledge of their chemical constituents.

When Dalton first applied mathematics to chemistry and made it quantitative, he gave the key which led to the discoveries of Cavendish, Gay-Lussac, Berzelius, Liebig, and others. This new knowledge was not locked up, but at once given to the world, and made use of. Its first application on a large scale was made by Napoleon in encouraging the manufacture of sugar from beets.

The new products were generally made from what were called “waste material.” We now have the manufacture of soda, bleaching powders, aniline dyes, and other products of the distillation of coal, also coal-oil from petroleum (known fifty or sixty years ago only as a horse medicine), acetylene gas, celluloid, rubber goods in all their numerous varieties, high explosives, cement, artificial manures, artificial ice, beet-sugar, and even beer may now be included.

Through many ages, the alchemists, groping in the dark, and in ignorance of nature’s laws, wasted their time in trying to find what they called the philosopher’s stone, which they hoped would transform the baser metals into gold.

If such a thing could be found it would be a curse, as it would take away one of the most useful instruments we have—a fixed standard of value.

In a little over one hundred years, those working by the light of science have found the true philosopher’s stone in modern chemistry. The value of only a part of these new products exceeds the nominal value of all the gold in the world.

The value of our mechanical and chemical products is great, but it is surpassed by that of food products. If these did not keep pace with the increase of population, the theories of Malthus would be true—but he never saw a modern reaper.

The steam-plough was invented in England some fifty years since, but the great use of agricultural machinery dates from our Civil War, when so many men were taken from agriculture. It became necessary to fill their places with machinery. Without tracing the steps which have led to it, we may say that the common type is what is called “the binder,” and is a machine drawn chiefly by animals, and in some cases by a field locomotive.

It cuts, rakes, and binds sheaves of grain at one operation. Sometimes threshing and winnowing machines are combined with it, and the grain is delivered into bags ready for the market.

Different machines are used for cutting and binding corn, and for mowing and raking hay, but the most important of all is the grain-binder. The extent of their use may be known from the fact that 75,000 tons of twine are used by these machines annually.

It is estimated that there are in the United States 1,500,000 of these machines, but as the harvest is earlier in the South, there are probably not over 1,000,000 in use at one time. As each machine takes the place of sixteen men, this means that 16,000,000 men are released from farming for other pursuits.

The “man with the hoe” has disappeared from the real world, and is only to be found in the dreams of poets.

It is fair to assume that a large part of these 16,000,000 men have gone into manufacturing, the operating of railways, and other pursuits. The use of agricultural machinery, therefore, is one explanation of why the United States produces eight-tenths of the world’s cotton and corn, one-quarter of its wheat, one-third of its meat and iron, two-fifths of its steel, and one-third of its coal, and a large part of the world’s manufactured goods.

CONCLUSION

It is a very interesting question, why was this great development of material prosperity delayed so late? Why did it wait until the nineteenth century, and then all at once increase with such rapid strides?

It was not until modern times that the reign of law was greatly extended, and men were insured the product of their labors.

Then came the union of scientists, inventors, and engineers.

So long as these three classes worked separately but little was done. There was an antagonism between them. Ancient writers went so far as to say that the invention of the arch and of the potter’s wheel were beneath the dignity of a philosopher.

One of the first great men to take a different view was Francis Bacon. Macaulay, in his famous essay, quotes him as saying: “Philosophy is the relief of man’s estate, and the endowment of the human race with new powers; increasing their pleasures and mitigating their sufferings.” These noble words seem to anticipate the famous definition of civil engineering, embodied by Telford in the charter of the British Institution of Civil Engineers: “Engineering is the art of controlling the great powers of nature for the use and convenience of man.”

The seed sown by Bacon was long in producing fruit. Until the laws of nature were better known, there could be no practical application of them. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a great intellectual revival took place. In literature appeared Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, and Goethe. In pure science there came Laplace, Cavendish, Lavoisier, Linnæus, Berzelius, Priestley, Count Rumford, James Watt, and Dr. Franklin. The last three were among the earliest to bring about a union of pure and applied science. Franklin immediately applied his discovery that frictional electricity and lightning were the same to the protection of buildings by lightning-rods. Count Rumford (whose experiments on the conversion of power into heat led to the discovery of the conservatism of energy) spent a long life in contriving useful inventions.

James Watt, one of the few men who have united in themselves knowledge of abstract science, great inventive faculties, and rare mechanical skill, changed the steam-engine from a worthless rattletrap into the most useful machine ever invented by man. To do this he first discovered the science of thermodynamics, then invented the necessary appliances, and finally constructed them with his own hands. He was a very exceptional man. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were few engineers who had received any scientific education. Most of them worked by their constructive instincts, like beavers, or from experience only. It took a lifetime to educate such an engineer, and few became eminent until they were old men.

Now there is in the profession a great army of young men, most of them graduates of technical schools, good mathematicians, and well versed in the art of experimenting. The experiments of undergraduates on cements, concrete, the flow of water, the impact of metals, and the steam-engine, have added much to the general stock of knowledge.

One of the present causes of progress is that all discoveries are published at once in technical journals and in the daily press. The publication of descriptive indexes of all scientific and engineering articles as fast as they appear is another modern contrivance.

Formerly scientific discoveries were concealed by cryptograms, printed in a dead language, and hidden in the archives of learned societies. Even so late as 1821 Oersted published his discovery of the uniformity of electricity and magnetism in Latin.

Engineering works could have been designed and useful inventions made, but they could not have been carried out without combination. Corporate organization collects the small savings of many into great sums through savings-banks, life insurance companies, etc., and uses this concentrated capital to construct the vast works of our days. This could not continue unless fair dividends were paid. Everything now has to be designed so as to pay. Time, labor, and material must be saved, and he ranks highest who can best do this. Invention has been encouraged by liberal patent laws, which secure to the inventor property in his ideas at a moderate cost.

Combination, organization, and scientific discovery, inventive ability, and engineering skill are now united.

It may be said that we have gathered together all the inventions of the nineteenth century and called them works of engineering. This is not so. Engineering covers much more than invention. It includes all works of sufficient size and intricacy to require men trained in the knowledge of the physical conditions which govern the mechanical application of the laws of nature. First comes scientific discovery, then invention, and lastly engineering. Faraday and Henry discovered the electrical laws which led to the invention of the dynamo, which was perfected by many minds. Engineering built such works as those at Niagara Falls to make it useful.

An ignorant man may invent a safety-pin, but he cannot build the Brooklyn Bridge.

The engineer-in-chief commands an army of experts, as without specialization little can be done. His is the comprehensive design, for which he alone is responsible.

Such is the evolution of engineering, which began as a craft and has ended as a profession.

In past times, civilization depended upon military engineering. Warriors at first used only the weapons of the hand. Then came military engineering, applied both to attack and defence, and culminating in the invention of gunpowder. The civilization of to-day depends greatly upon civil engineering, as we have tried to show. It has changed the face of the world and brought all men nearer together. It has improved the condition of man by sanitary appliances and lowering the cost of food. It has shown that through machinery the workman is better educated, and his wages are increased, while the profits of capital increase also. It has made representative government possible over vast areas of territory, and is democratizing the world.

Thoughtful persons have asked, will this new civilization last, or will it go the way of its predecessors? Surely the answer is: all depends on good government, on the stability of law, order, and justice, protecting the rights of all classes. It will continue to grow with the growth of good government, prosper with its prosperity, and perish with its decay.

THOMAS C. CLARKE.

RELIGION

CATHOLICISM

It is no unnatural curiosity that tempts us to recollect ourselves at the end of a century and consider the gains and losses of three generations, our inheritance from the past, our own administration of the same, and the prospects of our descendants. Religion can only gain from such a survey, for she is a world teacher on so large a scale that all ordinary human methods of comparison and summary are too dwarfed and insufficient for her. Her message is to all humanity; hence only the most universal criteria are rightly applicable to her. It seems to me that that is especially true of the oldest historical form of Christianity, which is Roman Catholicism.

The Roman Church has had a message for all humanity in every age ever since Saint Clement penned his famous epistle to the Corinthians, or Saint Victor caused the Christian world to meet in special councils for the solution of a universal difficulty. It is no mere coincidence that, at the opening of the last century of this mystical and wonderful cycle of two thousand years, the Bishop of Rome should again address the world in tones whose moderation and sympathy recall the temper and the arguments of Saint Clement, his far-away predecessor and disciple of Saint Peter.

The year 1800 was a very disheartening one for Catholicism. It still stood erect and hopeful, but in the midst of a political and social wreckage, the result of a century of scepticism and destructive criticism that acted at last as sparks for an ungovernable popular frenzy, during which the old order appeared to pass away forever and a new one was inaugurated with every manifestation of joy. The tree of political liberty was everywhere planted, and the peoples of Europe promised themselves a life of unalloyed comfort for all future time. Catholicism was the religion of the majority of these people, and was cunningly obliged to bear the brunt of all their complaints, justified and unjustifiable; although the authorities of Catholicism had long protested against many of the gravest abuses of the period, sustained in formal defiance of the principles and institutions of the Catholic religion. The new Cæsar threatened to be more terrible to the independence of religion than any ancient one, and the revenues and establishments by which Catholicism had kept up its public standing and earned the esteem and gratitude of the people were swept away or _quasi_ ruined.

All the acquired charges and duties of the past were left to the Catholic religion; yet the means to carry them on were taken away, sometimes by open violence, sometimes by insidious measures, but always by gross injustice. The final incidence of this injustice was on the common people, since the Church was, after all, only the administrator of very much that she was thus dispossessed of.

With this overturning of all the conditions of Catholic life came new problems, new trials, and a period of indefinite, uncertain circumstances that were finally set at rest only at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, by which an end was put to the political changes that began with the Revolution of 1789.