Part 38

Nearly all of these early reapers relied upon scythes or cutters with a rotary motion or vibrating shears. This method of cutting was essentially wrong, and none of the machines ever appeared to have gained or long retained the favor of the farmers. That these early attempts were all unsuccessful is evidenced by the fact that at the great World’s Fair in London in 1851, the United Kingdom could not present a single reaping machine. English journals and writers of that period, without a single exception, spoke of the American reapers which were exhibited as “completely successful.” For the real progress towards solving the problem of harvesting grain with machines we must turn to America.

American invention in this line, so far as there is any record, began with the patent issued to Richard French and T. J. Hawkins of New Jersey, May 17, 1803. No reliable description of this machine seems to be extant. Five patents of no importance were issued between that time and 1822, when Bailey took out a patent. Cope and Cooper of Pennsylvania obtained a patent in 1826, and Manning obtained one in 1831.

Up to 1831, no successful and practical reaper had been developed. With all the patents taken out in England, and with those taken out in America from 1803 down to 1831, we might say that nothing had been accomplished toward perfecting a reaping machine which actually worked successfully.

The First Successful Reaper.

In 1831 came McCormick’s reaper, the first practical machine of its kind ever taken into the field. It was crude at first, but improved from year to year. Although McCormick’s reaper was not patented until 1834, one year after the patent granted to Obed Hussey for his reaper, young McCormick gave a public exhibition in Virginia three years before, in 1831. It was in the fall of that year when Cyrus McCormick hitched four horses to his machine, which had been built in the old blacksmith shop at Steel’s Tavern, and drove into a field of late oats on the farm of John Steele, adjoining his father’s. The reproduction of an old lithograph depicting this scene indicates the interest of the neighbors in this event. Although the United States had been established more than fifty years past, this was the first grain that had ever been cut by machinery. McCormick’s machine continued to operate to the surprise of everyone and in less than half a day had reaped six acres of oats--as much as six men would have done by the old-fashioned method.

This was not the first attempt of a McCormick to solve the problem of harvesting wheat by machinery, for Robert McCormick, the father of Cyrus, had, himself, worked on a machine of this kind as far back as 1816. His father tried it again in 1831 and abandoned it, and in that same year the son Cyrus took up the work and started the world toward cheaper bread.

The first practical reaper taken into the field in 1831 embodied the essential parts of the reaper with which we are familiar. It had a platform for receiving the grain, a knife for cutting it, supported by stationary fingers over the edge, and a reel to gather it. The driver of the machine rode one of the horses, while the man who raked off the grain walked by the side of the machine.

Development of the Reaper.

The ten years following this first instance of a successful reaper were strenuous times indeed for Cyrus McCormick, for it was not until 1840 or 1841 that he was able to make his first sale. Twenty more were sold in 1843 and fifty in 1844.

During all these years from 1831 to 1844 Mr. McCormick was diligently at work changing, testing and experimenting. In 1845 he secured a second patent, which embodied many improvements--the principal ones referring to the cutting mechanism.

In this year, Mr. McCormick started for the western prairie, and in 1847 built his own factory in Chicago, thus starting the world’s greatest reaper works. This factory, known as “McCormick Works,” is still in progress. It covers today more than 120 acres in the heart of Chicago, and has an annual capacity of 375,000 machines of all types.

The third step in the development of the reaper was the addition to the machine of a seat for carrying the raker. The machine built in 1831 required that the raker walk by the side of the machine. In 1845 Mr. McCormick added the seat, patent for which was added in 1847. This seat which carried the raker enabled him while riding to rake the grain from the platform and deposit it in gavels on the ground. This type of reaper, patented in 1847, is the one taken by Cyrus H. McCormick to the first world’s fair held in London, England, in 1851, and about which the records of that exposition state “The McCormick reaper is the most valuable article contributed to this exposition, and for its originality and value and perfect work in the field it is awarded the council medal.”

This same reaper received the grand prize in Paris in 1855 and is the reaper which created so much surprise in the world’s fair in London that the comments made by the press demonstrated beyond a doubt that England had not as yet built a successful reaper. In 1858 the machine was further improved by substituting an automatic rake for the raker on the machine.

Many other patents were granted from time to time until 1870, when the foundation features of all reapers had been invented and substantially perfected. The reaper is still used extensively, especially in foreign countries.

The interest in this machine centers not in its development as used today, but in the fact that it led to the invention and perfection of the self-binder.

The prototype of all machines designed to bind the grain before being delivered to the ground is the Marsh harvester. It is the half-way mark, the child of the reaper and the parent of the self-binder. The original patent for this machine was granted August 17, 1858, to two farmer boys of De Kalb, Illinois, the Marsh brothers.

Previous to this time, attempts had been made to build harvesting machines which would bind the grain before delivered to the ground, but not one could be considered a success. At the time the Marsh harvester began seeking a place in the market, about 1860, reapers--hand-rakers, self-rakers, and droppers--held the trade substantially to the exclusion of any other kind of harvesting machine.

The first successful Marsh harvester, built in 1858, was operated through the harvest of that year. It has never been changed materially in principle or form since. The theory of the inventors was that two men might bind the grain cut by the five-foot sickle in ordinary motion provided it could be delivered to them in the best possible position and condition for binding and if they could have perfect freedom of action. They knew that the binders must have a free swing and open chance at the grain to enable them to handle it, so they arranged the elevated delivery, the receptacle, the tables and the platform for the man with these things in view.

The second Marsh harvester was built in Chicago in 1859. Improvements were made during the years 1861, 1862 and 1863. The manufacture of the Marsh harvester began in earnest at Plano in the fall of 1863 by Stewart and Marsh, twenty-five machines being put out in 1864.

In 1875 McCormick began putting out harvesters of the Marsh type. Of straight Marsh harvesters--carrying a man to bind--there had been made up to and including 1879 over 100,000, of which about two-thirds had been produced by the Marsh combination and the rest by outsiders.

The Self-Binder.

The development of the automatic binder followed quickly after the introduction of the Marsh harvester, although attempts were made to perfect this machine as early as 1850.

The self-binding harvester was borne on the shoulders of the Marsh harvester. Carpenter, Locke, Gordon, Appleby and every inventor who succeeded in any measure in binding grain, first did so by placing his binding attachment upon a Marsh harvester, taking the grain from a receptacle where it fell to another receptacle where it was bound. The first record of these attempts is a patent granted to J. E. Heath, of Warren, Ohio, in 1850. Watson, Renwick and Watson secured patents in 1851 and 1853, but their machines were very complicated and never more than experiments. From that time until 1865 many patents were granted, none of which may be considered successful.

In 1865 S. D. Locke of Janesville secured a patent which ultimately developed into the Withington wire binder first put out by McCormick in 1875.

The Withington machine was an improvement on the binding device patented by Locke in 1865. McCormick built 50,000 of these machines between 1877 and 1885. It was a simple mechanism which consisted mainly of two steel fingers that moved back and forth and twisted a wire band around each sheaf of grain.

Farmers did not take kindly to the wire binder. They said that wire would mix with the straw and kill their horses and cattle.

The Twine Binder.

This was the situation in the harvesting industry about the time that William Deering took an active interest. He looked about for a better machine. He found John F. Appleby, who, in 1878, had perfected a twine binder attachment. When Deering saw the strong steel arms flash a cord around a bundle of grain, tie a knot, cut the cord and fling off the sheaf, he knew he had what the world needed. Appleby began working on his invention in 1858, but accomplished nothing until 1869 when he took out his first patent on a “wire binder.” In 1874 he began what is known as the Appleby twine binder, operating one in 1875 and 1876 and several in 1877. In 1879 Deering bought out Gammon, joined forces with Appleby, moved the factory from Plano to Chicago in 1880, and began putting out twine binders. In 1881 McCormick, also, and Champion began building the Appleby binder.

With the development of an attachment to bind with twine, a new problem arose--where to get a cheap serviceable twine. William Deering again arose to the occasion. He met Edwin H. Fitler in Philadelphia, one of the three twine makers in the United States, and after a good deal of persuasion induced him to take an order for a single-strand binder twine. From that time on, all manufacturers have been building practically the same machine--the Appleby binding attachment on the Marsh type of harvester which, in turn, was founded on the McCormick cutting mechanism. The self-binder of today is of that type.

Other Machines Follow.

The completion of the reaper set the wheels of farm invention spinning. It was the first great battle successfully won and gave a spirit of confidence and an irresistible spirit of victory to the men who were lifting the burdens off the bodies of men. After the reaper, the mowing machine came naturally. Following the binder in easy sequences came the corn binder, push binder, header and harvester thresher.

Every variety of haying machine, from side-delivery rake and tedder to sweep rake and loader, came eventually to make hay-making easy. The thresher, ensilage cutter, riding plow, disk harrow, cream separator, manure spreader and seeding machines succeeded in making the raising of the world’s food a profitable occupation; at the same time, they made it an easy one. Lately, the internal combustion engine, together with its application in the kerosene tractor, promises to make the farmer’s emancipation practically complete. If Herbert Casson could say “The United States owes more to the reaper than it does to the factory or the railroad or the Wall Street stock exchange,” what can be said of these myriad machines that now do the food-grower’s work for him?

Where formerly nearly all the people had to engage in food raising and even then went to bed hungry, now nearly half the people live away from the farm and there is a great abundance of bread and of food.

* * * * *

What Causes an Echo?

An echo is caused by the reflection of sound waves at some moderately even surface, such as the wall of a building. The waves of sound on meeting the surface are turned back in their course, according to the same laws that hold for reflection of light. In order that the echo may return to the place from which the sound proceeds, the reflection must be direct, and not at an angle to the line of transmission, otherwise the echo may be heard by others, but not by the transmitter of the sound. This may be effected either by a reflecting surface at right angles to the line of transmission or by several reflecting surfaces, which end in bringing the sound back to the point of issue.

Sound travels about 1,125 feet in a second; consequently, an observer standing at half that distance from the reflecting object would hear the echo a second later than the sound. Such an echo would repeat as many words and syllables as could be heard in a second. As the distance decreases the echo repeats fewer syllables till it becomes monosyllabic.

The most practiced ear cannot distinguish in a second more than from nine to twelve successive sounds, so that a distance of not less than sixty feet is needed to enable a common ear to distinguish between the echo and the original sounds. At a near distance the echo only clouds the original sounds. This often interferes with the hearing in churches and other large buildings. Woods, rocks and mountains produce natural echoes in every variety, for which particular localities have become famous.

In Greek mythology, Echo was a nymph (one of the Oreads) who fell in love with Narcissus, and because he did not reciprocate her affection she pined away until nothing was left but her voice.

The Story of the Motion-Picture Projecting Machine[69]

Few businesses have had a more spectacular rise than the motion-picture industry. It may be true that there are other industries of recent growth that are more highly capitalized than the motion-picture business. I shall not make any comparisons nor look up statistics, but will present some facts about an enterprise that, scientifically, industrially and commercially, is one of the great wonders of the world.

It is fair to estimate that more than $375,000,000 is invested in this business in the United States. It looks like an exaggeration or as if the typesetter had slipped in several extra ciphers by mistake, does it not? Nevertheless, the estimate is said to be extremely conservative. In the first place, it concerns every branch of the business, of which there are five. Taken in their natural order there are: 1. The manufacture of motion-picture cameras. 2. The manufacture of films. 3. The taking of the pictures. 4. The manufacture of the projecting machines. 5. The exhibition of the pictures.

The projecting machine is the subject of this story. One sees very little about it in the newspapers and popular magazines, in spite of the fact that it is the keystone, so to speak, of the motion-picture industry. Of the entire business, in all its ramifications, this machine is the most important not only from a technical standpoint, but as regards both the pleasure and safety of the public. Here, again, a great deal of money is invested. Its manufacture involves costly and highly specialized machinery, the most intelligent of mechanics and the constant thought and endeavor of the men at the head of the business.

The advancement in the manufacture of motion-picture projecting machines from the start has been along two avenues--to secure better projection, a sharper, clearer and steadier picture, and to eliminate the danger of fire resultant from the ignition of combustible film. Experts have watched and studied the picture machine through all its stages of development. For seventeen years they have slowly improved the machine and brought it to its present high state of mechanical perfection. The development of the fireproof magazine, the automatic fire-shutter, the loop-setter, flame shields and the famous intermittent movement have all been vital factors in the elimination of fire and also in securing perfect projection. The oldest invention was patented by W. E. Lincoln on April 23, 1867. The contrivance was a mere toy, employing no light and being merely a little machine which, when revolved, gave figures, printed in different positions, the semblance of motion. The second oldest was of an “optical instrument” patented by O. B. Brown on August 10, 1869. This was really the first American motion-picture projection machine. There was a sort of disk or moving-shutter movement which, on revolving, gave projected objects the appearance of animation. Of course, there were no films in those days and the inventor had used translucent glass to obtain the results. Yet here was the germ of our native modern machine.

A well-known moving-picture projecting machine manufacturer tells the following story: “A bet was made in 1871 by the late Senator Leland Stanford, of California, that a running horse at no time had all four feet off the ground. Edward Muybridge, an Englishman, by way of experiment, placed numerous cameras at regular intervals about the track, which, by electrical contact, were snapped by the horse in passing. It proved that the horse always had, when running, one foot on the ground. Although this was not the first record of motion pictures, it served to demonstrate their practicability.

“Development had dragged until the Muybridge experiment. In 1880 Muybridge produced, in San Francisco, the ‘Zoopraxiscope,’ which projected pictures (on glass positives) on a screen. Later Muybridge conferred with Edison regarding a combination of his machine with the phonograph, then in its infancy; about 1883 he went abroad and held frequent conferences with M. Marey of the Institute of France.

“Marey first utilized the continuous film, though it was George Eastman who brought it to its present state of high perfection. A great deal of the tremendous present popularity of motion pictures is due to the invention of the translucent film. The early kodak film became the great factor in the cinematograph manufacture.

“In 1893 Lumiere produced the ‘Cinematograph,’ the first machine to project from a film. Edison in 1896 produced his ‘Vitascope.’ These machines became the models of the greatly improved article of today.

“The first real machine was brought to America in 1894. At least, that is as near as I can recollect the date. It was a Lumiere cinematograph and was exhibited at the Union Square Theater, New York City. The French manufacturing firm instructed J. B. Cole & Co. to furnish an operator. The Cole Company was interested in the sale of lanterns and slides and the foreign firm naturally turned to them for assistance.

“They furnished an operator, Edward Hadley. Although he had never seen a motion-picture machine, Hadley was a man who had been in their employ and was naturally familiar with lanterns and electricity. To the best of my belief, Hadley was the first motion-picture operator in America. He afterwards became the operator for Lyman H. Howe, the well-known pioneer traveling motion-picture exhibitor, and later became an exhibitor himself.

“The films then had one perforation on either side of each picture. That was the French method. The American method of four perforations on either side of each picture, formulated by Thomas A. Edison, was taken up later. The Edison perforation method became the standard in America and finally throughout the world. We find no more single-holed films.”

Here, for the benefit of the uninitiated, a little description of the film and the projecting head of a machine is necessary. A motion-picture film is a thin ribbon of transparent pyroxylin plastic or nitrocellulose, which is highly inflammable. The photographs on the film, one by three-fourths of an inch in size, leave a margin of five thirty-seconds of an inch on each side. In the margins are the perforations necessary to feed the film through the machine head. There are sixteen pictures to the foot.

The mechanism of the machine head moves the film over an aperture, so that the rays of light from the lamp will project an enlargement of the film picture upon the screen. The reels upon which the film is wound are mounted above and below--the upper is the feed reel and the lower is the take-up reel. Sprocket wheels control the action of the film. The top feed sprocket pulls the film from the upper feed reel, the middle intermittent sprocket (below the aperture) turns in a way to give each picture a certain time of stop over the projection aperture, and the bottom take-up sprocket assists in winding the film on the take-up reel.