Read Ebook: Graham's Magazine Vol. XL No. 6 June 1852 by Various Graham George R Editor

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Besides this, their principal factory, they have another large and well built establishment, containing ware-rooms, counting-house, blacksmith's shop, machine shop, and steam-engine room, in Gold street, nearly adjoining Fulton. This, though in fact headquarters, we shall pass over for the time being, premising only--in order to show the perfect method and system of time and labor-saving with which every thing belonging to this firm is conducted--that they have at their own expense, and for their own private use, erected an electric telegraph, carried by the permission of the proprietors over the roofs of houses, from the counting-room to the up-town factories, by which the smallest message or order is conveyed, and answered almost instantaneously. Nor are the proprietors dissatisfied with the result, having found by experience that the great original expense was very speedily compensated by the gain of time, and yet more of precision which it introduced.

Returning up-town, therefore, we will descend into the vault under the first yard, in which we shall find the moving puissance of all the vast machinery of hammers, planes, lathes, drills, grindstones, tools and devices, almost without name or number, which are constantly laboring with their iron nerves, noiseless, tireless, indefatigable, through every story of the great building--in the shape of the boilers and steam-engine, which, beside furnishing all the motive power, supply every part of the building, by a very ingenious application, with a constant stream of evenly tempered, pure, heated air, at the same time maintaining a thorough ventilation, and all without the slightest danger of fire.

The spent steam is brought into a series of coiled pipes within a trunk, through which a continual stream of pure external air flows without intermission, and is carried by wooden tubes through every story and room of the building; as is likewise an ample provision of Croton water, as well a provision against fire, as for the cleanliness and comfort of the men.

Of the engine there is nothing very special to be observed, as it is of the old construction, and, though perfectly efficient, not now to be imitated or adopted. It is a horizontal high pressure engine of about forty horse power, under the head of steam usually employed, though capable of exerting considerably more force, if called upon. There has been recently attached to it a singularly ingenious little machine, in the shape of a hydraulic regulator, of which great expectations are entertained, and which, in the very short time it has been tested, works to admiration, one week only having elapsed since its application. To attempt to describe this, or in fact any other complicated machine, in an illustrative article such as this pretends only to be, were an absurdity; for the operations of the simplest engines can be rendered thoroughly comprehensible, only--if at all--by thorough diagrams with numerical references, and then comprehensible only to scientific readers, conversant at least with the principles and working of the motive power, and the forces to be exerted by it.

Ascending from the subterranean regions, which are, by the way, so constructed under an open and little occupied court-yard that even in case of any untoward accident the least possible damage would ensue, and certainly no upheaval of whole edifices, as by the explosion of a powder magazine, would be the consequence, we arrive next in the order of production at the great foundery, occupying nearly one half of the ground floor on the Broome street front.

Of this, although it furnishes the rude material, the first degree we mean from the actual raw metal for the whole establishment, the saw manufactory alone excepted, there is little to be noted worthy of particular attention by those who are familiar with the operation of furnaces, founderies and casting on a large scale, as in fact there is nothing in it unusual or novel, unless it be what struck us as both novel and unusual, the general absence of noise, confusion, din and turmoil, not to mention ill sounds, ill savors, and oppressive heat, which seems to pervade the whole establishment. This, ministering as it does largely to the comfort and well-being of all concerned, detracts somewhat, it must be admitted from the picturesque effect of the scenery, and its adjuncts. Even the neatness and cleanliness of the orderly and well conducted moving about each his own business noiselessly, and obeying a sign or the wafture of a hand, diminished the effect which we almost expect to feel in an iron foundery, a furnace, or a machine shop.

We well remember the impression left on our mind years ago by a visit to some gigantic iron works in Sheffield, an impression which made itself felt for many a month in strange fantastic dreams and painful nightmares--such influence, not on the imagination only but on the nerves, had the dense murky gloom of the dim vaults, suddenly kindled, as by magic, into a fierce incandescent glare by the lava-like torrents of molten iron, the volumes of black smoke, the stifling heat of the oppressed and exhausted atmosphere, and then the roar of unseen waters, suggestive of those subterranean streams of Hades, Acheron and Cocytus, the whirr and hurtling of unnumbered wheels, the terrible and deafening clang of the huge trip-hammers, literally making the solid earth jar and tremble; and last and most appropriate to the scene, the swarthy, grim-visaged workmen, fit representatives of Vulcan and his Cyclops, now glancing into lurid light, now vanishing into darkness, as the fitful flashes rose and fell. Of a verity there can be no much more appropriate representation of Pandemonium than an old-fashioned English iron works on a large scale.

But there is no room for marveling or romancing after this fashion in the machine works of Messrs. Hoe & Co., for all the rooms are well aired, well lighted, and none the less adapted to their purpose for being suitable to the accommodation of men who neither are slaves, nor in anywise resemble devils.

From the foundery we proceed, across the open yard, to the smithy, a large, lofty, well proportioned apartment, containing two enormous steam-hammers, the speed and consequent impetus of which can be modulated by a very easy application of manual force, at the pleasure of the operator, so that they can be made either to rise and fall as slowly as the maces of Gog and Magog on the great bell of Saint Dunstan's, or to impinge upon whatever is objected to their descent with a velocity which almost mocks the eye. In this apartment and its adjunct forge there are no less than eighteen stithies, the bellows of all which are worked by the ubiquitous power of the engine, with anvils of all manners and sizes in due proportion, and sturdy operatives plying them with tranquil and regulated industry, worth five times the amount of human force exerted unequally and impulsively, by fits and starts. These men, for the most part, and, in fact, always when not called off by some casual and unexpected pressure of business in some one department, are kept constantly employed at that peculiar species of work with which each is the most familiar, such method and system in the subdivision of labor being found to insure not only the greatest excellence, but the greatest celerity of workmanship.

In this shop all such portions of the engines, presses, large and small, printing and inking machines, and of the machinery by the agency of which the above machines themselves are created, as are composed of wrought metal, are forged, welded, made new from the commencement, or repaired in case of damage. For it is worthy of remark that, although many of the labor-saving machines and tools are of English make--not a few by the celebrated Whitworth, said to be the first tool-maker in the world--there is not one that cannot, on emergency, be made, mended, or altered, within the precincts of the establishment; while many of the most admirable contrivances are patents and inventions peculiar to this country and this firm.

Immediately adjoining the smithy, is the engine and machine shop, and on the same floor the large lathe-room containing four enormous surface lathes and two turning lathes, for drilling, boring, turning, and finishing both circular and horizontal surfaces.

From this point, we shall proceed to the saw works, preferring to take each separate department of work by itself, from the commencement to the end, rather than to adhere to the precise order and position of the several rooms, as situated in the building.

The first room devoted to this branch of manufacture, which is a very considerable and important item in the business of Messrs. Hoe & Co., the annual sales amounting to not less than 140,000 dollars, in circular saws, mill-saws, pit-saws, and crosscut-saws, for all parts of the country, is known as the saw shop.

Herein is performed the business of smithing, teething, and blocking the great saws; hundreds of thousands of which are at work, driven by water or by steam-power in every portion of the boundless territories of the United States, to which the enterprising foot and adventurous axe of the white settler has found access--clearing with their restless and indomitable teeth the solid and tenacious fibres of the gnarled live-oaks in the pestilent swamps of Florida, and the dank "regions far away, by Pascagoula's sunny bay," into the crooked knees of mighty vessels, that shall set at naught the howling billows of the wild Atlantic, and the blasts of the mad storm-wind, Euroclydon, riving into planks and beams and timbers, that shall build up the palaces of commerce, and the happy homes of our lordly cities, the white and penetrable flesh of "those captive kings so straight and tall, those lordly pines, which fell long ago in the deer-haunted forests of Maine, when deep upon mountain and plain lay the snow."

The machinery by which these various processes are accomplished is exceedingly fine and worthy of notice, and vastly superior to that used in England; in the dock-yards of which country the circular saws were first brought into service, if we do not err; especially that for cutting the teeth, which, worked by steam-power, does its duty with great rapidity and incomparable precision.

This operation is performed by the vertical descent of a ponderous arm of iron, terminating in a cutter of the form of the notch to be made in the yet soft and smooth edge of the circular plate, which is made by the same power to revolve horizontally upon an axis placed at such distance from the impinging weight as the depth of the notch to be cut requires, and traversing at a rate so timed in unison with the descent of the cutters as to render the series of teeth perfectly continuous and equal; each blow of the cutter forming the interval between two teeth, and each full revolution of the plate completing a circular-saw. In the same way is effected the teething of the straight saws, the motion being a direct sliding action in a forward line, instead of a rotatory movement.

In the English saw works, owing to the influence of trade-unions, operative-unions, and the like, the application of steam-power to this machinery is prohibited, and the employer is restricted to the use of hand labor--the cutter being jerked down by man power, and the edge of the plate to be cut being subjected to the striker by hand, the formation of the teeth not being regulated by any absolute scale, but being executed by the calculation or guess-work of the artisan, and, of course, varying in accuracy, depth and precision of cutting according to the skillfulness or unskillfulness of the individual operator.

To the absence of these ingenious combinations, injurious alike to the true interest of operators and employers, the superiority in many respects of American to English machinery is in some degree due, and not less to the over stringency of the patent laws of Great Britain, which often prevent the application of really leading and most material improvements, of a radical nature, to principles secured for the benefit of the inventor.

We may here observe that the use of circular saws is very greatly on the increase in this country, more especially in the western portion of it. In the east, for some inexplicable reason, this admirable instrument is far less generally used; and the writer of this article, several years ago, when on a visit to the timber districts of Maine, on expressing his surprise at the non-adoption of this most excellent and labor-saving tool, could learn no adequate cause for the prejudice existing against it, unless it were some crude and absurd ideas concerning its vibration and consequent irregularity of cutting--objections not founded on facts, nor confirmed by experience.

This process is effected by heating the metal in charcoal furnaces to a white incandescent glow, and then cooling it by immersion in baths of oil and other drugs, the combination of which is, we believe, a secret. This done, the saws are ready for grinding which is effected in a special apartment of the main building--the flat, straight saws by hand application to a series of powerful grindstones, driven at a regular speed by gearings worked from the engine, and the circular saws by a very curious and effective patent machine, peculiar to this establishment, and invented by Mr. Hoe himself.

The old method of grinding circular saws, and that still practiced in all other works of this nature, is the application of them horizontally to the great vertically-moving grindstones by the hand; and, when it is considered that these great steel plates run up to six feet diameter and eighteen of circumference, and that they consequently entirely conceal the grindstone from the eyes of the operator who applies them, it will be evident that the process is mere guess-work, and that no certainty can be attained in regulating the thickness of the blades--in a word, that nothing was effected beyond the superficial brightening and abstersion of the surface.

The new machine causes the great circular plate to revolve vertically on its access, while a "pad" to which is applied some sharp, detergent mineral-powder, is moved forcibly over its surface with a triple action.

In the first place, the pad itself is made to revolve with great velocity against the circular plane, in a direction perpendicular to its line of motion. In the second place, it is driven forward against it horizontally with a force increasing or diminishing, in proportion as it may be desirable to render the saw-blades thicker or thinner in any particular part of the circumference. It is usual to leave them thicker at the centre, and to grind them away gradually toward the circumference. Thirdly and lastly, the pad, while it revolves vertically in a direction perpendicular to the revolving plane, and is forced horizontally against it, is also driven laterally to and fro across its surface; and the result is a degree of equability, or graduation of thickness, as well as of superficial polish, scarcely otherwise attainable. This machine is one of the special wonders and ornaments of the establishment.

It will not be amiss here to add, that with the improvements of their manufacture the demand for circular saws is continually on the increase; and that a single house is in the habit of taking regularly six of these powerful tools weekly from the Messrs. Hoes' establishment.

Returning hence to the leading and principal feature of these works, the manufacture, namely, of all the various instruments and appliances for the art imprimatorial, we are next ushered into the iron planing and cutting engine rooms, for the cutting the cogs of engine wheels, and finishing the surfaces of whatever portions of the machinery must be brought to a smooth and polished face. This is done by the propulsion of the pieces of metal so to be planed, in a horizontal and longitudinal direction against cutting edges, which again move horizontally across the moving planes, and are pressed downward on them vertically, so as to bring the planing to the requisite depth. The abraded portions are thrown off from the surface, of cast iron in a sort of scaly dust, from wrought iron in long, curled shavings, and the planes can be wrought up to almost any desirable degree of finish and smoothness.

The cutting engine for the formation of cogged wheels, bears some relation to that for the teething of saws, the cutter impinging downward, with an action in some degree intermediate between that of sawing and filing, upon the exterior circumference of the circular wheels, which revolve on their axis under them in a rotation so regulated to the fall of the striker as to insure absolute equality in the width of the cogs or projections.

Ships.

A FAREWELL.

W. H. HOSMER.

Drifting on the darkened waters Are Earth's dying sons and daughters, And, like ships that meet each other, Brother gives a hail to brother: Brief the pleasure of that meeting, And forgotten oft the greeting.

Could I think that other faces Would of me blot out all traces. Though I cannot be thy lover, Clouds my path would gather over; From remembrance, then, endeavor Not to blot me out forever.

Fare thee well! must now be spoken, And another tie be broken; Though the hour hath come to sever, Lady! I'll forget thee never, But thy warmth of soul remember Till extinct life's wasting ember.

EDITH MORTON.

BY MISS S. A. STUART.

The door was wide open, and a quiet, blue-eyed lady sat sewing in the back part of the wide hall, who raised her soft, kind eyes inquiringly to his face, as his shadow darkened the doorway.

"Mrs. Morton, I presume?" said he, as she approached him. "I am Mr. Lennard, whom you were so kind as to admit--"

"I am happy to see you, Mr. Lennard," interrupted she, hospitably extending her hand to bid him welcome. "Walk into this room, sir. We are very plain folks here, Mr. Lennard--but you must endeavor to make yourself at home. Alec"--to a boy who entered--"take this gentleman's buggy and horse and put them up."

Turning to her guest, she conducted him into her cosy parlor, now filled with the golden moats of the glimmering sunbeams, that quivered through the foliage that draped the windows; whilst the atmosphere of the room itself breathed sweets unnumbered. They chatted of the weather, of his journey, of the village, etc., till Mrs. Morton, remembering her duty as hostess, begged her guest to excuse her, whilst she hurried off, "on hospitable thoughts intent." Charles threw himself dreamily and indolently into the old-fashioned arm-chair, which stood invitingly in the shadow of the window.

"You will excuse Edith, Mr. Lennard, I hope, for her carelessness. She tells me that the light dazzled her eyes so much, that she was not aware of your presence; she has been in the habit of throwing her books into this room--the arm-chair which you now occupy being her morning study. Edith, speak to Mr. Lennard, and tell him how sorry you are for your rude greeting."

"Do not trouble yourself, Miss Edith. Your apology is all-sufficient, my dear madam; I, too, must apologize, for having unknowingly taken possession of her study, which is indeed inviting. You must look upon me as belonging to the family, and act without restraint; for I assure you, the thought would be far from pleasant did I think I interfered in the slightest degree with your settled habits. Miss Edith, you did right to send me such a reminder at the outset, and I assure you I will be more careful in future."

Charles Lennard soon made himself perfectly at home with Mrs. Morton and Edith; and his first evening with them passed pleasantly enough to him. He felt himself much attracted by her exquisite beauty; and, as their acquaintanceship progressed, when her mother left the room on household duties, he was much amused by her piquant and original replies to his questions. He found her, too, not uneducated, and, young as she was, a reader and lover of many of his own favorite poets. At the close of the evening, Mrs. Morton requested Edith to sing, and, with a startled look toward Lennard, she left her seat to get the guitar from its case.

"Mother, 'tis dreadfully out of tune," in a tone of entreaty.

Edith bent low over the instrument as she tuned it, and looking up into her mother's face, as if her shyness was not yet overcome, waited for that mother to tell her to commence.

"Are you ready? well, play then my favorite."

And though the young voice was trembling, and not well drilled, yet she warbled her "wood notes wild" with marvelous sweetness; and she blushed with pleasure at Lennard's seeming enjoyment of her simple music; and her "good-night" to him was as charming as to an acquaintance of longer date, accompanied as it was by such a sweet smile.

"What a nice little wife she will make for some one, in days to come," thought he, as standing by the window overlooking the garden, he found himself musing on the singularly graceful and beautiful child whom he had left.

Charles Lennard had no idea at that moment of ever loving Edith Morton. She was too young, too unformed in mind to comprehend him, and to follow, as a kindred spirit, through the abstruse and almost transcendental range of thought, in which he often loved to engage. Delicate in health as in organization, he contented himself for the present to be a spectator in the world rather than actor, and in his day-dreams now weaving bright pictures for the future--pictures in which he was to play a most conspicuous part. We will not say but that a vision also of dazzling eyes, dancing ringlets, and woman's light form, constituted a part of the reveries of the listless and dreamy student.

"May I assist you with your map-questions, Miss Edith?"

"No, I thank you. I have finished studying them. Mother always insists that if I rise early I will learn twice as fast, and also be prepared to say them when the bell rings."

"I know," said Mrs. Morton, "she will be obliged to stop for play every now and then. Yes, truly, Edith, you are a sad idler."

"Ah, mother! but you should only see me in school. Here there is so much to take up my attention. I mean I am obliged to kiss you, to tend the flowers, and--and play with pussy;" and here, forgetting Mr. Lennard, she caught up her little pet, and began smoothing its soft fur with her white hand.

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