126 APPLICATION OF CHAINS, 



mind an elegant sentiment of our master of nature, whose 

 works every philosopher who reads them will often have 

 occasion to quote. 



" Oh ! who can hold afire in his hand. 

 By thinking on the frosty Caucasus, &c." 



Nor Is it fit it Philosophers, nevertheless, there are who assert that 

 should. man may in time become so perfect that his mind shall be 



unaffected by variations in the state of his body. But even 

 were this improbability to be desired, it surely cannot be 

 expected ; for their mutual reliance is at present so gre9,t, 

 that it justifies the conclusion, that mind will never be- 

 come omnipotent over matter, until it shall be altogether 

 independent of it. 



VI. 



Account of a Crane^ mtJi the Description of a Method of 

 zcorking the Common Chain in Machinery^ so as to 

 exceed Ropes in Jiexibiliti/ and strength. By Mr, 

 Gilbert Gilpin, of Old-Park Iron-Works^ 7war 

 Shifnal^. 



The common ii/ ROM its simplicity of form, and facility of manufac- 

 svver every pur- *"^^? *^^ common chain, formed of oval links, has been 

 pose of a rope, in use from the earliest ages ; and that it did not answer 

 every purpose of a hempen rope in working over puUies, 

 was not owing to its peculiar form, but from an error in 

 the application. 

 Reasons whv't Every chain of this nature has a twist in itself, arising 

 has hitherto from a depression given by the hammer to each link in 

 failed. It has ^jjg welding+ ; and this circumstance, so trifling in ap- 

 pearance, is not so in its cflects, and it has in consequence 

 a perpetual tendency (even when reefed perfectly straight 

 in pullies, and on the barrels of cranes) to assume a 

 spiral form, which a plain cylindrical barrel, and the 



* Communicated, with a model, to the Society of Arts, who 

 awarded the silver medal and thirty guineas to the Inventor. Sec 

 Vol. XXIII. of their Transactions, where the present article Is ex- 

 tracted. 



f The twist may be seen by holding the piece of the chain by 

 one end, and viewing the links edgeways as it hangs down. 



common 



