XIV NOTES BY THE EDITOR. 



these piers arches will one clay spring that will caiTj him further 

 and further across its depths." 



One of the most imjjortant plans lately developed in this coun- 

 try for mechanics and inventors, is the proposed " museum of the 

 elements of machinery" under the auspices of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. The author of the plan, Mr. S. P. 

 Ruggles, himself a successful inventor, and knowing from ex- 

 perience the unnecessary difficulties encountered by inventors, 

 does not propose to copy the unwieldy collections of models of 

 complete machines, which have elsewhere been made at such cost 

 of time and money, and with such feeble results in facilitating 

 new invention. 



The Institute of Technology, therefore, proposes to make a 

 collection of the elements of machinery, and the simple combina- 

 tions of those elements. Machines consist of infinitely various 

 combinations of simpler parts, which repeat themselves in different 

 proportions or modifications. Mr. Ruggles wishes to make a 

 tangible encyclopaedia of these elements of machinery. He pro- 

 poses to collect and make working models of all the elements ; for 

 example, of all the varieties of reciprocating motions ; of all the 

 devices for converting a reciprocating into a rotatory motion, or a 

 rotatory into a reciprocating ; of all the varieties of cam motions, of 

 quick and slow screws, so combined as to give both speed and 

 power ; of eccentric gear combinations ; of reversing movements ; 

 of contrivances for pressing by means of screws, toggle-joints, 

 cams, and levers ; of the different escapement arrangements for 

 watches and clocks ; of universal joints like the gimbal and ball 

 and socket joints, and of all other primary mechanical devices 

 by which force and motion are transmitted, directed, or modi- 

 fied. 



The proposed classification of models of the elements of 

 machinery would be of especial service to inventors. A me- 

 chanical invention consists generally in a new combination 

 of mechanical elements, so as to produce a machine having 

 some new capacity or functions; but the inventor is too often 

 unacquainted with the known elements and simple combina- 

 tions of machinery. No collection contains them in an ac- 

 cessible form ; no catalogue or index directs him to the 

 movements which he needs in his new design. The elements 

 of machinery are not in every-day use among all people, like 

 the elements of language in common speech and familiar 

 writings, but are hidden away in the machinery of scattered 



