1864. ] Farrparrn’s Mills and Millwork. 197 
The remaining chapters on the machinery of transmission deal 
chiefly with shafting and its details. Next to the practice of dividing 
labour into minute departments, and making each man’s work a task of 
repetition, the factory system depends for its economy of production on 
the concentration of a large number of machines under one building. 
Some years ago, before this plan was carried to its present extent, 
it was common in mills to have separate water-wheels to every machine ; 
but, as trade developed, the true principle of concentrating the motive 
power soon forced itself into notice. No sooner did it become the 
custom to use either one large water-wheel or steam-engine to drive 
the whole factory, than the question of shafting for the transmission 
of power to the distant parts of the building began naturally to receive 
attention. In order to show to what an extent this system of trans- 
mission has been carried, we may mention that, at the great Saltaire 
Mills, more than two miles of shafting is employed. Nowhere, per- 
haps, throughout his work, does Mr. Fairbairn give more full, accu- 
rate, and useful information in a tabulated form than on the subject of 
shafting, while the practical examples of couplings, clutches, journals, 
and brackets, illustrated by detail drawings, comprise every modern 
design of value. 
Section 5, on the arrangement of mills, opens with some very 
interesting remarks and information on mill architecture. It is true 
that Mr. Fairbairn does not touch at all upon that frequently agitated 
question, the shortcomings of the engineer as an architect, but his 
sketches and observations tend to bring it closely before us. <A 
recent writer very well remarked, in speaking of the relations between 
the engineer and the architect, that, in consequence of the entirely 
opposite views which either of the two take of their respective profes- 
sions, the “architects are quarrelling over Greek mouldings and 
Gothic pinnacles, and dreaming of reproducing the elegance of classical 
times, while the engineers are spanning our rivers with structures such 
as the world never saw before, arching under our mountains, and 
roofing acres for stations. They are, in fact executing a series of 
works which throw everything else hitherto done into the shade ; but 
all this, unfortunately, without that touch of higher art which is alone 
wanted for perfection, and this simply because the building profession 
is divided against itself, because its two branches are conducted on 
principles so much at variance that they cannot work together. 
The engineers cannot forego theirs, because they are the only prin- 
ciples which men of sense can follow; so unless the architects will 
consent to waive some of their archeological fancies, we may be 
condemned to live in the midst of ugliness for ever. When once 
this fact is appreciated, we shall surpass all preceding ages in architec- 
shown to be desirable.” In this specimen, as might have been expected, the flanks 
of the teeth are generated by a small describing circle, whose hypocycloid gives a 
tooth admirably proportioned and amply strong in the root. This is a small 
matter, perhaps, but not an unimportant one. No young student of mechanical 
engineering is likely to be led astray by Mr. Fairbairn, and the teeth of the wheel, 
“traced from my own pattern,” are a good sample of the principle on which the 
whole of the book is written. 
