544 



MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, THE PROGRESS OF. 



decades, from 5,000 to 7,500 revolutions per 

 minute. Looms then making 120 picks per 

 minute make now a* lii-li as 100, and one hand 

 takes chance of from 25 to 50 per cent more 

 work. Tin- " slasher " dresser does ten times 

 the work of the old machine, supplying 400 

 looms in place of 40, and demanding the at- 

 tendance of only one man and a boy, instead 

 of two men and ten girls. Pickers handle a 

 ton of cotton per day in place of half or five 

 eighths of a ton. The cheaply-made turbine 

 driving these mills has completely displaced 

 the old costly vertical wheel, doing the work 

 with less water and greater steadiness. Its 

 efficiency has risen from 70 or 75 to 80 and 

 85, and sometimes 90 'per cent. A genera- 

 tion ago factories were in operation twelve 

 or thirteen hours; to-day a man works ten 

 hours. Then three yards an hour was the 

 product for a single operative ; to-day ten 

 yards per worker are produced. In twenty 

 years the annual product in cotton-mills has 

 risen from 2J tons to 3| tons per annum per 

 mill-hand; wages have increased 20 per cent, 

 and the buying power of the dollar has risen 

 in much more than equal proportion, thus 

 adding 50 per cent to the comforts and luxu- 

 ries of working people, permitting an increased 

 number of happy marriages and comfortable 

 homes, setting free the child-slaves of the 

 mills, and turning them into the schools. 

 Where one hand then drove forty spindles, 

 he now manages sixty ; and every seven spin- 

 dles, of the more than ten millions in operation, 

 work up a bale of cotton each year and turn 

 out a hundred dollars' worth of product. This 

 product is supplied to the most indigent at a 

 small advance on the one and a half cent for 

 labor, and an equal sum for raw cotton, which 

 are expended in the manufacture of the cheap- 

 est grades. A still more striking fact is the 

 distribution of American cotton goods to dis- 

 tant countries. A single mill-operative at Fall 

 River, Lowell, or Providence makes each year 

 cotton cloth enough to supply 1,500 of the peo- 

 ple who pay by sending their tea. 



In woolen manufactures all machinery has 

 been speeded up, product increased, labor di- 

 minished, costs lessened, and machinery given 

 greater automatism and higher efficiency both 

 in making ordinary goods and in adaptation 

 to finer grades. The manufacture has had a 

 healthy growth, and the product is daily com- 

 peting more successfully with the best of im- 

 ported goods. 



Power-looms and automatic machinery have 

 been introduced more slowly in the silk-trade 

 than in others; yet progress has been made. 

 New and improved apparatus is steadily dis- 

 placing older forms; power machinery is tak- 

 ing the place of hand-worked machines, with 

 more rapidity in mills working the coarser 

 grades, and more slowly where the finest goods 

 are produced. The strength, durability, and 

 finish of all kinds of silks are constantly be- 

 coming more and more nearly equal to the 



best imported. Some makes of American silk 

 wear better than any of foreign make yet seen 

 in the American market, and several grades 

 have a finish which compares favorably with 

 the very best of European silks. In variety 

 and in quantity of goods produced a steady gain 

 is to be noted. The ingenuity of the American 

 workman, aided by talent and experience 

 coming from the older silk-making provinces 

 of Europe, seem likely to give to this manu- 

 facture a position of which its promoters may 

 well be proud. Mr. Wyckoff, Secretary of the 

 Silk-makers' Association, reports, June 30th, 

 a production in the United States of nearly 

 $35,000,000 in finished goods, by about 400 

 factories, employing a capital of $19,000,000, 

 and over 30,000 operatives, whose wages 

 amount to about $9,000,000 per annum. A 

 half-million spindles are in operation, running 

 often 10,000 revolutions per minute, instead of 

 5,000 as a few years ago, and over 5,000 power 

 and 4,000 hand looms. Spinning-frames oc- 

 cupy -ffa the space, and cost 2 \ as much per 

 spindle as in the earlier days of the trade, 

 and the cost of work has now become so small 

 that $3 per pound spent in wages make silk 

 costing $5 per pound into finished goods aver- 

 aging $11.50. 



In machine-work generally the distinctively 

 American idea of manufacturing, as opposed to 

 the old methods, of making parts of mechan- 

 ism in large numbers, is steadily progressing, 

 thanks to the ingenuity of mechanics, like 

 Pratt, Whitney, and others, in devising tools 

 specially designed for the production of defi- 

 nitely limited kinds of work. 



The same American genius of invention 

 which produced the Whitney cotton-gin, the 

 Blanchard lathe, the screw-machinery, and the 

 more wonderful card-setting machine, has late- 

 ly worked out Sellers's automatic gear-cutter, 

 the automatic turret-lathe, and a thousand and 

 one machine-tools hardly less remarkable in 

 construction and efficiency. 



In the railroad system of the country changes 

 are everywhere in progress. To-day there are 

 a hundred thousand miles of track laid down in 

 the United States, about one half of the con- 

 structed railroads of the world. Trains here 

 and in Great Britain make 50 miles an hour on 

 schedule time, taking water from the track, 

 and receiving and delivering mails, without 

 stop. A speed of 100 miles has been many 

 times attained. Locomotives are frequently 

 built weighing 50 tons; 70 tons has been 

 reached, and every builder of engines is ready 

 to guarantee the performance of an engine to 

 draw 2,000 tons 20 miles an hour on a level 

 track. In coal consumption some saving has 

 been made of late years. Three pounds of 

 coal per hour and per horse-power is the usual 

 duty, and a consumption of 2'6 pounds of coal 

 and of 22| pounds of steam has been reported 

 from recent locomotive tests. The trapping of 

 cinder and the reduction of intensity of com- 

 bustion by extending grate area are late im- 



