on the Great Exhibition. of 1851. 365 
require that I should explain at length. One consequence would 
be that the manufacturer, the man of science, the artisan, the 
merchant, would have a settled common language, in which they 
could speak of the objects about which they are concerned. It 
is needless to point out how much this would facilitate and pro- 
mote their working together ; how fatal to codperation is diver- 
sity and ambiguity in the language used. One of our old verse 
writers, expanding according to the:suggestions of his fancy, the 
account of the failure of men in the case of the tower of Babel, 
has made this causeof failure very prominent. He supposes that, 
the language of the workmen being confounded, when one of 
them asked for a spade, his companion brought him a bucket ; 
or when he called for mortar; handed him a plumb-line ;' and 
that, by the constant recurrence of these incongruous proceed- 
ings, the work necessarily came to a stand. ow. the conditions 
necessary, in order that workmen may work together, really go 
much farther than the use of a common language, in the general 
sense of the phrase. It is not only necessary that they should 
cially with regard to screws; fixing thus their exact diameter 
and pitch, as it is called—a process which would have the like 
effect.of making the construction, application, and repair of all 
work into which screws enter vastly more easy and msi 
the Catalogue exhibits to us. Mr. Whitworth would classify 
screws, and wheels, and axles, as the millwrights have classified 
toothed wheels. But screws, or wheels, or axles, are merely one 
kind of tool, one element of machinery ; and tools and machiuery 
