110 Economy of Machinery and Manufactures. 



small holes, and varnished with a coarse black varnish, for the use of the trunk ma- 

 ker, who protects the edges and angles of his boxes with them ; the remainder are 

 consigned to the manufacturing chemists, who employ them, in conjunction with 

 pyroligneous acid, in making a black dye for the use of calico printers." 



Of tools. — ^A tool is a ready assistance to the human hand, by 

 which it is chiefly used. There are multitudes of things which it 

 would be impossible to make, by the unaided efforts of the hands, 

 but add to them the rudest instruments, and their power is enlarged ; 

 with improved machinery their power becomes still farther extended, 

 and in their applications, various almost beyond the limits of calcu- 

 lation. By placing a tool in a frame, it becomes a machine, and the 

 combination of many tools in a machine requires an accumulation of 

 power proportioned to its weight, and the forces it is designed to 

 communicate. The powers of wind and water have long been ap- 

 plied to mechanical purposes, generally in aid of animal exertion, al- 

 though in some instances, they nearly supersede it. Steam, another 

 fertile source of moving power, when regulated and directed to ma- 

 chinery, possesses singular advantages, and produces effects unattain- 

 able by other methods. 



But it is not alone in the moving of tools and machinery in the 

 work shop, that economy of power should be practised in order to 

 secure profit. Every one who examines this subject must be sur- 

 prised to find how much success, in every department of the arts, de- 

 pends upon a due application of this principle. Mr. Babbage gives 

 an example in point, relating to the expense of transport. 



" When a mass of matter is to be removed, a certain amount of force must be ex- 

 pended, and upon the economy of this force, the price of transport will depend. For 

 instance, the cotton of Java is conveyed in junks to the coast of China ; but from the 

 seed not being previously separated, three quarters of the weight thus carried is not 

 cotton. This might, perhaps, be justified in Java by the want of machinery to sepa- 

 rate the seed, or by the relative cost of the operation in the two countries. But the 

 cotton, as packed by the Chinese, occupies three times the bulk of an equal quan- 

 tity shipped by Europeans for their own markets. Thus the freight of a given 

 quantity of cotton costs the Chinese nearly twelve times the price, to which, by a 

 proper attention to mechanical methods, it might be reduced." 



This statement suggests the immense value of the cotton gin, in- 

 vented by the late Mr. Whitney, of New Haven, which may, in 

 some degree, be compared with the steam engine, in the extent of 

 its usefulness. Cotton is now so universally used for clothing, that 

 whatever reduces its cost, is a benefit to the whole family of mankind. 

 When it is estimated, that the seed, before it is separated from the 

 cotton, makes three quarters of the weight of the article; and that it 

 requires the hand labor of one person for an entire day to clean one 



