analysis had been forged. Before discussing subse- 

 quent developments in analysis and synthesis, how- 

 ever, it will be profitable to inquire what the mechani- 

 cian — designer and builder of machines — was doing 

 while all of this intellectual effort was being expended. 



Mechanicians and Mechanisms 



While the inductive process of recognizing and 

 stating true principles of the kinematics of mechan- 

 isms was proceeding through three generations of 

 French, English, and finally German scholars, the 

 actual design of mechanisms went ahead with scant 

 regard for what the scholars were doing and saying. 



After the demonstration by Boulton and Watt that 

 large mechanisms could be wrought with sufficient 

 precision to be useful, the English tool builders Mauds- 

 lay, Roberts, Clement, Nasmyth, and Whitworth 

 developed machine tools of increasing size and truth. 

 The design of other machinery kept pace with — 

 sometimes just behind, sometimes just ahead of — the 

 capacity and capability of machine tools. In general, 

 there was an increasing sophistication of mechanisms 

 that could only be accounted for by an increase of 

 information with which the individual designer could 

 start. 



Reuleaux pointed out in 1875 that the "almost 

 feverish progress made in the regions of technical 

 work" was "not a consequence of any increased capa- 

 city for intellectual action in the race, but only the 

 perfecting and extending of the tools with which the 

 intellect works." These tools, he said, "have in- 

 creased in number just like those in the modern 

 inechanical workshop — the men who work them 

 remain the same." Reuleaux went on to say that the 

 theory and practice of machine-kinematics had 

 "carried on a separate existence side by side." The 



this paper as the basis for a chapter in Ins Graphics or the Art of 

 Calculating by Drawing Lines, London, 1889, pp. 144-162. In a 

 footnote of his paper, .Smith credited Fleeming Jenkin (1833- 

 1885) with suggesting the term "image." After discarding as 

 "practically useless" Kennedy's graphical differentiation, 

 Smith complained that he had "failed to find any practical use" 

 for Reuleaux's "method of centroids, more properly called 

 axoids." Such statements were not calculated to encourage 

 Kennedy and Reuleaux to advertise Smith's fame; however, I 

 found no indication that either one took offense at the criticism. 

 .Smith's velocity and acceleration diagrams were included (ap- 

 parently embalmed, so far as American engineers were con- 

 cerned) in Encyclopaedia Britannica, ed. 11, 1910, vol. 17, pp. 

 1008-1009. 



reason for this failure to apply theory to practice, and 

 vice versa, must be sought in the defects of the theory, 

 he thought, because "the mechanisms themselves have 

 been quietly developed in practical machine-design, 

 by invention and improvement, regardless of whether 

 or not they were accorded any direct and proper 

 theoretical recognition." He pointed out that the 

 theories had thus far "furnished no new mecha- 

 nisms." -^ 



It is reasonable, therefore, to ask what was respon- 

 sible for the appearance of new mechanisms, and then 

 to see what sort of mechanisms had their origins in 

 this period. 



It is immediately evident to a designer that the 

 progress in mechanisms came about through the 

 spread of knowledge of what had already been done; 

 but designers of the last century had neither the 

 leisure nor ineans to be constantly visiting other 

 workshops, near and far, to observe and study the 

 latest developments. In the 1800's, as now, word 

 must in the main be spread by the printed page. 



Hachette's chart (fig. 28) had set the pattern for 

 display of mechanical contrivances in practical jour- 

 nals and in the large number of mechanical diction- 

 aries that were compiled to meet an apparent demand 

 for such information. It is a little surprising, however, 

 to find how persistent were some of Hachette's ideas 

 that could only have come from the uppermost 

 superficial layer of his cranium. See, for example, 

 his "anchored ferryboat" (fig. 34). This device, 

 employed by Hachette to show conversion of con- 

 tinuous rectilinear motion into alternating circular 

 motion, appeared in one publication after another 

 throughout the 19th century. As late as 1903 the 

 ferryboat was still anchored in Hiscox's Mechanical 

 Movements, although the tide had changed (fig. 35).'° 



During the upsurge of the Lyceum — or working- 

 man's institute — movement in the 1820's, Jacob 

 Bigelow, Rumford professor of applied science at 

 Harvard University, gave his popular lectures on the 

 "Elements of Technology" before capacity audiences 

 in Boston. In preparing his lecture on the elements 

 of machinery, Bigelow used as his authorities Hachette, 

 Lanz and Betancourt, and Olinthus Gregory's 

 mechanical dictionary, an English work in which 



89 Reuleaux, dp. cit. (footnote 68), p. 8. 



90 Gardner D. Hiscox, ed., Mechanical Movements, ed. 10, New 

 York, 1903, p. 151. The ferryboat did not appear in the 1917 

 edition. 



216 



BULLETIN 228: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



