CHAPTER XII

Introduction to the Whitworth Works. Sketch of Mr. Whitworth. Experience in the Whitworth Works. Our Agreement which was never Executed. First Engine in England Transmitting Power by a Belt.

Iwas still debating with myself what course to take, when I received a note from Mr. W. J. Hoyle, secretary of the Whitworth Company, inquiring if I were free from any entanglement with the affairs of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., to which I was able to make a satisfactory reply. Mr. Hoyle was then a stranger to me. It appeared that he was an accomplished steam engineer, and had been employed as an expert to test one of my engines in operation, an engine which we had made for a mill-owner in Bradford. He had been very favorably impressed by the engine, so much so as to form this scheme. He had been with the Whitworth Company only a short time, and was struck with the small amount of work they were doing in their tool department; and after his observation of the engine at Bradford, learning of the stoppage of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., it occurred to him that it would be a good thing for his company to undertake the manufacture of these engines. After receiving my answer to his preliminary inquiry, having Mr. Whitworth, as he afterwards told me, where he could not get away, on a trip from London to Manchester, he laid the plan before him and talked him into it. I directly after received an invitation to meet Mr. Whitworth at his office, and here commenced what I verily believed was one of the most remarkable experiences that any man ever had.

William J. Hoyle

In the course of our pretty long interview, which terminated with the conclusion of a verbal agreement, Mr. Whitworth talked with me quite freely, and told me several things that surprised me. One was the frank statement that he divided all other toolmakers in the world into two classes, one class who copied him without giving him any credit, and the other class who had the presumption to imagine that they could improve on him. His feelings towards both these classes evidently did not tend to make him happy. Another thing, which I heard without any sign of my amazement, was that he had long entertained the purpose of giving to the world the perfect steam-engine. “That is,” he explained, “an engine embodying all those essential principles to which steam-engine builders must sooner or later come.” This, he stated, had been necessarily postponed while he was engaged in developing his system of artillery, but he was nearing the completion of that work and should then be able to devote himself to it.

I cannot perhaps do better than stop here and give my impressions of Mr. Whitworth. He was in all respects a phenomenal man. As an engineer, or rather a toolmaker, he addressed himself to all fundamental constructive requirements and problems, and comprehended everything in his range and grasp of thought, continually seeking new fields to conquer. Long after the period here referred to he closed his long and wonderful career by giving to the world the hollow engine shaft and the system of hydraulic forging. At that time he was confidently anticipating the adoption by all nations of his system of artillery. He had made an immense advance, from spherical shot, incapable of accurate aim and having a high trajectory, to elongated shot, swiftly rotating in its flight and having a comparatively flat trajectory, and which could hit the mark and penetrate with destructive effect at distances of several miles. These fundamental features of modern artillery thus originated with Mr. Whitworth. All his other features have been superseded, but his elongated pointed rotating projectile will remain until nations shall learn war no more; a time which in the gradual development of humanity cannot be far away. Before I left England, however, he had abandoned his artillery plans in most bitter disappointment. He had met the English official mind. By the authorities of the war and navy departments it had been unanimously decided that what England wanted was, not accuracy ofaim and penetration at long range, but smashing effects at close quarters. The record of that is to be found in the proceedings of the House of Commons in 1868, only thirty-nine years ago. Think of that!

Mr. Whitworth was not only the most original engineering genius that ever lived. He was also a monumental egotist. His fundamental idea was always prominent, that he had taught the world not only all that it knew mechanically, but all it ever could know. His fury against tool-builders who improved on his plans was most ludicrous. He drew no distinction between principles and details. He must not be departed from even in a single line. No one in his works dared to think. This disposition had a striking illustration only a short time—less than a year—before I went there. He had no children. His nearest relatives were two nephews, W. W. and J. E. Hulse. The latter was a tool-manufacturer in Salford. W. W. Hulse was Mr. Whitworth’s superintendent, and had been associated with him for twenty-four years, for a long time as his partner, the firm being Joseph Whitworth & Company. Lately the business had been taken over by a corporation formed under the style of the Whitworth Company, and Mr. Hulse became the general superintendent.

Mr. Whitworth was taken sick, and for a while was not expected to live, and no one thought, even if he did get better, that he would ever be able to visit his works again. Mr. Hulse had been chafing under his restraint, and during Mr. Whitworth’s absence proceeded to make a few obvious improvements in their tools, such, for example, as supporting the table of their shaper, so that it would not yield under the cut. To the surprise of every one, Mr. Whitworth got well, and after more than six months’ absence, he appeared again at the works. Walking through, he noted the changes that had been made, sent for Mr. Hulse, discharged him on the spot, and ordered everything restored to its original form.

To return now to my own experience. Since Mr. Whitworth had been absorbed in his artillery development he had given only a cursory oversight to the tool manufacture. Mr. Hulse had been succeeded as superintendent by a man named Widdowson, whose only qualification for his position was entire subserviency to Mr. Whitworth.

SirJoseph Whitworth

My drawings and patterns were purchased by the Whitworth Company, and I was installed with one draftsman in a separate office, and prepared to put the work in hand at once for a 12×24-inch engine for the Paris Exposition, where Ormerod, Grierson & Co. had secured the space, and the drawings for which I had completed. If I remember rightly, the patterns were finished also. While I was getting things in order, Mr. Widdowson came into my office, and in a very important manner said to me: “You must understand, sir, that we work here to the decimal system and all drawings must be conformed to it.” I received this order meekly, and we went to work to make our drawings all over, for the single purpose of changing their dimensions from binary to decimal divisions of the inch. There was of course quite a body of detail drawings, and to make these over, with the pains required to make these changes to an unaccustomed system, and make and mount the tracings, took us nearly three weeks. When finished I took the roll of tracings to Mr. Widdowson’s office. He was not in, and I left them for him. An hour or so later he came puffing and blowing into my office with the drawings. He was a heavy man, and climbing upstairs exhausted him. When he got his breath, he broke out: “We can’t do anything with these. Haven’t got a decimal gauge in the shop.” “You gave me express orders to make my drawings to the decimal system.” “Damn it, I meant in halves and quarters and all that, andwritethem decimals.” So all that work and time were thrown away, and we had to make a new set of tracings from the drawings I had brought, in order to figure the dimensions in decimals. He told me afterwards that when Mr. Whitworth commenced the manufacture of cylindrical gauges he made them to the decimal divisions of the inch, imagining that was a better mode of division than that by continual bisection, and supposing that he had influence enough to effect the change. But nobody would buy his gauges. He had to call them in and make what people wanted. “And now,” said Mr. Widdowson, “there is not a decimal gauge in the world.” He knew, too, for up to that time they made them all. So Mr. Whitworth could make a mistake, and I found that this was not the worst one that he had made.

While time was being wasted in this manner, the subject of manufacturing the governors came up. Mr. Whitworth concluded that he would first try one on his own shop engine, so one was bought from Ormerod, Grierson & Co. I had a message from Mr. Widdowson to come to the shop and see my governor. It was acting in a manner that I had seen before, the counterpoise rising and dropping to its seat twice every time the belt lap came around. “Total failure, you see,” said Mr. Widdowson, “and I got a new belt for it, too.” I saw a chance to make an interesting observation, and asked him if he would get an old belt and try that. This he did, lapping the ends as before about 18 inches, according to the universal English custom, which I had long before found it necessary carefully to avoid. As I knew would be the case, the action was not improved at all. I then cut off the lap, butted the ends of the belt, and laced them in the American style, and lo! the trouble vanished. The governor stood motionless, only floating up and down slightly with the more important changes of load. Mr. Whitworth was greatly pleased, and at once set about their manufacture, in a full line of sizes.

He made the change, to which I have referred already, from the urn shape to the semi-spherical form of the counterpoise. In this connection he laid the law down to me in this dogmatic fashion: “Let no man show me a mechanical form for which he cannot give me a mechanical reason.” But Jove sometimes nods. They were to exhibit in Paris a large slotting-machine. The form of the upright did not suit Mr. Whitworth exactly. He had the pattern set up in the erecting-shop, and a board tacked on the side, cut to an outline that he directed. He came to look at it every day for a week, and ordered some change or other. Finally it was gotten to his mind, the pattern was altered accordingly, and a new casting made. This was set up in the shop, and I happened to be present when he came to see it. “Looks like a horse that has been taught to hold his head up,” said he. “Mechanical reason,” thought I, fresh from my lesson. When finished the slotting-machine was tried in the shop, and found to yield in the back. The tool sprang away from its work and rounded the corner. Mr. Whitworth had whittled the pattern away and ruined it. Instead of being sent to Paris, it was broken up.

My experiment with the governor proved the defect in the English system of lacing belts. Every machine in the land, of whatever kind, tool or loom or spinning or drawing frame, or whatever it was, driven by a belt, halted in its motion every time the lap in the belt passed over a pulley, sufficiently to drop my governor, when the same motion was given to it, and no one had ever observed this irregularity.

I thought they would never be ready to set about work on the engine. First, Mr. Widdowson ordered that every casting and forging, large and small, must be in the shop before one of them was put in hand. After this was done I found a number of men at work making sheet-iron templets of everything. I saw one man filing the threads in the edges of a templet for a ³⁄₈-inch bolt. When these were all finished and stamped, an operation that took quite a week, a great fuss was made about commencing work on everything simultaneously.

I went into the shop to see what was going on. The first thing to attract my attention was the steam-chest, then made separate from the cylinder. A workman—their best fitter, as I afterwards learned—was engaged in planing out the cavities in which the exhaust valves worked. I saw no center line, and asked him where it was. He had never heard of such a thing. “What do you measure from?” “From the side of the casting.” I called his attention to the center line on the drawing, from which all the measurements were taken, and told him all about it. He seemed very intelligent, and under my direction set the chest up on a plane table and made a center line around it and another across it, and set out everything from these lines, and I left him going on finely. An hour later I looked in again. He was about his job in the old way. To my question he explained that his foreman had come around and told him I had no business in the shop, thathegave him his directions, and he must finish his job just as he began it.

I made no reply but went to Mr. Hoyle’s office, and asked him if he knew what they were doing in the shop. He smiled and said, “I suppose they are finally making an engine for you.” “No, they are not.” “What are they doing?” “Making scrap iron.” “What do you mean?” I told him the situation. He took his hat and went out, saying, “I must see this myself.”

A couple of hours later he sent for me, and told me this. “I have been all around the works and seen all that is doing. It is all of the same piece. I have had a long interview with Mr. Widdowson, and am sorry to tell you that we can’t make your engine; we don’t know how. It seems to be entirely out of our line. The intelligence does not exist in these works to make a steam-engine. Nobody knows how to set about anything. I have stopped the work, and want to know what you think had better be done about it?” I asked him to let me think the matter over till the next morning. I then went to him and suggested to him to let me find a skilled locomotive-erecter who was also a trained draftsman, and to organize a separate department for the engine and governor manufacture, and put this man at the head of it, to direct it without interference. This was gladly agreed to. I found a young man, Mr. John Watts, who proved to be the very man for the place. In a week we were running under Mr. Watts’ direction, and the engine was saved. But what a time the poor man had! Everything seemed to be done wrong. It is hardly to be believed. He could not get a rod turned round, or a hole bored round.

In their toolmaking they relied entirely on grinding with “Turkey dust.” I once saw a gang of a dozen laborers working a long grinding-bar, in the bore, 10 inches diameter by 8 feet long, in the tailstock of an enormous lathe. I peered through this hole when the bar was withdrawn. It looked like a ploughed field. Scattered over it here and there were projections which had been ground off by these laborers. On the other hand, the planing done in these works was magnificent. I never saw anything to equal it. But circular work beat them entirely. I found that the lathe hands never thought of such a thing as getting any truth by the sliding cut. After that they went for the surface with coarse files, and relied for such approximate truth as they did get upon grinding with the everlasting Turkey dust.

Mr. Whitworth invented the duplex lathe tool, but I observed that they never used it. I asked Mr. Widdowson why this was. “Because,” said he, “the duplex tool will not turn round.” After a while I found out why. When our engine was finished, Mr. Widdowson set it upon two lathe beds and ran it. Lucky thathe did. The bottom of the engine bed was planed, and it could be leveled nicely on the flat surfaces of their lathe beds. The fly-wheel ran nearly a quarter of an inch out of truth. He set up some tool-boxes on one of the lathe beds, and turned the rim off in place, both sides and face being out. That, of course, made it run perfectly true. I asked the lathe hand how he could turn out such a job. He replied, “Come and see my lathe.” I found the spindle quite an eighth of an inch loose in the main bearing, the wear of twenty or thirty years. He told me all of the lathes in the works were in a similar condition. That explained many things. The mystery of those gear patterns was solved. Every spindle in the gear-cutting machine was wabbling loose in its holes. I can’t call them bearings. Now it appeared why they could not use the duplex tools. With a tool cutting on one side, they relied on the pressure of the cut to keep the lathe spindle in contact with the opposite side of its main bearing, and a poor reliance that was, but with a tool cutting on each side, fancy the situation. Then boring a true hole was obviously impossible. The workmen became indifferent; they had no reamers, relied entirely on grinding. I asked, Why do you not renew these worn-out bushings? but could never get an answer to the question. Some power evidently forbade it, and the fact is that no man about the place dared to think of such a thing as intimating to Mr. Whitworth that one of his lathe bearings required any fixing up, or that it was or could be anything short of perfect. He (Mr. Whitworth) had designed it as a perfect thing; ergo, it was perfect, and no man dared say otherwise.

Our engine work was finally, as a last resort, done by Mr. Watts on new lathes, made for customers and used for a month or two before they were sent out. Not only in England, but on the Continent and in America, the Whitworth Works were regarded as the perfect machine-shop. I remember a visit I had at the Paris Exposition from Mr. Elwell, of the firm of Varrell, Elwell & Poulot, proprietors of the largest mechanical establishment in Paris. After expressing his unbounded admiration of the running of the engine, he said, “I warrant your fly-wheel runs true.” After observing it critically, he exclaimed, “Ah, they do those things at Whitworth’s!”

The fact was Mr. Whitworth had cursed the British nation with the solid conical lathe-spindle bearing, a perfect bearing for ordinary-sized lathes and a most captivating thing—when new. These hardened steel cones, in hardened steel seats, ran in the most charming manner. But they wore more loose in the main bearing every day they ran, and there were no means for taking up the wear. It came on insensibly, and no one paid any attention to it. The cream of the joke was that people were so fascinated with this bearing that at that time no other could be sold in England, except for very large lathes. All toolmakers had to make it. I remember afterwards that Mr. Freeland, our best American toolmaker, who, as I have already mentioned, went to England and worked for some years as a journeyman in the Whitworth Works for the purpose of learning everything there that he could, didnotbring back to America the conical bearing.

The firm of Smith & Coventry were the first to fit their lathes with the means for taking up this wear, which took place only in the main bearing, where both the force of the cut and the weight of the piece were received. They made the conical seat for the back end of the spindle adjustable in the headstock and secured it by a thin nut on each end. This then could be moved backward sufficiently to let the forward cone up to its seat. This made it possible to use the solid bearing, but it involved this error, that after this adjustment the axis of the spindle did not coincide with the line connecting the lathe centers; but the two lines formed an angle with each other, which grew more decided every time the wear was taken up. This, however, was infinitely better than not to take up the wear at all.

At that time the Whitworth Works were divided into four departments. These were screwing machinery, gauges, guns and machine tools. The first three of these were locked. I never entered either of them. The latter also, like most works in England, was closed to outsiders. No customer could see his work in progress. This department was without a head or a drawing-office. It seemed to be running it on its traditions. I once said to Mr. Hoyle, “There must at some time have been here mechanical intelligence of the highest order, but where is it?” They had occasionally an order for something out of their ancientstyles, and their attempts to fill such orders were always ruinous. The following is a fair illustration. They had an order for a radial drill to be back-geared and strong enough to bore an 8-inch hole. Mr. Widdowson had the pattern for the upright fitted with the necessary brackets, and thought it was such a good thing that he would make two. The first one finished was tried in the shop, and all the gears in the arm were stripped. He woke up to the fact that he had forgotten to strengthen the transmitting parts, and moreover that the construction would not admit anything stronger. There was nothing to be done but to decline the order, chip off the brackets, and make these into single-speed drills. This I saw being done.

Mr. Widdowson told me the following amusing story. The LondonTimeshad heard of the wonderful performance of Mr. Hoe’s multiple-cylinder press, and concluded to have one of them of the largest size, ten cylinders. But, of course, Mr. Hoe did not know how to make his own presses. His work would do well enough for ignorant Americans, but not for an English Journal. The press must be made in England in the world-renowned Whitworth Works.

Mr. Hoe sent over one of his experts to give them the information they might need, but they would not let him in the shop. Mr. Hulse told him they had the drawings and specifications and that was all they needed. When the press was finished they set it up in the shop and attempted to run it. The instant it started every tape ran off its pulleys, and an investigation showed that not a spindle or shaft was parallel with any other. They had no idea of the method that must be employed to ensure this universal alignment. After enormous labor they got these so that they were encouraged to make another trial, when after a few revolutions every spindle stuck fast in its bearings.

Mr. Whitworth, absorbed in his artillery and spending most of his time in London, of course had no knowledge of how things were going on in his shop, of the utter want of ordinary intelligence.

I formed a scheme for an application of Mr. Whitworth’s system of end measurement to the production of an ideally perfect dividing-wheel. In this system Mr. Whitworth employed what he termed “the gravity piece.” This was a small steel plate about¹⁄₈ of an inch in thickness, the opposite sides of which were parallel and had the most perfectly true and smooth surfaces that could be produced by scraping. The ends of the piece to be tested were perfectly squared, by a method which I will not stop here to describe, and were finished in the same manner. The gravity piece was held fast between two such surfaces. None of the pieces were permitted to be touched by hand while an observation was being made. If now one of these pieces were loosened the millionth of an inch, the gravity piece would slide slowly down. If loosened two millionths of an inch, the gravity piece would descend twice as fast, and so on. I made a design for the application of this system to the correction of the dividing-wheel, so that a difference of pitch of one millionth of an inch could be shown and removed, the gravity piece being made to descend at the same rate of motion to whatever tooth it might be applied. I thought Mr. Whitworth would be interested in this novel and important application of his method, and I showed it to him. This was the encouraging and patronizing reply I received: “You had better inform yourself, sir, about what already exists. You will find a perfect dividing-wheel in my shop. What do you want better than that?” This wheel had divided my governor gear patterns, but spindles wabbling loose in their holes accounted for most of their defects.

The above recital is sufficient to show the conditions by which I found myself surrounded and the kind of man I had to deal with.

It may be supposed that when my agreement with Mr. Whitworth was concluded, the disappointment I had experienced on the stoppage of Ormerod, Grierson & Co. was quite relieved. But that does not express it. In fact, my revulsion of feeling could hardly be described. I believed that I had met a piece of good fortune that was unparalleled. I had got into the most famous machine-shop in the world, a shop in which in years gone by had been originated almost everything then regarded as most essential in machine construction. No one had ever before introduced anything into that shop. Its business, in its various departments, was confined to the manufacture of Mr. Whitworth’s own creations. I should never have dreamed of such a thing as getting into it. That I was there, and had been received so cordially, bewildered me. I could scarcely believe it.

I knew also that Mr. Whitworth’s name was a tower of strength. His influence with the public at large respecting everything mechanical seemed really that of a magician. I felt that the fact that the manufacture of my engine and governor had been taken up by Mr. Whitworth placed them on an eminence at once.

I was conscious also that I was quite prepared to improve this opportunity, grand as it seemed to be. The engine had been abundantly proved. The success of the condenser I felt sure of, a confidence that was found to have been fully justified. Everything on my part was in readiness. The drawings and patterns for several sizes of the engines were complete. I was certainly excusable for anticipating that I should enter at once upon a rapidly growing and prosperous business.

With my rude awakening from this “dream of bliss” the reader has already been made acquainted. The causes which had brought these works, so far as their machine-tool department was concerned, down from such a height of excellence as they must for a long time have occupied, to such a depth of ignorance and helplessness as existed on my entrance into them, I never fully knew. I heard that some years before there had been an extensive strike in the works, and that Mr. Whitworth had discharged a large body of skilled workmen and had filled their places with laborers. They had a pretty large drawing-office—empty. I was told that until a short time before my coming they had kept one draftsman employed, but no one paid any attention to his drawings. Mr. Widdowson regarded them merely as suggestions, and he and the foreman pattern-maker altered them as they liked, and finally the farce of having drawings made at all was abandoned. It was not found difficult to run these closely shut works for a long time on their reputation.

The state of affairs was distressing enough. The few engines that we could manage to finish we could only build, in many of their parts, on new lathes, which were used by them as long as they dared to, before sending them to their owners. But I kept up a brave heart. At any rate the personal influence of Mr. Whitworth remained. Indeed I already saw its value in many ways. Then the pattern-shop, foundry and smith-shop were equal to our requirements, and I felt confident that Mr. Hoylecould induce Mr. Whitworth to have the improvements and changes made, especially in the lathes and boring-machines, which would make it possible for us to do the work. Mr. Hoyle had become famous in the shop as the only man who had ever been able to influence Mr. Whitworth. He had lately given a striking example of his power. Mr. Whitworth was, years before, the designer of the box frame, which gave to many machine tools a rigidity incomparably superior to that which could be got by any method of ribbing. This box system was then established in universal use, both in England and on the Continent. Not long before my coming Mr. Whitworth had been looking into the cost of the cores that these box forms required, and concluded that he could not allow such an expense any longer, and ordered a return to the method of ribbing. The superintendent and foremen, to whom this order was communicated, were amazed at so ruinous and indeed insane a step. No one else dared to open his mouth; but Mr. Hoyle undertook the task of dissuading him from it, and after a long struggle finally succeeded in inducing him to rescind his order. So I confidently looked to him for the salvation of the engine.

Then suddenly a new trouble arose. After a delay of some months, the agreement between Mr. Whitworth and myself, reduced to writing by his solicitor, was put into my hands for signature. I found that it corresponded with our verbal agreement, except that Mr. Whitworth reserved to himself the right to make alterations in the engine, in any respect whatever, in his discretion. To say that I hesitated about signing such an abandonment would not be true; I never thought of such a thing as signing it. Mr. Whitworth was probably the only man in the world who would have thought of making such a demand, and was certainly the last man in the world to whom it should be granted.

The first thing he would probably have done would have been to make the crank and cross-head pins run in solid bearings. I had regarded his talk about “the perfect steam-engine” at our first interview as idle words; but here was the provision for giving these words effect. Indeed, he now assured me that the opening to his scheme afforded by my engine formed his inducement fortaking it up, and that he expected me to understand that from what he then said. Here was a situation! I knew that in the multifarious excursions of his restless mind the steam-engine had never been included. These excursions seemed to have led in all directions except that. About the steam-engine and its “fundamental principles,” except those constructive principles that it had in common with all machines, I was sure he had not the least idea. The scheme was childish. I could only think of the little boy who wanted a penny to go down-town. “What are you going to buy?” said his amused father. “I don’t know; shall see something I want when I get there.” This seemed to me, and correctly as I afterwards became satisfied, to represent Mr. Whitworth’s “open-mindedness” on this subject.

Now, Mr. Whitworth was the most dangerous man possible to be entrusted with such a power. He could not work with anybody else. His disposition was despotic. He looked only for servile obedience to his orders. Besides this, he had no conception of the law of growth. In his own mind he had anchored both tool construction and gunnery where they were to remain forever, and he purposed to do the same thing with the steam-engine, as soon as he should have time to attend to it.

So our agreement never was executed. I confidently expected him to yield on this point, which I was settled that I would never do, and I found in the end that he as confidently expected me to yield, which he was settled that he would never do. Meanwhile we got along on amodus vivendiplan, which could only last through an emergency, and during which, of course, nothing could be done towards settling the business on a substantial foundation. The emergency in this case was getting through the Paris Exposition. Before coming to that, however, I have something else to relate.

We received an order from Pooley & Son, proprietors of the India Mills, Manchester, for a horizontal condensing engine to drive the machinery of their blowing-room, that in which the cotton is opened and cleaned and receives its first carding operations. The growth of their business had made it necessary for them to increase their power, which they planned to do by driving this portion of their machinery separately. This engine was interestingfor two reasons. It was the first engine ordered in England to which my horizontal condenser was applied, and it was the first mill engine in England from which the power was transmitted by a belt.

My business was transacted entirely with the younger Mr. Pooley, who seemed to be the practical head of the concern. Our first meeting has remained vivid in my recollection, as illustrating the English brusqueness of manner.

Calling at his office in response to an invitation by post, I was met on opening the door after the call “come in” by the abrupt question, “What do you want?” I was not wholly unused to this kind of greeting and so told him who I was and what I wanted, when of course his manner changed at once. We became very good friends, and should he be living and this meet his eye, I send him my salutation.

We had quite a discussion on the question of a belt. I urged it, and he would not listen to it. My statement that belts were used exclusively in cotton-mills in America had no influence. I discovered that it makes all the difference in the world who tells a thing. After he had, as we both supposed, made his final decision to follow the universal custom and employ gearing, he happened to meet his friend Mr. Hetherington, the same man already mentioned in connection with the Harrison boiler. Mr. Hetherington had just returned from a trip to “the States,” and had visited the Lowell and Lawrence cotton-mills, and this was part of their conversation:

“Did you see anywhere power taken from a prime mover by a belt?”

“I did not see anything else.”

“Is that so? This is just what Porter told me, but I could not credit it. Did they seem to give satisfaction?”

“That is what every one assured me. They would not use anything else.”

And so I received an order for a belt, 24 inches wide, to be imported from America, with the clamps, rivets, and cement needed to put it on endless, an operation of which no workman in England had any idea, so I had to do it myself. I sent the order to Mr. Allen to be placed, and received quite promptly acarefully selected belt, of hides of uniform thickness, which gave the highest satisfaction.

The following is a copy of the bill for the first American belt ever sent to England. I included an order for a side of lace leather, to enable them to try the American style of lacing belts. This leather is horse hide, their sheep-skin lacing would not be strong enough.

New York, December 15, 1866.Mr.Chas. Pooley.Bought of STEPHEN BALLARD,(Successor toStearns & Ballard),Manufacturer of Every Description of Leather Belting,Also, Dealer in Vulcanized Rubber Belting, Hose and Packing, Belt Rivets,Belt Hooks, etc.,Extra Quality Lacing Leather,No. 333 Pearl Street, Franklin Square (Harpers’ Building).51ft. 24-inch Donb Belt692352.912lbs. Rivets801.601„ Cement1.001Side Lacing5.00Cartage.501Cask1.25Insurance4.15366.52Collection 2¹⁄₂%9.16375.68

New York, December 15, 1866.

Mr.Chas. Pooley.

Bought of STEPHEN BALLARD,(Successor toStearns & Ballard),Manufacturer of Every Description of Leather Belting,Also, Dealer in Vulcanized Rubber Belting, Hose and Packing, Belt Rivets,Belt Hooks, etc.,Extra Quality Lacing Leather,No. 333 Pearl Street, Franklin Square (Harpers’ Building).

I put this belt on quite loose. The bottom side was the tight one, and the upper side hung in a loop nearly three feet deep. This exhibited the uniform running of the engine in a striking manner. As is well known, variations of speed produce waves in such a loop, the height of which waves indicates the amount of these variations. This belt hung motionless. The most careful observations on the loop did not indicate that it was running at all. The engine had no fly-wheel; the belt drum, 10 feet in diameter, served this purpose also. This showed the value in this respect of high speed, 150 turns per minute. Thisabsoluteuniformity of motion surprised me, I knew nothing about the equalizing action of the reciprocating parts of the engine, to which this remarkable result was largely due. I was then absorbedin balancing, which was as far as I had advanced, and in this case, as previously in the governor, I “had builded better than I knew.”

The accompanyingdiagramsare from a duplicate of the Pooley engine built at the same time for a Mr. Adams, a paper-maker in the north of England. This engine was directly connected to the line of shaft. I was called home from Paris to go to Mr. Adams’ mill and start that engine. Mr. Adams’ mill was not yet connected, and I was obliged to return to Paris after taking friction diagrams, of which the following are examples.

ATMOSPHERESCALE, 16 LBS. TO 1 INCHATMOSPHERESCALE, 16 LBS. TO 1 INCHDiagrams from Engine Built for Mr. Adams.

ATMOSPHERESCALE, 16 LBS. TO 1 INCHATMOSPHERESCALE, 16 LBS. TO 1 INCH

ATMOSPHERESCALE, 16 LBS. TO 1 INCH

Diagrams from Engine Built for Mr. Adams.

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