Chapter XXVI: My Downward Progress (2)

“It is interesting also to note how little this quality of solidity adds to the cost of castings. The addition is merely so much more pig-iron and really not that, because in the stove-plate style the forms are more complicated, the patterns more expensive and frail, and the cost of molding is greater. But what signifies even a considerable increase in the first cost of a tool that in daily use is to perform the work of many and is to place its possessor on a mechanical eminence?

“It is not the purpose of this paper to enter into details, interesting and important as these are, but to draw attention to the subject in a general way. The improvement observed quite recently in this respect, as well as in other points of tool construction, is highly gratifying and encourages the expectation of still further and more general progress.”

The following summer I employed some of my leisure time in making the plans for a couple of machine tools. One of these was a double-drilling machine for boring the boxes of connecting-rods, there being then no such machine in existence to my knowledge. I had been planning such a machine in my mind as long ago as when I was in the works of Ormerod, Grierson & Co., in Manchester, England, in 1864-5. This tool was designed first to bore the two boxes simultaneously and rapidly, and, secondly, to bore them with absolute accuracy in their distance apart and in the intersection by their axes of the axis of the rod at right angles in the same plane, and all this without measurement or setting out or the possibility of error. The other tool was comparatively a small affair. I utilized an old milling-machine for facing simultaneously the opposite sides of nuts and taking the roughing and finishing cuts at the same time. The ends of the nuts were first faced on a special mandrel which insured their being normal to the axis of the thread. A string of these nuts was then threaded on a mandrel fitting the top of their threads and some 15 or 18 inches long, on which they were held against a hardened collar, the diameter of which was equal to the distance between their opposite finished faces. The cutting tools were set in two disks about 12 inches in diameter; they were set about an inch apart alternately in two circles, one about one eighth of an inch inside the other, and were held in position by set-screws in the periphery. The cutters in the outer circles did the roughing; those in the inner circles were set projecting about 0.001 of an inch beyond the roughing tools and finished the surfaces. The mandrel was set between centers, and the string of nuts was supported from the table at the middle of its length. The nuts were secured in position by a dividing plate on the forward center-bearing. What was done with the two drawings I will state presently.

My success, as already related, came so swiftly and completely after six months of anxiety as to be almost overwhelming. The more I thought about it the more ecstatic I became; all my disasters had been of a nature the effect of which time would soon efface. I was full of high anticipations, I could see no cloud in the sky; I awakened to my old zeal and energy and set myself eagerly to the work of providing new equipment, unable to realize the real helplessness of my position. Little did I dream that I was already doomed to drink to its dregs the bitter cup of responsibility without authority. That story will come soon enough; now I will ask the reader to accompany me in my work of filling the shop with new tools.

My principal orders were sent to my old friends, Smith & Coventry, in England. Among others I sent one for my double-drilling machine with the drawings. I received a reply from them stating that they had just furnished a similar machine to the firm of Hick, Hargreaves & Company, the eminent engine-builders of Bolton, and that they thought I would prefer their design for this machine, of which they sent a blue print, to my own. I should think I did prefer it; it was simply wonderful. It presented one feature of especial interest, which was that the two drills were driven independently and when not employed on connecting-rods could be applied to any other drilling work. So I ordered that tool, and its work fully justified my expectations. I ordered from them several planers, the largest one passing a body five feet square. The planers they sent me had two novel features which filled me with admiration. The tables were provided with broad, flat shoes running on corresponding flat guides, the sideways wear being taken up by an adjustable gib on one side. This construction enables the bearing surfaces to be made one true plane from end to end, making cross-wind impossible. The next feature by which these planers were distinguished was the mode of lubricating these surfaces. Each guide was provided in the middle of its length with an oil-well which was a large square box, formed in the casting. In the middle of this box was a small rod on which two levers were pivoted, the arms of which were of equal length. At one end these arms carried a roller, and at the other end a weight considerably heavier than the roller. The roller was thus kept up against the under side of the shoe, while its lower side ran in the oil; thus the lubrication was effected by the revolution of this roller, which needed to be only one half the width of the face lubricated; this was found to be the perfection of lubrication. The tables were very stiff and were provided only with T slots from end to end for holding the work.

I built a one-story addition to the erecting-floor, about 40×100 feet, occupying a space which had before been used mostly as a stable. I divided this into two bays by columns, and provided each bay with an overhead traveler of about five tons capacity, worked by rope loops hanging to the floor. These were also made for me by Smith & Coventry.

I ordered from Mr. Moore, of Philadelphia, one or two of the heavy and powerful lathes built by him for turning chilled rolls. I also ordered a six-foot square planer from the Hewes & Phillips Iron Works in Newark, which they made expressly heavy, having become infected with my ideas on that subject. From Pratt & Whitney I ordered one large lathe and one or two small planers, and other tools from several other American makers.

In one instance only I was disappointed; that was the case of a 12-foot horizontal turning and boring machine. On examining the blue-prints which were sent me at my request, I was struck with the lightness of the table, and conditioned my order on this being made twice as heavy, which was done. If I had made the same requirement for every other part of the machine, I should have done a good thing for both the builders and myself. The table ran on a circular track, which was superbly designed. This track consisted of a circular trough perhaps 8 or 10 inches wide, and in the middle of it a bearing surface for the table, raised perhaps half an inch above the bottom of the trough and half an inch lower than its sides. This bearing surface was about 6 inches wide and was intersected by diagonal grooves about a foot apart. Oil could stand in this trough above the level of the bearing surfaces. I made a little improvement on the method of supplying the oil. As sent, a dose of oil was poured through a hole in the table, which was filled with a screw plug when not required to be used. I screwed a plug into that hole to stay, and drilled a hole in the bottom of the trough, in which I screwed a ³⁄₈-inch pipe that I carried under the bottom of the machine, and up behind one of the uprights to a higher level, and in the end of this pipe I screwed a sight-feed oil-cup. I provided a drain-pipe, which would maintain the oil in the trough at the desired level, while it was fed to the trough continually, drop by drop, as required. This table came with an imperfectly finished bearing surface. I set several men at work to bed these surfaces properly, and did a fine job of scraping on them. When it was finished, I pulled the table around with one hand, it floating dry on the air caught between the two surfaces. When we came to use the tool it chattered, and would do so however light the cut we were taking; every part of it was too light and vibrated, except the table. After all, it was the best tool of this kind and size that I could have got in this country. If made of proper strength I should have been able to use four cutting tools in the work, each leaving a perfectly smooth surface; but that was a degree of strength and usefulness that builders at that time had not dreamed of.

One of the first of our smaller engines, 10×20 inches, I built for ourselves, setting it in a location convenient for transmitting power to both the machine- and erecting-shops.

The job of taking the cross-wind out of the great planer interested me perhaps more than anything else, on account of its difficulty. It was a long time before I could decide how to go about it; besides the cross-wind, the guides were not parallel; at one end the V’s on the table bore on one side, and at the other end on the opposite side. I finally made an apparatus consisting of two V’s about three feet long, and connected by a cross-bar on which was set a spirit-level having a ground bubble. Another similar level was set on top of one of the V’s. With this apparatus, which was strong enough and was finished in the most perfect manner, and a brass wire, I was able to determine beforehand what was necessary to be done at every point in the guides. To finish this job on the bed, and afterwards on the V’s under the table, required fully three months’ work, including the time spent in preparing the apparatus, a job I could not begin until I had our new planers. When it was done I was able to make a perfect job of the great engine beds already mentioned, and other work which was waiting for it.

Among the old tools was one large drilling-machine, the size of which and the strength of its framing impressed me very favorably; but when we came to use it we found it would not drill a round hole. This defect could doubtless have been remedied by grinding the spindle, when we got a tool in which to do it, and fitting new boxes. It was determined, however, by Mr. Goodfellow and myself, that it would not be worth while to bother with it, because it had been so badly designed that the two traversing screws for the compound table, with which it was furnished, were located centrally, and so crossed each other exactly under the spindle. It was therefore impossible to use a boring-bar in this tool, and its usefulness was ridiculously disproportioned to its size. The contrast between it and the Smith & Coventry drill, which was set in its place, was really wonderful. We had no trouble in disposing of this and all other rejected tools to parties who were delighted to get them cheap. It took us about six months to get rid of all the rubbish and fill the works with the best tools then obtainable, though still deficient in many respects, as, for instance, the great planer, which had only one cutting tool on the cross-slide, whereas a planer of that size should be provided with four cutting tools--two on the cross-slide and one on each upright, and should be twice as heavy.

One of the first engines we sold was to D. M. Osborne & Co., the celebrated makers of mowers and reapers in Auburn, for driving their rolling mill. This was 18×30-inch engine, making 150 revolutions per minute, and was the fifth engine I had furnished to different industries in my native town.

Twenty-five years afterwards I saw this engine running. They had increased its speed. By means of a large ball on projections of the forked lever they were able to vary the speed from 200 revolutions to 250 revolutions per minute, according to the sizes they were rolling.

I observed that, as our facilities for doing work were increased, the belief that I was unable to execute orders became general through the country, and applications, at first numerous, dwindled to almost nothing. United and well-directed action would soon have put a new face on matters, but now I was to meet with obstacles that time could not overcome.

Mr. Merrick was an amiable and high-toned gentleman, whose sole aim was to do his duty; but he was exactly the wrong man for the place. He was not an engineer or mechanic. In the firm of S. V. Merrick & Sons he had been the office man. He was entirely a man of routine. He seemed obtuse to a mechanical reason for doing or not doing anything. Of course he knew nothing about my business. He was impressed with the idea of the omnipotence of the president, which in his case was true, as the directors would unanimously approve of whatever he might do. He at once deprived me of the power of appointment and discharge in my own department, arrogating all authority to himself. In addition he was naturally a very reserved man, I may say secretive. He consulted me about nothing. I never knew what he proposed to do or was doing until I found out afterwards. He had grandly confessed his first two blunders, but unfortunately he continued to make mistakes equally serious to the end of the chapter.

About the first order we had was from a company formed for lighting the streets in Philadelphia with arc lights, of which Thomas Dolan, a prominent manufacturer in Philadelphia, was president. Our order was for eight engines, 8×16 inches, to drive eight Brush dynamos each of 40-light power. The order was given to Mr. Merrick. I never saw Mr. Dolan; his own mill was at the northern end of the city, and he met Mr. Merrick by appointment at lunch in the business center, to which conferences I was never invited. When the plant was in operation I heard incidentally that they had a new engineer at the electric-light works, and I thought I would go up and make his acquaintance. I went the same evening. I was met at the door by a stranger who politely showed me the plant. I did not introduce myself. He asked me if I were interested in electric lighting. I told him I was not but might be. He said it was his duty to warn me against the use of high-speed engines; he should not have advised these, but found them already installed when he took charge of the place, and he was doing the best he could to make them answer for the present, but the works would be greatly enlarged after a while, when these engines would be gotten rid of and proper engines substituted in place of them. He called his assistant to corroborate his statement of the difficulty they had in getting along with them. I listened to these outrageous falsehoods and looked around and saw the eight engines running smoothly and silently at 280 revolutions per minute, each engine exerting the power of four engines of the same size, at the old maximum speed of 70 revolutions per minute, and giving absolutely uniform motion without a fly-wheel, and said nothing.

The next morning I made an early call on Mr. Dolan at his office. I introduced myself to him, although I think he knew me by sight. I told him the state of affairs I found at the electric-light station and received from him in reply the following astounding statement. He said: “Mr. Porter, when this company was formed I selected the Southwark Foundry as our engineers. I had previously become acquainted with the running of some of your engines and had come to the conclusion that they were just what we needed; accordingly I ordered our first engines from you. I assumed the engineering department of this enterprise to be in your hands, and that you would be represented here by an engineer selected by yourselves and devoted to your interest. Accordingly, when your men had finished their job I applied to your president to send me an engineer. He sent me a workman. That was not the kind of man I asked him for; the engines were in charge of workmen already from your own works. I wanted an educated man who could represent us in the courts and before the city councils--in short, an engineering head for this business, now in its infancy, but which was expected to grow to large proportions. He ought to have known what I wanted, or if he did not he should have asked me; his whole manner was entirely indifferent, he seemed to take no interest in the enterprise.

“Seeing I could get no help from Mr. Merrick, I applied to William Sellers for an engineer. He sent me a young man from his drawing-office, and I soon found out he was not the man I wanted; he knew nothing about a steam-engine--was merely a machine-tool draftsman--so I found I must rely upon myself. The only man I could think of was this man I have. He had done some good work for me two or three years ago in repairing one of my engines, so I offered him the position, which he accepted. I knew nothing of his engineering preferences; he seems to be doing very well, and I am afraid he will have to stay;” and stay he did.

The result was most remarkable. A demand for electric-lighting plants was springing up in all parts of the country. This became widely known as a pioneer plant, and was visited daily by parties who were interested in such projects. These visitors were met at the door by the engineer and his assistant and were warned, just as I was, to have nothing to do with a high-speed engine. They were always business men, quite ignorant of machinery, and with whom the testimony of two practical men who had experience with the engines and were actuated in their advice by a sense of duty was conclusive. The result was that we never had a single application to supply engines for electric lighting. Yes, we did have one application; a man came into the office when I was there alone and gave me an order for his mill and apologized to me for giving it. He said the place where he was obliged to locate his lighting plant was so limited, he found he could not get in the engine he wanted.

This result I felt especially exasperated at when a year afterwards the secretary of the lighting company, who had his office at the station, told me that he had done something of which he knew his directors would not approve; he had sold every light they were able to furnish. He had felt safe in doing this, because no one of the engines had failed them for an instant. For his part he could not see what those men were there for--they had absolutely nothing to do except to start and stop the engines as required and attend to the oiling. Their principal occupation seemed to be waiting on visitors.

This great disaster would have been avoided if Mr. Merrick had conferred with me with respect to Mr. Dolan’s most important request. We should have had a man there who would have told the truth about the engines, and would have impressed every visitor with the enormous advantage of the high-speed engine, not only for that service, but also for every use to which steam power can be applied.

It will be observed that this disaster was widespread and continuous. It not only caused a great immediate loss, but its ultimate injury was beyond all computation. Its effect was that the Porter-Allen engine was shut out of the boundless field of generating electricity for light and power purposes, a field which was naturally its own.

The following story is too good to keep, although the incident had no effect that I am aware of to accelerate my downward progress. While in Newark I had built for Mr. Edison an engine for his experimental plant at Menlo Park. The satisfaction this engine gave may be judged by what follows: One day I had a call from Mr. Edison, accompanied by Charles L. Clarke, his engineer. They had been walking very rapidly, and Mr. Edison, who was rather stout, was quite out of breath. As soon as they were seated, without waiting to recover his wind Mr. Edison began, ejaculating each sentence while catching his breath: “Want a thousand engines.” “Thousand engines.” “Want you to make the plans for them.” “Have all the shops in New England working on the parts.” “Bring them here to be assembled.” “Thousand engines.” In the conversation that followed I gently let Mr. Edison down, not to the earth, but in sight of it. The result was that two or three weeks afterwards I was injudicious enough to accept from him an order for twenty-four engines, luckily all of one size and type. This was to be a rush order, but it called for new drawings and patterns, as he wanted a special proportion of diameter and stroke, larger diameter and shorter stroke than those in my table. Before the drawings and patterns were completed, Mr. Edison, or the people associated with him, discovered that they had no place to put more than six of these engines, so the order was reduced to six. These were for a station which was being prepared on the west side of Pearl Street, a few doors south of Fulton, New York City. Three of these engines were finished first. After they had been running a few days a defect of some kind, the nature of which I never knew, was discovered, and Mr. Edison’s attention was called to it. He charged it to the engine, and exclaimed impetuously, “Turn them out, turn them out!” It was represented to him, however, that they could hardly do this, as they were under contract for a considerable amount of light and power, and the current was being furnished satisfactorily. “Well,” said he, “we’ll have no more of them at any rate,” so the order for the remaining three engines was countermanded, and three Armington & Sims engines were ordered in place of them. When these were started the same difficulty appeared with them also. A fresh investigation disclosed the fact that the difficulty was entirely an electrical one, and the engines had nothing to do with it. Mr. Clarke claimed that had been his belief from the beginning. So the thousand engines dwindled to three engines sold and three thrown back on our hands. The two triplets ran together harmoniously until in the development of the electrical business that station was abandoned.

Directly after we began to do work, Mr. E. D. Leavitt brought us the business of the Calumet and Hecla mine. This was then the largest copper mine in the country, owned by a Boston company of which Mr. Agassiz, son of the great naturalist, was president. He brought it to me personally on account of his admiration for the engine, and also for the character of work which I had inaugurated. His first order was for an engine of moderate size. While that was building he brought us a small order for a repair job, amounting perhaps to a couple of hundred dollars. That work was spoiled in the shop by some blunder and had to be thrown away and made over again. By accident I saw the bill for that job; a green boy brought it from the treasurer’s desk for Mr. Merrick’s approval. We both happened to be out, and by mistake he laid it on my side of the table. I came in first, picked it up and read it, and saw that it was for the full amount of the material and work that had been put on the job. It seemed to me quite double what it ought to be. I laid it on Mr. Merrick’s side and, when he came in, told him how I came to see it, and I thought it should not be sent, being so greatly increased by our own fault. “Oh,” said he, “they are rich; they won’t mind it.” I said: “That is not the question with me; I don’t think it is just to charge our customers for our own blunders.” He smiled at my innocence, saying: “If a machine-shop does not make its customers pay for its blunders, it will soon find itself in the poorhouse.” “Well,” said I, “I protest against this bill being sent.” However, it was sent, and in the course of a few days a check came for the full amount, and Mr. Merrick laughed at me. Weeks and months passed away and we had heard no more from Mr. Leavitt, when I met him in New York at a meeting of the council of the Society of Mechanical Engineers. When the meeting was over he invited me to walk with him, and said to me: “I suppose you have observed that I have not visited the Southwark Foundry lately.” I told him I had observed it. He then said: “Do you remember that bill?” I told him I did very well, and how vainly I had protested against its being sent. He said: “When that bill was brought to me for approval, I hesitated about putting my initials to it until I had shown it to Mr. Agassiz. I told him what the job was and the bill was quite twice as large as I had expected. He replied, ‘Pay it, but don’t go to them any more,’ and I have taken our work to the Dickson Manufacturing Company at Scranton.” I realized that I had lost the most influential engineering friend I had since the death of Mr. Holley. I heard some years after, and believe it, though I do not vouch for its correctness, that the work sent to the Dickson Manufacturing Company through Mr. Leavitt had in one year exceeded one hundred thousand dollars.

Some time previous to these events, Mr. Merrick had done a very high-handed thing. Assuming supreme power as president of the company, he had invaded my department, and, without a word to me, had appointed over Mr. Goodfellow a superintendent to suit himself, reducing Mr. Goodfellow to be general foreman of the machine-shop, to take his orders from the new superintendent and not from me, whereupon Mr. Goodfellow resigned, and accepted a position as master mechanic in the Pennsylvania Steel Works, and by his advice the engine ordered by them from me was taken from the Southwark Foundry in its incomplete condition and finished by themselves under Mr. Goodfellow’s direction. Mr. Merrick then filled Mr. Goodfellow’s place with another friend of his own as general foreman, a man who would have been as valuable as a stick of wood but for his incessant blunders. I was fully alive to the arbitrary nature of this usurpation, but was entirely helpless, knowing perfectly well that the directors would sustain the president in whatever he did.

With the coming of the new superintendent, the fatal change took place. He came, first of all, full of the superiority of Philadelphia mechanics, and, second, feeling that in the nature of things I must be entirely ignorant of anything mechanical. I was nothing but a New York lawyer; never did a day’s work in a shop in my life; had gone into a business I was not educated to and knew nothing about. My presuming to give orders to mechanics, and Philadelphia mechanics too, filled him with indignation. He would not take an order from me--perish the thought--and as for my drawings, he would depart from them as much as he liked.

All this appeared by degrees. I observed on the floor several cylinders fitted up, in which the followers for the piston-rod stuffing-boxes were made sliding fits on the rods. I asked him why he had made them in this way when they were drawn and figured to be bored ¹⁄₃₂ inch larger than the rod. He replied, “Because this is the way they ought to be.” I told him every one of them would be fired before the engine had run an hour; that I wanted him to bore those followers to the drawings, as well as the cylinder heads back of the stuffing-boxes. “It shall be done, sir,” said he. On examining them after this had been done, I found he had turned as much off from the outside of the followers as he had bored out of the hole. I asked him why he had done that. He said he supposed if I wanted the inside to be loose, I wanted the outside to be loose too. I told him I did not. He asked me why. I told him he was not there to argue with me; I wanted him to throw those followers away and make new ones precisely to the drawings, and I saw to it myself that it was done. I went to Mr. Merrick about this matter, and can the reader imagine what his reply was? “My advice to you, Mr. Porter, is to leave all such matters to the superintendent.” Think of it; an amateur president assuming the direction of my business, and giving such advice to me, who never had left the least thing to anybody, and without considering the fact that the action of his superintendent would be ruinous, except for my interference. I realized that I was absolutely alone, but I felt very much like fighting the whole world. The above incident is a fair sample of my constant experience. I was on the watch all the time. Many times I required the work to be done over when the superintendent departed from my drawings, and in doing it over he generally contrived to ruin the job, and would say, “Just according to your orders, sir.” I was reminded of a story told of Dr. Beman, a minister of Troy, N. Y., whose wife was peculiar, to say the least. On a certain occasion the presbytery met in Troy, and one evening he invited its members to his house, and told his wife to provide just a light supper. When they were ushered into the supper-room there was nothing on the table but lighted candles. “A light supper,” said she, “just as you ordered, sir.”

I proposed to appoint an inspector to represent me. The general foreman said if an inspector were appointed he should resign, and Mr. Merrick forbade it. Was ever a man in so helpless and ridiculous a position?

February 2nd

Porter-Allen Engine--40×48
Otis Iron and Steel Co.
93 Rev. } Cleveland,
84 Lbs. } April 14, 1882]

The second of the large engines which I finished was for the Otis Steel Works. I went to Cleveland myself to start the engine and found that Mr. Wellman, the general manager, had it running already. Mr. Otis, the president, was very much pleased with it, and well he might be. This was the first mill to roll plates from the ingot to the finish without reheating. These were the kind of diagrams it made. It will be observed that these were taken at different times and under different pressures. Unfortunately the right hand one is the only diagram I have from the crank end of the cylinder. In rolling these heavy plates the changes were made instantaneously from full load to nothing and from nothing to full load. The engine made 93 revolutions per minute, and it will be seen that the changes were made by the governor in a third of a second or less, the speed not varying sensibly. Mr. Otis said to me: “Oh, Mr. Porter, what shall I do with you? You cannot imagine the loss I have suffered from your delay in furnishing this engine.” I said: “Mr. Otis, you know the terrible time I have had, and that I have done the very best I could.” “Yes,” he said, “I know all about it.” He had, in fact, been to Philadelphia and seen for himself. He added: “You make a small engine suitable for electric lights; what is the price of an engine maintaining twenty-five arc lights?” I told him $1050. “Well,” said he, “you strike off the odd fifty and let me have one for a thousand dollars, and we will call it square,” so I had some sunshine on my way. I present a portrait of this just man. The engine is now running as good as new after twenty-five years, and the company five or six years afterwards put in another 48×66-inch to drive a still larger train.

I had a funny experience at the Cambria Works which has always seemed to me to have been prophetic. In August, 1881, the Society of Mechanical Engineers held a meeting in Altoona, and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company gave us an excursion to Johnstown to visit the works of the Cambria Company. The anticipations of the members were expressed by Jackson Bailey, then the editor of the _American Machinist_. As I was going through a car in which he was seated he called out to me, “This is your day, Porter.” The party was taken in charge by Mr. Morrell, the general manager. Our route took us first to their new blast-furnaces, where considerable time was spent in examining their new and interesting features. Next we came to my second engine, started some two months before. The engine was just being slowed down; we were told there were not yet furnaces enough to keep the train running continuously, so they were shut down from half an hour to an hour between heats, and a heat had just been run off. We went next to see my rail-mill engine, which had raised the output of that mill 150 per cent. That too had been shut down. They had just broken a roll, a most rare accident and one which I had never before seen or heard of there. “Well, gentlemen,” said I, “at any rate I can show you my engine driving a cold saw.” Arrived at the spot, we found that all still, and were told that sawing cold rails was not a continuous operation, we had hit upon the noon hour, and the men had gone to their dinner. That was the end of the show, as far as I was concerned. The Gautier Works were a mile away and were not included in our visit, so we were entertained with the great blooming-mill in operation and the casting of the enormous ingots for it, and after the customary luncheon and speeches we returned to Altoona.

One day the superintendent came into the office and told me he had tried my machine for facing nuts and it would not work. I felt disappointed, because I had confidence in it. I went out to see what the matter was, and at a glance I saw that it had been ingeniously arranged not to work. The feed had been made rapid and the cutting motion very slow, so that the tools could not take their cuts and the slow-moving belt ran off the pulleys. I did not reduce the feed-motion, but increased the speed of the cutters and the belt some eight or ten-fold, when the trouble vanished. I never knew anything to work better than that tool did.

Dash pot for Governor.]

The burning anxiety of the superintendent was to show up my ignorance. A first-rate chance to do so soon seemed to present itself. The counterpoise of the governor of the Otis engine dropped instantly to its seat when a plate struck the rolls and as instantly rose to the top of its range of action when it left them. This made a noisy blow which was disagreeable and might in time cause an accident. Mr. Wellman sent me a sketch of a device he had thought of for arresting this motion by air-cushions. I told the superintendent to have that apparatus made and make the air-cushions four inches in diameter. He said four inches diameter would not answer; they must be eight inches. “No,” said I, “four inches diameter is ample; make them four inches.” A few days after he called me into the shop to try my four-inch air-cushions. I found the apparatus secured in a vise in a vertical position. I took hold of the lever and lifted the piston; it met with no resistance until it struck sharply against the end of the chamber. For a moment I was stunned by the man’s audacity, and threw the piston up and down again to make sure it was not a dream. I then turned my back on the superintendent and called to a boy to find Mr. Fulmer, the foreman of the second floor, and tell him I wanted him here. In a moment he appeared, and I said to him: “Mr. Fulmer, I want you to make a new piston for this apparatus and make it a proper fit; you understand.” Mr. Fulmer bowed assent. I added: “There will be time to-day to get it into the sand, and it can be finished early to-morrow. When it is ready for my inspection come yourself to the office and let me know.” About the middle of the next forenoon Mr. Fulmer called for me. I went in and found the piston arrested at each end of its motion by a perfect air-cushion. “All right,” said I, “see that it is shipped to-day.”

Mr. Fulmer was an excellent mechanic and a man of good general intelligence; he would have made the piston a proper fit in the first place if he had not been expressly ordered to make it loose and useless. The superintendent, on his persistent assumption that I was a fool, had actually expected me to say when I tried the apparatus: “Oh, I see, four inches diameter will not do. You will have to make it eight.”

Some time in 1881 or 1882 I had a queer experience with an engine for the New York Post Office. It was to take the place of an engine then running. The engineer of the Post Office informed me that this engine had a cylinder twelve inches in diameter. I told him it looked to me from the external dimensions that the diameter must be fourteen inches and asked him to take off the back head and measure it for me. He wrote me a few days after that he found that he could not get the back head off, but I might rely upon it being twelve inches. So I did rely upon it being fourteen inches, furnished an engine accordingly, and found it to be the size needed.

Some time after the engine was started I received a line from the Postmaster saying they were much disappointed in it. They expected a gain in economy, but they were burning more coal than before, also that the engine pounded badly. I went to New York to see what the matter was. The engine seemed to be working all right except for the knock, so I made my way down to the sub-cellar. There was nothing there but the boilers and the engineer’s desk. On the cellar stairs, after I had shut the door behind me, I heard a loud sound of escaping steam. The boilers were under the middle of the building; a four-inch steam-pipe ran from them a distance of about eighty feet, suspended from the ceiling, to a point under the engine, then turned up through the floor to the under side of the steam-chest. The exhaust pipe, of the same size, came from the engine through the floor and was carried parallel with the steam-pipe to the middle of the building and upward through the roof. The two pipes were about eighteen inches apart, and in the vertical portions under the ceiling they had been connected by a half-inch pipe having a globe valve in the middle of its length. The valve-stem was downward and the valve set wide open. The noise I heard was caused by the steam rushing through this pipe. I computed that about as much steam was being thus blown away as was used by the engine. My first impulse was to call upon the Postmaster and tell him what I had found, but I decided not to bother him. I could not reach the valve to close it, but discovered a box used for a step to an opening in the wall, so I brought that out and standing upon it was able to close the valve; then the noise ceased and I put the box back.

There was no one in the cellar but a boy firing the boilers. I asked him if he knew who put that pipe there. He knew nothing about it, but supposed our men put it there when they set up the engine. I hunted up the engineer and asked him the same question, and got the same answer. I went to the people who did the engineering work for the Post Office and who had put in the pipes; they knew nothing about it. I could find out nothing, but had to content myself with telling the engineer that I had closed the valve and relied upon him to keep it closed. I asked him what he thought caused the thump in the engine; he said he had not the slightest idea, but he would try to cure it. I contented myself with writing to the Postmaster that I had removed the cause of the waste of steam and hoped he would now find the engine satisfactory. Soon after Mr. Merrick was in New York for two or three days. When he came home he said: “I have cured the thump in that Post Office engine.” “How did you do it?” I asked. He replied: “I gave the engineer a twenty-dollar gold piece, and when I went to see it the next morning the thump was gone.” I should add that when the old engine was taken down I had the back cylinder head removed, which was done without difficulty, and found the diameter fourteen inches. “For ways that are dark and tricks that are vain” this engineer was “peculiar” in my experience.

I had brought with me from Newark an order from the Willimantic Linen Company, who were manufacturers of cotton thread, for two engines for quite an interesting application. They were building a new mill entirely unique in its design, which has never been repeated, being an ignorant freak. It was a one-story mill 800 feet long and 250 or 300 feet wide, intended to contain five lines of shafting. Each line was independent and drove the machinery for all the successive operations from opening the cotton bales to packing the spools of thread. These lines of shafting 800 feet long were to be in the basement and to drive these machines by belts through the floor, the engine to be in the middle of each line. For this purpose I supplied a pair of condensing engines, 11 inches diameter of cylinder and 16 inches stroke, making 350 revolutions per minute, with their cranks set at right angles with each other in the line of shafting. These required no fly-wheel and would start from any position. I had a great deal of trouble with this order on account of the delay in its execution, so much so that before the first engine was finished the order for the second one was countermanded, and this order was placed with the Hartford Engineering Company, a new concern which was foolish enough to undertake the same speed. However, after my first engine was started they found themselves face to face with an impossibility and had to throw up their contract, whereupon the president of the company became very civil and asked me to be kind enough to make the second engine for them, which I was quite happy to do, as I had on hand the peculiar bed for these engines, which I did not break up after the order was countermanded, but had it set up against the wall of the shop in readiness for what might happen. These two engines were both in successful operation when my own operations ceased; the remaining three engines were to be added as their business required.

The engineer of that company was an original investigator. He had a battery of return-tubular boilers, each one crammed full of tubes according to the usual methods of boiler-makers. He provided himself with pieces of lath one inch wide, one eighth of an inch thick, and four inches long, and laid one in the front end of each tube in one of his boilers and left them there for twenty-four hours. He had made a diagram of his boiler on which he numbered every tube and put a corresponding number on every piece of lath. In taking them out they presented an astonishing revelation, which he showed me. Some of the pieces were burned almost to a coal and some were scarcely discolored, while the great body of them presented various effects of heat between these extremes. These showed distinctly the enormous differences in the temperature of the gases passing through the different tubes, and that fully one half of the tubes did little or no work in evaporating the water. They taught a lesson which boiler-makers, who count every additional tube they can get into a boiler as so much added heating surface and rate their boilers accordingly, have no anxiety to learn, but which I afterwards turned to good account, as will be seen.

About the last and the most interesting engine that I built while in Philadelphia was one for the firm of Cheney Brothers, silk-manufacturers, of South Manchester, Conn. This was a cross-compound, the first and the last compound engine that I ever built, and it is the only engine in this country to which I applied my condenser. The cylinders were 12 and 21 inches in diameter, the stroke 24 inches, and the shaft made 180 revolutions per minute. The condenser presented a new design in one respect; the air-pump was double-acting and made only 45 double strokes per minute, being driven by a belt from the engine shaft and the motion reduced by gears 1 to 4. This engine ran perfectly from the start, and I looked forward with confidence to a demand for many more of the same type. The diagrams made by it are here reproduced.

Scale, 1″ = 32 Lbs.
Atmosphere

Scale, 1″ = 16 Lbs.
Atmosphere

Diagrams from my First and Only Compound Engine.]

I have a pleasant memory connected with this engine. The silk-mill is located in a very large park, scattered about which are the residences of different members of the family. About twelve years after the engine was built, in company with my wife, I was visiting relatives in Hartford, from which South Manchester is about twelve miles distant. One day we were driven over there with our friends to make a social call. On our arrival I left the party to make a visit to my old engine. The mill seemed to have been changed very much, and I lost my way. Finally I recognized, as I thought, the old engine-room and went in. My engine was not there, but in its place stood another engine, a pair of tandem compounds of much larger dimensions. These had evidently just been erected, as they stood idle. “Oh, dear,” said I to myself, “my engines have been superseded for some reason or other.” While I was indulging in that reflection the engineer came in. I introduced myself and said to him: “I see that my old engines have been supplanted.” “Oh, no,” said he, “your engines are all right; they are running just where they always have been. They have built a new mill twice as large as the old one, and your engines have been giving such satisfaction they have ordered another pair of compounds from the Southwark Foundry, and these are the engines; they have not been started yet, as the mill is not ready for them and won’t be for a month.”

He directed me to the old engine-room, where I found my engines gliding away as though they had been erected yesterday. At that time I regarded these engines as only a stepping-stone to far higher things. I was engaged on a plan for a great development of the high speed system, but which has not materialized. I still consider it as on the whole superior to the turbine, a superiority, however, which may never be established.

In the spring of 1881, in our anxiety to revive the manufacture of the engine, we were foolish enough to send one to the Atlanta exhibition. We eagerly believed the promises of the agent that we should find all the machinery that we wanted to drive, and sent an engine finished with great care, and a skillful man to erect and run it. We also printed the heading of a lot of diagrams, to be given to visitors. The facts were found to be that we had nothing to drive but an idle line of shafting and one Clark’s spool-winder, while the exhaust main was so small and choked with the exhausts from other engines that we had a back pressure of ten pounds above the atmosphere; so we could take no diagrams; and the fact that we did not take any was used as a conclusive argument against high-speed engines; so the exhibition did us harm instead of good.

I pass over other distressing experiences at the works, and come at once to the final catastrophy in the late fall of 1882.

Another exhibition opened in the fall of 1882, for which I made great preparations, and from which I anticipated important results. This was the exhibition of the New England Manufacturers’ and Mechanics’ Institute, held in Boston. I obtained an important allotment of space with plenty of machinery to drive, and, besides a fine engine, sent a large exhibit of our finished work, in the parts of several sizes of engines, expecting to attract the attention of all New England manufacturers. I prepared for a regular campaign. I rented an office and engaged a young man to represent us in Boston as our agent, and another, Mr. Edwin F. Williams, to travel and solicit orders and take the charge of erecting engines. Our engine arrived without a piston. Mr. Merrick had thought he had found a defect in the piston, and ordered another one to be made. When we came to put the engine together in the exhibition, this piston would not enter the cylinder. On examination it was found to have been turned conical, the bases of the two cones meeting in the middle, so the middle was one eighth of an inch larger in diameter than the faces. We had to get a coarse file and file down the middle of the piston all around until it would enter the cylinder. Then I had a great disappointment--the greatest I ever experienced--the engine thumped badly on both centers. The only way in which we could stop the thumping was by shutting off the steam until the initial pressure was brought down to the height reached by the compression of the exhaust. In this plight we had to run through the exhibition. We could not take a diagram and had to watch the engine constantly, for whenever the pressure rose ever so little too high in the cylinder it would begin to thump. I attributed this to the shocking condition of the surface of the piston. I could not comprehend how this should cause the thump, but it must be that, for I could conceive of nothing else that could produce it. This thump made my exhibition a total failure, and necessitated the abandonment of all my plans.