Inventions in the Century Part 24

Much ingenuity has been displayed in the construction of desks, to save and economise s.p.a.ce. Mention has been made of a combined folding desk and extensible table. Another form is an arrangement of desk drawers, whereby when one drawer is locked or unlocked all the rest are locked or unlocked automatically. Whatever shape or function anyone desires in a desk may be met, except, perhaps, the performance of the actual work of the occupant.

In the matter of _beds_, the princ.i.p.al developments have been due to the advancement of wood-working machinery, and the manufacture of iron, steel, and bra.s.s. The old-fas.h.i.+oned ponderous bedsteads, put together by heavy screws, have given way to those mortised and tenoned, joined and matched, and by which they can easily be put up and taken down; and to iron and bra.s.s bedsteads, which are both ornamental and more healthful.

No bed may be without an inexpensive steel spring frame or mattress for the support of the bedding. Folding beds made to economise s.p.a.ce, and when folded upright become an ornamental bureau; and invalid bedsteads, designed for s.h.i.+fting the position of the invalid, are among the many modern improvements.

_Kitchen Utensils._--A vast amount of drudgery in the kitchen has been relieved by the convenient inventions in labor-saving appliances: coffee and spice mills, can-openers, stationary washtubs, stopper extractors, superseding the old style of hand-corkscrews where large numbers of bottles are to be uncorked; refrigerators and provision safes, attaching and lifting devices and convenient culinary dishes and utensils of great variety.

_Curtains_, _shades_ and _screens_ have been wonderfully improved and their use made widely possible by modern inventions and new adaptation of old methods. Wood, cotton, silk, paper, combined or uncombined with other materials, in many novel ways unknown to our ancestors, have rendered these articles available in thousands of homes where their use was unknown and impossible a century ago. Among the most convenient attachments to shades is the spring roller, invented by Hartshorn of America, in 1864, whereby the shade is automatically rolled upon its stick to raise or lower it.

Window screens for the purpose of excluding flies, mosquitoes, and other insects, while freely admitting the air, are now made extensible and adjustable in different ways to fit different sizes of windows. Curtains and shades are provided with neat and most attractive supporting rods, to which they are attached by bra.s.s or wooden rings, and provided with easily manipulated devices to raise and securely hold them in any desired position.

The art of steaming wood and bending it, by iron pattern forms adjustable to the forms desired, as particularly devised in principle by Blanchard in America in 1828-1840, referred to in Wood-working, has produced great changes in the art of furniture making, especially in chairs. A particularly interesting ill.u.s.tration of the results of this art occurred in Austria. About forty years ago the manufacture in Germany and Austria of furniture by machinery, especially of bent wood-ware, became well established there; and by the time of the Vienna Exposition in 1873, factories on a most extensive scale for the construction of bed furniture were in operation among the vast mountain beech forests of Moravia and Hungary. The greatest of these works were located in Great Urgroez, Hungary, and Bisritz, Moravia, with twenty or more auxiliary establishments. Between five and six thousand work people were employed, the greater part of whom were females, and it was necessary to use steam and water motors, to the extent of many hundred horse power.

The forests were felled, and the tree-tops removed and made into charcoal for use in the gla.s.s works of Bohemia. The trunks were hauled to the mills and sawed into planks of suitable thickness by gang-saws.

The planks in turn were cut with circular saws into square pieces for turning, and then the pieces turned and cut on lathes, to give them the size required and the rounded shape; the pieces then steamed while in their green state for twenty-four hours in suitable boilers, then taken out and bent to the desired shape on a cast-iron frame by hand, then subjected, with the desired pattern, to the pattern-turning table, and cut; then kept locked in the pattern's iron embrace until the pieces were dried and permanently set in shape, then clamped to a bench, filed, rasped, stained, and French polished by the deft hands of the women; then a.s.sembled in proper position in frames of the form of the chair or other article to be made, their contact surface sawed to fit at the joints, and then finally the parts glued together and further secured by the addition of a few screws or b.a.l.l.s.

Chairs, lounges and lighter furniture were thus made from bent pieces of wood with very few joints, having a neat and attractive appearance, and possessing great strength. The art has spread to other forests and other countries, and the turned, bent, highly polished and beautiful furniture of this generation would have been but a dream of beauty to the householder of a century ago.

Children's chairs are made so that the seat may be raised or lowered, or the chair converted into a perambulator. Dentist's chairs have been developed until it is only necessary for the operator to turn a valve governing a fluid, generally oil, under pressure to raise or lower the chair and the patient. In the more agreeable situation at the theatre or concert one may hang his hat on the bottom of the chair, upturned to afford access to it through a crowded row, and turning down the chair, sit with pleasure, as the curtain is rolled up by compressed air, or electricity, at the touch of a b.u.t.ton.

To the unthinking and un.o.bserving, the subject of _bottle stoppers_ is not entrancing, but those acquainted with the art know with what long, continuous, earnest efforts, thousands of inventors have sought for the best and cheapest bottle stopper to take the place of corks--the enormous demand for which was exhausting the supply and rendering their price almost prohibitive.

One of the most successful types is a stopper of rubber combined with a metal disk, and hung by a wire on the neck of the bottle, so that the stopper can be used over and over again; another form composed of gla.s.s, or porcelain, and cork; another is a thin disk of cork placed in a thin metal cap which is crimped over a shoulder on the neck of the bottle, and still another is a thin disk of pasteboard adapted for milk bottles and pressed tightly within a rim on the inside of the neck of the bottle.

In this connection should be mentioned that self-sealing fruit jar, known from its inventor as "Mason's fruit jar," which came into such universal use--that combination of screw cap, screw-threaded jar-neck and the rubber ring, or gasket, on which the cap was screwed so tightly as to seal the jar hermetically.

In lamplighting, what a wonderful change from the old oil lamps of former ages! The modern lamp may be said to be an improved means of grace, as it will hold out much longer, and shed a far more attractive light for the sinner, whose return, by its genial light, is, even to the end, so greatly desired.

The discovery of petroleum and its introduction as a light produced a revolution in the construction of lamps. Wicks were not discarded, but changed in shape from round to flat, and owing to the coa.r.s.eness and disagreeable odour of coal oil, especially in its early unrefined days, devices first had for their object the easy feeding of the wick, and perfect combustion. To this end the burner portion through which the wick pa.s.sed was perforated at its base to create a proper draft, and later the cap over the base was also perforated. But with refined oil the disagreeable odour continued. It was found that this was mainly due to the fact that both in lamps and stoves the oil would ooze out of the wick on to the adjacent parts of the lamps or stove, and when the wick was lit the heat would burn or heat the oil and thus produce the odour.

Inventors therefore contrived to separate the oil reservoir and wick part when the lamp or stove were not in use; and finally, in stoves, to dispense with the wick altogether. As wickless oil stoves are now in successful use the wickless lamp may be expected to follow.

The lamp, however, that throws all others into the shade is that odourless, heatless, magic, mellow, tempered light of electricity, that springs out from the little filament, in its hermetically sealed gla.s.s cage, and s.h.i.+nes with unsurpa.s.sed loveliness on all those fortunate enough to possess it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

LEATHER.

It is interesting to speculate how prehistoric man came to use the skin of the beasts of the field for warmth and shelter. Originally no doubt, and for untold centuries, the use was confined to the hairy, undressed, fresh, or dried skins, known as pelts. Then came the use of better tools. The garments have perished, but the tools of stone and of bronze survived, which, when compared with those employed among the earliest historic tribes of men, were found to be adapted to cut and strip the hairy covering from the bodies of animals, and clean, pound, sc.r.a.pe and otherwise adapt them to use.

And ever since the story of man began to be preserved in lasting records from farthest Oriental to the northernmost limits of Europe and America, memorials of the early implements of labour in the preparation of hides for human wear have been found. The aborigines knew how to sharpen bones of the animals they killed to sc.r.a.pe, clean, soften or roughen their skins. They knew how to sweat, dry, and smoke the skins, and this crude seasoning process was the forerunner of modern tanning. But leather as we know it now, that soft, flexible, insoluble combination of the gelatine and fibrine of the skin with tannic acid, producing a durable and imputrescible article, that will withstand decay from the joint attack of moisture, warmth and air, was unknown to the earlier races of men, for its production was due to thorough tanning, and thorough tanning was a later art.

When men were skin-dressed animals they knew little or nothing of tanning. Tannic acid is found in nearly every plant that grows, and its combination with the fresh skins spread or thrown thereon, may have given rise to the observation of the beneficial result and subsequent practice. But whether discovered by chance, accident or experience, or invented from necessity, the art of tanning should have rendered the name of the discoverer immortal. The earliest records, however, describe the art, but not the inventor.

From the time the Hebrews covered the altars of their tabernacles with rams' skins dyed red, as recorded in Exodus; when they and the Egyptians worked their leather, currying and stretching it with their knives, awls, stones, and other implements, making leather water buckets, resembling very much those now made by machinery, covering their harps and s.h.i.+elds with leather, ornamental and embossed; from the days of the early Africans, famous for their yellow, red and black morocco; from the days of the old national dress of the Persians with their leather trousers, ap.r.o.ns, helmets, belts and s.h.i.+rts; from the time that the ancient Scythians utilised the skins of their enemies, and Herodotus described the beauty and other good qualities of the human hide; from the early days of that peculiar fine and agreeable leather of the Russians, fragrant with the oil of the birch; from the days of the white leather of the Hungarians, the olive-tanned leather of the Saracens; from the time of the celebrated Cordovan leather of the Spaniards; from the ancient cold periods of the Esquimaux and the Scandinavians, who, clad in the warm skins of the Arctic bears, stretched tough-tanned sealskin over the frame work of their boats; from the time of the introduction of the art of the leather worker to the naked Briton, down to almost the nineteenth century, substantially the same hand tools, hard hand labour, and the old elbow lubricant were known and practised.

Hand tools have improved, of course, as other arts in wood and iron making have developed, but the operations are about the same. There were and must be fles.h.i.+ng knives to sc.r.a.pe from off the hide the adherent flesh and lime,--for this the hide is placed over the convex edge of an inclined beam and the work is called beaming; the curriers' knife for removing the hair; skiving, or the cutting off the rough edges and fleshy parts on the border of the hide; shaving and flattening; the cutting away of the inequalities left after skiving; _stoning_, the rubbing of the leather by a scouring stone to render it smooth; _slicking_, to remove the water and grease; or to smooth and polish, by a rectangular sharpened stone, steel or gla.s.s tool; _whitening_, to shave off thin strips of the flesh, leaving the leather thinner, whiter and more pliable; _stuffing_, to soften the sc.r.a.ped and pounded hides and make them porous; _graining_, the giving to the hair or grain side a granular appearance by rubbing with a grooved or roughened piece of wood; _bruising_ or boarding to make the leather supple and pliable by bringing the two flesh sides together and rubbing with a graining board; _scouring_, by aid of a stream of water to whiten the leather by rubbing with a slicking stone or steel.

The inventions of the century consist in labour-saving machinery for these purposes, new tanning and dressing processes, and innumerable machines for making special articles of leather.

As before stated, the epoch of modern machinery commenced with the practical application of water power to other than grinding mills, and of steam in place of water, contemporaneously with the invention of spinning and weaving machinery in the last half of the eighteenth century. These got fairly to work at the beginning of the century, and the uses of machinery spread to the treatment of leather. John Bull was the appropriate name of the man who first patented a sc.r.a.ping machine in England, about 1780, and Joseph Weeks the next one, some years later.

One of the earliest machines of the century was the hide mill, which, after the hand tools had sc.r.a.ped and stoned, shaved and hardened the hides, was used to rub and dub them, and soften and swell them for tanning. Pegged rollers were the earliest form for this purpose, and later corrugated rollers and power-worked hammers were employed.

Hundreds of hides could be softened daily by these means.

Then came ingenious machines to take the place of the previous operations of the hand tools,--the fles.h.i.+ng machine, in one form of which the hides are placed on a curved bed, and the fleshy parts sc.r.a.ped off or removed by revolving gla.s.s blades, or by curved teeth of steel and wood in a roller under which a table is given a to-and-fro movement; tanning apparatus of a great variety, by which hides, after they are thoroughly washed and softened, and the pores opened by swelling, are subjected to movements in the tanning liquor vats, such as rocking or oscillating, rotary, or vertical; or treated by an air exhaust, known as the vacuum process; in all of which the object is to thoroughly impregnate in the shortest time all the interstices and pores of the skin with the tannic acid, by which the fibrous and gelatinous matter is made to combine to form leather, and by which process, also, the hide is greatly increased in weight.

Reel machines are then employed to transfer the hides from one vat to another, thus subjecting them to liquors of increasing strength. Soaking in vats formerly occupied twelve or eighteen months, but under the new methods the time has been greatly reduced. And now since 1880, the chemists are pus.h.i.+ng aside the vegetable processes, and subst.i.tuting mineral processes, by which tanning is still further shortened and cheapened. The new processes depend chiefly on the use of chromium compounds.

Then came scouring machines, in which a rapidly revolving stiff brush is used to scour the grain or hair side, removing the superfluous colouring matter, called the bloom, and softening and cleansing the hide; the slicking or polis.h.i.+ng machines to clean, stretch and smooth the leather by gla.s.s, stone, or copper blades on a rapidly-moving belt carried over pulleys; whitening, buffing, skiving, fles.h.i.+ng and shaving machines, all for cutting off certain portions and inequalities of the leather, and reducing its thickness.

In one form of this cla.s.s of machines an oscillating pendulum lever is employed, carrying at its end a revolving cylinder having thirty or more spiral blades. The pendulum swings to and fro at the rate of ninety movements a minute, while the cylinder rolls over the leather at the rate of 2780 revolutions per minute. Scarfing, skiving, chamfering, bevelling, feather-edging, appear to be synonymous terms for a variety of machines for cutting the edges of leather obliquely, for the purpose chiefly of making lap seams, scarf-joints, and reducing the thickness and stiffness of leather at those and certain other points.

Then there are leather-splitting machines, consisting of one or more rollers and a pressure bar, which draw and press the leather against a horizontally arranged and adjustable knife, which nicely splits the leather in two parts, and thus doubles the quant.i.ty. This thin split leather is much used in making a cheap quality of boots and shoes and other articles.

There are also corrugating, creasing, fluting, pebbling, piercing and punching machines; machines for grinding the bark and also for grinding the leather; machines for gluing sections of leather together, and machines for sewing them; machines for rounding flat strips of leather, for the making of whips and tubes; machines for scalloping the edges; and a very ingenious machine for a.s.sorting leather strips or strings according to their size or thickness.

The most important improvements of the century in leather working relate to the manufacture of boots and shoes. It could well be said of boots and shoes, especially those made for the great ma.s.s of humanity, before the modern improvements in means and processes had been invented: "Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt."

It is true that in the eighteenth century, both in Europe and America, the art of leather and boot and shoe making had so far advanced that good durable foot wear was produced by long and tedious processes of tanning, and by careful making up of the leather into boots and shoes by hand; the knife, the awl, the waxed thread, the nails and hammer and other hand tools of the character above referred to being employed. But the process was a tedious and costly one and the articles produced were beyond the limits of the poor man's purse. Hence the wooden shoes, and those made of coa.r.s.e hide and dressed and undressed skins, and of coa.r.s.e cloth, mixed or unmixed with leather.

In 1809, David Mead Randolph of England patented machinery for riveting soles and heels to the uppers instead of sewing them together.

The celebrated civil engineer, Isambard M. Brunel, shortly thereafter added several machines of his own invention to Randolph's method, and he established a large manufactory for the making chiefly of army shoes.

The various separate processes performed by his machines involved the cutting out of the leather, hardening it by rolling, securing the welt on to the inner sole by small nails, and studding the outer sole with larger nails. Divisions of men were employed to work each separate step, and the shoes were pa.s.sed from one process to another until complete.

Large quant.i.ties of shoes were made at reduced prices, but complaints were made as to the nails penetrating into the shoe and hurting the feet. The demand for army shoes fell off, and the system was abandoned; but it had incited invention in the direction of machine-made shoes and the day of exclusive hand labour was doomed.

About 1818 Joseph Walker of Hopkinston, Ma.s.sachusetts invented the wooden peg. Making and applying pegs by hand was too slow work, and machines were at once contrived for making them. As one invention necessitates and begets others, so special forms of machines for sawing and working up wood into pegs were devised.

Such machinery was for first sawing the selected log of wood into slices across the grain a little thicker than the length of a peg and cutting out knots in the wood; then planing the head of the block smooth; grooving the block with a V-shaped cutting tool; splitting the pegs apart, and then bleaching, drying, polis.h.i.+ng and winnowing them.

It took forty or fifty years to perfect these and kindred machines, but at the end of that time there was a factory at Burlington, Vermont, which from four cords of wood, made every day four hundred bushels of shoe pegs.

About 1858 B. F. Sturtevant of Ma.s.sachusetts made a great improvement in this line. He was a very poor man, getting a living by pegging on the soles of a few pair of shoes each day. He devised a pegging machine, and out of his scanty earnings and at odd hours, with much pain and labour, and by borrowing money, he finally completed it. The machine made what was called "peg wood," a long ribbon strip of seasoned wood, sharpened on one edge and designed to be fed into the machine for pegging shoes.

The shoes were punctured by awls driven by machinery, and then as the peg strip was carried to it the machine severed the strip into chisel-edged pegs, and peg-driving mechanism drove them into the holes.

Nine hundred pegs a minute were driven. It soon almost supplanted all other peg-driving machines, and after the machines were quite generally introduced, there were made in one year alone in New England fifty-five million pairs of boots and shoes pegged by the Sturtevant machines.

Other forms of pegs followed, such as the metal screw pegs, and machines to cut them off from a continuous spiral wire from which they were made.

Lasts on which the shoes were made had been manufactured by the hundred thousand on the wood-turning lathes invented by Blanchard, described in the chapter on Wood-Working.

In 1858 also, about the same time the Sturtevant pegging machine was introduced, the shoe-sewing machine was developed. The McKay Shoe-Sewing Machine Co. of Ma.s.sachusetts after an expenditure of $130,000, and three years' time in experiments, were enabled to put their machines in practical operation. The pegging machines and sewing machines worked a revolution in shoemaking.

A revolution in the art of shoemaking thus started was followed up by wondrous machines invented to meet every part of the manufacture.

Lasting machines for drawing and fitting the leather over lasts, in which the outer edges of the leather are drawn over the bottom of the last and tacked thereto by the hands and fingers of the machine instead of those of the human hand, were invented.