2
MANUFACTURES.
Manu- half our Planet, to be woven by British skill in the factories of Lancashire . It isagain set in motion by British capital, and, transported to the very plains whereon itgrew, it is repurchased by the lords of the soil which gave it birth, at a cheaper pricethan that at which their coarser machinery will enable them to Manufacture it them-selves.*
We propose, in the present division of this work, to give a detailed account ofthe various Manufactures which are carried on in this Country, and a description ofthe Tools and Machinery by which their operations are conducted. Previously to this,however, we shall endeavour to state the principles on which their success depends,and to trace both the causes and the consequences of the application of machineryto supersede the skill and power of the human arm.
Advantages 1. The utility of Machinery and Manufactures seems to. arise from the addition whichnery and they make to hitman power ;—the economy of human time ;—and the conversion of sub-tures. stances apparently the most common and most worthless into valuable products.
With respect to the first of these effects, the forces derived from wind, from water, andfrom steam, present themselves to the mind of every one; these are, in fact, additions tohuman power, and will be considered in a future page: there are, however, other sourcesof its increase, by which the animal force of the individual is made to act with fargreater than its unassisted powers, and to these we shall at present confine our obser-vations.
The construction of Palaces, of Temples, and of Tombs, seems to have occupiedthe earliest attention of Nations just entering on the career of civilisation; and theenormous blocks of stone moved from their native repositories to minister to the grandeuror piety of the builders, have remained to excite the astonishment of their posterity,even long after the purposes of many of these records, as well as the names of theirfounders, have been forgotten.
The different degrees of force necessary to move these ponderous masses willhave varied according to the Mechanical knowledge of the people employed in theirtransport; and that the extent of power required for this purpose is widely differentunder different circumstances, will appear from the following experiment, which isrelated by M. Redelet, Sur L'Art de Batir. A block of squared stone was taken for the
subject of experiment, weighing 1080 lbs.
lbs.
1. Weight of stone .... 1080
2. In order to drag this stone along the floor of the quarry roughly chiselled, it required a
force equal to . 75g
3. The same stone dragged over a floor of planks required.. 652
4. The same stone placed on a platform of wood and dragged over a floor of planks, required 606
5. After soaping the two surfaces of wood which slid over each other it required. 182
6. The same stone was now placed upon rollers of three inches diameter, when it required to
put it in motion along the floor of the quarry . 34