CHAPTER 10

Of the Identity of the Work When It is of the Same Kind, and its
Accuracy when of Different Kinds

79. Nothing is more remarkable, and yet less unexpected, than
the perfect identity of things manufactured by the same tool. If
the top of a circular box is to be made to fit over the lower
part, it may be done in the lathe by gradually advancing the tool
of the sliding-rest; the proper degree of tightness between the
box and its lid being found by trial. After this adjustment, if a
thousand boxes are made, no additional care is required; the tool
is always carried up to the stop, and each box will be equally
adapted to every lid. The same identity pervades all the arts of
printing; the impressions from the same block, or the same
copperplate, have a similarity which no labour could produce by
hand. The minutest traces are transferred to all the impressions,
and no omission can arise from the inattention or unskilfulness
of the operator. The steel punch, with which the cardwadding for
a fowling-piece is cut, if it once perform its office with
accuracy, constantly reproduces the same exact circle.

80. The accuracy with which machinery executes its work is,
perhaps, one of its most important advantages: it may, however,
be contended, that a considerable portion of this advantage may
be resolved into saving of time; for it generally happens, that
any improvement in tools increases the quantity of work done in a
given time. Without tools, that is, by the mere efforts of the
human hand, there are, undoubtedly, multitudes of things which it
would be impossible to make. Add to the human hand the rudest
cutting instrument, and its powers are enlarged: the fabrication
of many things then becomes easy, and that of others possible
with great labour. Add the saw to the knife or the hatchet, and
other works become possible, and a new course of difficult
operations is brought into view, whilst many of the former are
rendered easy. This observation is applicable even to the most
perfect tools or machines. It would be possible for a very
skilful workman, with files and polishing substances, to form a
cylinder out of a piece of steel; but the time which this would
require would be so considerable, and the number of failures
would probably be so great, that for all practical purposes such
a mode of producing a steel cylinder might be said to be
impossible. The same process by the aid of the lathe and the
sliding-rest is the everyday employment of hundreds of workmen.

81. Of all the operations of mechanical art, that of turning
is the most perfect. If two surfaces are worked against each
other, whatever may have been their figure at the commencement,
there exists a tendency in them both to become portions of
spheres. Either of them may become convex, and the other concave,
with various degrees of curvature. A plane surface is the line of
separation between convexity and concavity, and is most difficult
to hit; it is more easy to make a good circle than to produce a
straight line. A similar difficulty takes place in figuring
specula for telescopes; the parabola is the surface which
separates the hyperbolic from the elliptic figure, and is the
most difficult to form. If a spindle, not cylindrical at its end,
be pressed into a hole not circular, and kept constantly turning,
there is a tendency in these two bodies so situated to become
conical, or to have circular sections. If a triangular-pointed
piece of iron be worked round in a circular hole the edges will
gradually wear, and it will become conical. These facts, if
they do not explain, at least illustrate the principles on
which the excellence of work formed in the lathe depends.