Author: iron_steam (Page 1 of 5)

An Indian Railway Station Defended

From The Illustrated London News, January 2, 1858, Volume 32, January – June 1858

East Indian Railway Water-Tank at Barwarie, Defended Against the Mutineers for Thirty-Two Hours

(From a Correspondent at Allahabad.)

I send you a sketch of a Railway Water-tank at Barwarie, twenty-three miles from Allahabad. The village in the distance is Barwarie. The dimensions of the tank were about 18 feet high, 22 feet long, 24 feet broad, and depth of tank 4 feet.

On Sunday, the 7th June, 1857, at noon, the day after the massacre at Allahabad, P. O Snow, railway engineer, Mr. J. Rose, Mr. Mathers, Mr. Leithbridge, wife and child, Mr. J. Keymer, wife and three children, Mr. R. Keymer, all employed on the railway, and Major and Mrs. Ryves, were assembled at the latter’s bungalow at Barwarie, when information was brought that Mr. Lancaster, an inspector, had been murdered, a mile off, when trying to join the above party. Immediately on receiving this news, Mr. Ryves and the women and children were assisted up on the top of the tank, we men intending to come down again for provisions &c.; but, as an immense number of armed natives begun to assemble, it was deemed more prudent to remain where we were, else we might have been cut off.

The natives commenced to loot, and destroy the furniture, &c., in the small bungalow (shown in the sketch) belonging to the railway contractors Messrs. Norris and Co., which having completed, they . went in a mass to my bungalow (about 100 yards in front of the tank), where they began to loot everything I was possessed of, even to taking off doom and windows, and breaking to pieces what they could not take away. Having completed this work of destruction they set fire to the bungalow, outhouses, and everything that would burn. Then, shouting and yelling, they rushed over and surrounded the tank by hundreds, throwing brickbats and stones at us. We kept them off with our guns. The top of the tank had no cover; and the women and children had to be protected by a mattress, which they sat under to prevent being killed by these missiles. The cowardly rascals kept this up constantly (several of us had severe contusions), at the same time demanding money, which we threw them. When they found we had no more left (having expended 3000 rupees), they wanted us to come down. We refused to do so They then brought straw and other inflammable matter, and piled it round the tank, and set fire to it, which caused a great suffering from the smoke and heat, but, the tank being of brick, it sustained no damage. Finding all their exertions to make us yield had failed, they said they would spare our lives if we all turned Mahometans. This, of course, one and all refused to accede to; a party was dispatched, saying the were going to muster a large armed force to escalade our stronghold during the night.; we told them we were prepared to sell our lives in protecting the woman and children. We were thus exposed (14 of us) with no covering from the fearful heat of the sun, very little water to drink, and only parched grain and boiled rice to eat for 52 hours; and had to defend our post against a mob of 3000.

On the morning of the 8th Mr. Smyth, an inspector, joined our party, very severely wounded, having had to run or his life, accompanied by Inspector Thomas, who was murdered that morning when on their way to join us. We pulled Mr. Smyth up to the top of the tank with ropes. This increased our party to 15. He was too weak from wounds to be of any assistance.

Having succeeded in getting a servant to take a note to the commanding officer at the fort of Allahabad, telling him of our position, a relief of 35 Irregular Cavalry were went out to us, and arrived at 4 p.m. on the 9th. Glad we were to see them, and a hearty cheer we gave them, inwardly returning thanks to God for this succour, as we should have had to fight hard for our lives that night. The distress of the poor women and children (without any conveniences) can hardly be supposed except by those who have experienced the heat of an Indian sun in the month of June. Mrs. Ryves was killed by its effects. She died in an hour after the relief had arrived, thus adding another victim to the long list of deaths occasioned by this awful rebellion.

The villagers, headed by the zemindars, were the people who looted, destroyed, and burnt all the railway gentlemen’s bungalows on the line.

T. J. Ryves

Renewed Attempt to Launch the Leviathan

From The Illustrated London News, January 9, 1858, Volume 32, January – June 1858

THE ” LEVIATHAN ” — A renewed attempt has been made this week to launch this vessel. The machinery used and the hydraulic apparatus had been greatly increased in strength, and instead of six hydraulic machines ten have been brought into play, one being the original press used in the operations for carrying out that vast undertaking the Menai Bridge and which alone gave over 200 tons nominal pressure. A progress of several feet each day has been made, and no cessation of operations will take place until the huge ship is fairly in the water.

On the Position and Mode of Working the Bath Freestone

From The Technologist – A Monthly Record of Science Applied to Art, Manufacture, and Culture. Volume V

October 1, 1864

By J. Randall

The paper which I have the honour to lay bofore this section of the British Association has reference to two subjects, both of equal local interest, the one in an economical and commercial point of view, and the other bearing upon the scientific conditions, both as regards the mode of working and geological positions of those beds in the great or Bath oolite, which may be called the “quarry stone,” and which are so extensively worked in the Bath district. I purpose, therefore, to divide my paper into two sections, or arrange the materials into short, and yet I hope sufficiently detailed a manner under two heads : first, to determine the true horizon or geological position of the workable beds of this valuable freestone in the series termed the great oolite ; secondly, to enter upon the mode of “working and getting” this extensively used and valuable building stone.

Geological Position.— Nowhere, I believe, in Great Britain (indeed, in Europe) are the lower members of the Jurassic group of rocks so extensively developed as in the Bath district, where each group seems to have attained its fullest recognised development; nowhere can the whole Jurassic series be so readily studied, nowhere so easily understood; and this applies to the lias itself in its three divisions — the fuller’s earth (here extensively employed); the member of the lower oolite under consideration ; and the Bath or great oolite, distinguished here for its economical value, and at Minchinhampton and other places for its fine and typical organic remains. Above this series, but intimately associated with it, the forest marble and cornbrash are highly and typically developed, succeeded by the Oxfordian and Kimmeridge groups, not omitting even the Portlandian at Swindon and the Purbecks of the Vale at Wardour. To each of these may be appended important notes bearing upon their high importance, economically considered, and which are extensively developed in the district ; but I purpose drawing the attention of the members of this section to the Bath oolite only, determining the position of that zone from which the freestone is extracted, and on which the wealth and comfort of the population of this neighbourhood, engaged in quarrying operations, so much depend. I have also endeavoured to fix, by detailed and measured sections, the workable beds of the district, and to correlate them over a considerable area, useful, it is hoped, both to the man of business and the geologist. These sections, which I may here refer to, are all coloured the same in their respective zones, and show the importance of carefully determining the place or position of the workable beds, prior to any outlay of capital ; and however difficult, indeed impossible, it may be to diagnose the quality of the freestone beds in depth, there can be no doubt as to their position and probable condition ; and when it is known that uniformity of condition over any large area is of extreme uncertainty, and knowing as we do that the thinning out of the marketable beds of freestone in this district, like the great colite en masse on the line of deposition and dip, is a fact now well understood, it becomes a matter of high importance to the capitalist to be assured and confirmed as to the chances of success in opening out or developing a new district. The natural grouping of the beds constituting the great oolite series in this district fall under three well-marked divisions, all well exhibited in the sections exposed at Murhill, Westwood, and Farleydown, Combe and Hampton Downs, Box and Corsham workings, &c., &c. Indeed, generally where conditions have exposed them, and reading downwards from the surface, we meet with over the Bath area, immediately below the forest of marble (where present), the following groupings : — 1. The Upper Ragstones. 2. The Fine Freestone, or Building Beds. 3. The Lower Ragstone. These constitute a series from 60 to 120 feet in thickness, depending upon local circumstances and conditions during deposition and perhaps subsequent denudation.

The Upper Ragstones. — This series consists of (in the upper part) coarse, shelly, and irregularly bedded limestones, with usually a few underlying beds of white fine-grained limestones, possessing a distinctly and well-defined oolitic structure and finely comminuted shells; these are again succeeded by tough argillaceous beds of limestone, usually pale brown in colour and smooth in texture, the whole ranging in thickness from twenty-five feet to about fifty feet. No beds of workable value occur in this upper series.

The Fine Freestone, or Building Beds, in the Bath Stone Series. — Succeeding the upper ragstone are the Bath freestone, or fine-grained building beds, which vary in the number and thickness of the various beds comprising the series, and also economically distinguished from each other by their structural condition, the size and structure of the oolitic grains, the presence or absence of silicious particles or finely divided shelly matters, each of which may materially affect the limestone during the process of working, or influence them after being placed in position, and subject to weathering under atmospheric changes. In some localities the beds assume an earthy structure, indistinct in texture, smooth and close-grained, and hold more moistness.

The Lower Ragstone. — Below the fine building beds, or freestone series, are the lower ragstones, which appear to be persistent everywhere over the entire area, and resting upon the fuller’s earth. They consist of numerous and generally well-defined beds of a coarse shelly texture, and hard crystalline limestone exhibiting much false bedding, especially near the base. Many species of mollusca occur in the bottom beds, such as Ostrea acuminata, Terebratula, Ornithocephala, Rhynchonella, Trikitis, Concinna, and Tancredia. These lower ragstones, as before mentioned, rest immediately upon the fuller’s earth, but this member of the oolitic series concerns us only by position, and is in this district west of Corsham and Bradford a most persistent and important zone, between the inferior oolite beds below and the lower ragstones of the great oolite above, and, in some places, very fossiliferous, and varies in thickness from 150 feet to 200 feet. Taking, therefore, as our guide in this district the above three divisions of the great oolite, we are enabled to construct vertical sections to aid us in our determinations as to the position and condition of the few feet of stone profitable to work in the series, or the “freestone beds,” at all times an anxious and im. portant question when seeking for and developing new ground. In this paper I deal chiefly with facts, and therefore give detailed and measured sections of type localities, from which may be determined by comparison the probable conditions under which the beds may occur at intermediate and unexplored stations or localities on the table lands behind such outstanding mural precipices as Farley, Murhill, Box, on the eastern side of the Bradford and Slaughterford valleys, or on the elevated downs at Claverton, Combe, Hampton, Freshford, &c., to the south of Bath, and west of the Bradford Valley, and on the receding flats to the east of Monklow, Farleigh, and Bradford, &c., conspicuous for the numerous quarries opened in the cornbrash and forest marble, the latter of which occurs in detached patches or continuous lines, stretching from Malmesbury on the north, to Chippenham, Bradford, and other localities to the east of Bath, and especially conspicuous near Corsham, Chapel Korap, South Wraxall, and on to Melksham. The most complete section, and which may be regarded as a typical one of the great oolite and forest marble beds of the Bath district is that of the Box Hill and Corshain Quarry workings. No. 1, showing those beds not usually seen or exposed, but which were cut through by the construction of the Box Tunnel, and which we are now extensively working in that neighbourhood. Another exposition of the series is shown at Murhill, on the eastern side of the Bradford Valley, where the three divisions into which the series group themselves may be studied in situ. Also at Upper Westwood, on the opposite or west side of the valley, other sections occur, tending to show the same facts ; and the variable condition and thinning out of the same beds upon the line of Diss, even at this short distance.

The Sections. — The shafts which are constructed along the line of the Box Tunnel, on the Great Western Railway, afford at the several points where they are carried through the beds of the great oolite accurate data for the construction of sections and clear evidence of the succession of the strata comprising the three divisions. I have endeavoured to maintain, as occurring through this district, and being situated considerably to the east of the Bath Valley escarpments, a large area, for the productiveness of that area is estimated by the lie, position, and condition of the building freestones, supposed to occupy the summit of the table land, stretching from the eastern escarpment of the Bradford, Box, and Slaughterford valleys to Yatton Keynell, Biddestone, and Corsham. The Section No. 1 gives accurate measurement and sufficient details to enable a practical observer to determine the series of beds at almost any point over the area above indicated, or even between the westerly extension of the Oxford clay line from Malmesbury to Corsham and Melksham, and the valley escarpments before mentioned. It is not necessary to notice the forest marble or cornbrash, which is foreign to my paper, and which, although usually present, may or may not occur on any special area above the great oolite proper, local conditions, during deposition or subsequent denudations, having removed one or the other, or both ; but everywhere, so far as I know, over the whole table land do we find the coarse shelly limestones, and some finely grained oolite beds belonging to the upper ragstones or highest members of the great oolite. In the typical section No. 1, taken at No. 7 shaft, Box Tunnel, also at the shafts 4, 5, 6, these beds occur, and were cut through when sinking, and were found to be from twenty to thirty-five feet in thickness, before proving the “capping” to the building or “fine” beds below. At Murhill, near Winsley, these upper ragstone beds are about twenty feet in thickness, and are hard, coarse, and fine shelly limestones, highly comminuted in structure, and occasionally colitic. In some localities many of the beds are of considerable thickness, and of regular and even texture, still they are too hard for those purposes for which the softer, fine-grained, whiter, and more easily worked architectural stone below in the second series) are sought for, and to which they are applied ; and again, they are not good weather stones, but rapidly fall to decay on exposure to severe changes of weather. At Upper Westwood, on the south side of the Bradford Valley, opposite Winsley and Murhill, the beds comprising this upper series are thicker and of more even texture, but as weather stones are of little or no value. At Farley Down, overhanging Bathford, this upper series is nearly thirty feet in thickness, composed of coarse shelly limestones at the top, with hard and soft ragstones down to the capping of the fine “building beds” below. At Combe Down and Odd Down the beds closely resemble those of Farley and Box, and approximate in thickness. Thus we may examine detailed sections of the upper series at Murhill, Farley, Westwood, Coombe, and Odd Down, and the Box district generally, but the beds at neither locality are deemed of sufficient value to work for transit as a building stone.

The Second or Middle Series. — Succeeding the ragstones above mentioned, and commencing the second series, there appears to be everywhere a peculiar bed extending over a large area, termed the “cover,” or capping, varying in thickness, but generally hard in texture ; this forms the roof, or ceiling, to the fine economical building freestones below, and over which it lies, and is a marked feature in extensive underground workings, both for its horizontal extent, application, and importance as protection to the workmen, and as commencing the second series, or middle beds, which occur between the “ upper and lower ragstones.” At Bradford, Westwood, and Murhill this bed is a coarse, shelly, hard limestone ; at Corsham and Box, a closer-grained and tough rock. I associate it with the building freestone, or fine beds below it, rather than with the ragstone above, from its persistency and the constancy of its conditions. Succeeding this is the true Bath stone, or fine freestone, and which I believe occupy, with minor differences, the same position or horizon over the whole of the Bath district. This second, middle, or freestone series are as a group from twenty to thirty feet in thickness, and are coloured chrome-yellow in all sections, and those beds worked for transit are usually evenly grained in texture, regularly bedded, yield well to the saw, are non-fossiliferous, and give evident proof of having been accumulated or deposited in a somewhat deep and tranquil sea, or away from any littoral or wave disturbance, and which the almost total absence of organic remains still further tends to confirm or demonstrate. It appears from observation, and the correlation of measured sections, and conditions observable underground, that the fine-grained regular beds thin away in a south-eastern direction, or upon the line of their general dip, a fact clearly determinable on examining the sections exposed in the valleys. Indeed, it cannot be doubted but that the great or Bath oolite as a group, in this neighbourhood, exists under extremely irregular conditions, and dies out and disappears in the form of a lenticular or wedge-shaped mass, to the east and south-east. This circumstance, causing the building freestones to thus vary in their relative thickness as we proceed from the western part of the area to the east and south-east, and the removing of much of the exposed belt comprising the oolitic series between Bath and Bradford, on the line of their strike, north-east and south-west, caused, it would appear, by the extreme denudation of the Bath and Bradford valleys, and the westerly extension of the cretaceous series from Melksham to Westbury, Frome, and Warminster, are due, perhaps, to physical conditions connected with the eastern extension of the Mendip axis, and the little understood, deeply-seated, but undoubted position of the Palæozoic series, between Frome on the south, and Bath and Wickwar on the north, or along the eastern edge of the Bristol coal-field ; but under any circumstances the extension or invasion of the cretaceous series in the east, the narrowing of the exposed oolitic series above-mentioned, and the mechanical arrangement of the rock structures themselves, evince and determine lccal deposition to have gone on under continued oscillation of the land at the time of the deposition of the great colite series. It is to this second grouping, therefore, or the middle series, which exist between the upper and lower ragstones, that we must assign the workable beds of freestone now extensively quarried in the Bath district.

The Lower Ragstones. — These are an extensive series of rather fine and hard, as well as coarse and shelly, limestones. The lowest beds of this series being usually finer in texture than the upper, and when exposed, are generally from thirty to forty feet in thickness. Nowhere in this neighbourhood are finer sections to be seen than at Murhill, on the north side of the Bradford Valley, and Upper Westwood, on the south side. The beds comprising this division usually occur, or are exposed, in the escarpments of the denuded valleys or the projecting downs above. Masses of the thicker and fine-grained beds frequently occur on the inclined slopes of the valleys, owing to or rising from frequent slips or slides over the fuller’s earth upon which these lower ragstones immediately rest. It is, therefore, in the narrowing of the valleys and abrupt cliffs that this series of the great colite are best exposed. The chief economical value of these beds is confined to local purposes, being utterly unfit for architectural work or exposure to atmospheric influences. The stone used in the construction of the aqueduct conveying the canal over the river Avon, at Avon Cliff, came from the beds of this series at the Westwood Quarry ; and although in situ the stone appears of fine texture and quality, yet it rapidly decomposes on exposure, and the stone work of the Avon Cliff aqueduct is a perishing evidence of its non-durability. At the Box and Corsham quarries these lower beds, though not observable at the surface, are, nevertheless, forty-three feet in thickness, and are chiefly composed of the fine-textured oolitic limestones, but are not worked, as they are of no value in a commercial point of view.

On the Mode of Working the Bath Freestones. — Having endeavoured to determine the horizon of the workable beds of oolite and the relations they hold to the ragstones, or shelly series-recognised above and below these freestones, I will endeavour to describe shortly the mode of opening, working, and extracting the rock; a matter of no little importance, when we consider that more than 100,000 tons of the Bath freestone is annually removed from its original position in this neighbourhood, and forwarded to various parts of the United Kingdom. In working for stone, the first question to determine is, whether the stone shall be reached by open or underground workings, and this must depend upon the presence and conditions of the upper ragstones (and forest marble, where they exist), as they must of necessity be passed through, unless the stone can be reached by tunnelling on the face of an escarpment, where the beds are vertically exposed, or by driving a level to cut the beds ; but if the desired beds are not too much covered, open workings are resorted to. Few persons travelling from London to the West of England, vid the Great Western Railway, through the Box tunnel, have any conception, on passing through it, that around and over them are large and extensively worked mines, from which the well-known Corsham and Box freestones are taken, or as they shoot from the tunnel-mouth into the Bath-hampton, Bath-eastern, and Bradford valleys, that it is the seat of so much quarry industry, having for its object the working of the Bath freestone. In describing the particular mode of getting the stone, I will take for my type the Corsham Down and Box Hill workings. I do so, because these mines have had more thought and attention bestowed on them than any others in this neighbourhood, and because they are the most extensively developed. It is believed that the Box and Corsham locality has been worked for stone, with more or less activity, for three centuries, but it was not demonstrated that so large an amount of good workable freestone existed in the district until the fact was evidenced by the cutting of the Box tunnel, which at once exposed the beds, and showed that to the north and north-west of the tunnel, on the strike of the beds, there existed what we may practically call an inexhaustible supply of valuable freestone. The cutting of the Box tunnel having opened to view this fact, gave an impulse to the previously limited mining operations of the district. The chief operations are situated on the north side of the tunnel ; the reason of this is, that the rock is found sounder in this direction, and the stone more even in colour, and more regular in quality and texture, than to the south or dip of the stone. The entrance to these workings is driven from the Corsham or eastern end, immediately contiguous to the mouth of the Box tunnel, and it is here that the railways of the underground workings join the Great Western Railway on the same level. The chief or main road through the workings is carried from this point due west, in a direct line towards the Box Hill escarpment, a distance of one mile and six-eighths ; rising with the strata, for the purpose of keeping on the floor of the workable beds, thus making an incline to the west of about 1 in 40 ; and as the rise to the north is about 1 in 60, advantage has been taken of this, and the works so laid out, that much of the stone can be run on trollies without draught power—that is to say by gravitation—to the loading platform, where it is transferred from the quarry trollies into the railway trucks, which are taken into the mine to receive it. To economise and facilitate the operation of loading, the platform stands on a level a few inches higher than the sides of the railway truck, into which the stone has to be loaded, and by the upper level narrow-guage tramways this platform is placed in direct connection with the whole of the headings or workings ; and by its lower level broad-guage railway it is connected with the Great Western Railway. By this loading arrangement, we are enabled to load off into railway trucks from thirty to forty tons in the hour. One uniform system of getting or working the stone prevails throughout the quarries, and this system is an inversion of the mode of working coal. The coal-miner undercuts his coal, that the mass may fall and break, but building-stone so worked would make a valueless rubbish heap. The freestone miner or quarryman has to commence his operations at the roof of the stone. This picking operation is effected by means of adze-shaped picks, on the heads of which longer handles are inserted as the work proceeds, and the men thus make their driving a distance of six or seven feet back into the rock. The width or span of these stalls must of course depend on the soundness of the rock. In the Corsham workings, they can, without danger, be driven a width of from twenty-five to thirty-five feet. In the Box quarries, where the rock is not so sound, and the capping bed, before referred to, not so regular, the drivings are limited to from twelve to twenty feet. This is, of course, regulated by the space that may be safely opened without danger to the working beneath. It must be evident that the removal of eight or nine inches of the rock immediately under the ceiling deprives the overlying strata of the support of this area of stone, as effectually as its removal throughout, from roof to floor, would do, and any tendency to settle or drop is at once determined and any risk of life thus guarded against. Another process, by a fresh agency, is now called into exercise, for the cutting of the rock into blocks of required dimensions; for this, a one-handled saw is used. These saws are worked in lengths of four, five, six, and seven feet, and are made broad, rather I should say, deep, at the head or extreme point, so as to insure the saw sinking to its work at that point. The saw is worked at first horizontally, dropping a little as the cut goes on; and after the rock is thus opened down to the next natural parting, and the block thus separated laterally from the parent rock, levers are introduced into the bed or parting at the bottom of the block, and these levers are weighted and shaken till the block is forcibly detached at the back. It is then drawn down by crane power, and the broken end and the bed dressed with the axe, so as to make the block shapely ; it is then placed on a trolly, and allowed to run to the loading platform. After the first block is removed, it will be evident that the workmen have then access by that opening to the back of the bank of stone, and they avail themselves of this to work the saw transversely, which, separating the block from its back or hinder attachment, renders all further breaking off unnecessary, so the first block of each face is the only stone broken from the rock. To each face or heading of work, a ten-ton crane is erected in such position as to command the whole face. These cranes are now constructed telescopically, so as to accommodate them to slight variations in the headings, arising from differences in the depths of the valuable beds, and the expense otherwise attendant on frequent alteration of the crane is thus avoided, and the periodical shifts from old worked-out to new localities are effected with less trouble and loss of time. Sometimes after a block of freestone has been loosened in situ, a Lewis bolt is let into the face of the block, the chain of the crane attached to it, and the block is then drawn out horizontally. By the removal of the first stratum a sufficient space is obtained to allow the workmen an entrance under the roof; and vertical cuts are again carried down through the next bed to the parting below, and a transverse cut readily made ; meanwhile, the cutting is continued in the picking bed, the upper layer removed as before, and everything below this point quarried away, with all the sides of the block sawn, except the bed on which it has rested, and those abutting on the natural joints ; hence each block comes out ready to pass into the hands of the builder, sculptor, or dealer, and this with much less cost and loss in waste than formerly attended blasting and other powerful but rough modes of extraction. The continued repetition of these several operations produces a terrace or step-like profile in the workings, extending from the highest to the lowest of the beds worked, and thus they present themselves to the view.

Professor Phillips said such a paper as this was of the utmost practical importance in connection with science.

Professor Ansted pointed out that the Bath stone, when carried for building purposes to a distance, was exposed to rapid destruction by the action of the atmosphere. He attributed this to the manner in which the stone was quarried. It had been observed that this did not occur with the stone that was used in the immediate neighbourhood of Bath. This, no doubt, was attributable to the fact that the stone was not taken away from its own atmosphere, as is done. He would suggest, therefore, to the quarry-owners, that all the stone to be sent to a distance should be exposed to its own atmosphere for some considerable time, until it had became seasoned, as it were. He believed that if this were done, the stone would be as durable everywhere as it was in the immediate neighbourhood of Bath.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Ep. 1145: Jacquard and Babbage

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard and other contributors, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by Houston Public Media.

Today, a story about wool weaving and computers. The University of Houston’s College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

Weaving a pattern into cloth is no easy matter. Different shuttles, carrying the weft strands, have to be threaded through the warp strands in a precise order to give the weave its pattern. In 1805 a French engineer named Jacquard invented means for automating that process. He passed a chain of cards, with holes punched in them, in front of a mechanism. The mechanism reached through wherever a hole let it, and picked up a thread. We’ve used the Jacquard loom principle in textile mills ever since.

Five years later, in 1810, the young Englishman Charles Babbage went to Cambridge to study math and mechanics. In 1816, when he was only 25, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society for his work on calculating-machines and methods. In 1834 he conceived a machine that could be told how to carry out a sequence of calculations. He conceived of programmable computation. He never completed this “analytical engine,” as he called it, but he set down all the essential principles of today’s digital computers.

Now, back to Jacquard’s loom. The key to operating any computer lies in transmitting sequences of on-off commands. Babbage used Jacquard-style punched cards. The presence or absence of a hole communicated a simple on-off command to the machine.

But Babbage’s idea went fallow for a long time. Meanwhile, another bright young man, Herman Hollerith, joined the Census Office — a world of endless copying and tallying. Suppose someone asked, “What percent of our population are Irish immigrants?” How do you get an answer from millions of data sheets?

One person had tried making ink marks on a continuous paper roll. Then Hollerith thought of punching holes in the paper, like a player-piano roll. Holes registered each piece of data mechanically, the way a player piano sounds notes. But that lost the identity of individual records and opened the door to nasty errors.

One day a friend said to Hollerith, “There should be a way to use separate cards with notched edges to keep track of data.” Bingo! Hollerith saw it. He developed a system for punching all the data for each person into a single card. If you were a citizen, and literate, one hole went in column 7, row 9. He had a full system working in time for the 1890 census.

If you took up the computer before the 1980s, you too worked with Hollerith cards — the same size as an 1890 dollar bill. You typed each Fortran command on its own card. Hollerith eventually left the Census Office to form his own company. And today that company bears the name International Business Machines, IBM. It’s wondrous to see how ideas turn and change and flow — Jacquard to Babbage to Hollerith, and Hollerith’s company, at length, building fully evolved Babbage engines — for us all to use.

I’m John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work.

(Theme music)


Cardwell, D.S.L., Turning Points in Western Technology. Canton, MA: Science History Publications/USA, 1972, pp. 119-121.Reid-Green, K.S., The History of Census Tabulation. Scientific American, February 1989, pp. 98-103.

This Episode is a reworking and combining of Engines Episode 2 and Episode 401.

From Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of Applied Mechanics, 1892

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is Copyright © by John H. Lienhard, and is used with permission.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Ep. 1373: Pittsburgh in 1816

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard and other contributors, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by Houston Public Media.

Click here for audio of Episode 1373.

Today, let’s visit embryonic Pittsburgh. The University of Houston’s College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

A historical snapshot of Pittsburgh in the year 1816 offers an unexpected window into early American history. The War of 1812 had just ended. We’d survived our first forty years of independence, and we’d just begun seeing ourselves as a strong, solvent country. Pittsburgh was a singular town. It lay across the great natural barrier of the Allegheny Mountains, far from population centers on the Atlantic coast.

This settlement was so important because it lay right in the western Pennsylvania coal fields. It was cheaper to bring iron to coal for smelting than to bring coal to iron. So, soon after the first Western Pennsylvania blast furnace was set up in 1790, Pittsburgh emerged as our major source of iron. It became our major source of glass as well, because glassmaking also requires a lot of heat. Between 1810 and 1820 Pittsburgh’s population mushroomed from forty-seven-hundred to more than seven thousand.

What was odd about all that was Pittsburgh’s inaccessibility. It sits at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. They connect it to the ocean at New Orleans, over a thousand miles away. With the Erie Canal a decade in the future, it took over two weeks for a loaded wagon to make the three-hundred-mile trip over the mountains to Philadelphia.

Despite that, Pittsburgh had acquired three newspapers, nine churches, three theaters, a piano maker, five glass factories, three textile mills, a steam engine factory, four thousand tons of iron processing per year, two rolling mills, most of our nail production, and (no surprise) a notorious air-pollution problem.

Robert Fulton’s steamboat patent was only seven years old in 1816. Nevertheless, this inland city launched three of those gigantic boats that year to link itself to the ocean. And they weren’t its first. Another boat, made two years earlier in Pittsburgh and bearing the unfortunate name of Vesuvius, burned up in New Orleans in 1816. These words from an article in the September 3rd issue of the Pittsburgh Gazette say much about the mood of the place:

Those who first cross the Atlantic in a steam boat will be entitled to a great portion of applause. In a few years we expect such trips will be common … and bold will they be who first make a passage to Europe in a steam boat.
 

In fact, the first transatlantic steamboat crossing was made, with the help of sail, just three years later.The article ends with a quotation from Homer:

Bold was the man, the first who dared to brave,
… in fragile bark, the wild perfidious wave.
 

There it is. The imprint of a developing civilization — healthy, adventurous technologies driven by awe, excitement, and (maybe most important) a perfectly implausible self-confidence.

I’m John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we’re interested in the way inventive minds work.

(Theme music)


Pittsburgh in 1816. Philadelphia: Carnegie Library, 1916. (no author given)

This is a revised version of Episode 8.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is Copyright © by John H. Lienhard, and is used with permission.

The New Floating Railway

Some ingenious gentleman, who seem to think that capital does not get sunk rapidly enough in Railways, has proposed a floating line, which will of course if carried out, be exposed to more than the ordinary fluctuations to which these things are liable. The schema may for well enough when matters go on smoothly, but when NEPTUNE has a bill – or a bill-ow – to take up, and BOREAS may be raising the wind to help him out, we fear the traffic on the floating line would be entirely swamped, to say nothing of the difficulty the engineers might experience in taking their levels.


From Punch, or the London Charivari, volume XV

See also: Railway Mania

Obituary: The Atmospheric Railway

Died last week, the Atmospheric Railway. Its death is supposed to have been hastened by the want of breath. When the tube was opened, it was found quite gone. Its loss is deeply regretted by a large circle of India-rubber buffers. A stone will be erected to mark the melancholy fact, with the following epitaph : – “The earth hath bubbles, and this is one of them.”


From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. XV

Death Blow of the Atmospheric Railway

From the Weekly National Intelligencer, October 7, 1848

The atmospheric railway has probably received its death-blow by the abandonment of that mode of traction by the South Devon Railway Company, after having spent £300,000 in experimenting upon it. The system is found to be too expensive. It costs £108 to earn £100! No more need be said about it. Punch places it in his obituary of this week.


Source: Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]), 07 Oct. 1848. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045784/1848-10-07/ed-1/seq-2/>

Note on the Death of Isambard Kingdom Brunel

From The Penny Press, October 7, 1859

We have already announced the death of the distinguished engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. His father, Mark Isambard Brunel, came from the vicinity of Rouen, and his architectural achievements exist both in his native country and the United States. In 1793 fled for political reasons from France to New York, where he undertook the exploration and survey of some lands for a French land company, and in 1794 commenced the survey of the Champlain Canal. He sent in a design for the houses of Congress, and was much employed as an engineer and Architect in New York, both by the State and by private individuals. After a stay of a few years he returned to Europe, and visited England. In London, the famous Thames Tunnel remains an enduring monument of his engineering skill. The son appears to have inherited the genius of his parent. Born at Portsmouth, England, and educated at Caen, in Normandy, he early embraced his father’s profession, and when but little over twenty years of age, was resident engineer of the Thames Tunnel. Here he had several narrow escapes from drowning, from the breaking in of the water. After the tunnel was finished, Brunel planned the Great Western Railway of England, and superintended its construction. He also built the Great Western steamer, which at one time created such a sensation, though in every respect it was as far surpassed by subsequently built steamers, as they are by the builder’s last work the Great Eastern. Later, Mr. Brunel conducted the works of the Tuscan portion of the Sardinian railways, and other foreign railways, and during the Crimean war he had the entire charge of the establishment and organizing the Renkioi hospitals on the Dardanelles. He was, at the time of his death, Vice-President of the Institution of Engineers and of the Society of Art, fellow and member of the Council of the Royal Society, and member of many other learned societies. He also received the Cross of the Legion of Honor from Louis Philippe.


Source: The penny press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]), 07 Oct. 1859. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85025750/1859-10-07/ed-1/seq-1/>

Proposed Tunnel Under Dover Straits

From The Evening Telegraph, January 27, 1869

The project of tunnelling {sic] a passage from England to France under Dover Straits is still talked of in England. The London Daily News of December 25 says of it:

“The plan of tunnelling beneath the Straits is not altogether a new one. Probably the success with which the Mont Cenis tunnel has been worked through the solid backbone of the Alpine range has attracted new attention to a scheme which on the face of it seems far from being impracticable. It must be remembered, however, that the difficulties to be encountered in tunnelling beneath the Straits of Dover are of a totally different character from those which the French engineers have had to meet with in tunnelling through the Alps The soil to be traversed in the former instance would probably be the ‘second chalk formation,’ which may be assumed to extend in an unbroken course from the place of its uprising in England to the place in which it makes its appearance in France. It need hardly be said that the difficulty of perforating this soil would be very much less than that of perforating the hard and complicated material which has been encountered by the French engineers. On the other hand, however, there are dangers and difficulties in tunnelling under the Straits which more than make up for the comparative ease with which the mere process of perforation could be pursued. It needs but a slight acquaintance with the history of the construction of the Thames Tunnel to enable one to recognize the fact that the workers in the suggested tunnel beneath the Straits would be exposed to enormous risks from the effect of the pressure of the sea upon the stratum through which they would have to work. Again and again the water burst into the Thames Tunnel, and drove the workmen out. Brunel himself nearly lost his life during one of these irruptions. Now, if this happened beneath the Thames, what might be looked for from the effects of the enormous pressure of the sea to say nothing of the increased danger during heavy storms ? and then the workmen in the Thames Tunnel had but a comparatively short distance to run, when they were threatened with an irruption of water, if such an event threatened workmen engaged nine or ten miles from either outlet of the suggested tunnel, escape would be hopeless. In a short time the whole length 0f the tunnel would be filled with the waters of the sea, and the labors of years would be rendered useless.

“We urge these considerations, however, not as deprecating the suggested attempt. Doubtless the dangers which we have pointed out may be surmounted by a judicious choice of the stratum to be worked through, and by cautious progress – defenses being continually prepared around every fresh portion tunnelled. The experience pained during the tunnelling of the Thames shows that much can be done in this way; and we also have every reason to believe that once a tunnel was constructed it would be as safe as the Thames Tunnel now is. There are difficulties in the way of ventilation, but such difficulties as these have to be dealt with (and have been most successfully dealt with in the construction of the Mont Cenis Tunnel). Three eminent engineers, Messrs. Hawkshaw, Brunfees, and Lowe, have pronounced the plan to be feasible; and the estimated cost – nine millions sterling – though large, is still reasonable when the value of the tunnel is considered.

“Certainly the idea is at once a bold and an attractive one. Nature’s barriers are being, one after another, overcome. Now a mountain is tunnelled, then an isthmus is cut through, next the Falls of Niagara are spanned by a railway bridge. Hitherto, however, sea-straits have not been successfully attacked, except where – as in the case of the Menai Straits – they are of very moderate extent. When voyagers can pass to France without encountering the terrors of sea-sickness, a veritable triumph will have been achieved over nature.


Source: The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]), 27 Jan. 1869. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025925/1869-01-27/ed-1/seq-6/>

 

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