Copyright, Ewing Galloway
The drop forge. A fourteen-ton hydraulic press is employedin forging an immense open hearth steel plate.
Popular Science Library
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
GARRETT P. SERVISS
AUTHORS
WILLIAM J. MILLER HIPPOLYTE GRUENER A. RUSSELL BOND
D. W. HERING LOOMIS HAVEMEYER ERNEST G. MARTIN
ARTHUR SELWYN-BROWN ROBERT CHENAULT GIVLER
ERNEST INGERSOLL WILFRED MASON BARTON
WILLIAM B. SCOTT ERNEST J. STREUBEL
NORMAN TAYLOR DAVID TODD
CHARLES FITZHUGH TALMAN
ROBIN BEACH
ARRANGED IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES
WITH A HISTORY OF SCIENCE, GLOSSARIES
AND A GENERAL INDEX
ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME FIVE
P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
NEW YORK
Copyright 1922
By P. F. Collier & Son Company
MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A.
MECHANICS
The Science of Machinery
BY
A. RUSSELL BOND
Formerly Managing Editor, Scientific American
P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
NEW YORK
PREFACE
ALTHOUGH strictly speaking the term “Mechanics”applies to that branch of Physics that dealswith the actions of forces on material bodies, originallythe word had a broader meaning embracing allmachinery and mechanical inventions. To-day popularusage is restoring to the term its original broadinterpretation, and it is in this popular but ratherunorthodox sense that “Mechanics” has been chosenas the title of this book; for although certain elementaryprinciples of mechanics are described andexplained, the major portion of the book deals withmachines and their evolution to their present stageof perfection.
Machines are man’s creation, and yet in a sense theman of to-day is a machine product; for moderncivilization owes its material and in large measureits esthetic development to machinery. The storyof machinery, from primitive man’s first attemptsto augment his physical powers with mechanicalaids down to the present era of gigantic, steel-muscledmachinery and marvelously intricate mechanisms,is the story of human progress. It is thisstory that we have endeavored to tell in the followingpages, but the subjec