“ WEIGHING MACHINE. A contrivance for ascertaining the weight of objects. The most common form of weighing machine is the platform scale, in which a small known weight at one end of multiplying beams is made to balance a heavy unknown weight at the other end. ”

“ A scale designed for weighing heavy guns at the Watervliet Arsenal, Troy, N. Y., has a capacity for weighing 300,000 pounds on a platform 12 × 15 feet, or a capacity of nearly 1700 pounds per square foot. Besides scales operating on the principle of the balance, there are weighing machines which operate by compressing a coiled spring or by twisting a bar of metal. The spring scale is a very common device, and in the form of a dynamometer for registering the pull of locomotives is made with very large capacities. ”