Various

“ Nothing is more injurious to the eyes than reading by a poor light. Many persons strain their eyes by reading on into the twilight as long as they possibly can. They become interested and do not like to leave off. ”

“ Indeed, we are apt to depreciate the value of our other senses when comparing them to the eyesight. It is not uncommon to hear a person say, "I would rather die than be blind." But no one says, "I would rather die than lose my hearing." As a matter of fact, the person who is totally blind generally appears to be more cheerful, happier, than one who is totally deaf. Deaf mutes are often dull, morose, quick tempered, obstinate, self-willed, and difficult to get along with, while the blind are not infrequently distinguished for qualities quite the reverse. ”

“ In view of the terrible and deplorable accidents which have occurred by reason of lack of proper stairway facilities at panics caused in time of fire, I would repeat the words of the late Amos D. Lockwood, the most eminent mill engineer which this country has yet produced, when he said to the New England Cotton Manufacturers' Association, "You have no moral right to build a mill employing a large number of help, with only one tower containing the stairways for exit." ”

“ The heat rejected in the condenser is the heat of vaporization taken up in the refrigerator, less the amount due to the higher pressure at which the change in physical state occurs, plus the heat acquired in the pump, and less the amount due to the difference between the temperature at which the vapor is liquefied in the condenser and that at which it entered the pump. An ammonia compression machine, as applied to ice making, contains ice-making tanks, in which is circulated a brine mixture, uncongealable at any temperature likely to be reached during the process. ”

“ Science cannot tell us how the brain, and through it the mind, completes the act of seeing. It is there that the finite and the infinite touch, and, as our minds are finite, we cannot comprehend the infinite. ”

“ If the constants used by Hanssen are absolutely correct, then his result must be unquestioned; but since physical constants are subject to certain residual errors, one would as soon think of finding the specific heat of air at constant volume, by using the value of the mechanical equivalent as one of the elements, and trusting the result, as he would to trust to the computed value of the mechanical equivalent without subjecting it to the test of a direct experiment. ”

“ In reading, a book or newspaper should be held at a distance of from ten to fifteen inches from the eyes. It is hardly necessary to caution anybody not to hold the print further away than fifteen inches. The only objection to holding ordinary print too far away is that in so doing the pictures formed on the back wall of the eye are too small to be readily and easily perceived, and the close attention consequently necessary causes both the eyes and the brain to tire. ”

“ The glass for machine coating is cut to standard sizes at the starting, instead of being coated in large sheets and cut afterward—a practice somewhat common in this industry. The disadvantage of the ordinary plan is that minute fragments of glass are liable to settle upon the sensitive film and to cause spots and scratches during the packing operations; any defect of this kind renders a plate worthless to the photographer. When any breakages take place in the cutting, it is best that they should occur at the outset, and not after the plate has been coated with emulsion. ”

“ A pump draws off the ammonia vapor from the refrigerator coils, and compresses it into the condenser, where, by means of the combined action of pressure and cooling by water, it assumes a liquid form, and is ready to be again passed on to the refrigerator for evaporation. The ammonia compression process is more economical than the absorption process, and with a good boiler and engine about 240,000 thermal units per hour can be eliminated by the expenditure of 100 lb. of coal per hour, with a brine temperature in the refrigerator of about 20° Fahr. ”

“ But it is unnecessary to enter into a comparison of the relative value of our senses or the relative misfortune of our loss of any one of them. We need them all in our daily struggle for existence, and it is necessary to our physical and mental well-being, as well as to our success in life, that we preserve them all in as high a degree of perfection as possible. We must not lose sight of the fact that all our organs of sense are parts of one body, and that whatever we do to improve or preserve the health of our eyes cannot do harm to any other organ. ”

“ In crowded city buildings, and in other places where the ordinary means of escape are not in duplicate, it is essential that fire escapes should be provided; but it is a great deal better to make a mill building so that they shall not be necessary as a matter of fact, even if they are put up to conform to the requirements of statute law. ”

“ It will be seen thus how completely this important and characteristic feature of Gothic architecture, the buttress, is the outcome of practical conditions of construction. It is treated decoratively, but it is itself a necessary engineering expedient in the construction. The application of the same principle, and its effect upon architectural expression, may be seen in some other examples besides that of the buttress in its usual shape and position. The whole arrangement and disposition of an arched building is affected by the necessity of providing counterforts to resist the thrust of arches. ”

“ There are hundreds of mill buildings, the wonder of their day, now used for storage because they cannot be employed to sufficient advantage in manufacturing purposes to compete with the facilities furnished by mills of later design. Thus their owners have been compelled to erect new buildings, and, as far as the original purpose of manufacturing is concerned, to abandon their old mills. ”

“ The meal is brought into this room by an elevator, the first "heater" is filled, and for twenty minutes the meal is subjected to a "dry cook," a steam cook, the steam in the packet being under a pressure of forty-five pounds. Inside the inner kettle is a "stirrer," a revolving arm attached at right angles to a vertical shaft. The stirrer makes the heating uniform, and the high temperature drives off all the water in the meal, while the involatile oil all remains. ”

“ We are all familiar with the fact that our eyes are "to see with," but in order to be able to take care of our eyes intelligently, it is necessary to understand as far as possible how to see with them. ”

“ It is indeed fortunate that it has been found by experience that those methods of building which are most desirable for the underwriter are also equally advantageous for the manufacturer. There is no pretense made at demands to compass the erection of fireproof buildings. In fact, as I have once remarked, a fireproof mill is commercially impossible, whatever effort may be made to overcome the constructive difficulties in the way of erecting and operating a mill which shall be all that the name implies. The present practice is to build a mill of slow burning construction. ”

“ The limit of good practice on loads upon brickwork is eight to ten tons per square foot, although it is true that these loads are largely exceeded at times. It is not to be shown, however, that the limits of safety in regard to desirable construction should be confined to the use of masonry for any low buildings. Structures which may be said to be equal to those of brickwork, as far as commercial risk is concerned, can be built wholly or in part of wood so as to conform to all practical conditions of safety. ”

“ Pumping is performed by means of primitive wooden hand pumps, and when sufficient ore has been collected it is conveyed on the backs of boys to the surface—a slow, costly, and difficult procedure. This system may, however, be suitable to small mines, but in large mines there is no economy in hand labor; indeed, much is lost in time and expense by it. For this reason steam has been introduced into the larger and more important mines. The machinery employed is a hoisting apparatus, with a drum, around which a coil is wound, with the object of hoisting and lowering trucks in vertical shafts. ”

“ I will now endeavor to point out the more prominent features of the influence machines which I have present, and, in doing so, I must ask a moment's leave from the subject of my lecture to show you a small machine made by that eminent worker Faraday, which, apart from its value as his handiwork, so closely brings us face to face with the imperfect apparatus with which he and others of his day made their valuable researches. ”

“ When floors are within a few feet of the ground, unless the site be remarkably dry, it is essential to provide for a circulation of air, which can be done very feasibly in a textile mill by laying drain pipe through the upper part of the underpinning, forming a number of holes leading into this space, and then making a flue from this space to the picker room or any other place requiring a large amount of air. The fans of the picker room, drawing their supply from underneath the building, produce a circulation of air which keeps the timber in good condition. ”

“ In the Gothic building the main pressures are oblique and not vertical, and the main feature of the exterior substructure, the buttress, is designed to express resistance to an oblique pressure; and no real progress was made with the development of the arched style until the false use of the apparent column or pilaster as a buttress was got rid of, and the true buttress form evolved. On the interior piers of the arcade there is a resolution of pressures which practically results in a vertical pressure, and the pier remains vertical ”

“ The ore is then ignited by means of bundles of straw, impregnated or saturated with sulphur, being held above the thin portion of the top of the kiln, which is at once closed with ginesi, and the "calcarone" is left to itself for about a week. During the burning process the flames gradually descend, and the sulphur contained in the ore is melted by the heat from above. In about seven or eight days sulphuric fumes and sublimed sulphur commence to escape, when it becomes necessary to add a new coat of ginesi to the covering and thus prevent the destruction of vegetation by the sulphur fumes. ”

“ The position of the person with regard to the light should be so that the latter will fall upon the page he is reading, and not upon his eyes. It is generally considered most convenient to have the light shine over the left shoulder, so that in turning the leaves of the book, the shadow of the hand upon the page is avoided. It is not always possible to do this, however, and, at the same time, to get plenty of light upon the page. When one finds himself compelled to face the light in reading, or in standing at a desk bookkeeping, he should always contrive to shade his eyes from a direct light. ”

“ In conclusion, however, it may be added that in ammonia machines, whether on the absorption or compression systems, no copper or alloy of copper can be used in parts subjected to the action of the ammonia. Cast or wrought iron and steel may, however, be used, provided the quality is good, but special care must be taken in the construction of those parts of absorption machines which are subjected to a high temperature. In both classes of apparatus first-class materials and workmanship are most absolute essentials.
[1]
Paper lately read before the Civil and Mechanical Engineers' Society. ”

“ I have seen more than one person whose eyes were permanently injured by gazing at the sun, during an eclipse or otherwise. As a matter of fact, nothing short of sunlight is better than the incandescent electric light to read by or to work by. ”

“ In 1819 a law was passed in Italy, which is still in force, governing mining in Sicily, which provides that should a land owner discover ore in his property he would be the owner thereof, and should have the right to mine, operate, or rent the property to others for that purpose, but if he should decline to operate his mines or to rent them to others to be operated, the state would rent them on its own account. ”

“ The reason for this resistance to fire is that the wood, being a poor conductor of heat, will not warp and buckle under heat, and cannot burn for lack of air to support combustion. A removal of the sheet metal on such a door after a fire in a mill shows that the surface of the wood is carbonized, not burned, reduced to charcoal, but not to ashes. ”

“ Recently, however, more attention has been directed to the question of economy, and consideration is now being given to the applicability of certain machines to certain special purposes, with the result that ammonia—which is the agent that, in our present state of knowledge, gives as a rule the best results for large installations, while on land at any rate its application for all refrigerating purposes presents no unusual difficulties—promises to become largely adopted. ”

“ The facades of such buildings show that this is brick, this is stone, or this is cast iron; but they always fail to impress the beholder with the idea of harmonious design. The use of finer varieties of clay in terra cotta figures laid among the brickwork furnishes a field of architectural design hardly appreciated. The heavy mass of brick, divided by regular lines of demarkation, serves as the groundwork of such ornamentation, while the suitable introduction in the proper places of the same material in terra cotta imparts the most appropriate elements of beauty in design ”

“ Because of economic reasons for preserving the space within the walls of the mill so that it may be to the greatest extent available for the best arrangement of machinery, the stairways should be placed outside of the building. Such stairways should not be spiral stairways, but should be made in short straight runs with square landings, because in the spiral stairway the portion of the stairs near the center is of so much steeper pitch that it renders them dangerous when the help are crowding out of the mill.
The wear of stairs from the tread of many feet presents a difficult problem. ”