Lock (dam)

“ To stand on the floor of a dry lock and look up at a lock gate eighty feet high, seven feet thick and sixty-five feet wide is an impressive experience, but to see a pair of such gates swing open and shut at the touch of the finger is something to be remembered. The emergency dams look like a steel girder bridge, which, indeed, they are, and provide against accidents by as ingenious a piece of mechanism as the entire system affords. Enormous iron chains with hydraulic springs are stretched across the entrance to the locks to stop any reckless ship which might otherwise strike the gates. ”

“ But if the variations of Locks in which the bolt is guarded only by fixed wards could be multiplied to infinity, they would afford no security against the efforts of an ingenious locksmith. For though an artful and judicious arrangement of the wards, or other impediments, may render the passage to the bolt so intricate and perplexed, as to exclude every instrument but its proper key; a skilful workman having access to the entrance, will be at no loss to fabricate a key which shall tally as perfectly with the wards, as if the Lock had been open to his inspection. ”

“ Only those doors can be securely locked which have no keyholes outside."
"I have no idea how that could be arranged," said Count Vavel.
"I am acquainted with a jack of all trades here in the neighborhood who could make such a door for you if I told him how to make it. He is a carpenter, locksmith, and clock-maker, all in one person."
The count shook his head wonderingly. The robber was to direct the locksmith how to fashion a lock that no one could open!
"Shall I send the man to the castle?" asked Satan Laczi.
"Yes; if the fellow is sensible, and does not chatter." ”

“ Nothing but a partial and limited view of the question could lead to the opinion that harm can result: if there be harm, it will be much more than counterbalanced by good.
The literature of lock-making is, as we have implied, very scanty, both in England and America. The French and Germans, though far below our level as lock-makers, are very superior to us in their descriptions of the construction and manufacture of locks. ”

“ The walls of steel or iron which separate the security parts from the tumblers, and the cylinder which revolves with the key, present formidable barriers to all descriptions of pick-locks, and render the lock a most positive and reliable security. The tumblers consist of rolled very smooth steel plates, in which the fire-crust has not been filed away, partly in order that the lock might not need oiling, as all these parts are very smooth, and partly that the [96] combination pieces might not easily rust, a thing to which the adhering fire-crust is not favourable. ”

“ But while these lads often do not hesitate to force or pick a lock they will seldom go as far as to smash a door to effect an entrance; hence, if your lock is concealed your house is safe from all but professional thieves, and such gentry seldom waste their time to break open a shack which contains nothing of value to them. The latches shown by Figs. 193, 200, and 201 may be made very heavy and strong, and if the trigger in Fig. 200, the latch-string hole in Fig. 193, and the peg hole in Fig. ”

“ Beauregard Square servants wear felt-soled shoes. And such outside noises as venture to intrude themselves must filter through double brick walls and doors built when lumber was selling by the thousand acres instead of the square foot.
Through this silence our feet echoed along the bare floor of the upper hall, as well lighted as belowstairs and as dismantled, to the door of the day nursery. The door was locked—double locked, in fact. For the key had been turned in the old-fashioned lock, and in addition an ordinary bolt had been newly fastened on the outside of the door. On the outside! ”

“ Flint locks, whether as applied to the fowling-piece or the musket, will soon be forgotten, or remembered only to give a romantic interest to some tale of other times, as the arbalast and long-bow serve only to remind us of our Norman and Saxon ancestors! It requires some mechanical knowledge and some experience, to decide on the merit of a lock. ”

“ Occasionally they stop to light the stranger's steps on reaching a particularly bad place, and when he has passed it they go on again; up hill and down, toward the river, and when they stop at last, it is so dark that the stranger does not know that they have reached a stone wall with an iron gate opening into an enclosure, until he comes entirely up to them.
The lock turns heavily, and Tug condescends to hold the lantern while Silas applies both hands to the key. ”

“ It is scarcely worth while to descant upon the “middle age” of lock-making—to impart to the subject so much of dignity as to be susceptible of regular historical treatment. True, we know that wards were employed before tumblers (unless, indeed, the pins of the Egyptian lock be considered as tumblers—a character to which they present considerable claim) , and that wards may be taken as the representative of the medieval period of lock-making ”

“ Came then a low, ominous noise of yielding things, steel and iron and wood—then the chain-lock, torn from its socket, clattered jangling against the steel door—the door shot wide and brought up against the wall with a terrific crash, hurling the guard on the other side to the floor—and Varge, resistance suddenly gone, pitched forward, recovered himself, and staggered into the hallway. ”

“ These three vacancies are over three of the middle arches, for all the piers are not of a like thickness, nor stand at equal distance one from the other; for under those three vacancies are much wider than the rest, and are called the navigable locks, because vessels of considerable burthen may pass through them. One of these is near unto the second gate, and is called the Rock Lock. The second is under the second vacancy, and is called the Draw-Bridge Lock. And the third is near the Chapel, and is called St. Mary’s Lock. There is a fourth between St. ”

“ The commercial importance of locks—though of course never seriously questioned when once fairly brought before one's attention—has been recently rendered so apparent as to have risen to the position of a public topic. If a strong room, containing gold and silver, notes and bills, books and papers—if such a room be necessarily shielded from intrusion, it becomes no less necessary that the shield should be really worthy of its name, trusty and reliable: a good lock is here nearly as indispensable as a faithful cashier. ”

“ Passing the locks is by no means a pleasant operation: you are shut up for a few minutes between massive stonewalls, with a watery abyss beneath, which seems to threaten to swallow you up; and one or other of your fellow passengers is sure to take that opportunity of informing you, that a packet boat was once upset passing a lock, that every soul on board perished, by a variety of deaths, more or less horrible, according to the vivacity of the imagination which the relater may happen to possess. ”

“ The next is that the workmanship of every part of the safe be first-class: not that there be merely a moulded door with a showy lock and a trumpery brass-plate upon it, but that every corner and joint of plate with plate in sides and back be effectually united and jointed in the best manner, and that the fitting of the hardened edges of the door shall be like those of a valve, and not even let a watch-spring be got in between. ”

“ The escutcheon has been a favourite resource with lock-makers. Mr. Mordan’s escutcheon, for instance, introduced before the Society of Arts in 1830, is a contrivance to be placed temporarily over the keyhole of a door, to prevent the picking of the lock during the owner’s absence. The escutcheon, or “protector,” has a short pipe which, after the door has been locked, is thrust into the keyhole; attached to the pipe is a small lock, on Bramah’s or any other convenient principle, so contrived that, on turning its key, two lancet-shaped pieces fly out laterally and bury themselves in the wood. ”

“ A curious superstition about iron locks prevails in Styria and Tyrol. If you procure from a locksmith a brand-new lock and carry it to church at the time of a wedding ceremony, and if, while the benediction is being said, you fasten the lock by a turn of the key, then the young couple’s love and happiness is destroyed. Mutual aversion will supplant affection until you open the lock again. ”

“ Both in England and in America, men are more disposed to do the work than to describe it when done. In the Encyclopædia Britannica, in Rees’ Cyclopædia, in Hebert’s Engineers’ and Mechanics’ Cyclopædia, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, in the Penny Cyclopædia, and in other similar works, locks are described as well as can be expected within the limits assigned to the articles. Mr. Bramah’s essay on locks, and on his own lock in particular, is one of the few English pamphlets devoted expressly to this subject. ”

“ The locks are 40 feet 4 inches wide, and have a length of 270 feet between the sills. The side walls are 29 feet high, with a batter of 1 in 24; they are built of limestone ashlar, and are [222] strengthened by counterforts. The lock floor is planked with pine timber, and the gates are constructed of white oak. The gates are moved by chains, guided by rollers and winding round drums, and one man is able to move a gate. ”

“ He also exhibited the key-cutting machine employed for cutting the bits; and also a set of burglar’s tools employed for drilling into the door of an iron safe sufficiently for breaking open or removing the lock, showing that the hold required for giving the cutting pressure upon the powerful drill employed for the purpose was obtained by a steel cross piece inserted into the keyhole and turned at right angles, so as to hold across inside the lock ”

“ If parties do not know your letters, nothing but violence, applied by some means or other, can enable them to get into your safe; for the lock will not open to any thing but its talisman. Take off all the large wheels and open the lock: you will see that the large wheels have a number of false chambers; if you get the spurs of the bolt into three real chambers and one false, you are as fast as ever, for all four must be right.
“Having placed your key and pointer outside the door to point to W on brass-plate No. ”

“ Joe and Blake, who had gotten all the pictures they wanted of the approach to the lock, stopped grinding away at the handle of the camera long enough to look at the chain.
These chains, for there are several of them, each designed to protect some lock gate, consist of links made of steel three inches thick. They stretch across the locks, and any vessel that does not stop at the moment it should, before reaching this chain, will ram its prow into it. ”

“ The springs, which by the turning of the key must be raised together with the tumblers, are attached to levers, and press upon the latter at their centre of gravity, in consequence of which all crowding towards either side is prevented, and the key can be turned with facility, in spite of the many combination parts which it has to raise; and the springs themselves are by their positions so little called into action, that their strength can never be impaired by use.
The lock has also another very complete arrangement in the detector-tumbler, which is attached to the cap or covering of the lock. ”

“ ON TUMBLER, OR LEVER LOCKS. Security being the primary object in all locks, any considerations as to mechanical ingenuity and graceful decoration give place to those which relate to safety. A spring lock may be ingenious and even beautiful in its construction, but an imitative key will easily open it. Hence arose the invention of wheels or wards ”

“ In the processes as carried on at Willenhall, they are applied chiefly to the manufacture of mortice, box, trunk, rim, cabinet, case, bright, dead, closet, and padlocks. Except some of the parts of the brass-work, which are cast, these locks are made by forging, pressing, and filing. The forging is a light kind of smith’s work, aided by a light hammer and a small pair of bellows; children and young persons are largely employed in this process. Pressing is a kind of work by which certain parts of the lock are pressed or stamped out. ”

“ This extreme delicacy of construction can be carried out practically without objection in the new lock, because there is no possibility of putting a strain from the key upon the stump, so as to cause injury by forcing it at the moment of entering the gatings; for the only force acting upon the stump at that time is the uniform pressure of its own spring. ”

“ Once there, he could easily deprive the unconscious Russian of his pass-key, and now that he knew the secret of the hidden door, he would have no difficulty in making his way direct into the cavern; after which, to appropriate the Diamond would be the most natural thing in the world. Returning by the way he had come, he would carefully re-lock the cavern doors and shut the secret door. He would replace the pass-key in Platzoff's pocket, and retire unseen to his own room. ”

“ The gate is strong and high, and the lock is sufficiently powerful to defy the assaults of anybody who has not been educated either as a locksmith or burglar. We passed under the eye of a custodian as we entered, and he followed us at a respectful distance to see that we did no damage. ”