The first governor I sold was to Mr. William Moller for his sugar-refinery on Vandam Street. The engine to be regulated was an old-fashioned beam-engine. The governor was to be set on a bracket that we had to bolt to the wall, and a pulley some 3 feet or more in diameter had to be made in halves and put on the shaft. To make sure that no mistake would be made, I went down myself to make a gauge of that shaft. I took a ³⁄₈-inch steel rod bent to span the shaft, and made of this an outside gauge with great care. Now this was not what I wanted, but I did not know it. I wanted an inside gauge, representing the diameter of the shaft, and what I did make was useful only to compare the two. I returned highly satisfied with my work, leaving the real gauge to be made in the shop, where it could not be compared with the shaft. What might reasonably have been expected to happen did happen. In some unaccountable way something happened to my gauge, and when we went to install the governor we found the pulley had been bored ¹⁄₄ inch too small. We had to work hard all night, and got through only just in time for the engine to start at its usual hour in the morning. If I had sent a man who knew his business to make this gauge I should have avoided a lot of trouble, but I should not have learned anything. In preparing for the establishment of the governor manufacture I visited the works of Geo. S. Lincoln & Co., in Hartford, and saw twist-drills in use, cutting chips instead of scraping. They attracted my attention and I inquired about them, and was told that they made them themselves. They kindly took me into the smith-shop and had one made for me to witness the operation. The smith heated a round bar of steel and swaged channels in it on opposite sides. They had quite a set of top and bottom swages for different-sized channels. He then took another heat on the bar and twisted it by hand, giving a gradually increasing twist, which at the end was quite rapid. An increasing twist was obtained in this way. The drill was held in a vise, so that only the projecting end of it could receive the amount of twist then being imparted. The drill had to be moved in the vise of course a number of times. The channels were smoothed out with files, and when the drill was turned in the lathe sharp cutting edges were developed, which needed only to be backed off by grinding. I took one of these drills home with me to serve as a pattern and equipped my shop with them. They were of the highest use to me. The small ones drilled the holes for the governor joints, and the large ones drilled the counterpoise and the column for the governor spindle. I suppose the twist-drill had its origin in these Hartford works.