In the early sixties the company began the manufacture of the Wilcox & Gibbs sewing machine, which they have manufactured ever since. They used cylindrical and caliper gauges, including limit gauges, for this work. In 1865 a set of standards was made for John Richards, and cylindrical and limit gauges of various forms were regularly manufactured during the early seventies. For a long time the basis of accuracy for these was a set of Whitworth plugs and rings, which are still preserved among their archives. The sizes above the 2 inch are cast-iron, and commencing with the 2³⁄₄ inch they are hollow and ribbed. These were looked upon with reverence by the Brown & Sharpe workmen and were used as master gauges for the commercial plugs and rings. They found, however, that in trying the Whitworth plugs, say ³⁄₄ inch and 1¹⁄₄ inch into a 2 inch ring and then other combinations into the same ring, an appreciable variation in fit could be noticed. This led to consideration of means for obtaining greater accuracy than was possible with dependence on these Whitworth gauges. At the time the question arose Richmond Viall had just become superintendent and Oscar J. Beale was chief inspector. It was decided to make a measuring machine which should be an original standard for measuring as well as a comparator. This machine, built in 1878, was largely the work of Mr. Beale. It has a measuring wheel graduated to read to ten-thousandths of an inch and a vernier reading to hundred-thousandths. There is also an adjustment which reads even finer than the famous “millionth dividing engine” of Whitworth. The basis of accuracy for the microscopic scale was a standard yard, which had been compared with the standards at Washington. The micrometer caliper was introduced by Brown & Sharpe in 1867. Although not the pioneers in the sense of being the inventors, they were the first to recognize the practical value of this tool for machinists, and to put it on the market. As in the case of the vernier caliper, the introduction of the micrometer caliper into everyday shopwork marked an important step in raising the standard of accuracy. The principle is very old. William Gascoigne, of Yorkshire, England, used it about 1637, moving two parallel edges or pointers to and fro by means of a screw provided with a divided head. For two hundred years the principle has been used in controlling the movement of spider webs and cross hairs in transits and other optical instruments. It is well known that Watt had one (now in the South Kensington Museum in London), and we have already mentioned the “Lord Chancellor,” used by Maudslay before 1830. R. Hoe & Company, of New York, in 1858, had a bench micrometer reading up to 9 inches. But none of these could ever have influenced mechanical standards generally as did the strong, compact little instrument developed by Brown & Sharpe.