Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852 — John Shaqi
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 6, June 1852
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
In this shop all such portions of the engines, presses, large and small,
printing and inking machines, and of the machinery by the agency of
which the above machines themselves are created, as are composed of
wrought metal, are forged, welded, made new from the commencement, or
repaired in case of damage. For it is worthy of remark that, although
many of the labor-saving machines and tools are of English make—not a
few by the celebrated Whitworth, said to be the first tool-maker in the
world—there is not one that cannot, on emergency, be made, mended, or
altered, within the precincts of the establishment; while many of the
most admirable contrivances are patents and inventions peculiar to this
country and this firm.
Immediately adjoining the smithy, is the engine and machine shop, and on
the same floor the large lathe-room containing four enormous surface
lathes and two turning lathes, for drilling, boring, turning, and
finishing both circular and horizontal surfaces.
From this point, we shall proceed to the saw works, preferring to take
each separate department of work by itself, from the commencement to the
end, rather than to adhere to the precise order and position of the
several rooms, as situated in the building.
The first room devoted to this branch of manufacture, which is a very
considerable and important item in the business of Messrs. Hoe & Co.,
the annual sales amounting to not less than 140,000 dollars, in circular
saws, mill-saws, pit-saws, and crosscut-saws, for all parts of the
country, is known as the saw shop.
Herein is performed the business of smithing, teething, and blocking the
great saws; hundreds of thousands of which are at work, driven by water
or by steam-power in every portion of the boundless territories of the
United States, to which the enterprising foot and adventurous axe of the
white settler has found access—clearing with their restless and
indomitable teeth the solid and tenacious fibres of the gnarled
live-oaks in the pestilent swamps of Florida, and the dank “regions far
away, by Pascagoula’s sunny bay,” into the crooked knees of mighty
vessels, that shall set at naught the howling billows of the wild
Atlantic, and the blasts of the mad storm-wind, Euroclydon, riving into
planks and beams and timbers, that shall build up the palaces of
commerce, and the happy homes of our lordly cities, the white and
penetrable flesh of “those captive kings so straight and tall, those
lordly pines, which fell long ago in the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
when deep upon mountain and plain lay the snow.”
The machinery by which these various processes are accomplished is
exceedingly fine and worthy of notice, and vastly superior to that used
in England; in the dock-yards of which country the circular saws were
first brought into service, if we do not err; especially that for
cutting the teeth, which, worked by steam-power, does its duty with
great rapidity and incomparable precision.
[Illustration: SAW SHOP.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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