Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. — John Shaqi
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.Various
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
The plan upon the adjoining page will give the reader some idea of the
extent of the accommodations required for the manufacture of such heavy
and massive machinery. On the right of the entrance may be seen the
porter's lodge, shown in perspective in the view below. Beyond it, in
the yard, stands the crane, which is seen likewise in the view. Turning
to the left, just beyond the crane, the visitor enters the iron foundry,
a spacious inclosure, with ovens and furnaces along the sides, and
enormous cranes swinging in various directions in the centre. These
cranes are for hoisting the heavy castings out of the pits in which they
are formed. The parts marked v v v, are ovens for drying the moulds.
[Illustration]
Turning to the right from the foundry, and passing down through the
yard, the visitor finds himself in the midst of a complicated maze of
buildings, which extend in long ranges toward the water, with lanes and
passages between them like the streets of a town. In these passages
companies of workmen are seen, some going to and fro, drawing heavy
masses of machinery upon iron trucks; others employed in hoisting some
ponderous cylinder or shaft by a crane, or stacking pigs of iron in
great heaps, to be ready for the furnaces which are roaring near as if
eager to devour them. And all the time there issues from the open doors
of the great boiler-shops and forging-shops below, an incessant clangor,
produced by the blows of the sledges upon the rivets of the boilers, or
of the trip-hammers at the forges.
The relative positions of the various shops where the different
operations are performed will be seen by examination of the plan. The
motive power by which all the machinery of the establishment is driven,
is furnished by a stationary engine in the very centre of the works,
represented in the plan. It stands between two of the principal shops.
On the right is seen the boiler, and on the left the engine--while the
black square below, just within the great boiler-shop, represents the
chimney. Other similar squares in different parts of the plan represent
chimneys also, in the different parts of the establishment. These
chimneys may be seen in perspective in the general view, at the head of
this article, and may be identified with their several representations
in the plan, by a careful comparison. The one belonging to the engine is
the central one in the picture as well as in the plan--that is, the one
from which the heaviest volume of smoke is issuing.
This central engine, since it carries all the machinery of the works, by
means of which every thing is formed and fashioned, is the life and soul
of the establishment--the _mother_, in fact, of all the monsters which
issue from it; and it is impossible to look upon her, as she toils on
industriously in her daily duty, and think of her Titanic progeny,
scattered now over every ocean on the globe, without a certain feeling
of respect and even of admiration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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