Before the time of the great engineering development which took place towards the end of the eighteenth century, the making of machines was a sort of fine art. Cogwheels were cut by hand. The circumference was marked out by means of compasses. Then holes were drilled round the rim, and teeth cut out leading into them, and shaped by means of special files constructed for the purpose (Fig. 82). Big machinery was all shaped out at the forge and by the file. The engineers complained that you could not get big work made true even to the eighth of an inch. But watches and clocks were beautifully made, though only at the cost of hours of patient measuring and filing. The taste for ornament still existed. The wheels and backs of watches were chased over with the most beautiful patterns; the frames of the clocks were wrought into beautiful figures and forms. Even astronomical instruments were embellished. [Illustration: FIG. 82.] Then came the era of severe accuracy. Men of science took the government of machine-making whose feelings were repugnant to art in any form. They hated to see any effort expended in ornament. With severely utilitarian aims, they banished all appearance of beauty from instruments and tools of all sorts, so that our modern machines, from a steam engine down to a watch, are now models of precise but perfectly unornamented workmanship. They are the fitting implements of a nation that wears trousers and tall hats. One has only to compare an old vessel of war, with its sculptured prow and streamers, with a modern ironclad to take note of the difference. The art of ornamentation is now little more than a spasmodic imitation of the past, with a historical interest only. As a living entity it has almost ceased to exist.