Sketcher.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 392, 12 November 1903, Page 7

Sketcher.

~—* A CHAPTER OP INSCRIPTIONS. sRSB&HE history of inscriptions carries jjfeiflg us back to exceedingly, remote l£&9 times. Some Egyptian inscriptions, which are among tho earliest known, take us back to about 3000 b.c. Sesostris the great Egyptian monarch, caused the following inscription to be engraved upon a colossal statute of himself at Thebes:—' lam Osmandyas, Kicg of Kings ; whoever will dispute the title with me, let him surpass my works.' The following remarkable inscription, which was engraved on the Temple of Iris, shows the supernatural qualities -possessed by one of the Egyptian deities:— • ' I am whatsoever is, whatsoever has been, whatsoever shall be; and the veil which is over my countenance no morfal hand has ever raised,' Xerxes, the great Pers&n monarch, favoured himself with such inscriptions as 'the Great King,' 'the King of Kiags,* 'the King of all inhabited countries,' and ' the King of the great earth' s while on the tomb of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire, appears the following humble legend: 'O men, I am Cyrus, the son of C*mbyses, who founded the Empire of the Persians and governed Asia. .Do not grudge me this monument.'

Passing to more modern times, it was the custom of our ancastors to inscribe some motto, great saying, or word of welcome in a conspicuous place on tneir houses, and this custom seems to have been prevalent among all European nations. Over the house in which John Seldon, cf 'Table Talk' fame, was born, at Salvington, Snseex, appears the following, said to have been written by the author when only ten years old : 'Walk in and welcome, honest frierffi, repose, Thief, get thee hence, to thee I'll not unclose.' Everybody is familiar with the inscription over the Royal Exchange :—■ •The earth is the Lord's asd the fulness thereof,' though few people are aware that it was placed there at the instigation of King Edward VII., after consulting Dean Milman. In the Ladies' Tea Raom at the House of Commons, inscribed in Gothic characters, is to ba seen the abrupt, and if we may venture an opinion, out-or-place inscription—- ' Gat understanding.' This inscription might prove a very useful remembrancer it placed in certain other psuts of the House.

MAKING A PIN. The modern manufacturing proeess of pin making began with the invention of a process for drawing wire. The procees in question had its origin in France and Germany, which countries for two hundred years had a complete monopoly cf the industry. This was about the year 1620.. Not until the middlo of the last century, however, were machines in successful operation which, from the drawn wire, could complete the pins now ussd all over the world and stick them in crimped paper by the process described here: . , Wire is drawn from a re6l automatically by a pair of pincers between fixed studs which straighten the wire. A pin length is then gripped by a pair of lateral jaws, from which a poriian of the wire is left projecting. A snap-head die then advances and partially shapes the head. The blank is now released, and pushed forward about a twentieth of an inch. The head is then given another equeeza by the same die. By this repetition of motioH the head is completed, and the blank is cut off the wire in the length desired. About an eighth of an irch of the wire is necessary to make a pinhead. The headed blanks are dropped into a receptacle in which they arrange themselves in the line of a slot formed by two inclined and bevel-edged bars. Since the opening between the bars is jnst large enough to permit the shank to fall through, the pins are suspended in a row along the slot. When the blanks reach the lower end of the inclined bar in their auspsnded position tbey are seized beof the machine and they movojrt

thrown from the machine. If they b« brass, they fcre cleaned by being boiled in weak, sour beer. After they have been cleaned they are tinned. Thia process is effected by placing layers of pins and grain tin in a copper can to which a weak solntion of bitartrate of potash is added. The can is heated, and a tolutiou of tin is produced which is deposited on the surface of the pins. The pins are removed and brightened by being shaken in a revolving barrel of bran or saw du3t. v Now comes the fln< 1 cpe'Stion of paper' irsg. The pins to be stuck are placed in a hopper in connection with which a steel plate is used, with longitudinal slits corresponding with the number of plus which fora a row in the paper. The pins in the hopper are stirred up by a comblike tool; the shanks drop through the slits in the stt -' plate, and the pins are suapendenby th 'r heads. Long, narrow sheets of paper are presented by the operator to the ac.ion of a me chine, by which two holes are crimped. The row of pins in the steel plate is then pressed through two crimpled folds by the same action. These operations are repeated until the requisite row of pins are stuck in each paper. In 1900 the 75,000,000 people in the United States used GGOOO.OOC gross of common pins, which is equal to 9,5C0, 000,000 pins, or an average of about 123 pins for every man, woman, and child in the country. Thia is the highest average reached anywhere in the use of pins.