THE AMERICAN WAY.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1791, 17 November 1879, Page 3

THE AMERICAN WAY.

["Scientific American.*'] One of the sserets of the variety and success of American manufactures is the readiness with which the manufacturers receive suggestions from their customers. If a buyer from a distance says that an article would better meet the wants of his locality if certain alterations were made, the American maker hastens to supply him with the thing he wants. Not unfrequently he will send a competent man to study the conditions of the distant region, that the required adaptation may be more certain and effioiont, or an entirely new contrivance invented to supply the need. In English and other European shops the man who wants something new constructed, or an alteration made in some standard article, is very apt to be snubbed. They have no timo to waslo on such experiments ; and even if tho now device should prove a slight improvement, they think it wouldn't pay to alter patterns and machinory to make it. The result is, American manufacturers are not only monopolising the home trade by the superior quality and fitnees of their products to meet home wants, but by the same tactics they are gaining a permanent footing in foreign markets. A characteristic illustration is furnished by a correspondent of the London "Times," writing from Sydney, New South Wales. He says : " It is a great thing to get oontrol of the market, and the first thing is to get a good footing, and the Americans are certainly pushing for that with an energy which at least deserves, mcocss. Our railway department is putting together three large new locomotives from Philadelphia. Their design™ the result of close personal observation of our

precise wafit* . v f% ° f £ h ° part f nerfl m thi to say whether these F™ ", every respect helte* than v. o,e J™" sh . we « el from England, bat I do no*. em ember anj English firm taking the same paw ,? what wfl want to deal moßt saccessfa»., v Wlt —the steep gradients and sharpcnrves ot t.° ni ' railway on the Blue Mountains. Perhaps it is not worth the while of the English rankers to attend t& each petty details, but- the Americans thiak differently." And, we may add, Americsa manufactured do not consider raeh details " petty." Tools and machinery are- somewhat like animals and plants, in needing t» be thoroughly adapted to their environment The difference between an organism which Shrives in England but will not in Australia, and one of the same

genus' which will thrive' in Australia, may be inappreciable to tho unskilled observer; but it is vital; and outweighs all the points cf resemblance. So a machine;, perfect from'the standpoint of England or America, might Jail utterly to meet the different needs of another region, though the alteration required to adapt it to the new conditions might be comparitively slight and easily perceived by an expert on the spot. ———»—r