DULY EXPLAINED.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 243, 19 January 1917, Page 2 (Supplement)

DULY EXPLAINED.

TRUTHFUL JAMES AND THE NEW MACHINE.

While I was running a bolt cutter at tho Rock Island shops in Chicago, writes a contributor to "Railway and Locomotive Engineering," I boarded at a house much frequented by locomotive engineers and firemen. These men talked a great deal about their tremendous feats in getting over certain hills without the heTp of a second locomotive. My opposite neighbour at a table, a young fellow who ran a lathe in the .•■hop, grew tired of this monotonous bragging; he thought he was entitled 11 do a little talking himself. One evening he called out to m'e: "Well. 1 went over and sajw that new machine to-day, and it's astonishing tho fine work it docs." "How does it work?" I inquired. "Well," said James, "by moans of pedal attachment, a fulcruni'ed lever converts a vertical reciprocating motion into a circular movement. The principal part of the machine is a huge disc that revolves in a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis of the disc, and when the speed of the driving arbor is moderate, the periphery of the apparatus is travelling at a high velocity. Work is done on this periplverv. Pieces of the hardest steel an by mr.ro impact reduced to any shapo the skilful operator desires." " What in the name of sense is that machine, anyway?" e'en Landed Tom Briggs. "Oh, it's a new grindstone." replied James, and a silence that could be cut with a kn'fe fell upon the crowd.