Читать книгу Highways and Highway Transportation - George R. Chatburn - Страница 18

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—This stage of economical civilization, while brought about gradually through many years as factories and special work shops came into existence, was nevertheless greatly accelerated by the inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The invention of the canal lock (it is a disputed question whether in Holland or in Italy) in the fourteenth century had made practicable the building of many canals throughout Europe, one of the largest across France connecting the Bay of Biscay with the Mediterranean Sea. However, the building of important commercial canals began in England with the Bridgewater Canal from Worsley to Manchester, completed in 1767. Green[7] tells us that the main roads which lasted fairly well through the middle ages had broken down under the increased production of the eighteenth century. That the new lines of trades lay along “mere country lanes”; that much of the woolen trade had to be carried on long trains of pack animals at a large cost; that transportation “in the case of heavier goods such as coal distribution was almost impracticable save along the greater rivers.” In fact coal was ordinarily referred to as “sea coal” because it was brought to most ports by water routes. The Duke of Bridgewater and a young engineer of the name of Brindley solved the problem of transportation for the time being by beginning the great network of canals which later covered England to the extent of more than 3000 miles. Too great praise cannot be given to the engineers and constructors of these canals. Brindley considered canals not as adjuncts of rivers and bays, on the contrary “rivers were only meant,” he said, “to feed canals.” He carried this canal by means of an aqueduct over the river to Manchester, thus bringing the coal to a new thriving manufacturing city. Green further says (Paragraph 1528)

To English trade the canal opened up the richest of all markets, the market of England itself. Every part of the country was practically thrown open to the manufacturer; and the impulse which was given by this facility of carriage was at once felt in a vast development of production. But such a development would have been impossible had not the discovery of this new mode of distribution been accompanied by the discovery of a new productive force. In the coal which lay beneath her soil England possessed a store of force which had hitherto remained almost useless.

Not the least were the new methods of smelting iron with coal instead of wood, which changed the whole aspect of the iron trade and which made Great Britain for many years the workshop of the world. Lead, copper, and tin were also mined and smelted by the use of coal. The great advance of the “industrial revolution” did not come until Watt’s improvements upon the steam engines of Newcomen, Cawley, and Savery, which were themselves improvements over earlier inventions of Papin, della Porta, and Worcester, made practicable the transfer of energy stored up in coal to the movement of machinery. He changed the steam engine from a clumsy, wasteful, inefficient machine into a workable apparatus little differing from the reciprocating steam engines of the present. Up until the successful operation of the turbine engine, the principal advances upon Watt’s engine were mere details, though often of great importance. For instance the boilers for the generation of steam were improved; the enlarged application of the principle of expansion, developing better cut-off mechanisms and governors, to more economical construction due to better facilities and better knowledge of materials and their properties; and to the application of the steam engine in locomotives to propel transportation cars.

Watt’s claims and specifications for patents from 1769 to 1784 cover such inventions as:

1. Methods of keeping the cylinder or steam vessel hot by covering it with wood or other slow heat-conducting materials, by surrounding it with steam or other heated bodies, and by suffering no water or other substance colder than steam to touch it.

2. By condensing the steam in vessels entirely distinct from the cylinder, called condensers, which are to be kept cool.

3. By drawing out of the condenser all uncondensed vapors or gases by means of an air pump.

4. The use of the expansion force of steam directly against the cylinder.

5. The double-acting engine and the conversion of the reciprocating motion into a circular motion.[8]

6. Throttle valve with governor and gear for operating the same, parallel motion for opening and closing the valves, and indicator.

These inventions not only made it possible to replace hand-labor often with machines, but made it possible to construct machines much more rapidly and to make them in every way more convenient.

Improvement in the arts of spinning and weaving caused the textile establishments and population of north England to go forward by leaps and bounds.

Previous to the invention of the “fly shuttle” in 1733 by John Kay of Bury, the weaver had to throw the shuttle through the warp by hand. Weaving became much more rapid; also by having several shuttles with different-colored yarn stripes and checks could be woven into the cloth. Since weaving had been made quicker and easier there came a demand for more yarn. Three separate inventions satisfied this, viz., James Hargreaves of Blackburn invented his “jenny” about 1767, by which eight threads could be spun at once. At the same time Richard Arkwright, a barber of Preston, invented and developed the throstle spinning frame (1769-1775). Samuel Crompton, about 1775, invented his spinning “mule,” which seemed to combine the good principles of the others. Power was applied to spinning about 1785 and then it was weaving that needed accelerating. To Cartwright in 1784 is ascribed the honor of inventing the power loom. Other inventions for both spinning and weaving have made almost automatic the running of thousands of spindles and hundreds of looms in a single factory.