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EXHIBITING THE LATEST PROGRESS IN MACHINES, MOTORS,
AND THE TRANSMISSION OF POWER

BEING A SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME TO

APPLETONS' CYCLOPEDIA OF
APPLIED MECHANICS

EDITED BY

PARK BENJAMIN, LL. B., PH.D.

EDITOR OF APPLETONS CYCLOPÆDIA OF APPLIED MECHANICS, EDITION OF 1880
MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS

OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, AND
OF THE BRITISH CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PATENT AGENTS

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

1892

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PREFACE.

APPLETONS' DICTIONARY OF ENGINEERING, published in 1851, was the first work in which were gathered, in cyclopedic form, descriptions of the products of American mechanical industry. It served the best purpose of such publication, in that it crystallized existing knowledge into concrete shape, digested it, and so rendered it easily available to the busy mechanic and engineer. Thirty years afterward-so great had been the advances due to American invention in every department of the mechanic arts-it was found that, to bring the work abreast of the time, its complete reconstruction was necessary. As a result, appeared Appletons' Cyclopædia of Applied Mechanics, in which of the older publication nothing remained save the small proportion which was valuable in point of historical interest, or which dealt with subjects still instructtive when brought into contrast with later achievements.

No work of a technical character so signally and so quickly demonstrated its own usefulness. It became at once the recognized standard of American mechanical practice. It found its way into the workshops and the manufactories and the technical schools all over the land. It has borne a prominent part in the education of the American mechanic as he is to-day; and, more than any other literary production, it has helped him toward the pre-eminence which he has attained.

But modern progress in all the great fields of invention and discovery is moving with a constantly accelerating speed. In the bending of that great force of Nature which we call "electricity" to human needs, advances are becoming almost a matter of hours. A decade of such onward motion calls for a new record—a new crystallization of the results-and a new effort to bring them in the same tried and assimilable form to those who constitute "the hands of the nation." Hence the present volume.

It is not a revision. It is a new book, dealing solely with the principal and most useful advances of the past ten years; and it is therefore issued under a new name which exactly describes its contents-Modern Mechanism. It does not supersede the Cyclopædia of Mechanics, but adds to it.

A word, in conclusion, as to how the book has been made. Countless letters and circulars asking information on mechanical topics have been sent to manufacturers and engineers throughout the country. A large collection, not merely

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of trade literature but of valuable practical suggestions, has thus been gathered ; and this has been supplemented by the best papers which have appeared in American and foreign technical periodicals and in the transactions of engineering societies. The great mass of accumulated material, carefully digested, has been intrusted to eminent experts on each subject, and by them has been winnowed and selected in the light of their special knowledge and judgment. The result is now submitted to the higher adjudication of the master-mechanics of the United States.

CONTRIBUTORS.

Prof. ELIHU THOMSON, Chief Electrician the | Prof. WILLIAM C. UNWIN, F. R. S., Member

Thomson-Houston Co.; Past President American Institute of Electrical Engi

neers.

ELECTRIC WELDING.

Institute of Civil Engineers; Professor of Engineering at the Central Institution of the City and Guilds of London.

THE UTILIZATION OF NIAGARA FALLS.

ALFRED E. HUNT, M. E., President Pittsburg WILLIAM KENT, M. E.
Reduction Co.

ALUMINIUM.

General WILLIAM F. DRAPER, George Draper

& Sons, Hopedale, Mass.

COTTON-SPINNING MACHINERY

SAMUEL WEBBER, C. E.

WATER-WHEELS.

T. COMMERFORD MARTIN, E. E., Past President
American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
JOSEPH WETZLER, E. E., Editors "The Elec-
trical Engineer."

DYNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES, ELECTRIC MO-
TORS, ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION OF POWER, AND
THE STORAGE BATTERY.

ROBERT GRIMSHAW, Ph. D.

ARTICLES ON WOOD-WORKING MACHINERY.

Lieutenant ARTHUR P. NAZRO, U. S. N.

ARMOR, ORDNANCE, PROJECTILES, AND TOR

PEDOES.

GEORGE L. FIELDER.

TYPEWRITERS.

THEODORE F. ELLIOTT, M. E.

GRAIN-MILLS.

RUDOLPH EICKEMEYER.

HAT-MAKING MACHINES.

HI. N. FENNER, New England Butt Co.

BRAIDING-MACHINES.

GEORGE H. PAINE, M. E., Union Switch and Signal Co.

SWITCHES AND SIGNALS.

Colonel H. G. PROUT, Editor "Railroad Ga

zette."

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RAILS.

ETC.

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