James Nasmyth Engineer: An AutobiographyJ. Murray, 1883 - 461 pages |
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JAMES NASMYTH ENGINEER AN AUTO James 1808-1890 Nasmyth,Samuel 1812-1904 Smiles No preview available - 2016 |
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action admirable afterwards ALEXANDER NASMYTH apparatus architecture arrangement Arthur's Seat artistic beautiful became Boulton and Watt brass Bridgewater Canal Bridgewater Foundry bright brother buildings called Carron Ironworks cast Castle CHAP CHRON construction delighted desired dockyard drawings Edinburgh effective employed employment enabled excellent executed exhibited factory father forge gave grand hand happy Henry Maudsley important impressed interesting introduced INVENTIONS AND CONTRIVANCES iron Ironworks JAMES NASMYTH kind labour Lancashire lathe letter Liverpool London machine tools machinery Manchester manner manufacturing Maudsley Maudsley's ment molten Nasmyth neighbourhood night noble object observed occasion original passed Patricroft perfect picturesque pile pleasure possessed practical proceeded received reflecting telescope result Robert Bald Royal scenery screw seen sight sketches skill soon steam hammer steam-engine steamer steel Street supplied surface telescope tion took walk workmen workshop
Popular passages
Page 357 - HAIL, holy Light, offspring of heaven first-born, Or of the eternal co-eternal beam, May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun, Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won...
Page 163 - Amidst these flaming, smoky, clanging works, I beheld the remains of what had once been happy farmhouses, now ruined and deserted. The ground underneath them had sunk by the working out of the coal, and they were falling to pieces. They had in former times been surrounded by clumps of trees ; but only the skeletons of them remained, dilapidated, black, and lifeless. The grass had been parched and killed by the vapours of sulphureous acid thrown out by the chimneys ; and every herbaceous object was...
Page 360 - Now let us consider what would be the result of this. It appears to me that the inevitable consequence of the convergence of the particles towards the centre of gravity of such a nebulous mass would not only result in the formation of a nucleus, but by reason of the physical impossibility that all the converging particles should arrive at the focus of convergence in directions perfectly radial and diametrically opposite to each other, however slight the degree of deviation from the absolute diametrically...
Page 125 - In like manner I executed several specimens of my ability as a mechanical draughtsman ; for I knew that Maudsley would thoroughly understand my ability to work after a plan. Mechanical drawing is the alphabet of the engineer. Without this the workman is merely " a hand." With it he indicates the possession of
Page 97 - The truth is that the eyes and the fingers — the bare fingers — are the two principal inlets to sound practical instruction. They are the chief sources of trustworthy knowledge in all the materials and operations which the engineer has to deal with.
Page 34 - The magnificent scenery of the capital itself had filled him with extraordinary delight. In the spring mornings, he walked very often to the top of Arthur's Seat, and lying prostrate on the turf, surveyed the rising of the sun out of the sea, in silent admiration ; his chosen companion on such occasions being that ardent lover of nature, and learned artist, Mr.
Page 129 - I observed in a moment that the great object of my long-cherished ambition had been attained ! He expressed, in good round terms, his satisfaction at my practical ability as a workman engineer and mechanical draughtsman. Then, opening the door which led from his library into his beautiful private workshop, he said, " This is where I wish you to work, beside me, as my assistant workman. From what I have seen there is no need of an apprenticeship in your case.
Page 240 - ... gagged;" so that, when the forging required the most powerful blow, it received next to no blow at all, as' the clear space for the fall of the hammer was almost entirely occupied by the work on the anvil. The obvious remedy was to contrive some method by which a ponderous block of iron should be lifted to a sufficient height above the object on which it was desired to strike a blow, and then to let the block full down upon the forging, guiding it in its descent by such simple means as should...
Page 356 - ... no very wild stretch of analogy to suppose that in such former periods of the earth's history our sun may have passed through portions of his stellar orbit in which the light-yielding element was deficient, and in which case his brilliancy would have suffered the while, and an arctic climate in consequence spread from the poles towards the equator, and leave the record of such a condition in glacial handwriting on the everlasting walls of our mountain ravines, of which there is such abundant...
Page 132 - ... and their corresponding nuts had to be specially marked as belonging to each other. Any intermixture that occurred between them led to endless trouble and expense, as well as inefficiency and confusion, — especially when parts of complex machines had to be taken to pieces for repairs. None but those who lived in the comparatively early days of machine manufacture can form an adequate idea of the annoyance, delay, and cost, of this utter want of system, or can appreciate the vast services rendered...