TREATISE ON MILLS AND MILLWORK PART II. ON MACHINERY OF TRANSMISSION AND THE CONSTRUCTION AND ARRANGEMENT OF MILLS COMPRISING TREATISES ON WHEELS, SHAFTS, AND COUPLINGS; ENGAGING AND DISENGAGING GEAR; AND MILL ARCHITECTURE; A LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN 1863 The right of translation is reserved PREFACE. In the first part of this work I endeavoured to give a succinct account of nearly fifty years experienced in the profession of a mill architect, millwright, and mechanical engineer. My professional career commenced just at a time when the manufacturing industry of the country was recovering from the effects of a long and disastrous war, and I was enabled, from this circumstance, to grow up with and follow out consecutively nearly the whole of the discoveries, improvements, and changes that have since taken place in mechanical science. These discoveries have been numerous and invaluable in contributing to the developement of our industrial resources, the diffusion of knowledge, and the extension of trade and commerce throughout the globe. It will not be necessary to repeat what steam, gas, and electric telegraphs have effected both on sea and land in the same time, and how much we are indebted to these agencies for the abundant comforts, luxuries, and enjoyments which we now possess, as compared with the age in which our fathers lived. It will be found on enquiry that in mills, where these agencies are employed, and where the manufacture of cotton, silk, flax, and wool are carried on, are some of the elements to which we are indebted for the numerous advantages which enter into the improved state of our social existence. To mills, therefore, I have directed my attention, and in this volume I have endeavoured to follow up more in detail the principles of construction and other serviceable data to which, I trust, the intelligent student may refer with some prospect of advantage. On prime movers as comprised in water-wheels, turbines, steam-engines, &c., I must refer the reader to the first part of this work. The present volume is chiefly directed to what is known by the name of mill-gearing; and in Section IV. Chapter I., will be found an elaborate treatise on wheels, exhibiting the relations of diameter, pitch, width, and formation of teeth, including formulæ for calculating the strength, proportions, &c., to be observed in the construction of spur and bevel gear. Also tables of the proportions of wheels, pullies, &c., computed from data founded upon experiments and tested in actual practice, which in some respects I believe to be more convenient and comprehensive than any hitherto published. In the same Section I have devoted a chapter to the strengths and proportions of shafts, including rules and tables for calculating their resistance to strains produced by pressure, torsion, &c., and these, with the proportions of journals, friction, lubrication, and other conditions, constitute the contents of Chapter II. Chapter III. treats of the couplings of shafts, engaging and disengaging gear, and those connections by which motive power may be conveyed to a considerable distance from the prime mover, and by which all the necessary changes of stopping and starting machines may be effected at one part of the mill without detriment or interference with the machinery of any other part. The first chapter of Section V. embraces a short treatise on mills and mill architecture, with illustrations, suggestions, and improvements to be employed in the construction of those edifices. I have been induced to refer to this subject from the fact, that in former times anything like architecture as applied to mills was unknown and greatly neglected; and there was a total disregard of taste or design until late years, when a few examples of architectural construction were afforded by the introduction of slight cornices and pilasters, showing that it was possible at a small cost to relieve the monotony of a large brick surface, and bring the structure within the category of light and shade. This to some extent introduced a |