The Iron Horse - Robert Michael Ballantyne (ereader android .TXT) 📗

hard wood, in all sizes and forms, was being licked into shape by machinery in a way and with an amount of facility that was eminently calculated to astonish those whose ideas on such matters had been founded on the observation of the laborious work of human carpenters. The very first thing that struck Bob Marrot was that the tools were so heavy, thick, and strong that the biggest carpenter he had ever seen would not have been able to use them. Bob's idea of a saw had hitherto been a long sheet of steel with small teeth, that could be easily bent like a hoop--an implement that went slowly through a plank, and that had often caused his arm to ache in being made to advance a few inches; but here he saw circular steel-discs with fangs more than an inch long, which became invisible when in a state of revolution.

"What _is_ that?" said Mrs Marrot concentrating herself on one of these implements, after having indulged in a stare of bewildered curiosity round the long shed.

"That's a circular saw," replied Will Garvie; "one of the large ones,-- about four feet in diameter."

"A saw!" exclaimed Mrs Marrot, in surprise. "W'y, Will, it's round. How can a round thing saw? An' it han't got no 'andle! How could any man lay 'old of it to saw?"

"The carpenter here don't require no handles," replied Will. "He's a queer fellow is the carpenter of this shop, as well as powerful. He works away from morning till night with the power of more than a hundred horses, an' does exactly what he's bid without ever making any mistakes or axin' any questions. He's a steam-carpenter, Missis, but indeed he's a jack-of-all-trades, and carries 'em on all at the same time. See, they're goin' to set him to work now--watch and you shall see."

As he spoke, two men approached the circular saw bearing a thick log of oak. One of them fitted it in position, on rollers, with its edge towards the saw; then he seized a handle, by means of which he connected the steam-carpenter with the saw, which instantly revolved so fast that the teeth became invisible; at the same time the plank advanced rapidly and met the saw. Instantly there was a loud hissing yet ringing sound, accompanied by a shower of sawdust, and, long before Mrs Marrot had recovered from her surprise, the log was cut into two thick substantial planks.

After two or three more had been cut up in this way in as many minutes, Will Garvie said--

"Now, let's see what they do with these planks. Come here."

He led them to a place close beside the saw, where there was a strong iron machine, to one part of which was attached a very large chisel--it might have been equal to two or three dozen of the largest ordinary chisels rolled into one. This machine was in motion, but apparently it had been made for a very useless purpose, for it was going vigorously up and down at the time cutting the atmosphere!

"It's like a lot of people as I knows of," observed Mrs Marrot, "very busy about nothin'."

"It'll have somethin' to do soon, mother," said Bob, who was already beginning to think himself very knowing.

Bob was right. One of the oak-planks had been measured and marked for mortice-holes in various ways according to pattern, and was now handed over to the guardian of the machine, who, having had it placed on rollers, pushed it under the chisel and touched a handle. Down came the implement, and cut into the solid wood as if it had been mere putty. A dozen cuts or so in one direction, then round it went--for this chisel could be turned with its face in either direction without stopping it for the purpose--another dozen cuts were made, and an oblong hole of three or four inches long by two broad and three deep was made in the plank in a few seconds.

Even Mrs Marrot had sufficient knowledge of the arts to perceive that this operation would have cost a human carpenter a very much greater amount of time and labour, and that therefore there must have been a considerable saving of expense. Had she been aware of the fact that hundreds of such planks were cut, marked, morticed, and turned out of hands every week all the year round, and every year continuously, she would have had a still more exalted conception of the saving of time, labour, and expense thus effected.

The guardian of the chisel having in a few minutes cut the requisite half dozen or so of holes, guided the plank on rollers towards a pile, where it was laid, to be afterwards carried off to the carriage-builders, who would fit it as one side of a carriage-frame to its appropriate fellow-planks, which had all been prepared in the same way.

Not far from this machine the visitors were shown another, in which several circular saws of smaller dimensions than the first were at work in concert, and laid at different angles to each other, so that when a plank was given into their clutches it received cuts and slices in certain parts during its passage through the machine, and came out much modified and improved in form--all that the attendants had to do merely being to fit the planks in their places and guide them safely through the ordeal. Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame--full of gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one sweep, in a few minutes--work which would have drawn the sweat from the brows of two saw-pit men for several hours. One thing that attracted the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of hole-boring. Of course, in forming the massive frames of railway carriages, it becomes necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails or bolts. Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, "augers and drills gone mad!"--augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob put it, "like all possessed." Some acting singly, others acting together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a moment's notice. While Bob was gazing at one huge drill--probably an inch and a half broad, if not more--a man came up to it with a plank, on the surface of which were several dots at various distances. He put the plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill, and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before Bob had time to wink,--and Bob was a practised hand at winking. Several holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.

Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department--all more or less interesting and, to them, surprising--so that Mrs Marrot was induced at last to exclaim--

"W'y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin' things at this rate there won't be no use in a short time for 'uman 'ands at all. We'll just 'ave to sit still an' let machinery do our work for us, an' all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment."

"How can you say that, Missis," said Will Garvie, "you bein' old enough to remember the time w'en there wasn't five joiners' shops in Clatterby, with p'rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there's hundreds of joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin' all the year round?"

"That's so, Willum," assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.

Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths' department.

Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work. Any one of these forges would have been a respectable "smiddy" in a country village. They stood as close to each other as the space would allow,--so close that their showers of sparks intermingled, and kept the whole shed more or less in the condition of a chronic eruption of fireworks. To Bob's young mind it conveyed the idea of a perpetual keeping of the Queen's birthday. To his mother it was suggestive of singed garments and sudden loss of sight. The poor woman was much distressed in this department at first, but when she found, after five minutes or so, that her garments were unscathed, and her sight still unimpaired, she became reconciled to it.

In this place of busy vulcans--each of whom was the beau-ideal of "the village blacksmith," all the _smaller_ work of the railway was done. As a specimen of this smaller work, Will Garvie drew Mrs Marrot's attention to the fact that two vulcans were engaged in twisting red-hot iron bolts an inch and a half thick into the form of hooks with as much apparent ease as if they had been hair-pins. These, he said, were hooks for couplings, the hooks by which railway carriages were attached together, and on the strength and unyielding rigidity of which the lives of hundreds of travellers might depend.

The bending of them was accomplished by means of a powerful lever. It would be an endless business to detail all that was done in this workshop. Every piece of comparatively small iron-work used in the construction of railway engines, carriages, vans, and trucks, from a door-hinge to a coupling-chain, was forged in that smithy. Passing onward, they came to a workshop where iron castings of all kinds were being made; cylinders, fire-boxes, etcetera,--and a savage-looking place it was, with numerous holes and pits of various shapes and depths in the black earthy floor, which were the moulds ready, or in preparation, for the reception of the molten metal. Still farther on they passed through a workroom where every species of brass-work was being made. And here Bob Marrot was amazed to find that the workmen turned brass on turning-lathes with as much facility as if it had been wood. Some of the pieces of brazen mechanism were very beautiful and delicate-- especially one piece, a stop-cock for letting water into a boiler, the various and complex parts of which, when contrasted with the huge workmanship of the other departments, resembled fine watch-work.

As they passed on, Bob observed a particularly small boy, in whom he involuntarily took a great and sudden interest--he looked so small, so thin, so intelligent, and, withal, so busy.

"Ah, you may well look at him," said Will Garvie, observing Bob's gaze. "That boy is one of the best workers of his age in the shop."

"What is 'e doin'?" inquired Bob.

"He's preparin' nuts for screws," replied Will, "and gets one penny for every hundred. Most boys can do from twelve to fourteen hundred a day, so, you see, they can earn from six to seven shillin's a week; but