The making of casks by machinery, cheaper and better than those made by
hand, is now an accomplished fact by Mr. Ransome's machines. There are
twelve factories already established abroad, some turning out 2,000 or
3,000 casks a week. This is a good case of English invention taking the
lead in a manufacture.
Among good mechanical appliances that have been proved to be highly
valuable to the civil engineer may be mentioned the excavating machine,
which answers well for certain soils and situations, though not for all;
and the dredger of Messrs. Bruce & Batho, for excavating from the inside
of piers in water.
In manufacturing chemistry, which, with its numerous mechanical
appliances, is much indebted to mechanical science and engineering,
great advances have been made during the last dozen or twenty years.
Aluminum has been brought into practical use to a large extent, it
being at once a very light metal and a very cleanly one. "Anthracine,"
obtained from coal tar, has been manufactured largely for the purpose of
producing the various brilliant dyes now so common.
New materials for making candles have been manufactured, in some cases
by purely mechanical means, such as boiling together for some hours, at
a pressure of several hundred pounds per square inch, neutral grease and
water, when the water takes up the base, viz.
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