The Wonder Book Of Knowledge Part 57

The remaining processes must be run over more rapidly.

There is a sole-laying machine, a rounding and channeling machine, a loose nailing machine (the latter driving nails into the heel at the rate of 350 per minute), a heel seat rounding machine, and various others, one sewing the welt to the shoe, a leveling machine, a second nailing machine, which does the final work of attaching the heel to the shoe, and so on somewhat indefinitely.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EDGE Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLIMAX FINISHING SHAFT]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOODYEAR HEEL SEAT ROUNDING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LOOSE NAILING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HADAWAY St.i.tCH SEPARATING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAUMKEAG BUFFING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: REGENT STAMPING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOODYEAR UNIVERSAL ROUNDING AND CHANNELING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOODYEAR WELT AND TURN SHOE MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: St.i.tCH AND UPPER CLEANING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWIN EDGE SETTING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOODYEAR OUTSOLE RAPID LOCKSt.i.tCH MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: IMPROVED VAMP CREASING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILLER SHOE TREEING MACHINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EVOLUTION OF A GOODYEAR WELT SHOE

1. A last. 2. An upper. 3. An Insole. 4. Shoe lasted and ready to have welt sewed on. 5. Welt partly sewed on. 6. Welt entirely sewed on the shoe. 7. An outsole. 8. Shoe with outsole laid and rounded; channel lip turned up ready to be st.i.tched. 9. Shoe with sole st.i.tched on. 10. Shoe with heel in place. 11. Heel trimmed and shoe ready for finishing.]

The remaining machines have to do with the final finishing. They include trimmers, st.i.tch separators, edge setters, buffers, finishers, cleaners, stampers, shoe treers, creasers, etc., each playing a part of some importance in giving a final finish to the shoe and making it presentable to the wearer. The whole operation, as will be seen, is a highly complicated one, and is remarkably effective in preparing an article that shall appeal to the salesman and purchaser and prove satisfactory when put into use.

Such is the complicated process of making a shoe by machinery. It would be hard to find any machine process that surpa.s.ses it in complexity and the number of separate machines involved. Poor old St. Crispin would certainly expire with envy if he could see his favorite thus taken out of the hands of his artisans and the shoe whirled rapidly through a host of odd but effective contrivances on the way to become made fit for wear.

What is "Standard Gold"?

Gold is one of the heaviest of the metals, and not being liable to be injured by exposure to the air, it is well fitted to be used as coin.

Its ductility and malleability are very remarkable. It may be beaten into leaves so exceedingly thin that one grain in weight will cover fifty-six square inches, such leaves having the thickness of only 1/282000th part of an inch. It is also extremely ductile; a single grain may be drawn into a wire 500 feet long, and an ounce of gold covering a silver wire is capable of being extended upwards of 1,300 miles. It may also be melted and remelted with scarcely any diminution of its quant.i.ty. It is soluble in nitromuriatic acid and in a solution of chlorine. Its specific gravity is 19.3, so that it is about nineteen times heavier than water. The fineness of gold is estimated by carats, pure gold being twenty-four carats fine.

Jeweler's gold is usually a mixture of gold and copper in the proportions of three-fourths of pure gold with one-fourth of copper.

Gold is seldom used for any purpose in a state of perfect purity on account of its softness, but is combined with some other metal to render it harder. Standard gold, or the alloy used for the gold coinage of Britain, consists of twenty-two parts of gold and two of copper (being thus twenty-two carats fine).

Articles of jewelry in gold are made of every degree of fineness up to eighteen carats, _i. e._, eighteen parts of gold to six of alloy. The alloy of gold and silver is found already formed in nature, and is that most generally known. It is distinguishable from that of copper by possessing a paler yellow than pure gold, while the copper alloy has a color bordering upon reddish yellow. Palladium, rhodium and tellurium are also met with as alloys of gold.

Gold has been found in smaller or larger quant.i.ties in nearly all parts of the world. It is commonly found in reefs or veins among quartz, and in alluvial deposits; it is separated, in the former case, by quarrying, crushing, washing and treatment with mercury. The rock is crushed by machinery and then treated with mercury, which dissolves the gold, forming a liquid amalgam; after which the mercury is volatilized, and the gold left behind; or the crushed ore is fused with metallic lead, which dissolves out the gold, the lead being afterwards separated by the process of cupellation.

By the "cyanide process," in which cyanide of pota.s.sium is used as a solvent for the gold, low-grade ores can be profitably worked. In alluvial deposits it is extracted by washing, in dust grains, laminae or nuggets.

In modern times large supplies of gold were obtained after the discovery of America from Peru, Bolivia, and other parts of the New World. Till the discovery of gold in California, a chief source of the supply was the Ural Mountains in Russia. An immense increase in the total production of gold throughout the world was caused by the discovery of gold in California in 1848, and that of the equally rich gold fields of Australia in 1851. The yield from both sources has considerably decreased. Other sections of the United States have of late years proved prolific sources of gold, especially Colorado, which now surpa.s.ses California in yield, and Alaska, which equals it. Canada has gold fields in several localities, the richest being those of the Klondike.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CASTING INGOTS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROLLING ROOM

The upper view shows the melting room in the United States Mint, Philadelphia. The man at the right is about to pour hot metal into the iron molds. The lower view is in the coining department, where the ingots such as are seen on the truck in foreground, are rolled into long strips of the thickness of the several coins, and then cut into blanks or planchets.]

At present the richest gold field in the world is that of South Africa, which yielded in 1910 a value of $175,000,000, somewhat exceeding the combined yield of the United States and Australia. Russia and Mexico followed these in yield. The total production throughout the world amounted to over $450,000,000, of which the United States produced $96,000,000.

What are Cyclones?

A cyclone is a circular or rotatory storm, or system of winds, varying from 50 to 500 miles in diameter, revolving around a center, which advances at a rate that may be as high as forty miles an hour, and towards which the winds tend.

Cyclones of greatest violence occur within the tropics, and they revolve in opposite directions in the two hemispheres--in the southern with, and in the northern against, the hands of a watch--in consequence of which, and the progression of the center, the strength of the storm in the northern hemisphere is greater on the south of the line of progression and smaller on the north than it would if the center were stationary, the case being reversed in the southern hemisphere.

An anti-cyclone is a storm of opposite character, the general tendency of the winds in it being away from the center, while it also shifts within comparatively small limits. Cyclones are preceded by a singular calm and a great fall of the barometer.

What Metals can be Drawn into Wire Best?

The wire-drawing of metals depends on the property of solid bodies, which renders them capable of being extended without any separation of their parts, while their thickness is diminished. This property is called "ductility."

The following is nearly the order of ductility of the metals which possess the property in the highest degree, that of the first mentioned being the greatest: gold, silver, platinum, iron, copper, zinc, tin, lead, nickel, palladium, cadmium.

Dr. Wollaston succeeded in obtaining a wire of platinum only 1/30000th of an inch in diameter. The ductility of gla.s.s at high temperatures seems to be unlimited, while its flexibility increases in proportion to the fineness to which its threads are drawn.

How are Cocoanuts Used to Help Our Warships?

The fibrous husks of cocoanuts are prepared in such a way as to form "cellulose," which is used for the protection of warships, preventing the inflow of water through shot holes.

The United States adopted the preparation for this purpose in 1892.

It is very light and compressible and when tightly packed between the steel plating and the side of the vessel will expand when wet and fill up the s.p.a.ce through which a shot may have pa.s.sed.

Another and cheaper product experimented with is the pith of the cornstalk, which is much lighter than the cocoanut fiber and serves the same purpose.

How did the Dollar Sign Originate?

The sign, $, used in this country to signify a dollar, is supposed to date from the time of the pillar dollar in Spain. This was known as the "Piece of Eight" (meaning eight reals), the curve being a partial representation of the figure 8. The two vertical strokes are thought to represent the Pillars of Hercules, which were stamped upon the coin itself.