Knight's cyclopædia of the industry of all nations, 1851 / [edited by George Dodd].

Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Knight's cyclopædia of the industry of all nations, 1851 / [edited by George Dodd]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vote, the university of Glasgow corifen-ed upon him ths honorary degree of LL.D. In 1824 a subscription was entered into for a statue, which was sculptured by Chantrey, and is now in Westminster Abbey. Another statue by Chantrey adorns an elegant chapel erected by Watt's only surviving son, at the parish church of Handsworth, near Birming- ham, in the chancel of which he was interx'ed. Other statues havebeen erected in St. George's Square, Glasgow, and in the university of Glasgow. Every Exliibition of manufactures owes a debt to James Watt, of which it would be in vain to attempt to determine the value. WAX. There are several varieties of this substance. Bees' Wax is a secretion from the ventral scales of the bee. With this sub- stance the comb is constructed. From the comb the wax is extracted chiefly by pressure and by melting it in hot water, in which the impurities subside, after which the wax is poured into moulds. The wax has a yellowish or orange colour, and a peculiar odour. Even in winter it is soft enough to be indented by the nail, and in summer it is much softer. It melts at about 143° to 150° Eahr. White Wax is obtained by melting yeUow wax by means of steam, running it off into a perforated trough called a Cradle, from which it falls into water. By this means the wax is solidified and converted into a land of ribbon; it is afteiTvards bleached, re-melted, re- bleached, and refined. Pure wax thus ob- tained is nearly devoid of smell, and is white with a yellowish tint; it is brittle and insipid; its melting point is 158° Eahr., and it solidifies at 149°. Sealing Wax is not properly a wax. It is composed of shel- lac (4 parts), Venice Turpen- tine (1 part), and cinnabar (3 parts). The round sticks of sealing-wax are made by hand on a smooth slab of marble, which is kept at a moderate temperature by a bra^iier or chafing- dish placed beneath it. A quantity suflEicient to make about six sticks is rolled out on the slab into one long stick, which, when of proper diameter, is cut into lengths. The sticks are then rolled on a cold slab beneath a smooth piece of wood or metal, and are afterwards pohshed by gently fusing the sur- face, and de\'ices are stamped upon them. Sticks of a more complicated shajje are cast in moulds. For the best black sealing-wax, the finest ivory-black is substituted for the cinnabar. Inferior materials are used for cheap wax. Soft sealing-wax contains bees'- wax in the place of the shcll-lac. A peculiar kind of wax is yielded by the Ceroxylon Andicoln, or Wax-Palm of South America. Neai' the Andes this tree grows in all its grandeur, elevating its majestic trunk, coated with a thick incmstation of wax, to the height of 180 feet among the most rugged precipices of the wild region which it inhabits. It does not extend over more than ] 5 or 20 leagues of country altogether. The tnink is distinctly marked by rings caused by the fall of the leaves, which are from 18 to 20 feet long. The spaces between the rings are pale yellow, and smooth like the stems of a reed, and covered with a tliick coating of wax and resin. This substance, melted with a third of fat, makes excellent candles. Vauquelin ascertained that this vegetable matter consists of two-thu-ds resin, and one-third-wax, which is only a httle more brittle than bees'-wax. WEATHER GLASS. [Bakometer.] WEAVING. We shall glance rapidly over this subject in the following order:—Plain Weaving; Pattern Weaving ; Double Weaving ; Cross Weaving; Chain Weaving; Pile Weav- ing; Power Weaving. Plain Weaving.—Calico, Irish linen, and plain silk, are good representatives of this kind of weaving. In the language of weavers, the long threads are called, according to cir- cumstances, iva7-p, twist, caine, or organzine; while the cross threads are called weft, \ooof, shoot, or tram. We shall here use the simple terms warjp and weft. The warp is always afiixed to the loom or weaving machine; while the weft is contained in the shuttle, a small boat-like instiiunent. The first operation consists in laying the requisite number of threads together to foiTu the Avidth of the cloth : this is called warping. Supposing there to be 1000 threads in the mdth of a piece of cloth; then the yarn, wound on the bobbins as it leaves the hand of the spinner, must be so unwound and laid out as to form 1000 lengths, constituting, when laid pai-allel, the warp of the intended cloth. The ancient method was to draw out the wai-p from the bobbins at full length in an open field; and this is still practised in India and China; but the xcarping-frame is now employed, in which the threads ai-e arranged by means of a frame revolving on a vertical axis. When the wai-p is an-anged around this machine, the warper talies it off and winds it on a stick into a ball, preparatory to the process of beaming, or winding it on the beam of the loom. The threads, in this latter process, are wound as evenly as possible on the beam; a separator, ravel, or comb bcijig used to lay them parallel, and to spread them out to about the intended width of the cloth. AiTangemcnts are then made for drawing, or attaching the warp-threads individually to cer-