The cover this week shows the colossal Statue of Liberty at New York. Composed three-fifths of iron and two-fifths of copper, the statue weighs 100 tons. An enormous concrete monolith was built to act as a foundation for the pedestal on which the figure stands.
The story of the engineers who built the three underground railways of Glasgow and the three parallel tunnels under the harbour. This chapter is the seventh in the series Below the Surface. The article is concluded from part 28.
GRAIN FROM OVERSEAS for the flour mills of Great Britain is discharged at the quayside by pneumatic elevators which may be fixed or may be run on rails along the quay. Vacuum pumps in the elevators suck the grain from the ship’s hold through pipes to a large tank known as a receiver. This has a dust extractor fitted. The grain is then stored in silos until it is required for milling.
The picturesque windmills of the past have been superseded by huge modern mills. In the flour mill of to-day the wheat undergoes a number of operations in which separators, dust collectors, mellowing bins, conditioners, sifters, purifiers and other machines play their part. This is the first chapter of a new series entitled Industrial Machinery at Work. The first chapter carries on the story of grain from an earlier chapter. In this part, how specially designed machines carry out automatically the most involved operations in the treatment of the grain are full described.
The colossal figure which stands at the entrance to New York Harbour was a gift from the people of France to the people of the United States. It is made of riveted metal sections and sixty men were occupied for ten years in building it. This chapter indicates some of the diverse tasks which the engineeer may be called upon to perform. The Statue of Liberty has a height of 151 ft 1 in and is built of metal, three-fifths iron and two-fifths copper. The work of erecting the statue and of making suitable foundations for its enormous weight was of great difficulty to the engineers.
Recognition of the genius of Herbert Akroyd Stuart, who died in 1927, is unaccountably tardy, but he it was who evolved and first put into practical form the principle of airless injection in oil engines. In a memoir published by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers it is stated that “the achievements of Herbert Akroyd Stuart form a landmark in British engineering”. This is the tenth article in the series on Makers of Engineering History.
There is sometimes as much engineering skill in the designing and building of the "rides" in an amusement park as there is in a new bridge. The safety of thousands of holiday-makers depends on the careful and accurate planning of the engineer. No doubt many readers have spent a few enjoyable hours in an amusement park. It must have occurred to them that even there the engineer’s work is of great importance.
For the canal between the port of Marseilles and the River Rhone a tunnel four and a half miles long was driven beneath a range of rocky heights. Now canal barges pass beneath these hills from the sea to the inland waterways of France. This chapter is the eighth article in the series Below the Surface. It is concluded in part 30.
