Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/138

104 In this process, unless the time of revolution of the mandril is the same as that of the screw which guides the cutting point, the number of threads in a given length will be different. If the mandril move quicker than the cutting-point, the screw which is produced will be finer than the original; if it move slower, the copy will be more coarse than the original. The screw thus generated may be finer or coarser,it may be larger or smaller in diameter,it may have the same or a greater number of threads than that from which it is copied; yet all the defects which exist in the original will be accurately transmitted, under the modified circumstances, to every individual generated from it.

(154.) Printing from Copper-Plates with altered dimensions.Some very singular specimens of an art of copying, not yet made public, were brought from Paris a few years since. A watchmaker in that city, of the name of Gonord, had contrived a method by which he could take from the same copper-plate impressions of different sizes, either larger or smaller than the original design. Having procured four impressions of a parrot, surrounded by a circle, executed in this manner, I shewed them to the late Mr. Lowry, an engraver equally distinguished for his skill, and for the many mechanical contrivances with which he enriched his art. The relative dimensions of the several impressions were 5.5, 6.3, 8.4, 15.0, so that the largest was nearly three times the linear size of the smallest; and Mr. Lowry assured me, that he was unable to detect any lines in one which had not corresponding lines in the others. There appeared to be a difference in the quantity of ink, but none in