Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/210

176 sufficient skill to perform the most difficult, and sufficient strength to execute the most laborious, of the operations into which the art is divided.

(227.) As the clear apprehension of this principle, upon which a great part of the economy arising from the division of labour depends, is of considerable importance, it may be desirable to point out its precise and numerical application in some specific manufacture. The art of making needles is, perhaps, that which I should have selected for this illustration, as comprehending a very large number of processes remarkably different in their nature; but the less difficult art of pin-making, has some claim to attention, from its having been used by Adam Smith; and I am confirmed in the choice of it, by the circumstance of our possessing a very accurate and minute description of that art, as practised in France above half a century ago.

(228.) Pin-making.In the manufacture of pins in England the following processes are employed:

1. Wire-drawing.(a.) The brass wire used for making pins is purchased by the manufacturer in coils of about twenty-two inches in diameter, each weighing about thirty-six pounds. (b.) The coils are wound off into smaller ones of about six inches in diameter, and between one and two pounds' weight. (c.) The diameter of this wire is now reduced, by