Page:On the economy of machinery and manufactures - Babbage - 1846.djvu/49

Rh a particular form of the head, which is made by the stroke of a die. The workman holds one end of the rod of iron out of which he forms the nails in his left hand; with his right hand he hammers the red hot end of it into a point, and cutting the proper length almost off, bends it nearly at a right angle. He puts this into a hole in a small stake-iron immediately under a hammer which is connected with a treadle, and has a die sunk in its surface corresponding to the intended form of the head; and having given one part of the form to the head with the small hammer in his hand, he moves the treadle with his foot, disengages the other hammer, and completes the figure of the head; the returning stroke produced by the movement of the treadle striking the finished nail out of the hole in which it was retained. Without this substitution of his foot for another hand, the workman would, probably, be obliged to heat the nails twice over.

(14.) Another, though fortunately a less general substitution of tools for human hands, is used to assist the labour of those who are deprived by nature, or by accident, of some of their limbs. Those who have had an opportunity of examining the beautiful contrivances for the manufacture of shoes by machinery, which we owe to the fertile invention of Mr. Brunel, must have noticed many instances in which the workmen were enabled to execute their task with precision, although labouring under the disadvantages of the loss of an arm or leg. A similar instance occurs at Liverpool, in the Institution for the Blind, where a machine is used by those afflicted with blindness, for weaving sash-lines; it is said to have been