Page:Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks (1853).djvu/21

Rh any thing to recommend them; there are a dozen closely printed pages devoted to a minute description of Bramah's invention, with all the separate parts illustrated by copperplate engravings. After this comes a more general account of the details and manufacture of locks, similarly illustrated by engravings.

Whatever may be the merits of the different articles relating to locks in the various English cyclopædias, there are none approaching in length to the article in Prechtl's work. But when we consider that Prechtl devotes twenty large volumes to technological or manufacturing subjects, he is of course able to devote a larger space to each article than is given in English works. Both in England and in America, men are more disposed to do the work than to describe it when done. In the Encyclopædia Britannica, in Rees' Cyclopædia, in Hebert's Engineers' and Mechanics' Cyclopædia, in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, in the Penny Cyclopædia, and in other similar works, locks are described as well as can be expected within the limits assigned to the articles. Mr. Bramah's essay on locks, and on his own lock in particular, is one of the few English pamphlets devoted expressly to this subject. An excerpt from the proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers, in 1851, gives an interesting paper on locks by Mr. Chubb; and shorter reports of papers and lectures have been published in various ways. Perhaps the best account of locks which we have, considering the limited space within which a great deal of information is given in a very clear style, is that contained in Mr. Tomlinson's Cyclopædia of Useful Arts.