Page:The Kinematics of Machinery.djvu/548

 the machine, and have tried to make the latter solve each problem in its own way, a way often very different from that of nature. Attempts were made for many years to construct a sewing-machine which should produce work exactly the same as hand-stitching, but they always resulted in failure. As soon as this idea was completely discarded, and a new form of stitch specially adapted for the machine was looked for, the spell was broken, and very shortly the sewing-machine appeared. It is the rolling-mill, which works in a way so greatly differing from the time-honoured operations of the smithy, that has been the special means of developing the manufacture of malleable iron. The attempt to imitate nature in the machine rests upon an altogether mistaken idea, and it was when this was entirely thrown overboard that machine development received the impetus under which it is still making such rapid progress.