Big Ben is the 13.5 ton bell in the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament. It was cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in 1858, and popularly known as
Big Ben after Sir Bejamin Hall, the First Commissioner of Works at the time. Research Big Ben
A foundry is a place where metal is melted and cast into the forms required in construction or decoration. Iron, brass, bronze, and type founding are special forms of the art. Research Foundry
J (John) Gregory Smith was an American politician and railroadmagnet. He was born in 1818 at St Albans, Vermont and died in 1891. He attended the University of Vermont and Yale Law School, and was admitted to the Vermont bar in 1842. His father was a lawyer who was actively involved in the expansion of the railroads in Vermont and J Gregory joined him both in the practice of law and railroad management. John Smith was on the board of the Vermont Central Railroad, a railroad chartered in 1843 and headquartered in Northfield, and was president of the Vermont and CanadaRailroad, which he had started in 1845 to eventually connect the Vermont Central Railroad with Montreal. Upon his father's death in 1858, J Gregory Smith became president of the Vermont Central Railroad and his brother, Worthington C. Smith, was named president of the Vermont and Canada. The Central VermontRailroad was organized in 1873 and assumed management of both the Vermont Central and Vermont and Canada Railroads. In 1883 the Consolidated Railroad of Vermont
was formed to purchase the Vermont Central and Vermont and Canada property, and immediately leased it to the Central VermontRailroad thereby consolidating the Smith family's railroad holdings. The family expanded their holdings to include related industries such as the St. Albans Foundry, the National Car Company, and its subsidiary the Vermont Iron and Car Company. While expanding his holdings in Vermont and the northeast,
J Gregory Smith became interested in the idea of a railroad to the west and became president of the Northern PacificRailroad Company in 1866, a position he held until 1872. Smith was also active in politics and was elected to the state senate in 1858 and 1859. In 1860, 1861, and 1862 he was elected to the house as a representative of St. Albans, and served as speaker of the house. In 1863 Smith was elected governor and served two terms before retiring to devote time to his duties as the president of Central Vermont and the Northern PacificRailroad.
J Gregory Smith married Ann Eliza Brainerd of St Albans in 1843 and together they had six children: George Gregory (who married Frances Lewis), Edward Curtis (who married Anna B. James), Lawrence (who died in infancy), Annie B., Julia B. (who married Oliver Stevens), Helen L. (who married D. SageMackay). Research J Gregory Smith
Sir Mark Isambard Brunel was a French engineer. He was born in 1769 near Rouen and died in 1849. The was the son of a Normandy farmer, he was educated in Rouen, his mechanical genius early displaying itself. In 1786 he entered the French naval service, and in 1793 only escaped proscription by a hasty flight to America, where he joined a French expedition to explore the regions around LakeOntario. He was afterwards employed as engineer and architect in the city of New York, erecting forts for its defence, and establishing an arsenal and foundry. In 1799 he proceeded to England and settled at Plymouth, rapidly winning reputation by the invention of an important machine for making the block-pulleys for the rigging of ships. Among his other inventions were a machine for making seamless shoes, machines for making nails and wooden boxes, for ruling paper and twisting cotton into hanks, and a machine for producing locomotion by means of carbon dioxide gas; but his greatest engineering triumph was the Thames Tunnel, commenced in March, 1825, and opened in 1843. In 1841 the honour of knighthood was conferred on him. Research Mark Brunel
Richard Henry Stoddard was an American poet and critic. He was born in 1825 at Hingham, Massachusetts and died in 1903. While working at an iron foundry he privately published a volume of his verse which attracted attention and obtained him a post in the Custom House which he held from 1853 until 1870. Research Richard Stoddard
A carronade is a short, large calibre, short-range ship's gun. It was invented in 1759 by General Melville - or maybe Mr Gascoigne, director of the Carronfoundry in Scotland - who called it a 'smasher' on account of its devastating effect at shirt range. Carronades entered service with the British navy in 1779 and were manufactured at the Carron ironworks in Stirling, from whence they got the name 'Carronade'. Carronades remained in service with the British navy until the mid-19th century and ranged in size from the 12-pounder with a calibre of 4.52 inches, which was 2 feet 2 inches in length, up to the 68 pounder which had a calibre of 8.05 inches and was 5 feet 2 inches in length and weighed 36 cwt. Carronades were carried on the upper deck, poop and forecastle only. Research Carronade
Acrylamide is an odourless, free-flowing white crystalline used as a chemical intermediate in the production and synthesis of polyacrylamides. These high-molecular weight polymers can be modified to develop non-ionic, anionic, or cationic properties for specific uses. The principle end use of
acrylamide is in water-soluble polymers used as additives for water treatment, enhanced oil recovery, flocculants, papermaking aids, thickeners, soil conditioning agents, sewage and waste treatment, ore processing, and permanent press fabrics.
Acrylamide is also used in the synthesis of dyes, in copolymers for contact lenses, and the construction of damfoundations, tunnels, and sewers. The largest use for polyacrylamide is in treating municipal drinking water and wastewater. The polymer is also used to remove suspended solids from industrial wastewater before discharge, reuse, or disposal.
Acrylamides also find use in oil-drilling processes to control fluid losses. In the pulp and paper industry, polyacrylamides are used as binders and retention aids for fibres and to retain pigments on paper fibres.
Acrylamide is a soil stabiliser and also finds use in foundry operations to facilitate free sand flow into moulds. Home appliances, building materials, and automotive parts are coated with acrylamide resins and thermosetting acrylics. Acrylamides are formulated in cosmetics and soap preparations as thickeners and in dental fixtures, hair grooming preparations, and pre-shave lotions. Minor uses of acrylamide are as latex thickeners, emulsion stabilisers for printing inks, gelling agents for explosives, binders in adhesives and adhesive tape, in the production of diazo compounds, and for gel chromatography and electrophoresis.
Acrylamide occurs in crystalline form and in aqueous solution. It is soluble in water, methanol, ethanol, dimethyl ether, and acetone; it is insoluble in benzene and heptane. The monomer readily polymerises at the melting point or under ultraviolet light. Solid acrylamide is stable at room temperature, but may polymerise violently when melted or in contact with oxidising agents such as chlorine dioxide and bromine. When heated to decomposition, acrylamide emits a poisonous gas, acrid fumes, and NOx. If heating to high temperatures, acrylamide can explode. Acrylamide is also known as
acrylamide monomer, acrylic amide, propenamide, and 2-propenamide. Research Acrylamide
Casting (founding) is the process of producing solid objects by pouring molten material into a shaped mould and allowing it to cool.
Casting is used to shape such materials as glass and plastics, as well as metals and alloys. The casting of metals has been practiced for more than 6,000 years, using first copper and bronze, then iron.
The traditional method of casting metal is sand casting. The foundry floor was composed for several feet deep of a loamy sand, in which deep pits were some times sunk to buty large moulds. A wooden pattern of the object to be cast having been made, was pressed firmly down into this loamy sand, the sand being shovelled up all around, level with the top of the pattern and well rammed down. The pattern was then lifted out of the sand, and any small pieces of sand which may have fallen into the mould were carefully blown away, and some finely-powdered charcoal sifted over the surface. The molten metal was then poured into the mould until it was full. The whole was then covered with sand to keep the air from it while it cools. An open horizontal bed of sand was sufficient for casting many articles, but with articles of a more complex form and not too large, a frame or box, called a flask was generally employed to hold together the sand used in the casting, the number of flasks varying according to the form and parts of thee mould.
In ordinary operations the pattern was laid on a board known as the turn-over board, and the flask placed over it, the sand being carefully rammed into the flask until it was full. Another board, known as the bottom-board, was then laid upon it. The flask was then turned over, the first or turn-over board taken off, the one side of the pattern uncovered, a fine facing of sand spread upon the surface to prevent adhesion, after which a second flask, called the cope, sometimes made with crossbars to strengthen it and help to hold the sand, was placed upon it and sand carefully rammed in. The cope or second flask was then lifted off, the sand which it contains carrying the impression of the upper side of the pattern; the pattern in the lower part of the flask, or drag, was then carefully drawn out, and any injuries which the mould receives during the operation repaired. Holes or passages were then cut into the sand for pouring in the metal, all loose sand carefully removed, the cope replaced and secured to the drag by clamps. The mould was then ready for the molten metal. In pouring, the metal was generally run through two or three different passages at the same time to prevent it losing fluidity by cooling. It was only in lighter castings that sand, of the proper degree of dryness, porosity, and adhesiveness, was used.
In heavy castings the mould was usually made of loam, which is more adhesive, and in complicated articles the making of the mould was often a difficult process. Small articles of simple form and of easily-fusible alloys, such as bullets, printing types, etc, were often cast in metal moulds. Articles of sculpture were usually cast in plaster of Paris, which, when mixed with water, runs into the finest lines of a mould and takes a most exact impression. The variety of articles made by casting was very great: boilers, cisterns, cylinders, pumps, railings, grates, cannon, cooking-utensils, and many objects of decorative art.
Permanent metal moulds called dies are also used for casting, in particular, small items in mass-production processes where molten metal is injected under pressure into cooled dies. Continuous casting is a method of shaping bars and slabs that involves pouring molten metal into a hollow, water-cooled mould of the desired cross section. Research Casting
Gas lighting was a formerly common application of ordinary coal-gas, the gas obtained by heating coal, to the lighting of buildings, streets, &c. In 1739 the Reverend Clayton published a paper in
the Philosophical Transactions, on the inflammable nature of the gases obtained by the decomposition of pit-coal in heated close vessels; but no practical application of thia discovery was made before 1792, when a Mr. Murdoch, a native of Ayrshire, in the employ of Messrs. Watt and Boulton, lighted his own house and offices at Redruth on this principle. In 1798 he erected a gas apparatus on a large scale at the SohoFoundry, Birmingham, and in 1802 Le Bon lighted his house in Paris by gas, and made a proposal to supply the whole city. In 1803 Mr. Winsor exhibited gas illuminations at London in the Lyceum, and afterwards raised the sum of 50,000 pounds from a number of subscribers who formed themselves into a National Light and Heat Company in 1810. With this money Mr. Winsor lighted Pall Mall, but was soon succeeded by Mr. Samuel Grieg, who invented the hydraulic main, the wet-lime purifier, and the wet gas-meter. From this time coal gas became the most common illuminating agent wherever it could be prepared economically.
Another kind of gas for lighting that came into use to some extent, namely, water-gas, was produced from the decomposition of water in the form of steam by passing it through incandescent fuel.
Gas was obtained from coal, the best sorts being those bituminous coals known in England by the name of cannel, and in Scotland by the name of parrot. The coal was distilled in retorts of cast-iron or later, after about 1900, more generally of fire-clay, heated to a bright red heat. As they issued from the retort into the hydraulic main the products of distillation contained vapours of tar, together with steam impregnated with more or less ammoniumcarbonate, sulphide, hydrosulphide, thiosulphite, etc. These vapours would condense in the pipes in which the gas must be distributed, and would clog them up; they therefore had to be so far removed by previous cooling as to cause no inconvenient condensation at ordinary temperatures. The crude gas contained besides, sulphuretted hydrogen, the combustion of which would cause an offensive smell. Carbonic acid weakened the illuminating power of the gas, and also had to be removed.
The profitable consumption of gas, whereby the strongest light can be had at the least expenditure of gas, depends considerably upon the form of the burner, and the mode by which the flame is fed with the air necessary for its combustion. There must be a sufficient supply of oxygen to convert the carbon of the gas into carbonic acid, and the hydrogen into water. If there is not a sufficient supply of oxygen, the flame will be smoky from excess of carbon. In this case the remedy is either to reduce the supply of gas or increase the supply of air. This may be effected by modifying the form of the burner, or in the case of the Argand burner by having a different shape of glass chimney. As to the form of the burner, it was found that a plain jet about 6 mm in diameter at the orifice, will not give a flame free from smoke of a greater height than 60 mm but the same quantity of gas which would give a smoky flame from a plain jet, would produce a clear bright flame by extending or dividing the aperture of the jet so as to expose a larger surface of flame to the atmosphere. It was not, however, necessary to increase the superficial area of the flame;
it could even be diminished with a more intensely luminous effect by having instead of one aperture two small ones pierced at an angle to each other, so that the jets crossed each other a system known as the fishtail or union jet.
Another form was the slit or batwing burner, in which a clean slit was cut across the top of the beak. In the Argand burner a circle of small holes supplied the gas, and a current of air was admitted through the centre of the flame, which was surrounded by a glass chimney. In the Welsbach incandescent lamp the light was produced by causing the burning gas to raise to white heat what is known as the mantle, suspended over the burner. The mantle consisted essentially of cottonyarn steeped in a solution of salts of such metals as thorium, cerium, yttrium, lanthanum, magnesium, etc, and when the thread had been burned away there remained a skeleton of the oxides of the metals used. Research Gas Lighting
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Big Ben
