late years have tended to increase these evils, and must, ultimately, lead to a change of system.[1] Take, for example, the refitting shop of a railway or steam packet company. Here the variety of apparatus rendered necessary by the want of uniformity will correspond with the number of different manufacturers by whom the engines are supplied, whereas, if the same system of screw threads were common to the different engines, a single set of screwing tackle would suffice. The economy and manifold advantages resulting from uniformity in this instance, would be sufficiently obvious.
Supposing the same principle extended throughout engineering and other establishments until its application became general, the advantage would be proportionally greater, and would assume a character of public importance. Public convenience would be promoted in various ways easy to trace, though leading to results perhaps little to be expected, and the economy of screwing apparatus, however considerable, would become insignificant when compared with the contingent benefit to other interests.
Were an uniform system adopted for marine or locomotive engines there can be no doubt that it would be extended to engines and machi-
- ↑ Since 1841, when this was written, the system of screws here recommended has been universally adopted.
