on inland navigation, and cutting files (a grafting)
*
Arbitrarily grafted figures 1 and 2, of Plate VII, respectively illustrating two articles —
- “An abstract of sundry papers and proposals for improving the inland navigation of Pennsylvania and Maryland, by opening a communication between the tide waters of Delaware and Susquehannah and Christiana Creek, a branch of Delaware; to which are annexed some estimates of expence [sic].&c.”
pp 357-364, and (at left) - “Description of a machine for cutting Files, a Model of which was presented the Society some Time ago.” By B.O.,
pp 365-367
both in
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia for promoting useful knowledge. Volume I, the second edition, corrected. Philadelphia, 1789.
Google scan of copy at Ghent University has pages 358-365 out of order.
aside (15 June 2019) —
old links (made for original posts) seem no longer to lead to their correct respective pages, and so I have been checking and updating; this has particularly been the case for links to John Macdonald his Telegraphic Dictionary (1817), but I fear is probably more general than that.
—
The short article on cutting files is an efficient description of the drawing, mostly unopened in this scan. Its final paragraph begins, and concludes, thus —
“When the machine is thus adjusted, a blind man might cut a file with more exactness than can be done in the usual method with the keenest sight; for, by striking with a hammer on the head of the cutter or chisel HH, all the movements are set at work... And as to the materials and dimensions of the several parts, I shall leave that to the judgment and skill of the artist, who may have occasion to make one, only observing, that the wole [sic] should be capable to bear a good deal of violence.”
p 367
tags: cutting files; grafts; inland navigation; rivers; violence