Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/612

machine, quite complete, which had successfully been subjected to an internal pressure of three hundred pounds to the square inch. The career of the machine in England, we believe, has been mostSiemens Tank Furnace. Longitudinal section. unfortunate, but this does not at all diminish the interest which its introduction into America has excited. The advantages to be gained by the use of such a machine are much too solid to permit small obstacles to hinder its success. The trial run at Woodbury has been fairly successful. The automatic principle has not been developed to the full extent in these machines, but it has been carried so far that one man and three boys—none of them necessarily skilled glass-blowers—can operate two machines, each of which is capable of turning out two bottles a minute. The machine does not gather the glass. One of the boys, the "gatherer," is specially detailed for that service. He feeds the molten "metal" to the machine, in which it is mechanically molded, the neck and mouth formed, the interior blown by means of compressed air, and the finished bottle automatically delivered to a carrier which takes it to the annealing oven. There is undoubted room for improvement both in the performance and capacity of the machines. But the important step has been taken, and bottles have really been made in this country by machinery. One need not be very sanguine to believe that the initial step will lead to others, and that in the futureSiemens Tank Furnace. Transverse section. not only bottles, but all other forms of blown ware, will be made mechanically. This is indeed only in the line of industrial development which is everywhere substituting continuous automatic processes for those which are discontinuous and organic. An experienced glass manufacturer, who has been for many years identified with the development of the industry in New Jersey, thus sums up present realities and tendencies: "The use of petroleum, the introduction of the tank furnace, and the bottle-making machine are the three great and only improvements that have been