38
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGI NEERING CHEMISTRY
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air required for pumping water by this method. The air pressure required may be found by measuring the submergence of the air pipe in feet before the pumping starts and multiplying by p.434, giving the required pressure in pounds per square inch. The advantage of the air lift is its great simplicity and reliability. It is particul a r l y effective for handling solutions containing solids in suspension, as there are no moving parts with which the solids
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SIPHONS The mechanical efficiency of siphons is extremely low. It is therefore not advisable to attempt to use them for pumping alone. But where the liquid is t o be heated as well as pumped, the steam siphon is very satisfactory, as the lost mechanical efficiency of the steam goes into the heating of the liquid, rendering the apparatus nearly 100 per cent efficient from the energy standpoint. Steam siphons are available in all sizes. When used for very dilute acids, the ordinary bronze siphon is recommended. When the acid has appreciable strength, however, lead-lined siphons are used except in the cases where lead would be attacked readiIy. These leadlined siphons are fitted with a platinum steam nozzle to lengthen the life of the apparatus, as platinum offers more resistance to erosion than the lead. Siphons of this type are very satisfactory in practice, requiring practically no attention. This fact has its drawbacks, however, as the lead lining should be FIG.16 replaced in periods of
Vol. 15, No. 1
from two years t o two months, depending on the duty of the siphon, and lack of attention may permit the wear to extend beyond the lining t o the body of the siphon itself and require complete replacement.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The writer wishes to acknowledge the kindness of the pump manufacturers who have supplied him with the data for this article.
The Iron Man in Industry By H. W. Jordan 133 STOLPAVE., SYRACUSE,N.Y.
I n a recent efficiency experiment a group of fair to middling idiots were set a t work on automatic machines. It took a week to train them, or six times the instruction period for normal workers. But they soon turned out 20 to 30 per cent more goods per day than their high-school educated competitors. When the machines were speeded up 15 per cent they trotted right along with 15 per cent more output, like a coach dog under a wagon. They kept up this standard day after day because they had no brains to hamper them. They proved themselves 100 per cent efficient operators of modern automatic machines. This actual experiment is typical of the automatic industry which chemists and engineers have evolved through applied science. Titration of iron, running a vacuum pan, or tending a Bessemer converter, is not essentially different. Life offers no adventure to the chemist or operator on these standardized processes. He merely looks forward across years filled with hundreds of cubic meters of permanganate solution, or millions of tons of sugar and steel, to a pension of $66.67 per month at age of 65. His only thrill is the haunting suspicion that the pension may have a string on it. “The Iron Man in Industry,” a book written by Arthur Pound and published by the Atlantic Monthly Press, is a most able, recent analysis of the social, intellectual, and spiritual effects of modern industry. It vividly portrays the results of specialized, narrow routine in office, plant, and yard, where the broadly generalized handicrafts that were our industries prior to 1880 have become obsolete. It shows the effects of transforming skilled craftsmen into stolid automatons. Much of the personal resourcefulness that used to spring from leisure hour occupations has been similarly wiped out. For example, the primitive sport of deer hunting now consists of a twohundred mile automobile ride to-day over macadam and reenforced concrete roads into the woods; and to-morrow a single daybreak rifle shot a t a drinking deer (fired i,n some cases by a hired guide), a quarter of a mile across a lake, with six o’clock dinner back home and solemn rehearsal of the hunter’s prowess a t the city club that evening. Shades of Daniel Boone and Kit Carson! In appreciation of the fact that the best product of industry is versatile, clear-thinking men and women, the Technology Club of Syracuse, in which the local sections of the several American engineeting societies are affiliated, has assigned part of its lecture evenings this season to a study of industrial sociology. The first of these lectures was given November 20, by Mr. Arthur Pound, on his subject, “The Iron Man in Industry.” The following noon he addressed the Syracuse Kiwanis Club, a n audience of 200 young business men. That evening he spoke before the Syracuse Community Forum. “It is the function of engineering to develop the forces of nature for the utmost benefit of mankind.” We can use our engineering responsibilities in no more practical way than by applying social industrial science to study of the effects of automatic machine industry upon the mind and character of the workers from president to titer boy, and by giving wide publicity to that study.
