FORE:CHAPTER I. PLANS OF STUDYING.
FORE:Without ceremony she darted into Countess Lalage's bedroom. The lights were still up, and the mistress of the house was brushing out her long black hair. She was cool and collected enough now.The sudden and varied resistance to line shafts tends to loosen couplings, destroy gearing, and produce sudden strains that are unknown in other cases; and shafting arranged with the usual proportions for transmitting power will soon fail if applied to driving trip-hammers. Rigid connections or metal attachments ace impracticable, and a slipping belt arranged so as to have the tension varied at will is the usual and almost the only successful means of transmitting power to hammers. The motion of trip-hammers is a curious problem; a head and die weighing, together with the irons for attaching them, one hundred pounds, will, with a helve eight feet long, strike from two to three hundred blows a minute. This speed exceeds anything that could be attained by a direct reciprocal motion given to the hammer-head by a crank, and far exceeds any rate of speed that would be assumed from theoretical inference. The hammer-helve being of wood, is elastic, and acts like a vibrating spring, its vibrations keeping in unison with the speed of the tripping points. The whole machine, in fact, must be constructed upon a principle of elasticity throughout, and in this regard stands as an exception to almost every other known machine. The framing for supporting the trunnions, which one without experience would suppose should be very rigid and solid, is found to answer best when composed of timber, and still better when this timber is laid up in a manner that allows the structure to spring and [107] yield. Starting at the dies, and following back through the details of a trip-hammer to the driving power, the apprentice may note how many parts contribute to this principle of elasticity: Firstthe wooden helve, both in front of and behind the trunnion; nextthe trunnion bar, which is usually a flat section mounted on pivot points; thirdthe elasticity of the framing called the 'husk,' and finally the frictional belt. This will convey an idea of the elasticity required in connecting the hammer-head with the driving power, a matter to be borne in mind, as it will be again referred to.
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THREE:Later on people from Louvain came with carts, which we had ordered before leaving. Thirteen of these carried the wounded away, whilst a German patrol went all over the village, setting everything on fire.On this side hundreds of soldiers were standing; they had taken off their uniforms in the fierce heat, and were busy loading and unloading and changing horses. From time to time the entire scene was hidden by the smoke from numerous burning houses at Lixhe, quite near the river. I walked in the most casual way, in an unconcerned attitude, looked calmly at some of the houses I passed, and which were for the greater part destroyed. The walls were pierced by bullets, the rooms generally burnt out; in the front gardens lay all sorts of furniture, dragged out of the house and then smashed to pieces.
THREE:At Jupile I saw a pontoon-bridge, not in use for38 the moment. Just before this place a slightly sloping road leads from the hills to the eastern bank of the Meuse and the main road Vis-Lige. Along this road descended at that moment an immense military forceuhlans, cuirassiers, infantry, more cuirassiers, artillery, munition and forage-carts. The train seemed endless, and although I stood there looking at it for quite a long time, the end had not passed me.
