ated to the profession.

The method in common use, and which may be called the natural method,
is to devote a separate drawer to the drawings of each machine, or of
each group or class of machines. The fundamental idea of this system,
and its only one, is, keeping together all drawings relating to the
same subject matter.

Every draughtsman is acquainted with its practical working. It is
necessary to make the drawing of a machine, and of its separate parts,
on sheets of different sizes. The drawer in which all these are kept
must be large enough to accommodate the largest sheets. The smaller
ones cannot be located in the drawer, and as these find their way to
one side or to the back, and several of the smallest lie side by side
in one course, any arrangement of the sheets in the drawer is out of
the question.

The operation of finding a drawing consists in turning the contents of
the drawer all up until it is discovered. In this way the smaller
sheets get out of sight or doubled up, and the larger ones are torn.
No amount of care can prevent confusion.

Various plans have been adopted in different establishments intended
to remedy this state of things, but it is believed that none has been
hit upon so convenient, in all respects, as the one now to be
presented.

The idea of keeping together drawings relating to the same machine,
or of classifying them according to subjects in any way, is entirely
abandoned, and in place of these is substituted the plan of keeping
together all drawings that are made on sheets of the same size,
without regard to the subject of them.

Nine sizes of sheets were settled upon, as sufficient to meet our
requirements, and on a sheet that will trim to one of these sizes
every drawing must be made. They are distinguished by the first nine
letters of the alphabet. Size A is the antiquarian sheet trimmed, and
the smaller sizes will cut from this sheet, without waste, as follows:

A, 51x30 in.; B, 37x30 in; C, 25x30 in.; D, 17x30 in.; E 121/2x30
in.; F, 81/2x30 in.; G, 17x15 in.; H, 81/2x15 in.; I, 14x25 in.

The drawers for the different sizes are made one inch longer and wider
than the sheets they are to contain, and are lettered as above. Those
of the same size, after the first one, are distinguished by a numeral
prefixed to the letter. The back part of each drawer is covered for a
width of from six to ten inches, to prevent drawings, and especially
tracings, from slipping over at