_Dictionary of Engineering_ (London, 1873, pp. 2426, 2478).]

Many patent journals and other mechanical periodicals concerned with
mechanics were available in English from the beginning of the 19th
century, but few of them found their way into the hands of American
mechanicians until after 1820. Oliver Evans (1755-1819) had much to say
about "the difficulties inventive mechanics labored under for want of
published records of what had preceded them, and for works of reference
to help the beginner."[98] In 1817 the _North American Review_ also
remarked upon the scarcity of engineering books in America.[99]

[Footnote 98: George Escol Sellers in _American Machinist_, July 12,
1884, vol. 7, p. 3.]

[Footnote 99: _North-American Review and Miscellaneous Journal_, 1819,
new ser., vol. 8, pp. 13-15, 25.]

The _Scientific American_, which appeared in 1845 as a patent journal
edited by the patent promoter Rufus Porter, carried almost from its
beginning a column or so entitled "Mechanical Movements," in which one
or two mechanisms--borrowed from an English work that had borrowed from
a French work--were illustrated and explained. The _American Artisan_
began a similar series in 1864, and in 1868 it published a compilation
of the series as _Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements_,
"embracing all those which are most important in dynamics, hydraulics,
hydrostatics, pneumatics, steam engines ... and miscellaneous
machinery."[100] This collection went through many editions; it was last
revived in 1943 under the title _A Manual of Mechanical Movements_.
This 1943 edition included photographs of kinematic models.[101]

[Footnote 100: Henry T. Brown, ed., _Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical
Movements_, New York, 1868.]

[Footnote 101: Will M. Clark, _A Manual of Mechanical Movements_, Garden
City, New York, 1943.]

Many readers are already well acquainted with the three volumes of
_Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors_,[102] a work that
resulted from a contest, announced by _Machinery_ (vol. 33, p. 405) in
1927, in which seven prizes were offered for the seven best articles on
unpublished ingenious mechanisms.

[Footnote 102: _Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors_ (vols.
1 and 2 edited by F. D. Jones, vol. 3 edited by H. L. Horton), New York,
Industrial Press, 1930-1951.]

There was an interesting class of United States patents called
"Mechanical Movements" that comprised scores of patents issued