FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  
im that what is false or pretentious proves no longer attractive. My visit to Europe also gave me my first great treat in music. The Handel Anniversary was then being celebrated at the Crystal Palace in London, and I had never up to that time, nor have I often since, felt the power and majesty of music in such high degree. What I heard at the Crystal Palace and what I subsequently heard on the Continent in the cathedrals, and at the opera, certainly enlarged my appreciation of music. At Rome the Pope's choir and the celebrations in the churches at Christmas and Easter furnished, as it were, a grand climax to the whole. These visits to Europe were also of great service in a commercial sense. One has to get out of the swirl of the great Republic to form a just estimate of the velocity with which it spins. I felt that a manufacturing concern like ours could scarcely develop fast enough for the wants of the American people, but abroad nothing seemed to be going forward. If we excepted a few of the capitals of Europe, everything on the Continent seemed to be almost at a standstill, while the Republic represented throughout its entire extent such a scene as there must have been at the Tower of Babel, as pictured in the story-books--hundreds rushing to and fro, each more active than his neighbor, and all engaged in constructing the mighty edifice. It was Cousin "Dod" (Mr. George Lauder) to whom we were indebted for a new development in our mill operations--the first of its kind in America. He it was who took our Mr. Coleman to Wigan in England and explained the process of washing and coking the dross from coal mines. Mr. Coleman had constantly been telling us how grand it would be to utilize what was then being thrown away at our mines, and was indeed an expense to dispose of. Our Cousin "Dod" was a mechanical engineer, educated under Lord Kelvin at Glasgow University, and as he corroborated all that Mr. Coleman stated, in December, 1871, I undertook to advance the capital to build works along the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Contracts for ten years were made with the leading coal companies for their dross and with the railway companies for transportation, and Mr. Lauder, who came to Pittsburgh and superintended the whole operation for years, began the construction of the first coal-washing machinery in America. He made a success of it--he never failed to do that in any mining or mechanical operation he undertook-
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Europe

 

Coleman

 

Republic

 

Lauder

 

Continent

 

washing

 

America

 

mechanical

 

undertook

 
companies

Crystal

 
operation
 
Palace
 

Cousin

 
active
 

rushing

 

coking

 

process

 
England
 

explained


constructing

 

edifice

 

indebted

 
George
 
development
 

mighty

 

engaged

 

operations

 

neighbor

 

educated


Contracts

 
leading
 

railway

 

Railroad

 

Pennsylvania

 

transportation

 

failed

 

mining

 
success
 

machinery


Pittsburgh
 
superintended
 

construction

 

capital

 

advance

 

expense

 

dispose

 
thrown
 

utilize

 
telling