The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2,
No. 12, May, 1851., by Various

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Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851.

Author: Various

Release Date: January 12, 2010 [EBook #30943]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HARPER'S

NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. XII.--MAY, 1851--VOL. II.

THE NOVELTY WORKS, WITH SOME DESCRIPTION OF THE MACHINERY AND THE
PROCESSES EMPLOYED IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF MARINE STEAM-ENGINES OF THE
LARGEST CLASS.

BY JACOB ABBOTT.

[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF THE NOVELTY IRON WORKS, NEW YORK, (_As
seen from the East River._)]

Perhaps no one of those vast movements which are now going forward among
mankind, and which mark so strikingly the industrial power and genius of
the present age, is watched with more earnest interest by thinking men,
than the successive steps of the progress by which the mechanical power
of steam and machinery is gradually advancing, in its contest for the
dominion of the seas. There is a double interest in this conflict. In
fact, the conflict itself is a double one. There is first a struggle
between the mechanical power and ingenuity of man, on the one hand, and
the uncontrollable and remorseless violence of ocean storms on the
other; and, secondly, there is the rivalry, not unfriendly, though
extremely ardent and keen, between the two most powerful commercial
nations on the globe, each eager to be the first to conquer the common
foe.

The armories in which the ordnance and ammunition for this warfare are
prepared, consist, so far as this country is concerned, of certain
establishments, vast in their extent and capacity, though unpretending
in external appearance, which are situated in the upper part of the city
of New York, on the shores of the East River. As the city of New York is
sustained almost entirely by its commerce, and as this commerce is
becoming every year more and more dependent for its prosperity and
progress upon the power of the enormous engine