State of the Art 1876

January 12, 2005 8:12 AM

Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary Containing over 3000 pages the Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary was billed as A description of tools, instruments, machines, processes and engineering; history of inventions; general technological vocabulary. Published in 1876 it is a great resource for those trying to figure out how things were done in the time of our great (great?) grand parents. Ilustrations, upwards of 5000 engravings, include a ride inside monocycle, trestle bridges, compound microscope, clod crushers, washing machines, spoke driver, hydraulic wagon-tipper, and a farmers tool-house. Warning: the book has been scanned in and all the item links are to 100-150K images.
posted by Mitheral (10 comments total)

no widgets :(
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:02 AM on January 12, 2005

Oh, they're ALL widgets!!

Nice find, Mitheral, thanks!
posted by Floydd at 9:05 AM on January 12, 2005

This kind of thing really turns my crank, gets me firing on all cylinders, and stokes my engine.

Thanks Mitheral
posted by Capn at 9:27 AM on January 12, 2005

Oooooh .... thank you, thank you, thank you.... I know several illustrators who are going to be VERY happy about this.
posted by R. Mutt at 9:41 AM on January 12, 2005

Neat. An "acanthabolus" is an instrument for extracting thorns or splinters from a wound.

And here I'd been calling them 'tweezers' all this time.
posted by mudpuppie at 9:52 AM on January 12, 2005

Transverse cross section of the US senate building showing air circulation + method of heating.

I wonder if they are still using steam to heat the senate?
posted by Mitheral at 10:37 AM on January 12, 2005

Maybe I'm asking for too much, but I can't seem to make it go to a particular page. Searching this is hard.
posted by scruss at 11:05 AM on January 12, 2005

Ah, excuse self. I found the same title in DjVu format with searchable indices at Princeton Imaging: Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary.
posted by scruss at 11:23 AM on January 12, 2005

I wonder if they are still using steam to heat the senate?

[Insert hot air joke here.]
posted by mudpuppie at 11:35 AM on January 12, 2005

Thanks scruss the Princeton layout is much better once I got the plug in working.
posted by Mitheral at 12:54 PM on January 12, 2005