persisted in keeping it there burning, till he fell down in his fury and died.
Let us hope he was mad. What, indeed, is more probable? It is always a great good, when the crimes of a fellow-creature can be traced to madness; to some fault of the temperament or organization; some "jangle of the sweet bells;" some overbalance in the desired equipoise of the faculties, originating, perhaps in accident or misfortune. It does not subject us the more to their results. On the contrary, it sets us on our guard against them. And, meantime, it diminishes one of the saddest, most injurious, and most preposterous notions of human ignorance – the belief in the wickedness of our kind.
But I have said enough of these barbarous customs.
GLOBES, AND HOW THEY ARE MADE
One of the most remarkable of self-educated men, James Ferguson, when a poor agricultural laborer, constructed a globe. A friend had made him a present of "Gordon's Geographical Grammar," which, he says, "at that time was to me a great treasure. There is no figure of a globe in it, although it contains a tolerable description of the globes and their use. From this description I made a globe in three weeks, at my father's, having turned the ball thereof out of a piece of wood; which ball I covered with paper, and delineated a map of the world upon it, made the meridian ring and horizon of wood, covered them with paper, and graduated them; and was happy to find that by my globe (which was the first I ever saw) I could solve the problems."
"But," he adds, "this was not likely to afford me bread."
In a few years this ingenious man discovered the conditions upon which he could earn his bread, by a skill which did not suffer under the competition of united labor. He had made also a wooden clock. He carried about his globe and his clock, and "began to pick up some money about the country" by cleaning clocks. He became a skilled clock-cleaner. For six-and-twenty years afterward he earned his bread as an artist. He then became a scientific lecturer, and in connection with his pursuits, was also a globe maker. His name may be seen upon old globes, associated with that of Senex. The demand for globes must have been then very small, but Ferguson had learned that cheapness is produced by labor-saving contrivances. A pretty instrument for graduating lines upon the meridian ring, once belonging to Ferguson, is in use at this hour in the manufactory of Messrs. Malby and Son. The poor lad "who made a globe in three weeks" finally won the honors and riches that were due to his genius and industry. But he would never have earned a living in the continuance of his first attempt to turn a ball out of a piece of wood, cover it with paper, and draw a map of the world upon it. The nicest application of his individual skill, and the most careful employment of his scientific knowledge, would have been wasted upon those portions of the work in which the continued application of common routine labor is the most efficient instrument of production.
Let us contrast the successive steps of Ferguson's first experiment in globe-making with the processes of a globe manufactory.
A globe is not made of "a ball turned out of a piece of wood." If a solid ball of large dimensions were so turned, it would be too heavy for ordinary use. Erasmus said of one of the books of Thomas Aquinas, "No man can carry it about, much less get it into his head;" and so would it be said of a solid globe. If it were made of hollow wood, it would warp and split at the junction of its parts. A globe is made of paper and plaster. It is a beautiful combination of solidity and lightness. It is perfectly balanced upon its axis. It retains its form under every variety of temperature. Time affects it less than most other works of art. It is as durable as a Scagliola column.
A globe may not, at first sight, appear a cheap production. It is not, of necessity, a low-priced production, and yet it is essentially cheap; for nearly all the principles of manufacture that are conditions of cheapness are exhibited in the various stages of its construction. There are only four globe-makers in England, and one in Scotland. The annual sale of globes is only about a thousand pair. The price of a pair of globes varies from six shillings to fifty pounds. But from the smallest 2-inch, to the largest 36-inch globe, a systematic process is carried on at every step of its formation. We select this illustration of cheapness as a contrast, in relation to price and extent of demand, to the lucifer match. But it is, at the same time, a parallel in principle. If a globe were not made upon a principle involving the scientific combination of skilled labor, it would be a mere article of luxury from its excessive costliness. It is now a most useful instrument in education. For educational purposes the most inexpensive globe is as valuable as that of the highest price. All that properly belongs to the excellence of the instrument is found in combination with the commonest stained wood frame, as perfectly as with the most highly-finished frame of rose-wood or mahogany.
The mould, if we may so express it, of a globe is turned out of a piece of wood. This sphere need not be mathematically accurate. It is for rough work, and flaws and cracks are of little consequence. This wooden ball has an axis, a piece of iron wire at each pole. And here we may remark, that, at every stage of the process, the revolution of a sphere upon its axis, under the hands of the workman, is the one great principle which renders every operation one of comparative ease and simplicity. The labor would be enormously multiplied if the same class of operations had to be performed upon a cube. The solid mould, then, of the embryo globe is placed on its axis in a wooden frame. In a very short time a boy will form a pasteboard globe upon its surface. He first covers it entirely with strips of strong paper, thoroughly wet, which are in a tub of water at his side. The slight inequalities produced by the overlapping of the strips are immaterial. The saturated paper is not suffered to dry; but is immediately covered over with a layer of pasted paper, also cut in long narrow slips. A third layer of similarly pasted paper – brown paper and white being used alternately – is applied, and then, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Here the pasting process ends for globes of moderate size. For the large ones it is carried farther. This wet pasteboard ball has now to be dried – placed upon its axis in a rack. If we were determined to follow the progress of this individual ball through all its stages, we should have to wait a fortnight before it advanced another step. But as the large factory of Messrs. Malby and Son has many scores of globes all rolling onward to perfection, we shall be quite satisfied to witness the next operation performed upon a pasteboard sphere that began to exist some weeks earlier, and is now hard to the core.
The wooden ball, with its solid paper covering, is placed on its axis. A sharp cutting instrument, fixed on a bench, is brought into contact with the surface of the sphere, which is made to revolve. In less time than we write, the pasteboard ball is cut in half. There is no adhesion to the wooden mould, for the first coating of paper was simply wetted. Two bowls of thick card now lie before us, with a small hole in each, made by the axis of the wooden ball. But a junction is very soon effected. Within every globe there is a piece of wood – we may liken it to a round ruler – of the exact length of the inner surface of the sphere from pole to pole. A thick wire runs through this wood, and originally projected some two or three inches at each end. This stick is placed upright in a vice. The semi-globe is nailed to one end of the stick, upon which it rests, when the wire is passed through its center. It is now reversed, and the edges of the card rapidly covered with glue. The edges of the other semi-globe are instantly brought into contact, the other end of the wire passing through its center in the same way, and a similar nailing to the stick taking place. We have now a paper globe, with its own axis, which will be its companion for the whole term of its existence.
The paper globe is next placed on its axis in a frame, of which one side is a semi-circular piece of metal; the horizon of a globe cut in half would show its form. A tub of white composition – a compound of whiting, glue, and oil is on the bench. The workman dips his hand into this "gruel thick and slab," and rapidly applies it to the paper sphere with tolerable evenness: but, as it revolves, the semi-circle of metal clears off the superfluous portions. The ball of paper is now a ball of plaster externally. Time again enters largely into the manufacture. The first coating must thoroughly dry before the next is applied; and so again till the process has been repeated four or five times. Thus, when we visit a globe workshop, we are at first surprised at the number of white balls, from three inches' diameter to three feet, which occupy
