ED WARE.) The point destined for the nib is next introduced into an appropriate gauged hole of a little machine, and press edinto the semi-cylindrical shape; where it is also pierced with the middle slit, and the lateral ones, provided the latter are to be given. The pens are now clean ed, by being tossed about among each other, in a tin cylinder, about 3 feet long, and 9 inches in diameter ; which is sus pended at each end upon joints, to two cranks, formed one on each of two shafts. The cylinder, by the rotation of a fly wheel, acting upon the crank-shafts, is made to describe such revolutions as agi tate the pens in all directions, and polish them by mutual attrition. In the course of 4 hours several thousand pens may be finished upon this machine.
Hardness in the nib being the desirable quality, and the loss of time mending quill pens being seriously felt, substitutes have been generally adoped. Such as silver and gold pens, tortoise-shell bar rels and ruby or diamond nibs have been made. Pens of ruby, set in fine gold, have been said to last 6 years. Some gold pens have the nibs made of rhodium. Some gold pens, on examination at the Laboratory, Cambridge, Mass., have turned out to be sheet-iron, galvanized and plated. The iron is first cut out with the press, thin coated with zinc, and fi nally with gold.
Fountain pens are made to hold a reser voir of ink. Music pens make dots as well as strokes. The geometric pen is an ingenious instrument for drawing curves.
American gold pens. Dr. Spurgen, to whom the public is already indebted for Several ingenious inventions, has now patented a new pen, which promises to have important advantages without being in any degree costly. These are the re tention of a large quantity of ink, suffi cient, for example, to write a letter with out again dipping the pen, and the pre veutiou of corrosion. Capilary attraction and galvanism are the principles involved, and the means employed are very simple.
Within a common iron pen a small plate of zinc, bent to follow the line of the pen, is secured by points of solder at a short distance from the former, by means of which the ink is securely retained, and a galvanic current is kept up. The pro gress of the manufacture of gold pens in America will serve to show the extent of business which may be done in an article of this kind, when successful.
The Charleston Courier (U. S.) says, the first gold pen was made in New-York in 1838, and now the principal manufac turer of them employs a capital of 80,000 dollars in the undertaking. In the man ufacture of pens the gold is first rolled out in ribbons, and then cut with a die to the proper shape, the points put on and then ground down to the required nib. The points are of iridium, a new metal found with platinum. The points are all im ported, generally without the ceremony of an introduction to the Custom House, and cost from 7 to 55 dollars per ounce.
The pens and eases sell from 10 to 80 dollars per dozen. It is not easy to make an estimate of the number of pens manu factured per annum, but it is probably not less than 1,000,000, of which one manufacturer, Bagley, makes nearly half. A person who had not thought of the subject would scarcely suppose that 800 lbs. of gold were used up every year in America, in the manufacture of such a trifling article as pens—a business un known ten years ago—yet such is the fact. A statement of the tons of iron worked into pens in England every year would be even more startling, and would show that Dr. Spurgen's improvement, simple as it appears may, if it fulfils its promises, be more productive than some larger mat ters.