COMPUTING SCALES. As is well lcnown, the weight of a commodity is ascertained in order to form a basis for ascertaining its value at a given price per pound if in the United States or Great Britain and her colonies, or at a Oven price per lcilogram in nearly all other civilized countnes.
The computing scale is an instrument by which the value is obtained, mechanically, at a given price per pound or kilo, thus avoiding any error of malcing the calculations mentally, and causing the operation of weighing and ascertain ing the value to be more speedily accomplished.
The computing scale business, as a success ful commercial enterprise for the world, was inaugurated in 1891. Several earlier attempts were made, but without success. The business has rapidly increased since the above date, and hundreds of thousands of these machines are now in use throughout the world. Until recent years the United States was by far the largest market, but they have been mtroduced into Europe, South Afrka, Australia and both the east and west coasts of South America, besides Canada, Mexico and West India Islands, until export trade in computing scales aggregates several hundred thousand dollars per year.
Construction of Computing Scales, Broadly speaking, there are two types of com puting scales: first, the variable leverage type, and second, the computed-chart type. The first type consists of a mechanism wherein the lever age of the computing beam may be varied so as to conform to the several units per pound or price per pound.
The computed-chart scale is further divided into two distinct kinds: first, the beam scale with computed chart, and second, the automatic scale with the computed chart. The former, or beam scale with computed chart, is a manually operated scale, operated as in ordinary scales by the movement of a sliding counterpoise, this sliding poise passing over the computed chart, and when the load is balanced by. the movement
of the poise, pointers on the poise indicate the total value of the coinmodity being weighed at the several prices per pound provided for on the computed chart.
The second, or automatic computing chart scales, are so constructed that when a com modity is placed upon the scale pan the load is automatically counterbalanced by the use of either counterbalancing springs or a pendulum counterbalancing weight, moving either the computed chart past a stationary indicator or moving an indicator past or over the stationary computed chart, the indicator in either instance having placed thereon the several prices per pound, and each price per pound placed ad jacent to a pointer or other means of indication showing the total value of the commodity being weighed at the several prices per pound pro vided for in the construction of the scale.
The automatic chart scale is further divided into two distinct types of scales with respect to the construction or arrangement of the chart: One type being constructed upon the principle of arbitrarily dividing the pound into as many parts as there are cents in the price per pound as a means of computing weight. For instance, at 11 cents per pound the pound is divided into 11 parts, each part representing one-eleventh of a pound. The other type is constructed on the principle of dividing the pound into ounces and fractions of ounces on the binary system as a means of computing values. In other words the pound is divided into uniform fractions of the pound as in ordinary pound and ounce scales, and the true commercial value of each subdivision of the pound is indicated on the chart at the several prices per pound provided therefor. See BALANC.E; WEIGHING MACHINES.