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Automatic Machinery

in its present development, development, may be defined as machinery which carries on complicated operations, often involving several distinct processes or stages of production, without any human intervention or control beyond being started and kept in motion. The term automatic was first popularly applied to such devices as slot machines, etc., which responded in a certain definite way when a coin of a given size was inserted, thus dispensing with the need of human attendance. But such machines are comparatively simple and repeat but a single operation after all, doing this, moreover, in a way not essentially different from that of any other machine except that no hired attendant is required. More truly automatic are the modern coin machines used and wrapping in making change or in sorting, counting, wrapping bags of coins all emptied promiscuously into a hopper, some machines of this kind even throwing out bad" or imperfect coins with remarkable accuracy. On a larger scale, we have the mechanical coal-picker and conveyer by means of which slate and bad coal are thrown out and the various sizes sorted and distributed; while in this same field of handling materials are to be found the weighing machines which weigh out and box in desired amounts such articles as sugar, coffee, etc., fed into hoppers in continuous supply. In the manufacturing field, an increasing quired many separate, skilled operations are now being turned out by single machines with only such attendance as may be needed to keep raw material properly supplied. Well-known instances of complex machines of this kind are found in the tin-can and tinware manufacture, and a recently successful development in another field is seen in the complete cigar-making machine by which over a billion cigars were produced in 1921. Here the only attendants needed are girls to arrange and feed in the raw material. In other cases, a single man to watch that nothing gets out of order is the only attendant required to operate a dozen or more gigantic machines each turning out a finished complex product.

Automatic devices for controlling machines in the interest of safety, convenience, or economy are applied to machines of every kind. To direct and vary their operations in accordance with a program arranged beforehand and without any further intervention is the function of so-called kinautograph mechanisms of which a developing type at present is the perforated paper kinautograph. A familiar example of the use of perforated number of products which formerly re- AUTOSUGGESTION paper to control mechanical action is found in the automatic player-piano. In the same way rolls of paper may be used to guide machines through any desired series of movements, the perforations opening and closing electrical circuits or compressed air mechanisms which operate various levers, etc. A roll once made, with proper perforations, can be used to make a machine repeat any series of movements as often as desired.

AUTOMATIC TRAIN-CONTROL OR ating trains directly in accordance with