Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/134

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126 NAIL sons were employed in making nails, there having been no fewer than 60,000 nailers in the neighborhood of Birmingham alone. It is only within the last 80 years that machinery has been employed to supersede to any extent hand labor in nail making. It appears, how- ever, that as early as 1606 Sir Davis Bulmer obtained a patent for cutting nail rods by water power. The details of the invention are unknown, and there are no records of Eng- lish patents prior to 1617. In 1618 a patent was issued in England to Clement Dawbeny for an improvement on Buhner's machine. But machinery was not put into actual use in England till 1790, when Thomas Clifford of the city of Bristol patented a nail machine. His machines were used in French's factory at Wineburn, Staffordshire, in 1792. He used two iron rollers, faced with steel, in which were sunk impressions, or forms of the nails, half of the form being in each roller, and arranged circumferentially, so that a bar of iron, being passed between the rollers, came through a string of nails, the head of one nail being slightly joined to the point of the next. In the United States, where so many wooden structures had to be erected by the settlers, the obtaining of cheap nails was of the utmost importance. In 1775 Jeremiah Wilkinson of Cumberland, R. I., cut tacks from sheet iron, and afterward nails and spikes, forming the heads in a vice. The first patent issued for a machine for cutting nails is said to have been given to Josiah G. Person, or Pearson, of New York, March 23, 1794. On Jan. 16, 1795, Jacob Perkins of Boston obtained a pat- ent for a cutting machine said to have been invented about 1790, and to have been capable of making 200,000 nails a day. The follow- ing year patents were issued to Peter Cliff and to Amos Whittemore of Massachusetts, and to Daniel French of Connecticut. It is said that the first patent for a cutting and heading machine (Nov. 11, 1796) was granted to Isaac Garretson of Pennsylvania; and on Dec. 12, 1796, a patent for a similar machine to George Chandler of Maryland. Ezekiel Reed of Bridgewater, Mass., is also said to have invented a machine for cutting and head- ing nails at one operation. Afterward several patents were granted to Jesse Reed, Samuel Rogers, and Melville Otis of Massachusetts, to Mark and Richard Reeve of Philadelphia, to Roswell Noble of Baltimore, and others. The machine invented by Jesse Reed, with some later improvements, is that still most largely used. The manufacture of cut nails was soon established in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Mary- land. In 1810 Joseph C.Dyer of Boston, but then a merchant in London, took out patents in England for the nail machinery invented in Massachusetts, and large manufacturing estab- lishments were soon put in operation. Some in the neighborhood of Birmingham are able to make over 40,000,000 nails a week. Mr. NAKHITCHEVAN Edward Hancorne, a nail maker of London, in 1828 obtained a patent for a nail machine, by which the nail was pointed by swedging it between two oscillating snail pieces or spirals, the rod being cut off by shears and headed by a piece working in a slide propelled by a cam attached to a shaft. In 1834 Mr. Henry Bur- den obtained a patent for a machine, which with several improvements has been for many years in successful operation at his exten- sive nail works in Troy, N. Y. Many of the first inventors spent large sums of money on their machines. It has been estimated that it cost more than $1,000,000 to bring them to the perfection arrived at in 1810, when a ma- chine made about 100 nails per minute. It was at this time that the full value of the invention was brought prominently before the world in the well known report of Albert Gallatin, then secretary of the treasury. Large nail factories were early established in differ- ent parts of Massachusetts, and at Ellicott's Mills, near Baltimore. At the present day the business is carried on very extensively in the Schuylkill iron region. There the pigs from the furnace go immediately to the bloomary, thence to the rolling mill, and so on through the slitting and nail-cutting machines, so that all the operations from the crude ore to the finished nail are carried on at the same place. JfADf, a town of Palestine, in Galilee, men- tioned in the New Testament (Luke vii.) as the place where Jesus raised the widow's son to life. It was situated between the Little Her- mon and Mt. Tabor, about 6 m. S. E. of Naz- areth, and 60 m. N. of Jerusalem. It is now an insignificant hamlet, and is called Nein. The rock near by is full of sepulchral caves. NAIRNE, Baroness. See OLIPHANT, CAROLINA. 3 A Ht SIII RE. a maritime county of Scotland, bordering on the Moray frith, Elginshire, and Inverness- shire ; area, 215 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 10,225. The coast, about 10 m. in ex- tent, is low, sandy, and dangerous. The in- land districts are hilly and wooded ; those on the sea are well cultivated and productive. The chief rivers are the Nairn and Findhorn. The climate is severe but healthful. Nairn, the capital (pop. in 1871, 4,207), is a favorite watering place. About 5 m. distant are the re- mains of Cawdor castle, where Macbeth is said to have murdered Duncan. The room which was pointed out as the scene of the deed was destroyed by fire in 1815 ; but no part of the castle is really older than the 15th century. RAJA. See COBRA DE CAPELLO. NARHITCHEVAN. I. A town of European Russia, in the government of Yekaterinoslav, on the right bank of the Don, about 30 from its mouth, and 7 m. E. N. E. of Rostov ; pop. in 1871, 16,584, mostly Armenians. It stands on an eminence, has manufactures of cotton and silk, and maintains an extensive traffic with Circassia, Astrakhan, Turkistan, and Constanti- nople, especially in pearls and precious stones. The town was founded in 1780 by a colony of