The Daily Spy

[From the Taunton Daily Gazette.]

ISAAC BABBITT.

Franklin has been sneered at by some profound philosophers as too mechanical, too material, too earthly. But Franklin's was a truly American life, one of a new type, and destined perhaps, to benefit the human race as much as one of abstract speculation, or monkish spirituality—if not more. Whitfield converted some sinners, but Franklin, setting people at work and raising them above temptations—what a multitude of sins, in all coming ages, he will prevent! Franklin's philosophy is the conquest of matter by mind; and if God displays his greatness by creating and governing matter, surely the conquest of it is, at least, as noble as disputing about that which matters nothing. But this is digression.

Who is Isaac Babbitt? He is a Boston man of the self made, Ben. Franklin sort. A solid, substantial, lion-like, wholesome looking man, fifty or so, and flourishing. He started in life there as a watchmaker and goldsmith, in which he succeeded well. Feeling that too close application was injuring his health, he set himself about some chemical experiments, which required more action and resulted in the manufacture of Britannia ware, which he established in this town. His improvements in this important article of domestic use soon drove the British ware almost entirely out of the market, and excited the wonder and astonishment of the London manufacturers. Finding, as is too common with inventors, that the profits of his improvements were mostly the prey of others, he applied himself to brass founding in which his success was so marked that it attracted the attention of Mr Alger, the South Boston Founder, who took a large contract of casting cannon for government relying upon Mr Babbitt's skill to carry him through it. His confidence was not misplaced, for Mr Babbitt succeeded in obviating the difficulties of the business and casting several hundred pieces, of heavy bronze ordnance of an excellence never before attained.

He next turned his attention to the reduction of friction in heavy machinery. Friction is the great destroyer of motion, and foe of engines — Nature, in her machines, has taken wonderful pains to guard against it. She not only supplies a nice lubricating fluid, the synovium, to all the joints of her animals, but she sheathes the articulations with a very smooth coating, called a cartilage. Were the bones allowed to rub and grind together, they would by rapid motion, burn through and set the animal's fat on fire. A race-horse, running his mile in two minutes, without cartilages, would set himself in a blaze. But who shall give cartilages to the Iron Horse? Mr Babbitt has done it.

It had been long known that any metal runs easier on another than on itself. But it remained for Mr Babbitt to discover an alloy of soft metals which being confined in the journal boxes by a lip or fillet of hard metal, admirably serves the purpose of a cartilage. With this lining the journal may fit perfectly snug, and runs with very little oil, and almost no heat or friction. The locomotive which on the old plan could only run 8 or 10,000 miles before its boxes were worn out, can now run 80,000, and be as good as new, or if by any accident the lining should get out of order, it can be cheaply replaced. The saving of power, though not a very large percentage, is of immense importance in the aggregate; even the saving of 60 per cent of the oil, which it effects, amounts to an annual fortune on any railroad. This alloy consists of 96 parts of tin, 4 of copper, and 8 of antimony. It has been adopted by the government of the United States, and its use is very extensive in Europe. In fact, it marks a new era in machinery.

The happy competence which this great invention has secured to Mr Babbitt, has by no means seduced him from his labors in practical science. With his new means he has set himself to the task of improving the great staple comforts of life. Cleanliness is a most important condition of health, comfort and intellect, and by practical chemical inquiry Mr Babbitt has effected a most decided and palpable improvement in the means of securing it, so that the engineer will find as much advantage in "babbitting" himself as his engine. The preparation which Mr. Babbitt calls the "Cytherean Cream of Soap," little as it may excite observation, and much as it may sound like the thousand and one trumpery cosmetics that crowd the belle's or the dandy's toilet table, is really an era in general domestic happiness, a victory over one of its fellest foes, and a blessing in store for the daily life of everybody. It is a perfectly effectual purifier without being a destroyer. It seizes every particle of filth, excretion or miasma which may attach to the coarsest or most delicate skin, and carries it off, leaving the wonderful tissue as hale and beautiful as if fresh from its Creator, and diffusing through the whole form the glow of a new life.

On such a subject, of course, we can produce nothing like conviction in advance of experience. But curiosity will lead to experience and experience to increased comfort everywhere, in the almost religious ordinance of daily ablution. As Mr Babbitt's name is already incorporated among the common nouns and verbs of the English language, and is likely to become a household word, we have thought this sketch of the man and his doings might be interesting.