Machine to die for: the quest for free energy

This is about the search for 'perpetual motion' and 'free energy'. Conventional science claims that it is impossible, yet generations of inventors have been mesmerised by the promise of an engine that powers itself. The world's reliance on diminishing fossil fuel resources and the associated problems of pollution serve to spur them on. It showcases a number of dedicated, sometimes eccentric, and always obsessive individuals who have devoted their lives to this quest.

The ongoing history of a Chilean metal products and machinery firm

Includes bibliography

A history of American manufactures from 1608 to 1860; exhibiting the origin and growth of the principal mechanic arts and manufactures, from the earliest colonial period to the adoption of the constitution; and comprising annals of the industry of the United States in machinery, manufactures and useful arts, with a notice of the important inventions, tariffs, and the results of each decennial census.

Mode of access: Internet.

Second International Brewers' Congress, held at Chicago ... October 18-21, 1911. Report of the proceedings, with an account of the Second International Barley and Hop Prize Exhibition and brief history of the American Exposition of Brewing Machinery, Materials and Products.

Plates printed on both sides.

The printer's complete guide : containing a sketch of the history and progress of printing, to its present state of improvement; details of its several departments; numerous schemes of imposition; modern improvements in stereotype, presses, and machinery, &c &c. /

"The following pages are from a larger work ... entitled The mechanics' gallery of science and art", of which only v. 1 was ever published.

American politics. Political parties and party problems in the United States; a sketch of American party history and of the development and operations of party machinery, together with a consideration of certain party problems in their relations to political morality,

Contains short bibliographies.

The history of Mexico, from the Spanish conquest to the present era; containing a condensed and connected general view of the manners, customs, religion, commerce, soil, and agriculture - animal, vegetable, and mineral productions - a concise political and statistical review of the changes effected in that country, with is present form of government, &c. &c. - Also, observations, speculative and practical, as to the best means of working the Mexican mines, by a combination of British talent, capital, and machinery.

Mode of access: Internet.

A compendious history of the cotton-manufacture : with a disproval of the claim of Sir Richard Arkwright to the invention of its ingenious machinery /

Special Collections copy: Title on cover appears to be handwritten in ink.

Changes in the Australian Commonwealth departmental machinery of government 1928-1982

The Commonwealth departmental machinery of government is changed by using Orders in Council to create, abolish or change the name of departments. Since 1906 governments have utilised a particular form of Order in Council, the Administrative Arrangements Order (AAO), as the means to reallocate functions between departments for administration. After 1928 successive governments from Scullin to Fraser gradually streamlined and increasingly used the formal processes for the executive to change departmental arrangements and the practical role of Parliament, in the process of change, virtually disappeared. From 1929 to 1982, 105 separate departments were brought into being, as new departments or through merger, and 91 were abolished, following the merger of their functions in one way or another with other departments. These figures exclude 6 situations where the change was simply that of name alone. Several hundred less substantial transfers of responsibilities were also made between departments. This dissertation describes, documents and analyses all these changes. The above changes can be distilled down to 79 events termed primary decisions. Measures of the magnitude of change arising from the decisions are developed with 157.25 units of change identified as occurring during the period, most being in the Whitlam and Fraser periods. The reasons for the changes were assessed and classified as occurring for reasons of policy, administrative logic or cabinet comfort. 47.2% of the units of change were attributed to policy, 34.9% to administrative logic, 17% to cabinet comfort. Further conclusions are drawn from more detailed analysis of the change and the reasons for the changes.

Entre économie de la fonctionnalité et monopole : la United Shoe Machinery Company dans la première moitié du XXe siècle

L’histoire de la United Shoe Machinery Company (USMC) montre que la réalité ne s’adapte pas toujours aux simplifications de la théorie. Comme le signale l’économie de la fonctionnalité, la stratégie de l’entreprise de vendre l’usage plutôt que la machine fournit plusieurs avantages importants, mais elle a également contribué au fait que les usines de chaussures subissent une véritable dépendance technologique de cette compagnie et au fait que l’USMC soit parvenue à une domination monopolistique du marché. D’autre part, en remettant en cause les rudiments généraux de la théorie économique néoclassique, cette position de monopole n’a pas empêché que l’entreprise ait un fonctionnement efficace et ait facilité la modernisation technologique de l’industrie de la chaussure, aux États-Unis et dans d’autres pays.

A history of mechanical inventions,

Bibliography: p. 373-382.