Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1891 — An Engineer Taught by an Insect, [ARTICLE]

An Engineer Taught by an Insect,

Inventive Age. It is quite certain to a hint from an insect was due the invention of a machine instrumental in accomplishing one of the most stupendous works of modern times —the excavation ol the Thames tunnel. Mark Isambard Brunei, the gr eat engineer, was standing on* day. about three-quarters ol a century ago, in ship yard, patching the movements of an animal known as the teredo navalis (shipworms when) a brilliant thought suddenly occured to him. lie saw thal this creature bored its way into the piece of wood upon which it was operating by means of a very extraordinary mechanical apparatus. Looking at the animal attentively through a microscope, he found that he was covered in front with a pair of valvular shells; that with its foot as a purchase, it communicated a rotary motion and a forward impulse to the valve, which, acting upon the wood like a gimlet, penetrated its substance, and that as the particles of wood were loosened they passed through a fissure in the foot, and thence tiirough the body of the borei to its mouth, where they we.re expelled. “Here,” said Brunei,to himself, “is the sort of a thing I want. Con I produce it in an artifical form?” He fore with set' to work, and the final result of his labors, after many failures, was the famous boring shield with which the Thames tunnel was excavated. This story was told by'Brunei himseif and ttiere is no reason to doubt its truth.