ABSTRACT
The issues beauty of design in machinery troubled engineers throughout the nineteenth century. In 1827, for example, Thomas Tredgold appears to have understood the constituents of the beautiful in machinery. Meagre attempts at imitation of the antique should be carefully avoided when the adjacent parts are not capable of being made subservient or of corresponding form; but so seldom can this be done that the propriety of such an arrangement becomes the exception, the rule. In wrought iron work this argument will hold; but within certain limits it is always as cheap, nay, frequently cheaper, to work to a perfect as to an imperfect shape, more especially if it can be reduced, to turning in the lathe or fitting by templates. A frame, a pedestal, a wrought iron rod or cross head, if out of proportion or possessing superfluous dimension, will look ill, whatever be its polish or material.
