FROM AN EXPOSITION…

By: Walter Lowenfels
January 10, 2025

A (pro- or anti-) science-, mathematics-, technology-, space-, apocalypse-, dehumanization-, disenchantment-, and/or future-oriented poem published during sf’s emergent Radium Age (c. 1900–1935). Research and selection by Joshua Glenn.

“The Great Machine” by Giorgio de Chirico (1925)

unit aligning power transmission
non return vertical indicator
pump governing nose
return trap compensating joint
expanding lathe mandrel

make up water
boiler blow down
bleach liquor
stream flow
glass steam trap
air cooled wall for powdered coal

forged steel header
tongue and groove joint with copper gaskets, welded flanges
multiple retort underfeed stoker
balanced seatless blow-off valve
spur gear speed transformer
multiwhirl baffle
bleeder turbine

Open float inspirator and injector
steam jet air pump
super simplex pulverizer
gyrating cruster
crushing chamber
armature spider
diamond valve head
stoker fired boiler
adjusted spray nozzle
blending turbine
reciprocating boiler feed
oil firing front natural draft

forged steel filings and unions
sylphon fuel oil interlocking
quick change chuck and collet
weightometer
safety water columns
seamless copper float
screw anchor
float chamber
exhaust relief valve
reverse current valve
self sealing evaporator

clipper belt lacer
flexible coupling
no contact indicator
tandem blow off
hanger boxes
pillar boxes
drop forged steel body
hardened worms with thread ground
caustic soda ash
cement slurry metallurgical slimes

carbon steel hand taps
precision high speed ground thread taps
two and three fluted taps
spiral pointed serial hard machine screw bent shank tapper taps
mud or washout spindle staybolt coupling taps for pipes and tubes

short die hobs
long die hobs for the man who makes his own dies.

— The poem’s full title is “From an Exposition of Power and Industrial Machinery.” It appeared in Episodes and Epistles (1925). In a footnote, Lowenfels explains: “This list records some names of machines and machine parts. I have arranged this particular sequence but the words are the exact engineering terminology.”

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FROM AN EXPOSITION…

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