NAIADS. 



NAIL MANUFACTURE. 



malformation might be deemed to hare some connection with the 

 object of the mother, few or anxiety ; but till it be determined that 

 the number of theee coincidence* is greater than would occur 

 according to the common lawi of chance* (which i* as yet far from 

 being proved), the hypothesis of a connection between the aUte of the 

 Itielocalc 



:.'.. :...::!.:. i : 



nfonuation of the child, which U totally 



opposed to all physiological probability, cannot be admitted. 



NAIADS (Nu4>, Nq>) were inferior female deities in the Greek 

 and Roman mythology, who were supposed to preside over rivem, 

 brook*, lakes, and spring* : they were in fact the nymph* of the land 

 and fresh- water*, corresponding to the Nereids, or nymphs of the sea. 

 [NEHEIDS.] They are represented as young and beautiful nymphs 

 (Horn., ' Od.,' xiii. 108), of whom <Egle, according to Virgil, wan the 

 most lovely ^ Kcl. 1 vi. -J1). By Greek sculptors they were sometimes 

 represented wholly, sometimes only partially draped, and holding large 

 shells. They are frequently figured with Pan; occasionally with 

 Heracles, sometimes with Zeus. Arethusa, the fountain-nymph, ja 

 represented on the coins of Syracuse. Many of the heroes of the 

 Homeric poems are described a* the offspring of Naiad*. 



According to Pausanias (viii. 4, 2), the Naiads were called, by the 

 Arcadians, Dryades and Epimeliadsc. [-NYMPHS.] 



NAIL MANUFACTURE. Until a comparatively recent period 

 almost every kind of nail was produced by hand-labour; each nail 

 was separately forged from a thin rod of iron, a process which is still 

 followed in the production of what are .technically known as wruu'jht 

 nails. As nails so formed possess certain advantages, for particular 

 kinds of work, over those formed either by casting, or by cutting or 

 stamping out of rolled sheet metal, there is no reason to anticipate the 

 total abandonment of this process, notwithstanding the continual im- 

 provement of nail-making machinery. 



The making of wrought nails, which retains, in most places, the 

 character of a domestic manufacture, forma the employment of a 

 peculiar class of blacksmiths called nailors, who are very frequently 

 assisted by the female members of their families. The nailor receives 

 his iron in the form of narrow square rods, of various sizes, according 

 to the kind of nail to be forged from them. Putting the ends of three 

 or four such rod* into the forge-fire at once, the uallor commences his 

 work by withdrawing one when it is properly heated, and forging its 

 end upon a small but very firmly bedded steel anvil to a tapering point 

 The pointed end is then cut off to the proper length, which is adjusted 

 by a gauge, by laying it across a fixed chisel or liack-irm, and giving it 

 a smart blow with the hammer. In some cases, as in making the kind 

 of nail used for fixing horseshoes, this operation completes the nail ; but 

 in most instances a subsequent process is necessary to form the head. 

 For this purpose the red-hot spike just cut off from the nail-rod U 

 taken up and dropped, point downwards, into one of the holes of an 

 instrument called a bore, which is a piece of iron ton or twelve inches 

 long, with a perforated knob of steel at each end. The holes of this 

 instrument are made to fit the upper or thicker part of the nail, and are 

 so countersunk at their upper ends as to form a kind of mould fur the 

 bead of the nail When dropped into one of these holes, a few well- 

 directed strokes of the hammer upon the thick projecting end of the 

 spike or nail converts it into a head of any required shape. In making 

 small nails it is sometimes practicable to forge and cut off two lengths 

 from the nail-rod with one heating ; but where this is not the case the 

 nailor is enabled to proceed with his work without interruption by the 

 convenient plan of having several rods in the fire at once, so that as 

 soon as one is cool another is ready to his hand. In many eases, for 

 the sake of economy, two or three nailors work at one hearth, using 

 the same fire and the same bellows in turn ; and some hearths have 

 been constructed large enough for five or six men. The hammer used 

 by nailors is larger or smaller, according to the size of the nails to be 

 formed; and it* face i* inclined considerably upwards towards the 

 handle. Borne of the nailors acquire remarkable dexterity. One of 

 them, a few years ago, made 34,000 flooring nails in a fortnight ; in 

 performing thU task, a* each nail required about twenty-five strokes 

 of the hammer, he made, including the cutting up of the nail-rods into 

 convenient lengths, and re-uniting them when they became too short, 

 no less than 1 ,033,656 stroke*, and moved to and from the fire at which 

 the rod* were heated 42,836 times. 



K. .r some purposes nail* formed by the much cheaper process of 

 carting have been long used instead of those wrought in the manner 

 above described. Common cast nail* are, however, so clumsy and so 

 brittle that they can only be used for a few coarse purposes, as in 

 plasterer's work, and in the nailing up of fruit-trees. By the intro- 

 duction of great improvements in the manufacture, however, a very 

 useful kind of cast nail, of an exceedingly pure material called malle- 

 able cast iron, has been successfully introduced for certain descri|>ti.m 

 of woodwork. Nail* of this kind are very neat and regular in their 

 appearance, being cast with great accuracy; and they are annealed to 

 such perfection that the metal will bear far more bending than ordi- 

 nary wruught-iron without injury. This extraordinary degree of 

 tenacity i*, however, obtained at the expense of rigidity, such nails 

 being often nearly as soft as copper, and therefore quite unsuitable 

 for as* in bard woods. 



The comparatively high price of wrought nail*, owing to the great 

 amount of manual labour required in making them, and the insuffi- 

 ciency of c**t nails as a lubstitute fur them, ha* led to the introduction 



of many highly ingenious machines for forming nails by cutting, 

 stamping, or compression, out of plates or rods of rolled iron ; and 

 with such success that, for the ordinary purposes of the carpenter and 

 joiner, cut-nails, varying in size from the smallest tack or brad up to 

 spikes of six inches or more in length, have almost superseded those 

 wrought by hand. The earliest machine for nail-making was that 

 contrived by Mr. French, of Wimborne, Staffordshire, in 1790, in 

 which no material departure was made from the ordinary process of 

 making nail* by the hammer; but labour was saved by working 

 hammers by water-power, so that women and children might perform 

 work which would otherwise have required men. The Americans, so 

 long as the year 1810, possessed a machine which pcrft>rim>d th.- 

 cutting and heading at one operation, with su; lity t<> turn 



out more than 100 nails per minute. In the process now most com- 

 monly followed, nails are cut from sheet-iron of suitable thickness. 



Vif. 1. Cutting sheets of iron for naiK 



The thect is reduced, by cutting transversely, into strips or 

 of a breadth equal to the intended length of the nails. These -atrip* 

 are then applied to a machine in which a chisel-shaped cutter descends 

 with sufficient force to cut off from the end of the strip, at each down- 



Flf. 2. Making cut bridi. 



ward stroke, a nan lilicicnt to form one nail. A* the nailx 



are required to be of a tapering form, the cutter must bo so fixed as to 



