PENS PETERBOROUGH. 



735 



was cut only two-thirds through, then suddenly 

 opens. 



It is calculated that the total quantity of steel 

 employed in this manufacture, amounts to P20 tons 

 per annum, from which upwards of 200,000,000 of 

 pens are produced. 



There is, however, a considerahle waste of mate- 

 rial in this branch of art. The pieces of steel cut 

 out of the pens cannot be applied to any use ; it 

 is so thin that it cannot be welded, and it cannot 

 be melted, because it takes fire and burns, in con- 

 sequence of access of air between the thin pieces. 



Pen-knives. The extraordinary demand for 

 steel pens within the last few years, in which the 

 aid of a pen-knife is not called for, would have 

 induced us to think that the use of quill pens must 

 have greatly diminished, and that pen-knives must 

 likewise have become much less in request. But 

 such does not appear to be the case. 



Sheffield is the great workshop which supplies 

 almost all the world with knives. The hammering 

 of the steel bar which is to form the blade, is car- 

 ried on in the smithy. A boy is employed to keep 

 several bars of steel heated, or being heated at one 

 time ; and he hands them to the striker or hammer- 

 man, one at a time, so that he is kept constantly 

 at work. A pen-knife-blade is formed by two 

 heatings. In the first place, that part which we 

 call the blade is fashioned by hammering, and then 

 chopped off the end of the rod. It is then again 

 heated in the forge, taken up by a pair of tongs, 

 and the part which is called the tang is formed ; 

 this tang is the part by which the workman holds 

 it while grinding the blade, and which is ultimately 

 inserted in the handle. The whole is then smithed, 

 or smartly hammered after it has ceased to be soft, 

 in order to close the pores, and produce the great- 

 est possible degree of density. The nail-mark 

 used when "opening" the pen-knife and the 

 maker's name, &c., having been struck upon it, it 

 is ready for hardening. The steel springs for the 

 back, and the iron casings for the inner sides of the 

 handle, are made by workmen ranking a degree 

 lower than the blade makers. 



When the blade is properly hammered, it is next 

 hardened and tempered, processes which, though 

 extremely simple in themselves, require the nicest 

 tact and judgment, as upon them the excellence of 

 the future knife greatly depends. Steel is com- 

 monly hardened by being plunged, while red-hot, 

 into cold water, and afterwards tempered by being 

 heated until the surface assumes a particular tinge, 

 varying from a light straw colour to a deep blue, 

 according to the nature of the instrument which is 

 being made. 



After the blade has been hardened, it is, in most 

 cases, carried directly to the grinding mill, or 

 wheel, for the purpose of being ground. Before 

 the extensive introduction of steam power, the 

 grinding wheels were turned by water ; but now 

 steam has usurped the place of water, in this as in 

 many other instances. The grinding stones re- 

 volve on horizontal axes, and are of various sizes 

 for different kinds of work. The blade is fre- 

 quently wetted, and applied to the stone in a way 

 which may be easily conceived. The pen-knife 

 when ground, is worked on a trundle or glazier, 

 which is a wooden wheel about four feet in diam- 

 eter and two inches thick. On the edge of this 

 wheel is a coating of soft metal, consisting of lead 

 and tin, about an inch in thickness; and on this, 

 powdered emery is applied. 



The next process is that of polishing or buffing, 

 the blade, which is done on a wheel similar to that 

 last described, except that the surface of the 

 wheel is covered with buff leather instead of 

 emery. On this leather some very fine polishing 

 powder is applied, and the blade polished. 



The blade now passes into the hands of the 

 workman who is to finish it and finally place it in 

 its handle. The workman wears a breast-plate in 

 front of his body, fastened round him with straps : 

 the breast-plate contains a piece of steel with seve- 

 ral small indentations. These are to receive the 

 blunt end of a borer which is to make small 

 holes for rivets, and for the hole for the pin upon 

 which the blade works at the joint. An ingeni- 

 ous instrument called the boring-stick, gives a 

 rapid rotatory motion to the borer, which is a 

 sharp instrument, and thus enables it to penetrate 

 the metal, applied against the sharp end of the borer. 



The materials employed for handles are almost 

 innumerable. Gold, silver, ivory, mother of pearl, 

 tortoise-shell, horn, bone, cast-iron, &c., are em- 

 ployed, according to the costliness of the article. 

 The forms of handles are almost as various as their 

 materials, as is well known. 



When the blade and the handle, with its metal- 

 lic lining, spring, &c., are properly made and the 

 holes bored, the whole is pinned together, (loosely 

 at first, till, all the parts being exactly fitted, the 

 knife is found to work properly,) with pieces of 

 wire, and rivetted with the hammer. The sides 

 of the handle, if of horn, ivory, or shell, are then 

 filed and scraped, and then polished on a wheel 

 covered with buff leather. A small shield, either 

 of silver or some other metal, is frequently in 

 serted in one side of the handle. The groove or 

 depression which is to receive this shield is made 

 in a manner somewhat resembling that in which 

 the holes are bored. 



PENZANCE ; a sea-port town in Cornwall, in 

 the parish of Madron, and hundred of Penwith, 

 situated on the north-western shore of Mount's 

 Bay, ten miles from the Land's End, and 280 S.W. 

 from London. It is the port for all Mount's Bay, 

 and the market-town for a large surrounding dis- 

 trict. The amount of tonnage which entered the 

 port of Penzance and its outports during 1837 was 

 49,943, of which 5179 tons were in the foreign, 

 and 44,764 in the coasting trade. The amount 

 which sailed outward in the same year was 17,441, 

 of which 386 tons were in the foreign, and 17,055 

 in the coasting trade. The amount of duties in 

 that year was 16,839. Penzance is distinguished 

 for the mildness of its climate, and its early garden 

 produce. It supplies large quantities of vegeta- 

 bles, fish, pork, butter and poultry to distant mar- 

 kets. By the municipal reform act of 1835, the 

 town annually elects the corporation, consisting of 

 a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors. 

 Population in 1841, 6578 ; including parish of 

 Madron, 11,144. A very full and elaborate statis- 

 tical account of the parish of Madron and borough 

 of Penzance, digested from information furnished 

 the Statistical Society of London, by Richard 

 Edmonds, Esq. jun. of Penzance, will be found in 

 the second volume of the Journal of the Statistical 

 Society of London, part iv. July, 1839. 



PETERBOROUGH; an ancient but small city 

 in the county of Northampton, seventy -nine miles 

 from London. It has a well supplied market on 

 Saturday. The houses are mostly the property of 

 the earl Fitzwilliam. Population in 1841, 6107. 



