Tuxford and Sons Works at Boston 469 



years after they were first for portable engines at 

 Carlisle, where the fuel was diminished from 81bs. to 

 3 fibs, per horse per hour. 



Skirbeck has scattered its products far and wide. 

 In Hungary, France, and Austria more especially, it 

 finds its great European markets for engines and 

 finishing machines and centrifugal pumps ; and New 

 Zealand, Pekin, the Burra Burra Mines, Shanghai, 

 Cuba, Australia, Peru, and California have also sent 

 many an order. Its sawing-machines may be found 

 in Burmah, in whose wood yards elephants are taught 

 to pile the teak. It has sent traction-engines and 

 trains of waggons to Calicut, on the Coromandel 

 coast, to bring coffee down the ghauts from the plan- 

 tations, as well as steam packing machinery for wool 

 to the Queensland Government, and an engine to spin 

 wire for the telegraph works at Bengal. Two fibre 

 mills with hydraulic presses have gone out to Loanga 

 in Africa, to squeeze the juice of the giant reeds. No 

 ships can come within a mile of that coast, and no 

 horse can live there by reason of the Tsetse fly. 

 Hence the negroes had to draw the engine when it 

 was taken off the launches, and carry the other ma- 

 chinery in pieces on their heads. The " river horse" 

 holds his revels among the reeds, and his flesh is cured 

 like bacon for sale. 



The draftsmen were busy with pencil and com- 

 passes in a long upper room, marking-out the line for 

 the busy colony of ten-score workers in wood and iron 

 below. A mysterious glass vessel filled with an oil- 

 like fluid on one table was bearing its part as an ex- 

 perimental model for some giant double-actioned 

 road-rammer, fated to descend with three-ton em- 

 phasis at each stroke. Among the wood models were 

 water-wheels furnished with different-floats ; and we 

 had " our first warning" of the water-wheel for Natal, 

 whose presence haunted us go where we might. Two 

 or three small waggons linked together stand idly on 



