470 Saddle and Sirloin. 



the shelf, now that their mission is over of settling the 

 point of connexion between each, so as to cause the 

 whole train to take the same course on a straight road 

 or round curves. A traction engine with an endless 

 railway attached is taken on its journey across the 

 floor for our benefit ; and we also hear of an adapta- 

 tion of the half section of an Archimedean pump to 

 " a worm" for the transference of grain in a mill. 



Pigs of iron are piled in the yard below, and 

 workmen are breaking them up for the furnaces. The 

 cold-blast iron comes from Shropshire, and Middles- 

 boro' and Scotland furnish the hot-blast, which is not 

 so strong in its texture, but has come into much more 

 general use on account of its price. Part of the Natal 

 wheel rests under a large shed, waiting for its buckets ; 

 and crossing over the yard, we are in the dark sand 

 regions among the moulders, who are busy at the 

 Thames'-side balustrades. In this shop, puddlers with 

 brawny sinews and "auctioneers" (which election bullies 

 have not cared to meet twice) are bending over huge 

 casting boxes, or treading in the clay for a girder mould* 

 as if they were working in a wine vat. Thomas 

 Sampson, who, like Ellis Maddison, has grown grey with 

 forty years in the service, comes forth from his nook in 

 the wall, to tell us of the giant cranes overhead and 

 the mysteries of " proper granulation" at furnace tap- 

 ping. The craft is of a less gentle kind in an adjoin- 

 ing shed, where we find some grand left-handed hitters 

 among the quartets which gather round the anvils, 

 or close up the rivets of the engine boilers. It is 

 here that iron owns its remorseless conqueror in steel 

 and man's device. A small bolt descends upon an 

 iron sheet and punches out a hole the size of a 

 lozenge, while another half-inch sheet, which is held up 

 to the tender mercies of an adjacent huge instrument of 

 torture, is cut as calmly as a bit of brown paper. 

 "The coach house" is across the yard, and there 

 stand upwards of forty engines ready for going out, 



