180 Transactions of the Amebic an Institute. 



Adriatic (Collins's steamer) of sixty-five tons, cast at the Novelty 

 Works ten years ago, or those frequently made at other shops. Tlie 

 casting of the former could he protracted through two days, the latter 

 had to he cast in as many liours, or they would have hcen ruined. 

 Ten years ago Mr. Allen cast and hored a steam cylinder of sixty-four 

 square feet area, in which he gave a dinner party, and seated twenty- 

 four persons. I have recently examined some of the largest " tools," 

 as they are technically called, in the great workshops of the countrj^ 

 and have received from the proprietors statements of their dimensions 

 and capabilities. Although my business requires me to study this 

 part of the profession, I confess that I cannot keep up with tho 

 constantly increasing proportions of these leviathan tools. Two year* 

 ago I examined the largest lathe in England (Forrester's at Liverpool), 

 which swings twenty-tAvo feet, and will take in a shaft of forty-five 

 feet length. Six months ago I saw one at Corliss's, at Providence, 

 which swings thirty feet, and will take in a shaft of fifty feet. In the 

 former was turned off the main shaft of the Great Eastern, which 

 weighs twenty-two tons. The shafts of the Bristol and Providence 

 (Sound steamers) also each weigh twenty-two tons, and those of the 

 China steamers Japan and Great Republic weigh thirty-three and 

 thirty-four tons, and they were turned off in American lathes. Corliss 

 has recently cast pulley fly-wheels of thirty feet diameter and nine 

 feet face, weighing fifty-six tons, and turned them ofi* in his large 

 lathe, and he is now finishing ofi' a spur-wheel of the same diameter, 

 weighing forty-five tons, and cutting on the face by machinery, cogs 

 of twenty-four inches face and five and a quarter pitch. During the 

 war he turned ofi" twenty-five brass turret plates for our monitors, of 

 twenty-five and a half feet diameter — having at that time the only 

 lathe in this or any other country in which they could be turned. 

 He has a planer which planes iron of fifty feet length, and others of ten 

 feet height or width. At the Boston Navy Yard, is a machine, just 

 set up, which will plane a piece of iron sixteen feet long, eighteen 

 feet wide, or fourteen feet high. At the Morgan Works there is one 

 of these machines that will plane twenty-seven feet long, fourteen 

 feet wide, or twelve feet high, and a slotting machine that will 

 cut a face of eight feet diameter, and seven feet high. There 

 is also a boring mill at this shop which will finish '6fi' a cylinder 

 of 130 inches diameter and eighteen feet stroke. These planers 

 and slotters cut ofi" shavings in iron of two and one-half inches 

 width and nearly a quarter thick, and some of them are arranged 



