468 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



enabled to surpass tlie rest of the world in the rapidity of construction, and 

 the beauty and executive power of our rifled musket. 



When the several parts are finished, they are taken to an apartment in 

 the arsenal to be put together. This operation is called assembling the 

 musket. There are a large number of workmen whose occupations are 

 confined to the putting together of the various parts of the musket — each 

 one having some distinct part to attend to. Thus, one man puts the vari- 

 ous parts of the lock together, while another screws the lock into the stock. 

 Another is occupied in putting on the bayonet, and so on. Each workman 

 has the parts upon which he is employed before him on his bench, arranged 

 in compartments, in regular order, and puts them together with marvellous 

 dexterity. The component parts of the musket are all made according to 

 one exact pattern, and thus, when taken up at random, are sure to come 

 properly together. There is no special fitting required in each individual 

 case. An}^ barrel will fit any stock, and a screw designed for a particular 

 plate or band will enter the proper hole in any plate or band of a hundred 

 thousand. Tliere are many advantages resulting from this exact confor- 

 mity to an established pattern in the components of the musket, such as 

 greater facility and economy in manufacturing them, and greater conve- 

 nience in service — spare screws, locks, bauds, springs, etc., being easily 

 furnished in quantities, and sent to any part of the country where needed, 

 BO that, when any part of a soldier's gun becomes injured or broken, its 

 place can be immediately supplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as 

 perfectly into the vacancy as the original occupant. Each soldier to whom 

 a musket is served, is provided also with a little tool, which, though very 

 simple in its construction, enables him to separate his gun into its forty- 

 seven parts with the greatest facility. 



The most costly of the various parts of the musket is the barrel, which, 

 when completed, is estimated at three dollars. From this the parts descend 

 gradually to a little wire called the ramrod-spring wire, the value of which 

 is only one mill. 



A complete percussion musket^^ weighs within a small fraction of ten 

 pounds. 



Besides the finished muskets fabricated here, there are many parts of 

 foreign arms duplicated at these works, for the use of our armies in the 

 field — the most numerous of which are parts for the Enfield rifle, and for a 

 German musket manufactured from machinery made after our patterns and 

 models. 



In the arsenal there is a case of foreign arms, containing specimens from 

 nearly every nation in Europe. None among them, however, equal our 

 own in style or finish, while all of them — excepting the Enfield rifle — are 

 very inferior in every respect. The French arm comes next to the English 

 in point of excellence, while the Austrian is the poorest of all. 



There are three steam engines in operation at the works on the hill, one 

 connected with the stocking department, and two with the other operations 

 carried on here. 



Twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of oil is used yearly in lubricating 

 the machinery, and the various pieces of iron and steel, as they are being 

 turned, bored, milled, broached, etc 



