tall, then broader, so broad that the power of the press would not be 

 enough to flatten it over all its surface. Other measures are resorted to : 

 the action of a great horizontal steel bar, attached to the face of the ram, 

 which rises and descends, pressing the block at each descent, while 

 this turns during each rise of the ram. The whole surface is thus 

 crushed bit by bit and the piece takes the shape of a ship's biscuit 

 I G ft. in diameter. Its thickness, passing from the centre to the rims, 

 goes from about 1 1 -So in. to 4-70 in. 



The spectacle is impressive. All this work does not seem to require 

 any human effort. We scarcely see even the foreman, who, without 

 saying a word, with a few gestures of his hand, or even with a finger, 

 directs his gang: every man is always in the right place at the right 

 time carrying out the action required. Of a blinding white, the block 

 gives out an intense heat and the men have to have masks for their 

 faces. 



This flat biscuit must now be given a hemispherical form. Under 

 the press they place upon four blocks a steel ring of an internal 

 diameter of 7 ft. 5 in. The incandescent disc is placed upon it. A massive 

 hemispherical die of a diameter of 6 ft. 2-8 in., carried by the ram, 

 comes down slowly, touches the middle of the disc and, continuing 

 on its way, forces it through the ring : from being a saucer it becomes 

 a bowl. At the same time, by means of a stream of water, the bowl 

 is cooled, so that the effect of deformation is concentrated on the 

 other parts. Once the whole disc has passed through the ring, the 

 entire piece falls upon the bed of the press. 



This last phase represents the most delicate and most impressive 

 operation of the whole manufacture. The directors of the mills, the 

 engineers and the workmen who are momentarily free have come to 

 watch; it isn't every day, even at Terni, that a piece of work as large 

 and at the same time as delicate is to be seen. 



The work of the forging shop is finished. Each hemisphere has a 

 weight of IO-8 tons, of which more than half will be removed by 

 machining on the lathe. But it will first undergo a heat treatment which 

 will give it the degree of hardness required and the necessary homo- 

 geneity and which will above all eliminate the internal stresses induced 

 by forging. 



The piece then goes back to the furnace, where it reaches a certain 

 fixed temperature, its colour ranging through the dull reds and uni- 

 formly distributed. It is then slowly immersed in a bath of hot oil, after 



[85] 



