222 Review of the Practical Tourist. 
workmen. The bars of iron are heaped up in his yards like piles 
of cord wood. A branch of a canal has been formed through the 
center of his premises, over which there is a bridge that is capa- 
ble, as it was stated to me, of being raised, for cant boats to pass 
beneath it, upon the principle of the hydrostatic paradox. The 
pressure is conveyed through tubes filled with water, and laid beneath 
the surface of the ground, to act on the movable pistons upon which 
the bridge rest; and when the forcing ae is put in motion, the 
bridge rises from the abutments as if by magic. 
In Sheffield the author confined his attention chiefly to the manu- 
facture of hard ware, in which, this place, with a population of sixty 
ie ‘thoupee persons, has become the rival of Birmingham. 
less interesting for any new practical information, 
nd ee the idea they give us of the’ seal of business carried on in 
Sheftie 
wi tet much gratification to a stranger to view the various pro- 
cesses in the manufacture of cutlery, whereby in some cases, a bar 
of rough iron, brought here from Sweden, is wrought, by the skilful 
labor of the artists, into articles more valuable than a bar of silver of 
the same weight. My first visit was to the extensive works for con- 
verting iron into cast steel, belonging to the Messr. Naylor & Sand- 
erson. Their brands are well known to the machinists of the Uni- 
ted States, as indicating the best qualities of cast steel sent from Eng- 
bout seven thousand pounds have been made here in one 
day. ‘The coal used for the works is of aselected quality; in some 
of the lumps of which the charred particles of the fibres of wood 
appeared distinctly visible, exactly resembling those perceptible in 
common charcoal. 
“ The first process in making the cast steel is to arrange bars 
of Swedish iron in a long narrow brick box or oven, about two and 
a half feet wide and three feet deep, and of a length sufficient to 
receive the longest bars. Between each layer of iron bars, pow- 
dered charcoal is sified and the top of this box is covered with a 
" Tayer of clay neatly five inches thick, to exclude the air and prevent 
the: powdered charcoal from being consumed by the heat, which is 
communicated to it through the lining of the brick work. ‘This 
brick box is enclosed ina regular furnace, in such a manner that the 
intense heat of the flames may circulate around it and gradually oe 
the bars of iron, covered up by the charcoal, to an intense glow, for 
about the period of a week ; after which the whole is cooled. If the 
