508 heport— 1881. 



improvements wliicli he then invented are almost universally in use in 

 bridge-constrnction at the present day. Cylinders sunk by the aid of 

 compressed air, ' air-locks ' to obtain access to the cylinders, and, in fact, 

 every means that I know as having been used in the modern sinking of 

 cylinder foundations, were described by Lord Cochrane (afterwards Earl 

 of Dandonald) in that specification. 



The next subject I propose to touch upon is that of Machine Tools. 

 The mention of lathes, drilling machines, and screwing machines brings 

 me very nearly to the end of the list of the machine tools used by tur- 

 ners and fitters in 1831, and at that time many of the lathes were 

 without slide-rests. The boiler-maker had then his punching press 

 and shearing-machine ; the smith, leaving on one side his forges and the 

 bellows, had nothing but hand tools, and the limit of these was a huge 

 hammer with two handles, requiring two men to work it. In anchor 

 manufacture, it is true, a mechanical drop-hammer, known as a Hercules, 

 was employed ; while in ironworks the Helve and the Tilt hammer were 

 in use. For ordinary smith's-work, however, there were, as has been said, 

 practically no machine tools at all. 



This paucity, or indeed, absence in some trades, as we have seen, of 

 machine tools, involved the need of very considerable skill on the part of 

 the workman. It required the smith to be a man not only of great mus- 

 cular power, but to be possessed of an accurate eye and a correct judg- 

 ment, in order to produce the forgings which were demanded of him, 

 and to make the sound work that was needed, especially when that sound- 

 ness was required in shafts and in other pieces which in those days were 

 looked upon as of magnitude, as, indeed, they were relatively to the 

 tools which could be brought to operate upon them. The boiler-maker 

 in his work had to trust almost entirely to the eye for correctness of 

 form and for regularity of piinching, while all parts of engines and 

 machines which could not be dealt with in the lathe, in the drilling, or 

 in the screwing machine, had to be prepared by the use of the chisel 

 and the file. 



At the present day the turning and fitting shops are furnished 

 not only with the slide-lathe, self-acting in both directions, and screw- 

 cutting, the drilling machine, and the screwing machine, but with 

 planing machines competent to plane horizontally, vertically, or at an 

 angle ; shaping machines, rapidly reciprocating and dealing with almost 

 any form of work ; nut-shaping machines ; slot-drilling machines, and 

 slotting machines ; while the drills have become multiple and radial, and 

 the accuracy of the work is ensured by testing on large surface-plates, 

 and by the employment of Whitworth internal and external standard 

 gauges. 



The boiler-maker's tools now comprise the steam, compressed air, 

 hydraulic, or other mechanical riveter ; rolls for the iDcnding of plates, 

 while cold, into the needed cylindrical or conical forms ; multiple drills 

 for the drilling of rivet-holes ; planing machines to plane the edges of 

 the plates ; ingenious apparatus for flanging them, thereby dispensing 

 with one row of rivets out of two ; and roller-expanders for expanding 

 the tubes in locomotive and in marine boilers ; while the punching press, 

 where still used, is improved so as to make the holes for seams of rivets 

 in a perfect line and with absolute accuracy of pitch. 



With respect to the smith's shop, all large pieces of work are now 

 manipulated under heavy Nasmyth or other steam-hammers ; while 



