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If we follow the steel ingots or the steel bars to the 'rolling-mill,' we shall see the last process of the preparation of the material for its various applications. Again heated, it is passed through roller after roller, till it becomes either a circular or a flat rod,—a thick or a thin sheet. The most curious example of this process is the rolling of the thin steel required for the making of steel pens, which forms a most important article of business.

Some think that the business of the steel-converter | of steel is cool enough for the mould to be opened; and will in time become less empirical, and more dependent the process is repeated by the four workmen engaged upon exact laws. In the meantime the traditional in the operation, till crucible after crucible is emptied. skill of ages is here the regulator of labour. We pass on to the tilt-houses,' or 'shear-houses.' We behold a range of enormous hammers acting by mechanical movement upon correspondent anvils. The bars which have come from the 'converting furnace' have here to be 'sheared,' as the first process of heating and hammering them is termed. The hammers are surrounded by forges, in which portions of blistered bars, about a foot in length, are brought to a white heat. The great hammer, fixed at the end of a solid mass of wood bound with iron hoops, soon trebles the length of the bar. Six of these elongated bars are then fixed together, and again heated, with much. exactness. Under the shear-hammer are these pieces beaten on every side, till they become thoroughly welded-one mass, indeed, perfectly compact, and free from all flaws and blisters. The tilt-hammers' have a more rapid movement, and their continued action closes every pore that the heavy hammers may have left open. By these the bars are brought to the exact sizes that may be required for their ultimate uses.

But the best steel is 'cast' as well as hammered. The process is a very curious one. We first see the preparation of the crucibles, or melting-pots. Stourbridge clay, mixed with water and well kneaded, is spread out in a thin layer on the floor of a room. Human feet must tread this mass into proper consistency. When we see two men, with naked feet, trampling upon this soft adhesive mass, with a continuous motion up and down and from side to side,—when we observe the muscular development of their lower extremities, when we learn that this exercise proceeds hour after hour and day after day, for a life-long time, we ask ourselves, why man should be doomed to such monotonous and apparently low employment? We are informed that no machine can accomplish what the human foot thus does-that great care is essential in the work-that it is skilled labour-that the labourers are well paid. The clay thus prepared is moulded into crucibles, which are dried and stored for use. A constant succession of these melting-pots is necessary; for two or three castings destroy them. With this previous knowledge we proceed to the casting-room. We feel a considerable heat, but we see nothing except some circles of glowing light level with the floor and beside one of the walls. The workmen remove a lid. Instantly ascends from below a stream of heat. One of the men, whose legs are covered with wet sacking, hovers over the hole while he removes the coke, and then boldly lifts out a crucible full of melted steel, which he has grasped with long pincers. The whitehot mass weighs sixty pounds. The eye shrinks from the dazzling glare of the fiery lump. An ingot-mould stands ready; the crucible is lifted up to its mouth; the stream of white fire flows in; a shower of sparks, of a pale green, shoot up; the whole scene is beautiful amidst its apparent danger. In a short time the ingot

At the Sheaf-works the manufacture of steel articles is carried forward into many of its subdivisions, of tools (such as axes for the American market), files, and razors. A very curious and extensive branch has been also recently introduced--the manufacture of springs for railway-carriages.

File-making occupies a considerable portion of Sheffield skilled labour. This branch is carried on, upon the most extensive scale, at the Fitz-Alan Steel - works of Messrs. Marriott and Atkinson. But before we proceed to describe this very curious manufacture, which embodies as much manual skill as can be found in any business, we may vary our paper by a general view of the great divisions of handicraft employment at Sheffield. We derive the materials for this view from various passages and tables in an admirable book, written by a very able and benevolent physician, G. Calvert Holland, Esq., M.D., who in his "Vital Statistics of Sheffield " has investigated the various complicated questions which belong to the health of such a population, with the accuracy of a man of science and the good feeling of a real philanthropist. Dr. Holland's work was published in 1843.

There are four different branches in the File-tradeforgers, grinders, cutlers, and hardeners. The forgers and cutlers exhibit the peculiar character of the manufacture; the grinders and hardeners work in the same way that other grinders and hardeners work. There are engaged in the file-trade 1000 forgers and strokers, 1800 cutlers, 1400 boys, and 200 women. The workmen are employed entirely by the piece.

In the Edge-tool trade there are three branchesthe forgers, the grinders, and the hardeners. The number of forgers and strikers is about 800, and of boys 90. The work is done entirely by the piece. The occupation demands great physical power, but little ingenuity. Few of the workmen are educated; too many are of irregular habits. Dr. Holland, with reference to this fact, sensibly remarks, "Nature will not allow, to any great extent, an expenditure of energy in two different directions. The vigorous muscular exercise of the body must always be at the expense of the intellectual faculties."

The Saw-manufacture is divided into saw-making, saw-handle making, and saw-grinding. The sawmakers comprise about 200 men, 130 boys, and 30 women; the boys can all read and write; nineteen

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out of twenty men belong to sick-clubs. The sawhandle makers are about 220 men and 200 boys; they work by the piece. The saw-grinders amount to 120 men, with 100 apprentices. This branch of business is generally healthy; the labour not too severe. The saw-grinders are a fine athletic class: "The wheels in which they work," says Dr. Holland, "are mostly propelled by water, being placed upon the streams, in the exquisitely beautiful situations within a few miles of the town; consequently the artizans are liable to numerous interruptions, either from too much or too little water. The frequency of these interruptions has led many of them to add to this employment the cultivation of the soil." They are, however, peculiarly liable to accidents from the breaking of the grindingstones, and from becoming entangled in the machinery. The Spring-Knife manufacturers form the largest class of Sheffield artizans. They are divided into springknife hafters, about 2000; scale and spring forgers, 250; blade-forgers, 400; pocket-blade-grinders, 150; penblade-grinders, 300; which divisions, with 150 various workmen, and 600 apprentices, make up a total of 4000. Not more than half the adults, and three-fifths of the boys can read. They marry very early. Except in the finer branches, the wages are low. The supply of labour is superabundant; and the trade becomes overstocked, from the ease with which men can manufacture on their own account,- -a few pounds enabling the cutler to commence operations. In times of commercial depression they are the first to suffer. The stream of poor and uneducated workmen is constantly kept full by the facilities offered by the nature of the trade for the too early employment of children.

The Table-Knife manufacturers are not so large a class as the preceding. They are divided into tableblade forgers, table-blade strikers, table-blade grinders, and table-blade cutlers, (those who finish the work). We have no accurate return of their numbers, but it appears, from a return of classes receiving parochial relief at a period of great difficulty, to be about onehalf of the spring-knife manufacturers.

The Fork-makers comprise amongst their comparatively small numbers a class marked out for unhappiness. The fork-grinders are what are technically called dry-grinders. There are dry-grinders in other branches; but the fork-grinders, especially, are dedicated to the suffering and premature death of this most unwholesome of employments. The wetgrinders work on the larger articles-such as scythes, saws, and edge-tools: the dry-grinders upon the smaller articles of cutlery; to some of which, however, the wetstone is applied. The dry-stone grinds more rapidly than the wet; and thus, in the majority of wares the dry-stone is first used after the blade comes from the forger. The wet-stone is subsequently used to a great extent in the finish of these articles. But the forkgrinder always works upon a dry stone. Eight or ten men and boys work in the same room; the dust of the stone and metal rises in clouds; it is inhaled by the unfortunate victims; and a permanent disease of the

lungs is produced, which wastes the animal frame, and terminates life before half the natural years of the man are run out. Dr. Holland's statistics of fork-grinding are most appalling. Between 20 and 29 years of age the proportion of 1000 deaths, in the kingdom generally, is 160; among the fork-grinders it is 475. Between the ages of 30 and 39, in the kingdom generally, the proportion of deaths in 1000, is 136; of the forkgrinders the proportion is 410. All the dry-grinders have much shorter lives than the other artizans of Sheffield; and the evil has been increased of late years by the tendency to carry on all manufactures upon economical principles. The superior power of steam, as compared with water, has packed the grinders in large buildings within the town, divided into many rooms. The more expeditious process has superseded the wet-grinding to a considerable extent. Surely some remedy is at hand for the correction of this frightful evil. The magnetic mouth-piece, invented by the late Mr. Abraham, is scarcely used, and, indeed, is not thoroughly efficient. Dr. Holland, in another valuable work, "The Diseases of the Lungs from Mechanical Causes," has described an apparatus which is partially in use, and which is perfectly efficient in removing all gritty and metallic particles from the rooms in which dry-grinding is carried on. A few of the more intelligent grinders, he says, have put up an imperfect apparatus of the same kind; but he adds, "the plan, however, will never be generally adopted, or in any degree steadily maintained, unless enforced by special legislative enactments."

The remaining branches of Sheffield cutlery are the razor-makers and the scissor-makers. These are numerous. Fender-makers and comb-makers also form a large class of mechanics. The plate manufacture, which we shall presently have briefly to describe, employs about 400 workmen, all of whom are, more or less, skilled artizans.

Let us return to the establishment of Messrs. Marriott and Atkinson, for the purpose of noticing one or two of the peculiarities of file-making. First, there is the forging process. Upon steel anvils is the bar of steel hammered into the form of a file. Whether flat or triangular, or with a round side and a flat side, large or small, the general shape of the instrument is given by the hammer, with the aid of anvils of various shapes and curvatures. Secondly, there is the annealing process, by which the steel is softened in a furnace, so as to be cut with facility. Then succeeds the most curious manipulation in the whole circle of our arts. In a long room we see a number of file-cutters ranged under the windows, each having a bench before him. He has a sharp tool in his left hand, and a hammer in his right. The hammers are peculiarly shaped, so that, in making the blow upon the piece of steel, the indentation becomes an undercut tooth-a sort of triangular groove. By an imperceptible motion of his tool, another notch is cut, and another and another, till the whole surface is covered, with the most wonderful precision, with notches, frequently as numerous as a hundred to an

inch. There is no guide or gauge to determine the parallelism: it is the result of the dexterity acquired by long years of devotion to a single object. In a round file the curvature is followed by a series of narrow indentations; and yet their union is perfect. No machinery has been able to effect this. One reason of this want of success in a machine, is the uniformity of its operation. The steel varies in hardness; where it is soft, the machine would make a deeper cut than where it is hard. The practised file-cutter knows the difference, and proportions his blow accordingly. The hardening of the file, when cut, completes the material part of the process.

For the numerous manipulations connected with the finer branches of Sheffield cutlery, the establishment of Messrs. Rodgers and Sons presents a wonderful variety. In their splendid warerooms may be seen the beautiful toys of cutlery—such as knives with two hundred blades, and scissors with which Queen Mab might cut the cobweb traces of her chariot. In their workshops may be viewed the progress of a penknife, from the forging of its tiny blade, to the studding of its ivory handle with silver-headed rivets. Every laboursaving contrivance is here called into action; and when it is observed how constantly one workman is employed in one operation, and how rapidly, with his wheels and circular saws, and lathes, he fashions the rude material into some well-shaped portion of a cutting instrumentand how, by a succession of labours, the several parts are fitted, and made finally to take a form of finished usefulness and beauty,-we learn what is the chief cause of the cheapness of English cutlery, and why it maintains a superiority in every market of the world.

The Sheffield Plate manufactory of Mr. Wilkinson furnishes an interesting combination of the various processes by which this long-celebrated branch of the arts has attained its present perfection. It is nearly a century ago since an ingenious mechanic of Sheffield conceived the plan of uniting silver and copper by plating; and the idea was carried further by a Sheffield manufacturer, in its application to candlesticks, teapots, waiters, and other articles that were previously made wholly of silver. The French method of silvering, by leaves laid on hot metal, was thus superseded. Upon an ingot of mixed metal is laid a silver sheet, about one-fortieth part of the whole thickness; they are firmly soldered together; rolled out into thin sheets; and brought into a variety of beautiful forms by stamping, punching, hammering, and turning. Sheffield also invented the "silver edges," which have added so much to the durability of its plated goods. It is evident that much artistic skill is required in some departments of this branch of industry; and that the designers, modellers, die-sinkers, and chasers, must go forward with that general improvement of taste which has been slowly making its way into English manufactures, and which ought to be their distinguishing characteristic.

Let us now leave the smoky town, and finish our imperfect view of the manufactures of Sheffield, by a glance at the grinding-wheels of the neighbouring valleys,

to which we have already ulluded. These wheels are to be found on the Sheaf and the Don, with the tributary streams of the Rivelin, the Loxley, and the Eden :

"Five rivers, like the fingers of a hand,

Flung from black mountains, mingle, and are one
Where sweetest valleys quit the wild and grand."

The low buildings are let off to different grinders, each of whom has a trough, as it is called, where a grindingstone is fixed: or he rents several troughs, and employs apprentices. He is a small independent master. The buildings are most picturesque in their forms, and in their surrounding scenery. One of these wheels is the scene of some passages in a very interesting little book for young persons, written by an old inhabitant of Sheffield, distinguished in many ways, but, above all, for his indefatigable exertions in the endeavour to better the condition of his humbler townsmen. We venture to quote a long passage from Mr. Roberts's "Tom and Charles; or, the Two Grinders," because we know that our hasty view of a mountain-stream grinding-wheel would necessarily lead to a very inferior description of its peculiarities:

"The stream on which this wheel was situated is called the Rivelin,-a beautiful, clear, trout stream falling rapidly down a deep rocky channel, which winds through a narrow, retired, well-wooded vale. The steep sides of this glen are in summer finely diversified with light verdant foliage, grotesque rocks, and bleak uncultivated open ground, thickly clothed with the purple heath, the yellow furze, and green fern, among which lie scattered many rude-shapen mossgrown stones; the alder, the weeping birch, and the graceful ash often unite their branches from the opposite banks of the stream, forming a light natural arch, of delicate trellis-work, through which the rays of the vertical sun sparkle on the clear rippling waters beneath. Within the distance of a few hundred yards of each other, all down the stream, are situated many of the wheels before described. Attached to each of them, and almost on a level with their roofs, are the dams, the irregular shape of whose bush, furze, and rush-grown banks gives them the appearance, when viewed from above, of small natural lakes; these pellucid sheltered waters, rarely ruffled by the breeze, reflect, with soft and harmonized tints, the opposite woods and mountains. The wheels themselves, as well as their accompanying figures, are highly picturesque. The ground about them is generally rugged and richly variegated; the yellow tint, which is always spread in a greater or lesser degree over every object around, harmonizes and warms the whole-forming, at the same time, a beautiful contrast with the varied green foliage on either side. The mountains, up the stream, continue to increase in height and rude sterility, till they look down westward upon the towering Tor of the Peak of Derbyshire. The perpetual sound of the rushing waters, as they flow from the revolving wheels, dash down the falls from the dams, with the faintly heard monotonous hum and noise of the works and workmen within, producing a lulling and pleasing

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