HHM 
 
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 Ex Libris 
 [ C. K. OGDEN <
 
 HOW COMMON THINGS AEE MADE.
 
 A PEEP INTO A COAL MINE. 
 
 How Common Tilings are Made. \ 
 
 \_Frontispiece.
 
 Jiow Common 
 
 are 
 Made. 
 
 By 
 W. A. ATKINSON. 
 
 Jofa 7. S6aw $ @o., 
 
 k8, Paternoster Slow, 
 
 Isondon.
 
 UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUMB. 
 
 THE BOYHOOD OF GREAT INVENTORS ... A. FRASER ROBERTSON 
 
 TWILIGHT STORIES CATHARINE SHAW. 
 
 FOR LOVE AND DUTY FRANK SAVILLE. 
 
 THE BOYS OF ALL SAINTS MABEL MACKINTOSH 
 
 DARING DEEDS FRANK SAVILLE. 
 
 MIDSHIPMITE CURLY DR. GORDON STABLES 
 
 THE DOG CRUSOE R. M. BALLANTYNE. 
 
 THE SWORD OF THE CAREWS DUNCAN MCLAREN. 
 
 THE NUGGET FINDERS H. ALGER. 
 
 ROBIN HOOD & HIS BRAVE FORESTERS... S. PERCY. 
 
 MARTIN RATTLER R. M. BALLANTYNB. 
 
 THE KING'S MESSENGER L. MARSTON. 
 
 FOUR, AND WHAT THEY DID ... ... ... H. CAMPBELL. 
 
 FOR WANT OF A WORD ... M. MACKINTOSH. 
 
 FOR ELSIE'S SAKE m J. CHAPPBLL. 
 
 CURLEY'S CRYSTAL EMMA MARSHALL. 
 
 IN SHADOWLAND E. EVERETT-GREEN. 
 
 ROB AND MAG L. MARSTON. 
 
 THAT BOY TOM ISMAY THORN. 
 
 TIM'S TREASURE ALICE LANS. 
 
 LITTLE BOOTS T. HARRISON. 
 
 CLEMENT AND GEORDIE EMMA MARSHALL. 
 
 GOLD THAT GLITTERS ... E. S. HOLT. 
 
 PETER'S PROMISES EMMA MARSHALL. 
 
 MOLLIE WYNTER M. MACKINTOSH. 
 
 THE SLAVE GIRL OF POMPEII E. S. HOLT. 
 
 MISS PRIMROSE AGNES GIBERNK. 
 
 MAB'S BURDENS . E. BODDY. 
 
 BESIDE ALL WATERS M. L. ASTREE. 
 
 WATCHING FOR THE KING L. MARSTON. 
 
 NAN, THE CIRCUS GIRL FRANCES STRATTKM. 
 
 HOW THE TIDE TURNED S. WATSON 
 
 A BROTHER'S RANSOM ALICE LANG. 
 
 LITTLE EYEBRIGHT AGNES GIBERNE. 
 
 EMMA MARSHALL. 
 
 MABEL MACKINTOSH 
 
 E. CHAPMAN. 
 
 M. ... S. WATSON. 
 
 EMMA MARSHALL. 
 
 m ... L. MARSTON. 
 
 ... ... BRENDA. 
 
 A LITTLE CURIOSITY 
 
 MADCAP MARIGOLD 
 
 THE GOLDEN PAVEMENT... 
 A WAIF OF THE WAVES ... 
 CHRISTOPHER'S NEW HOME 
 
 HIRA*$ QUEST 
 
 FROGGY'S LITTLE BROTHER 
 
 LONDON: JOHN F. SHAW & CO., 
 48, PATERNOSTER Row, E.G. 
 
 889
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 How POTS ARE MADE - 9 
 
 How KOPES-ARE MADE - 13 
 
 How LIME is MADE - 21 
 
 How BOTTLES ABE MADE - 26 
 
 How IRON is MADE - 32 
 
 How BRICKS ARE MADE - 38 
 
 How IRON BODS ARE MADE - -44 
 
 How PAPER is MADE - - 51 
 
 How LOOKING GLASSES ARE MADE - 57 
 
 How THREAD is MADE - 63 
 
 How STEEL is MADE - - 70 
 
 How BUILDING STONES ARE MADE - 77 
 
 How SALT is MADE - - 84 
 
 How COAL is OBTAINED - 90 
 
 How FLOUR is MADE - - 97 
 
 How A STAINED GLASS WINDOW is MADE - 103 
 
 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE - - 109 
 
 How SUGAR is MADE - - 116 
 
 How CANDLES ARE MADE - 123 
 
 How CLOTH is MADE - - 129 
 
 How COAL GAS is MADE - 135 
 
 How WIRE is MADE - - 142 
 
 How A COIN is MADE - - 149 
 
 How EXPLOSIVES ARE MADE - - 155 
 
 1062263
 
 HOW POTS ABE MADE. 
 
 D you ever see a potter at work ? It 
 is really a most interesting sight. He 
 sits at a little round table, scarcely larger 
 than a plate, which is spinning like a top. 
 He throws a little lump of wet clay in the 
 centre of it, and rounds the lump with the 
 palms of his hands. Then he sticks his 
 thumbs into the middle of it, as it is whirling 
 round, hollows out the centre, and draws up 
 the sides of the clay with his fingers. A. cup 
 seems to grow from the table as if by magic, 
 yet it is all done by the skill of the potter's 
 hands. In a few seconds it is shaped, and 
 then it is measured in order to make sure 
 that it is the same size as the other cups 
 which are to make up the tea-set. If the 
 potter is satisfied with it, he stops the 
 spinning of his table, or " wheel," as it is 
 usually called, and cuts away the cup from 
 the top of it with a wire in place of a knife. 
 A boy takes the cup away, and the potter 
 starts his wheel once more, and fashions
 
 10 HOW POTS ARE MADE. 
 
 another cup upon it. So he goes on all day 
 long, making cup after cup. 
 
 The cup, as it leaves the potter's wheel, 
 has no handle upon it. That is made separ- 
 ately, and put on afterwards. The handles 
 are made by pressing the clay into moulds. 
 If you took a handle broken off from a cup, 
 pressed it between two pieces of soft clay, 
 and afterwards separated these pieces again, 
 you would have upon each the impression ot 
 the handle. If you made each of these pieces 
 of clay hard, by baking them, for instance, 
 you would have two halves of a mould, 
 with which you could make other handles, 
 by pressing new soft clay between them, and 
 taking it out again when it had received the 
 impression of the mould. It is in this way 
 that the potter makes his handles, only his 
 moulds are made of plaster. When the 
 handle is taken out, it is fastened on to the 
 cup by dipping the ends into very watery 
 clay, called " slip," and applying them to the 
 cup. The cup and the handle have both been 
 dried, and the dry clay absorbs the water of 
 the slip so quickly, that the handle sticks in 
 a minute or two, and the cup may be lifted 
 by it. 
 
 The cup is now its proper shape, but it is 
 only clay still, and if you were to use it, it 
 would lose its shape, and become as it was
 
 HOW POTS ABE MADE. 11 
 
 before the potter made it. To make it hard 
 and fit for use, it must be baked. The baking 
 is done in an oven shaped like a bee-hive and 
 as large as a room. This oven, with every- 
 thing in it, is made white-hot by a number 
 of fires placed around it, and the heating and 
 cooling of it will occupy altogether three 
 or four days. The cups, saucers, plates, and 
 other articles which are being baked are en- 
 closed in fire-clay boxes to protect them from 
 dust, soot, and smoke. When the cup comes 
 out of the furnace, it is no longer clay, but 
 pot or porcelain, according to the materials 
 of which it was made. 
 
 If you look at the teacups which you use, 
 you will find that they are bright and glossy. 
 Our teacup which has just come from the 
 oven is not like that. It is dull arid grey. 
 In order to be made like those in use it must 
 have a glaze put on it. Now a glaze is really 
 a glass put thinly over the whole of the cup 
 or other article which is glazed. As glass is 
 hard, smooth, and glossy, it gives these quali- 
 ties to the pottery which it covers. It is put 
 on in a rather roundabout way. The potter 
 knows that there are certain kinds of earth 
 or stone which, when heated to a great 
 temperature, turn to glass. He contrives to 
 grind them very small and mix them with 
 water. Into this liquid he dips the cup
 
 12 HOW POTS ABE MADE. 
 
 which is to be glazed. The baked pot sucks 
 up the water, and the little particles of 
 glazing- stone are left sticking all over it. 
 The cup is once more placed in an oven and 
 baked. The great heat melts the particles 
 of stone into glaze, which runs all over the 
 surface of the cup, and, when the cup is 
 allowed to cool, sets like glass. 
 
 This is the way in which plain cups are 
 made, and the process is nearly the same for 
 common plates, saucers, and basins. But 
 those which are ornamented in any way give 
 much more trouble. As a rule ornamented 
 objects are moulded in pieces, and afterwards 
 stuck together by " slip," as the handles are 
 made and fastened on to the cup. They may 
 have to be baked in the oven, not once only, 
 but many times. So, too, those which are 
 painted or gilded have to be baked many 
 times, because the colours or the gold are put 
 on as a liquid, like the glaze, and are fixed 
 by heating in the oven. These colours and 
 gilt, as the painter puts them on, are not at* 
 all like what they will be when the article is 
 burnt. 
 
 One change which a piece of pottery under- 
 goes in the oven is very striking. It shrinks 
 up, and comes out much smaller than it was 
 when put in. The potter knows all about 
 this, and he makes everything larger than it
 
 HOW POTS ARE MADE. 13 
 
 is required to be when finished. Great care 
 has to be taken to prevent each thing shrink- 
 ing in a crooked way. Still this does some- 
 times take place, and then the object is 
 spoiled, and has to be thrown away or ground 
 up and made into clay again. 
 
 There are many other processes used in 
 the great works where pottery and porcelain 
 are made, which you would, no doubt, like to 
 have described to you. But it would, perhaps, 
 be difficult to make them quite plain to you. 
 If you understand so much as this you will 
 have a good idea of the way in which the 
 potter does his work, and you will be, I am 
 sure, sufficiently interested to take the first 
 opportunity of peeping into one of the works 
 where such useful and beautiful things are 
 made at the cost of so much skill and patience.
 
 HOW EOPES ARE MADE. 
 
 OPES and twine of all sizes are made of 
 hemp. This hemp is nothing but the 
 fibres of the bark of a plant, which is also 
 called the hemp. The plant which is a kind 
 of nettle, is cultivated in fields for the sake 
 of its bark. When full-grown it is plucked 
 up by the roots, steeped in water for a 
 time, and spread to dry in the sun. When 
 thoroughly dry it is broken by beating it, 
 and the broken wood is stripped away from 
 the bark by means of wooden blades. After 
 much labour has been spent upon it, the bark 
 of the hemp-plant is changed into long, 
 coarse threads, and is ready for the rope- 
 maker. 
 
 Rope-making, like brick-making, is one of 
 those industries which is still sometimes car- 
 ried on in the open-air, or under an open 
 shed. The ground set apart for rope-makng 
 is called a rope- walk, because the rope-maker 
 walks to and fro while he is at work. The 
 rope-walk is generally narrow, but it is al-
 
 HOW POTS ARE MADE. 16 
 
 ways rather long, being sometimes four 
 hundred yards or more in length. Some 
 walks have only a small shed at one end, 
 while others are covered throughout their 
 length, so that the rope-makers and the 
 ropes may be protected from the wet. Those 
 which are open are often sheltered by rows 
 of trees, or by high edges down each side, 
 and are like a long, straight lane, sheltered 
 by trees or hedges. 
 
 At one end of the rope-walk, under the 
 cover of the shed, there is a spinning wheel. 
 This is a large wheel, set in a kind of frame 
 to support it. In the same frame are several 
 smaller wheels, about the size of bobbins, so 
 arranged that when the large wheel is turned 
 round, they also are made to turn by it, but 
 at a very much greater speed. Upon the 
 end of each little bobbin, or whirl, as it is 
 sometimes called, there is a hook which turns 
 with the bobbin. The spinning wheel is so 
 arranged that all the hooks point down the 
 rope-walk. 
 
 Two men must work together to make each 
 length of cord or twine. One sits at the 
 spinning-wheel, and turns it by means of a 
 handle, while the other forms the rope. The 
 latter has a bundle of hemp wrapped loosely 
 round his waist, so that he may easily draw 
 out a few threads at a time. Pulling a few
 
 16 HOW ROPES ABE MADE. 
 
 out with his fingers, he twists them together 
 and makes a short length of string without 
 tearing the threads away from the bundle. 
 Before his companion begins to turn the 
 spinning-wheel, he ties the end of this short 
 piece of string to the hook of one of the 
 whirls. 
 
 When it is made fast, the spinner at 
 the wheel turns the handle, and the little 
 whirl and its hook spin round rapidly, and 
 twist the little piece of string very tightly. 
 Meanwhile the rope-maker with the hemp 
 round his waist begins to walk backward 
 along the rope-walk. As he goes, the cord, 
 which is already twisted and fastened to the 
 hook, pulls out more hemp from the bundle, 
 and twists it into a longer and longer cord. 
 The rope-maker holds up the cord with his 
 left hand, which is protected by a piece of 
 cloth, and helps to draw out the hemp from 
 the bundle with his right hand. He is very 
 careful to draw it out evenly, so that no part 
 of the cord may receive more hemp than 
 another, and thus become thicker ; and as 
 the threads of hemp pass through his left 
 hand, he presses them straight and even, so 
 that they twist into a neat cord. 
 
 The rope-maker continues to walk back- 
 wards, adding more hemp to the string, until 
 he reaches the other end of the rope-walk,
 
 HOW ROPES ARE MADE. 17 
 
 when he calls to the spinner to stop the 
 wheel. The spinner or another man takes 
 the twisted cord from its hook, and either 
 lays it aside or winds it on a reel. In wind- 
 ing, he wraps the end of the cord round the 
 reel, and keeps on turning the reel, as the 
 rope-maker, who has hold of the other end 
 of the cord, walks towards him. The latter 
 is careful to keep the cord tight, so that it 
 may not untwist. When it is all wound on 
 the reel, the rope-maker cuts off the string 
 from his waist, and begins again at the 
 spinning-wheel to make another length like 
 the first. If the cord is not wound on a reel, 
 it is laid aside upon hooks attached to posts 
 by the side of the rope-walk ; and other cords 
 are added as they are made, until there is a 
 large bundle or skein. In many rope-walks 
 the posts are shaped like the letter T, and 
 long nails are driven into the top of them, 
 and left standing up like the teeth of a rake. 
 As the lengths of cord are made, they are 
 laid aside on the top of these posts, each cord 
 between a different pair of nails, in order to 
 keep them separate. 
 
 A thick cord is made of smaller cords 
 twisted together, and ropes of all sizes, even 
 to the great ones used by ships, are made 
 from smaller ones in the same way. But 
 there are one or two little things which need
 
 18 HOW ROPES ARE MADE. 
 
 to be explained in the twisting of small cords 
 together in order to make large ones, so we 
 will watch the workman carry his rope-mak- 
 ing a little further. Suppose that he has 
 made three strings all alike, and laid them 
 aside upon the tops of his T-shaped posts. 
 He wishes now to twist these three strings 
 together, in order to make a thicker cord. 
 It is easy to see that if he fastened them all 
 to one hook of his spinning-wheel, he could 
 twist them together in very nearly the same 
 way that he twists the hemp threads together. 
 But he does not do this. He fastens each 
 string to a separate hook of the spinning- 
 wheel, while at the other end they are all 
 joined to one hook, which is loosely attached 
 to a sort of sledge, in such a way that it may 
 turn round. As the spinning-wheel goes 
 round, each string is twisted by its own hook, 
 and it is, at first sight, rather difficult to see 
 how they can all be twisted round each other 
 in this way. But each string as it goes 
 round is turning the hook on the sledge at 
 the other end of the rope-walk ; and as all 
 the strings are attached to this hook, it, as 
 it goes round, twists them all together. As 
 the strings twist round each other they 
 shorten, and the sledge is pulled towards the 
 spinning-wheel. It is weighted by the rope- 
 maker so that it may not be drawn up too
 
 HOW ROPES AEE MADE. 19 
 
 quickly, and so that the strings may be 
 twisted tightly. 
 
 But, besides being twisted tightly, the 
 cord must be twisted evenly. If there were 
 nothing between the sledge and the spinning- 
 wheel, the cord might twist tightly in one 
 place and be rather loose in another. The 
 rope-maker prevents this by means of a piece 
 of wood, which he calls a top. It is rather 
 like a large bottle-cork in shape, but it has 
 three grooves cut along its sides. The rope- 
 maker, starting at the sledge end of the 
 walk, puts his top between the strings, allow- 
 ing each string to lie in one groove. As the 
 spinner turns his wheel, the rope-maker 
 walks slowly towards him, drawing his top 
 along as he goes. In front of him each of 
 the strings is separated by the top, and is 
 twisting alone ; behind the top the strings 
 are all joined to one hook, and are twisting 
 together. The rope-maker, by moving his 
 top quickly or slowly, can regulate the twist- 
 ing of the rope, and make it even from end 
 to end. 
 
 This is the simplest way of making twine, 
 cords, and ropes. Nearly every rope-walk 
 has some sort of rude machine for making 
 the work easier, or for performing it more 
 quickly. But I have purposely described 
 the simplest way of making ropes, because
 
 HOW ROPES ARE MADE. 
 
 it shows us all that is really necessary for 
 the work. If you understand this, you will 
 soon understand any machine which helps in 
 the work ; for machines only copy the work 
 that is done by hand.
 
 HOW LIME IS MADE. 
 
 IN many parts of England, especially in 
 those districts where we find steep, rocky 
 cliffs and pretty ravines, as at Matlock in 
 Derbyshire, limestone is very abundant. 
 Usually this stone is grey, or white, and 
 hard. But it varies a great deal in appear- 
 ance, and may be red or yellow in colour, 
 and soft instead of hard. Marble and chalk 
 are both different kinds of limestone, and 
 marble is, as you know, very hard, while 
 chalk is quite soft. Perhaps you will ask 
 how we are to know limestone from other 
 kinds of stone, if it varies so much in appear- 
 ance. Limestone is the kind of stone from 
 which lime is made ; and when I have told 
 you how this is done, you will see that there 
 is one easy way of finding out whether a 
 piece of stone is limestone or not. 
 
 Not very far from where I live, there is 
 a rocky cliff by the side of a river. This 
 cliff is a limestone one, and a good deal of 
 lime is made there. The stone is rather
 
 22 How LIMB is MADE. 
 
 soft, and in bygone days many people have 
 dug themselves little caves in the rock, and 
 used them as sheds and store-rooms. One 
 man even made himself a house in the rock. 
 He commenced by hollowing a cave in the 
 foot of the cliff, after which he began to 
 chip down the roof of the cave, until after 
 years of labour, he cut his way out at the 
 top of the cliff. His house was then like a 
 cave with a very wide chimney. He put a 
 number of wooden floors in the chimney, 
 and so divided it into rooms one above 
 another. These rooms he enlarged, and 
 made stairs from one to another. He was a 
 clever man, and he even made use of the 
 stone which he had cut away. He chipped 
 the large pieces into square building stones. 
 .The small pieces he carried out, and burned 
 them in a fire of wood. And when the fire 
 was burned out, instead of a heap of stones, 
 he had a heap of lime. With the lime he 
 made mortar, and, taking the building stones 
 which he had already cut, he built up the 
 front of his cave, with the exception of a 
 door and windows, and so made himself a 
 very curious house in the rock, which may 
 be seen to this day. 
 
 When this man made his lime by burning 
 the limestone, he only did what he had seen 
 the lime-makers do. But the man who
 
 How LIME is MADE. 23 
 
 makes lime in large quantities for sale burns 
 his limestone in a specially made fireplace, 
 called a limekiln. The limekiln is a large 
 hole in the ground by the side of the quarry 
 from which the limestone is taken. The top 
 of the kiln is level with the surface of the 
 ground round the quarry, and at the bottom 
 of the quarry there is an arched opening 
 leading to the bottom of the kiln. Imagine 
 that the head of a very large clay pipe is 
 buried in the ground by the side of a lime- 
 stone quarry. The bowl of the pipe repre- 
 sents the kiln, while the archway leading to 
 it from the bottom of the quarry is placed 
 just where the stem would be joined to the 
 bowl of the pipe. The kiln and the archway 
 are cut out of the rock, or, if the ground is 
 soft, they are built of stones. Between the 
 top of the arch and the bottom of the kiln 
 there is a grating of iron bars. 
 
 The workmen in the quarry knock down 
 large blocks of limestone, and break them up 
 into small pieces. These are loaded into 
 waggons, and run up to the top of the 
 quarry and round to the edge of the kiln. 
 A little of the stone is thrown upon the bars 
 at the bottom of the kiln, and then a layer of 
 wood or coal is laid upon the stone. On the 
 top of this layer another row of stone is laid, 
 then another row of wood, and so on until
 
 24 How LIMB is MADE. 
 
 the kiln is filled. The last layer is made of 
 wood or coal. When the kiln is finished, 
 the wood or coal is set on fire, and very soon 
 the kiln is red hot. When the fire has 
 burned itself out, there is nothing left but 
 lime. The workmen then run a little 
 waggon into the arch at the bottom, take 
 out an iron bar or two, and let the lime fall 
 into the waggon until it is loaded, when they 
 draw it away, and put another in its place. 
 When the kiln is empty, they are ready to 
 begin again. 
 
 How long the fire will burn in the kiln 
 depends upon the amount of wood or coal 
 which the limeburner puts in. He knows 
 that some limestones require more burning 
 or roasting than others. Some soft ones 
 like chalk may be burned in a day, while 
 hard ones may take two days or more. 
 While the lime is burning a blue smoke 
 rises from the kiln. A poisonous gas rises 
 with it, and it is dangerous for any one to 
 remain near the mouth of the kiln for any 
 length of time. Poor men, who have gone 
 to sleep near limekilns in order to be warm, 
 have often been suffocated. 
 
 The lime as it comes from the kiln is 
 known as quicklime. The builder uses it 
 for making mortar. He first of all " slakes " 
 it by pouring water upon it. This makes
 
 How LIME is MADE. 25 
 
 it steam and grow quite hot. After a time 
 sand is added to it, and more water is mixed 
 with it, until it forms the soft mortar with 
 which the bricks are cemented together into 
 walls. 
 
 Only limestone will turn to lime when it 
 is burnt in a fire. If we wish to know 
 whether a piece of stone is limestone or not, 
 we may generally tell by throwing it upon 
 the fire. If it turns into a soft, white, 
 crumbling lump, we may be sure that it is 
 limestone. There are other ways of knowing 
 limestone, but I think you will remember 
 this one best. In some Eastern countries 
 there are ruins of temples, which were de- 
 stroyed by fire many centuries ago. The 
 traveller who visits them often finds that 
 the pillars and sculptured stones, which were 
 once made of beautiful marble, have been 
 burnt to lime by the fire which destroyed 
 the palace.
 
 HOW BOTTLES ABE MADE. 
 
 DEFORE a workman can make a bottle, 
 *-* he must have glass. Now glass is not 
 like the clay which the potter uses. It 
 cannot be dug up almost ready for use, but 
 it has to be manufactured out of several 
 different things. We could make glass by 
 mixing together sand, lime, and the ashes of 
 burnt wood, and afterwards heating them in a 
 very hot fire. After a time they would melt 
 and run together ; and if we then took them 
 out of the fire and allowed them to cool, we 
 should find that we had got a piece of glass. 
 The ashes of burnt wood contain a sub- 
 stance known as potash, and it is in order 
 to use this potash that we add the wood 
 ashes to the sand and the lime. Glass- 
 manufacturers use a great many substances 
 for making glass of various qualities, but 
 only these three are necessary. The others 
 are added to make the glass white, or to 
 make it melt more easily, or perhaps because 
 they are cheaper than some of the things 
 
 26
 
 How BOTTLES ARE MADE. 27 
 
 we have named. Soda, for instance, is very 
 often used in the place of potash. 
 
 When the manufacturer has mixed his 
 sand, lime, soda, and other materials in their 
 proper quantities, he puts them into baked 
 clay pots, and these he places in a very hot 
 furnace. The pots must neither crack nor 
 melt with the heat, and so they have to be 
 made of the very best clay for resisting heat, 
 which is found at Stourbridge in Worcester- 
 shire, and the potter uses every care to make 
 them as well as he can. It takes a day or 
 two to make one in soft clay, and five or six 
 months to dry it and bake it ready for use. 
 All this trouble makes these pots very 
 costly. 
 
 The glass-pots, filled with their sand and 
 other materials, are put into a brick furnace, 
 where the flames of a great fire may blaze 
 all round them. Opposite each glass-pot 
 there is an arched opening in the side of 
 the furnace, and this is nearly built up after 
 the glass-pot is put in it. A little opening 
 is left, however, through which each glass- 
 pot may be watched, and attended to if 
 required. It takes about sixteen hours for 
 the materials in the glass-pots to melt, and 
 turn into glass. 
 
 Cold glass, as you know, is very hard and 
 very brittle. We cannot bend it or shape
 
 28 How BOTTLES ARE MADE. 
 
 it, or work it in any way, except by cutting 
 it with a diamond. But when glass is made 
 very hot, it becomes soft and pliable, and by 
 and by, if the heat is great enough, melts 
 altogether. When it is in the soft state, it 
 may be bent and twisted into almost any 
 shape, just as hot iron can ; and when it is 
 completely melted, it will flow like water, 
 and may be cast in moulds like molten iron. 
 All the glass things which we see around 
 us, bottles, vases, window-panes, and looking- 
 glasses, have been made when the glass was 
 soft or melted. 
 
 The strangest of all these shapes is the 
 bottle, because it is hollow, and has only a 
 very narrow neck opening into it. Let me 
 tell you how one of these is made, for it is 
 the strangest part of glass -making. The 
 man who makes glass bottles is called a 
 glass-blower, because he blows them to that 
 shape with his breath. He has a long tube 
 or blow-pipe, with a mouthpiece at one end, 
 while the other widens out a little, like a 
 small bell. The blow-pipe is, in fact, rather 
 like the long horn which the drivers of 
 coaches and char-a-bancs sometimes play 
 upon, but it is longer, and the bell end is 
 much smaller. The glass-blower stands on 
 a small platform in front of one of the holes 
 in the furnace. When the glass in the glass-
 
 How BOTTLES ARE MADE. 
 
 pot within the furnace is quite melted and 
 ready for use, the glass-blower puts the broad 
 end of his blow-pipe through the hole in the 
 furnace, and dips it into the glass. As he 
 draws it out, a little ball of hot, soft glass 
 sticks to the end of the blowpipe. The 
 blower lets it hang over the edge of the 
 platform on which he stands, and blows 
 through the tube. A round glass bubble 
 forms on the end of the blow-pipe. This 
 bubble the glass-blower can shape almost as 
 he likes. If he wants it long, he swings his 
 long blow-pipe like a tolling bell, and the 
 weight of the glass itself draws it out long 
 and narrow. If he wants to make the 
 bubble wide, he flattens it out by beating 
 it like a rammer on the platform. If he 
 wants to round it in any way, he rolls the 
 bubble on a table, just as he might trundle 
 a mop on it. If he wants the bubble larger, 
 he blows again through the blow-pipe. In 
 this way he can get almost any rounded 
 shape that he may wish. If the glass grows 
 cold and stiff, he puts it through the hole 
 into the furnace again, and holds it for a few 
 moments on the end of his blow-pipe in the 
 middle of the flames. 
 
 There is one thing, however, which the 
 glass-blower cannot do by simply blowing. 
 He cannot blow a glass which has straight
 
 30 How BOTTLES ARE MADE. 
 
 sides or square corners, as most bottles have, 
 any more than you or I can blow a square 
 soap-bubble. In order to get the corners on 
 his bottle, he must make use of a hollow, 
 wooden mould. This mould is shaped some- 
 thing like a bottle, and is split in two down 
 the middle, both halves being fastened 
 together by hinges on one side. Imagine a 
 wooden bottle made to open like a book, and 
 you will understand better what this mould 
 is like. The hollow inside, when the mould 
 is closed, is just the shape of the bottle, 
 which the blower wishes to make. 
 
 When the glass-blower has blown a little 
 bubble of glass, a boy, who is helping him, 
 opens the mould, and the man puts into it 
 the end of his blowpipe, with the bubble 
 attached. The boy closes the mould, and 
 the blower continues to blow. The bubble 
 grows, until it fills every corner of the hollow 
 in the mould. When that is accomplished, 
 the boy opens the mould again, and the 
 blower draws out his glass bubble, which 
 is shaped exactly like the hollow in the 
 mould. The bottle is made. The blower 
 cuts it off his blowpipe, and the boy carries 
 it away to an oven, where it will be allowed 
 to cool slowly, so that it may not break. 
 When it is cold, it is ready for use. 
 
 I have not space to tell you how other
 
 How BOTTLES ARE MADE. 31 
 
 glass objects are made, though I feel sure 
 you would be interested in learning how the 
 glass -maker cuts and bends the glass into all 
 kinds of beautiful shapes, how he sticks on 
 handles and feet, and how he rolls out the 
 large sheets of glass of which mirrors are 
 made. I should like to tell you more, but 
 for the present I must be content if I have 
 made you understand how the glass-blower 
 blows those bubbles of glass with straight 
 sides and square corners which we call 
 bottles.
 
 HOW IRON IS MADE. 
 
 I HAVE already told you how lime is made 
 from limestone. Iron is made in a very 
 similar way from another kind of stone, 
 called ironstone or iron ore. There are many 
 kinds of ironstone, and it is not always easy 
 to tell which is an ironstone and which is not. 
 Many of them are red ; but others are grey, 
 and almost like building stones. Some are 
 soft, and look like red chalk, while others 
 are almost as hard as the iron itself. What- 
 ever they look like, they are made of iron, 
 combined with other things which the iron- 
 maker regards as impurities. These impuri- 
 ties are of many kinds, and some are got rid 
 of without much difficulty, while others, like 
 sulphur, are so tiresome that they spoil the 
 iron entirely, and prevent the ironmaker from 
 using the ores which contain them. 
 
 If we took a piece of ironstone, and tried 
 to melt it in a vessel over a fire, we should 
 find that we could not change it in that way. 
 If we threw it into the midst of a hot fire, 
 
 32
 
 How IRON is MADE. 33 
 
 and tried to roast it, we should probably get 
 nothing but a drossy stone. But if we had 
 a very clean, bright fire, such as a charcoal 
 fire, and if our ore chanced to be a very good 
 piece, we might perhaps find, when the fire 
 burned out, that there was a little lump of 
 iron in the ashes. This would show us that 
 iron can be obtained from ironstone in very 
 much the same way that lime is got from 
 limestone. 
 
 Before I tell you how iron is made in 
 England, let me describe how it is made in 
 some parts of Africa by the natives. They 
 dig a little hole in the ground, and light a 
 fire at the bottom of it. Upon the top of 
 the fire they lay first a row of charcoal, then 
 a row of ironstone broken very small, then 
 another row of charcoal, and above that 
 another row of ironstone, and so on. They 
 blow the fire with bellows, and make it burn 
 as fiercely as possible. As the fire burns 
 away, they throw on new supplies of char- 
 coal and ore with their hands. After a time 
 they let the fire burn out, and they find at 
 the bottom of the hole a piece of iron about 
 the size of a hen's egg, which they can make 
 into a spearhead or other useful weapon. 
 
 In England thousands of tons of iron are 
 used every year. This would not be possible 
 if we did not know how to make great quan-
 
 34 How IEON id MADE. 
 
 titles of iron at one operation. In order to 
 do this, Englishmen construct large blast- 
 furnaces, which will hold many tons of iron- 
 stone and charcoal or coke, and make several 
 tons of iron in a day. The blast-furnace is 
 like a limekiln built above the ground. The 
 outside of it looks like a tower of stone or 
 iron, while the hollow inside is shaped rather 
 like an egg, with its broad end at the bottom 
 and its narrow end open to the sky. At the 
 bottom of this hollow a fire is lighted, and 
 fuel and ironstone are loaded upon the top of 
 it through the open mouth of the furnace. 
 All this, as you will remember, is very like 
 what goes on when limestone is being burned 
 in a limekiln. 
 
 The natives of Africa blow their little fires 
 with bellows ; and in bygone days English- 
 men used to blow their blast-furnaces with 
 bellows. But now they force great quantities 
 of air into the furnace by means of steam- 
 engines and a machine which pumps the air, 
 as it were, through pipes which open into 
 the furnace. This air is called a blast, and 
 the blast-furnace takes its name from it. 
 
 The fuel which is used in the English 
 blast-furnace is coke, or, in other words, the 
 cinders of coal. These are found to make a 
 cleaner fire than coal itself would do. The 
 blast causes the coke to burn with an intense
 
 How IRON is MADE. 35 
 
 heat, but, unfortunately, the ironstone used 
 in England is not very pure, and even this 
 great heat is not sufficient to melt the iron 
 out of it. But those who make iron have 
 discovered that, if lime be put into the fur- 
 nace, along with the coke and ironstone, it 
 will help the fire, and acting together the 
 lime and the fire will melt out the iron. So 
 the ironmakers put in loads of limestone 
 along with the loads of ironstone and coke. 
 The fire roasts the limestone, and turns it 
 into lime. The heat is so great that the 
 ironstone and the lime melt at the same time, 
 and the lime and the impurities of the iron- 
 stone run together, and form a kind of melted 
 glass, called slag. The melted iron is left. 
 
 Now I wish to show you very clearly, if I 
 can, how the melted slag and the melted iron 
 are separated. If I took a glass jar contain- 
 ing some yellow oil, and poured clean water 
 on the top of it, the water would soon fall 
 to the bottom of the jar, while the oil floated 
 above it, because the oil is lighter than the 
 water. If I now poured a little treacle into 
 the jar, it would fall at once to the bottom, 
 because it is heavier than either the oil or 
 the water. Looking at the side of the jar, I 
 should see the golden treacle at the bottom, 
 the clear water in the middle, and the yellow 
 oil at the top. If I made a hole in the
 
 36 How IRON is MADE. 
 
 bottom of the jar, the treacle would run out 
 first ; if I made a hole in the side of the jar 
 opposite the water, the water would run out 
 first ; while if I emptied the jar by its mouth, 
 the oil would come out first. 
 
 Of all the materials in the blast-furnace, 
 the melted iron is the heaviest, and falls to 
 the bottom. The melted slag is next 
 heaviest, and falls until it reaches the iron, 
 and floats oh the top of it. There is a hole 
 quite at the bottom of the furnace, and there 
 is another one a little higher up. The work- 
 men close the lower opening with soft clay, 
 which is soon baked into hard brick by the 
 heat inside the furnace. The higher hole 
 opens upwards, somewhat like the spout of a 
 coffee-pot broken off short and close to the 
 jug. This hole is always open, but, as it 
 opens upwards, no coke or ironstone can fall 
 out through it. As the slag melts and be- 
 comes like water, it rises up in the furnace, 
 and by and by flows out of the hole, just as 
 water, poured into a coffee-pot with a broken 
 spout, would run out of the spout when it 
 reached a certain height. The slag runs 
 away like a little red-hot stream into an 
 iron box, where it slowly cools. 
 
 As the iron melts and rises in the furnace, 
 it, too, would ran out of the slag-hole after 
 a time ; but the workmen are watching, and
 
 How IRON is MADE. 37 
 
 before it rises so high they break open the 
 lower opening with iron bars, and let the iron 
 run out by that way. It gushes out like 
 fiery water, and it is allowed to run into a 
 number of little gutters made of sand, in 
 which it is left to cool. When the iron has 
 run out of the furnace, the workmen stop 
 up the hole again with soft clay, to prevent 
 any slag coming out after the iron. 
 
 Even after all this trouble, the iron is not 
 very pure, not quite so good, in fact, as the 
 little lumps made by the African savages. 
 It cannot be hammered or bent without 
 breaking. It is called pig-iron, and a little 
 more labour will make it into the cast-iron 
 of which stoves, ovens, and fire-places are 
 made. But much work must be spent upon 
 it before it is fit to be made into boilers for 
 engines, gasometers, ships like our iron-clads, 
 and great iron bridges like the Forth Bridge.
 
 HOW BRICKS ARE MADE. 
 
 DRICKS are made of clay. While the clay 
 ^* is wet and soft, it is shaped by hand 
 or by a machine, and then it is laid aside to 
 dry. As it dries, it becomes hard, and in 
 some countries where there is little or no 
 rain, as Egypt or Syria, when the clay is 
 thoroughly dry, the brick is finished. But 
 in countries like England, where it very often 
 rains, such sun-dried bricks, as they are 
 called, would be of little use. After heavy 
 rain they would become soft again, and the 
 walls of the houses which were built of them 
 would bend or tumble down, especially if 
 they had heavy roofs, fire-places and windows 
 to bear. In order to avoid such accidents as 
 these, it is necessary to alter the clay in such 
 a way that the bricks will not be made soft 
 again by being wetted. This is done by 
 baking the bricks with fire. This also makes 
 them much harder and less liable to break, 
 and they are much better for use in almost 
 every way than sun-dried bricks are. 
 
 38
 
 How BRICKS ARE MADE. 39 
 
 Many bricks are now made by machinery ; 
 but I do not wish to tell you anything about 
 this now, as I am afraid you might not be 
 able to understand an account of the 
 machines, and so you would not be inter- 
 ested. But many millions of bricks are still 
 made by hand, even in England ; and I 
 think you will have no difficulty in under- 
 standing how this is done. 
 
 It is not every kind of clay which will 
 serve for brick-making. If there are any 
 stones in it, for instance, it will not do ; and 
 there are many other ways in which it might 
 be spoiled for brick-making. A certain 
 amount of sand in the clay is found to be 
 very useful, because it prevents the bricks 
 from shrinking or cracking when baked, and 
 very often brickmakers mix sand with their 
 clay for this purpose. But in some places 
 clay of just the right sort is found, and no 
 mixing of any other material is necessary. 
 To the place where this clay, or brick-earth 
 as it is called, is found, the brickmaker brings 
 his tools, and opens out a brickfield. 
 
 The sods and the upper soil are first re- 
 moved from a portion of the field, so as to 
 lay bare the clay in a hollow. Before any 
 bricks are made, the clay is dug over and 
 beaten about a good deal with shovels and 
 rakes. It is left exposed to the rain and
 
 40 How BRICKS ABE MADE. 
 
 frost during the winter, and may perhaps 
 even be dug over once or twice during this 
 time. All this helps to mix the clay, and 
 makes it soft and fine for working ; and it is 
 ready for making into bricks when spring- 
 time comes. 
 
 The brick-makers work in gangs or groups 
 of four or five. One of the men makes the 
 bricks, another brings him the clay, and a 
 third takes away the bricks as they are 
 made. Besides these, there may be another 
 man digging the clay in the pit, and perhaps 
 another who acts as a foreman, and sees that 
 everything is properly done. 
 
 The man who shapes or moulds the bricks 
 works at a table, often in the open air. In 
 one part of the table there is a small trough 
 containing water, and by the side of it there 
 is a little pile of sand on the table-top. The 
 man who brings the clay from the pit, heaps 
 it up in a small lump on one end of the table, 
 within easy reach of the brick-moulder. 
 
 It is possible to make rough, clumsy bricks 
 by pressing the clay with our hands, and 
 beating it upon a flat board in order to get 
 the sides straight. This method will not do, 
 however, for the man who has to earn his 
 living by making bricks. For one reason, it 
 is not quick enough. Then, again, the shape 
 of the bricks would not be sufficiently neat.
 
 How BRICKS ARE MADE. 41 
 
 Such bricks would not make a straight wall. 
 But there is a still more important reason 
 why this simple way of making bricks would 
 not do. All bricks have to be made exactly 
 of the same size, and it would be far too 
 troublesome to do this by hand alone, and to 
 be continually measuring. So the brick- 
 maker has one or two simple tools. The 
 most important one is a brick-mould. This 
 is a frame of wood, the inside of which is 
 exactly the size which the clay brick is to be. 
 The frame is just the depth of the brick, and 
 as it lies flat on the table, it forms a sort of 
 trough, of which the table- top is the bottom. 
 When the brick-moulder is going to make a 
 brick, he sands the inside of the frame, and 
 taking a piece of clay from the lump on the 
 table, he fills the trough of the frame with 
 it, pushing it tightly into every corner. 
 Then he takes up another tool, shaped like a 
 ruler, and, resting it on the upper edges of 
 the frame, he scrapes off all the clay which 
 stands up above the frame or trough. The 
 boy who is carrying the bricks away takes 
 up the frame from the table with the clay 
 brick in it. The brick-moulder takes another 
 frame, and begins to make another brick, 
 while the boy shakes the first frame gently, 
 and the clay brick falls out of it on to his 
 barrow.
 
 42 How BRICKS ARE MADE. 
 
 When his barrow is loaded, the boy wheels 
 his bricks away to another part of the field, 
 and lays them out in rows upon the ground, 
 so that they may dry in the sun. When the 
 first row of bricks has dried hard, another 
 row is laid upon the top of it, and by and by 
 another row upon that, and so on until there 
 is a low but thick wall of sun-dried bricks. 
 All the time that these bricks are drying, 
 they must be covered up when it rains, lest 
 they should be wetted, and become soft, and 
 lose their shape. 
 
 In the course of a few weeks many thou- 
 sands of these sun-dried bricks are made 
 ready for burning. They are all burned 
 together in another part of the brickfield. A 
 layer of broken bricks is spread upon the 
 ground, and sprinkled with small coal, and 
 upon this the sun-dried bricks are built or 
 stacked in a great open pile ; that is to say, 
 the bricks are not set close together as in a 
 wall, but spaces are left, running through 
 the pile in all directions. Between the 
 bricks, as they are laid, small coal is 
 scattered. Last of all, the pile is surrounded 
 by rows of old burnt bricks. When all is 
 ready, a small fire is lighted, close to the 
 pile, and the flames from it set fire to the 
 coal sprinkled in the pile. In a little while 
 the whole heap is on fire. It is like a huge
 
 How BRICKS ARE MADE. 43 
 
 bonfire burning in and out of a pile of 
 thousands of bricks, which speedily become 
 red-hot. The fire burns for days before it 
 goes out. When the bricks are cool again, 
 they are no longer clay, but true bricks, such 
 as are used for building houses. Many are 
 cracked or burnt by the fire, or spoiled in 
 other ways, and these have to be laid aside 
 as waste. But by far the most of them are 
 sound and ready for use by the builder.
 
 HOW IRON BODS ARE MADE. 
 
 WHOEVER has lived in any large town 
 for some time will often have seen in 
 the streets waggons loaded with sheets of 
 iron, or long iron rods tied up in bundles. If 
 you look at one of these bundles you will 
 find that it is not tied up with cord, but 
 bound round with short pieces of iron rod, 
 which have their ends twisted round each 
 other into a kind of knot. As I have already 
 said that the pig-iron which is obtained from 
 the blast-furnace cannot be hammered or 
 bent without breaking, it is quite plain that 
 these pieces of iron rod are very different 
 from pig-iron. The iron of which they are 
 made is commonly called wr ought-iron, 
 which means simply worked-iron. When I 
 have told you how wrought-iron is made, you 
 will see that the name is a very suitable one. 
 Wrought-iron is made from pig-iron. The 
 impurities which remain in the iron when it 
 comes out of the blast-furnace makes it 
 brittle like glass. When glass is made hot, 
 
 44
 
 How IRON RODS ABE MADE. 45 
 
 however, it becomes first of all soft and 
 pliant, and then melts. But when pig-iron 
 is heated, it never becomes pliant, but melts 
 at once from a solid to a liquid, as ice melts 
 ,to water. For this reason it cannot be bent, 
 either when it is cold or when it is hot. As 
 it is the impurities of the pig-iron which 
 make it act in this way, the iron-maker who 
 wishes to make a better kind of iron tries to 
 to get rid of these impurities. He does this 
 step by step. 
 
 The first step is to pass some of the bars 
 of pig-iron through a furnace, which is very 
 much like a small blast-furnace. This furnace 
 is called a refinery, because it refines the 
 metal, or makes its purer. 
 
 Into the hollow of the furnace coke and 
 pig-iron are placed, and blown by the blasts 
 from several pipes. The iron melts, and is 
 partly purified by the heat and the hot air, 
 as in the true blast-furnace. It gradually 
 falls to the bottom of the furnace, and at the 
 end of two hours it is allowed to run out into 
 a narrow, flat mould, where it quickly cools. 
 It is still brittle, but it is much brighter and 
 finer. It is broken up into pieces, and is 
 ready for the next operation, which is called 
 by the strange name of puddling, because 
 the workman stirs the melted metal about as 
 if he were trying to make a puddle of it.
 
 46 How IRON RODS ARE MADE. 
 
 Puddling is one of the most important 
 operations in making iron, and I wish to 
 make it quite plain to you how it is done. If 
 you have ever seen any large ironworks, or 
 forges, you will have noticed fiery flames 
 rushing out of some very tall and narrow 
 iron chimneys, which have a sort of lid at the 
 top, which may be opened and closed by 
 means of a rod and a cord. These are the 
 chimneys of the puddling-furnaces. The 
 furnaces themselves are long and narrow, 
 and a little taller, perhaps, than a man. 
 Each of them has a chimney at one end and 
 a fire-place at the. other. Between these 
 there is a sort of large oven, which is open 
 to the fire-place on one side, and to the 
 chimney on the other, so that the flames 
 from the fire have to pass through this oven 
 in order to escape up the chimney. There is 
 a little dam or low wall between the oven 
 and the fire-place, over which the flames 
 must pass on their way to the chimney. This 
 low wall throws the flames towards the top 
 of the oven, which is made low and arched 
 so as to lead the flames just over the bottom 
 of the oven without touching it. In front 
 of the oven, or furnace, there is an iron door 
 which slides up and down, and is moved by 
 a long iron rod and chains. In this door 
 there is a small hole, like the entrance to a
 
 How IRON RODS ABE MADE. 47 
 
 dove-cot which is always open, and through 
 this hole the puddler can see what is going 
 on inside the furnace, although it is almost 
 too dazzling to watch. 
 
 Closing the chimney, so as to stop the 
 draught, the puddler loads the bottom of the 
 furnace with pieces of iron from the refinery. 
 
 He then closes the iron door and lifts the 
 cover from the tall chimney, by pulling a 
 cord. Immediately the fierce flames rush 
 from the fire-place, through the furnace over 
 the top of the iron, into the chimney. The 
 iron grows hot, and in a little more than a 
 quarter of an hour melts. The puddler, 
 taking a long, heavy iron bar, pokes it 
 through the hole in the furnace-door, and 
 begins to stir up the melted iron, to puddle 
 it, as he says. After a while the iron 
 bubbles, and blue flames rise from it. As 
 the workman continues to stir the iron, he 
 finds his work grows harder and harder, be- 
 cause the iron becomes less fluid. Although 
 it is as hot as ever, it becomes more and 
 more pasty, and begins to stick like dough 
 to the end of his rod, making it heavy and 
 hard to move. Still he must keep stirring, 
 because this is the only way of gathering up 
 the iron from the other impurities which have 
 melted with it . Little by little the puddler, 
 gathering his iron as a rolling snowball
 
 48 How IRON RODS ABB MADE. 
 
 gathers snow, rolls it into four or five balls, 
 which he places one by one upon the wall 
 between . the furnace and the fire-place, to 
 wait until he has got all the iron that he 
 can out of his fiery bath. 
 
 When he has made all the balls he can, he 
 opens the door of the furnace, takes one of 
 them out, and places it on a little iron cart. 
 A boy wheels it away to a great hammer, 
 which is moved by steam. While one man 
 works the hammer, another one takes the 
 red-hot ball and holds it under the hammer- 
 head. At every thump sparks and splashes 
 of impure slag are beaten and squeezed out 
 of it. 
 
 Near to the steam-hammer there are 
 several huge iron rollers, arranged in pairs, 
 like the rollers of a wringing-machine. Some 
 of those rollers are smooth, while others are 
 notched in rings like the grooves of a number 
 of pulleys placed side by side. When they 
 are notched or grooved, the largest groove is 
 at one end, the next groove is a little 
 smaller, the next smaller still, and so on to 
 the end of the rollers. All these rollers are 
 made to go round by a powerful steam- 
 engine. When the ball, or bloom, as the 
 workmen call it, has been sufficiently ham- 
 mered by the steam-hammer, it is taken, 
 while still hot, and made to go through the
 
 How IRON RODS ARE MADE. 49 
 
 largest groove of the rollers. This makes it 
 a little longer , and at the same time a little 
 
 ^5 7 
 
 narrower. It becomes, in fact, a bar of iron. 
 It is passed through the other grooves of the 
 rollers, one by one, becoming a little 
 narrower, until at last it is a rod of iron. 
 
 The iron is not yet, however, ready for the 
 market. It is not quite good enough, 
 although it is now very different from pig- 
 iron. To make it ready for the market the 
 rod of iron is cut up into short lengths, 
 which are made into little bundles, and 
 fastened with iron wire. A number of these 
 bundles are placed in another furnace similar 
 to the puddling furnace, and are heated once 
 more. When white-hot they are taken out, 
 hammered into one lump under the steam- 
 hammer, and rolled into rods as before. 
 These rods are straightened with a small 
 hammer, and are then ready for the market, 
 or for the use of the blacksmith. Some of 
 the balls from the furnace are passed between 
 a number of plain rollers, which flatten them 
 into sheets. The edges of the sheets are cut 
 straight with a pair of huge shears or 
 scissors, moved by steam, and the sheets 
 themselves are straightened with hammers, 
 after which they are ready for use. 
 
 These rods and sheets can be hammered 
 and bent to almost any shape without break-
 
 50 How IRON RODS ARE MADE. 
 
 ing, especially when they are heated, for 
 heat makes them soft and pliant. It is 
 almost impossible to melt them. If two 
 pieces of the rods or sheets be made hot, they 
 can be hammered together in one piece, and 
 they will join together so closely that they 
 cannot afterwards be separated at the joint. 
 All wrought iron is like this, and, as you 
 see, it is greatly changed by the refining 
 and puddling which it has undergone.
 
 HOW PAPER IS MADE. 
 
 V17HEN you have seen a ragman gathering 
 rags from door to door, or seen his 
 barrow loaded with its pile of dirty remnants, 
 have you ever asked yourself what he is 
 going to do with them ? We may be sure 
 that they are useful, otherwise the ragman 
 would not take the trouble to collect them. 
 He sells them to rag-merchants, who sort 
 them into different lots, and then sell them 
 again to certain manufacturers, who make 
 use of them in various ways. Some of the 
 rags are torn to shreds, mixed with wool, and 
 used for making an inferior kind of cloth. 
 Large quantities of them, especially linen 
 rags, are used for making paper. 
 
 When the rags are to be made into paper, 
 they are first carefully sorted, and cut into 
 small pieces by women. The finest linen 
 rags are put by themselves, for these only 
 are used in the manufacture of the best writ- 
 ing paper, while inferior linen rags and cotton 
 rags are placed in other piles, according to 
 
 51
 
 52 How PAPER is MADE. 
 
 the quality and kind of paper which they 
 will make. The rags are next washed with 
 hot water or steam, and afterwards bleached 
 by means of chemicals. They are then placed 
 in a machine, which tears them up so small 
 that they are turned into soft pulp, in which 
 there is not a particle of the woven cloth left. 
 This machine is a kind of trough or vat full 
 of water, in which there is a drum covered 
 with sharp spikes, which is kept turning 
 round and round. At the bottom of the 
 trough other spikes, or cutters, are fixed, 
 between which those upon the drum pass, 
 as the drum turns round, and the two sets 
 of spikes tear the rags to pieces. The rags 
 are kept in this machine for several hours, 
 at the end of which time they are like so 
 much white mud mixed with the water. 
 This mixture, or pulp, is conveyed away to 
 a large vat, which is kept warm, usually by 
 means of steam. 
 
 At the present time most paper is made 
 by machinery, but the best is still made by 
 hand. As the making of paper by hand is 
 easier to understand, I will describe that 
 first, and then tell you something about the 
 machinery which is now used in place of 
 hand labour. The paper-maker, or dipper, 
 as he is sometimes called, stands by the side 
 of the vat which is filled with the paper-pulp,
 
 How PAPER is MADE. 53 
 
 or paper-mud, as we might call it. He has 
 in his hand a mould, which is nothing but a 
 square frame of wood filled in with fine wires 
 woven in and out very like the threads of 
 a piece of cloth. He has also another very 
 thin wooden frame, called a deckle, which 
 he can fit upon the top of the mould so as 
 to make a little raised edge, very much as 
 a flat picture-frame makes a raised edge to 
 the picture which is placed in it. Fitting 
 the deckle and the mould together, he dips 
 them like a dish into the paper-pulp, and 
 draws a dishful of pulp out of the vat. He 
 shakes his mould from side to side in order 
 to spread the pulp into every corner, while 
 the water runs out through the wire- cloth 
 at the bottom of the mould, and leaves a 
 thin sheet of pulp, like a little layer of white 
 mud, upon it. The paper-maker puts the 
 mould aside, and takes up another to dip it 
 in the same way, using the same deckle as 
 before. 
 
 When the mould has rested a few seconds 
 to allow all the water to drain away, it is 
 taken up by another workman, called a 
 coucher, who turns the mould over, shakes 
 off the sheet of stiff pulp upon a sheet of 
 woollen cloth, and places another cloth upon 
 the top of it. He returns the empty mould 
 to the dipper, takes up another which has
 
 54 How PAPER is MADE. 
 
 been dipped, and shakes off the sheet of 
 pulp in the same way. One by one these 
 sheets are laid upon the top of each other, 
 with cloths between every pair of them, until 
 a pile of several sheets has been made. This 
 pile is then placed in a strong press, and 
 powerfully squeezed in order to force out all 
 the remaining moisture, and, at the same 
 time, compress the sheets of paper. They 
 are next pressed several times without the 
 cloths, after which they are hung over cords 
 to dry. 
 
 When the sheets of paper are dry they 
 are quite firm and strong, but they are not 
 glossy like writing paper. They are dull and 
 porous, rather like blotting paper, and if we 
 attempted to write on such sheets the ink 
 would run, and become blurred, until it 
 would be impossible to read the writing:. 
 
 j. O 
 
 To remedy this defect the sheets are sized ; 
 that is to say, they are dipped, a few at a 
 time, into size, which is a sort of thin, weak 
 glue, prepared from scraps of leather, hoofs, 
 and skins, and mixed with a certain quantity 
 of alum. The size fills up the small holes in 
 the paper, and sets upon the surface, making 
 it smooth to write upon. The sheets are 
 again dried, pressed several times, and then 
 folded or cut as may be required. 
 
 When paper is made by machinery the
 
 How PAPER is MADE. 55 
 
 pulp is allowed to run out of the vat upon a 
 broad web, made of woven wire, like that 
 which forms the mould of the hand-dipper. 
 This web is several feet long, and it is what 
 machine-makers call endless, by which they 
 mean that its ends are joined together, as is 
 the case with those leather belts which drive 
 sewing-machines, threshing-machines, motor- 
 bicycles, and many other kinds of machines. 
 The endless web of the paper machine is kept 
 tight and flat by two rollers, one of which is 
 near the vat, and the other several feet away. 
 The web passes round these rollers, and when 
 they are turned the web is made to go 
 round and round, from the roller near the 
 vat to the other one, and back again under- 
 neath to the first one, and so round again. 
 At the same time, by another kind of mech- 
 anism, the web is made to sway from side to 
 side a little. When the watery pulp flows 
 from the vat upon this web of wire-cloth, 
 this swaying motion spreads it evenly over 
 the web, while two raised leather straps 
 placed at each side prevent the pulp running 
 off the sides. The water runs through the 
 web, just as it runs through the bottom of 
 the dipper's mould, and leaves a thin sheet 
 of stiff pulp spread evenly upon the web. 
 As the web moves on from the vat to the 
 other roller, it bears this sheet of pulp along
 
 56 How PAPER is MADE. 
 
 with it, and when it has gone a certain 
 distance it passes under a roller covered with 
 cloth, which presses the pulp and sucks up 
 some of its moisture. When the web reaches 
 the second roller, and begins to turn back, 
 the paper itself is seized by certain rollers, 
 which carry it on to another endless web, 
 which is made of cloth. This web passes 
 the paper between other rollers, which dry 
 it and press it still more. In this way it 
 is carried to and fro, and passed between a 
 number of rollers, some of which are made 
 hot with steam, and dry the paper very 
 quickly, while others are very smooth, and 
 give the surface of the paper a beautiful 
 polish. The pulp which falls upon the first 
 endless web is made into paper before it 
 leaves the machine, and the work which 
 would take the hand paper-maker many days 
 is performed by the machine in a few minutes. 
 As the pulp is always flowing into the 
 machine there is no break in the paper, and 
 it is rolled up in one long roll, which may 
 contain a mile or two of paper. Some print- 
 ing machines use these rolls just as they are ; 
 but for most purposes the paper has to be 
 cut up in various sizes.
 
 HOW LOOKING-GLASSES ARE MADE. 
 
 1 
 
 F you have ever seen a piece of broken 
 looking-glass, or if you have seen a 
 looking-glass taken out of its frame, you 
 will know that it is simply a rather thick 
 sheet of glass with a thin coating of some- 
 thing on the back of it. The outer side of 
 this thin coating often shines like dull silver, 
 and it is usually called the silver or silvering 
 of the looking-glass, though there is really 
 no silver in it. Sometimes, however, the 
 back of the glass is red or brown, and does 
 not glitter at all. When this is the case, 
 the back of the silvering has been covered 
 with a red or brown varnish as a protection 
 from damp or scratches. 
 
 If we wish to understand how looking- 
 glasses are made, we must learn what the 
 silvering really is, and how it is placed upon 
 the back of the looking-glasses. But before 
 we try to do this, it will be interesting and 
 
 57
 
 58 How LOOKING-GLASSES ARE MADE. 
 
 instructive to see how the glass itself is pre- 
 pared for the silvering. We have already 
 learned how glass is made by melting 
 together sand, lime, and potash or soda ; 
 and we have seen how the glass-blower 
 blows the glass into the shape of bottles. 
 The glass which is intended for mirrors is 
 melted in the same way, but a little more 
 care is taken in selecting the sand and other 
 materials, so as to get very good and clear 
 glass. But when the glass is taken from 
 the furnace, it is not blown by a glass-blower, 
 but used in a very different way. Near the 
 furnace there is a large iron table, with a 
 very smooth, flat top. Along the edges of 
 this table there are moveable strips of iron, 
 which can be raised or lowered so as to 
 make a higher or lower rim along each side 
 of the table. Upon the top of the table 
 there is a large roller, which is long enough 
 to reach across the table and rest upon the 
 raised edges on each side of it. The table is 
 placed upon wheels, so that it can be easily 
 moved from place to place. 
 
 The glass is melted in large pots. When 
 it is ready for use, a pot is lifted out of the 
 furnace by means of a crane, and carried 
 over the top of the table. The pot is then 
 overturned, and the glass flows out, like a 
 lump of dough, upon the middle of the table.
 
 How LOOKING-GLASSES ARE MADE. 59 
 
 The workmen push the roller along the 
 table, and roll the glass out like a cake 
 until it covers the whole of the table-top to 
 the level of the iron rims, which stand up 
 along the sides. The moment this is done, 
 the table is wheeled to the door of a kind 
 of large oven, and the sheet of hot glass, as 
 soon as it is stiff enough to be moved, is 
 taken from the table, and placed flat upon 
 the bottom of the oven. It is sprinkled 
 with sand, and other sheets, as they are 
 made, are placed upon the top of it. When 
 the oven is sufficiently full, it is closed for 
 two or three days, and the glass plates are 
 allowed to cool very slowly. This is 
 necessary to prevent their cracking. When 
 cool, they are taken out, and the edges are 
 cut square with a diamond. Sheets made in 
 this way are known as plate-glass, to dis- 
 tinguish them from sheets and other objects 
 of glass made by blowing ; for, I may tell 
 you, sheets of glass can be made by the 
 glass-blower. 
 
 When the sheets of plate-glass come from 
 the oven, they are rough and dull, and quite 
 unfit for using at once for windows or 
 looking-glasses. They must first be polished 
 smooth and clean. This used to be done by 
 rubbing them by hand with emery and other 
 powders, but it is now done by machinery.
 
 60 How LOOKING-GLASSES ABE MADE. 
 
 In some of the machines two plates are 
 rubbed against each other, with sand and 
 powder between them, and in this way two 
 plates are smoothed at once. As the work 
 goes on, finer and finer powder is used, until 
 at last, after a quarter or more of the sheet 
 has been rubbed away, the surface is as 
 smooth and clear as it can be made. It is 
 then ready for placing in shop windows, or 
 for being made into a looking-glass. 
 
 The silvering of looking-glasses is partly 
 tin, and partly quicksilver or mercury. The 
 tin is smelted from an ore, in very much the 
 same way that iron is smelted, and it is then 
 beaten with hammers into a large, thin 
 sheet, like silvery paper. Tin in sheets of 
 this kind is usually called tin-foil, and much 
 of it is used for wrapping up chocolate and 
 other sweets. The tin which is used by 
 tinners for making pans is really iron coated 
 with tin on both sides. Quicksilver is the 
 bright, silvery liquid which we see in ther- 
 mometers and weather-glasses. 
 
 When a looking-glass is to be made, a 
 sheet of stout tin-foil, a little larger than 
 the glass, is laid on a very smooth, flat 
 table, and the creases are taken out with a 
 brush. A little quicksilver is spread over it 
 with a hare's foot, and quickly soaks into it. 
 More quicksilver is poured on the tin, until
 
 How LOOKING-GLASSES ARE MADE. 61 
 
 it runs all over it, and covers it like so much 
 water. Then the sheet of glass, which has 
 been carefully cleaned, is brought to the 
 table, and gradually slid over the quicksilver 
 and the tin, in such a way as to drive before 
 it any bubbles of air which may be between 
 the quicksilver and the tin. 
 
 Quicksilver is very heavy, so heavy, in 
 fact, that glass will float upon it as a cork 
 floats upon water. When the sheet of glass 
 has been pushed over the tin-foil and the 
 quicksilver, it is actually floating upon the 
 quicksilver. It is loaded with heavy weights 
 to press it down upon the tin, and to squeeze 
 out all the quicksilver which has not soaked 
 into the tin. In about twenty-four hours 
 the tin-foils sticks to the glass, which may 
 be then tilted up a little to allow any 
 quicksilver which remains to run off. The 
 looking-glass is allowed to dry for some 
 days, or even for a week or two, by which 
 time the quicksilver and tin-foil are firmly 
 fixed to the glass like a coat of paint or 
 varnish. The back of the silvering is dulled 
 by the air, but the side next the glass is 
 bright and smooth as polished silver. It is 
 this bright surface which reflects the appear- 
 ance of things which are placed before the 
 mirror while the glass itself is only a pro- 
 tection for the silvering, keeping it from
 
 62 How LOOKING-GLASSES ARE MADE. 
 
 breaking, or becoming scratched, or losing 
 its brightness. Sometimes, as I have said, 
 the back of the silver is varnished, and then 
 the glass is ready for its frame.
 
 HOW THREAD IS MADE. 
 
 \\fHEN we speak of thread we usually 
 mean the black or white sewing- 
 thread, which is sold to us wound upon 
 wooden bobbins, and is used for stitching 
 and mending clothes. This thread is made 
 from cotton wool, which is obtained from the 
 cotton-plant. But there are several other 
 kinds of thread, some of which are made 
 from materials obtained from plants, while 
 others are made from the hair or wool of 
 animals. The woollen or worsted threads 
 of which stockings are knitted are made 
 from the wool of sheep, and it is the making 
 of these kinds of thread which I wish to 
 describe, because you know what the wool is 
 like to begin with, and because these threads 
 are also used in the making of cloth. 
 
 We have seen how the fibres of the hemp 
 are twisted or spun into twine and ropes. 
 
 68
 
 64 How THREAD is MADE. 
 
 Threads of wool, and, indeed, all kinds of 
 thread, are spun in a very similar way. But 
 before the wool is ready for spinning it has 
 to be carefully prepared. It is shorn from 
 the backs of the sheep by the farmers, and 
 sold to the wool-merchant, or manufacturer. 
 It is carefully sorted, then washed and dried, 
 after which it is roughly shaken and combed 
 to take out the dust, thorns and seeds which 
 have found their way into it. It is combed 
 again, and it is then ready for spinning. 
 
 If we take a few hairs of wool, and roll 
 them together between our fingers arid 
 thumb, we can easily make them into a 
 coarse thread. Some savages make all their 
 thread in this slow way. Perhaps you will 
 wonder, though, how it is that short hairs 
 can be made into a long thread. The truth 
 is that the ends of some of the hairs come 
 against the middle of others. The bundles 
 of hair, as it were, overlap, one after the 
 other, some a little, some a great deal, and 
 BO they stretch on in a long line or thread. 
 The surface of each hair is covered with tiny 
 scales, which can only be seen with the help 
 of a microscope. These scales act like hooks, 
 and one hair hooks tightly into another when 
 they are twisted together. 
 
 In many countries, such as Italy and 
 Switzerland, we may see women making
 
 How THREAD is MADE. 65 
 
 thread with the distaff and spindle. The 
 distaff is a long stick, or staff, and the 
 spindle is a short, thin one with a metal ring 
 round the middle of it. The spinner wraps 
 the combed wool round one end of her 
 distaff, and sticks the other end in her belt. 
 Drawing a few hairs out of the bundle on the 
 distaff, she twists them into a thread, and 
 fastens it to the end of the spindle. Then, 
 as the spindle hangs in the air, she gives it a 
 sharp twirl. As it spins it twists the thread 
 by which it is suspended from the distaff, 
 and its own weight tends to drag out more 
 hairs from the bundle. The spinner helps 
 the spindle by drawing out the wool, and 
 pressing it into a neat and even thread. As 
 the thread lengthens, the spindle falls lower 
 and lower, but before it reaches the ground, 
 the spinner seizes it, winds the thread which 
 is already made round the middle of it, and 
 fastens it in a notch, in much the same way 
 that sewing-thread is wrapped and fastened 
 on a bobbin. Then she gives the spindle 
 another twirl, and spins out another length 
 of thread. This is repeated again and again, 
 until all the wool upon the distaff is spun 
 into thread. 
 
 By means of the distaff and spindle, thread 
 is made much more quickly and much better 
 than it can be twisted between the fingers
 
 66 How THREAD is MADE. 
 
 and thumb. If we could place the spindle in 
 a kind of frame, and make it go round by 
 means of a wheel and handle, we should 
 have a spinning- wheel rather like that which 
 is used by the rope-maker. Our great- 
 grandparents used such spinning-wheels for 
 making thread. The wheels were smaller 
 and lighter than the rope-maker's wheel, 
 however, and one person could do the 
 spinning alone ; and the spinner not only 
 spun the thread, but wound it upon the 
 spindle or bobbin, too, first spinning a short 
 length of thread, and then winding it, as the 
 woman does who works with distaff and 
 spindle. These hand spinning-wheels were 
 a great improvement upon the distaff and 
 spindle, and enabled the spinner to make a 
 great deal more thread than she could 
 before. 
 
 And now I wish to take you into a great 
 mill, and describe to you how thread is made 
 to-day. It is spun upon a large machine, 
 which is called the spinning-mule. One 
 part of the mule is fixed, like a long frame, 
 near the wall, while another is a kind of 
 carriage running upon rails, stretching out 
 from the frame towards the middle of the 
 room. On the top of the carriage there are 
 a great many long, narrow bobbins, or 
 spindles, arranged in a row, all pointing at
 
 How THREAD is MADE. 67 
 
 the frame, like a row of toy cannon ready to 
 bombard it. 
 
 The wool has already been partly twisted 
 before it is brought to the spinning-mule. 
 This is done by the machine which c;ombs it, 
 the car ding -machine, as it is called. As the 
 wool comes out of this machine, it is divided 
 into narrow strips, each of which is rubbed 
 by means of leather bands into a roll, which 
 looks very much like the roll of tobacco in a 
 cigarette, with this difference, however, that 
 the tobacco-roll is short, while the roll of 
 wool is long, and is wound like a soft cord 
 upon a large reel. 
 
 A number of these reels of loosely-twisted 
 wool are brought to the spinning-mule, and 
 placed in the frame. There are as many 
 reels as there are spindles upon the carriage 
 of the mule. The cord from each reel is 
 passed through two or three pairs of tiny 
 rollers in the frame of the mule, and then 
 fastened to the spindle on the carriage which 
 is opposite to it, the carriage being drawn up 
 to the frame as near as possible. 
 
 When all is ready, the spinning-mule is 
 started. The little rollers go round, and 
 draw the cord off the reels. The carriage 
 begins to move away from the frame, draw- 
 ing out the thread from the rollers, just as 
 the rope-maker walks backwards along the
 
 68 How THREAD is MADE. 
 
 rope-walk while he is making the rope. At 
 the same time all the spindles on the 
 carriage are made to whirl round very 
 quickly. As they point towards the frame, 
 they do not wind up the threads coming 
 from the rollers, but simply spin them round 
 and round, and so twist them as the rope- 
 maker's whirls twist his twine. When the 
 carriage has run back a few feet, it reaches 
 the end of the rails upon which it runs, and 
 stops. At the same instant the little rollers 
 stop, so that no more cord is drawn off the 
 reels, and the spindles on the carriage cease 
 to spin. Then a strange movement takes 
 place. For a second or two the spindles go 
 slowly round in the opposite direction. This 
 uncoils a little of the thread which has been 
 previously wound round each spindle, and 
 leaves it rather slack. 
 
 A number of bent arms, like sickles, move 
 up and down on the carriage, catch hold of 
 all the threads, and bend them round in such 
 a way that the threads come on to the 
 spindles at the side, instead of at the end, as 
 before. As soon as the bent arms have done 
 this, the carriage begins to move towards 
 the frame, the spindles begin to turn again 
 slowly in the proper direction, and the 
 thread which was spun before is now wound 
 upon the bobbins of the spindles. When the
 
 How THREAD is MADE. 69 
 
 carriage reaches the frame again, a length of 
 thread has been made, and the mule is ready 
 to repeat the work. 
 
 Thus, as you see, the spindles of the 
 spinning-mule are like so many tiny rope- 
 makers moving to and fro along their little 
 rope-walk, twisting the thread as they go 
 backwards, and winding it as they go for- 
 wards. Hundreds of them are at work at 
 once, and, so long as any one will tend them, 
 they never weary, and they never stop.
 
 HOW STEEL IS MADE. 
 
 IF you have ever broken up a mechanical 
 toy, such a one, for instance, as the little 
 locomotives which are wound up with a key, 
 you will perhaps have noticed a small round 
 box, about the size of a pill-box, in which 
 there is coiled a long piece of iron like a 
 rolled-up tape. This coil of iron is the 
 spring of the toy, and the part which receives 
 the movement of your hand when you turn 
 the key, and by and by lets it go again into 
 the wheels of the engine. If the spring 
 should by any means get out of its box it 
 will spread out to a much larger size, and 
 though you will find that you can roll it 
 tighter with your fingers, you will not be able 
 to coil it sufficiently tight to get it back into 
 the box again. 
 
 70
 
 How STEEL is MADE. 71 
 
 I have said that the spring is made of iron, 
 but it is really very different from either cast 
 iron or wrought iron. It can easily be bent, 
 but the moment it is let go, it springs back 
 to its first shape. This is the reason that it 
 is called a spring, and it is this jumping back 
 to its old position, as it were, which drives 
 round the wheels of the toy and makes it go. 
 Now, cast iron cannot be bent at all, and 
 wrought iron, when it is bent, never springs 
 back to its old shape. The spring is a special 
 kind of iron, known by the name of steel. 
 All springs are made of steel, from the heavy 
 springs under railway carriages, to the tiny 
 spring of a watch, which is scarcely thicker 
 than a hair. But springs are not the only 
 things which are made of steel. It is also 
 used for knives, razors, and scissors, for 
 chisels, planes, and saws, for the rails of rail- 
 ways, and for the great plates which are put 
 upon warships to protect them from cannon 
 shots. In fact, the striking thing about steel 
 is that it can be put to so many uses, and its 
 qualities changed in so many ways, by the 
 skilful men who know what to do with it in 
 order to give it those qualities which they 
 require. 
 
 Before I can tell you how steel is made, I 
 must try to make you understand why it is 
 different from cast iron or wrought iron.
 
 72 How STEEL is MADE. 
 
 Wrought iron, as I have already told you, is 
 pure iron ; while cast iron is iron which has 
 received some impurities from the coke and 
 other substances which are heated with the 
 ore in the blast furnace. If we char a piece 
 of wood until it is black we change it into 
 charcoal. Coke, which is made from coal, is 
 practically charcoal, too. Nearly the whole 
 of the impurity in cast iron is simply char- 
 coal, and it is this which makes it so different 
 from wrought iron. In the puddling furnace 
 the charcoal is burned out of the cast iron, 
 and this, more than anything else, turns it 
 from cast iron to wrought iron. 
 
 I have told you how some savages make 
 very good iron by digging a hole in the 
 ground, lighting a fire in it, placing ore and 
 charcoal upon it, and blowing the fire with 
 their bellows. The iron which they make in 
 this way is really wrought iron, though it 
 has never been puddled. It has passed 
 through the fire without receiving any of the 
 red-hot charcoal of which the fire is made, 
 and so it comes out as wrought iron instead 
 of cast iron. But sometimes things go wrong, 
 and, when the savage takes out his lump of 
 iron from the bottom of the hole, he finds 
 that it is harder than usual. He does not 
 know what has really happened, but English- 
 men who have examined these lumps of iron
 
 How STEEL is MADE. 73 
 
 find that they are really steel. The savage 
 has, in fact, made steel by accident. A very 
 little of the charcoal in his fire has got into 
 his iron and turned it into steel. If a great 
 deal of the charcoal had got into the iron, 
 as happens in the English blast furnaces, 
 the iron would have been turned into cast 
 iron. Try to remember this, because it is 
 very important. A little charcoal in the iron 
 makes steel ; a good deal of it makes cast 
 iron. 
 
 Now, there are perhaps nearly a dozen 
 ways of making steel used in various places. 
 I can only tell you of two, however. In one 
 process the steel is made from wrought iron, 
 in the other it is made from cast iron. We 
 will take the wrought iron first. In order 
 to make it into steel, a very little char- 
 coal has to be added to it. The steel- 
 makers take some boxes or cases, made of 
 baked clay, which, like the glass pots of the 
 glass-maker, will bear a great heat without 
 cracking. These cases are loaded with 
 charcoal, in the midst of which a number of 
 bars of very good wrought iron are buried. 
 The cases, when filled, are carefully closed, 
 and placed in a furnace somewhat like a 
 glass furnace, where hot flames can surround 
 them on every side. The cases remain in the 
 furnace from eight to fifteen days, and the
 
 74 How STEEL is MADE. 
 
 iron and the charcoal within them become 
 red-hot, and little by little some of the char- 
 coal passes into the iron. When the bars 
 are taken out they are rough and blistered, 
 but they are turned into steel. The process 
 is called cementation. 
 
 The other process which I am going to 
 describe is called the Bessemer process, after 
 Sir Henry Bessemer, the man who invented 
 it. In this process cast iron is turned into 
 steel by burning out of it some of its char- 
 coal. This is done in a converter, a large 
 egg-shaped vessel which swings on trunnions 
 like a short, thick cannon. It acts like a 
 small blast furnace hung in the air. A blast 
 pipe passes through one of the trunnions, and 
 down the outside of the converter to a box 
 at the bottom. There are a number of holes 
 leading through the top of this box to the 
 inside of the converter, and when the blast 
 is blowing it passes through these holes. 
 The inside of the converter is lined with clay, 
 cement, or lime, to resist the heat, and by 
 means of suitable machinery it may be 
 easily turned over, or turned about in any 
 direction. 
 
 The converter is first turned upon its side, 
 and several tons of cast iron are allowed to 
 run into it from a furnace. The blast is then 
 started, and blows through the holes in the
 
 How STEEL is MADE. 75 
 
 bottom of the converter with a great rush. 
 The huge vessel is turned straight up, and 
 the melted iron covers the bottom. The blast 
 through the holes is so strong, however, that 
 the iron cannot run through them into the 
 box below, but the air rushes through the 
 iron in the converter, and blows out a grand 
 shower of sparks. While the blast is passing 
 through the iron it is burning out the char- 
 coal, and at the same time it is making the 
 iron hotter, just as the wind of a pair of 
 bellows make a fire hotter. If the workman 
 could stop the blast when sufficient charcoal 
 had been burned out of the iron, he would 
 have changed it into steel. But, unfor- 
 tunately, it is very difficult to do this. If 
 he stops the blast a minute too soon, or a 
 minute too late, all his iron is spoiled. So 
 he finds it better to make his steel in a 
 roundabout way. He lets his blast go on 
 until all the charcoal is burned out of the 
 iron, then he turns the converter on its side 
 again, and stops the blast. Once more he 
 runs a little cast iron into the converter from 
 another furnace, turns the converter up 
 again, lets the blast blow for a few seconds, 
 and his steel is made. The charcoal of this 
 new supply of cast iron spreads through the 
 whole of the iron in the converter, and, of 
 course, it is a very little quantity for so large
 
 76 How STEEL is MADE. 
 
 a mass ; just enough, in fact, to make it steel. 
 The workman turns over the converter- 
 empties the steal into a huge ladle, and com- 
 mences again with a new supply of cast iron.
 
 HOW BUILDING-STONES ABE MADE. 
 
 YOU will perhaps think it rather strange 
 that I should talk of building-stones 
 being made, for everyone knows that stone 
 is found in the ground, ready-made, and 
 only needs to be broken up and chipped into 
 the proper shapes for use. I often pass a 
 number of quarries from which stone is 
 taken for building purposes, and when I see 
 the various labours which are going on in 
 those quarries, I cannot help thinking that, 
 though the stone itself does not need making, 
 it requires as much labour to be spent upon 
 it before it is ready for use as limestone does 
 before it is converted into lime. It is the 
 labour of these quarrymen and stone-cutters 
 which I wish to describe. 
 
 The qualities of stones vary very much. 
 Some are very hard and difficult to cut, and 
 cost a great deal more in the labour of 
 
 77
 
 78 How BUILDING-STONES ABE MADE. 
 
 shaping them than others do. Some are 
 soft and easily broken up by frost and rain, 
 and the house which is built of them soon 
 loses its neat appearance. Some have a 
 good colour, while others are spoiled by 
 streaks and knots of a different colour from 
 the rest of the stone. Very often, too, these 
 streaks and knots are softer or harder than 
 the rest of the stone, and are affected by the 
 weather more or less than the other parts. 
 In opening a quarry a good deal of practical 
 knowledge and judgment are necessary to 
 select a proper stone, and though there is 
 stone of some kind in every part of the 
 country, builders will often send many miles 
 to get the exact kind of stone which they 
 require. 
 
 Quarries are generally opened at the foot of 
 a slope, so that the quarry men dig into the 
 side of a hill rather than down into a pit. 
 When this can be done the stone is drawn 
 and carted away on level ground, instead 
 of having to be lifted up from a deep hole ; 
 but the quarrymen must excavate where the 
 stone is, and, as the work goes on, the 
 quarry often becomes deeper as well as 
 larger. As a rule, the rock is near the 
 surface, and only a little grass and soil 
 have to be removed before it is laid bare. 
 When the rock is laid bare, the workmen
 
 How BUILDING-STONES ARE MADE. 79 
 
 begin to break it up with their sharp-pointed 
 hammers, picks, and iron wedges, into pieces 
 as large as possible. 
 
 If we look at any quarry which has been 
 worked for some time, we shall find a large 
 hole, with high, bare rocks on perhaps every 
 side but one, where there is an entrance, 
 with a cart-road leading from the bottom of 
 the quarry to the level of the ground around 
 it. The bare walls are cut into ledges or 
 steps wide enough for the workmen to stand 
 on and break away the rock in front of them. 
 When a workman wishes to bring down a 
 new block, he takes a sharp-pointed hammer 
 and begins to make a small hole on the top 
 of one of the ledges. By repeated and steady 
 tapping with the point of his hammer, he 
 makes a small hole a few inches deep, and 
 in the same way he makes several other 
 holes, a foot or two feet apart, in a line 
 along the ledge. When the holes are 
 finished he places in each a sharp-pointed 
 steel wedge, and, hammering first one and 
 then another, he drives them deeper and 
 deeper into the rock. Presently the rock 
 cracks or splits in a line from wedge to 
 wedge, and a huge block is broken from 
 that ledge, and falls upon the ledge below, 
 or is lifted away by means of a crane, ancj, 
 lowered to the bottom of the quarry,
 
 80 How BUILDING-STONES ARE MADE. 
 
 The size and shape of the blocks which 
 are broken off depend almost entirely upon 
 where the quarrymen chip the holes into 
 the rock, for the rock splits in nearly straight 
 lines from one hole or wedge to another. 
 When a very large block is to be removed, 
 the quarrymen make use of the crane for 
 splitting the block, as well as for lifting it 
 away. The holes are made as before, but 
 long crow-bars are placed in them in place 
 of the short steel wedges. When the crow- 
 bars have been driven well into the rock, 
 and are firmly embedded in it, the chain of 
 the crane is fastened to one of them, and 
 two men, turning the windlass, wind up the 
 chain, and pull the block away from the 
 rock. Though the rock looks so solid, there 
 are always slight flaws in it, and little by 
 little it splits along those nearest the crow- 
 bars, as the quarrymen pull with the chain 
 of the crane, first at one crow-bar and then 
 at another. 
 
 When the blocks are lowered to the 
 bottom of the quarry, they are split into 
 their proper sizes by other workmen, who 
 make holes in them and drive wedges into 
 them in exactly the same way. But as the 
 stones become smaller, smaller wedges are 
 used, and the blocks split more quickly. 
 Many are cut square, like large bricks, and
 
 How BUILDING-STONES ARE MADE. 81 
 
 of a convenient size for building, and these 
 are chipped smooth on their sides by masons 
 using hammers and chisels. The fronts of 
 these stones, which are turned outwards 
 when the house is built, are often chipped 
 over with pointed hammers, which leaves 
 them rough, but not very irregular. All 
 this work is done before the stones leave the 
 quarry. 
 
 The large flagstones which are used for 
 paving causeways are sawn from a huge 
 block of stone with the aid of machinery. 
 The saw is a large, square frame of wood, 
 with thin but broad blades of steel set in it. 
 The frame is suspended horizontally from a 
 strong and lofty structure of wood, in such 
 a way that it may swing to and fro a little, 
 and the blades are set in the frame like bars 
 with their edges downwards. These blades 
 are four or five inches deep, from the lower 
 edge to the upper one. They are very thin, 
 but not toothed, as carpenter's saws are. A 
 long arm is joined to one end of the frame of 
 the saw, and connected at the other to a 
 wheel, which is turned round by means of 
 a steam engine. As the wheel is driven 
 round, the arm is moved to and fro, and 
 sways the saw-frame backwards and for- 
 wards. The large block of stone which is 
 to be sawn up is placed on a low car, and
 
 82 How BUILDING-STONES ABE MADE. 
 
 pushed under the saw. The saw is set in 
 motion, and as it swings to 'and fro, the 
 blades saw along the top of the stone. As 
 the saw works on, suitable wheels and rods 
 are made to move, by means of which the 
 chains which hold up the frame of the saw 
 are allowed to unwind from a roller, and the 
 frame with its saw falls lower and lower, 
 until the saws pass quite through the stone. 
 Water is allowed to drip continually upon 
 the stone and the saws from a trough above. 
 The saws are set a few inches apart, and the 
 stones which are left standing between the 
 blades, like so many slices of toast in a 
 toast-rack, are the flagstones. If the saws 
 are placed nearer to each other, the flag- 
 stones are cut thinner, and if the saws are 
 set further apart the stones are thicker. 
 
 Very often, when the quarry is excavated 
 to a great depth in the ground, water flows 
 into it from the surrounding ground, and 
 fills the bottom of the quarry so that the 
 men can only work at the sides. But if the 
 stone is good, and the water is not very 
 abundant, the owners lay down pumps and 
 set up. an engine to work them, and by 
 continual pumping they succeed in keeping 
 all but a very small portion of the quarry 
 sufficiently dry for the men to work. When 
 this is the case, one part of the quarry is dug
 
 How BUILDING-ATONES ABE MADE. 83 
 
 out deeper than the rest, so that all the 
 water may flow into it as into a well, and the 
 pipes of the pumps are carried down into 
 this well.
 
 HOW SALT IS MADE. 
 
 sea contains an inexhaustible store of 
 salt, from which men have drawn great 
 supplies for many centuries. This salt is 
 dissolved in the water, just as the sugar 
 which sweetens our tea is dissolved in the 
 tea itself. We cannot detect, either by 
 sight or touch, whether there is salt or sugar 
 in the water or the tea, but we know in a 
 moment if we taste the one or the other. 
 
 If we put a little too much sugar in a cup 
 of tea, some of it remains undissolved. If 
 we poured off the hot, sweetened tea into a 
 clean cup and allowed it to cool, we should 
 probably find a few grains of sugar, or at 
 least a little sugary syrup, at the bottom of 
 the second cup. If we put out tea in a pan 
 over the fire and boiled it away, we should 
 find all the sugar which we had put into it 
 left behind in the pan. It is clear, from 
 
 84
 
 How SALT is MADE. 85 
 
 these observations and experiments, that tea, 
 or water, will only dissolve a certain amount 
 of sugar, more when it is hot than when it is 
 cold, and that when the water evaporates it 
 leaves the sugar behind. 
 
 If we made similar experiments with salt 
 and water, we should find that they act in 
 the same way as the sugar and the tea. 
 Water will not dissolve more than a small 
 amount of salt, and when the water evapor- 
 ates it leaves the salt behind. In hot dry 
 countries it sometimes happens that shallow 
 bays and lagoons, which have been flooded 
 with sea-water at very high tides, are after- 
 wards dried up entirely, and the salt which 
 was dissolved in the sea-water is left behind, 
 covering the ground like a sheet of dazzling 
 snow. In Syria and Cyprus, salt formed in 
 this way natural salt, we might call it is 
 gathered together into heaps, and carried 
 away for domestic use. 
 
 The simplest and cheapest way of making 
 salt from sea-water is to copy this natural 
 process. Such is the process at the Govern- 
 ment salt-works in Sardinia. The water of 
 the sea is pumped into a number of large, 
 shallow reservoirs and allowed to evaporate 
 by the heat of the sun. The work goes on 
 quickly during the hot summer months, from 
 June to October, but slower in the colder
 
 How SALT is MADE. 
 
 months, and in the course of the year many 
 thousands of tons of salt are obtained in this 
 way. 
 
 Most hot countries still adopt this method 
 of making salt, and even in England it used 
 to be followed, to some extent, when our 
 grandfathers were young. It is a very cheap 
 method, because the sea-water and the sun's 
 heat cost nothing, the labour is not great, 
 and very little machinery of any kind is 
 necessary. But the process has also great 
 disadvantages. The salt is not very pure. 
 Not only does sand become mixed with it, 
 but other substances, such as gypsum, which 
 dissolve in sea- water, just as salt itself does, 
 are left behind with the salt when the water 
 evaporates. Moreover, in a cold, wet climate 
 like ours, evaporation goes on very slowly, 
 and it would take a long time to make even 
 a small quantity of salt in this way. The 
 salt, being small in quantity and difficult to 
 make, would also be costly. Fortunately 
 for us, we have readier and better means of 
 obtaining salt than by allowing sea-water to 
 be evaporated by the heat of the sun. 
 
 In England, and in many other countries 
 too, there are large masses of salt buried like 
 stone in the ground. This salt, which is 
 distinguished as rock-salt, is hard like stone, 
 and very much resembles a brown sugar
 
 How SALT is MADE. 87 
 
 candy. It is taken out of the earth by 
 means of mines, which are very similar to 
 coal-mines, and are worked in a similar way. 
 But as salt readily dissolves in water, or 
 crumbles in damp air, great care has to be 
 taken not to trust to the rock-salt for firm 
 supports and foundations, as if it were firm, 
 hard stone. On the other hand, rock-salt 
 mines are generally free from fire-damp, and 
 there is not the great risk of explosions 
 which there is in most coal-mines. 
 
 Rock-salt is often given for cattle to lick, 
 and it is used in many industrial operations, 
 but it does not supply our tables. The salt 
 which we eat, or use in cooking, is obtained 
 in a different way, but it is really derived 
 from rock-salt, though in a rather indirect 
 manner. In the same districts where rock- 
 salt is found, many of the springs which 
 bubble up from the ground are exceedingly 
 salt, much more so that any sea water. If a 
 well be made in these districts, the water 
 which is drawn from it is not fresh, but 
 strongly salt. The explanation of this pecu- 
 liarity is that the water of the spring or well 
 has passed through or rested upon a bed of 
 buried rock-salt, and has dissolved and 
 carried away with it much of the salt. 
 Nature has, in fact, turned the fresh water 
 into strong brine,
 
 88 How SALT is MADE. 
 
 It is from brine drawn from wells that our 
 best table-salt is obtained by evaporation, 
 the brine being chosen because it contains a 
 very large proportion of salt and very few 
 impurities. The water of a good brine-well 
 may have dissolved in it eight or ten times 
 as much salt as the same quantity of sea- 
 water. The brine is evaporated by the heat 
 of a fire or of steam, and therefore the work 
 goes on quickly, and is independent of the 
 sun. 
 
 The brine is pumped from the wells into 
 large reservoirs, from which it is permitted 
 to flow into iron evaporating pans, which 
 have coal fires beneath them, and sometimes 
 steam-pipes within the pans themselves. As 
 the water evaporates, little crystals of salt 
 form on the surface, and, after skimming 
 about for a little time, fall to the bottom of 
 the pan. From time to time, perhaps two 
 or three times a day, the salt at the bottom 
 of the pan is raked to the side, taken out, 
 and thrown into moulds, or tubs, of the size 
 and shape of the blocks of salt which we 
 commonly see in shops. The moulds, filled 
 with the wet salt, are left on the edge of the 
 pan to drain, and in about half-an-hour the 
 salt is sufficiently set to be turned out of the 
 mould. It is carried to a kind of stove or 
 kiln, formed between the evaporating pan
 
 How SALT is MADE. 89 
 
 and the chimneys of the fires, and there it 
 remains until it is thoroughly dry and hard. 
 From the stove it is carried to a slightly 
 heated store-room, and it is then ready for 
 sale. 
 
 As the brine in the evaporating pan 
 evaporates, new supplies are admitted from 
 the reservoirs, which are filled by the pumps. 
 The pans are never allowed to become dry, 
 but as the salt settles, it is raked out, and 
 as the water boils down, more brine is turned 
 in. In this way the work is kept always 
 going, and there is no waste of fire, nor 
 any injury done by the fire burning or melt- 
 ing a dry pan. By increasing or diminishing 
 the fires, the work can be made to go on 
 quickly or slowly, and the nature of the salt 
 can be modified in this way. Fine salt is 
 made quickly, while large-grained salt, such 
 as is used on fishing smacks, is made very 
 slowly, so as to permit the salt to gather into 
 small lumps or scales.
 
 HOW COAL IS OBTAINED. 
 
 COAL is found in the ground, by the side 
 of earth, clay and stones, and it is dug 
 out with the aid of shovel and pick, just as 
 sand or stone is. At first sight it appears 
 to be a sort of stone, but the fact that it 
 will burn with as much flame and heat as 
 firewood, distinguishes it from all kinds of 
 stone, none of which will burn in the same 
 way. Careful study has shown that coal is 
 only a modified kind of wood, and is, in fact, 
 more or less impure charcoal. 
 
 Coal is not found in large masses like 
 building stone, but in thin layers or beds 
 wedged in between other layers of clay, like 
 the meat between the slices of bread in a 
 sandwich. These coal-beds are in some 
 places only an inch or two thick, while at 
 others they are several feet deep. They 
 often spread out over many miles of surface. 
 
 90
 
 How COAL is OBTAINED. 91 
 
 Usually there are several bands of coal, 
 lying one above another, with thicker beds 
 of clay and stone between them, like sand- 
 wiches piled on the top of each other. This 
 arrangement makes it impossible to dig coal 
 out by means of an open quarry, as building 
 stones are obtained, because the workmen 
 would have to dig out far more useless clay 
 than good coal. 
 
 Occasionally, the edge of a bed of coal will 
 show itself on the surface of the ground. 
 When that happens, the collier digs the 
 coal out from the edge, and props up the 
 clay above with wooden posts, to prevent it 
 falling upon him and burying him up. I 
 have no doubt that this was the first kind 
 of coal-mining that was ever practised. 
 
 As a rule, however, coal-beds are found 
 below the surface of the ground, and quite 
 hidden by the soil above them. Sometimes 
 they are so near the surface that workmen 
 dig into them when they are making cellars, 
 or wells. In many places where coal is 
 found near the surface, it used to be dug out 
 in a very simple way. The workmen made 
 a round hole, like a well, into the ground, 
 until they reached the bed of coal. Having 
 dug out the coal at the bottom of this hole, 
 they removed as much of the coal as they 
 could on every side, undermining the clay
 
 92 How COAL is OBTAINED. 
 
 above as they did so. When the upper part 
 of the hole showed signs of falling in, they 
 abandoned that pit, and commenced another 
 in a different place. As these holes were 
 wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, 
 they were called, from their shape, " bell- 
 pits." After a time the workmen learned 
 how to strengthen these pits with wooden 
 supports, so as to prevent their falling in ; 
 and were able to draw out more and more 
 coal before they abandoned them. In this 
 way the science of coal- mining was developed, 
 until we now have mines of incredible depth 
 and size. 
 
 As coal is not found everywhere, much 
 careful observation is made in order to dis- 
 cover whether there is any probability of 
 coal being found in the ground where it is 
 proposed to make a pit. If the position 
 selected appears to be favourable, a trial of 
 the ground is usually made, before the pit 
 itself is commenced. This trial consists in 
 slowly boring into the ground a small hole 
 a few inches wide, and observing, by the 
 fragments which are brought up by the 
 borer, what kind of soil or rock it is passing 
 through. 
 
 If the borer shows that there are good 
 beds of coal lying in the ground below, the 
 next operation is to make a pit-shaft from
 
 How COAL is OBTAINED. 93 
 
 the surface of the ground to the bed or beds 
 of coal which are to be dug out. The pit- 
 shaft when completed, is like an exceedingly 
 long chimney, buried in the ground. It is 
 dug out little by little, and in order to 
 prevent the sides of the shaft from falling in, 
 and so closing up, it is cased with wood, 
 stone, brick, or iron. This casing is put 
 together in stages from the top downwards. 
 When the shaft has been dug out for some 
 distance, strong timbers are driven into the 
 sides, and a portion of the case is built up 
 upon them. The workmen dig on, and by- 
 and-by they put in other timbers, and build 
 up another stage of the case, carrying it up 
 until it reaches and supports the first stage. 
 In this way they continue on, until the 
 whole shaft is made, like a chimney built 
 from top to bottom. 
 
 Having reached the coal, the miners begin 
 to cut tunnels, or galleries, into it in various 
 directions, with the aid of their picks and 
 shovels. The coal which is dug out of these 
 galleries is shovelled into little trucks, which 
 are wheeled to the shaft, and placed in a 
 kind of cage or car. To the top of the cage 
 a strong wire rope is attached, which passes 
 up the shaft and over a great wheel to a 
 large roller or drum, upon which the other 
 end of the rope is wound. A steam engine
 
 94 How COAL is OBTAINED. 
 
 is so arranged that it can be made to turn 
 this drum either way, and thus it raises or 
 lowers the cage and its contents as required. 
 There are, in fact, two cages to each pit- 
 shaft, and their ropes are so wound upon 
 the drum in opposite directions that one 
 cage comes up while the other descends. 
 The miners also go to their work in these 
 cages, and return in them when work is 
 over. 
 
 As the miners cut the galleries into the 
 coal in various directions, they are careful 
 to leave sufficient coal standing to support 
 the roof of the mine. The roofs of the gal- 
 leries are generally supported by planks and 
 wooden pillars, and often the sides, and even 
 the floors, are protected in the same way. 
 If the galleries are long, iron rails are laid 
 down for the trucks of coal to run upon. 
 These trucks are drawn along by boys, or 
 horses, or engines, according the size or 
 importance of the pit. 
 
 At the end of the galleries the miners dig 
 at the coal with their picks and shovels. If 
 the bed is very thin, they have often to 
 crouch down, or even lie down, in order to 
 reach it. The owners of the pit want as 
 much coal and as little clay as possible, 
 because the clay is only rubbish to them, 
 and any labour spent in moving it to and fro
 
 How COAL is OBTAINED. 95 
 
 is wasted. If the bed of coal is thick and 
 hard, it is often broken up by blasting it 
 with gunpowder or some other explosive. 
 
 Much water finds its way into most coal- 
 mines, just as it does into quarries. This 
 water runs along the various galleries until 
 it reaches the lowest. A well is usually 
 sunk in the lowest part of the pit, and a 
 shaft is opened above it. A powerful pump, 
 worked by a steam engine, draws the water 
 from the well, and pours it out on the sur- 
 face of the ground. But for this pump, it 
 would often be quite impossible for the 
 miners to work in the pit at all, because it 
 would fill with water. 
 
 One great difficulty in the working of 
 mines is to keep the miners supplied with 
 air. If several shafts are made in different 
 parts of a mine, there is nearly always a 
 natural current of air down some of the 
 shafts, through the galleries, and up the 
 other shafts. If this does not give a suffi- 
 cient supply of air, a large fire is made and 
 kept burning at the bottom of one of the 
 shafts. This draws the air from the mine, 
 and sends it up the shaft, as up a chimney, 
 while fresh air flows down the other shafts 
 to supply its place. Occasionally a pump, 
 worked by steam, is used to force air into 
 the mine.
 
 96 How COAL is OBTAINED. 
 
 The miner usually carries a lamp with him 
 to light him on his way and at his work. 
 At one time, candles and ordinary lamps 
 were used, but now their use is forbidden. 
 In most mines there is a certain amount of 
 a gas called jire-damp, which is very ex- 
 plosive when set on fire by a naked light. 
 For a long time miners knew of no way of 
 avoiding the terrible explosions caused by 
 fire-damp, which often killed many men. 
 About ninety years ago, Sir Humphrey Davy 
 and George Stephenson each invented safety 
 lamps, which were practically safe in mines, 
 and are now used in all of them. The flame 
 in these lamps is really enclosed in a roll of 
 fine wire netting, and this is found to be 
 sufficient to prevent the flame from lighting 
 any gas outside the lamp.
 
 HOW FLOUR IS MADE. 
 
 WE all are familiar with the sight of fields 
 of waving corn, gleaming in the 
 bright sunlight, and giving golden touches 
 to the beautiful landscape. Few of us, 
 perhaps, think of the farmer's anxiety for 
 these ripening crops, upon which his success 
 depends so much ; arid still less do we think 
 that our flour or our bread will be less plenti- 
 ful if the harvest is a failure, although we 
 know that flour can only be obtained from 
 the wheat which is growing in the fields. 
 Our grandfathers, who depended almost 
 entirely for their flour upon wheat grown in 
 England, were much more interested in the 
 corn fields and the harvest than we usually 
 are. 
 
 Before the growing corn is converted into 
 flour much labour must be given to it. It 
 has first to be reaped. In days gone by, 
 
 97 9
 
 98 How FLOUR is MADE. 
 
 reapers cut the corn with their bent sickles, 
 but now this work is nearly always performed 
 by a reaping-machine. This machine is a 
 kind of cart, with a long bar projecting from 
 one side of it near the ground. Upon this 
 bar there are a number of sharpened points 
 projecting forward, and a similar bar, having 
 similar points, is laid upon the top of it. As 
 the cart moves forward, the upper bar slides 
 to and fro over the lower one, and the points 
 upon it cross those upon the lower one like 
 the blades of so many scissors, and thus they 
 cut through the stalks of the standing corn. 
 At the same time a sort of light paddle- 
 wheel, turning among the ears, beats the cut 
 corn upon an endless band, which carries it 
 into the cart, where it is bound into sheaves 
 and tossed out at the other side. The reap- 
 ing-machine is drawn by horses, and it does 
 the work of many reapers quickly and well. 
 
 The sheaves which the machine has bound 
 are gathered into carts and carried to the 
 farm, where they are stacked or stowed away 
 to await the next operation, which is thresh- 
 ing. The object of this is to knock the 
 grains of corn from the straw and chaff. It 
 used to be done by giving the corn a real 
 thrashing, or beating, with jointed rods, 
 called flails. Now, however, the farmer hires 
 a threshing-machine to do the work. The
 
 How FLOUR is MADE. 99 
 
 threshing-machine is brought to the farm by 
 a traction-engine, and when it is at work it 
 is driven by a leather belt from the same 
 engine. The corn is thrown into one end of 
 the threshing-machine, and passes through 
 rollers or beaters, which tear out the grain 
 from the straw and the husk. The grain 
 falls through a sieve, which keeps back the 
 straw, while a revolving fan blows away the 
 chaff and the dust. The grain passes down 
 a spout and is caught in a sack, while the 
 empty straw is tossed out at the side of the 
 machine. 
 
 The next operation in the manufacture of 
 flour is the grinding of the grains of wheat. 
 At the present time the farmer sells his corn 
 in sacks to a miller, who grinds it, and then 
 sells the flour at a profit. But at one time 
 many people ground their own flour at home, 
 very much as they now grind their own 
 coffee, though the flour-grinding was a much 
 harder and longer operation than coffee - 
 grinding. 
 
 The readiest way of breaking wheat-grains 
 into flour is to pound them between stones, 
 and some of the savage people of various 
 countries make all their flour in this way. 
 The English had, however, improved upon 
 this method a thousand years and more ago. 
 They used a grinding mill, or quern, of stone,
 
 100 How FLOUR is MADE. 
 
 which could be turned by hand. The quern 
 consisted of two rough, flat stones, like thin 
 cheeses, one of which was laid upon the top 
 of the other. A rather large hole was cut 
 through the centre of the upper stone, and 
 a large peg, or handle, was stuck into a 
 small hole in the side of the stone, or on the 
 top near the side. The corn to be ground 
 was poured into the large hole in the centre 
 of the upper stone, and this stone was then 
 turned round by means of its handle. The 
 corn passed in between the upper and the 
 lower stones, and was ground by the rough 
 surfaces rubbing against each other. It 
 came out as flour all round the edge of the 
 quern, and a cloth was spread under the 
 quern to catch it. 
 
 The flour obtained from querns was not 
 very white, because the brown skin of the 
 wheat grain was ground up with the white 
 flour within. The particles of skin were 
 sometimes removed by passing the flour 
 through a fine sieve, which retained the skin 
 while it allowed the flour to pass through. 
 
 If we look into any old water-mill or wind- 
 mill where flour is made, we shall find that 
 the work which is there going on is very 
 similar to that which I have just described. 
 The grindstones are as large as cartwheels, 
 and, being boxed in, they look like the tops
 
 How FLOUR is MADE. 101 
 
 of large barrels projecting through the floor. 
 If, however, we removed their cases, we 
 should find the stones were flat and thin, 
 and that they were arranged exactly like the 
 stones of a quern. The upper one is turned 
 round by suitable machinery, put in motion 
 by the water-mill or the sails of the mill. 
 The wheat falls from a hopper into the hole 
 in the upper stone, and, after being ground, 
 it passes through the floor, and is delivered 
 by a spout into sacks placed in the story or 
 cellar below. The flour may be sifted through 
 a muslin or silk sieve at the same time, 
 the sieve being moved from side to side by 
 machinery. 
 
 The upper millstone in one of these mills 
 does not touch the lower millstone, but turns 
 upon a pin, which keeps it very near the 
 lower stone, without allowing it to touch. 
 How close the stones are to each other you 
 will be able to imagine, when you think how 
 finely the flour is ground, and when you 
 remember that nothing but flour escapes 
 from the stones. If the stones touch each 
 other they immediately strike fire, and the 
 flour is burnt. From this you will under- 
 stand that the stones have to be very 
 carefully selected and cut, and they are con- 
 sequently very costly. 
 
 Until a few years ago all our English flour
 
 102 How FLOUR is MADE. 
 
 was ground by flat millstones. But a new 
 method of grinding flour by means of rollers 
 has now become well established, and the 
 flour obtained in this way is much whiter 
 than the flour obtained in the old way, though 
 it is probably not so good as a food. The 
 roller mills are fitted with pairs of steel 
 rollers, which have spiral ridges upon them. 
 These ridges are so arranged that they cut 
 or scrape off the outer parts of the grain, 
 and leave only the very whitest part to be 
 ground to flour. The flour passes through, 
 perhaps, as many as twenty rollers before it 
 is delivered to the dressing-machines, which 
 separate all the husk and inferior portions of 
 the grain from the pure white flour by means 
 of silk screens.
 
 HOW A STAINED GLASS WINDOW 
 IS MADE. 
 
 V17E are all aware that when iron is ex- 
 posed for some time to warm, damp 
 air, it rusts. This rust is something quite 
 different from the iron itself. It is soft and 
 crumbling, and its colour is red or brown, 
 while that of polished or clean iron is grey- 
 ish, or white and glittering. A teacher of 
 chemistry would tell us that the rust was 
 really a combination of a portion of the iron 
 with some of the oxygen which forms a great 
 part of the air we breathe ; and perhaps he 
 would also tell us that its scientific name 
 was oxide of iron. 
 
 Rust is, however, only one oxide of iron 
 selected from several. The fiery sparks or 
 scales which fly about when a blacksmith is 
 hammering a piece of red-hot iron are 
 another form of oxide of iron. When they 
 
 103
 
 104 How A STAINED GLASS WINDOW is MADE. 
 
 are cool, they are little, blackish flakes, quite 
 different in appearance from rust. Yet they 
 are nothing but a combination of iron and 
 oxygen, like the rust, the difference being 
 that the scales contain a little more in pro- 
 portion of the oxygen. So, too, there are 
 oxides of other metals, such as copper, gold, 
 silver, chromium, and others, the names of 
 which, perhaps, you never heard before ; and 
 all these oxides differ from each other in 
 their appearance and properties. Some, like 
 rust, are easily obtained, while others are 
 comparatively rare. 
 
 We have already seen how glass is made 
 by melting together sand, lime, and potash 
 or soda. If we wish to learn how a window 
 is made of stained or coloured glass, we must 
 next discover how the glass itself is coloured. 
 Coloured glass is obtained by melting, with 
 the other materials of which the glass is 
 made, various metallic oxides, such as those 
 which I have just described. Each oxide 
 imparts a distinct colour to the glass, and by 
 using more or less of the proper oxide, and 
 by blending the oxides in various ways, every 
 tint of glass may be produced. Remember- 
 ing that it is always the oxide, and not the 
 pure metal, which tints the glass, we may 
 say that iron gives a green or brownish- 
 yellow colour, according to the particular
 
 How A STAINED GLASS WINDOW is MADE. 105 
 
 oxide which is used ; copper, a red or green 
 colour, in the same way ; manganese, a purple 
 or black ; chromium, a green ; gold, a pink or 
 ruby ; and cobalt, a blue. Iron oxide is nearly 
 always present in the sand which is used in 
 making common glass, and this is the 
 reason that common bottles have usually a 
 greenish tinge. 
 
 A glass-blower can, or course, make any 
 of these coloured glasses into bottles, jugs, 
 bowls, dishes, or sheets, just as if they were 
 ordinary colourless glass. There is one very 
 clever little trick, as it were, which is often 
 practised, and is worth describing. The 
 glass-blower who is making some ornamental 
 glass object, dips his blow-pipe first into a 
 pot of melted colourless glass, and next into a 
 pot of coloured glass, ruby, we will suppose. 
 He blows through his pipe, and makes the 
 bowl, or whatever it may be, in the usual 
 way. When it is finished, it appears to be 
 made of ruby glass entirely, but really it is a 
 white or colourless bowl with a ruby covering 
 on the outer side. If, now, it be passed on 
 to a glass-cutter to be ornamented, he will 
 cut stars and other patterns on the outer 
 side of the glass, and in doing so he cuts 
 through the ruby glass in these places, and 
 leaves the clear glass bare. The effect is 
 very pretty, for the bowl has now a ruby
 
 106 How A STAINED GLASS WINDOW is MADE. 
 
 ground, with a cut pattern of clear, un- 
 coloured glass. 
 
 When a stained glass window is required 
 for a church, an artist prepares one or two 
 coloured designs, which represent the appear- 
 ance which the window will have when it is 
 finished. One of these designs having been 
 selected, a copy of it is made, as large as the 
 finished work is to be, which will, of course, 
 depend upon the size of the window. Upon 
 this copy all the patches of different colour 
 are clearly outlined with a number of lines, 
 which form a rough network over the 
 picture. The copy is laid upon a table and 
 securely fastened, and a workman goes care- 
 fully over it, patch by patch, selecting pieces 
 of glass corresponding in shade to the colour 
 of each patch, and cutting them to the shape 
 of the patch. When he has completed this 
 part of his work, he has before him a sort of 
 puzzle-picture in coloured glass, which is a 
 rough copy of the pattern upon the table. 
 
 In the painted pattern, however, there are 
 many details, such as the features of faces, 
 and various kinds of ornamentation, which 
 have to be drawn or outlined with lines, and 
 these cannot possibly be copied in separate 
 pieces of glass. The window-maker must 
 contrive to paint these upon the glass in 
 some such way as they are painted on the
 
 How A STAINED GLASS WINDOW is MADE. 107 
 
 paper itself, and he must also contrive to fix 
 his colours on the glass, so that they will 
 not wash off or wear off. 
 
 To effect this, he takes some powdered 
 glass and mixes with it some substance, such 
 as borax or red lead, which will make the 
 glass melt at a much lower temperature than 
 that which would be necessary to melt the 
 glass itself. To the powdered glass and the 
 borax or red lead he adds some oxide of iron, 
 which, as I have already said, gives a brown- 
 ish colour to melted glass. He has then a 
 mixture of glass and other things, which will 
 melt with a little heat and turn brown. To 
 these mixed powders he adds a little gum- 
 water, and he has then a kind of paint with 
 which to paint his glass picture. Suppose 
 that he wishes to paint the eyes and other 
 features of a face. He takes the glass which 
 he has cut for the face, and, laying it on the 
 copy, he paints over the lines which he sees 
 through the glass. Occasionally, perhaps, he 
 places the glass on an easel, to see if it gives 
 the proper effect when the light shines 
 through it. 
 
 When all the pieces which require painting 
 are finished, they are placed upon shelves in 
 a kind of iron oven, called a muffle. The 
 shelves are covered with powdered chalk, so 
 that the glass may not touch the iron, and
 
 108 How A STAINED GLASS WINDOW is MADE. 
 
 the painted sides of the glass are turned 
 upwards. The muffle is closed, and the 
 flames of a fire are allowed to play around it. 
 The pieces of glass in the muffle become hot, 
 not sufficiently hot to melt. The paint, 
 however, upon the surface of them, owing to 
 the borax or red lead, does melt, and changes 
 into glass, which the oxide of iron tinges 
 brown. As soon as the paint turns into 
 glass, the fire is raked out, and the pieces in 
 the muffle are allowed to cool slowly. When 
 they are cold, the glass from the paint is 
 firmly joined to the glass of the piece, and 
 is, in fact, part of it. 
 
 It only remains now to put the pieces in 
 their proper places again over the pattern, 
 and join them all together. This is done 
 with strips of lead, which have a deep 
 channel on each side. The edges of the 
 pieces of glass fit into the channels, and the 
 leaves at the top and bottom of the strip fold 
 over to hold them in their places. The 
 strips pass in and out round all the pieces, 
 and they are fastened with melted lead or 
 solder at the joints, where they meet or 
 touch. Lastly, the whole window is made 
 water-tight by scrubbing it with a cement of 
 white lead, oil, and plaster of paris, which 
 fills up all the interstices.
 
 HOW A HORSE-SHOE IS MADE. 
 
 |N large towns, where many horses are at 
 * work in the streets, there are farriers or 
 blacksmiths who do nothing else but make 
 horse-shoes, and fasten them on to the 
 horses' hoofs ; but as a rule the shoeing of 
 horses occupies only a part of the black- 
 smith's time, and the rest of it is devoted to 
 all kinds of working in wrought iron. The 
 blacksmith has nothing to do with cast iron. 
 He gives all his thought and labour to 
 wrought or malleable iron, which he bends 
 and shapes to the form which he requires 
 with the help of his hammers only. He has 
 indeed other tools, but all those which are 
 used in giving shape to the iron are simply 
 aids to the hammer, and might be regarded 
 as hammers of peculiar forms. 
 
 If we peep through the open door of any 
 smithy, we may see the blacksmith at work.
 
 110 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE. 
 
 Let us first, however, take stock of the 
 smithy itself and the tools which the smith 
 uses. There is a fire, or forge, in which he 
 heats his iron, in order to make it softer and 
 easier to work. By the side of the forge 
 there is a huge bellows to blow the fire, and 
 in front of it is the anvil upon which all the 
 hammering is done. On the ground around 
 are hammers of various sizes, from the heavy 
 sledge, which is swung with both arms, to 
 the small hand-hammer, which is light as a 
 toy in the strong hand of the smith. Near 
 the anvil there is a small tank of water into 
 which the smith dips his hot iron when he 
 wishes to cool it quickly. On the wall by 
 the forge or lying about in various directions 
 are iron tongs, chisels, pinches, and dies of 
 many kinds, while sheets and rods of iron 
 are piled in the corners of the smithy or 
 against the walls. 
 
 The bellows used by blacksmiths are of 
 various shapes. Some resemble the small 
 bellows which we use for blowing our kitchen 
 fires, while others are tall and circular like a 
 concertina placed on end. They are very 
 large, and they are worked by a long handle, 
 which, when it is pulled down, pushes the 
 ends of the bellows together, and drives out 
 the air through a pipe into the fire. When 
 the handle of the bellows is allowed to rise,
 
 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE. Ill 
 
 the heavy wooden bottom of the bellows falls 
 down, and a small valve or trap-door placed 
 in the bottom opens upwards to let in more 
 air, so that the bellows are filled again. 
 When the bellows close, this valve shuts 
 down, and thus prevents the air from escap - 
 ing by any other way but the pipe. If you 
 carefully examine a pair of kitchen bellows, 
 you will soon pick out how they work ; and 
 blacksmith's bellows are usually very similar 
 in their construction and use. 
 
 The blacksmith's anvil is a heavy block of 
 wrought iron, which is fixed to the top of a 
 wooden base, buried in the ground. The 
 anvil itself is a kind of short, stout pillar, 
 widening out at the top to a small oblong 
 table, at one end of which there is a strong 
 conical beak somewhat like a pig's snout. 
 The other end of this little table is cut away 
 underneath like the stern of a ship, and a 
 small square hole is cut vertically through 
 this part like the hole through which the top 
 of the rudder projects in a yacht. 
 
 Now, having learned so much about the 
 blacksmith's forge, bellows, anvil, and tools, 
 let us see what use he makes of them. As a 
 rule two men work at each anvil, one of whom 
 is a blacksmith, and the other an assistant, 
 who is commonly called a " striker " in the 
 North of England. The blacksmith who is
 
 112 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE. 
 
 about to make a horse-shoe takes a rod of 
 wrought iron, which is about an inch wide 
 and half-an-inch or three-quarters of an inch 
 thick. He pokes, the end of the rod into the 
 forge, and the striker blows the bellows 
 until the end of the rod is white hot. The 
 blacksmith then draws out the rod, and, 
 holding it in his left hand, lays the end of it 
 across the top of the anvil, and with the aid 
 of a steel rule measures off a suitable 
 length for the shoe. He takes up one of his 
 chisels, and lays the edge of it across the 
 rod at the point where he wishes to cut off 
 the piece which is to form the shoe. The 
 chisel is a kind of axe and hammer-head 
 combined, and it is fixed in a handle made 
 of bent iron or a bent wooden wand. While 
 the smith holds the blade across the iron rod 
 with his right hand, the striker gives a few 
 blows with his heavy sledge upon the ham- 
 mer-head at the back of the chisel, and the 
 red-hot iron is quickly chopped off the rod. 
 
 Laying the rod aside, the smith takes up 
 the short piece with his iron tongs, and puts 
 it in the fire. When it is hot enough for his 
 purpose, he draws it out again, and, holding 
 it on the anvil, begins to flatten it with a 
 small hammer, while the striker hammers 
 away with him. Each delivers a blow in turn. 
 At first sight it seems rather ridiculous for
 
 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE. 113 
 
 the smith to put in his blows at all, for they 
 appear to have no effect in comparison with 
 the blows of the sledge-hammer. But if you 
 watch carefully, you will see that the smith 
 with his small hammer is simply showing 
 the striker where to deliver his blows, and 
 when the little hammer stops, the striker 
 lays down his sledge. 
 
 When the iron is flattened out to the 
 proper degree, it is returned to the fire, and 
 when it is once more hot, the smith takes it 
 out, and, holding it across the point of the 
 anvil, he begins to bend it into horse-shoe 
 shape by hammering the ends round the 
 anvil's point. If the shoe is to be a small 
 one, it is shaped nearer the extreme point, 
 while if it is to be a large one, it is bent 
 nearer to the body of the anvil, where the 
 beak is further round. 
 
 Little by little the shoe is hammered to 
 the proper shape, and then a groove is cut 
 along the under side of it by means of a 
 chisel somewhat like that which was used 
 for cutting off the piece from the rod. The 
 holes for the nails are made in a similar way, 
 the red-hot shoe being laid over the hole in 
 the anvil, while the point of a punch is 
 hammered through it. If the shoe is in- 
 tended for a heavy cart-horse working in 
 streets paved with hard and slippery stones,
 
 114 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE. 
 
 the ends of the shoe are turned down so as 
 to form broad, flat spikes. This is accom- 
 plished by laying the shoe on the anvil with 
 the ends projecting over the side, and 
 hammering them down over the edge of the 
 anvil until they are bent at right angles. 
 Many horses have peculiarities in their walk 
 which necessitate special alterations in the 
 shoes which are made for them. Sometimes 
 pieces of steel are welded to that part of the 
 shoe which wears away quickest. This 
 welding is accomplished by heating the two 
 pieces of metal, and hammering them to- 
 gether until they unite into one piece in 
 which no joining can be traced. The steel 
 being harder than the iron is not so quickly 
 worn away. 
 
 When a horse is to be shod, the old shoes 
 are knocked off, the nails are taken out, and 
 the hoof is carefully pared flat to receive the 
 new shoe. This is fitted to the hoof, and 
 fastened on with nails driven into the hoof 
 itself. The hoof is without sensation, and 
 the horse feels no pain unless the nails are 
 too long, and reach the flesh at the root of 
 the hoof. The holes in the shoe are some- 
 what funnel-shaped, with the wider end 
 under the shoe, and the heads of the nails 
 are made to fit them exactly, and to lie deep 
 in the groove of the shoe. In consequence
 
 How A HORSE-SHOE is MADE. 115 
 
 of this the nails do not begin to wear until 
 the edges of the shoe on each side of the 
 groove are worn down ; and even when they 
 do begin to wear, so long as there remains a 
 little of the wider part of the head which 
 will not pass through the narrow end of the 
 hole in the shoe, the latter is held fast on the 
 hoof.
 
 HOW SUGAR IS MADE. 
 
 SUGAR is obtained from the sugar-cane, 
 the beet, the sugar maple, and one or 
 two other plants. As most of our English 
 sugar is got from the sugar-cane, we will 
 confine ourselves to that plant. The sugar- 
 cane is really a gigantic grass, nearly two 
 inches thick, and attaining to an height of 
 from six to twenty feet. It grows in many 
 tropical countries, but it is most cultivated 
 in Cuba, Mauritius, Brazil, British Guiana, 
 Barbadoes, and most of the West Indian 
 islands. 
 
 The stalk of the sugar-cane has a very 
 hard case, but the inside is juicy, and the 
 juice is sweet so sweet, in fact, that some 
 savages, who do not know how to make 
 sugar, grow the cane for chewing. This 
 juice, when it is squeezed out of the cane, is 
 green, and very like the juice of grass. 
 
 116
 
 How SUGAR is MADE. 117 
 
 In describing how salt is made, I have 
 already said that sugar can be dissolved in 
 water, and that when the water is evapor- 
 ated the sugar is left behind. As the water 
 containing the sugar disappears in vapour, 
 little specks of sugar begin to form in the 
 water which is left, and sink to the bottom 
 of the pan. If the evaporation goes on very 
 slowly, these specks of sugar grow in size 
 until they are fairly large pieces. When 
 carefully examined, they are found to have 
 rather regular and symmetrical shapes, like 
 so many little diamonds or bricks. A number 
 of substances have this tendency to form 
 themselves into special and regular shapes, 
 and we express this change by saying that 
 they crystalline or form crystals. It is not 
 often that the crystals are perfect. They 
 are nearly always broken off short at some 
 point, or joined together with other crystals 
 in ways which mar their perfect shape. We 
 have good examples of sugar crystals in a 
 piece of candy, which is nearly pure sugar in 
 large crystals, which have been formed round 
 a string by a very slow evaporation. Smaller 
 crystals, and less perfect ones, may be seen 
 in any lump of sugar, especially with the 
 aid of a microscope. Occasionally, too, 
 treacle, which is little else but sugar and 
 water, will turn sugary that is to say,
 
 118 How SUGAR is MADE. 
 
 crystals of sugar form themselves out of the 
 sugar dissolved in the water. 
 
 Now, perhaps, you will be asking your- 
 selves what is my object in telling you all 
 this about crystals. A crystal of any kind 
 is remarkably pure, and the sugar-maker 
 relies very much upon this operation of 
 crystallising, in order to purify his sugar. 
 Boiling, filtering, and crystallising are the 
 chief operations in the making of sugar. 
 The boiling of water containing sugar has to 
 be performed very carefully, however, be- 
 cause a very little heat given to the sugar 
 itself, melts it, and burns it brown, as every 
 toffee-maker knows. 
 
 The first stage of sugar-making is per- 
 formed by the cane itself, which makes the 
 sugary juice as it grows, and stores it up as 
 food to assist its future growth. When the 
 canes are ripe, they are cut down close to 
 the ground, cut into lengths, and carried 
 immediately to a mill, where the juice is 
 squeezed out of them by means of heavy 
 rollers. As the juice will not keep fresh for 
 more than half- hour, the converting of it 
 into sugar must be commenced at once. It 
 is placed in a pan and warmed, while a 
 " cream," or mixture of lime and water, is 
 added to it. The green juice immediately 
 turns yellow, and a thick scum, somewhat
 
 How SUGAR is MADE. 119 
 
 like the white of an egg, rises to the surface, 
 and is skimmed off. 
 
 The juice is next transferred to a row of 
 copper pans of different sizes, arranged in 
 order, the largest at one end, the smallest at 
 the other. These pans are heated by a fire, 
 which is often fed by the crushed canes. 
 The juice is poured into the largest pan, and 
 as it thickens with evaporation, it is trans- 
 ferred from pan to pan, until it reaches the 
 last. From this it is turned out into a 
 wooden vessel, called a cooler, in which it 
 begins to crystallise, which means, you will 
 remember, that little crystals of sugar begin 
 to form in the juice. When the crystallising 
 is completed, the contents of the cooler are 
 placed in barrels standing over a tank. The 
 bottom of each barrel has openings in it, 
 which are roughly covered with plantain 
 leaves, and these act as strainers, allowing 
 the juice or molasses, of the sugar to pass 
 through into the tank, but retaining the 
 crystals in the barrel. The sugar which 
 remains in the barrel, when the molasses 
 have drained away, is known as raw sugar. 
 It is not very pure, because it has not been 
 carefully drained, and, in fact, the whole of 
 the processes through which it has passed 
 have been rough and imperfect. The raw 
 sugar is such sugar as can be made with the
 
 120 How SUGAR is MADE. 
 
 imperfect machinery of the countries where 
 the cane is grown, and it has to be sent to 
 England to be refined. What we usually 
 call sugar-making in England is simply the 
 refining of raw sugar. 
 
 The refining commences at the top of a 
 many-storied building, where there is a large 
 tank of water with a steam-pipe in it. The 
 raw sugar is shovelled into the water, and 
 dissolves, while a jet of steam passing 
 through the water makes it hot. A scum 
 rises to the surface, and is skimmed off, but 
 the bulk of the impurities are got rid of by 
 careful filtering. The first filter is made of 
 a number of cotton bags, shaped like pillow, 
 cases, but very much longer. The mouth of 
 each bag is tied over the wide end of a 
 funnel, the smaller end of which is screwed 
 into the bottom of a tank. The dissolved 
 sugar from the steam-tank flows into this 
 filter tank, and passes through the funnels 
 into the filter-bags, which are hanging like 
 so many barnacles in a case. As the lower 
 end of each bag is closed, the sugar-water 
 must pass through the interstices of the 
 cloth, and in this way it is partially filtered. 
 To filter it more completely it is made to 
 pass through large tanks, which are nearly 
 filled with charcoal obtained from burnt 
 bones. It comes out of the bottom of these
 
 How SUGAR is MADE. 121 
 
 banks as clear as water when the charcoal is 
 fresh, but after a time the charcoal loses its 
 efficiency, and has to be re-burnt before it 
 can be used again. 
 
 The next operation is to make the sugar 
 crystallise out of the filtered liquid, by 
 boiling it down, and then allowing it to cool. 
 But as too much heat burns the sugar, and 
 makes it brown, means are adopted to make 
 the liquid boil at a lower temperature than 
 is usual. It has been discovered that water 
 boils at a lower temperature when the pres- 
 sure of the air is less, and at a higher 
 temperature when the pressure is heavier. 
 The sugar-maker boils the filtered liquid in 
 closed pans, from which he draws out the 
 air by means of a pump, and in this way he 
 is able to evaporate the water with only a 
 little more than half the heat which is 
 usually required to boil water in an open 
 vessel. The liquid, after being sufficiently 
 boiled down, is passed into another pan to 
 crystallise, and it is then placed in a number 
 of iron moulds, which will give the sugar the 
 shape of the pointed loaves which we see in 
 the shops. The moulds are placed point 
 downwards, and any liquid which remains in 
 the sugar drains out through a hole in the 
 point. After a few days the sugar is knocked
 
 122 How SUGAR is MADE. 
 
 out of the mould, trimmed to a neat shape, 
 and dried in a heated room. It is then 
 ready for sale. The syrup which drains 
 from the moulds is treacle.
 
 HOW CANDLES AEE MADE. 
 
 EVERY candle has two parts which we 
 can clearly distinguish the wick, and 
 the tallow or wax. The wick is usually 
 made of twisted or plaited cotton fibres. 
 The wax varies in composition a good deal, 
 but it is always some kind of fat or oily 
 wax which melts and burns easily. At the 
 present time the wax most commonly used 
 is largely composed of paraffin. 
 
 When a light is put to the wick of a 
 candle, the wick is set on fire. As it burns, 
 it melts the wax near it, and this is drawn 
 up by the wick and turned into gas by the 
 heat of the burning wick. This candle-gas, 
 as we may call it, feeds the flame, and 
 makes the bright candle-light. We can 
 easily prove that there is a candle-gas, 
 because, if we blow out a candle, and 
 quickly bring a lighted match near it while 
 
 123
 
 124 How CANDLES ARE MADE. 
 
 it is still hot, we can re-light the candle 
 without touching the wick. The gas rising 
 from the candle takes fire before the lighted 
 match touches the candle itself. 
 
 At the present time candles are made by 
 machinery, and great pains are taken to 
 prepare a suitable kind of wax and a wick 
 of the proper size and shape. Seventy or 
 eighty years ago, however, people often 
 made their own candles at home, using the 
 simplest of materials. If we begin by 
 finding out what they did, we shall be 
 better able to understand how candles are 
 now made. 
 
 The Rev. Gilbert White, who wrote the 
 Natural History of Selborne more than a 
 hundred years ago, gives an interesting 
 description of the manner in which the 
 villagers of Selborne made rush-lights, 
 which were really a poor kind of candle. 
 They cut a certain kind of rush which grew 
 by the side of streams, and after steeping it 
 in water, they stripped it of nearly all its 
 peel or rind, leaving only a narrow rib from 
 top to bottom to support the pith of the 
 rush. The piths of a number of rushes 
 prepared in this way were laid upon the 
 grass to bleach, and were then carefully 
 dried in the sun. Meanwhile, the cottager 
 collected all the scraps of meat fat, bacon,
 
 How CANDLES ARE MADE. 125 
 
 and grease of every kind, and boiled them 
 down to liquid tallow, sometimes adding a 
 little bee's-wax from the hives, when he 
 could afford to do so. Taking the dried 
 rushes in his hands, he dipped them in the 
 melted fat, and drew them out when they 
 had received a covering of the tallow. 
 When the tallow had cooled and set, the 
 rush-light was ready for use. It was lighted 
 like a candle, and burned in the same way, 
 the rush serving as a wick. A good rush 
 was nearly two and a half feet long, and 
 burned about an hour. 
 
 The commonest tallow candles were made 
 in nearly the same way as the rush-lights, 
 but they had a wick of loosely twisted 
 cotton. The cotton was cut into lengths 
 about twice as long as the candle was to be. 
 Each length was doubled, and the ends were 
 twisted round each other for a certain dis- 
 tance, leaving a loop where the wick was 
 folded. A number of wicks were hung upon 
 a rod by these loops, and the candle-maker, 
 holding the rod in his hands, dipped the 
 hanging wicks into a vat of melted tallow. 
 When the wicks had received a proper 
 covering of the tallow, the rod was sus- 
 pended upon a frame, and the candles were 
 left to cool and dry. After a time the rod 
 was taken down, and the candles were
 
 126 How CANDLES ABE MADE. 
 
 dipped again in the same way ; and thus the 
 alternate dipping and drying were continued 
 until the candles attained their proper size 
 and weight. When the candle-maker wished 
 to make a great many candles at one time, 
 he joined a number of rods, in a kind of 
 frame, and dipped them all at once. As 
 this frame was very heavy to move about, 
 he suspended it to a rope, which passed over 
 a pulley, and was weighted with a scale-pan 
 and weights at the other end. As the 
 candles grew heavier with the tallow which 
 they took up, the weights in the scale-pan 
 were increased so as to maintain a true 
 balance. Some kinds of wax candles cannot 
 be made by dipping, as the wicks will not 
 take the melted wax properly. Many of 
 these are made by pouring melted wax down 
 the wicks as they hang over a trough of wax. 
 The wicks are, in fact, basted with melted 
 wax, until a sufficient quantity adheres to 
 the wick to make a candle. When these 
 basted candles are sufficiently cooled, they 
 are rolled upon a smooth table by means of 
 a board to give them a true cylindrical 
 shape. 
 
 There is one other way of making candles 
 without machinery, and that is by moulding. 
 The candle mould is usually made of pewter, 
 and is the same shape as the candle itself.
 
 How CANDLES ARE MADE. 127 
 
 A number of moulds are placed point down- 
 wards in a wooden frame, the upper part of 
 which forms a shallow trough. The wider, 
 open ends of the candle-moulds are fitted 
 into the bottom of the trough, so that any 
 melted tallow or wax poured into the trough 
 runs into the moulds. In the point at the 
 bottom of each mould there is a small hole, 
 and through this hole the wick of the candle 
 is passed, drawn up the mould, and fastened 
 in such a way as to remain in the centre of 
 the mould. When these preparations have 
 been made, melted wax or tallow is poured 
 into the trough of the frame, and runs down 
 into each mould and surrounds the wick. 
 The frame and moulds are then laid aside to 
 cool, and when the candles are set, the 
 superfluous tallow or wax is removed from 
 the trough, and the candles are drawn from 
 their moulds, the wicks coming out with 
 them. 
 
 A very short description will give you 
 some idea of the way in which candles are 
 made by machinery. At the bottom of the 
 candle-making machine there is a frame of 
 moulds very similar to that which I have 
 just described, and there is also some 
 mechanism by which the candles, when 
 they are made, may be pushed up out of 
 their moulds. The wick for each mould is
 
 128 How CANDLES ARE MADE. 
 
 drawn from a reel under the point of the 
 mould. When one set of candles is made, 
 they are pushed out of the moulds, and as 
 each candle moves upwards, it draws off a 
 new supply of wick, and pulls it up into the 
 mould, as a moving rocket carries its stick. 
 The moment the finished candle leaves its 
 mould, it is seized and held by a clamp 
 above. There it remains, keeping the wick 
 below it steady in the middle of the mould, 
 while a new supply of wax is poured in, and 
 sets into a candle. The wick is then cut off 
 immediately below the first-made candle, 
 which is taken out of the machine completed. 
 Another turn of a handle forces the new 
 candles out of their moulds, and each is 
 seized and held until another set is made. 
 Thus the work goes on, one set of candles 
 being always held by the machine, while 
 another set is being moulded.
 
 HOW CLOTH IS MADE. 
 
 YOU have often seen a woman darning 
 stockings, but perhaps you have never 
 thought that she was making cloth. And 
 yet that is just what she is doing, as I will 
 try to show you. She is closing the hole in 
 the stocking with a little piece of worsted 
 cloth, which she is making with her needle 
 and thread as she goes along. Let us watch 
 her carefully and see how she does it. 
 
 Taking a long thread in her needle, she 
 passes it through the stocking near one edge 
 of the hole, then carries it across the hole, 
 passes it through the opposite edge, and 
 comes back again in the same way. Thread 
 after thread is stretched across the hole in 
 this way, all neatly placed side by side, until 
 there is no room for any more. Then the 
 woman begins at one side, and places thread 
 after thread across the hole. She passes each 
 
 129 I
 
 130 How CLOTH is MADE. 
 
 cross-thread in and out of the first threads 
 as she comes to them, one by one, going over 
 the first one, under the second, over the third, 
 under the fourth, over the fifth, under the 
 sixth, and so on. When she comes back 
 across the hole with the next thread, she is 
 careful to go over those threads which she 
 went under before, and under those which 
 she went over before. In this way she makes 
 a sort of little lattice-work of worsted, or 
 woollen threads, which are all interlaced, or 
 threaded in and out of each other. If, when 
 she has done, we could cut out this little 
 patch of lattice- work without loosening the 
 threads, we should have a little piece of 
 roughly-made cloth. 
 
 In some parts of Africa cloth is made in a 
 way which is very much like darning a hole. 
 The cloth-maker has a square frame, some- 
 what like a picture-frame, but quite plain, 
 across which she stretches a number of 
 threads from top to bottom. Then, com- 
 mencing at the sides, she interlaces cross- 
 threads, one after another, side by side, until 
 the frame is nearly filled, when she cuts out 
 the darned piece, ties the loose ends of the 
 threads, so that they may not come out, and 
 her cloth is made. 
 
 Let us turn now to the north of India, 
 where the women make cloth in a rather
 
 How CLOTH is MADE. 131 
 
 better way. Each woman takes a number of 
 very long threads, and fastens them to heavy 
 wooden rods, one at each end of the threads. 
 She fastens one of these rods to a tree trunk, 
 or an upright post, and then walks away 
 from the tree or post until the threads are 
 stretched tight, when she sits down, and 
 places the other wooden rod in her lap. Tak- 
 ing a little stick upon which some thread is 
 wound, she uses it as a darner uses her needle, 
 and works it in and out of the long threads 
 from side to side, allowing the thread to un- 
 roll from the stick as she goes along. When 
 the stick has passed to and fro a great many 
 times, there is a little piece of cloth close to 
 the rod, which lies in her lap. She rolls this 
 cloth round the rod, and moves a little nearer 
 to the tree or post. She goes on in the same 
 way as before, making a little more cloth, 
 which, after a time, is rolled on the rod, and 
 the woman again moves a little nearer to the 
 tree. When at last she reaches the tree, all 
 her long threads are used up, and she has 
 instead a long roll of cloth wrapped round 
 the wooden rod in her lap. She unrolls this 
 cloth, cuts oif the rods at each end, and her 
 work is done. 
 
 In England, all our cloth is made by 
 machinery. Nearly all the machines, or 
 looms, as they are called, for making, or
 
 132 How CLOTH is MADE. 
 
 weaving, cloth, are now driven by engines, 
 but not very long ago they used to be worked 
 entirely by hand, and were called hand-looms 
 on that account. Occasionally, we may still 
 see a hand-loom in use, and I should like to 
 tell you what hand-loom weaving is like. If 
 you understand that, you will not have much 
 difficulty in afterwards understanding weav- 
 ing by machine-looms, or power-looms, as 
 they are called. 
 
 A hand-loom looks rather like an old-fash- 
 ioned bedstead, with wooden posts at the 
 corners. At each end of the bed there is a 
 large roller, stretching from one side of the 
 bed to the other. One of these has a great 
 number of threads rolled upon it, the loose 
 ends of which are carried along the bed, at 
 the place where the mattress usually lies, to 
 the other roller, upon which they are wound 
 after they have been woven into cloth. The 
 two rollers answer to the two rods of the 
 Indian weaver, with the threads stretching 
 from one to the other. 
 
 The weaver stands in front of the roller 
 upon which the cloth is to be rolled. He 
 commences weaving by pressing a treadle 
 with his right foot, and we see two screens 
 placed half-way between the rollers, go up 
 and down, moving the threads with them. 
 One of the screens, which we will call the
 
 How CLOTH is MADE. 133 
 
 odd-screen, goes up, and raises half the 
 threads a few inches. The other screen, 
 which we will call the even-screen, goes down, 
 and lowers the remaining threads a few 
 inches. If we numbered all the threads in 
 the loom, we should find that the odd-screen 
 raises the threads 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and the other 
 odd numbers ; while the even-screen lowers 
 threads 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and so on. 
 . The moment the threads have been set 
 like this, the weaver pulls a kind of skipping- 
 rope handle towards the right, and a little 
 carriage, or shuttle, shoots out of a box on 
 one side of the loom, and runs across to the 
 other side on a little ledge. The shuttle 
 carries a little bobbin of thread, which unwinds 
 as the shuttle runs along, leaving a trail of 
 thread behind it. When we look carefully, 
 we see that the shuttle runs over the top of 
 the threads 2, 4, 6, 8, &c., which are lowered 
 till they rest upon the ledge, and under the 
 threads 1, 3, 5, 7, which are raised. In 
 other words, the shuttle lays a thread under 
 1, over 2, under 3, over 4, and so on. 
 
 When the shuttle has passed, the weaver 
 draws a kind of swinging comb towards him, 
 which combs straight the thread left by the 
 shuttle. Then he presses another treadle 
 with his left foot, and the screens change 
 places. The odd-screen, with its threads,
 
 134 How CLOTH is MADE. 
 
 1, 3, 5, 7, &c., comes down; while the even- 
 screen, with its threads, 2, 4, 6, 8, &c., goes 
 up. The weaver pulls his skipping-rope 
 handle towards the left, and the shuttle runs 
 back along the ledge. 
 
 This time it passes over threads, 1,3, 5, 7, 
 &c., which are down, and under 2, 4, 6, 8, &c., 
 which are up. That is to say, the shuttle- 
 thread is laid over 1, under 2, over 3, under 
 4, and so on. The weaver pulls his swinging 
 comb towards him, and the new thread is 
 combed close by the side of the thread which 
 was laid before. 
 
 The weaver has woven two threads, and all 
 that he has to do is to keep on repeating this, 
 unless some accident happens, such as the 
 breaking off of a thread. When he has woven 
 a little strip of cloth, he rolls it up upon the 
 roller in front of him, and, by so doing, he 
 draws off more thread from the roller at the 
 other end of his loom. When all his thread 
 is used up, his piece of cloth is finished so 
 far as he is concerned. He cuts it away from 
 his rollers, and delivers it to the dyer and 
 other workers, who will prepare it for the 
 tailor.
 
 HOW COAL GAS IS MADE. 
 
 I HAVE already told you something about 
 the way in which coal is obtained, and I 
 wish now to explain how the gas which we 
 use for lighting our houses and our streets is 
 made from it. We have all seen coal burn- 
 ing upon our fires, and it will help us more 
 easily to understand how gas is made, if we 
 think for a few minutes of what we have 
 often noticed when the fire is mended with 
 coal. 
 
 If we place a small piece of coal upon a 
 bright red fire, the coal crackles and smokes 
 
 O ' 
 
 for an instant, and then bursts into flame. 
 If, however, we throw a large shovelful of 
 coal upon a rather small fire, the coal smokes 
 a great deal, but it is a long time before it 
 begins to blaze. If we wish to make the 
 fire burn more quickly, we do not put on 
 more coal, but we take a pair of bellows, and 
 
 186
 
 136 How COAL GAS is MADE. 
 
 blow, or pump, air into it ; and this has the 
 desired effect. It is quite clear, therefore, 
 that to make the coal blaze or burn, two 
 things are necessary besides the coal itself, 
 namely fire and air. If I had time to draw 
 your attention to a number of other things 
 which you must often have noticed, I should 
 be able to show you that it is only a 
 portion of the air which is really necessary 
 in order that the coal may burn, the rest 
 being of no use in this respect. That part of 
 the air which maintains or feeds a fire has 
 been named oxygen by chemists, and it forms 
 only about one-fifth by measure of any given 
 quantity of air. 
 
 Returning for a moment to our newly- 
 mended fire, we notice the smoke going up 
 the chimney. If we apply a lighted taper to 
 it, we shall probably see a flame flicker 
 through it for a moment. This shows that 
 there is a gas which will burn rising from the 
 coal. The flame dies out quickly, chiefly 
 because there is not sufficient heat above the 
 coal to keep it burning, and also because 
 there is not sufficient oxygen in the air 
 which has passed through the fire to support 
 the flame. 
 
 Now the gas which is rising from the coal 
 upon our newly-mended fires, is the same gas 
 which we use for lighting our rooms. There
 
 How COAL GAS is MADE. 137 
 
 is a well-known experiment, which you may 
 have often tried, which shows how easily 
 coal-gas may be made. Take a long-stemmed 
 clay pipe, and fill the bowl with coal-dust. 
 Seal up the top of the bowl with a plug of 
 good clay, which has been squeezed and 
 beaten a little to make it thoroughly plastic, 
 so that it will stick to the pipe-head. When 
 this is done, place the bowl of the pipe in the 
 fire. In a little while it will become hot, 
 and, if the clay does not crack away from the 
 pipe, a little smoke will be seen to puff out 
 of the stem. If a light be applied to this 
 smoke, or gas, it will burn with a bright and 
 steady light, until the supply which the coal 
 will yield is exhausted. If you now take the 
 pipe from the fire, and, when it is cooled, 
 break away the clay from the bowl, you will 
 find in the latter a small black cinder. That 
 is a piece of coke. 
 
 In the gasworks of a town, gas is made in 
 a similar way to this, but with appliances 
 specially designed to make as much gas as 
 possible without waste of coal or any of the 
 materials, like coke, which are left behind in 
 the course of the work. But something 
 more is also done. The coal-gas is purified, 
 and it is stored in such a way that every 
 householder may draw his supply just as he 
 requires it.
 
 138 How COAL GAS is MADE. 
 
 In the gasworks there is a row of fire- 
 places, over each of which there are one or 
 two iron or clay tubes, or pipes, six or eight 
 feet long, and a foot and a half-wide, set 
 horizontally over the fire, so that they may 
 receive the heat from it. These are called 
 retorts, and they serve the same purpose as 
 the bowl of our tobacco-pipe. The front end 
 of each retort opens above the front of the 
 fire, while the other end, near the flue at the 
 back of the fire, is closed. The open end 
 has a door, and just behind the door there is 
 an upright pipe, which, after rising some 
 distance, bends over into a larger pipe, which 
 runs the whole length of the fire-places, and 
 is called the hydraulic main. These pipes 
 answer to the stem of our tobacco-pipe. 
 
 When the fires have been lighted, and 
 have made the retorts hot, the doors of the 
 latter are opened, and coal, broken to the 
 size of a cricket-ball, is thrown in. The 
 retort doors are then closed and made air- 
 tight, and in a short time the gas begins to 
 rise from the coal, and passes up the upright 
 pipes into the hydraulic main. 
 
 With the pure coal-gas, however, there 
 rise various impurities and some watery 
 vapour. As these get away from the hot 
 retorts, they cool, and while the vapour con- 
 denses into water, some of the impurities
 
 How COAL GAS is MADE. 139 
 
 form tar. The tar and water settle in the 
 lower half of the hydraulic main, while the 
 gas rises to the upper half of the main, and 
 passes along to be purified. In order to cool 
 it quickly, it is taken through a number of 
 winding iron pipes, called the condenser, and 
 all the liquid impurities are thus chilled out 
 of it. It is then led to the bottom of a 
 vessel, which bears the name of a scrubber, 
 and is in reality a sort of shower-bath. As 
 the gas rises in the scrubber, it meets sprays 
 of water, which take up any gases which will 
 dissolve in water. Coal-gas itself is scarcely 
 affected by water, and it passes through the 
 scrubber to the next purifier. This is an air- 
 tight vessel, in which there are shelters or 
 trays bearing slaked lime, which removes the 
 last of the impure gases, and leaves the coal- 
 gas sufficiently pure for use. 
 
 In every gasworks there are one or more 
 gasometers. These are tall, circular struc- 
 tures surrounded by iron pillars. The 
 former are really tanks of iron turned 
 mouth downwards, and they are supported 
 by chains which pass over wheels at the top 
 of the pillars, and bear weights at their free 
 ends. By increasing the weights, the tank 
 or bell of the gasometer can be raised ; and 
 in the same way it may be lowered by 
 decreasing them. The open mouth of each
 
 140 How COAL GAS is MADE. 
 
 bell rests in a wide well built of brick or 
 stone, and water is allowed to flow into this 
 well until it surrounds the mouth of the bell 
 and closes it from the outer air. 
 
 It is in these gasometers that the gas is 
 stored for use. A pipe from the lime purifier 
 passes through the water in the well, and 
 conveys the purified gas into the tank of the 
 gasometer. The weights supporting the 
 latter are so adjusted as to allow the tank to 
 rest in the water, but as the light gas enters, 
 it bears the tank up, as if it were a balloon, 
 and forces it to the top of the pillars which 
 help to support it by means of the balanced 
 chains. 
 
 A second pipe, similar to that which 
 delivers the gas from the lime purifier, leads 
 from the gasometer to the pipes in the 
 streets, which convey the gas to all parts of 
 the town. The weight of the gasometer is 
 always pressing upon the stored gas, and 
 tending to force it out through this pipe, as 
 it cannot return towards the purifiers and 
 retorts. So long as all the gas-taps in all 
 the houses and streets are closed, the gas 
 cannot escape from the gasometer, and the 
 latter remains high in the air ; but the 
 moment any gas-tap is opened, there is a 
 little escape, and the weight of the gasometer 
 forces out sufficient of the gas to feed the
 
 How COAL GAS is MADE. 141 
 
 flame. As the gas escapes, the gasometer 
 falls, though we do not notice this unless 
 much gas is being used, Thus the gasometer 
 is kept rising and falling, as new gas is 
 made, or the stored-up gas is used.
 
 HOW WIRE IS MADE. 
 
 OST of us have seen wire made of gold, 
 silver, copper, brass, or iron. The 
 operation of wire-making is always the same, 
 no matter what the metal may be ; and as 
 we have already learned how iron is made in 
 the blast-furnace, and afterwards puddled 
 and rolled into bars and rods, we will now 
 try, to learn how it is made into wire. 
 
 As iron wire has to be bent and twisted a 
 good deal, it is made from the best wrought 
 iron. Bars three or four feet long are chosen, 
 and, having first been made red-hot, they are 
 rolled smaller and longer, by passing* them 
 between grooved rollers. Th ese rollers, which 
 are only small, are made to turn very rapidly, 
 and the iron is quickly passed through groove 
 after groove, each one of which is smaller 
 than the one before, until at last it is drawn 
 out into a rod about ten yards long, and 
 
 142
 
 How WIRE is MADE. 143 
 
 perhaps a quarter of an inch thick. It is 
 then ready for the wire-maker, or wire- 
 drawer, as he is called, because he draws the 
 rod out into a thin wire. 
 
 You will think, perhaps, that the easiest 
 way of drawing out the rod will be to fasten 
 the ends of it in some kind of machine, and 
 then pull them powerfully apart, as children 
 pull at each end of a Christmas cracker. 
 Now this is often done, and it always has one 
 result. The iron rod draws out thin in one 
 place, and breaks into two pieces. This is 
 because the iron, notwithstanding all the care 
 which has been taken in making it, has some 
 parts weaker than others. These weak parts 
 stretch and break, before the rest of the rod 
 is stretched at all, so far as anyone can see. 
 It is found impossible to make wire in this 
 way, and this operation is only used when it 
 is desired to test the strength of an iron rod, 
 and to see how much force must be used 
 before it will break. 
 
 Mr. Moifat, a missionary in South Africa, 
 in a book which narrates his experiences, 
 describes how he once saw a native making 
 wire. The story is instructive, because 
 it shows that wire can be made without 
 machinery, and with the help of very few 
 tools. The poor savage came to the mission- 
 ary one day with a piece of flat iron, and
 
 144 How WIRE is MADE. 
 
 begged him to make a number of holes of 
 different sizes through it. The plate was 
 nearly half an inch thick, and it took Mr. 
 Moffat a long time to make the holes, which 
 were about twenty in number, and varied in 
 size from the thickness of a slate pencil to 
 the thickness of a thread. When the plate 
 was finished, the black man was delighted, 
 and danced about the village like a man out 
 of his senses, showing the precious plate to 
 everyone. Next day the missionary asked 
 the man to show him what he was going to 
 do with the plate. The savage consented, 
 and set to work at once. He melted some 
 copper in a pot, and poured it into a number 
 of deep holes which he had made with a thin 
 stick in a heap of sand. When the copper 
 had cooled, he had a number of thin, solid 
 bars, which he drew out of the sand. These 
 he hammered on a stone, until they were 
 considerably smaller, when he selected one of 
 them, and rubbed the end of it between two 
 stones until he had made a point on it which 
 was small enough to go through the largest 
 of the holes which Mr. Moffat had made in 
 the iron plate. The savage next stuck in the 
 ground a smooth, round stick, so that it 
 would stand firmly upright. This stick was 
 split at the top, and the black man put the 
 small end of the rod, which he had pushed
 
 How WIRE is MADE. 145 
 
 through the plate, into this split. Then, 
 while the split held the rod tight like a vice, 
 he dragged at his plate, levering it round and 
 round the stick, until the whole of the rod 
 was drawn through the hole. As the hole 
 was a little smaller than the rod to begin 
 with, the rod was made thinner in passing 
 through it, and it was, at the same time, 
 lengthened. When the savage had drawn 
 the whole of the wire through the first hole 
 in the plate, he took it off the stick, and 
 began in the same way to draw it through 
 the next hole. It was afterwards drawn 
 through the other holes, one by one, becom- 
 ing each time thinner and longer, until at 
 last it w r as no thicker than thread. 
 
 Now, this is just the way in which iron 
 wire is made in England to-day, with this 
 difference, that the drawing is done by 
 machinery, and is performed more quickly 
 and better. At one end of a long, strong 
 table there is a large iron bobbin placed up- 
 right on a rod, which goes through the top 
 of the table, and is made to turn round by 
 wheels driven by an engine. At the other 
 end of the table, there is another upright rod, 
 upon which another bobbin or reel may be 
 placed. This rod is not connected with any 
 machinery, and does not turn round, but it 
 allows the reel which is placed upon it to
 
 146 How WIRE is MADE. 
 
 turn freely. Between the reel at one end of 
 the table and the iron bobbin at the other, 
 there is a strong plate with holes of different 
 sizes made through it. This plate is held 
 firm by strong upright bars, which are firmly 
 fixed to the table. The holes in the plate 
 are made like little funnels, wider on one side 
 of the plate than the other. 
 
 The thin rods of iron, as they come from 
 the forge, where they have been rolled, are 
 placed on a kind of reel, and put on the up- 
 right bar at one end of the table. The end 
 of the rod is filed sufficiently small to go 
 through the largest hole of the perforated 
 plate, or drawing-plate, as it is called. On 
 the bobbin, which is turned by machinery, 
 there is a pair of pincers, which can be made 
 to take hold of the end of the rod which has 
 been put through the drawing-plate. When 
 it has seized the rod, the machinery is put in 
 motion, and the iron bobbin begins to turn 
 round, drawing the pincers with it. The 
 pincers draw the iron rod through the hole 
 in the plate, and it gradually unwinds off the 
 reel at the other end of the bench. As the 
 wire passes through the plate it is drawn out 
 thinner and longer. When it is all wound 
 on the bobbin, the machinery is stopped, the 
 coil of wire is taken off the bobbin, placed 
 upon another reel, and is ready to pass
 
 How WIRE is MADE. 147 
 
 through a smaller hole in the same plate. 
 The operation is repeated again and again, 
 until the wire is as thin as it is required 
 to be. 
 
 Wire is drawn without heating the iron. 
 The drawing tends, however, to make the 
 metal hard and stiff, and after passing 
 through the plate a few times, it would 
 quickly break if nothing were done to pre- 
 vent this. The wire is placed in a closed 
 furnace, or oven, from time to time, and 
 made red-hot. This restores its pliability, 
 and enables the wire-drawer to draw it out 
 a little finer. As often as it shows signs of 
 stiffening, it is placed again in the furnace, 
 and, with care, it can be drawn out as fine 
 as thread.
 
 HOW A COIN IS MADE. 
 
 I HAVE before me the picture of some 
 ^ coiners at work in the year 1577. One 
 of them is cutting the coins to the proper 
 size and shape by means of a strong pair of 
 shears. He has in front of him a pair of 
 delicate scales, and one of the pans contains 
 a weight. It is quite evident that he weighs 
 from time to time the coin which he is mak- 
 ing, and cuts off little pieces from the edge, 
 until it exactly balances the weight in the 
 other scale. Another man is engaged in 
 making the impression or raised picture which 
 is to be found upon each side of an ordinary 
 coin. At first sight he looks very like a 
 cobbler who is nailing a boot heel. In 
 reality, however, he is striking together two 
 stamps, or dies, and the coin which he is 
 making is between them. These dies are 
 made of hard steel, and the patterns of the 
 
 148
 
 How A COIN is MADE. 149 
 
 coin are cut into them, just as the hollow 
 patterns are made in the seals which are 
 sometimes hung to watch chains and used 
 for impressing sealing-wax. One die rests 
 with its pattern upwards on the top of a 
 little pillar, which answers to the cobbler's 
 last, while the other is fixed with its pattern 
 downwards in a kind of punch which the 
 coiner holds in his left hand. When the 
 blank piece of metal is placed on the top of 
 the lower die, he lays the upper die and 
 punch upon it, and strikes a powerful blow 
 with his hammer. The metal takes the im- 
 pressions of the two dies, and becomes a coin. 
 There are other figures in the picture, but I 
 must not stay to describe them now. 
 
 Perhaps I need hardly tell you that coins 
 are not made in this simple way now. But 
 until the time of Queen Elizabeth no better 
 way was known. In the church of St. 
 Georges-de-Bocherville, near Kouen, there 
 is a figure carved on one of the capitals which 
 represents a maker of money who is stamping 
 the coins in the very same way that I have 
 described. As this church was built about 
 the time of the Norman Conquest, we see 
 that this manner of coining had been in use 
 for five hundred years with little or no im- 
 provement. It is said that a machine for 
 making coins was introduced in the reign of
 
 150 How A COIN is MADE. 
 
 Elizabeth, but its use was soon given up, and 
 machinery was not used again until about 
 the year 1660. 
 
 One of the first and most important 
 machines for coining was the coining-press, 
 which superseded the use of the hammer. 
 There are many kinds of presses which are 
 worked by means of a screw, but the copying- 
 press which is to be seen in nearly every 
 office, will, perhaps, best illustrate the working 
 of the coining-press. The copying-press 
 consists of a stout flat metal plate with an 
 arch or bridge standing over it. Through 
 the top of this iron arch a hole is bored, and 
 on the inner side of this the threads of a 
 screw are cut. A strong steel screw passes 
 through this hole, and its lower end is 
 attached to another flat iron plate which 
 slides up and down, guided by the sides of 
 the arch, when the screw is turned. A 
 stout, cross-handle is fixed on the upper part 
 of the screw, by means of which it is turned. 
 The use of the press is to squeeze together 
 the pages of the letter-book which is placed 
 between the lower fixed plate and the upper 
 one which moves with the screw, and thus 
 to obtain an impression or print of a newly- 
 written letter which is placed between the 
 pages of the book. Now, if you can imagine 
 that the plates of such a press are taken
 
 HOW A COIN IS MADE. 151 
 
 away, and replaced by metal dies, you will 
 obtain some idea of what the coining-press 
 was like. It was, of course, a larger machine 
 than the copying press, and the handles of 
 the screw were heavily weighted, so that, 
 when once they were put in movement, they 
 swung round with their own weight, and 
 brought down the upper die with a smart 
 and powerful blow. The first coining-presses 
 were worked by hand, but they are now put 
 in motion by a steam-engine. Though the 
 presses now in use are much more complicated 
 than the early ones, they are in principle 
 the same. 
 
 In days gone by, when coins were not so 
 carefully made as they are now, it used to 
 be a rather common practice for dishonest 
 people to clip a little metal off the edges of 
 the coins which passed through their hands. 
 These clippings were probably sold to some 
 equally dishonest goldsmith. You will think, 
 perhaps, that so long as the coin could still 
 be used, no great harm was done ; but if I 
 had time, I could show you that this clipping 
 of coins was really a kind of robbery. It 
 was at length put a stop to in a very simple 
 way. If you look at the edge of a shilling 
 you will see that it is grained. No one could 
 clip the shilling without cutting off this 
 graining ; and once he had cut it off he could
 
 152 How A COIN is MADE. 
 
 not put it on again, and make the coin as 
 neat and regular as it was before. Everyone 
 to whom he offered the shilling would see 
 that it had been clipped, and would refuse to 
 take it. This graining or milling, as it is 
 called, used to be put on by a very simple 
 machine. I will try to illustrate its action. 
 Place a penny on the table, and lay two flat 
 rulers upon each side of it. Let the rulers 
 be parallel, and touching the coin squeezing 
 the coin, in fact. Now, if you slide one of 
 the rulers to and fro, you will be able to roll 
 the penny from end to end between them. 
 And you will see that if the edges of the 
 rulers pressing against the penny were 
 toothed, a milling might in this way be 
 placed upon the edge of the coin. In the 
 same way, too, an inscription might be im- 
 pressed round the coin. 
 
 Nearly all our coins are now made at the 
 Royal Mint in London. The metal is first 
 melted, and a certain proportion of alloy is 
 added to give the coin hardness. The alloy 
 of gold and silver is chiefly copper, and that 
 of copper is tin. The melted metal is cast 
 into bars, and these are passed through 
 rollers until they are reduced to the thick- 
 ness of the coins which are to be made from 
 them. From each sheet, or strip, of metal, 
 a piece the size of a coin is cut out and
 
 How A COIN is MADE. 153 
 
 weighed, and if the weight is correct, the 
 sheet is passed through a machine which cuts 
 or stamps out round pieces the size of the 
 required coins. These, having no pattern 
 upon them, are called " blanks." Another 
 machine raises the rim near the edge of the 
 coin. The repeated squeezing which the 
 metal has undergone makes it somewhat 
 brittle, and to prevent the blanks from crack- 
 ing under further pressure, they are annealed, 
 that is to say, they are first heated, and then 
 allowed to cool very slowly. After this they 
 are washed in some weak acid, and dried in 
 a revolting drum, which is full of sawdust. 
 They are next carried to the coining-press, 
 and placed in a tub, from which they are 
 taken one by one by a pair of claws, and 
 placed between the dies. When the claws 
 slip their hold, a ring or collar falls round the 
 blank, and holds it while the upper die comes 
 down, and forces it upon the lower one. 
 The inside of the ring is 'milled, and when 
 the dies strike together, the blank flattens 
 out a little, and takes the impression of the 
 milling. When the upper die rises again, a 
 spring lifts the collar off the coin, and the 
 claws, bringing another blank, knock the 
 coin aside. It is now finished, and, after 
 being weighed and tested, it is ready for use. 
 If it is found defective in any way, it is
 
 154 How A COIN is MADE. 
 
 returned to the melting-pot to be made 
 anew. 
 
 The dies of a coining-press are made of 
 steel. They are cut by a special workman, 
 who is guided by an artist's designs. The 
 steel is kept as soft as possible until the die 
 is cut, when it is hardened. This first die 
 is not used for stamping the coins, but other 
 dies are made from it. These are used in 
 the press, and in course of time they wear 
 out or break. The original die is always 
 kept as a model, so that however many coins 
 are made they are all alike.
 
 HOW EXPLOSIVES AEE MADE. 
 
 GUNPOWDER, GUN-COTTON, 
 DYNAMITE. 
 
 Y17HEN we were considering how coal-gas 
 is made, we found that heat and air, 
 or rather oxygen, were necessary to make 
 the coal burn ; and that when air was abun- 
 dantly supplied by the use of bellows, the 
 coal burned much faster than it did when 
 simply shovelled in a heap upon the fire and 
 left to burn without any further care. If we 
 sprinkle a little coal-dust upon the fire, it 
 blazes up so quickly as almost to burn up 
 with a flash. It takes fire almost instantly, 
 because each particle of coal is surrounded 
 by air, and so receives the necessary heat and 
 oxygen the moment it touches the fire. If 
 the coal-dust were still finer, and if it were 
 dispersed in the air like the dust which we 
 see floating in the light of a sunbeam, it 
 would sometimes be possible to set it on fire 
 with a small light, and this would occur so 
 
 155
 
 156 How EXPLOSIVES ABB MADE. 
 
 quickly and violently as to cause an explo- 
 sion. Many strange explosions have occurred 
 in corn mills and other works, where there is 
 much dust raised. These can only be ex- 
 plained as dust explosions, resulting from the 
 quick firing of small particles of dust, each of 
 which is surrounded by air, and ready to 
 take fire in a moment. And it is possible 
 that some of the explosions which take place 
 in coal-mines are explosions of coal-dust 
 rather than coal-gas. 
 
 But perhaps you will ask why the quick 
 burning of dust, or anything else, should 
 produce not merely a fire or flash, but also a 
 violent explosion, breaking down all before it. 
 When coal burns, it unites with the oxygen 
 of the air, and produces various gases which 
 take up far more space than the coal itself. 
 So long as the burning takes place gently, 
 these gases find their way up the chimney, 
 and escape quietly. But when the burning 
 is accomplished in a moment, so much gas is 
 produced, that the ordinary escapes are not 
 sufficient, and such is the force of the changes 
 started by the heat, that the expanding 
 gases break down all manner of obstacles in 
 their haste to be free. 
 
 There are some mixtures and compounds 
 which always burn with an explosion. The 
 oldest and best-known of these explosives is
 
 How EXPLOSIVES ARE MADE. 157 
 
 gunpowder. It is a mixture of nitre or 
 saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur, in slightly 
 varying proportions, according to the use 
 to which the gunpowder is to be put. The 
 gunpowder used for military purposes con- 
 tains usually 75 parts of nitre, 15 of charcoal, 
 and 10 of sulphur in every hundred parts of 
 the powder. The ingredients are ground 
 to dust, carefully mixed, and ground together 
 in a mill, and at the same time sprinkled 
 with water. The mixture is then pressed 
 with great force into a solid cake, which is 
 known as " press-cake." This " cake " is 
 afterwards broken up into large or fine 
 grains, according to the kind of gunpowder 
 which is required. Finally, the gunpowder 
 is rolled in a whirling drum to give the 
 grains a polish and make them hard. 
 
 Though all gunpowder explodes, the ex- 
 plosion is quicker when the grains are small, 
 and slower when they are large. This is 
 not because the air reaches the smaller grains 
 better, but because the heat acts upon them 
 more quickly. Gunpowder carries its own 
 stores of oxygen in the nitre, and does not 
 require air in order to burn. When a light 
 is applied to it, the nitre is set on fire, and 
 as it burns it gives off a great deal of oxygen 
 and sufficient heat to set the charcoal and 
 sulphur on fire, the oxygen from the nitre
 
 158 How EXPLOSIVES ARE MADE. 
 
 feeding them. Hot gases of various kinds 
 are produced, and expand with a violent 
 explosion. The quickness of the explosion 
 is regulated by the size of the grains, and 
 for reasons which it would take up too much 
 space to explain, the grains of gunpowder 
 used in our heaviest cannon have sometimes 
 weighed half-a-pound each. 
 
 At one time gunpowder was the only 
 explosive known, but now there are many 
 others in use, and still more known to 
 science. I will attempt to tell you some- 
 thing which you may understand about two 
 of them gun-cotton and dynamite. 
 
 If you have learned a little of practical 
 chemistry, you will know that nitric acid is 
 a clear, fuming liquid, which stains the skin 
 when it touches it. Gun-cotton is made by 
 steeping cotton-wool in nitric acid, or more 
 usually a mixture of nitric acid arid sulphuric 
 acid. Upon being taken out of its bath, the 
 cotton is washed until all traces of acid are 
 removed, and it is then reduced to a pulp 
 very similar to the paper-pulp from which 
 paper is made. In this state it may be 
 pressed into blocks of any required shape, 
 which, after being dried, are ready for use. 
 
 If a light be applied to a block of dry gun- 
 cotton, it burns quickly, but it does not 
 explode. In order to explode it, we must
 
 How EXPLOSIVES are MADE. 159 
 
 fire it by means of a little explosion near it. 
 When that is done, the smaller explosion 
 communicates its violence, as it were, to the 
 gun-cotton, and the latter explodes with far 
 more violence than the same weight of gun- 
 powder. Strange to say, wet gun-cotton, 
 which will not burn at all, can be exploded, 
 or rather, detonated, almost as readily as dry 
 gun-cotton. This explosive is therefore 
 usually stored in a wet state, and there is 
 little danger to be feared unless an explosion 
 of dry gun-cotton should occur in the vicinity 
 of the stores. A charge of gun-cotton for 
 heavy work is usually made up of a body of 
 wet gun-cotton, a small primer of dry gun- 
 cotton, and a detonator, which may be a 
 small charge of fulminate of mercury. The 
 detonator is exploded, either by a light, an 
 electric spark, or a spark produced by per- 
 cussion or friction. The explosion of the 
 detonator causes the detonation of the dry 
 gun-cotton which surrounds, and this in its 
 turn causes the explosion of the wet gun- 
 cotton. Such a charge may be exploded 
 under water as easily as on land, if only the 
 detonator and primer be wrapped in water- 
 proof cloth to keep them dry. Torpedoes 
 are generally charged with gun-cotton. 
 
 If nitric acid be mixed with glycerine, and 
 suitably washed, a liquid explosive resembling
 
 160 How EXPLOSIVES ARE MADE. 
 
 glycerine in appearance, and known as nitro- 
 glycerine, is formed. This liquid is detonated 
 in the same way as gun-cotton, and explodes 
 with a violence which is estimated to be four 
 or five times greater than that produced by 
 the same weight of gun-powder. As an 
 explosive in the form of a liquid is very 
 inconvenient for use, various experimenters 
 tried to work nitro-glycerine up into some 
 other form. A Swedish chemist, Nobel, 
 found a spongy kind of clay which he im- 
 pregnated with nitro-glycerine. The clay 
 steeped in nitro-glycerine exploded like the 
 nitro-glycerine itself, but with not quite so 
 much force ; but it had the great advantage 
 of taking any shape which might be required. 
 It could be pressed into holes in rocks or 
 coal, and it could be made into cartridges. 
 Clay thus soaked with nitro-glycerine is 
 known as dynamite, and it is largely used in 
 quarries and coalmines for breaking up the 
 rocks and coal. 
 
 Many other explosives which bear strange 
 names are very little different in composition 
 and use from gun-cotton or dynamite.
 
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