of its captains or foremen, in separate workshops, some hundreds of the best
handicraftsmen that Europe can produce, all steadily at work, not without
noise, yet without confusion. Among them are a few men advanced in life of
the old generation; there are men of middle age; young men trained with all
the manual advantages of the old generation, and all the book and lecture
privileges of the present time; and then there are the rising generation of
apprentices--the sons of steam and of railroads. Among all it would be
difficult to find a bad-shaped head, or a stupid face--as for a drunkard not
one. It was once remarked to us by a gentleman at the head of a great
establishment of this kind, that there was something about the labour of
skilled workmen in iron that impressed itself upon their countenances, and
showed itself in their characters. Something of solidity, of determination,
of careful forethought; and really after going over many shops of
ironworkers, we are inclined to come to the same opinion. Machinery, while
superseding, has created manual labour. In a steam-engine factory, machinery
is called upon to do what no amount of manual labour could effect.

To appreciate the extraordinary amount of intellect and mental and manual
dexterity daily called into exercise, it would be necessary to have the
origin, progress to construction, trial, and amendment of a locomotive engine
from the period that the report of the head of the locomotive department in
favour of an increase of stock receives the authorization of the board of
directors. But such a history would be a book itself. After passing through
the drawing-office, where the rough designs of the locomotive engineer are
worked out in detail by a staff of draughtsmen, and the carpenters' shop and
wood-turners, where the models and cores for castings are prepared, we reach,
but do not dwell on the dark lofty hall, where the castings in iron and in
brass are made. The casting of a mass of metal of from five to twenty tons
on a dark night is a fine sight. The tap being withdrawn the molten liquor
spouts forth in an arched fiery continuous stream, casting a red glow on the
half-dressed muscular figures busy around, which would afford a subject for
an artist great in Turner or Danby-like effects.

But we hasten to the steam-hammer to see scraps of tough iron, the size of a
crown-piece, welded into a huge piston, or other instrument requiring the
utmost strength.