ting
all kinds of forging had the effect of greatly increasing the quantity
of work done, at the same time that expense was saved. The cost of
making anchors was reduced by at least 50 per cent., while the quality
of the forging was improved. Before its invention the manufacture of a
shaft of 15 or 20 cwt. required the concentrated exertions of a large
establishment, and its successful execution was regarded as a great
triumph of skill; whereas forgings of 20 and 30 tons weight are now
things of almost every-day occurrence. Its advantages were so obvious,
that its adoption soon became general, and in the course of a few years
Nasmyth steam-hammers were to be found in every well-appointed workshop
both at home and abroad. Many modifications have been made in the
tool, by Condie, Morrison, Naylor, Rigby, and others; but Nasmyth's was
the father of them all, and still holds its ground.[5]

Among the important uses to which this hammer has of late years been
applied, is the manufacture of iron plates for covering our ships of
war, and the fabrication of the immense wrought-iron ordnance of
Armstrong, Whitworth, and Blakely. But for the steam-hammer, indeed,
it is doubtful whether such weapons could have been made. It is also
used for the re-manufacture of iron in various other forms, to say
nothing of the greatly extended use which it has been the direct means
of effecting in wrought-iron and steel forgings in every description of
machinery, from the largest marine steam-engines to the most nice and
delicate parts of textile mechanism. "It is not too much to say,"
observes a writer in the Engineer, "that, without Nasmyth's
steam-hammer, we must have stopped short in many of those gigantic
engineering works which, but for the decay of all wonder in us, would
be the perpetual wonder of this age, and which have enabled our modern
engineers to take rank above the gods of all mythologies. There is one
use to which the steam-hammer is now becoming extensively applied by
some of our manufacturers that deserves especial mention, rather for
the prospect which it opens to us than for what has already been
actually accomplished. We allude to the manufacture of large articles
in DIES. At one manufactory in the country, railway wheels, for
example, are being manufactured with enormous economy by this means.
The various parts of the wheels are produced in quantity either by
rolling or by dies under the hammer; these parts are b