at the hither end of the
engine. The wheel by which the band turns the lathe has different
grooves at different distances from the centre, in order that the
workmen may regulate the velocity of the rotation--as different degrees
of velocity are required for the different species of work. The _rest_,
to which the cutting tool is attached, is brought slowly along the side
of the shaft as the shaft revolves, by means of a long screw which is
concealed in the frame of the lathe, and which is turned continually by
the mechanism of the small wheels which are seen at the hither end of
the engine.

On the right hand of this view is represented another kind of lathe
called a _face lathe_, which is employed for turning wheels, and flat
plates, and interiors of cavities, and such other pieces of work as do
not furnish two opposite points of support. In the fore-ground are a
company of men drawing a massive piece of iron upon a truck, destined
apparently to be turned in the left hand lathe.

[Illustration: FINISHING.]

Although thus a great part of the work in respect to all the details of
the engine, is performed by machinery, much remains after all to be
wrought and fashioned by hand. In passing through the establishment the
visitor finds the workmen engaged in these labors, in every conceivable
attitude and position. One man is filing a curved surface with a curved
file, another is hidden almost wholly from view within a great misshapen
box of iron: a third is mounted upon a ladder, and is slowly boring
through the wall of some monstrous formation, or cutting away
excrescences of iron from some massive casting with a cold chisel. In a
word, the details are so endlessly varied as to excite the wonder of the
beholder that any human head should have been capable of containing
them all, so as to have planned and arranged the fitting of such
complicated parts with any hope of their ever coming rightly together.

They do come together, however, at last, and then follows the excitement
of the trial. There is nothing more striking in the history of the
construction of a steam engine than this, that there can be no partial
or private tests of the work by the workmen in the course of its
progress--but every thing remains in suspense until all is complete, and
the ship and the machinery are actually ready for sea. The immense and
ponderous masses which constitute the elements of the mighty structure
are hoisted slowly on board and let