laced between these
rollers, and is at once drawn out into a long strip of iron, much as
a piece of dough is rolled out under the cook's rolling-pin. It is
now perfectly flat, and entirely malleable. It is returned to the
furnace, heated, brought back, and placed in a second pair of
rollers. This second pair have projections upon them, which so
impress the flat strip of iron that it is drawn out into the
required shape. The rail passes twice through these rollers, once
forwards, then backwards. Terrible is the heat in this fiery spot.
The experienced workman who guides the long red-hot rails to the
mouth of the rollers is protected with a mask, with iron-shod shoes,
iron greaves on his legs, an iron apron, and, even further, with a
shield of iron. The very floor beneath is formed of slabs of iron
instead of slabs of stone, and the visitor very soon finds this iron
floor too hot for his feet. The perfect rail, still red-hot or
nearly, is run back to the circular saw, which cuts it off in
regular lengths; for it is not possible to so apportion the iron in
each bundle as to form absolutely identical strips. They are
proportioned so as to be a little longer than required, and then
sawn off to the exact length. While still hot, a workman files the
sawn ends so that they may fit together closely when laid down on
the sleepers. The completed rails are then stacked for removal on
trucks to their destination. The rollers which turn out these rails
in so regular and beautiful a manner are driven by a pair of engines
of enormous power. The huge fly-wheel is twenty feet in diameter,
and weighs, with its axle, thirty-five tons. When these rails were
first manufactured, the rollers were driven direct from the axle of
the fly-wheel, and the rails had to be lifted right over the
roller--a difficult and dangerous process--and again inserted
between them on the side at which it started. Since then an
improvement has been effected, by which the rails are sent backwards
through the rollers, thus avoiding the trouble of lifting them over.
This is managed by reversing the motion of the rollers, which is
done in an instant by means of a 'crab.'

Immediately adjacent to these rail-mills are the steam-hammers,
whose blows shake the solid earth. The largest descends with the
force of seventy tons, yet so delicate is the machinery that
visitors are shown how the same ponderous mass of metal and the same
irresistible might can be so gently admin