back, at the same time, the abuses, the wild doings, and the
profligacy which then prevailed. Things have undoubtedly greatly
improved, though they are bad enough even now."

Tramways and railways, with steam locomotives, run in all directions.
Formerly, papa said, the work was done by yellow-coated convicts with
chains on their legs. They have happily been removed from the dockyard
itself, and free labourers only are employed. Convicts, however, are
still employed in various extensive public works.

Of course we visited Brunel's block machinery, which shapes from the
rough mass of wood, with wonderful accuracy and speed, the polished
block fit for use. Huge lathes were at work, with circular saws and
drills, sending the chips of wood flying round them with a whizzing and
whirring sound. So perfect is the machinery that skilled artisans are
not required to use it. Four men only are employed in making the
shells, and these four can make with machinery as many as fifty men
could do by hand. On an average, nineteen men make one hundred and
fifty thousand blocks in the course of the year.

Leaving the block house, we went to the smithy, where we saw Nasmyth's
steam hammer, which does not strike like a hammer, but comes down
between two uprights. On one side is a huge furnace for heating the
material to be subjected to the hammer. Papa asked the manager to place
a nut under it, when down came the hammer and just cracked the shell.
He then asked for another to be placed beneath the hammer, when it
descended and made but a slight dent in the nut.

Soon afterwards a huge mass of iron, to form an anchor, was drawn out of
the furnace; then down came the hammer with thundering strokes, beating
and battering it until it was forced into the required shape, while the
sparks flying out on all sides made us retreat to a safer distance.

One of the largest buildings in the dockyard is the foundry, which is
considered the most complete in the world. We looked into the sheds, as
they are called, where the boilers for the ships are constructed, and
could scarcely hear ourselves speak, from the noise of hammers driving
in the rivets. Many of the boilers were large enough to form good-sized
rooms. We walked along the edge of the steam basin. It is nine hundred
feet long and four hundred broad. The ships, I should have said, are
built on what are called the building slips, which are covered over with
huge roofs of corrugate