chinery, destined?--what the final application of a material
employing so much capital in every step, from the Swedish mine to its
transport by railroad to some other seat of British industry? _The whole
is prepared for one steel-pen manufactory at Birmingham._

There is nothing very remarkable in a steel-pen manufactory, as regards
ingenuity of contrivance or factory organization. Upon a large scale of
production, the extent of labor engaged in producing so minute an article,
is necessarily striking. But the process is just as curious and
interesting, if conducted in a small shop as in a large. The pure steel,
as it comes from the rolling-mill, is cut up into strips about two inches
and a half in width. These are further cut into the proper size for the
pen. The pieces are then annealed and cleansed. The maker's name is neatly
impressed on the metal; and a cutting-tool forms the slit, although
imperfectly in this stage. The pen shape is given by a convex punch
pressing the plate into a concave die. The pen is formed when the slit is
perfected. It has now to be hardened, and, finally, cleansed and polished,
by the simple agency of friction in a cylinder. All the varieties of form
of the steel pen are produced by the punch; all the contrivances of slits
and apertures above the nib, by the cutting-tool. Every improvement has
had for its object to overcome the rigidity of the steel--to imitate the
elasticity of the quill, while bestowing upon the pen a superior
durability.

The perfection that may reasonably be demanded in a steel pen has yet to
be reached. But the improvement in the manufacture is most decided. Twenty
years ago, to one who might choose, regardless of expense, between the
quill pen and the steel, the best Birmingham and London production was an
abomination. But we can trace the gradual acquiescence of most men in the
writing implement of the multitude. Few of us, in an age when the small
economies are carefully observed, and even paraded, desire to use quill
pens at ten or twelve shillings a hundred, as Treasury Clerks once
luxuriated in their use--an hour's work, and then a new one. To mend a pen,
is troublesome to the old, and even the middle-aged man who once acquired
the art; the young, for the most part, have not learned it. The most
painstaking and penurious author would never dream of imitating the
wondrous man who translated Pliny with "one gray goose quill." Steel pens
are so cheap, that if one sc