s able to
be transmitted by the newspaper train leaving Euston at 5:15 A.M.

This is the last matter with which I shall trouble the Section. I have
purposely omitted telegraphy; I have purposely omitted artillery,
textile fabrics, and the milling and preparation of grain. These and
other matters I have omitted for several reasons. Some I have omitted
because I was incompetent to speak upon them, others because of the
want of time, and others because they more properly belong to Section
A.

I hope, sir, although your address, dealing with the future, was
undoubtedly the right address for a president to deliver, and although
it is equally right that we should not content ourselves with merely
looking back in a "rest and be thankful" spirit at the various
progress which this paper records, it may nevertheless be thought well
that there should have been brought before the section, in however
cursory a manner, some notice of mechanical development during the
past fifty years.

* * * * *

[Continued from SUPPLEMENT, No. 311, page 4954.]

AMATEUR MECHANICS.

METAL TURNING.

In selecting a lathe an amateur may exercise more or less taste, and
he may be governed somewhat by the length of his purse; the same is
true in the matter of chucks; but when he comes to the selection or
making of turning tools he must conform to fundamental principles; he
must profit as far as possible by the experience of others, and will,
after all, find enough to be learned by practice.

Tools of almost every description may be purchased at reasonable
prices, but the practice of making one's own tools cannot be too
strongly recommended. It affords a way out of many an emergency, and
where time is not too valuable, a saving will be realized. A few bars
of fine tool steel, a hammer, and a small anvil, are all that are
required, aside from fire and water. The steel should be heated to a
low red, and shaped with as little hammering as possible; it may then
be allowed to cool slowly, when it may be filed or ground to give it
the required form. It may now be hardened by heating it to a cherry
red and plunging it straight down into clean cool (not too cold)
water. It should then be polished on two of its sides, when the temper
may be drawn in the flame of an alcohol lamp or Bunsen gas burner; or,
if these are not convenient, a heated bar of iron may be used instead,
the tool being placed in contact with it unt