necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails
or bolts. Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy
work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks
of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, "augers and
drills gone mad!"--augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob
put it, "like all possessed." Some acting singly, others acting
together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were
perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a
moment's notice. While Bob was gazing at one huge drill--probably an
inch and a half broad, if not more--a man came up to it with a plank, on
the surface of which were several dots at various distances. He put the
plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill,
and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before
Bob had time to wink,--and Bob was a practised hand at winking. Several
holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another
machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by
six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one
machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few
minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they
been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most
beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.

Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department--all
more or less interesting and, to them, surprising--so that Mrs Marrot
was induced at last to exclaim--

"W'y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin' things at this
rate there won't be no use in a short time for 'uman 'ands at all.
We'll just 'ave to sit still an' let machinery do our work for us, an'
all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment."

"How can you say that, Missis," said Will Garvie, "you bein' old enough
to remember the time w'en there wasn't five joiners' shops in Clatterby,
with p'rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there's hundreds of
joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here
railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin' all the
year round?"

"That's so, Willum," assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.

Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths' department.

Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work. Any one of these forges
would