olverton, until it is shaped into a bar of tough iron, which is afterwards
rolled into sheets of the requisite thickness.

From one of these sheets a length sufficient to make a gun barrel is cut off
by a pair of steam-moved shears, of which the lower jaw is stationary and the
upper weighs a ton, of which plenty of examples may be seen in every steam
engine factory.

The slip of iron is made red hot, placed between a pair of rollers, one of
which is convex and the other concave, and comes out in a semicircular trough
shape; again heated, and again pressed by smaller rollers, by which the
cylinder is nearly completed. A long bar of iron is passed through the
cylinder, it is thrust into the fire again, and, when red hot, it is
submitted to the welder, who hammers it and heats it and hammers it again,
until it assumes the form of a perfect tube.

Damascus barrels are made by incorporating alternate layers of red hot steel
and iron, which are then twisted into the shape of a screw while at white
heat. The bar thus made is twisted in a cold state by steam power round a
bar into a barrel shape, then heated and welded together.

These are the barrels which present the beautiful variegated appearance which
gives them the name of Damascus.

The barrels, whether common or twisted, are then bored by a steel rod, kept
wet with water or oil, and turned by steam. The process occupies from two to
three hours for each barrel.

The next operation is that of grinding the outside of the barrel with
sandstone wheels, from five to six feet in diameter when new, driven by
steam. These stones chiefly come from the neighbouring district of Bilston;
in four months' work, a stone of this size will be reduced to two feet.

The employment is hard, dangerous from the stones often breaking while in
motion, in which case pieces of stone weighing a ton have been known to fly
through the roof of the shop; unwholesome, because the sand and steel dust
fill eyes, mouth, and lungs, unless a certain simple precaution is taken
which grinders never take.

After grinding, a nut is screwed into the breech, and the barrel is taken to
the proof house to be proved.

The proof house is a detached building, the interior of which is lined with
plates of cast iron.

The barrels are set in two iron stocks, the upper surface of one of which has
a small gutter, to contain a train of powder; in this train the barrels rest
with their touchholes downwards, and