iron handle, so as to guide it under the hammer, and is cut off after the bloom is perfected.

After leaving the forge-hammer, the bloom is ready for conversion into rolled or bar iron of every description, preparatory to which it undergoes some additional working in the puddling or heating furnaces-especially the pig metal of the anthracite furnaces of the eastern counties of Pennsylvania, which is much more impure than charcoal iron. This iron, in fact, is not forged at all; but after being puddled is taken to the squeezer, formed into blooms, and is then ready, after re-heating, for the rollers. The puddling-furnaces are always erected in the interior of rolling-mills, and their tall chimneys are seen projecting all around the building. They are built singly and doubly, of various dimensions, but on one general principle. By their aid iron, otherwise valueless, can be made perfectly good, which

naces, as may well be supposed, is intensely hot, and great skill is required to work the metal and keep the furnace in proper working condition. The chimney tops of these furnaces, as we have just remarked, may be seen ranging along the roofs of all rollingmills, and when they are in full operation, always present an aspect

L

of great activity and industry. The large railroad mill

at Safe Harbor, when

all the doors are opened

in the summer time,

affords, in the even

ing, one of the most

picturesque scenes that could be imagined. The fire of the numerous puddling and heating furnaces-the red glare of the blooms, as they are borne along to the squeezer-the pale translucent heat of the flat plates, as they are run through the rollers-the rattle and movements of the stupendous and complicated machinery-the peculiar buzz and extraordinary evolutions of the large fly-wheel-the hasty and determined movements of upwards of three hundred athletic artisans-all convey an idea of industry and enterprise perfectly magnificent to contemplate. It might be supposed that such a place, at such a time, would be almost as hot as the puddling furnaces themselves-but

such is the ventillation of these large establishments, that they are by no means uncomfortable, notwithstanding the great heat of the fires, in the hottest weather of the season.

The object of the squeezer is indicated by the name. The red hot ball is placed into its iron jaws at d, and is thus pressed at every evolution of the wheel which drives it-the bloom being still held by tongs, and turned round as occasion requires. Whatever impurity may be in the metals is thus worked out by the squeezer, at the same time that the bloom is made perfectly solid and compact. The rotary squeezer is probably a much better machine for this purpose than any other now in use, inasmuch as it saves labor, and performs the work in a very brief space of time. The stationary part of