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40 marine, and locomotive. Cotton, manufacturing, and various other kinds of machinery are also made here in considerable quantities. With such links of connection amongst us, I trust that this, our first meeting in this city, may be the forerunner of many others, and that we shall add many members to our Institution.

Great attention is now being paid to improvements in the manufacture of malleable iron and steel. I need not tell you of what vast importance it must be to those who are more immediately connected with those branches of mechanics requiring nicety of workmanship, to have iron and steel of a better quality. I may mention that in making rifle-barrels for the experiments which I have undertaken for the Government, one of the greatest difficulties I encounter, in attaining the degree of accuracy that I require, arises from the defects in the metal. What we want is iron of great strength, free from seams, flaws, and hard places. Inferior iron (with the use of other defective and improper materials) is perhaps the main cause of one of the greatest errors committed in the construction of whatever in mechanism has to be kept in motion. I mean the increase of size of the parts of a machine or carriage, in order to get strength, thereby adding weight until they are considered to be strong enough. In our vehicles of draught