Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/209

 Nowhere else can so fine a view be had of the magnificent Thames Embankment, running from the Houses of Parliament on the west, to Blackfriars Bridge on the east. The Thames itself, not here the silvery, but very much the muddy Thames, rushes hurriedly by, bearing on its bosom pleasure steamers and row boats and big barges; some of the latter, by the way, laden with the pig lead which is to find its way up the Shot Tower.

Our visit is nearly complete. Descending the 300 odd steps, an easier and quicker process than the ascent, we devote ourselves for a while to watching the process of finishing off the shot. After removal from the tub, it has to be dried by being laid on a hot slab. Thence it is transferred to a box, from which it passes to a revolving cylinder with holes of various sizes. The smallest holes are near the box, and the smallest shot passes through them. The larger shot passes on to another part, until it finds holes big enough to allow it to escape. Once out of this cylinder-sifter, the shot falls into a receptacle, with an aperture at the bottom. As it leaves this, it drops on to a piece of wood, roughly about a foot square, down which it rolls into one of two boxes. If you examine this piece of wood, you will find that it is slightly inclined, the incline giving the shot a momentum just sufficient to carry the imperfect into one box, and the perfect into a second. It is the most ingenious device imaginable. Having been thus assorted, the shot is put into a revolving box containing blacklead. The revolutions not only serve to thoroughly blacklead the shot, but to wear off any little excrescence, and make them more perfectly round. They have then to be weighed in the 28 lb. bags referred to above. From the weighing machine they are passed to a table at which a woman sits with needle and thread. Their mouths are sewn up, they are ready for the market, and we have seen practically all there is to be seen of the manufacture of small shot.