Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/232

 plating for iron-clad ships. An iron driving-wheel, eighteen feet in diameter, is to be seen there, propped up in position. We next cross a broad paved court having a line of railway along one of its sides, used in conveying materials to the different workshops which run parallel to the rails and face the river. In these shops practical engineering and shipbuilding in its various branches are being carried on ; and in one there is a sort of school, where mechanical drawing and modelling are taught by French masters. These instructors, all of them, remarked to me on the wonderful aptitude displayed by the Chinese in picking up a knowledge of the various mechanical appliances employed in the arsenal. Many of the men who are there working at the steam-lathes and guiding the planing- machines, had two or three months before been ordinary field labourers. In one apartment a powerful machine is punching rivet-holes in boiler-plates. In another department we found men at work, making wooden patterns for iron castings; and others constructing models of steam-engines, to be used in educating the pupils of this training-school. There are indeed many admirable specimens of complicated work carried out solely from drawings ; the whole betokening an advanced degree of skill and knowledge on the part of the workmen. All these results have been achieved under the guidance of European foremen. For my own part, from what I have seen in these arsenals, I firmly believe that when the Chinese find it convenient to throw off their grossly superstitious notions regarding foreign inventions and appliances, they will excel in all that pertains to the exact sciences, and in their practical application to the construction of machinery. The mandarins connected with the arsenal look with pardonable vanity at the steam gun-boats that have been built under their own eyes, and sent into commission