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156 simile which may help some to get an approximate idea of the process, a ball of iron wire as large as a bushel basket is welded in a solid mass; then that is again drawn into thin strips, which are again folded up and welded again, and hammered until a block is formed of the utmost tenacity of which the metal is capable. When the anvil is worked out to its perfect shape, as the French Marshal said of the old Imperial Guard, "Elle meurt mais ne se rend pas;" it may wear out but never breaks. This is not however the exact process; I have used the ball of wire merely as a simile. The raw material is old scrap iron, like old horse-nails, hoops, and the like, that have been passed under the friction of wear and thus been purified and solidified for their new field of usefulness.

Mr. Wright has also obtained a patent for a vice improved in the same way. That is, the box is of solid iron, in which the worm or thread is cut by machinery. This, if anything, is a more valuable improvement than that of the solid anvil; for this box and its thread, under the old system, being only soldered or brazed together, often broke down altogether after being used a while. Indeed. I well remember, when an apprentice to our village blacksmith, a vice-box was brought to the shop nearly every week to be repaired, by having a new worm or thread soldered in; and I know by personal