The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1858-12-02

preached from the railway station by
wooden causway half mile in length, and
elevated about six feet from the ground, and
so remote is it from human habitation, that
many of the workmen have to walk four
miles twice a day in going and returning
from their work But the factory was al
ready there and it had a water-wheel, and
for these two very sapient and sufficient
reasons, it was determined that at Enfield
lock the great revolution in our military
gun-making should be inaugurated.
The official head of the establishment Is
Colonel Dickson, of the Artillery; but the
chief engineer and general manager of the
work is Mr.. J. Fl. Burton, whose dominions
we now enter, and who is ably assisted in
departments by Mr.. o. Clark, and, we be-
lieve, three other compatriots, who were
brought over from America by the commits
ton, and appointed TO their present posts at
a by no means extrayagant rate of remu-
neration. In the two smithies, in which
from seventy to hundred forges are con-
stantly at work, upwards of two hundred
and fifty tons of the best iron and steel, sup
piled from Wednesbury and Sheffield, are
being constantly forged into the rough sim
ilitude of gun barrels, gun locks, gun ham
mers, gun everything. The tough metal is
here melted into the consistence of soup,
ana being then cooled to the yielding soft
ness of cheese, is run and twisted, and
knocked about and dragged through i'm
mense rollers, and placed under enormous
hammers, the noise CT which is almost equal
to the salutes at Cherbourg, and finally is
thrown into heaps of ashes to cool, so as to
be ready for the subsequent operation of the
finishing room. In another of what we
shall call the elementary departments, are
fitted mp rough semblances of gun-stocks, in
the black walnut of Belgium, and here are
also some beautiful American circular saws
and other machinery, by means of which
the first shaping is given to the stocks pre-
vious to their being put into the unerring
copying machine. From the smithy on one
side, and the stock depot on the other, we
come now to the great finishing room, two
hundred feet square, and with an area of
over an English acre. 1t would be impos-
sible to conceive a more wondrous or sug-
gestiye sight than this vast interior presents
during working hours, especially in the
evening, when the whole is brilliantly illu-
minated with gas.
The whole ceiling is covered with the
gearing of the steam power, and the wheels,
over which it rolls incessantly, like whole
army of immense serpents winding sinu-
ously in and out and over and under the
framework. Below, the floor is thickly
studded with the copying machines each
adapted to some minute part of the gun,
and at these from six to seven hundred men
and boys work from morning until night at
a pace which would he perfectly astounding
to the spectator, especially if he had ever
watched the work in a royal dock yard, if
he did not know that the whole of the
work in the Enfield factory is piece work,
and that each man and boy gets as much
wages lat certain fixed rates) as he can earn,
nc more and no less. We have before stated
that the two great principles of the Ameri-
can system were the minute subdivision of
labor, and the use, wherever possible, of ma
chinery and here the two come into full
operation. The whole of the metal portions
of the gun are divided into about seventy
parts, and to each copying machine the
" finishing" of one of these parts is allotted.
The attending workman is supplied with a
matrix Tor templete), into which his finished
work must fit with mathematical exactness,
but this causes hiIl little or no trouble, as
the steel model turns round side by side
and as the one revolves under the still, the
other rapidly becomes identical in shape,
under the fierce cutter whose powers of in
cision are stopped by no obstacle. 1t will
be understood that the steelmodelfitse exactly
into the templete; that the article produced
Is the fac-simile of the steel model; and SO
that if the separate parts of ten thousand
rifles were made and thrown into classified
ha 4a1r Il
one, 4 barerl from another, a stock from q
third, and so on, satisfied that they would
all fit with mathematical exactness; and
the result of all this is that man is able to
put gun completely together, and fit it for
immediate use, in two minutes and half, a
feat which we saw actually performed dur
ing our very gratifying visit to Enfield fac
tory.
1t would be quite beyond the compass of
newspaper article to enumerate in detail
the various beautiful application of the
method. The boring and rihing of the bar
rel the three groves being made to wind
round the interior in obedience to a fixed
jaw the exquisite precision with which
each portion of the lock is finished the
miraculous accuracy with which every hole
is drilled so as to correspond exactly with
a hole in the part to which it is to be at
tached, are only few of the instances of a
perfection which runs through every opera
tion in the factory, and which would take
many days only to inspect, putting subse-
quent description out of the question. And,
as with the metal, so with the wood whose
coarser and more elastic fibre is made to
submit TO the same process. This depart
ment, the stoek-making, is under the exclu-
Siye direction of Mr. Clarke, and to that
gentleman we are indebted for facilities
which enabled US to see the entire myste-
ries. The rough embryo of a gun stock as
it comes from the inner depot, is laid firmly
in vice, along side of the steel model, aud
the cutters, acting across the grain, speedily
reduce all corners and produce the form re-
quired. One machine gives form to the
butt, second shaves away the grove
for the barrel, a third-and this is the most
extraordinary opeTation-scoops out tine in
tricate bed for the lock, defining each min
ute subdivision, and leaving edges every
where as sharp as if they were of steel
while a fourth removes the corrugations
left by the previous cutters, and makes the
stock all ready to receive the lock and bar
rel.
There is one more operation necessary to
complete the work, but here the great Spirit
of the boiling water stops, and no ingenuity,
no persuasion will induce him to bulge an
inch further. His mission is the useful, and
with the ornamental he will have nothing