odd shaped blocks for seasoning. Carrying
our eye down from the larger to the smaller
blocks, it struck us, that these last were
gun-stocks, set on end, or piled in airy heaps, to
season. The value of such stocks, when
brought to the gunmaker's, is from twenty-one
shillings to thirty-five shillings apiece.
We saw piles of them at the manufacturer's,
mounting up to the value of many thousands
of pounds. They are of walnut, almost
exclusively; and, when possible, of English
walnut. The stock of a gun must bear
cutting without the slightest splintering or
cracking; and walnut, grown in England, is
almost the only wood which answers to this
condition. It seems almost a pity that it
should be so, when one thinks of the numbers
of walnut-trees in the Kentucky and Canadian
woods, arid how the people of Damascus live
upon walnuts more than on any other food;
and how thousands upon thousands of the
tree overshadow the Pharpar and Abaua—
the streams beloved by Naaman the leper.
But the foreign wood is not of so good a grain
as is necessary for such close fittings as those
of the furniture of guns to the stocks. A
little ash is used, and also maple. They are
harder than the walnut, but not so tough.
Perhaps more American maple might be
used if the wood was not so spoiled in the
felling as it is. The back-woodmen hack and
hew away with their axes, without any idea
of the nicety required; and thus lose a good
deal of prime custom. Beech is used only
for an inferior article—for the African trade;
that is, for the arms ordered by the Kaffirs,
the rifles which are now picking off our
soldiers. It is an inferior article from
Birmingham which has been slaughtering our
soldiers at the Cape for months past. One
wonders whether they know the fact, and
whether it aggravates the pain of their
wounds and their shame. Traders on the
African Coast ascertain the wants of the
inhabitants, in regard to firearms among
other things: they send their orders to
London merchants; London merchants order
the article of the Birmingham manufacturers,
and, after a time, if a Kaffir is disarmed, his
piece is found to bear the name or mark of a
Birmingham gun-maker. "We make firearms
for both parties, in all wars," said a
manufacturer to us yesterday. As such is
and must be the fact, we like the plain avowal
of it; but it is a strange-sounding truth.

The stock is brought in rough;—merely
hewn into a resemblance to what it is to be.
It is dressed smooth, as we see it finally; and
a workman cuts in it, with anxious care, the
recesses and holes where the steel "furniture"
is to be inserted. Then it is "chequered"
by the steady chisel of a spectacled
old man, who pores over his work, dicing the
wrought part of the stock into the minutest
squares; at once ornamenting it, and affording
a hold rougher than the varnished part.
Then it is varnished and polished by the
hands of girls; and then the finisher inlays
it with any little plates of silver or carved
steel with which it is to be adorned. So
much for the stock;—a much less important
affair than the barrel.

The barrel is made from stub nails, the
refuse of the farriers' shops, and of "scrap,"
the refuse of the needle manufactory, where
the steel is very finely tempered. A ball of
"bloom" is a curious affair;—a handful of
nails fused together, in preparation for being
melted down for the barrel. After the steel
and iron are rolled into thin plates in the
rolling-mill, the plates are cut into strips;
and alternate strips of iron and steel
compose the bar of which the barrel is to be
made. They are welded together by heat
and a powerful steam hammer; they are
beaten and twisted, and melted and tortured,
till they mix thoroughly; and then they are
coiled in a spiral line round a "core," as
closely as possible, and the edges of the coil
are welded together. The outside of the
barrel is afterwards carefully treated; but
infinitely greater is the care required for the
inside. The outside has to be corroded by a
diluted acid (after being hammered and filed
as smooth as hammer and file can make it),
and then polished to the brightness which
attracts the eye of the youthful sportsman.
The acid brings out a pattern which
indicates, pretty accurately, the value of the
article. The iron and steel are marbled,
—veined very beautifully, when properly
wrought together: and so much is this
veined appearance prized, that inferior barrels
are actually stained to look like the better
sort. As for the inside of the barrel, it
requires more care than any other part of
the gun. It must be mathematically straight,
and it must be of the most perfect smoothness
throughout, or the ball will go in some
wrong direction or other. The execution
done by balls of all sorts in action is said to
be only one in eighty-five; and yet our
muskets have been considered as nearly
perfect as the weapon could be made. If there
was any relaxation from the great conditions
of the straightness and smoothness of the bore,
there would be an end to all encouragement
to use the gun. The price of a barrel rises
from twelve shillings to six guineas; but all
will be found to be straight and smooth in
the inside. What firearms could do before
there was machinery to render these
proesses unerring, it is difficult to imagine.
The finest machinery and the extremest care
will not content us now. We must have
rifles: and our muskets, and our cannon
themselves, must be rifled.

We looked closely into this rifling. We
saw a barrel grooved in the inside with two
shallow grooves, running the whole length.
The grooves twist round, to the extent of
three-quarters of a turn in a length of three
feet. On the ball is a belt, answering to the
grooves, by which it fits into them. Thus, it