Hill, and about three times its diameter. It is
circular in form, built all the way up with
solid brickwork, and lighted at intervals with
small, arched, cavernous, glazed windows,
the recesses of which serve to show the
thickness of the wall. Winding up the side
is a narrow staircase, plentifully lined with
dirt, coaldust, and blacklead, and protected
by a thin iron railing. The cost of this tower
is estimated at thirty thousand pounds. On
the floor are several bars of prepared lead—
the material from which the shot is cast
—and a kind of copper with a fire burning
underneath it. In the centre are
two short, broad tubs—like washing-tubs—
filled with a thick, muddy-looking water.
One is perfectly tranquil on the surface, but
the other is bubbling and foaming up like a
water-plug that has been opened in the
streets, for a stream of lead is pouring into it
from the roof of the tower, at the rate of a
ton of shot in every five-and-forty minutes,
causing the ceaseless, deafening roar that
first excited our attention. Casting our eyes
upwards along this stream, and tracing it to
its source, we find it coming from a few
silvery drops that fall through a small square
trap in a wooden platform erected across the
top of the building. These drops increase in
force and density as they fall lower, until,
about the centre of the column, they unite
in a straight, thick, slate-coloured stream,
lighted up by the sunbeams as it passes the
windows in the wall. Looking through the
open trap at the top, watching the descent of
his handiwork, is the man who is superintending
the casting, dressed in a dirty canvas
smock shirt and a brown paper cap;
presenting the appearance of a small, quaint
picture set in a square frame. He has a
counterpart in a mild-looking fellow workman
below, who stands calmly by, while the
cataract of death is hurrying down to the
waters of oblivion. Anxious to examine
more closely the source of the cataract, we
toil laboriously up the winding stairs, passing
the roaring, rushing stream at every turn,
until, after a time, we reach the summit.
There we find a simmering cauldron full of
molten lead, set in a frame of brickwork on
a furnace; while by its side stands over the
open trap a metal pan, or shallow basin, set
upon four thin iron legs. The bottom of
this pan is made of paste, and as the man in
the paper cap keeps ladling it full of the red-
hot liquid metal from the copper, small,
bright, silvery drops keep oozing through,
like quicksilver globules, and falling down
the open trap like harp strings into the gulf
beneath. I look on, perhaps, with culpable
indifference, equal to that of the placid work-
man who goes through his allotted task like
a workhouse master serving out the dinner
soup; but my shadowy companion of the
Peace Society, shudders as he feels that in
that small, insignificant hand-basin, lies the
source of the great stream of death that
thunders down into the waters beneath. As
we wind slowly down the stairs, we stay to
reflect that in the perfectly globular form
which the liquid metal assumes as it descends
the pit, is contained a beautiful, although
minute exemplification of that great law of
physics which gave the spherical shape to
every planet that rolls above our heads. The
object of preparing the water below to
receive the metal drops, is to preserve the
globular form, which would be destroyed by
coming in contact with an unyielding
substance.

When the white shot is taken out of the
tubs of water, it is removed to that part of
the building which I term the granary,
where it undergoes a simple process of'
drying. After this, it is found necessary
that it should be carefully sifted, to separate
the different sizes of shot. The machinery
provided for this is a long, hollow, copper
cylinder, perforated with holes like a nutmeg-
grater, or the barrel of a musical box,
when all the pegs are taken out. These
holes are of different sizes, divided into several
stages down the cylinder, the smallest coming
first, and progressing gradually to the largest,
which come last. The cylinder is slightly
inclined towards the large perforations, and
is made to revolve slowly by steam power;
the shot is then poured in through a funnel
at the upper end, and the operation is then
left to work itself out. The baby-shots, the
youthful shots, and the full-grown shots, as
they roll into and are worked round the
cylinder, find the holes themselves through
which they can comfortably squeeze their
forms, falling into the different troughs that
are waiting to receive them. This is
altogether so much like an agricultural operation
connected with the seed trade, that my
shadowy, peace-loving friend forgets where
he is, and, for a time, is happy.

When the deadly grain is collected from
the troughs, it is placed within another small,
revolving cylinder (not perforated) where its
leaden whiteness is changed by the agency
of blacklead, to a bright, polished sable. It
is then found that amongst the mass are a
number of imperfect globular shot, so much
flattened at the pole or poles, as to be utterly
unfit for a place in the hearts of men, or
birds, or beasts, and only worthy of a tomb
in the waste box. These false ones are
detected by a simple, but very ingenious
process. A small, smooth, wooden fan-shaped
platform is fitted up, edged in, and inclining
slightly towards two troughs, one placed
immediately under the edge of the board, the
other at a little distance from it. The
polished shot is then poured gently, and with
equal force, down a perpendicular funnel that
discharges itself upon the inclined platform.
The shot that is perfect rolls with sufficient
impetus down the board, to carry it over
into the further trough; while the imperfect
shot either sticks fast with its flattened