pages 148-149
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148                 Illustrations of Lancashire

been discovered by which ores hitherto deemed inferior are practically changed to good and useful ones.
In any case the triumphs of Lancashire will continue to be shown, as heretofore, in her foundries and engine-works, the latter innumerable. Whitworth, Fairbairn, Nasmyth, are names too well known to need more than citation. Nasmyth's steam-hammer in itself is unique. Irresistible when it smites with a will, a giant in power and emphasis, it can assume, when it pleases the lightsome manners of a butterfly. Let a lady place her hand upon

Miscellaneous Industrial Occupations                149

the anvil, the mighty creature just gives it a kiss, gently, courteously, and retires. It is rather a misfortune for the stupendous products of the foundry and engine-works that, except in the case of the locomotive, as soon as completed they are hidden away for evermore, embedded where completely lost to view, and thought of as little as the human heart. Happily in the streets of Manchester there is frequent reminder, in the shape of some leviathan drawn slowly by a team of eight, ten, twelve, or even fourteen superb horses. Bradford, one of the suburbs of Manchester, supplies the world with the visible factor of its nervous system - those mysterious-looking threads which now everywhere show against the sky, and literally allow of intercourse between "Indus and the Pole." ln addition to their manufacture of telegraph-wire, the Messrs. Johnson prepare the whole of what is wanted for the wire-rope bridges now common in America. Large quantities of wire are produced also at Warriiugton; here, however, of kinds adapted more particularly for domestic use. In connection with metal it is worthy also of note that Lancashire is the principal seat of the manufacture of the impregnable safes which, laughing at thieves and fire, challenge even the earthquake. They are made in Liverpool by Milner