fire-grates. I remember being much pleased with seeing a neat arrangement of a "hot-closet" heated by the waste steam conveyed from the bottom of the building. This was used for holding the dinners and teas of the minor clerks and workpeople. Another enclosed place, heated by waste steam, was used for drying wet clothes and jackets during rainy weather. Much attention was paid by the employers to their workpeople in these respects. The former exhibited a great deal of kindly thoughtfulness. But men and master were alike. It was a source of the greatest pleasure to me, when looking round the warehouses and factories, to see the intelligent steady energy that pervaded every department, from the highest to the lowest.

I never lost sight of the importance of extending the use of my small steam-engine system. It was the most convenient method of applying steam power to individual machines. Formerly, the power to drive a machine was derived from a very complicated arrangement of shafting and gearing brought from a distant engine. But by my system I conveyed the power to the machine by means of a steam pipe, which enabled the engine to which it was attached to be driven either fast or slow, or to be stopped or started, just as occasion required. It might be run while all the other machines were at rest; or, in the event of a breakdown of the main engine of the factory, the small engine might still be kept going or even assist in the repairs of the large one.

An important feature in this mode of conveying power by means of piping -- in place of gearing and shifting belts and belt pulleys -- was the ease with which the steam could be conveyed into intricate parts of the building. The pipes which I used were of wrought-iron, similar to those used in conveying gas. They could be curved to suit any peculiarity of the situation; and when the pipes were lapped with felt, or enclosed in wooden troughs filled with sawdust, the loss of heat by radiation was reduced to a minimum. The loss of power was certainly much less than in the friction of a long and perhaps tortuous line of shafting. With steam of 50 lbs. to the inch, a pipe of one-inch bore will convey sufficient steam to give forth five horse-power at a distance of two or three hundred feet from the boiler.[note: In the case of rambling premises, such as iron shipbuilding yards, the conveyance of steam by well-protected pipes put underground for the purpose of driving engines to work punching and plate-shearing machines (which have to be near at hand when the work is required), has very great practical advantages.]

I adopted the same practice in working the refined and complex machines used in printing coloured patterns on calico. A great variety of colours has to be transferred by a combination of rollers -- each carrying its proper colour; these are printed on the calico with the utmost exactness, and result in the complete pattern. My system of having a separate engine to give motion to these colour-printing machines was found to be of great service, and its value was recognised by its speedy and almost universal adoption. Every connection with the main shaft, with its gearing and belts and pulleys -- by which colour-printing had before been accomplished -- was entirely done away with, because each machine had its own special engine. The former practice had led to much waste, and the printing was often confused and badly done. The power was conveyed from a great central steam-engine; the printing machines were ranged by the side of a long gallery, and by means of a "clutch" each machine was started at once into action.

The result of this was a considerable shock to the machine, and an interference with the relative adjustments of the six or eight colour rollers, which were often jerked out of their exact relative adjustment. Then the machines had to be stopped and the rollers readjusted, and sometimes many yards of calico had been spoiled before this could be done.

These difficulties were now entirely removed. When all was adjusted, the attendant of the print-machine had only to open gradually the steam admission valve of his engine, and allow it to work the machine gently at its first off-go; and when all was seen to be acting in perfect concert, to open the valve further and allow the machine to go at full speed. The same practice was adopted in slowing off the machine, so as to allow the attendant to scrutinise the pattern and the position of the work, or in stopping the machine altogether. So satisfactory were the results of the application of this mode of driving calico printing machines, that it was adopted for the like processes as applied to other textile fabrics; and it is now, I believe, universally applied at home as well as abroad. I may also add that the waste steam,