As to the cost of an anchor, the labour per wt. is about 24s. for an anchor of 10 cwt. and order, and for the largest anchors about 31. ; he value of an anchor of 95 cwt., including he iron at about Os. Od. per cwt., is about 1001.
The stock consists of two beams of oak, Aalted and hooped together ; the length is hat of the shank and half the diameter of he ring ; it is square; the side at the middle s an inch to a foot of the shank, and tapers o half of this at the end. Such a stock is aearly one-fourth of the weight of the anchor. Lieutenant Rodgers has proposed a solid stock ff African oak, for the greater convenience of ;tocking or unstocking. Of late years iron stocks, whose weight is from one-fourth to me-fifth of the anchor, have been much used. Numerous improvements have been brought forwrird within the last few years in the form and manufacture of anchors. Lieutenant Rodgers has patented a hollow - shanked anchor, intended to combine strength with lightness. Mr. Pering has introduced a me thod of forming the arms of anchors by split ting or bisecting the bars which form the shank, and turning the ends back in contrary directions. Mr. Meggitt has patented an anchor in which the flukes are very little broader than the arms. It would be needless to enumerate all the improvements introduced or suggested ; but among the changes pro posed in the construction of anchors, the most remarkable is, perhaps, that which was brought forward by Mr. Porter, for the pur pose of avoiding the consequences of ' fouling,' by the cable passing over the exposed fluke of the anchor when the vessel is swinging in a tide-way, and injury to the vessel herself in the event of settling upon her anchor. The peculiarity consists in giving to the arms a freedom of motion round a pivot or bolt at the end of the shank. The arms and flukes are forged independently of the shank, and have a hole drilled transversely through the centre for the reception of the iron bolt which connects them with the shank. The effect of this construction is, that when the anchor, after being dropped, rests upon the ground, it assumes a position in which the lower peak is in contact with the inferior surface of the shank, and the upper peak is as far as possible from it. The slightest movement of the cable then suffices to bring the anchor to a position in which the lower peak is favourably situated for penetrating into the ground : the penetra tion then takes place, and at length the shank and stock lie flat on the ground, the upper I fluke being close upon the top of the shank.
Whether we view the forging of an anchor under the old state of things, or now that Na smyth's hammer works such wonders, it is a striking exhibition of industrial art. The shaft of a first Class anchor, nearly twenty feet lotig by ten or twelve inches thick, is too pon derous to be worked out of one piece of metal ; and it bag Consequently to be built up of many pieces. Forty or fifty bars are sometimes laid together in a group, to be welded into One mass by powerful blows while at a white heat ; but in modern times a smaller number of wider bars are more frequently used. The bundle of bars is brought to a highly heated state, in a kind of oven formed wholly of Coals, which completely snrrotind the iron ; but as the length of the Shank is so great, only so much of it is heated at once as can be forged before it cools down too low. the fire is
urged by ten or a dozen men (the same.who afterwards apply their lusty arms to the ham mers) ; and when the mass is brought to a white heat, it is drawn out of the fiery furnace, swung round by means of the crane by which it has been suspended, and brought to bear on a large anvil. The men arrange them selves in a circle around the heated mass ; and, guided by a foreman, they wield their ponderous hammers of sixteen or twenty pounds weight, and produce a rough music by their equal-timed blows : they are harmo nious blacksmiths,' though perhaps not be longing to Handel's corps. Mi. Samuel Fer guson, in his noble poem, The Forging of the Anchor,' has some lines which vividly present this picture :— ' The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row Of smiths, that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe ; As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster, slow Sinks on the anvil—all about the fiery faces glow— " Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out—leap out ; " bang, bang, the sledges go : Hurrah ! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low, A hailing fount of fire is struck at every crush ing blow ; The leathern mail rebounds the hail ; the rattling cinders strew The ground around ; at every bound the swel tering fountains flow ; And thick and loud the swinking crowd at every stroke pant " ho !" ' But this was in the old times. If we now visit the Government Anchor Smitheries, such as that in Devonport Dock Yard, we find that steam has driven away something of the old picturesqueness—replacing it by a grandeur of its own. The anchor-shaft is no longer buried in a mere heap of blazing. fuel, but is heated in a properly constructed furnace ; the belloivs are no longer worked by hand, but by the powerful blast of a steam-engine ; the forgers need no longer to confine their oPera• tions to one small length at a time, for it much greater length can now be managed be. fore it cools down too low ; and the circle of anchor-smiths no longer wield their hammers, and expend their strength in blows which were once called powerful but which are now deemed puny. A steam-giant has come amongst them. Mr. Nasmyth's steam-ham mer is a contrivance in which a powerful hammer or weight is allowed to fall by its own gravity, but is drawn np by the operation of steam-power ; and this alternation of rising and falling oecurs several times in a minute— much faster indeed than a man could wield a sledge. hammer. The white-hot anchor-shaft is placed upon an anvil immediately beneath this steam-hammer ; and the blows which follow are so powerful and so quickly repeated, that the heated mass becomes forged in a wonderfully short space of time. Let the anchor-smiths group themselves as thickly as they may, and wield hammers the heaviest that human muscles can command—they cannot approach the amount of work which the steam. hammer effects. Even the Hercules which formed an intermediate stage between the sledge-hammer and the steam-hammer, and which consists of a heavy mass of iron worked by ropes, must yield in efficiency to Mr. Na smyth's remarkable machine.