GLOBE -MAKING. This is in many respects a remarkable branch of art. It is said that there are only four globe-makers in England and one in Scotland; and that the annual sale of globes is only about a thousand pair. The price of a pair of globes varies from six shillings to fifty pounds. But from the smallest 2-inch, to the largest 36 inch globe, a systematic process is carried on at every step of its formation. The following account of the manufacture is condensed from Dickens' Household Words.' Globes are made of paper and plaster, shaped upon a model or mould. This mould is turned out of a piece of wood, and has for au axis a piece of iron wire at each pole. On this mould a boy will in a very short time form a pasteboard globe. He first covers it entirely with strips of strong paper, thoroughly wet, which are in a tub of water at his side. The slight inequalities produced by the over-lap ping of the strips are immaterial. The satu rated paper is not suffered to dry; but is imediately covered over with a layer of pasted paper, also cut in long narrow slips. A third layer of similarly pasted paper—brown paper and white being used alternately—is applied; and then a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth. Here the pasting process ends for globes of mode rate size. For the large ones it is carried farther. This wet pasteboard ball has now to be dried,—placed upon its axis in a rack. The extrication of the wooden mould from its prison then takes place. The wooden ball, with its solid paper covering, is placed on its axis. A sharp cutting instrument, fixed on a bench, is brought into contact with the surface of the sphere, which is made to revolve; and the pasteboard ball is quickly cut in half. Within every globe there is a piece of wood— we may liken it to a round ruler—of the exact length of the inner surface of the sphere from polo to pole. A thick wire runs through this wood, and originally projected some two or three inches at each end. This stick is placed upright in a vice. The semi-globe is nailed to one end of the stick, upon which it rests, when the wire is passed through its centre. It is now reversed, and the edges of the card rapidly covered with glue. The edges
of the other semi-globe are instantly brought into contact, the other end of the wire passing through its centre in the same way, and a similar nailing to the stick taking place. We have now a paper globe, with its own axis.
The paper globe is next placed on its axis in a frame, of which one side is a semi-circular piece of metal. The workman applies to the surface of the globe a coating of whiting, glue, and oil ; and this is repeated five or six times, with intervening periods of drying. The globe is therefore by this time a paper sphere enve loped in another sphere of plaster. If it does not revolve quite equably on its axis a few shot are introduced into the too-buoyant por tions.
What may be called the artistical portion of globe-making here commences, in which the intelligent labour of females is available. The workwoman takes the polished globe in her lap, for the purpose of marking it with lines of direction for covering it with engraved strips ; which lines are those of latitudes and longitudes. These lines are struck with great rapidity, and with mathematical truth, by an instrument called a beam compass.' The sphere is now ready for receiving the map, which is engraved in fourteen distinct pieces. The arctic and antarctic poles form two circular pieces, from which the lines of longitude radiate. These having been fitted and pasted, one of the remaining twelve pieces, containing 30 degrees of longitude and 133 degrees of latitude, is also pasted on the sphere, in the precise space where the lines of longitude have been previously marked ; its lines of latitude corresponding in a similar manner. The paper upon which these portions of the earth's surface are engraved is thin and ex tremely tough. It is rubbed down with the greatest care, through all the stages of this pasting process. We have at length a globe covered with a plain map, so perfectly joined that every line and every letter fit together as if they had been engraved in one piece,— which, of course, would be absolutely impossible for the purpose of covering a ball.