Although it was said that the rolling or milling of lead remains unchanged in its main features since the first mill was established, yet the writer's firm have introduced many important improvements. When lead is required for sheet making, instead of running out the market lead into the usual pigs of about one hundredweight each, it is run into large blocks of 3½ tons. These 3½ ton blocks are taken on a bogie to the mill-house, where the mill melting pot is charged with them by means of a double-powered hydraulic crane, lifting, however, with the single power only.
Three such blocks fill the pot, and when melted are tapped on to a large casting plate, 8 ft. 4 in. by 7 ft. 6 in., and about 7 in. thick. This block, weighing 10½ tons, is lifted on to the mill table by the same crane as fills the pot, but using the double power; and is moved along to the rolls in the usual manner by means of a rope working on a surging head. The mill itself, as regards the roll, is much the same as those of other firms; but instead of an engine with a heavy fly-wheel, always working in one direction, and connected to the rolls by double clutch and gearing, the work is done by a pair of horizontal reversing engines, in connection with which there is a very simple, and at the same time extremely effectual, system of hydraulic reversing. On the usual method there is no necessity for full or delicate control of lead mill engines; but with this system it is essential, and the hydraulic reversing gear contributes largely to such control. This may be explained as follows:
In all other mills with which the writer is acquainted, when the lead sheet, or the original block, has passed through the rolls, and before it can be sent back in the opposite direction, a man on either side of the mill must work it into the grip of the rolls with crowbars.
In the writer's system this labor is avoided, and the sheet or block is fed in automatically by means of subsidiary rolls, which are driven by power. When it is required to cut the block or sheet by the guillotine, or cross-cutting knife, instead of the block being moved to the desired point by hand-labor, the subsidiary driven rolls work it up to the knife; and such perfect control does the engine with its hydraulic reversing gear possess, that should the sheet overshoot the knife 1/8 in., or even less, the engine would bring it back to this extent exactly.
Another point, which the writer looks upon as one of the greatest improvements in this mill, is its being furnished with circular knives, which can be set to any desired width, and put in or out of gear at will; and which are used for dressing up the finished sheet in the longitudinal direction. This is a simple mechanical arrangement, but one which is found to be of immense benefit, and which, in the writer's opinion, is far superior to the usual practice of marking off the sheet with a chalk line, and then dressing off with hand knives. The last length of the mill table forms a weighbridge, and a hydraulic crane lifts the sheet from it either on to the warehouse floor or the tramway communicating with the shipping quay.
APPARATUS USED IN BERLIN FOR THE PREPARATION OF GELATINE PLATES.
I.--MIXING APPARATUS FOR GELATINE EMULSION.
The mixing vessel--a porcelain kettle capable of containing twenty liters, made at the Royal Porcelain Factory at Berlin, whose products are unequaled for chemical purposes--is also the boiling vessel, and, therefore, fits tightly, by means of the tin ring with the wooden handles, on to a large water bath. The light-tight metal lid, which can be permanently affixed to the kettle, then supports a stirring arrangement of fine silver, which dips into the emulsion and has blades formed like a ship's screw.