late Mr. Henry Wheelwright, who was an old bush wanderer, possibly held a different opinion. At any rate, he very properly distinguished between a tame jackass well looked after and an unhappy prisoner; and we cannot conclude this brief sketch of an interesting bird better than with his touching picture of a homeless and friendless jackass which met his gaze thousands of miles from its native land. "The

first sight that struck me on landing in London was a poor old laughing jackass, moped up in a cage in Ratcliffe Highway. I never saw a more miserable woe-begone object. I quite pitied my poor old friend as he sat dejected on his perch; and the thought struck me that we were neither of us benefited in changing the quiet freedom of the bush for the noise and bustle of the modern Babylon."

IN A

OING over one of the bridges in London the other day, I noticed two very high towers, which stood like sentinels on the southern side of the river. I had seen these many a time before, and had been told that they were shot-towers, but on this particular day the thought suddenly came into my mind that I should like to go inside one, and see for myself how the shot was made, and why it required a tower more than 160 feet high.

Accordingly I did not let many hours pass before I wrote for permission to go over the factory. It is not the first time that some little folk have been with me on a similar errand, so, as usual, we will begin with the raw material, and very "raw" it

looked in this instance.

The lead was stacked in what are called "pigs." Each pig weighs 112 lb. If any one had asked me what a hundredweight of lead would look like, I think I should have described a very big thing; but these pigs were about two and a quarter feet long, and only a few inches thick. They were dull in colour, and shaped very like halfpenny sticks of chocolate with the ends rounded off. This pig lead is taken to the top of the tower by means of a steam hoist, but there is a staircase from side to side for the convenience of the men. Putting the stairs close against the wall in this fashion leaves the centre of the tower quite clear for the raising of the pigs and for letting down the shot. At the top of the tower the lead is melted, and mixed with a certain quantity of arsenic. If no arsenic were used, each shot would have a little tail to it, very much like the pear-drops we know so well, but this tempering of the lead enables it to take the spherical or round form. The only difference in the appearance of lead when mixed with arsenic is that it looks whiter. Having been properly tempered, the molten lead is poured into an iron

sieve or colander, which has been prepared with a coating of oxide of lead at the bottom. This prevents the melted mixture from running through too quickly. You will easily understand that if there were no obstacle in the way the lead would go through the holes in little streams rather than in single drops.. This sieve is in the little room at the top of the tower, but it is over an open trapdoor, and the shot falls down, down, down, whirling round in the air until it is much cooler before it drops into a large wooden barrel of cold water, which awaits it at the bottom. This water is always running, so that it may not get hot. You will see the use of this terrible fall to the shot when I tell you that if it went straight into the water, boiling hot, a great many would fly out again. Then the long fall helps to give it the roundness necessary. When larger shot is being made the barrel of water is removed, and a trap-door opened which leads to a well, twenty feet lower down, because the bigger the body of lead the longer it takes to cool.

The water is now drawn out of the barrel. A man gets inside and shovels the shot into a little truck, in which it is drawn to the drying chests. These are made of iron and heated by steam, and as the shot lies on them it loses all dampness.

Amongst all those millions of shot, there are, of course, many which are not perfectly round, so the next process is to sort the good from the bad. This can no more be done by hand than you can go through a cornfield and pull up the blighted ears one by one. All sorts of plans have been tried, until at last ingenuity has succeeded in finding a grand one. Picture to yourself three inclined or sloping planes, one raised a little above the other, and all exquisitely smooth. Between each is a gap of about an inch wide. At the top of the highest plane is an open box, called a hopper, into which we put some shot. This box opened gently at the bottom, so many times in a minute, and let out a few of the prisoners.

Down they ran over the first inclined plane, and, of course, we made sure they would all fall through the first gap. But we were mistaken. They cleared it as a good horse clears a ditch, and pelted down the next plane as if nothing had happened, to jump the next ditch, bowl over the last plane, and finally fall into a wooden trough below. But as we stood watching carefully, we found that, although hundreds of the shot cleared the ditches, there were many which fell into them. Can you guess why? Because they were not perfectly round. The least bit of unevenness made them run more slowly, so that they did not get spring enough to leap over the hole, and must needs fall through into a box beneath, where they would remain until they were taken to be re-melted. The good and bad were now separated, and the former were taken up in a small dredge and dropped into a large horizontal tube or cylinder, which was covered with iron, perforated with different-sized holes. These holes, instead of being cut in straight rows, are made in angular fashion like a screw, so that the shot is bound to move on and on, until it finds a hole which just fits it, and then it

pops through and falls into a bin below. If you do not quite understand what I mean about the screw-like drilling of the holes, get a corkscrew and close your thumb and finger over the first twist near the handle. Turn the handle round, and you will soon find your finger and thumb at the point. The shot is kept moving on in the same way.

When the shot is taken from the bins it looks like beads of slate pencil. It is now put into a small barrel, which is lying on its side, and a certain quantity of dry black lead is mixed with it. The lid is closed and the barrel sent spinning round at a great rate. When the shot is taken out, it is almost as bright as silver. From the barrel it falls through a leaden spout into little canvas bags, which, when filled, are weighed, and then sewn up for sale.

Little oak kegs or barrels are generally used when the shot is going abroad. In most factories where they make shot, they make also lead-piping, sheet and white lead, but we have not room now to speak about these, and can only say in conclusion that we hope all our little people will leap over all difficulties in lessons, play, or work, as carefully and successfully as the good shot does. E. M. W.