The operator takes a piece of the sheet copper, places it on the press, the lever descends, there is a sharp crunching, bursting sound, and in a time shorter than it has taken to describe, the letter is made, sharp and perfect in every way.

ENAMELING.

The letters are now taken charge of by a girl, who lays them out on a wire tray, the hollow side up, and paints them over with a thin mordant.  While they are in this position, and before the mordant dries, they are taken on the gridiron-like tray to a kind of large box, which is full of the powdered enamel, and, holding the tray in her left hand, the girl takes a fine sieve full of the powder and dusts it over the letter, all superfluous powder falling through the open wirework and into the bin again, so that there is absolutely no waste.

[Illustration:  DUSTING THE LETTERS BEFORE FIRING.]

FIRING.

The letters are now taken and placed carefully on thin iron disks or plates on the bench, where they remain until they are fired.  It will be remembered that we said at the outset that the factory was divided into two large compartments, and it is into the second of these that we now go.

Here are ranged the series of furnaces which convert the copper and superincumbent enamel into one common body—­fuse the one into the other.  An unwary step soon warns us that we are too near the furnace, unless we want to run the risk of a premature cremation, and in the interests of the readers of this journal we step back to a respectful and proper distance, and watch the operations from afar.

There seems to be something innately picturesque about all furnaces and those who work about them.  Whether it is the Rembrandt effects produced by the strong light and shade, or whether it is that the necessary use of the long iron instruments, such as all furnace workers employ, compels a certain dignity and grace of poise and action, we know not; but certain it is that the grace is there in a marked degree, and as we watched the men take their long-handled iron tongs and place in or lift out the plates of hot metal, we could not fail to be impressed with the charm of the physical action they displayed.

The disk containing the enameled letters is taken at the end of a long iron handle and carefully placed in a dome-shaped muffle.  These muffles are all heated from the outside; that is, the fire is all round the chamber, but not in it, the fumes of the sulphur being destructive of the enamel if they are allowed to come into contact with it.  So intense is the heat, however, that a muffle lasts only about nine days, and at the end of that time has to be renewed.

[Illustration:  FIRING THE LETTERS]

After the enamel is fused on to the copper, the disk is taken out and placed on a side slab, where it is allowed to cool.