When the several parts are finished, they are taken to an apartment in the arsenal to be put together.  This operation is called assembling the musket.  There are a large number of workmen whose occupations are confined to the putting together of the various parts of the musket,—­each one having some distinct part to attend to.  Thus, one man puts the various parts of the lock together, while another screws the lock into the stock.  Another is occupied in putting on the bayonet, and so on.  Each workman has the parts upon which he is employed before him on his bench, arranged in compartments, in regular order, and puts them together with marvellous dexterity.  The component parts of the musket are all made according to one exact pattern, and thus, when taken up at random, are sure to come properly together.  There is no special fitting required in each individual case.  Any barrel will fit any stock, and a screw designed for a particular plate or band will enter the proper hole in any plate or band of a hundred thousand.  There are many advantages resulting from this exact conformity to an established pattern in the components of the musket, such as greater facility and economy in manufacturing them, and greater convenience in service,—­spare screws, locks, bands, springs, etc., being easily furnished in quantities, and sent to any part of the country where needed, so that, when any part of a soldier’s gun becomes injured or broken, its place can be immediately supplied by a new piece, which is sure to fit as perfectly into the vacancy as the original occupant.  Each soldier to whom a musket is served is provided also with a little tool, which, though very simple in its construction, enables him to separate his gun into its forty-seven parts with the greatest facility.

The most costly of the various parts of the musket is the barrel, which, when completed, is estimated at three dollars.  From this the parts descend gradually to a little wire called the ramrod-spring-wire, the value of which is only one mill.

A complete percussion-musket weighs within a small fraction of ten pounds.

Besides the finished muskets fabricated here, there are many parts of foreign arms duplicated at these works, for the use of our armies in the field,—­the most numerous of which are parts for the Enfield rifle, and for a German musket manufactured from machinery made after our patterns and models.

In the arsenal there is a case of foreign arms, containing specimens from nearly every nation in Europe.  None among them, however, equal our own in style or finish, while all of them—­excepting the Enfield rifle—­are very inferior in every respect.  The French arm comes next to the English in point of excellence, while the Austrian is the poorest of all.

There are three steam-engines in operation at the works on the hill, one connected with the stocking-department, and two with the other operations carried on here.