144.  Iron rolling.  When cylinders of iron of greater thickness than wire are required, they are formed by passing wrought iron between rollers, each of which has sunk in it a semi-cylindrical groove; and as such rollers rarely touch accurately, a longitudinal line will usually be observed in the cylinders so manufactured.  Bar iron is thus shaped into all the various forms of round, square, half-round, oval, etc. in which it occurs in commerce.  A particular species of moulding is thus made, which resembles, in its section, that part of the frame of a window which separates two adjacent panes of glass.  Being much stronger than wood, it can be considerably reduced in thickness, and consequently offers less obstruction to the light; it is much used for skylights.

145.  It is sometimes required that the iron thus produced should not be of uniform thickness throughout.  This is the case in bars for railroads, where greater depth is required towards the middle of the rail which is at the greatest distance from the supports.  This form is produced by cutting the groove in the rollers deeper at those parts where additional strength is required, so that the hollow which surrounds the roller would, if it could be unwound, be a mould of the shape the iron is intended to fit.

146.  Vermicelli.  The various forms into which this paste is made are given by forcing it through holes in tin plate.  It passes through them, and appears on the other side in long strings.  The cook makes use of the same method in preparing butter and ornamental pastry for the table, and the confectioner in forming cylindrical lozenges of various composition.

Of copying with altered dimensions

147.  Of the pentagraph.  This mode of copying is chiefly used for drawings or maps:  the instrument is simple; and, although usually employed in reducing, is capable of enlarging the size of the copy.  An automaton figure, exhibited in London a short time since, which drew profiles of its visitors, was regulated by a mechanism on this principle.  A small aperture in the wall, opposite the seat in which the person is placed whose profile is taken, conceals a camera lucida, which is placed in an adjoining apartment:  and an assistant, by moving a point, connected by a pentagraph with the hand of the automaton, over the outline of the head, causes the figure to trace a corresponding profile.

148.  By turning.  The art of turning might perhaps itself be classed amongst the arts of copying.  A steel axis, called a mandril, having a pulley attached to the middle of it, is supported at one end either by a conical point, or by a cylindrical collar, and at the other end by another collar, through which it passes.  The extremity which projects beyond this last collar is formed into a screw, by which various instruments, called chucks, can be attached to it.  These chucks are intended to hold the