The bookbinding department occupies several large rooms, and employs two-thirds of all the work-people engaged. Although machines are provided for a great variety of operations, a large amount of hand-labour is found to be indispensable. As soon as the sheets have been thoroughly dried, they are folded by young women, as the machine-folding is only suitable for the coarser kinds of work. After this process, the sheets are arranged by another staff of girls in the proper order for binding, compressed in a powerful press, and notches for the binding cords are cut by a machine. They are then passed on to the sewers, who sit upon long benches plying their deft needles. The case-makers have by this time prepared the cases, and in connection with this department there is a cloth-dyeing and embossing branch, where the cloths are prepared; the coloured and enamelled papers for the insides are also made upon the premises. The case-makers are divided into half-a-dozen different sections, each of which performs a certain and distinct portion of the work. The pasteboard and cloth are first cut to the required size, and then one girl spreads the glue upon the cloth, a second lays the board upon its proper place, a third tucks the cloth in all round, a fourth smoothes off the work, and the covers are now taken to the embosser, who puts on the ornamental additions, and finally the books are fixed in the cases, and sent down to their warehouse, whence they are despatched to all corners of the world, principally, of course, to the London and New York branches. The lithographic establishment comprises a number of rooms. Sixteen machines and presses are constantly engaged, principally in the production of maps, book illustrations, coloured pictures, and the beautifully-tinted lithographic views, which Messrs. Nelson were mainly instrumental in introducing to the notice of the public. Among the artists employed here in executing preliminary work are photographers, draughtsmen, steel, copper, and wood engravers, and electrotypers. By a process patented by Messrs. Nelson, in conjunction with Mr. Ramage (to whose services they owe much of the superiority of their illustrations), a drawing or print may be converted into an engraving suitable for printing from by the simple action of light, and these engravings, either for copper-plate or letter-press printing, may be multiplied and made larger or smaller at will. The storerooms are said to contain upwards of fifty thousand wood-cuts and electrotypes. Even the inks and varnishes are manufactured upon the premises. Messrs. Thomas Nelson and Sons employ some four hundred and fifty work-people in their establishment, about one-half of whom are young women.