As the days wore on at Sheffield the technique, as collectors know, became amazingly perfect. The silver wire following the intricate outlines of a vessel disguising the raw edges of the copper, was used in a manner unequalled by the craftsman in silver plate because he had no need of such artifices to conceal in his technique the poverty of the base. He was working in a solid metal where no base metal at every conceivable point thrust itself into prominence. He could engrave deeply with no possibility of going too deep and betraying the shining copper. His applied ornament was solid silver, and here the Sheffield plater runs parallel in regard to die work and soldering parts together. But, in all, the Sheffield plater was more skilled, his die work is delicate and exhibits no noticeable trace as to its extraneousness. He may be compared with the artist in veneer of the same or an earlier period. The perfection of applied veneer and the exquisite skill employed by the cabinet-maker in covering oak with fine figured mahogany is unsurpassed. Veneers have in modern days been so skilfully made until they are no thicker than a cigarette paper, the modern glue and the modern processes have worked on scientific lines, although in many respects they have not outrivalled the old worker in veneers. Similarly, in Sheffield plate, the great note of exclamation, surprising and wonderful, is at the wire edged work, the handling of dies in a subtle and delicate manner, and the great result produced by a difficult technique. Stage by stage the Sheffield platers increased their facility for cunning handicraft. Machinery they had, and clean-cut differentiation of task. In fact the various branches soon became specialized in such a great industry. There were the die sinkers, and the workmen who fashioned dies and the workmen who fitted them ingeniously in position were others than those who soldered candlesticks together. The candlestick makers became a separate industry. Piercing and cutting, and the designs for this craft, soon became separate and were carried to a great point of perfection. Chasing as a craft and the designs for chasing as an art it may readily be believed formed another separate branch. From the preparation and fusing of the copper and silver, the rolling of the ingot, to the later stages of artistic technique, so great and extensive an art industry systematized itself into component working parts. But through it all runs like a silver thread the intensity of the magical working of wire. Wire, unheeded by the tyro but beloved by the connoisseur, converted copper and silver, with its too obvious copper edge into solid plate to all appearance. It duplicated all with which the silversmith could endow his plate and it represented toil and infinite pains, the genius of Sheffield, in producing results which are unequalled as _tours de force_ in metal technique. [Illustration: OLD SHEFFIELD PLATED CAKE BASKET.