I was especially interested in the massiveness of this tool and impressed with the importance of this feature. The drills rotated in place, and the table carrying the work was fed upward by two hydraulic presses. The superintendent told me that they never broke a drill, and that to exhibit its safety in this respect they had successfully drilled a single hole ¹⁄₁₆ of an inch in diameter through one inch of steel. He attributed this success partly to the steady feed, but chiefly to absolute freedom from vibration. He said a toolmaker had had an order for a similar drill, and on visiting this one pronounced its great weight to be absurd. He made one weighing about half as much, which proved a failure, from the liability of the drills to break. This gave me one of the most valuable lessons that I ever received. We soon had our first engine running successfully, in spite of some annoyances. I insisted on having the joints on the steam-chest and cylinder heads made scraped joints, but the foreman put them together with the white and red lead putty just the same, so that work was thrown away, and when we wanted to open a joint we had to resort to the familiar wedges. The pipes were of cast iron, with square holes in the flanges. The ends were left rough. They were put together with the same putty. The joints were encircled by clips, which prevented the putty from being forced outward to any great extent in screwing the flanges together. What went inside had to work its way through as it was broken off by the rush of steam and hot water. When the engine was started we could not get much vacuum. On taking the pipes apart to find what the matter was, we discovered that the workmen had left a wooden plug in the condenser-nozzle, where it had been put to prevent anything from getting in during its transportation. The proper mode of protection would of course have been to bolt a board on the flange. The worst trouble was from a blunder of my own. My exhibition engine had cast-iron valves running on cast-iron seats, and the friction between these surfaces under the steam pressure was so little that it did not injure the governor action appreciably. But I could not let well enough alone. Mr. Lee had told me that in the steam fire-engines they used gun-metal valves on steel seats, which I thought must have some wonderful advantages, so at considerable additional expense I fitted up my first engine in the same way. The governor worked very badly. I had the pleasure of demonstrating the fact that brass on steel is the very best combination possible for producing friction. I went back to cast-iron valves, when the trouble disappeared.