"Comparatively few persons, perhaps, are aware of the increase of production in our life-time. Thirty years ago, the cost of labour for turning a surface of cast iron, by chipping and filing with the hand, was 12s. per square foot--the same work is now done by the planing machine at a cost for labour of less than one penny per square foot: and this, as you know, is one of the most important operations in mechanics; it is, therefore, well adapted to illustrate what our progress has been. At the same time that this increased production is taking place, the fixed capital of the country is, as a necessary consequence, augmented; for in the case I have mentioned, of chipping and filing by the hand, when the cost of labour was 12s. per foot, the capital required for tools for one workman was only a few shillings; but now, the labour being lowered to a penny per foot, a capital in planing machines for the workman is required which often amounts to £500, and in some cases more." Notwithstanding the great economy of labour by the self-acting machines now employed for doing all kinds of work, it is gratifying to find that it has not had the effect of throwing men out of employ; for the increased demand, consequent on the facility of production, has more than compensated for the substitution of automaton mechanism for handicraft. It is extremely interesting to visit a large engineering factory, and to witness the ease with which the masses of crude metal are wrought in various ways, and converted by a number of seemingly self-acting engines into other engines and machines which are, in their turn, to become the agents of the further development of the skill and ingenuity of man. In the new Government factory at Keyham, near Devonport, which we believe to be one of the largest establishments of the kind in the world, most of those powerful engines of the best construction may be seen in operation. The completeness of the arrangements redounds much to the credit of Mr. Trickett, the chief engineer, under whose supervision they were made; and a walk through the factory, which is thrown open to public inspection, will well repay a journey of many miles. A detailed description of all its machinery would fill a volume, but we must now limit ourselves to a bare enumeration of some of the most remarkable features.