Among the important uses to which this hammer has of late years been applied, is the manufacture of iron plates for covering our ships of war, and the fabrication of the immense wrought-iron ordnance of Armstrong, Whitworth, and Blakely. But for the steam-hammer, indeed, it is doubtful whether such weapons could have been made. It is also used for the re-manufacture of iron in various other forms, to say nothing of the greatly extended use which it has been the direct means of effecting in wrought-iron and steel forgings in every description of machinery, from the largest marine steam-engines to the most nice and delicate parts of textile mechanism. "It is not too much to say," observes a writer in the Engineer, "that, without Nasmyth's steam-hammer, we must have stopped short in many of those gigantic engineering works which, but for the decay of all wonder in us, would be the perpetual wonder of this age, and which have enabled our modern engineers to take rank above the gods of all mythologies. There is one use to which the steam-hammer is now becoming extensively applied by some of our manufacturers that deserves especial mention, rather for the prospect which it opens to us than for what has already been actually accomplished. We allude to the manufacture of large articles in DIES. At one manufactory in the country, railway wheels, for example, are being manufactured with enormous economy by this means. The various parts of the wheels are produced in quantity either by rolling or by dies under the hammer; these parts are brought together in their relative positions in a mould, heated to a welding heat, and then by a blow of the steam hammer, furnished with dies, are stamped into a complete and all but finished wheel. It is evident that wherever wrought-iron articles of a manageable size have to be produced in considerable quantities, the same process may be adopted, and the saving effected by the substitution of this for the ordinary forging process will doubtless ere long prove incalculable. For this, as for the many other advantageous uses of the steam-hammer, we are primarily and mainly indebted to Mr. Nasmyth. It is but right, therefore, that we should hold his name in honour. In fact, when we think of the universal service which this machine is rendering us, we feel that some special expression of our indebtedness to him would be a reasonable and grateful service. The benefit which he has conferred upon us is so great as to justly entitle him to stand side by side with the few men who have gained name and fame as great inventive engineers, and to whom we have testified our gratitude--usually, unhappily, when it was too late for them to enjoy it."