To show that where the exigencies of the times necessitate them, expedients involving inventive skill and industrial intrepidity are never quite wanting, it may be related that several years ago, during a prolonged strike of riveters, the principal of the firm of Messrs A. M‘Millan & Son, Dumbarton, introduced a portable riveting machine for the shells of ships. The machine, although improvised, as it were, to meet an emergency, fulfilled all that was expected of it, and won the approval of Lloyd’s Surveyors for the Clyde district, as well as of a special deputation selected by the Committee of Lloyd’s in London from among the chief surveyors of the United Kingdom. Their verdict on the performances of the machine after due inspection was that it “thoroughly fills the holes and countersinks, and produces a smoother and better clench than can usually be obtained by hand labour.” From this it will be seen that in the yard of Messrs M‘Millan the matter of machine riveting has received early and earnest consideration. Indeed, the extent to which hydraulic riveting is presently employed by this firm so well represents the development and progress made in this direction throughout other yards that the system adopted in their establishment may be described somewhat in detail. The hydraulic plant and numerous different classes of portable riveters are on the Tweddell system. The hydraulic power required to work the various machines is furnished by a pair of vertical steam engines, geared to a set of two-throw pumps, which force the water at a pressure of 1,500-lb. per square inch into an accumulator. This latter feature, as is well known, serves to store up the power in a considerable amount ready to meet the sudden demands of one or more of the riveters without calling on the pumps. As is the case in all machinery on this system, the accumulator is loaded to a pressure of 1,500-lb. per square inch. The means employed for the transmission of the water-power, from the service of main pipes laid as required throughout the yard, are flexible copper pipes, admitting of being led almost in any direction, however irregular, without being impaired or rendered inefficient. When the plant was laid down about four years ago, Messrs M‘Millan determined to err if anything on the side of prudence, and they laid all their mains of double the required size, so that they could, if the high pressure was found objectionable, return to the lower pressures sometimes employed; they have, however, never found it advisable to do so.