Descending to the iron-work machine shop, which measures about 1000 feet long by 150 feet wide, a scene of great activity meets the eye. Proceeding to that section where the bending blocks are situated, the operation of forming the frames of a vessel may be noticed. The bending blocks are massive iron plates weighing several tons, on which the form of the frame is marked from the scrieve boards. All over the blocks are round holes, closely spaced and equidistant, in which iron pins are placed to give the form of the frame to be bent. Long bars of angle-iron, properly heated in adjacent furnaces, are brought by the workmen to the blocks, and there the bars are bent round the pins to the form required. The half frame of a ship is thus fashioned to the proper form in little more time than it takes to describe the process. It is now allowed to cool, and it is then returned to the scrieve boards to be set or adjusted with the reverse frame, which with the floor plate go to make the frame in its finished form. While this is going on, the keel blocks are being laid in the usual manner on the building slip, and the keel, stem, and stern-posts are being forged and drilled. The keel is laid, and the frames are then set up in their places, and are kept in position by shores and ribbon pieces. The stem and stern-posts are then set up, and the work now becomes general all over the vessel. The beams previously made are put up, the bulkheads, stringer plates, and keelsons are added in due succession, and the outside shell is being fitted and riveted. Thus the full and perfect form of the vessel is gradually developed, and exhibits one of the most interesting and useful productions of man’s labour. In the bending shop alluded to are several large Gorman furnaces, 25 smithy fires for heating angle irons, several sets of plate-bending rolls, five stands of vertical drilling machines with several spindles each, a huge punching machine capable of producing ten rivet holes at each operation, squeezers, boring, planing, counter-sinking, plate-bending, plate planing, numerous punching and shearing machines, and other appliances. The motive power of this section is supplied by a powerful set of engines lately erected by the firm. Immediately to the front of this building are the slips, which extend 1,200 feet along the Clyde, and admit of 12 to 14 vessels being proceeded with at one time. While proceeding among the slips hydraulic riveters may be observed at work on several structural features. The attention given to such machines in the preceding chapter makes further notice here unnecessary.