When a steamship leaves the ways she is towed into the firm’s tidal dock to receive the boilers and machinery. With the assistance of a pair of 80-ton sheer-legs, Messrs Elder & Co. are able to complete this part of the construction of a vessel with wonderful despatch. In connection with this section is a smithy and small mechanics’ shop, which are alongside of the wharf. Space will not permit a description of the smiths’ shop, the paint shop, riggers’ loft, plumbers’ shop, belt-makers’ shop, boat-builders’ shop, block and pattern-makers’ shop, pattern store, general store, &c., about each of which much of interest might be written. The wood-working department, though stocked with the most approved labour-saving appliances, still affords employment to several hundreds of hands. In the saw mill, which is about 100 feet square, there are several sets of steam saw frames, circular saws, planing machines for operating on deck planks, and other tools, the producing capacity of which is very large. Adjacent to this is the spar shed, where all the spars required on board the vessels are made. In the joiners’ shops are numerous wood-working machines, which are placed advantageously all through this department, comprising planing, morticing, and moulding machines, circular and fret saws, surface planing and jointing machines, general joiners, lathes, and a variety of other tools from the most noted makers of this class of mechanism. The cabinetmaker’s shop is a spacious one, and here the finer class of interior fittings are seen in all stages of progress. Nothing in this section seems omitted in the way of mechanical appliances to afford the utmost facility for rapid production and excellence of workmanship.