If the clerk’s computations have been correct the plate will now have the proper length. However, he may have ordered a slab of insufficient weight to make it, particularly if the rolls have become much worn. It will hardly be realized how much the width and thickness of the plate ordered have to do with the “percentage” of trimmed plate which the mill will get out of the slab ordered. There is a “fish tail” on each end of a rolled plate. On a thin, wide plate this becomes rather serious. Wherever possible the clerk puts two or three plates end to end and perhaps narrow ones side by side, but he must not exceed the width which the “shears” can “split” nor give the mill such a long plate that it will become too cold to roll or too long to be conveniently handled. [Illustration: AN 84–INCH PLATE MILL ] For diversion the mill men take delight in throwing an extra amount of salt upon the plate to rid it of scale when nervous visitors have come as close to the rolls as their conductor through the mill will bring them. The explosion which comes from the usual amounts is much intensified and it is not at all out of the ordinary to hear shrieks from the women and to see surprised and somewhat dismayed men among the visitors. Plate mills are usually three-high with tables of small rollers on each side which tilt to feed the plate into the rolls and to receive it on the other side from which it is fed in again, either above or below as the case may be. As the plates must be flat, perfectly plain rolls are used. For plates which are very wide these rolls may be 140 inches or more long and perhaps three feet in diameter. The rolls, of course, are kept flooded with water to keep them cool. At first thought one would think that the water would cool the plates which are being rolled. It does not materially do so, however, the extreme heat apparently keeping the water from coming in actual contact with them. Thus they are rolled down from the three-inch thick slab to ³⁄₁₆″, ¼″ or ⅜″, and from 6″, 8″, 10″, or 12″ slabs into ½″, ¾″ or possibly 1″ or 1¼″ plates. [Illustration: THE ROLLING OF PLATES ]