2. The former are usually forged on the anvil, and when a finished head is required, as is commonly the case, it is hammered on the larger end, after it has been inserted into a hole of an instrument formed for the purpose. Workmen by practice acquire surprising dispatch in this business; and this circumstance has prevented the general introduction of the machines which have been invented for making nails of this description. Wrought nails can be easily distinguished from cut nails, by the indentations of the hammer which have been left upon them. 3. In making cut nails, the iron is first brought into bars between grooved rollers. The size of the bars is varied in conformity with that of the proposed nails. These bars are again heated, and passed between smooth rollers, which soon spread them into thin strips of suitable width and thickness. These strips, having been cut into pieces two or three feet in length, are heated to a red heat in a furnace, to be immediately converted into nails, when designed for those of a large size. For small nails, the iron does not require heating. 4. The end of the plate is presented to the machine by the workman, who turns the material over, first one way and then the other; and at each turn a nail is produced. The machine has a rapid reciprocating motion, and cuts off, at every stroke, a wedge-like piece of iron, constituting a nail without a head. This is immediately caught near the head, and compressed between _gripes_; and, at the same time, a force is applied to a die at the end, which spreads the iron sufficiently to form the head. From one to two hundred can be thus formed in a minute. This fact accounts for the low rate at which cut nails are now sold, which, on an average, is not more than two cents per pound above that of bar iron. 5. On account of the greater expense of manufacturing wrought nails, they are sold much higher. It is said that nine-tenths of all the nails of this kind, used in the United States, are imported from Europe. We thus depend upon foreign countries for these and many other articles, because they can be imported cheaper than we can make them; and this circumstance arises chiefly from the difference in the price of labor. 6. The first machine for making cut nails was invented in Massachusetts about the year 1816, by a Mr. Odion, and soon afterwards another was contrived, by a Mr. Reed, of the same state. Other machines, for the same purpose, have likewise been constructed by different persons, but those by Odion and Reed are most commonly used. Before these machines were introduced, the strips of iron just described, were cut into wedgelike pieces by an instrument which acted on the principle of the shears; and these were afterwards headed, one by one, with a hammer in a vice. The fact, that the manufacture of this kind of nails originated in our country, is worthy of recollection.