17. The use of the fork, for a long time, was considered so great a luxury, that the members of many of the monastic orders were forbidden to indulge in it. The Turks and Asiatics use no forks, even to this day. The Chinese employ, instead of this instrument, two small sticks, which they hold in the same hand, between different fingers. 18. The manufacture of cutlery is carried on most extensively in England, at Birmingham, Sheffield, Walsall, Wolverhampton, and London. London cutlery has the reputation of being the best, and this circumstance induces the dealers in that city, to affix the London mark to articles made at other places. In the United States, there are many establishments for the fabrication of the coarser kinds of cutlery, such as axes, plane-irons, saws, hoes, scythes, &c., but for the finer descriptions of cutting instruments, we are chiefly dependent on Europe. [Illustration: GUN-SMITH.] THE GUN-SMITH. 1. It is the business of the gun-smith to manufacture fire-arms of the smaller sorts; such as muskets, fowling-pieces, rifles, and pistols. 2. The principal parts of the instruments fabricated by this artificer, are the barrel, the stock, and the lock. In performing the operations connected with this business, great attention is paid to the division of labor, especially in large establishments, such as those belonging to the United States, at Springfield and Harper's Ferry; for example, one set of workmen forge the barrels, ramrods, or some part of the lock; others reduce some part of the forged material to the exact form required, by means of files; and again another class of operators perform some part of the work relating to the stock. 3. The barrel is formed by forging a bar of iron into a flat piece of proper length and thickness, and by turning the plate round a cylindrical rod of tempered steel, called a _mandril_, the diameter of which is considerably less than the intended bore of the barrel. The edges of the plate are made to overlap each other about half an inch, and are welded together by heating the tube in lengths of two or three inches at a time, and by hammering them with very brisk, but moderate strokes, upon an anvil which has a number of semicircular furrows upon it. 4. In constructing barrels of better workmanship, the iron is forged in smaller pieces, eight or nine inches long, and welded together laterally, as well as lengthwise. The barrel is now finished in the usual way; or it is first made to undergo the additional operation of _twisting_, a process employed upon those intended to be of superior quality. The operation is performed by heating small portions of it at a time, and twisting them successively, while one end is held fast.