"Snuffers and trays are also articles of extensive production, and the latter are ornamented with landscapes, etched by a Sheffield artist, on a resinous varnish, and finished by being dipped in diluted nitric acid for a few seconds or minutes. "Messrs. Rodgers also introduced me to an extensive range of workshops for the manufacture of plated and silver ware, in which are produced the most superb breakfast and dinner services. The method of making the silver plate here and at Birmingham merits special notice, because the ancient method was by dissolving mercury in nitrous acid, dipping the copper, and depending on the affinity of the metals, by which a very slight article was produced. But at Sheffield and Birmingham, all plate is now produced by rolling ingots of copper and silver together. About the eighth of an inch in thickness of silver is united by heat to an inch of copper in ingots about the size of a brick. It is then flattened by steel rollers worked by an eighty horse power. The greater malleability of the silver occasions it to spread equally with the copper into a sheet of any required thickness, according to the nature of the article for which it is wanted. I saw some pieces of plated metal, the eighth of an inch thick, rolled by hand into ten times their surface, the silver spreading equally; and I was told that the plating would be perfect if the rolling had reduced it to the thinness of silver paper! This mode of plating secures to modern plate a durability not possessed by any plate silvered by immersion. Hence plated goods are now sought all over the world, and, if fairly used, are nearly as durable as silver itself. Of this material, dinner and dessert services have been manufactured from 50 to 300 guineas, and breakfast sets from 10 to 200 guineas, as sold on the spot. "At Sheffield are actually cast and finished, most, if not all, the parts of grates sold as their own make by the London furnishing ironmongers. Their names are placed on them, but, in truth, they merely put the parts together. I saw in Messrs. Picklay's rooms superior castings for backs of grates, little inferior in delicacy to plaster of Paris; and for grates connected with one of these patterns, I was told 100 guineas each was lately paid by a northern squire. Grates with folding doors are made here as well as at Chesterfield. The doors are in half heights, so as to serve two purposes, and grates so supplied sell for about two guineas extra. Mr. Picklay has brought the kitchen range to great perfection. With one fire he roasts, boils with water and steam, and bakes. Economy and completeness were never more usefully combined; and a public establishment in Sheffield is fitted with one which has cooked a dinner complete for above three hundred persons. It cost nearly £300, but such grates for small families may be had at ten guineas.