The raw material is received from Sheffield in sheets six feet in length, one foot five inches in width, and 23 or 26 Birmingham wire-gauge in thickness. The first operation is the cutting of these sheets into strips of convenient width. They are then packed in an oblong iron box, placed with the open top downward in another box of the same material, and the interstices are filled up with a composition to exclude the air. The boxes are placed in a muffle, where they remain until they have gradually attained a dull red heat, and the muffle is allowed to gradually cool, or else the boxes are placed in a cooling chamber. When the boxes have been reduced to a temperature which will admit of their being handled, the contents (technically called a charge) are emptied out. Now, it will be found that the strips of steel are covered with bits of small scale, sticking to them like a loose skin, and if this were not removed before the next process--rolling--the steel, instead of being perfectly smooth, would be marked with a number of indentations, rendering it very unsightly. In order to get rid of this excrescence, the strips are immersed in a bath of diluted sulphuric acid, which loosens the scale, and are then placed in wood barrels to which broken pebbles and water are added. The barrels are kept revolving until the whole of the scaly substance has been removed and the strips have assumed a silver-gray appearance. The steel is now ready for manipulation in the rolling mill, where it is passed between successive pairs of rolls until it has been reduced to the required gauge, and this operation has to be performed with such nicety that a variation of one thousand part of an inch in the thickness of the strip would make such an alteration in the flexibility of the pens made from it as to cause considerable dissatisfaction to the purchasers of the article.