down with a block as it comes round to him, and a fourth, at the last
opening, which is close to the one at which it was put in, lifts the
sheet-- partly cooled by this time-- upon a carriage in the oven. This
he does by means of a lever furnished with sharp, broad blades at the
end, which he works in under the glass. When the carriage is full, it
is run through an annealing oven beyond.
"The opposite end of the annealing oven opens
into the cutting-room. There the carriages are pushed along a central
track, and unloaded at the stalls of the cutters. The cutter has a table
before him, with measure-marks on its edges. He lifts one of the sheets,
lays it on the table, and rules it faster than a school-boy rules his
slate. His ruler is a wooden rod five feet long, and his pencil-point is
a diamond. Every stroke is a cut. Not that he cuts the glass quite
apart; indeed, he seems scarcely to make a scratch. Yet that scratch has
the effect of cracking the glass quite through, so that it breaks cleans
off at the slightest pressure. In this way the sheets are cut up into
panes of the requisite size."
"I should think the diamonds would wear out,"
said Lawrence.
"I remember," replied the gaffer, "one workman
told me that a single diamond would last him two or three years. It has
fifteen or sixteen different edges, and when one edge is worn out, he
uses another. South American diamonds, such as he used, cost, he told
me, from six to thirty dollars each; and, when
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