That putting together appears to novices very blinding work; but, we are assured that it becomes so easy, by practice, that the girls could almost do it with their eyes shut. In such a case we should certainly shut ours; for they ache with the mere sight of such poking and picking, and ranging of the white rings--all exactly like one another. They are ranged in a groove of a plate of metal, or on a block of pumice-stone. When pricked into a precise row, they are anointed, at their points of junction, with borax. Each worker has a little saucer of borax, wet, and stirred with a camel-hair pencil. With this pencil she transfers a little of the borax to the flattened point of a sort of bodkin, and then anoints the links where they join. When the whole row is thus treated, she turns on the gas, and, with a small blow-pipe, directs the flame upon the solder. It bubbles and spreads in the heat, and makes the row of links into a chain. There would be no end of describing the loops and hoops, and joints and embossings, which are soldered at these gas-pipes, after being taken up by tiny tweezers, and delicately treated by all manner of little tools. Suffice it, that here every thing is put together, and made ready for the finishing. In the middle of one room is a counter, where is fixed the machine for twisting the chains--with its cog-wheels, and its nippers, whereby it holds one end of a portion of chain, while another is twisted, as the door-handle fixes the schoolboy's twine, while he knots or loops his pattern, or twists his cord. Here, a little girl stands, and winds a plain gold chain into this or that pattern, which depends upon the twisting.
These ornaments of precious metal do not look very ornamental at present; being of the color of dirty soap-suds, and tossed together in heaps on the counters. We are now to see the hue and brightness of the gold brought out. We take up a chain, rather massive, and reminding us of some ornament we have somewhere seen; but it is so rough! and its flakes do not appear to fit upon each other. A man lays it along the length of his left hand, and files it briskly; as he works, the soapy white disappears, the polish comes out, the parts fit together, and it is, presently, one of those flexible, scaly, smooth, glittering chains that we have seen all our lives. Of course, the filings are dropped carefully into a box, to go to the refinery. There is, here, a home-invented and home-made apparatus for polishing and cutting topazes, amethysts, bloodstones and the like, into shield shapes, for seals, watch-keys, and ornaments of various kinds. The strongest man's arm must tire; but steam and steel need no consideration--so there go the wheels and the emery, smoothing and polishing infallibly; with a workman to apply the article, and a boy to drop oil when screw or socket begins to scream. This polishing and filing was such severe work, in the lapidary department, in former days, that the nervous energy of a man's arm was destroyed--a serious grief to both worker and employer. At this day, it is understood that the lapidary is past work at forty, from the contraction of the sinews of the wrist, consequent on the nature of his labor. The period of disablement depends much on the habits of the men; but, sooner or later, it is looked for as a matter of course. Here, the wear and tear is deputed to that which has no nerve. As the proprietor observes, it requires no sympathy.