capable of delivering 5,000 indicated horse-power in compressed air, and to acquire for the works sufficient land to permit of their dimensions being doubled when extension shall become necessary.  The site which has been chosen is a piece of ground belonging to the Birmingham and Warwick Canal Company, and situated by the canal, and bounded on both sides by Sampson Road North and Henley Street.  Here the promoters are putting down four air-compressing engines, driven by compound and condensing steam engines and which are to be heated by six sets (four in each set) of elephant boilers.  From the delivery branches of the air-compressors a main 30in. in diameter will be laid along Henley Street, and, bifurcating, will be taken through Sampson Road North and Stratford Street at a diameter of 24in.  The mains will then divide, to as to pass down Sandy Lane, Fazeley Street, Floodgate Street, Bradford Street, Bromsgrove Street, and other thoroughfares, giving off smaller branches at frequent intervals, and so forming an elaborate network.  The whole cost of buildings, plant, and construction is estimated at L140,500, but upon this large outlay it is hoped to realise a net annual profit of L9,164, or 6-1/2 per cent, on capital.  The engineers, reckoning the annual cost of producing small steam power in Birmingham at L10 per indicated horse-power, which will probably be regarded as well within the mark, propose to furnish compressed air at L8 per annum, and if they succeed in carrying out the scheme as planned, it will without doubt be one of the greatest blessings ever conferred on the smaller class of our town’s manufacturers.

Fenders and Fireirons.—­The making of these finds work for 800 or 900 hands, and stove grates (a trade introduced from Sheffield about 20 years back) almost as many.

Files and Rasps are manufactured by 60 firms, whose total product, though perhaps not equal to the Sheffield output, is far from inconsiderable.  Machines for cutting files and rasps were patented by Mr. Shilton, Dartmouth Street, in 1833.

Fox, Henderson and Co.—­In March, 1853, this arm employed more than 3,000 hands, the average weekly consumption of iron being over 1,000 tons.  Among the orders then in hand were the ironwork for our Central Railway Station, and for the terminus at Paddington, in addition to gasometers, &c., for Lima, rails, wagons and wheels for a 55-mile line in Denmark, and the removal and re-election[1] of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.-See “Exhibitions,” “Noteworthy men.”

[Footnote 1:  Transcriber’s note:  this is probably a typographical error for “re-erection".]

Galvanised Buckets and other articles are freely made, but the galvanisers can hardly be pleasant neighbours, as at the works of one firm 40 to 50 carboys of muriatic acid and several of sulphuric acid are used every day, while at another place the weekly consumption of chemicals runs to two tons of oil of vitriol and seven tons of muriatic acid.