Electrical Surgery.

Here is a broken rod. In other days the pieces would have been “scrap,” but they have a better fate to-day. The broken ends are pushed together in the right alignment, a lever is pulled and Mr. Mangahao Power is again on active service. What a glow comes into that fracture! The red heat turns to white, 2,200 degrees, and the metal becomes as butter. The two pieces have become one in a few moments. Fragments have turned into a new rod.

Further on one sees more elaborate plastic surgery, with electric current as the operator. Worn metal is saved from the scrap-heap by the electric welding process which does some clever “patching” or “grafting.” It is a kind of magic plaster. This same current is also a cutter and a borer.

In another place hydraulic power performs surgical service. Old fish-plates here receive a new lease of life. They are warmed up to 1,800 degrees in an oil-fired furnace, and then go to press—a hydraulic squeeze of 1,500lbs. to the square inch.