By A Secret Process

The manufacture of shot is an interesting and instructivo procees, and it is safe 1o gay that not one of the thousands who use it, from the sportsman who flres the Httle leaden pellets to bring down his game, to the thrifty housewife who uses it to clean her bottles, knows of the ingenious methods employed in turning' the pig lead into the shot of commerce. The oldést shot lower in America is in thig city, says the . Philadelphia Times, in the vicinity o Second and Carpenter streeta, it havinjr been opened for business July 4, 1808, and here shot is manufacturad at the rate of from twenty-five to thirty millions an hour - from four hundred thousand to live hundred thousand every minute. Entering the low building surrounding the shot tower one encounters first the weighers, who are putting the shot up into bags of different sizes. It will be interesting to examine one of these bags containing about twenty pounds. The largest size drop shot weighs twenty-two pellets to the ounce. A bag holding twenty pounds would therefore contain 5, 910 pellets, whi3 in a bag of the mallest size shot the number of pellets would be 1,061,120. Suddenly the guide opens the door leading to the tower proper and there is heurd constant rushing noise as of falling water. Into a large tank, in which there is six foet of water, a steady shower of lead is falling1, which is being dropped from the heights above. It is impossible to look up to see whence this shower originates, and, I aftoraclimb of 150 feet by means of a circular stairway, the secret of shot! making is revealed. Here a man is standing at a boiler containing the molten lead and which is being continually fed by helpers. He is pouring the liquid metal into a perforated pan or colander in front of him, and it drops down in ailvery rain into the tank of water benoath. One thing is essential, however, before the lead is dropped. When the pg lead is thoroughly heated a scum i forms on it, caused by the antimony and arsenic with which the pigs are prepared. This is called dross and is oarefully skimmed off and preserved. Some of this dross is placed in the pan before the lead is poured into it The lead makes its way through the dross and escapea through the holes in the pan into spaca The procesa looks simple enough from here, but the degrees of heat, the amount of dross, the quantity of lead have all to be carefully considered. An inexperienced hand could do incalculable damage here, simple as the process eems. There are several stories afloat as to the origin of this methodof making1. They are both pretty stories, and should be taken cum grano salis. One account saysthe discovery was an acoident as was the discovery of gravitation and the steam engine. Some time during the last century an English mechanic named Watts, who was employed in cutting up lead for the purpose of moulding into shot, is said to have imbibed too freely of the cup that cheers and inebriates - got 'shot, in fact He dreamed of the last thing he would be likely to dream of under th circumslances - namely, water. He saw it rain heavily and suddenly the rain became lead and the ground was covered with shot. Watts awoke with the idea that there was something in his dream, and is said to have proved the correctness of his idea by making an experiment in a neighboring tower. The great unreconcilable point in the Watts story is that no reference is anywhere made to the essential pool of water in whioh the pellets are dropped to cool. Certainly, if the hot lead feil upon the hard earth the pellets would be flattened out and ruined. The other account gives the indispeusible water into which the hot metal must fall if it does very little else. The story goes that in one of the old-time wars, when a host was preparing to storm a castle, and while the besiegers were scaling the walls the defenders poured hot lead over them. This lead, broken up into hundreds of piece3 by the fall, dropped into the moat Visitors are very rarely allowed to thoroughly view the process of manufacture. He may look at the lead dropping into the water without opposition, but when with pardonale 1 curiosity h; expresses a wish to see whence this shower originates the guide shakes his head andsays: "Oh, it's a powerful big climb up there. and you wouldn't understand it after you jjet up. " This means that you don't go up even if you think your mind could grasp this intricate prob! lem.