The following is the method adopted at a large silver plating establishment: Air is compressed by the driving engine of the works into an or dinary reservoir, and thence distributed through pipes which extend along the trout of the workmen's fables; and above the latter is a sand receptacle, V shaped, from which a stream of sand falls, and is met by a downward blast from the pipe, which current drives the material in a stream through a small hole in the table, beneath which a receptacle to receive the sand is placed,

The workman, whose fingers are covered with rubber to protect them, holds the article in the jet and under the table, watching it through a pane of glass let into the top of the latter. The operation is necessarily very rapid, as the article has only to be turned so that the blast strikes the required portions, when the work is completed. The exposure to the jet, even for an instant, would cut through the Britannia, upon which the plating is afterward deposited. By the interposition of rubber screens of suitable shape, against which the sand has no abrading effect, any fancy patterns or letters are easily imprinted on the surface, the latter, of course, being satin-finished, while the spaces protected by the screens are afterward burnished.