Milling, stock-making, work on the locks and trimmings are all done on the hill. From 1795, when Uncle Sam made his first musket, to the present, when the manufacture of the new repeating rifle is being begun at the Armory, there have been about fifteen different models made. The last weapon adopted by the Gun Board is the one used by the Danish army. It is a repeating rifle of very small bore, capable of sending a bullet a very long distance with no curve. Many of the processes at the Armory are most interesting. That of giving the gun barrels their beautiful brown is by rusting them with acid and arresting the process at the right time. Perhaps the most interesting machine work in the whole place is the stock turning. Thomas Blanchard's machine was invented at the Springfield Armory in 1820. Previous to this, gunstocks had been made by hand. An old armorer remembers the following circumstance, he being at that time a fellow-boarder with Mr. Blanchard: "One Sunday we particularly noticed Mr. Blanchard; for he held in his hand a musket which he seemed to be meditating upon. This meditation was nothing new; for he was a man who said few words, a man who communed with himself, or rather did a great deal of head work in a quiet way. But now he had something in his hands upon which his thoughts seemed to rest, and this was uncommon. The gun was turned over and over; it was looked at from tip to breech; evidently he was thinking hard. After a long time thought became words: 'I believe I can turn a stock like this.' And eventually he did." His machine was the forerunner of all machines for turning irregular