POWDER-PROOF LOCKS.

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with a blank key, leaving a minute prime-hole atthe end of the bit. Though the charge explodedwith the report of a gun, and the lock had beentested several times before in the same way, itproved, on examination, to be uninjured, and easilyanswered to its key. I am quite convinced that

Fig . Cl.—Tucker and Reeves’s Holdfast Lock, with the barrel andcurtain away.

a, The bolt, b, The slides or levers, c, The space for the key to lockand unlock.

both this and fig. 57 may be charged and fired ahundred times in succession without enabling theoperator to open the safe.

It is but right to state, that it is only the “ old ”locks, as described by Mr. Milner, at Liverpool,which have been blown open with gunpowder. Iam not aware (and I have made numerous inquiries)of a single instance in which a safe, secured by amodern three-and-a-half or four-inch six-lever lock,