United States or Seychelles ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The production of this curious substance is explained in an article on the 'Value of Rubbish, No. 385. Notwithstanding this, we were assured by a gentleman connected with the copper-works, that there is no specific disease arising from copper-smelting, as in the case of lead.
Our principal object in visiting Swansea, was to obtain some information concerning the important business of copper-smelting, for which this port has now become so celebrated. Few of our readers, who have not enjoyed our opportunities of seeing them, can form any accurate conception of the vast extent and great economical value and importance of the Swansea copper-works.
Up the valley of the Tawe the town spreads several miles, and here are the enormous copper-works and smelting-furnaces which make a reproduction of the infernal regions, defile the air, but fill the purses of the townsfolk. Swansea is the greatest copper-smelting dépôt in the world, drawing its ores from all parts of the globe.
There had been copper-works on the Neath three centuries ago, but the first upon the Tawe were established in 1745. From them have grown the fame and wealth of the Cornish family of the Vivians, who have been copper-smelters for three generations at Swansea, and in front of the town-hall stands the statue of the "Copper King," the late John Henry Vivian, who represented Swansea in Parliament.
It is then poured out by means of iron ladles, coated with clay, into ingots or moulds of the different sizes required by the manufacturer. 'This process of refining or toughening copper, is a delicate operation, requiring great care and attention on the part of the refiner to keep the metal in the malleable state. It is also, beyond comparison, the most beautiful sight in the copper-works.
The probable amount of wages paid by the smelters is about L.135,000; and the current expenditure of the copper-works in the aggregate exceeds L.500,000 a year. The last thing we did was to visit the Hafod Schools. These excellent schools one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants were erected about six years ago, and are still maintained at the expense of the Messrs Vivian.
Swansea, like all the cities in the Welsh coal and metal region, has grown greatly during the present century. Walter Savage Landor lived here for a while, just when the copper-works were beginning to appear in the valley of the Tawe. Their smoke defiled the landscape, and he exclaimed, "Would to God there was no trade upon earth!"
Smeaton employed the winter of 1758-9 in London, preparing everything for the final work at the Eddystone the ensuing season. He formed and made out designs for the iron rails of the balcony, the cast iron, the wrought iron, and the copper-works of the lantern, &c.
Leaving the town, and pursuing our way northwards for two miles towards Neath, we reach the copper-works. The scene is widely different in open day from that which was presented at night. There is no beauty now, and little of the picturesque. The first impression, indeed, the mind is apt to receive, is that of a sense of painful weariness.
We see the rushing, rapid stream under Avista's yellow clay declivities: the yellow water falls like fluid amber in picturesque cataracts before the copper-works, where rainbow-coloured tongues of fire shoot themselves upwards, and the hammer's blows on the copper plates resound to the monotonous, roaring rumble of the elv-fall.
Word Of The Day