A little girl, O, takes each sheet from out of this drainer, and if there are any little spots which have not taken the tin she scrapes them briskly with a kind of scraper and puts them on one side, from whence they are returned to the tinning.

As to those which are perfect they are distributed to girls, who with sawdust and moss rub them a long time to get the grease off. After that it is necessary to remove a kind of list which is formed on one side of the sheet when it is put in the drainer.

To accomplish this they dip the lower edge or border very carefully in molten tin in Q, specially taking care that the sheet is not dipped either too long or too short a time, otherwise the last coating in flowing might melt off the other and the sheet would remain black and imperfect.

After this immersion a workman rubs the plates briskly on both sides of the dipped place with moss, taking off the superfluous tin and the sheets are finished.

They make sheets of different widths, lengths, and thicknesses; the workmen say that the profit is immense.

The manufactory is at Mansvaux in Alsace.

P is a cauldron where they melt the grease; Q is a furnace of molten tin for tinning the plates.

CHAPTER VI.

EARLY MANUFACTURE IN GERMANY AND SWEDEN; TRANSLATED FROM
RESEARCHES AND OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING MINES AND IRON WORKS,
AND AS TO THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL AND TIN-PLATES
DURING TRAVELS IN GERMANY, SWEDEN, &C., BETWEEN THE YEARS 1757
AND 1769 BY M. JARS, PRINTED IN LYONS, 1744.

MADE

Ar Hülf Gottes Irgand there is a hæmatite iron ore mine, at a distance of 400 paces from which is a tin mine, and there are some abandoned tin mines in the immediate neighbourhood.

This iron mine furnishes large quantities of ore, which is sent to thirteen iron works in Saxony and Bohemia, in most of which works tin-plates are manufactured.

Hülf Gottes Irgand is distant three miles from Platten; there is a tin-plate works at Johann-Georgenstadt, a town in the high mountains of Saxony, situated at a distance of seven miles from the iron mine.

The iron ore is purchased from the mine; the carriage to the works costs less in the winter than in the summer because of the convenience of snow and sledges.

The following is the process adopted for the manufacture of tin-plates at a works between Heinrichsgrün and Graslitz, in Bohemia, and the same processes are in use at Hülf Gottes Irgand; the iron ore which is necessary, comes from the latter place.

The iron when taken from the refinery is beaten into a square form of about 27 inches, then carried to the tilt hammer and cut into pieces of such a size that one piece shall furnish two sheets of iron.

The pieces are then warmed in a forge where there are

two simple wooden bellows moved by a water wheel, and where charcoal is employed to heat them.

When the pieces are sufficiently heated they are flattened out under a hammer, then they are bent double in such a manner that each piece forms two sheets, one upon the other, of about 93 and 53 in.

When sufficient sheets have been thus prepared they are placed in water with which they mix a small quantity of clay and charcoal-dust, so that the sheets may not stick together when hammered.

When they have been thus plastered, they are placed upon the hearth of the forge piled upon iron bars, so arranged that the draught may pass up from beneath them. 200 of these pieces, which will produce 400 sheets (for each one is double), are placed at the same time upon the grate.

Care is taken to place them upright, in order that they may heat more readily, the wind (blast) passing from underneath, without acting directly upon the sheets, renders them red hot in 30 to 45 minutes at the utmost.

When they consider the sheets to be sufficiently heated, they take one-fourth of them with a pair of tongs (50 pieces or 100 sheets), and place this bundle, which is about 88 in. thick, under a hammer, weighing about 550 lbs. when

new.

This bundle is reduced by the first hammering to a thickness of 43 in.

The four bundles are thus each in their turn beaten and returned to the fire as soon as they have been hammered, but they are not again placed upon the iron bars which were supporting them at first.

The second time these bundles are forged, they are reduced to 3 in., and at this point the outside sheets are shifted to the middle of the bundle.

These bundles are next heated and beaten for the third time, the narrow sheets are divided, and they are then heated and hammered for the fourth time.

Then they place in the bundle sheets which have been cut by the shears to the exact dimensions which are required.