saw a plain, respectable-looking, indifferent-
tempered man, not a whit more awe-inspiring
—or more dusty—than a miller on a market-
day.

We do not insinuate that Mr. Bossle
endeavoured to "pluck out the heart of the
mystery," though nothing seemed to escape
the focus of his spectacles. But, although here
lay, in separate heaps, the sand and soda and
saltpetre and lime and cullet, or broken
glass; while there, in a huge trough, those
ingredients were mixed up (like "broken" in
a confectioner's shop) ready to be pushed
through a trap to fill the crucible or stomach
of the furnace; yet, despite Mr. Bossle's sly
investigations, and sonorous enquiries, he left
the hall of "elements " as wise as he had
entered.

Passing through a variety of places in which
the trituration, purification, and cleaning of
the materials were going on, we mounted to
an upper story th?t reminded us of the yard
in which the cunning Captain of the Forty
Thieves, when he was disguised as an Oil
Merchant, stored his pretended merchandise.
It was filled with rows and rows of great clay
jars, something like barrels with their heads
knocked out. Each had, instead of a hoop,
an indented band round the middle, for the
insertion of the iron gear by which they were, in
due time, to be lifted into and out of the raging
furnaces. There were two sizes; one about
four feet deep, and three feet six inches in
diameter, technically called "pots," and
destined to receive the materials for their first
sweltering. The smaller vessels (cuvettes)
were of the same shape, but only two feet
six inches deep, and two feet in diameter.
These were the crucibles in which the
vitreous compound was to be fired a second time,
ready for casting. These vessels are built—
for that is really the process; and it requires
a twelvemonth to build one, so gradually
must it settle and harden, and so slowly must
it be pieced together, or the furnace would
immediately destroy it—of Stourbridge clay,
which is the purest and least silicious yet
discovered. (The clay mentioned in our
recent artticle, "The Devonshire Dorado,"*
may be worth a trial, for the manufacture of
these crucibles.)

* See Page 263.

"We have now," said Mr. Bossle, wiping
his spectacles, and gathering himself up for a
loud Johnsonian period, "seen the raw
materials ready to be submitted to the action of
the fire, and we have also beheld the vessels
in which the vitrification is to take place.
Let us therefore witness the actual
liquefaction."

In obedience to this grandiloquent wish, we
were shown into the hall of furnaces.

It was a sight indeed. A lofty and
enormous hall, with windows in the high walls
open to the rainy night. Down the centre, a
fearful row of roaring furnaces, white-hot: to
look at which, even through the chinks in the
iron screens before them, and masked, seemed
to scorch and splinter the very breath within
one. At right angles with this hall, another, an
immense building in itself, with unearthly-
looking instruments hanging on the walls, and
strewn about, as if for some diabolical cookery.
In dark corners, where the furnaces redly
glimmered on them, from time to time, knots
of swarthy muscular men, with nets drawn
over their faces, or hanging from their hats:
confusedly grouped, wildly dressed, scarcely
heard to mutter amidst the roaring of the fires,
and mysteriously coming and going, like
picturesque shadows, cast by the terrific glare.
Such figures there must have been, once upon
a time, in some such scene, ministering to the
worship of fire, and feeding the altars of the
cruel god with victims. Figures not
dissimilar, alas! there have been, torturing and
burning, even in Our Saviour's name. But,
happily those bitter days are gone. The senseless
world is tortured for the good of man,
and made to take new forms in his service.
Upon the rack, we stretch the ores and metals
of the earth, and not the image of the Creator
of all. These fires and figures are the agents
of civilisation, and not of deadly persecution
and black murder. Burn fires and welcome!
making a light in England that shall not be
quenched by all the monkish dreamers in the
world!

We were aroused by a sensation like
the sudden application of a hot mask to
the countenance. As we instinctively placed
a hand over our face to ascertain how much of
the skin was peeling off, our cool informant
announced that the furnace over
against us had been opened to perform the
tréjetage, or ladling of the liquid pot à feu
from the large pots into the smaller ones.
"I must premise," he said, "that one-third of
the raw materials, as put together by our
secret friend, are first thrown in; and when
that is melted, one-third more; on that being
fused, the last third is added. The mouth of
the furnace is then closed, (and an enormous
heat kept up by the tiseur or stoker (all our
terms are taken from the French), during
sixteen hours. That time having now elapsed,
in the case of the flaming pot before you, the
furnace is opened. The man with the long
ladle thrusts it, you perceive, into the pot,
takes out a ladleful, and, by the assistance of
two companions, throws the vitrified dough
upon an iron anvil. The other two men turn it
over and over, spread it upon the inverted flat-
iron, and twitch out, with pliers, any speck of
impurity; it is tossed again into the ladle,
and thrown, into a cuvette in another furnace.
When the cuvettes are full, that furnace is
stopped up to maintain a roaring heat for
another eight hours; and, in the language of
the men, 'the ceremony is performed.'"

At this moment, the noise burst forth from
the middle of the enormous shed, of several
beats of a gong: so loud, that they even