among us, and sat down in our midst, in
solid reality. Most of us can testify to it on
the evidence of our own senses. But so few
have visited the awful birthplace of this
chimera—so few have any idea of the fire
caverns, the dim vaults, the scorching air,
the rush, roar, glare, and appalling handicraft
from amidst which that light and
graceful creation came forth to lie down on
the grass in Hyde Park, that we must tell a
little of what we saw when we went hunting
out its birthplace.

In plain words, we have been permitted to
see the glass-works of the Messrs. Chance,
near Birmingham. In old reports of the
glass-manufacture, we find Birmingham low
in the list of places in England
where the process is going forward. It
can never be so again. The establishment
which produced the Crystal Palace must
stand first in the world until something
greater has been done. It is only within
three centuries that the manufacture has
been heard of at all in the district; and
a century ago it was not known in the town
of Birmingham. Messrs. Chance's works are
not in the town, but at Smethwick—half-an-hour's
drive from it: and, indeed, they
would take up too much room in any town.
The buildings occupy many acres; and the
canal has to stretch out various branches
among them. The number of men, women,
and children employed, are twelve hundred
or upwards. The schools on the estate contain
from four hundred to five hundred children
(not all connected with the works,
however); and the consumption of coal is,—
but we will excuse any reader from believing
it, without seeing the coal heaps,—from eight
hundred to one thousand tons per week. To
those of us who consider and calculate about
buying ten or twenty tons of coal per year,
it is a marvellous thought,—that of the coal-bill
for an establishment which consumes
nearly one thousand tons in a week, and in
every week of the year;—say forty-seven
thousand tons in a year. Visitors to the
works may pass hither and thither for four
or five hours together without entering the
same place twice; and they may go again
and again, without coming upon many traces
of their former visits. The vastness of the
buildings is as striking as their number;
and the passage through lofty, dim, cool,
vault-like sheds, is an admirable preparation
for entrance among the furnaces and kilns.

In one of these sheds we see, heaped up
against the walls, masses of sulphate of soda.
This portion of the material is brought from
the alkali works of the same firm, not very
far off. In another shed there are millstones,
revolving on edge, for grinding to dust the
small proportion of coal required hereafter.
Elsewhere, we see heaps of chalk; and, in
one shed, the greatest quantity of fine sand
we ever saw in one place, except on the sea-shore.
St. Helens, near Liverpool, yields
very fine sand for glass-making; but this
roomful is from Leighton-Buzzard, where
there is a sandpit belonging to this firm. As
it is silted, wreaths of it rise, like white smoke,
and curl under the rafters. Thus, we have
seen the materials; and must next observe
the apparatus for the cooking of them.

It is a desperately rainy day; and the roads
which lead from one place to another are
inches deep in black mud and puddles. Of
course, the canal does not look very engaging;
and the procession of boats on it, laden with
coal, is about as wet as everything else.
There are carts in the alleys filled with broken
glass; and there are heaps of broken glass
piled up against the walls. Women are at
the cart's tail, or under sheds, picking the
glass; that is, separating whatever is stained
with iron in the process of glass-making, or
otherwise coarse, to be made into coarse glass
again, while the clear and fine is set apart for
higher purposes. A cart-load of rubbish and
sweepings is about to be shot into a canal-boat.
Being drawn across our path, the cart
is ordered away, but the man in charge calls
out from the other side, that we must wait
our turn. Shocked at such a speech, men
within hearing rush to turn the horse, and
spill the rubbish on the wharf, which afflicts
the strange-looking carter. The poor fellow
is not quite sane. One of the pleasant incidents
often observable in these large establishments
is the employment of poor creatures
who would otherwise be sadly desolate. Where
there is a will there is a way, in such large
concerns, of finding something that the foolish
or the partially infirm can do; and it seems
as if the will was never wanting.

Up an inclined plane we go now, under
heavy drops from the eaves, and take shelter
in a place curiously furnished. The large
floor is almost wholly occupied with great
caldrons of ash-grey clay;—very handsome
caldrons, round, smooth inside and out, with
a thick smooths-rounded edge, and each
standing on its own platform. These are the
"pots" in which the "metal" is to be melted
in the furnace. There are three pot-makers
in the establishment; each of whom makes
three pots in a week. One of them is busy
now, with a labourer and a girl to help him.
The labourer is treading the clay. He has a
watering-pot in his hand: his feet are bare,
and his trousers turned up; and he tramps
about on his platform with a squashing tread,
which is not pleasant to us, and can hardly
be more so to him. Everybody says there is
no way but this of making the clay fit for
pots; but we cannot help fancying that one
will soon be found. The girl is at a table,
with a mass of clay at her right hand. She is
making it into sausage-like rolls; and her
employer is building up his pot, by laying
these rolls in order round the edge, and squeezing
them down smooth, so as to exclude the
air, and make the whole of as close a grain
as possible. The bottom is no less than five