and, with a pair of tongs constructed for the
purpose, this new pot was put upon the fire,
and coke was raked about it. A mixture
must be made, of two-thirds silver arid one-
third gold. If there were less than this
proportion of silver in the mixture, there would
be a failure in the next and chief stage of the
refiner's process.

I left the furnaces to glow unseen, and
watched the cooking of one little mess of
gold and silver, worth may be a thousand
pounds. The furnace door was opened by a
man, who stirred the broth, and threw a little
borax into it by way of flux, just as a cook
might sprinkle salt by way of flavour. The
door was again shut, impurities were burnt
off in the lire, and meanwhile I still abided
the serving up of this particular kettle of gold
and silver upon which I had set my fancy.
A workman with a thick padded gauntlet,
like a baby's glove from Brobdignag, upon the
hand and arm nearest the fire, took out a
little in a spoon, and let it cool into a button:
it was very good. Then, with his tongs he
grasped the pot upon the fire, and his glove
blackened and smoked furiously as he did so;
a tub of water was in readiness; and, lifting
up at arm's length his glowing mess of broth,
he poured it by a slender stream into the
water. There it cooled in a granulated form,
and glittered very beautifully.

The gold and silver, thus united, were next
taken to a smaller chamber, in which large
cans hung over an apparatus which applied
under them the heat of a gas fire. The cans
looked very much like large tin oil-cans that
would scarcely be worth cartage home if the
firm should say to a visitor, " Sir, we will
give them to you." They were, however,
made of platinum, and had cost from seven
hundred to a thousand pounds a-piece. Into
one of these large cans, the newly-married
pair were put, and, horrible to relate! strong
nitric acid was poured over them, and in the
nitric acid they were put over the gas fire
and barbarously boiled. Silver was again the
sufferer. Gold does not care for nitric acid,
nor for the mere warmth of a gas fire. Silver,
however, was absolutely delivered over to
the power of the acid, its whole system was
disturbed, it was dragged out of its bright
metallic state, and swam dissolved in the
bubbling liquid, while the gold dropped quietly
to the bottom of the vessel, and remained
quite unconcerned. The nitrous oxide vapour
disengaged within the can, ascended through
a tube which twisted and wriggled its way
up through the roof; and, climbing the tiles,
we saw this pipe twisting in the open air,
and offering plenty of cool surface for the
re-condensation of as much nitric acid as
could be made to return into the can; the
remaining gas getting out by a high chimney.
Then, came the scene of the divorce between
the gold and silver. The silver dissolved in
the hot nitric acid, had been poured off from
the sediment of gold into a jar placed ready
under the spout of the can, the can itself
being so hung as to be tilted easily. The gold
was washed with some more nitric acid,
which was again poured off, and had then
only to be carried once more to the furnace,
melted by itself in a pot, aud cast into ingots.
But the silver still had a great deal of persecution
to endure. I will complete at once its
tale of sorrow.

Having been drawn, after separation from
the gold—dissolved as it was in hot nitric acid
—out of the cans into an open jar, it was
there left to cool, and, as the liquid cooled,,
part of the silver rested upon the sides of
the jar in large and handsome crystals. It
was not metallic silver then, for it was bond
slave to the nitric acid, and could exist only
as a nitrate. It was in the next place thrown
into large tubs, crystals or no crystals, and
dissolved in a great deal of water. Plates of
copper were then placed in the liquid, and the
rest was left to time. Nitric acid loving to
enslave copper rather than silver, sets the silver
free, while it attacks the copper. A quantity
of copper is eaten away, becomes nitrate of
copper, and wanders dissolved about the tub,
colouring the water blue. The nitrate of
silver, having slipped its chain, falls as pure
silver to the bottom of the tub. Nevertheless,
it is in a state of miserable freedom. Some
of it was scooped up from the bottom of the
tub for my inspection, and looked exactly like
mortar: in which condition it was put into a
kind of bottomless washing-trough, and beat
with a pestle to squeeze the water out;
but this pounding was nothing to what
followed, for it was packed into a thick
cylinder, open at both ends, and put to be
squeezed under a powerful hydraulic press.
The Bramah forced out all the water, but at
the same time pressed the silver so firmly into
the cylinder, that no power less than that
which squeezed it in, could knock it out
again. Therefore, by another action of the
press, the mass of silver, having been pushed
out into freedom, was presented to its owner
in a hard lump, like a piece cut transversely
from some large bough of a silver tree. Its
final destination was the melting-pot. The blue
water in which the copper had been
dissolved, ran off into vats erected in a range
of picturesque vaults below, thence to be
drawn off in barrels. " It was once bought
for the manufacture of verditer," said my
friend; " and, though that use of it is now
superseded, it still finds purchasers."

Some of the gold deposited from nitric acid
was, by this time, being melted in the furnace
house, and was almost ready to be cast.
Whatever purification had not been achieved
by the nitric acid, was now to be completed
by the fire. The gold was ready to be poured
into small moulds with long handles. It poured
with a rich colour, and cooled quickly with
an even surface: not boiling up into central
mountains as the silver had done. To hasten
its cooling, and to clear every impurity from