[Fig. 1006 enlarged] (241 kb)

[Fig. 1006.] presents a vertical section of this great usine or hüttenwerk, subdivided into four main departments. The first, A, B, is devoted to the preparation and roasting of the matters intended for amalgamation. The second, B, C, is occupied with two successive siftings and the milling. The third, C, D, includes the amalgamation apartment above, and the wash-house of the residuums below. And in the fourth, D, E, the distilling apparatus is placed, where the amalgam is finally delivered.

Thus, from one extremity of this building to the other, the workshops follow in the order of the processes; and the whole, over a length of 180 feet, seems to be a natural laboratory, through which the materials pass, as it were of themselves, from their crude to their refined condition; so skilfully economized and methodical are the labours of the workmen; such are the regularity, precision, concert, and facility, which pervade this long series of combinations, carriages, movements, and metamorphoses of matter.

Here we distinguish the following objects:—

1. In division A, B; a, a, is the magazine of salt; b, b, is the hall of preparation of the ores; on the floor of which they are sorted, interstratified, and mixed up with salt; c, c, are the roasting furnaces; in each of which we see, 1, the fireplace; 2, 3, the reverberatory hearth, divided into two portions, one a little higher than the other, and more distant from the fireplace, called the drier. The materials to be calcined fall into it, through a chimney 6. The other part 2, of the hearth is the calcining area. Above the furnace are chambers of sublimation 4, 5, for condensing some volatile matters which escape by the opening 7. e is the main chimney.

2. In the division B, C, we have d, the floor for the coarse sifting; beneath, that for the fine sieves; from which the matters fall into the hopper, whence they pass down to g, the mill-house, in which they are ground to flour, exactly as in a corn-mill, and are afterwards boulted through sieves, p, f, is the wheel machinery of the mill.

3. The compartment C, D, is the amalgamation work, properly speaking, where the casks are seen in their places. The washing of the residuums is effected in the shop l, below. k, k, is the compartment of revolving casks.

4. In the division D, E, the distillation process is carried on. There are four similar furnaces, represented in different states, for the sake of illustration. The wooden drawer is seen below, supporting the cast-iron basin, in which the tripod with its candelabra for bearing the amalgam saucers is placed. q is a store chamber.