But this was not the only advantage the Cornish miners derived from this judicious step. The ships employed to transport the ore to South Wales came back laden with coal to feed their enormous engines; and thus a system of traffic, mutually advantageous, was originated, and has continued to exist without interruption down to the present time, and will continue to exist so long as copper is mined in Cornwall and smelted at Swansea.[3]
Within the last twenty years, the importation of foreign ores has become a remarkable feature in the trade and commerce of this place. Not only is Swansea the seat of the copper trade of this country, but it may with equal propriety be styled the copper mart of the world. Large and valuable cargoes of ore are continually arriving at the Swansea Docks from every country in the world where copper-mining is pursued. In 1814, there were only four vessels which traded with foreign ports; in 1849, this number had increased to 771; the greater proportion of them being directly engaged in the copper trade.
The Cornish ores are sold, as we have seen, in the locality in which they are produced; but all these foreign ores, from whatever quarter they may come, are disposed of to the smelters in Swansea by public ticketing. This ticketing is a curious and characteristic feature of the trade. The cargoes are usually consigned to a particular class of brokers, indigenous to Swansea, and known as 'copper-ore agents.' The ore is by them deposited in large yards, where it is crushed to a certain fineness, for the purpose of obtaining a proper admixture of the 'heap.' Notice is then given to the different smelting-houses, who procure samples of the lot, and assay it. Meetings are held once a fortnight at the Mackworth Arms Hotel; and on these days the agents for the ore and those for the smelter take their seats around a table. A chairman is appointed, who announces the different lots for sale. Having previously made up their minds what to offer—for there is nothing like a saleroom competition—the smelters hand up a folded slip to the chairman, who announces the highest offer and the purchaser's name. With such expedition does this proceed, that different cargoes of copper-ore, to the value perhaps of L.50,000, will often be quietly disposed of in a single hour!
It is very remarkable how closely each offer approximates to the intrinsic value of the ore. A lot of Chili or Australian ore, containing a large quantity of metal, may bring L.50 per ton, while at the same time a poor ore may be sold for a tenth part of the money. But however variable the offers may be in this respect, they never vary much in regard to a single lot. Out of the return of the twenty assayers of the different smelters, probably not a half per cent. of difference will be found in their estimates of the produce. The smelters having thus become possessed of the ore, it is transferred to their own yards, sometimes by means of lighters on the river, but more frequently by the canal which communicates with Swansea and the smelting-works.
Leaving the town, and pursuing our way northwards for two miles towards Neath, we reach the copper-works. The scene is widely different in open day from that which was presented at night. There is no beauty now, and little of the picturesque. The first impression, indeed, the mind is apt to receive, is that of a sense of painful weariness. Hundreds of chimneys—we speak literally—are vomiting forth that white, peculiar-looking, and unmistakable vapour called copper-smoke. Enormous masses of that ugly, black, silicious refuse, known in the smelting vocabulary as 'slag,' is piled above and around in such quantity as to change even the physical appearance of the country.
But this is not all. The noxious gases—which we see and feel around us—evolved in the reduction of copper, have not played so long on the surrounding atmosphere without doing their work. Everywhere within their influence, the perennial vegetation is meagre and stinted. The hills, particularly to the southeast of the copper-works, are barren in the extreme. Not one spark of green, not one solitary lichen, can withstand the ravages of the poison. Time was, we were told by an old inhabitant, when these hills produced the earliest and finest corn in the principality; but now they only resemble enormous piles of sandy gravel, unbroken but by the rugged angles on the face of the rock. In the year 1822, the inhabitants of Swansea took legal steps to abate the nuisance. A reward of L.1000 was likewise offered for the discovery of a successful means of neutralising the effect of the vapour. The Messrs Vivian of the Hafod Works spent the princely sum of L.14,000 in experiments, some of which were partially successful, and are still adopted; but after all, it must be confessed that the fumes of sulphurous acid, and of numerous other acids alike poisonous in their character, still taint the atmosphere of the Swansea valley, and still leave the indelible traces of their blasting properties.
The Hafod Works are the largest in South Wales. Situated on the north side of the river, they cover a superficial extent of about twenty acres. The number of furnaces, chimneys, and other brick erections contained in the works, was far beyond our computation; and we can speak feelingly of the devious ways and labyrinth of bypaths with which they are intersected, since, on more than one occasion, we became bewildered in their mazes.
Here was a group of workmen, half-naked, pouring out of a furnace the liquid copper at a white heat; there was another group with a red-hot copper-plate of colossal weight and dimensions, which they crushed like cheese between the huge rollers of the copper-mill: on one hand, there was an old furnace, that had done good duty in times past, in the process of being dismantled; on the other, was one about being rebuilt; and again there was still another, that had, from long service, become so impregnated with copper, that it was actually being built over by a larger one, to be melted in its turn!
We shall avail ourselves of the valuable services of Mr Morgan, the manager for Messrs Vivian, in our walks round the works, although it is not our intention to give a technical description of copper-smelting.[4] Such a course would be alike uninteresting to the reader and unsatisfactory to ourselves. A consecutive description, however brief, of what we saw, would, in like manner, carry us far beyond our limits; and we therefore purposely confine ourselves to whatever is popularly interesting and instructive in the process.