In one department of the place often lie many tons of the ashes from the furnace, which are sold by auction, by the ton, to gardeners and farmers, as manure, and for killing insects, to soap-boilers and chemical manufacturers. In a corner are generally piled cart-loads of nails, and other pieces of iron, which have been swept up from the floors, or have remained in the broken pieces of casks and boxes which go to the kiln. Those which have been sifted from the ashes are eagerly bought up by gunsmiths, sorted, and used in the manufacture of gun-barrels, for which they are highly esteemed, as possessing a toughness beyond all other iron, and therefore calculated, pre-eminently, to prevent bursting. Gold and silver, too, are not unfrequently found among these ashes; for many manufactured articles, if unsalable, are broken up, and thrown in. There have sometimes, indeed, been vast numbers of foreign watches, professing themselves to be gold watches, but being gross impostors, which have been ground up in a mill, and then flung in here.
Such is the Queen's Tobacco-Pipe, unique of its kind, and in its capacity of consumption. None of the other Docks have any thing like it. It stands alone. It is the Pipe—and as we have said, establishes the Queen of England, besides being the greatest monarch on the globe, as the greatest of all smokers—not excepting the Grand Turk, or the Emperor of Austria, the greatest tobacconist of Europe.
THE METAL-FOUNDER OF MUNICH.
When we gaze in admiration at some great work of plastic art, our thoughts naturally recur rather to the master mind whence the conception we now see realized first started into life, than to any difficulties which he or others might have had to overcome in making the quickened thought a palpable and visible thing. All is so harmonious; there is such unity throughout; material, form, and dimensions, are so adapted and proportioned one to the other, that we think not of roughnesses or of opposing force as connected with a work whence all disparities are removed, and where every harshness is smoothed away. There stands the achieved fact in its perfect completeness: there is nothing to remind us of its progress toward that state, for the aids and appliances thereunto have been removed; and the mind, not pausing to dwell on an intermediate condition, at once takes in the realized creation as an accomplished whole. And if even some were inclined to follow in thought such a work in its growth, there are few among them who, as they look at a monument of bronze, have any notion how the figure before them grew up into its present proportions. They have no idea how the limbs were formed within their earthen womb, and how many and harassing were the anxieties that attended on the gigantic birth.
The sculptor, the painter, the engraver, has each, in his own department, peculiar difficulties to overcome; but these for the most part are such as skill or manual dexterity will enable him to vanquish. He has not to do with a mighty power that opposes itself to his human strength, and strives for the mastery. He has not to combat an element which he purposely rouses into fury, and then subjugates to his will. But the caster in metal has to do all this. He flings into the furnace heaps of brass—cannon upon cannon, as though they were leaden toys; and he lights a fire, and fans and feeds the flames, till within that roaring hollow there is a glow surpassing what we have yet seen of fire, and growing white from very intensity. Anew it is plied with fuel, fed, gorged. The fire itself seems convulsed and agonized with its own efforts; but still it roars on. Day by day, and night after night, with not a moment's relaxation, is this fiery work carried on. The air is hot to breathe; the walls, the rafters, are scorched, and if the ordeal last much longer, all will soon be in a blaze. The goaded creature becomes maddened and desperate, and is striving to burst its prison; while above it a molten metal sea, seething and fiery, is heaving with its ponderous weight against the caldron's sides!
Lest it be thought this picture is too highly colored, or that it owes any thing to the imagination for its interest, let us look into the foundry of Munich, and see what was going on there at midnight on the 11th of October 1845.
When King Louis I. had formed the resolution of erecting a colossal statue of Bavaria, it was Schwanthaler whom he charged to execute the work. The great artist's conception responded to the idea which had grown in the mind of the king, and in three years' time a model in clay was formed, sixty-three feet in height, the size of the future bronze statue. The colossus was then delivered over to the founder, to be cast in metal. The head was the first large portion that was executed. While the metal was preparing for the cast, a presentiment filled the master's mind that, despite his exact reckoning, there might still be insufficient materials for the work, and thirty cwt. were added to the half-liquid mass. The result proved how fortunate had been the forethought: nothing could be more successful. And now the chest of the figure was to be cast, and the master conceived the bold idea of forming it in one piece. Those who have seen thirty or forty cwt. of metal rushing into the mould below, have perhaps started back affrighted at the fiery stream. But 400 cwt. were requisite for this portion of the statue; and the formidable nature of the undertaking may be collected from the fact that till now, not more than 300 cwt. had ever filled a furnace at one time.
But see, the mass begins slowly to melt; huge pieces of cannon float on the surface, like boats on water, and then gradually disappear. Presently upon the top of the mass a crust is seen to form, threatening danger to the furnace as well as to the model prepared to receive the fluid bronze. To prevent this crust from forming, six men were employed day and night in stirring the lava-like sea with long poles of iron; retiring, and being replaced by others every now and then; for the scorching heat, in spite of wetted coverings, causes the skin to crack like the dried rind of a tree. Still the caldron was being stirred, still the fire was goaded to new efforts, but the metal was not yet ready to be allowed to flow. Hour after hour went by, the day passed, and night came on. For five days and four nights the fire had been kept up and urged to the utmost intensity, and still no one could tell how long this was yet to last. The men worked on at their tremendous task in silence; the fearful heat was increasing, and as though it would never stop. There was a terrible weight in the burning air, and it pressed upon the breasts of all. There was anxiety in their hearts, though they spoke not, but most of all in his who had directed this bold undertaking. For five days he had not left the spot, but, like a Columbus watching for the hourly-expected land, had awaited the final moment. On the evening of the fifth day exhausted nature demanded repose, and he sat down to sleep. Hardly had he closed his eyes when his wife roused him with the appalling cry, "Awake, awake, the foundry is on fire!" And it was so. Nothing could stand such terrific heat. The rafters of the building began to burn. To quench the fire in the usual way was impossible, for had any cold fluid come in contact with the liquid metal, the consequences would have been frightful: the furnace would have been destroyed, and the 400 cwt. of bronze lost. With wet cloths, therefore, the burning rafters were covered to smother the flames. But the walls were glowing, too; the whole building was now like a vast furnace. Yet still more fuel on the fire!—the heat is not enough; the metal boils not yet! Though the rafters burn, and the walls glow, still feed, and gorge, and goad the fire!
At last the moment comes!—the whole mass is boiling! Then the metal-founder of Munich, Miller by name, called to the men who were extinguishing the burning beams, "Let them burn; the metal is ready for the cast!" And it was just midnight, when the whole of the rafters of the interior of the building were in flames, that the plug was knocked in, and the fiery flood rushed out into the mould below.