CHAP. X. crystalliza salt. covered with birch-boughs, thickly interwoven, and hanging over one another from the top to the bottom, so that a person walking between the two racks has a lofty wall of wicker-work on either side. The water is pumped into a trough upon the top of these racks, extending the whole length of them; and out of which it afterwards falls into a number of lesser channels, whose sides are notched, so as to let the water drop gently, in a continual shower, upon Subsequent the wicker boughs. As it thus falls, presenting tion of the such a multiplicity of surfaces to the action of the atmosphere, it becomes of course liable to considerable evaporation; and the salt which it contains becomes, to a certain degree, concentrated before it reaches the bottom. An incrustation of sulphate of lime also forms upon the boughs, which thus become covered with gypsum, after the manner in which osteocolla is formed by the carbonate of lime near Tivoli and Terni in Italy. The concentrated fluid, containing sulphate of iron, at length reaches the bottom of the wicker-work, where it falls upon the sloping platform, which carries it off on either side into troughs, whence it is conveyed into a cistern: it is then raised by pumps again to the top of the machine; the same operation being repeated seven times, the quantity of fluid X. always diminishing during every descent over CHAP. the boughs; until at length it is in a fit state for the process of crystallization, which takes place in cisterns prepared for the purpose; but it is further accelerated by the last process, which consists in boiling the fluid, when it becomes so highly concentrated, that by placing rods about two feet in length into the liquor, they become studded with large and transparent green crystals of the sulphate of iron, which are then collected into barrels for exportation, and chiefly sent into Russia; as almost all the other markets in Europe are supplied with this commodity from England, at a lower rate, and of a better quality. During the last process of boiling the liquor, a small portion of copper is again precipitated, notwithstanding the precipitation of the metal which had been previously effected by means of iron, which is the perquisite of the Assessor; who always, as proprietor of the vitriol-works, obtains annually a small quantity of wash-copper from this manufacture, however carefully the process for the Company's precipitation of wash-copper may have been conducted. Fahlun is a dirty town; and, except in the art of mining, is at least two centuries behind the rest of Europe in refinement. The inns are beyond description filthy; and the Table d'Hôte Town of Fahlun. CHAP, abominable. We dined there but once: the X. soup was full of hairs; and the smell of the meat was so offensive, that the guests were driven from table. The houses of the Assessors, and other officers of the mine, are, however, neat, and their owners polite and hospitable, We experienced the truth of this, in the highest degree, in the attentions and kindness shewn to us by Assessor Gahn and his son. The atmosphere of the town is almost intolerable to a stranger; yet we were assured by the inhabitants that it is wholesome, and that the people of the place live to a very advanced age-a statement that we could not easily credit, as there appeared to us hardly a single individual who could refrain from coughing and spitting; and the effect of the air of this place was felt by us very sensibly for some days after we left it. In fact, it is not only sulphureous fumes that are inhaled in the neighbourhood of the Fahlun mine; the exhalations are almost as various as the products of the mine: and were it not for the convincing proofs afforded by Assessor Gahn, Wood im- who obtained copper, by analysis, from the beams pregnated of the houses in Fahlun, a traveller might be suspected of exaggeration who should affirm that the timbers of the buildings here, in the course of thirty years, are worth working for with Cop per. the quantity of this metal which they contain. THY HEAD SHALL BE BRASS, AND THE EARTH CHAP. X. ment of the Great Close to the great crater of the mine there is Punishan enormous wooden image of a horse, elevated "Riding twelve or fifteen feet from the ground. Upon Horse." this image the miners who have been guilty of misconduct are placed, by way of punishment: and hence, perhaps, originated the old adage among our ancestors, which contains a caution against "riding the great horse." horse." Besides copper and vitriol, the mine of Fahlun produces, in small quantities, both silver and gold. Its other CHAP. Public Buildings. minerals are many of them peculiar to the spot. We collected several; and a list is subjoined, for the advantage of other travellers, of all the substances for which this mine and its neighbourhood are remarkable'. Fahlun contains six thousand inhabitants. It has several public buildings; and among these the following may be mentioned as the principal: I. THE TOWN HALL. II. TWO CHURCHES.-One for the inhabitants of the town, and the other for the parish at large. The town church is covered with copper: but a (1) " Plus gros 1. Dodecahedral crystals of garnet. Engeström says, the size he mentions. 2. Octahedral crystals of magnetic iron-oxide. 3. Massive loadstone. 4. Native sulphate of iron; blue, green, and white. 5. Sulphuret of copper in primary crystals. 6. Precipitated native copper in spherical particles. 7. Argentiferous and auriferous sulphuret of lead, crystallized. 8. Pot-stone. 9. Mineral pitch. 10. Amianthus. 11. Laminary sulphuret of zinc. 12. Automalite, in octahedral crystals. 13. Fahlunite, crystallized in hexahedral prisms. 14. Pyrophysalite, a curious variety of topaz. 15. Gadolinite. 16. Leelite. In this list it has not been deemed necessary to specify all the varieties of the common sulphurets of copper and iron. They are of course abundant. |