148 Account of the 



Tlie building- in which the pots are fixed is called the Stotv. 

 The plates are worked from the right to the left of the stow, as 

 will be evident by attending to the uses of the separate pots. 

 No. 1. represents the tin-pot. 



2. The wash-pot with the parting within it. 



3. The grease-pot. 



4. The pan, containing a grating at the bottom*. 



5. The list-pot. 



The drawing represents the surface of the pots. The asterisks 

 shew the places where the workmen stand, and also mark those 

 pots which have heated flues under them. No. 4 has no fire 

 under it. 



The parting in the wash-pot No, 2, is a late improvement. 

 The design of it is to keep the dross of the tin from lodging in 

 that part of the vessel where the last dip is given to the plates. 

 By using the common tin in the first process of tinning, much 

 oxide, or dross, adheres to the surface of the plates, and this 

 runs off in the wash-pot, and comes to the face of the new metal 

 — but this parting enables the operator to prevent it from 

 spreading over the whole surface of the pot. Were it not for 

 this parting, the wash-man must skim the oxide off" the fluid 

 metal every time he puts plates into it. 



The pots, of which I have given a sketch, being all in a state 

 of fitness, the wash-man commences his part of what remains of 

 the business, by putting the plates which have undergone the 

 various operations hitherto described into the vessel of grain-tin 

 called the wash-pot f. The heat of this large body of melted 

 metal soon melts all the loose tin on the surface of these plates, 

 and so deteriorates the quality of the whole mass, that it is usual, 

 when sixty or seventy boxes have been washed in the grain tin, 

 to take out the quantity of a block, say three hundred weight, 

 and replenish the wash-pot with a fresh block of pure grain tin. 

 These vessels generally hold three blocks each, or about half a 



* This pan is designed for the reception of the plates as the boy takes 

 them out of the grease-pot. It has no fire underneath it. 



+ None but ^rai« tin is ever put iuto this vessel, for the whole of the 

 common tin which is consumed in such manufactories, is used in the yirrt 

 process, viz., that which is called tinning. 



