T I N 



480 



T I \ 



to north-north-east, ami Uie breadth it about half a* much. 

 The soil u som y antl healthy. 



The land rise* in gentle alopM from the brach to the 

 middle of the island, but the . i'tcii interrupted 



\s, many ol which wind irregularly 

 through Un- country. These valleys nod the gradual 

 >f tho ground are most beautifully diversified by 

 an alternation of woods and lawns, which traverse the 

 island. The woods consul of tall and well-spread tree*, 

 mostly without under-wood, and the lawns are covered 

 with a clean turf composed of \cn fine trefoil and inter- 

 mixed with a variety of flowers. There are no running 



ins, but good water is found by digging a fe 

 In-low the surface, and near the middle of the island there 

 .ire three small lakes. Black cattle, in a wild state, are 

 numerous, and at the time of Anson's \i-n :ln- number was 

 computed to amount to at least ten thousand. Our com- 

 mon domestic fowl is plentiful in the woods, and several 

 kinds of wild fowl are found in the lakes. There is also an 

 abundance of wild hogs. Besides the cocoa-nut palm and 

 the bread-fruit tree there are guavas, limes, and sweet and 

 sour oranges, and antiscorbutic plants in mvat abundance, 

 by the use of which the crew of the Centurion, the vessel 

 commanded by Lord Anson, which suffered much by the 

 -<ored tp health in a short time. Tin-re is 

 no harbour, but only an open roadstead near the south- 

 western extremity of the island, which is dangerous during 

 the prevalence of the western monsoon, from .June to Oc- 

 tober, but tolerably safe during the remainder of tin 



^f round the ll'nriil ; Kotzcbuc's Voyage 

 wry i'nt'i tin- S>,uth Sfd, $c.) 

 ' TINNKVKI.I.Y. [HiNjH STAN, p. 203.1 



TINNING, TIN-I'I.ATK MANUFACTURE. The art 

 of tinning, or of coating other metals with a thin layer of 

 tin, so as to protect them from oxidation, was known to 

 the antients. although it does not appear to have 

 very extensively practised. Professor Beckmann, in his 

 investigation into the early history of tin and tinning Hit- 

 lory 'if Inrrntinns, English edit, of 1814, vol. iv.. pp. 1-45), 



- that we have no account of the process antien; 

 ployed in tinning, although the use of the words incoquere 

 and tiir<jcti/iii by Pliny seems to indicate that it was per- 

 formed by immersing the vessels in melted tin. The de- 

 gree of perfection to which the process was carried is indi- 

 lement, accompanied by an expression of 

 wonder, to the effect that the tinning did not increase the 

 weight of the vessels, which shows that the tin must have 

 been applied, as at present, in a very thin layer. 



The art of tinning plate-iron is more modern than 

 that of coating copper vessels with tin, and is sup- 

 posed to have been invented either in Bohemia or in Ger- 

 many. Mr. Parkes, in a paper on the manufacture of tin- 

 plate, or tinned sheet-iron, addressed to the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society of Manchester, in 1818, which was 

 published in their ' Memoirs' (Second series, vol. iii., pp. 

 :M7-380), states that our ancestors, from time immemorial, 

 procured that article from Bohemia and Saxony, where 

 the manufacture was established near the tin-mines of the 

 Erzgebirge mountains, which were the most extcnsi\c in 

 F.urope after those of Cornwall. From the time of the in- 

 vention of tin-plate down to the close of the seventeenth 

 iry, if not later, both Kngland and the whole conti- 

 nent of Europe depended upon the above-named countries 

 for their supply of tin-plate ; but about the year 1665 an 

 attempt was made to introduce the manufacture into Kuir- 

 land. cntlemen who sent the ingenious Andrew 



.'iton int obtain information respecting it. 



Yarranton's account of the experiment . which is quoted at 

 length by Parkes, was published in li;s|. in the second 

 part of his curious work entitled ' England's Impro-. 

 by Sea and Land,' now very ran-. lie was allowed freely 

 to inspect the tinning establishments, and li<- 

 well acquainted with the process, that alter his return to 

 i ml he made many thousand plates of iron, from the 

 -t of Dean, tinned with Cornish tin, the quality oi 

 which wai admitted to be even auperior to that of the 

 an tin-plates, which they surpassed in toughness and 

 flexibility. Before however the new manufacture could 

 be fairly established, its promoters were stopped by a 

 patent, which Yarranton says was 'humped up' for 'the 

 purpose by parties possessing court influence. The pa- 

 tentees did not understand the art sufficiently to enable 



them to succeed, and thus England remained dependent 

 for some years upon the ('. r a mann!; 



which she possessed the create-- Parkes 



that he does not liml 



was established in this country until between 17-" and 

 17.><). and that the first wn . ponl. in Monmouth- 



shire, where, according to Watson's Chemical 

 was practised as early as 1730. Shortly before thru time 

 t was introduced into France by M. Ke.mniur. v. ho 

 communicated an account of the process, as practised by 

 the Germans, to the French Academy of Sciences in the 



7-">. in a paper which was translated by I 

 published iii the .T>th volume rf the ' Philosophical Trans- 

 uctions' (No. 406, published in December. 172H). I 

 introductory remarks Hutty states that the making of tin- 

 plates, or, as they were sometimes called, ltttt< -i> or lutlin, 

 was not commonly practised in Kngland, notwithstanding 

 the great consumption : and that we were obliged ' 

 port our own tin to Germany, and to receive it ! 

 when manufactured. Anderson (Hilt, of Cominerot, 1O\. 

 iii., p. 220) states that about 17-10 the manufacture of tin- 

 plate was brought to such perfection in England thai 

 little was imported from foreign countries, and thai 

 British manufacture was superior to the foreign in glossi- 

 ness of surface, owing to the plates being drawn um 

 rolling-mill, instead of being hammered, as was common 

 in those made beyond sea. The difficulty of extending 

 iron, in what may be deemed the infancy of the manulac- 

 ture, into thin uniform sheets, with a \ nooth and 



clean surface, which is essential to the adhesion of the tin 

 in an equal film, was one of the principal the 



progress of this department of the art of tinning. 



The process of tinning depends upon the strong affinity 

 which exists between tin and the metals to which it is ap- 

 plied, and it co: tially, in rendering the si 

 to be tinned perfectly clean and free from oxide, and then 

 bringing it into contact with melted tin, which forms an 

 alloy with the harder metal, imparts to it a bright B 

 appearance, and protects it from oxidation. The tinning 

 of sheet-iron, as the most important application of the 

 process, will be first noticed. This operation is min 

 described by Mr. Parkes. in the paper above cited, liom 

 which, with occasion:*' t" more recent accounts, 

 the following description iscondeix d. Reaumur's account 

 of the German pi-ore--, in the Philosophical 'IV.- 

 may also be consulted by those who are curious as to the 

 details of the earlier method of tinning, which 

 that about to be described in all essential points. 



The finest English or Welsh bar-iron, prepared with 

 charcoal, instead of mineral coke, and known to the trade 

 as tiii-inm, is used for making tin-plates. This material 

 is first, made into flat bars, or slabs, about thirty inches 

 long, six inches wide, and weighing eighty pounds. These 

 bars are made red-hot, and exit issing them re- 



dly between rollers, until they are rcducul to about 

 three-eighths of an inch in thickness. YA'hen cooled, these 

 are cut by shears, worked by machinery, into plates 

 about ten inches by six, which are 

 and rolled, until they are reduced to as thin a s- 

 process will conveniently allow. The sheet is then d(n 

 and again rolled until reduced in thickness one-half. 

 which it is doubled again, and rolled until still further 

 diminished in thickness. When thus brought to the re- 

 quired tenuity, the thin sheet is cut into plates of the 

 required to suit the market (most commonly about thirteen 

 inches by ten'i. and then the several thicknesses or lamimr 

 paiated, an operation which needs the application 

 .-I considerable force, as the compir-Mcm of the 



- them to adhere strongly together. Pa 

 that the cutting of the plates wa-. wlun he wn 

 performed with hand-shears, but that an ingenious white- 

 smith in Glamorganshire had invented a machine for the 

 purpose, which wa> impelled by a \\: : nd would 



cut A quantity equal to a hundred boxes (of two hundred 

 and twenty-five plates e:<.-h in a day, which is four limes 

 as much a.s a hand-shearer could accomplish. Alter 

 shearing, the plates are piled in h<-.ips. one being laid 

 cross-wise at intervals, to separate the number required to 

 form a box. That name is technically applied to the 

 number of plates just mentioned in all the subsequent pro- 

 . although it is not until they arc completed that 

 the plates are actually placed in boxes. 



