TINNING, GPLATING, &C. 313 



rolled by hand rollers, to a greater or less extent, according to the 

 use for which it is intended ; the thinnest is applied to the lining of 

 drinking horns. One ounce of silver is often rolled out into a sur- 

 face of about three square feet, and its thickness is about the three 

 thousandth part of an inch ; and hence we need not wonder at 

 the silver being soon worn off from the sharp angles of plated cop- 

 per, when it is rolled to so great an extent. Plated copper has, 

 of late years, become very fashionable for the mouldings of coaches, 

 and for the buckles, rings, &c. of horse harness. It might be 

 used very advantageously in kitchen utensils, by those who dislike 

 the use of tinned copper, and cannot afford to be at the expence of 

 silver saucepans., &c. The silver, instead of being rolled on the 

 copper to so great a thinness as it is in most works, might be left 

 in kitchen furniture considerably thicker, so that an ounce of sil. 

 ver might be spread over one square foot ; the silver coating would 

 in this case still be very thin, yet it would last a long time. Fire 

 does not consume silver, and the waste in thickness, which a piece 

 of plate sustains from being in constant use for a century, is not 

 much.; as may be collected from comparing the present weight of 

 any piece of college plate, which has been daily used, with the 

 weight it had an hundred years ago. 



I do not know whether any attempt has ever been made to plate 

 copper with tin instead of silver ; I am aware of some difficulty, 

 which might attend the operation; but yet it might, I think, be 

 performed ; and if it could, we might then have copper vessels 

 covered with a coat of tin of any required thickness, which is the 

 great desideratum in the present mode of tinning : but it ought 

 to be remarked, that the thicker the coat of tin the more liable it 

 would be to be melted off the copper by strong fires. 



The art of plating copper has not been long practised in Eng- 

 land ; nor do I know whether it was practised at an early period 

 in any other country ; for the Roman method of silvering copper 

 was different, I think, from that now in use. Thomas Bolsover 

 of Sheffield, in the year 1742, was the first person in Eng- 

 land who plated copper ; it was applied by him to the purposes 

 only of making buttons and snuff-boxes: soon after it was used 

 for various other works : a person of the name of Hoy land, at 

 Sheffield, was the first who made a plated candlestick. 



What is commonly called French plate, is not to be confounded 

 with the plated copper of which we have been speaking; for though 



