29,-i 



ON THE BORACIC ACID OF CENTRAL ITALY. 





Tons. cwt. 





Tons. cwt. 



1847 ... 



... 1,043 13 



1854 ... 



... 1,319 7 



1848 ... 



... 1,043 13 



1855 ... 



... 1,332 19 



1849 ... 



... 1,043 13 



1856 ... 



... 1,427 1 



1850 ... 



... 1,043 13 



1857 ... 



... 1,711 4 



1851 ... 



... 1,040 



1858 ... 



... 2,026 10 



1852 ... 



1 QFIQ 



... 1,156 19 

 ... 1,208 19 



1859 ... 



... 1,830 18 



ioo<5 ... 







Total .. 





... 29,972, 18 



In 1861, more than 1,800 tons. 



I should not consider my description of the lagoons complete -with- 

 out being permitted to turn the attention of the reader to the character 

 of Count Lardarel, the originator of the works, who died in 1858. 

 Endowed with great enthusiasm, combined with indomitable perseve- 

 rance, he carried out many grand ideas ; his mind seems ever to have 

 been bent on some useful project. He became the master of a truly 

 colossal fortune by his well-merited and praiseworthy exertions ; and 

 by giving employment to a great number of the working-classes in Leg- 

 horn and other towns, as well as on his establishments, he rendered great 

 public service. Italy, bis adopted country, will ever be grateful for the 

 oasis which he has planted in the midst of the most sterile lands of the 

 Maremme. A picture of the Piazza delF Industria, at Lardarello, will 

 convey some idea of the man. 



On one side is a handsome block of buildings, including the neces- 

 sary offices, a laboratory, museum of mineralogy, apothecary's shop, 

 philharmonic society, boys' and girls' schools, and weaving looms for 

 the wives and daughters of the workmen. In the centre of this terrace 

 is a very handsome church, the priest also performing the office of 

 schoolmaster. Opposite is a neat and spacious hospital, to which are 

 attached a physician and surgeon, as is the case in all the other estab- 

 lishments. On another side is the house in which the count lived when 

 he came to inspect the works, and a neat little theatre, where the men 

 amuse themselves by getting up plays. In the centre of two large 

 squares are the marble statues of the late Grand Duke Leopold I., and 

 an allegorical figure of Industry. I might mention the establishment 

 of road communication, by means of a bridge which cost 20,000/., over 

 ground very unfavourable for its erection ; the space under one of the 

 archways having been made into a paper manufactory. I must not for- 

 get the shops where the men may purchase necessary commodities, nor 

 the model lodging-houses, where they have apartments for themselves 

 and families. Who can view these institutions, so well calculated to 

 advance the social condition of the still too ignorant working classes in 

 Italy, without being pardoned for digressing for a moment from the 

 more beaten track of technological description ? 



The count established a fund, by which the men, relinquishing a day's 

 wage? per month, are free to the enjoyment of the whole of these liberal 



