107 
he encountered much opposition, notwithstanding which the process 
was taken up and wrought by a private company in 1847, who 
acquired the Spitty Works at Swansea for the purpose, the result 
of which was that at the end of the first year the hooks showed a 
net profit amounting to <£19,000, or upwards of 55 per cent., £900 
of which fell to Mr Napier’s share. Tn 1844 he devised and 
described a process for extracting silver from its ores by calcination 
with common salt, which was, in principle, identical with the 
“ wet process,” devised by Mr William Henderson many years later, 
for the extraction of copper from poor ores. He also, some time there- 
after, patented a method for the removal of tin, antimony, arsenic, 
&c., from poor Cornish ores. In 1852 he revised and extended 
some magazine papers which he had previously published, and they 
were published and issued by Messrs Griffin & Co., under the title 
of A Manual of the Art of Dyeing. This was succeeded by his 
well-known hook entitled A Manual of Electro-Metallurgy , which 
in 1860 reached a fourth edition. 
Mr Napier returned to Glasgow in 1849, and to his native place — - 
Partick — in 1852, where he engaged in literary work and interested 
himself in its sanitary condition, analysing its potable waters, and 
instigating the movement which led to Partick being made a Police 
Burgh for its own local government. For several years he thus 
occupied himself, but retained his laboratory, employing himself as 
an investigating and consulting chemist. In 1860 he was requested 
by the Marquis of Breadalbane to visit and inspect a copper mine 
on his estate at Killin, on the south side of Loch Tay, which had 
been worked for years without profit, the result of which was that the 
works were started on the spot, under Mr Napier’s superintendence, 
for preparation of copper regulus and the manufacture of sulphuric 
acid and artificial manures, but owing to the failure in the quality 
of the ore from the mine these were soon suspended. In 1861 he 
returned to Glasgow, and commenced business as consulting chemist, 
where he continued till 1864, when he erected sulphuric acid works 
at Vinegar Hill, near Glasgow, the operations of which occupied his 
time and attention for six or seven years. Being then relieved of 
the active management by his son, he returned to his literary 
pursuits, and soon produced his Notes and Reminiscences of 
Partick (1873), Ancient Workers in Metals , Manufacturing 
