52 
performs the necessary mechanical labor of the establishment. The smoke of ail 
the furnaces is conducted by flues to a large brick arched trunk, or common re¬ 
cipient, which leads to a chimney about 70 feet high ; this discharges the smoke 
and noxious vapours, and relieves the workmen from much of their baleful in¬ 
fluence. 
In the vicinity of the works, and, indeed, for miles round, there is scarcely 
the appearance of vegetation, and, in many places, not a trace of it can be seen. 
Every thing seems to droop and to die under the deleterious influence of the nox¬ 
ious gases emitted from the numerous furnaces: and where the surface of the 
ground was formerly covered with a rich sward, it is now furrowed by the action of 
the rains, and nothing can be made to grow on it. It is alike inimical to animal 
life. Horses and cattle are poisoned by it ; their limbs become swollen ; their eye¬ 
sight defective; their teeth drop out ; and they w'ould soon die if they were not re¬ 
moved at the end of two years, when their places are supplied by other victims. 
It is not so fatal to human beings, as they only breathe the arsenic and sulphur, 
while the poor beasts eat those substances from the herbage, on w'hich they are 
deposited; but that it is extremely prejudical toman there can be no doubt, al¬ 
though he is certainly less affected by it than one might suppose. I always felt 
extremely uncomfortable after my visit to the works, and imagined myself pretty 
well poisoned ; and, indeed, how could it well be otherwise, when the presence of 
arsenic, to say nothing of sulphur, was so perfectly obvious from its alliaceous 
smell I All suffer from it perceptibly, except the operatives, who are so laboriously 
employed as to excite profuse perspiration, which relieves them, in a great meas¬ 
ure, from its injurious action. 
Swansea is the greatest manufactory of copper in the world; and here nineteen- 
twentieths of the copper of the kingdoms is made. All the ores here reduced are 
brought from a distance—some from Valparaiso, some from Cuba, a small quanti¬ 
ty from New Orleans, and a large proportion from Cornwall and Devon, and some, 
but not a great deal, from Hollyhead, Anglesea, and from Ireland. It is now 250 
years since the first ores were shipped from Cornwall to Wales. The Cuba and 
South American ores yield about 20 per cent., sometimes, but rarely, 25. The 
Irish 10 to 12, and the Cornish 7^ to 8^. I could learn but little about the ores 
from the United States, except that they were pretty good. ’•Ores yielding- 20 per 
cent, of copper are worth at the furnaces, when prepared for smelting , from £18 
to £20 per ton, or betwen $90 and $100 per ton of 21cwt. The best metal is 
worth from £100 to £120 per ton, and the profits are said to be large. 
The following table (extracted from the official report of Mr. De la Beche, direc¬ 
tor of the Ordnance Geological Survey) of the foreign and British ores, sold at 
Swansea, by ticket, in the manner practised in Cornwall, may be useful in show¬ 
ing the amount of foreign copper ore imported into South Wales during the year, 
(ending 30th June, 1838 ;) as also the produce of some of the copper mines in Ire¬ 
land and Wales, for the same time : 
