hut,
if they stole Lead for the third time, they were fastened to the "
stowe " (windlass), each with a knife stuck through his hand to the
haft, the only chance of getting set at liberty being to cut loose the
maimed hand.
Crude
Lead Ore is the Sulphide of this metal— " Galena." The fumes, or
vapours, given off from Lead smelting are poisonous ; so that all the
grass, and other plants around the furnaces die.
When
left in the air, Lead (sheet Lead, etc.) oxidises slightly, and thus
becomes self-protected from corrosion. But many kinds of water will
corrode, and eat away Lead, any such water, if conveyed through leaden
pipes, becoming dangerous for drinking purposes. The Chinese make
sheet-Lead for enwrapping tea (within their tea-chests) by pouring
melted Lead on to a flat stone, then putting another flat stone on top
of the first slab, and thus pressing out the Lead thin. Snuff is
enclosed likewise within similar thin sheet Lead. Whether or not these
articles suffer some small measure of deterioration by continued close
contact with the Lead, is an open question.
In literary association with Snuff, one calls to mind the graphic personal description among the Benchers of Inner Temple, by Charles Lamb (Essays of Elia), respecting
Thomas Coventry ; " whom what insolent familiar dare have mated ? " "
whose person was a quadrate, his step massy, and elephantine, his face
square as the lion's, his gait peremptory, and path-keeping,
indivertible from his way as a moving column, the scare-crow of. his
inferiors, the brow-beater of equals, and superiors, who made a
solitude of children wherever he came, for they fled his insufferable
presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear. His growl was as
thunder
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