[Sca-cooks] Bells and their Casting was Cast Iron pots??

Daniel Phelps phelpsd at gate.net
Sun Jun 4 13:11:17 PDT 2006


Was written:

Antimony and/or arsenic may well have been added as hardening agents, or as unremovable impurites, depending on where the ore itself came from. Please keep in mind that at that time, and until fairly recently, while it was possible to make a substance quite pure, the techniques  for extreme purification of alloys and ores weren't developed until the use of electricity became common. In period documents, and even up towards modern times, there are often comments made about specific ores from specific mines being better for some purposes than others. 

Yes my early three Volume EB has extensive references under chemistry regarding the purification of ores of tin, copper, silver, gold, iron etc.  The original ore body for tin in the British Isles is in Cornwall if I recall correctly, hence the "Cousin Jacks" of the 1800's from there or was it Wales?  Where the copper, lead and zinc likely came from for that English bell foundry I do not recall.

Daniel
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