THE PLUMBER.

The business of the Plumber consists in casting and working of lead, and using it in buildings. He furnishes us with a cistern for water, and with a sink for a kitchen ; he covers the house with lead, and makes the gutters to carry away the water ; he makes pipes of all sorts and sizes, and sometimes he casts leaden statues as ornaments for the garden. The plumber also is employed in making coffins for those who are to be interred out of the usual way. He also fits up water-closets and makes pumps.

Lead is an article which has been in use from a very remote period amongst different nations of the world. We have not been enabled to ascertain the commencement of the trade under our immediate consideration, but workers in lead must have been coeval with the discovery of the metal. That the plumber must be an ancient trade is evident : for we find that in France, as early as the middle of the seventeenth century, plumbers in that country formed one of the incorporated companies, with statutes for their particular government.

Lead is obtained from mines, and is frequently combined with sulphur, hence it is called a sulphuret. The operation of roasting the ore, or smelting it, as it is called to obtain the pure metal, consists, in picking up the mineral to separate the unctuous rich or pure ore, and the stony matrix and other impurities, in pounding the picked ore under the stampers, in washing the pulverized ore, to carry off the matrix by the water ; in roasting the mineral in a reverberatory furnace, taking care to stir it, to facilitate the evaporation of the sulphur. When the surface begins to become of the consistence of paste, it is covered with charcoal, the mixture is shaken, the fire increased, and the lead flows down on all sides to the bottom of the basis of the furnace, from trhich it is drawn off into moulds or patterns prepared to receive it, the moulds are made so as to take a charge of metal equal to one hundred and fifty pounds. These are called, in common, pigs of lead.

Plumbers use a great deal of sheet lead ; of this they have two kinds, one which they call cast, and the other milled lead. The cast lead is used for covering the ftat roofs of terraces, buildings, gutters, lining reservoirs, &c. It is technically divided into 5, 5 and a half, 6, 6 and a half, 7, 7 and a half, 8, 8 and a half lbs. by which is understood that every foot superficial of such cast lead is to contain these several weights of metal, in each foot respectively.

Every plumber who does any business of consequence, casts his sheet lead at home : which he does from the pigs. To perform
which he provides a copper well fixed in masonry, and placed at one end of the casting shop and near to the mould or casting table.The casting table is generally in its form a parallelogram, varying in its size from six feet in width to eighteen or more feet in length ; it is raised from the ground as high as to be about six or seven inches below the top of the copper which contains the metal, and stands on strongly-framed legs, so as to be very steady and firm. The top of the table is lined by deal boarding, laid very even and firm, and it has a rim projecting upwards four or five inches all round it. At the end of the table, nearest to the copper in which is the heated lead, is adapted a box equal in length to the width of the table ; at the bottom of this is made a horizontal slit, from which the heated metal is to issue, when. it is to be cast into sheets. This box moves upon rollers along the edges of the projecting rim of the table, and is set in motion by ropes and pulleys; fixed to beams over the table. As soon as the metal is found to be adequately heated, everything is gotten ready to cast it on the table, the bottom of which is then covered with a stratum of dry and clean sand, and a rake applied to smooth it regularly all over the surface. When this is done the box is brought up close to the copper. It must be observed, that these boxes are made in their capacity, equal to the containing of as much of the melted lead, as will cast the whole of the sheet at the same time, and the slit in the bottom is adjusted so as to let as much and no more out during its progress along the table, as will be suffcient to cover it completely of the thickness and weight per foot required. When the box has dispersed its contents upon the table, the lead is suffered to cool, when it is rolled up and removed away, and other sheets are made till all the melted metal is used. The sheets so formed are rolled up and weighed.

Milled lead is not manufactured by the plumber, but is purchased of the lead merchant, as it is cast and prepared at the ore and
roasting furnace. Such kind of lead is very thin, and has commonly not more than four pounds of metal to the superficial foot. In
the operation of making it, a roller or a flatting mill is used, whence its name.

If a cistern is wanted, the four sides are measured out, and the figures intended to be raised on the front are formed in the sand, and the lead cast as before; the sides are then soldered together, after which the bottom is soldered in.

Pipes are cast in a kind of mill, with arms or levers to turn it. The moulds are of hollow brass, consisting of two pieces, about two feet and half long, which open and shut by means of hinges and hooks. In the middle of these moulds is placed a core, or round solid piece of brass or iron, somewhat longer than, the mould. This core is passed through two copper rundles, one at each end of the mould, which they serve to close; to these is joined a little copper tube two inches long, and of the thickness of the intended leaden pipe. These tubes retain the core exactly in the middle of the cavity of the mould, and then the lead is poured in through an aperture in the shape of a funnel. When the mould is full, a hook Is pat into the "core, and, turning the mill, it is drawn out and the pipe is made. If it is to be lengthened, they put one end of it in the lower end of the mould, and the end of the core into it, then shut the mould again, and apply its rundle and tube as before, the pipe just cast serving for a rundle, &c, at the other end. Metal is again poured in, which unites with the other pipe, and so the operation is repeated till the pipe is of the length required.

Large pipes of sheet lead are made by wrapping the lead on wooden cylinders of the proper length, and then soldering in the edges.
Solder is used by the Plumber for the purpose of securing the joints of lead-work in cases in which a lap or roll joint cannot be
employed. It is a general rule with respect to solder, that it should always be easier of fusion than the metal which is intended to be
soldered by it : next to this, care must be taken that the solder be, as far as it be possible, of the same colour as the metal intended
to be soldered. Soft solder is composed of tin and lead, in equal parts, fused together: after which, it is run into moulds, in shape
not unlike a gridiron. For common purposes, however, a mixture of pewter and lead is mere economically used. The iron used in
finishing or melting, in order to finish a joint in the process of soldering, is called a grozing-iron.

The different kinds of pumps and water-closets we hare not room to describe; we must, therefore, refer the student to more
elaborate works.

The lead which lines the Chinese tea-chests is reduced to a thinness which, we are informed, Europeans cannot imitate. The following account of the process in China is by an intelligent mate of an East Indiaman. The caster sits by a pot containing the melted metal, and has two large stones, the under one fixed, the upper moveable, directly before him. He raises the upper stone by pressing his foot upon the side of it, and with an iron ladle pours into the opening a proper quantity of the fluid metal.He then immediately lets fall the upper stone, and by that means forms the lead into a thin irregular plate, which is afterwards cut into a proper shape. The sufaces of the stones, where they touch each other, are exactly ground together.

In the country it is not uufrequent to find that the business of a plumber, glazier, and painter, is united in the same person ; but the
plumbing trade is of itself in London reckoned a very good one for one master. The health of the men is often injured by the
femes of the lead. Journeymen earn about thirty shillings a week ; and we recommend earnestly to lads brought up to either of the before-mentioned trades, - that they cultivate cleanliness and strict sobriety, and that they never, on any account, eat their meals, or retire to rest at night, before they have well washed their hands and face.