Yet withal it is interesting for some of the commons or lanes that
spot and intersect the green, woody, undulating environs to view this
city of Tubal Cain. Torrents of thick smoke, with ever and anon a
burst of dingy flame, are issuing from a thousand funnels. 'A thousand
hammers fall by turns.' You hear the clank of innumerable steam
engines, the rumbling of cars and vans, and the hum of men interrupted
by the sharper rattle of some canal boat loading or disloading, or,
perhaps, some fierce explosion when the cannon founders [qy: the
proof-house] are proving their new-made ware. I have seen their
rolling-mills, their polishing of teapots, and buttons and
gun-barrels, and lire-shovels, and swords, and all manner of toys and
tackle. I have looked into their ironworks where 150,000 men are
smelting the metal in a district a few miles to the north: their coal
mines, fit image, of Arvenus; their tubes and vats, as large as
country churches, full of copperas and aqua fortis and oil of vitroil;
and the whole is not without its attractions, as well as repulsions,
of which, when we meet, I will preach to you at large.
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