16
THE CAPITOL DOME
"We cast a bronze figure today
about 3 feet in height. It was cast in
plaster and brickdust mold. is had
been cooked and baked in the shop in
an envelope of sheet iron till it was per-
fectly dry. en buried in a hole dug in
the floor of the foundry and sand care-
fully rammed around it, so as to make
it very firm and secure.
160 pounds of bronze, of copper
8/10, tin 1/10, with an addition of
zinc 1/50. e weight of the statue and
its jets, as shown by the wax used in the
model, was to be 110 pounds.
e model was melted in 3 cham-
bers in the small furnace in the bronze
foundry, which is blown by a tube
from the fan at the smith shop. It
took about 2 hours to melt the metal.
e casting was perfectly successful,
and when the mold was broken aer
dinner, the casting having been made
at 11 ½ a.m., the figure came out with
no apparent defects."
Montgomery C. Meigs's Journal,
March 27, 1857
1
Fig. 1. Captain Montgomery C. Meigs