1 1 6 S Y L V A BOOK in 



through the stuff which covers your heap to the very 

 wood, these in rangers of two or three foot distance, 

 quite round within a foot (or thereabout) of the top, 

 tho' some begin them at the bottom : A day after 

 begin another row of holes a foot and half beneath 

 the former, and so more, till they arrive to the ground, 

 as occasion requires. Note, that as the pit does coal 

 and sink towards the centre, it is continually to be 

 fed with short and fitting wood, that no part remain 

 unfir'd ; and if it chars faster at one part than at 

 another, there close up the vent-holes, and open them 

 where need is : A pit will in this manner be burning 

 off and charing, five or six days, and as it coals, the 

 smoak from thick and gross clouds, will grow more 

 blue and livid, and the whole mass sink accordingly ; 

 so as by these indications you may the better know 

 how to stop and govern your spiracles. Two or 

 three days it will only require for cooling, which 

 (the vents being stopped) they assist, by taking now 

 off the outward covering with a rabil or rubier ; but 

 this, not for above the space of one yard breadth at a 

 time ; and first remove the coursest and grossest of it, 

 throwing the finer over the heap again, that so it may 

 neither cool too hastily, nor endanger the burning 

 and reducing all to ashes, should the whole pit be 

 uncovered and expos'd to the air at once ; therefore 

 they open it thus round by degrees. 



When now by all the former symptoms you judge 

 it fully chared, you may begin to draw ; that is, to 

 take out the coals, first round the bottom, by which 

 means the coals, rubbish and dust sinking and falling 

 in together, may choak and extinguish the fire. 



Your coals sufficiently cooFd with a very long- 

 tooth'd rake, and a vann, you may load them into the 



