FACTS OBSERVED IN HATCHING. 135 



Egyptian Egg-oven. 



According; to the best descriptions of the Egyptian 

 mavnal, or hatching-oven, it is a brick structure about 

 nine feet high. The middle is formed into a gallery 

 about three feet wide and eight feet high, extending 

 from one end of the building to the other. This 

 gallery forms the entrance to the oven, and com- 

 mands its whole extent, facilitating the various ope- 

 rations indispensable for keeping the eggs at the 

 proper degree of warmth. On each side of this 

 gallery there is a double row of rooms, every room 

 on the ground-floor having one over it of precisely 

 the same dimensions, namely, three feet in height, 

 four or five in breadth, and twelve or fifteen in 

 length. These have a round hole for an entrance 

 of about a foot and a half in diameter, wide enough 

 for a man to creep through ; and into each are 

 put four or five thousand eggs. The number of 

 rooms in one mamal varies from three to twelve; and 

 the building is adapted, of course, for hatching from 

 forty to eighty thousand eggs, which are not laid on 

 the bare brick floor of the oven, but upon a mat, or 

 bed of flax, or other non-conducting material. 



