534 



BOOK XL 



wooden part nine feet. Round about the " dried " cakes are placed large 

 long pieces of charcoal, and in the pipe are placed medium-sized pieces. 

 When all these things have been arranged in this manner, the fire must be 

 more violently excited by the blast from the bellows. When the copper is 

 melting and the coals blaze, the master pushes an iron bar into the middle 

 of them in order that they may receive the air, and that the flame can force 

 its way out. This pointed bar is two and a half feet long, and its wooden 

 handle four feet long. When the cakes are partly melted, the master, passing 

 out through the door, inspects the crucible through the bronze pipe, and if he 

 should find that too much of the " slag " is adhering to the mouth of the pipe, 

 and thus impeding the blast of the bellows, he inserts the hooked iron bar 

 into the pipe through the nozzle of the beUows, and, turning this about the 

 mouth of the pipe, he removes the " slags " from it. The hook on this bar 

 is two digits high ; the iron part of the handle is three feet long ; the wooden 

 part is the same number of palms long. Now it is time to insert the bar 

 under the iron plate, in order that the " slags " may flow out. When the 

 cakes, being all melted, have run into the crucible, he takes out a sample of 

 copper with the third round bar, which is made wholly of iron, and is three feet 

 long, a digit thick, and has a steel point lest its pores should absorb the copper. 



A — Pointed bar. B — Thin copper layer. C — Anvil. D — Hammer. 



