378 BOOK IX. 



forehcarth pit is full, then afterward this is hollowed out with a curved 

 blade ; this blade is of iron, two palms and as many digits long, three digits 

 wide, blunt at the top and sharp at the bottom. The crucible of the fore- 

 hearth must be round, a foot in diameter and two palms deep if it has to 

 contain a centumpondium of lead, or if only seventy librae, then three palms 

 in diameter and two palms deep like the other. When the forehearth has 

 been hollowed out it is pounded with a round bronze rammer. This is 

 five digits high and the same in diameter, having a curved round handle 

 one and a half digits thick ; or else another bronze rammer is used, which 

 is fashioned in the shape of a cone, truncated at the top, on which is 

 imposed another cut away at the bottom, so that the middle part of the 

 rammer may be grasped by the hand ; this is six digits high, and five digits 

 in diameter at the lower end and four at the top. Some use in its place a 

 wooden spatula two and a half palms wide at the lower end and one palm 

 thick. 



The assistant, having prepared the forehearth, returns to the furnace and 

 besmears both sides as well as the top of the mouth with simple lute. In the 

 lower part of the mouth he places lute that has been dipped in charcoal 

 dust, to guard against the risk of the lute attracting to itself the powder 

 of the hearth and vitiating it. Next he lays in the mouth of the furnace a 

 straight round rod three quarters of a foot long and three digits in diameter. 

 Afterward he places a piece of charcoal on the lute, of the same length and 

 width as the mouth, so that it is entirely closed up ; if there be not at hand 

 one piece of charcoal so large, he takes two instead. When the mouth is thus 

 closed up, he throws into the furnace a wicker basket full of charcoal, and in 

 order that the piece of charcoal with which the mouth of the furnace is closed 

 should not then fall out, the master holds it in with his hand. The pieces 

 of charcoal which are thrown into the furnace should be of medium size, for 

 if they are large they impede the blast of the bellows and prevent it from 

 blowing through the tap-hole of the furnace into the forehearth to heat it. 

 Then the master covers over the charcoal, placed at the mouth of the furnace, 

 with lute and extracts the wooden rod, and thus the furnace is prepared. 

 Afterward the assistant throws four or five larger baskets full of charcoal 

 into the furnace, filling it right up ; he also throws a little charcoal 

 into the forehearth, and places glowing coals upon it in order that it may 

 be kindled, but in order that the flames of this fire should not enter through 

 the tap-hole of the furnace and fire the charcoal inside, he covers the tap-hole 

 with lute or closes it with fragments of pottery. Some do not warm the 

 forehearth the same evening, but place large charcoals round the edge of it, one 

 leaning on the other ; those who follow the first method sweep out the 

 forehearth in the morning, and clean out the httle pieces of charcoal and 

 cinders, while those who follow the latter method take, early in the morning, 

 burning firebrands, which have been prepared by the watchman of the works, 

 and place them on the charcoal. 



At the fourth hour the master begins his work. He first inserts a 

 small piece of glowing coal into the furnace, through the bronze nozzle-pipe 



