76 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



but they have at first to be prepared for that purpose for 

 a long time, which is done in this way, that they are 

 spread out over a certain shallow pit or "pan," fait, 

 to lie out in the open air, so that the sun may get to 

 work freely upon them. Herr Seel told me that this 

 place where it is so prepared, has in the first place been 

 fitted for it in this way : they had dug so far into the 

 ground till they came to a solid clay that was able to 

 resist the percolation of the Vitriol-lye, for a looser kind 

 of earth would absorb the most of the Vitriol-lye, but 

 still as they could not trust to that they had laid the 

 bottom with chalk for a thickness of 4 to 6 feet, which 

 had become hard packed together : At all sides of this 

 pit or pan, the banks or walls were similarly made of 

 chalk, to a thickness of 4 to 6 feet ; but to be still more 

 sure that the Vitriol -juice could not escape, tranga sig 

 bart, either through the bottom or the sides of the pit, 

 dammen, both the bottom and the sides were rendered 

 with a plaster of gypsum called Terras, which has the 

 property that it afterwards hardens in water like stone. 

 Thus the bottom and sides were so prepared that 

 one could rest assured that the Vitriol-juice or lye, 

 Vitriolslakan eller luten, could not pass through 

 them. 



The bottom of this pit was not flat or a planum, but 

 was shaped like a number of ridges, or roofs of barns or 

 houses, side by side, in the lowest parts of which there 

 were always laid gutters of lead, rannor af bly, along 

 which the lye or juice afterwards came to run to the 

 house where the pans were in which the Vitriol was 

 boiled, kokadcs. On this bottom [T. I. p. 465] so 

 prepared the aforenamed Marcasite, Svafvel-kes, was 

 laid, everywhere a foot thick, when it was left to lie 

 under the open sky, that the sun, rain, and air got to 

 play freely on it. When the sun has been shining for a 



