43° KALM'S ENGLAND. 



a pick, which is like such as we use to pick millstones 

 with, only that the edge of the pick does not go parallel 

 with the handle, but at right angles to or across the 

 shaft, as in a scarf-cutter, skarf-yxa, they hack the chalk 

 into still smaller pieces, so that the largest bits of chalk 

 are seldom larger than a clenched fist. The pick is about 

 two inches wide in the blade. The flints which are 

 found among the chalk are collected and laid in a heap, 

 to be preserved and afterwards sold. They next have a 

 ' Riddle,' ' Fiddle,' or sieve, et Rissel, of about 30 

 inches diameter, whose bottom is made of small iron 

 wires, the ' bars ' and ' slashers,' bound round with very 

 fine iron wires, or ' whippings.' These iron wires, i.e. 

 the bars and slashers, are set as usual in the sieve so as 

 to make it full of four-sided holes or squares. Every 

 side of such a square mesh is ij, if, or 2 inches. This 

 ' Riddle ' or ' Fiddle,' Rissel, was held by one person, 

 while another with a shovel cast the chopped-up chalk 

 therein, when it always happened that the pieces which 

 were smaller than the hole in the bottom of the fiddle 

 passed through and fell out, together with the chalk 

 which in the process of chopping had been reduced to 

 powder. The pieces of chalk which were left in the 

 fiddle were cast out into baskets, which were carried to 

 the limekilns to be burned to lime ; but the smaller 

 pieces which fell out through the holes of the fiddle 

 [T. II. p. 8o] r together with the fine meal, was left lying 

 on the bank, and was not carried to the lime kiln. The 

 reason why they will not use this is said to be that it 

 puts out the fire in the limekiln because it is so fine. 



Skafveln, the shovel which they took up the bits of 

 chalk with, was slightly concave, exactly like such shovels 

 as are used in granaries and salt-houses, only that it was 

 somewhat broader. The breadth, or latitude) transversa, 

 of the shovel blade was 22 inches ; latitudo perpendicu- 



