434 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



the kiln. Thus prepared the coal is carried by women 

 in the above-described baskets, and is set around the 

 sides of the kiln, where the carl takes them, and throws 

 them into the kiln as he finds necessary. 



No one must think that the beds or strata of these 

 coals in the lime-kiln are so thick that when they have 

 laid such a bed upon the white chalk, the Ghalk can be no 

 more seen, but only black coal. By no means, these coal 

 beds are both thin and very porous. Two or three or four 

 such baskets, as have been before described with the 

 chalk, suffice for a stratum up at the highest edge of the 

 kiln, where it is widest. In the same way it is true of 

 the stratum of chalk, that the bits of chalk do not lie so 

 close, but that one can nearly everywhere see the bits of 

 coal between them. Someone may perhaps think that 

 the lime which is burned from this chalk must lose much 

 of its white colour, by reason of the black coal which is 

 mixed alternately with it ; or also may enquire whether the 

 coal is afterwards separated from the bits of chalk ? 

 The answer is that the coal is not separated from the 

 bits of chalk after the chalk is burned, nor would it admit 

 of this, because, as was said before, the bits of coal are 

 quite small, and a great part [T. II. p. 85], of them like 

 mere dust, but they remain and are blended together with 

 the chalk ; but it ought to be noted that when the coals are 

 burned they have lost all their black colour, and acquired 

 a light one, so that the chalk as far as regards its white- 

 ness takes very little harm on that account. Besides 

 that, they assert that a lime burned from chalk, which is 

 blended with powdered coal ashes will be much more 

 binding in the walls, than all other lime-mortars, which 

 quality they attribute to the coal-ashes. 



At every kiln there are six persons, three men and 

 three women. Two of the carls have the charge of 

 breaking the chalk loose, and of hewing it into small 



