438 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



p. 89] this skeeling is the altan or balcony, as I may call 

 it, which goes round about the upper edge of the kiln. 

 Between the kiln-walls at the bottom and the screen, 

 skrank eller plank, the distance is commonly 6 feet. 

 The screen has two openings, one on each side of the 

 kiln, where they load the burned bits of chalk on to the 

 cart. 



The limekiln is always built close in to the place 

 where they break the chalk, that they might not have too 

 long a distance to carry the baskets and the chalk, there- 

 fore there are seen standing here and there unused old 

 limekilns, which they have left since they had quarried 

 away all the chalk near them, and it began to be too far 

 to carry the chalk-baskets. 



The women receive each about eightpence a day, for 

 which they work exceedingly hard, for they mostly labour 

 like slaves. 



They said they were paid in this way, that a woman 

 gets one penny when she has carried sixteen baskets of 

 chalk to the limekiln, and for this penny she had also 

 broken up a good deal of chalk. The man who had 

 charge of them, confirmed what the women had said, that 

 they receive one penny for sixteen baskets carried, at 

 which rate they can earn twelve, fifteen, or eighteenpence 

 a day, according as they are industrious. The men, 

 Karlarne, get either nine or ten shillings a week. Food 

 and everything they must find for themselves. 



A little way from Rochester on the Gravesend side 

 were several Chalkpits, out of which they took chalk, 

 which was loosened with crowbars, jarnstorar ; hacked 

 still farther to pieces with iron-hackers, jarnhackor, or 

 picks, and was finally beaten [T. II. p. go] with iron 

 pounders, jarn-knoster, into small lumps and bits, 

 which were afterwards carried to the kiln, where they 

 were burned to lime. 



