THE OVENS. 



147 



boiling-houses in the British sugar-islands is 

 arranged in such a manner as to render the 

 labour much less violent, and much greater 

 nicety has been introduced in the preparation 

 of the juice. 



The boilers are fixed at a considerable height 

 over the large ovens within which the fire is 

 made. Each boiling-house has two ovens, one 

 for heating the caldron and the other for the 

 three or four coppers. The mouths of these are 

 about half as broad as the ovens themselves. 

 Enormous rolls of timber and the branches of 

 trees are prepared for the purpose of supplying 

 these ovens with fuel. The negroes sometimes 

 find it almost impossible to approach them, 

 owing to the excessive heat which they throw 

 out. * The manner of conducting the manu- 

 facture of sugar was, from what I can collect, 

 very similar, on the whole, in the Columbian 

 islands about the beginning of the last century, 

 to that which is practised at present in the parts 

 of Brazil which I visited. 



ceptible d'humidite, que celui qui a tte bien seche dans une 

 bonne &uve." — Tom. iii, p. 205. 



In the fourth volume of the Nouveau Voyage, p. 106. to 

 110., is a description of an oven for drying clayed sugars; 

 this would be interesting to Brazilian readers, but it is too 

 long to excuse insertion before a British public. 



* The long improved ovens, such as are used in the Cov 

 lumbian islands, are beginning to be introduced. 



