42 On the Egyptian system of Artificial Hatching. *g* [Jan 



which are not more than twenty-one days old, taken from a hen-yard 

 in which there is a cock. 



For combustibles the dry dung of animals is used, which the 

 Arabs reduce to small pieces with their hands ; this material they 

 call y^^Aj (di?ns). In the first room to the right hand two pyra- 

 mids of burning dims are formed, covered with common earth. 

 The dims must take fire slowly, without making a flame. It is 

 taken up with a fire shovel, put on to a plate of baked earth, and 

 afterwards placed in the grooves (Q Q, R R, fig. 5th) which have 

 been first half-filled with cold dims. Again a little dims is placed 

 upon the burning portion, and upon the whole a little earth is strewed. 

 The burning dims which is taken from the magazine is continually 

 replaced with an equal quantity of cold material. 



On the morning of the day destined to begin the operation the 

 fire is placed in the cell to warm it, and at sunset the 6000 eggs are 

 disposed in the manner explained. The fire is renewed three times 

 a day — at dawn, at midday, and at sunset ; there is however no 

 very religious exactitude observed in this. If the fire put on in the 

 evening is yet alive at the dawn of the subsequent day, it is. left, 

 and is not renewed till midday. In one instance, which I saw, 

 being ready about 12 o'clock to put on the fresh fire, a quarrel hap- 

 pened, and it was not put on till 3 o'clock. At sunset it was not re- 

 newed, and this dims lasted till the dawn of the subsequent day. 



When the new fire is put on, the door of the superior stove is left 

 open, also the hole of the vault, and if the fire is too strong, even the 

 small door of the inferior stove. The aperture in the ground of the 

 superior stove is always covered, as well as the two apertures in 

 the walls to the right and left hand. When the heat begins to 

 miti'gate and the smoke to disappear, all the small doors of the inferior 

 stove are stopped up, afterwards the hole at the top of the vault, and 

 lastly the door of the superior stove, which is not generally stopped. 

 The doors of all these apertures are merely handsful of tow for each. 

 When the fire is recent, and the heat at its greatest strength, the ther- 

 mometer marks 33° or 34° of Reaumur. When the fire is extinct, and 

 before it is renewed, the heat is 30° sometimes as low as 29°.* Six or 



* Reaumur. Fahrenheit. Centigrade. 

 24 = 86 = 30 

 28 = 95 = 35 

 32 =104 = 40 

 36 =113 = 45 



