1839.] On the Egyptian system of Artificial Hatching. 43 



seven times every twenty-four hours the operation that I am going 

 to describe is practised. 



A man entirely naked enters by the door (N, fig. 2nd) ; he 

 either carries a light in his hand or he opens the hole of the 

 vault to procure light; he opens also the round hole in the centre 

 of the ground, and comes down through it to the inferior stove. 

 He carries all the eggs placed on the side V fig. 7th to the side U ; 

 and those of the side U to the side V. The eggs placed under the 

 central hole are found sensibly colder than those placed at V and U, 

 and these latter not so warm as those of the sides X and Z. Generally 

 they are heaped toward the corners. This operation is very neces- 

 sary not only to apply the heat to all the points of the egg, but to 

 apply it in the same proportion to all the eggs, so that development 

 may not be effected sooner in one than in another. This removing 

 of the eggs is performed during the day, and several times during the 

 night. Thus the affair proceeds till the 7th day. On this day, as on 

 the 8th, the whole of the groove before the door R R, fig. 5th, is not 

 filled with fire, but only 2 or 2£ feet near the entrance. By these 

 means the heat is diminished gradually ; and during these two days 

 the thermometer at its greatest height marks only 32° or 31° of Reau- 

 mur. . After the 8th day fire is no longer placed in the room. We should 

 naturally expect that the cell unprovided with fire would return to the 

 natural temperature of the surrounding air, but it is not so. We have 

 already said that in the oven there are eight cells destined to the 

 process of hatching. Three or four days after that on which the eggs have 

 been put in the first room, they are placed in the second, and so on 

 successively. The consequence is, that though one or two cells may be 

 without fire, the others contain it ; besides which fire is always burning 

 in the chambers wherein the fuel is prepared, the door of which is 

 never stopped, while its temperature ranges from 36° to 38°. All these 

 fires produce a degree of heat which diffuses itself through the whole 

 building, and maintains even in those rooms which are without fires 

 a temperature varying from 27° to 27|°. On the 14th day another 

 operation is performed. Half the eggs are left in the inferior room 

 (fig. 8th) and the other half are brought to the upper one upon a cir- 

 cular bed of tow (fig. 9th) ; in this way they continue wrapping 

 them up two or three times a day, but without bringing down those 

 from above, or carrying up those from below. To this operation of di- 

 viding the eggs they do not attach much importance. During my ob- 

 servations of the operation, this division was not executed till the 16th 

 day, because they had no tow ready to prepare the circular bed with. 

 When the eggs are divided, the man does not enter again through the 



