eams, one over each bellows, fixed upon centres across
another very large beam; at the longest end of these poises are open
boxes bound with iron, and the little end being fixed with harness to the
upper ends of the firketts are thus pressed down, and the bellows with it
by the working of the wheel, while the weight of the poises lifts them up
alternately as the wheel goes round."

No. V.
Dr. Parson's description of the mode of making Iron.

"After they have provided their ore, their first work is to calcine it,
which is done in kilns, much after the fashion of our ordinary
lime-kilns; these they fill up to the top with coal and ore untill it be
full, and so putting fire to the bottom, they let it burn till the coal
be wasted, and then renew the kilnes with fresh ore and coal: this is
done without any infusion of mettal, and serves to consume the more
drossy part of the ore, and to make it fryable, supplying the beating and
washing, which are to no other mettals; from hence they carry it to their
furnaces, which are built of brick and stone, about 24 foot square on the
outside, and near 30 foot in hight within, and not above 8 or 10 foot
over where it is widest, which is about the middle, the top and bottom
having a narrow compass, much like the form of an egg. Behind the
furnace are placed two high pair of bellows, whose noses meet at a little
hole near the bottom: these are compressed together by certain buttons
placed on the axis of a very large wheel, which is turned round by water,
in the manner of an overshot mill. As soon as these buttons are slid
off, the bellows are raised again by a counterpoise of weights, whereby
they are made to play alternately, the one giving its blast whilst the
other is rising.

"At first they fill these furnaces with ore and cinder intermixt with
fuel, which in these works is always charcoal, laying them hollow at the
bottom, that they may the more easily take fire; but after they are once
kindled, the materials run together into an hard cake or lump, which is
sustained by the furnace, and through this the mettal as it runs trickles
down the receivers, which are placed at the bottom, where there is a
passage open, by which they take away the scum and dross, and let out
their mettal as they see occasion. Before the mouth of the furnace lyeth
a great bed of sand, where they make furrows of the fashion they desire
to cast their iron: into these, when the receivers are full, the