pipe is filled up
with the small sticks and twigs from the trees, and when all is in
readiness the contents of the cylinder are fired from the top, the fire
slowly burns downwards and sets light to the surrounding logs which in
their turn smoulder till they become charcoal. But the match is not
applied until the whole mass of wood has been covered up and plastered
over with mud, to prevent the entrance of any air. The kiln thus forms
an enclosed retort, and the wood is carbonised and makes excellent
charcoal, which eventually finds its way to Buenos Aires and other
cities, where immense quantities are used for cooking and heating
purposes. If all goes well, the kiln being well built, and no air
admitted, some thirty to forty tons of charcoal are produced from one of
these heaps; not infrequently, however, the crown breaks in; this allows
the air to enter, the wood is completely burnt, and the labour expended
on this "horno" is represented by a few cartloads of useless ash. The
thought of these possible failures was too much for The Instigator; he
held forth, at length, upon the advisability of bringing a little
science to bear upon the problem of preventing any waste of the material
itself or of the by-products. His theory is that to make the best use of
nature's lavish gifts in the way of wood products, an iron or brick
still should be erected, on the inside of which the heavy tarry products
would naturally accumulate, and so find their way to the base of the
kiln where they could be collected and run out into casks for
utilisation, whilst the lighter vapours are condensed in the hood of the
still to be chemically treated later for their highly valuable
properties, and the charcoal itself would be a more certain production
from these brick or iron kilns than it is from the present heaps. At
this point of his lecture the weather became impossible, and when The
Instigator discovered that he was expatiating to the camp and rain
alone, he, too, turned to seek the shelter of the estancia house,
whither his audience had long ago fled. For some time we watched the
storm as it worked up with intense fury. The lightning as it illuminated
the whole camp was a wonderful sight, it seemed to flash (and this was
before the dinner hour) yellow light from the north, red from the south,
and a bright white light from the east, and was of long continuance. The
culminating point seemed to come when an appalling crash was heard and
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