ages, and on these primitive couches the tired
workers slept soundly.

They also reckoned the days they had passed on Lincoln Island, and from
that time kept a regular account. The 5th of April, which was Wednesday,
was twelve days from the time when the wind threw the castaways on this
shore.

On the 6th of April, at daybreak, the engineer and his companions were
collected in the glade, at the place where they were going to perform
the operation of baking the bricks. Naturally this had to be in the open
air, and not in a kiln, or rather, the agglomeration of bricks made an
enormous kiln, which would bake itself. The fuel, made of well-prepared
fagots, was laid on the ground and surrounded with several rows of dried
bricks, which soon formed an enormous cube, to the exterior of which
they contrived air-holes. The work lasted all day, and it was not till
the evening that they set fire to the fagots. No one slept that night,
all watching carefully to keep up the fire.

The operation lasted forty-eight hours, and succeeded perfectly. It then
became necessary to leave the smoking mass to cool, and during this time
Neb and Pencroft, guided by Cyrus Harding, brought, on a hurdle made of
interlaced branches, loads of carbonate of lime and common stones,
which were very abundant, to the north of the lake. These stones, when
decomposed by heat, made a very strong quicklime, greatly increased by
slacking, at least as pure as if it had been produced by the calcination
of chalk or marble. Mixed with sand the lime made excellent mortar.

The result of these different works was, that, on the 9th of April,
the engineer had at his disposal a quantity of prepared lime and some
thousands of bricks.

Without losing an instant, therefore, they began the construction of
a kiln to bake the pottery, which was indispensable for their domestic
use. They succeeded without much difficulty. Five days after, the kiln
was supplied with coal, which the engineer had discovered lying open to
the sky towards the mouth of the Red Creek, and the first smoke escaped
from a chimney twenty feet high. The glade was transformed into a
manufactory, and Pencroft was not far wrong in believing that from this
kiln would issue all the products of modern industry.

In the meantime what the settlers first manufactured was a common
pottery in which to cook their food. The chief material was clay, to
which Harding added a little lime and quartz. This paste made r