Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c24.18

c24.18

15. In constructing these furnaces, a platform about two feet square and five inches thick is first made, with a hole in the centre nine inches in diameter. A half-cylinder or curved piece is then formed also of the red clay, eighteen inches high, four inches thick, and thirteen inches diameter inside, and the same depth, and also a cone about two inches thick of the same height, and the same diameter at bottom, and seven inches at top. When these are quite dry, a little wet clay being put round the hole in the platform, the half-cylinder is placed upon it, and the open front is built up with clods of clay, and the inside part is plastered for two inches thick until a hollow cylinder is produced, about twenty-three inches deep, nine inches in diameter inside, and about six inches thick. When nearly dry, an arch is cut out in front at bottom about nineteen inches high, to form the door of the furnace. The cone is then placed on the top, and the inside plastered with clay to correspond with the bottom part, and the neck or throat reduced in the same way to about five inches diameter. The upper part of a chatty with the neck is then placed inverted on the apex of the cone, to form a funnel to conduct the charge into the throat, and the chatty and the whole of the outside of the furnace is then plastered over with clay about two inches thick, so as to give the appearance of a large sugar loaf enlarged a little at the point. When finished, the height inside from the bottom to the neck is about three feet ten inches, and the whole takes about a week to finish before it is quite dry.