5. A solution of soap worked into cloth, and decomposed in it by the action of a solution of alum; whence results a mixture of acid fats and alumina, which insinuates itself among all the woolly filaments, fills their interstices, and prevents the passage of water.
6. A solution of glue or isinglass, introduced into a stuff, and then acted upon by a clear infusion of galls, whereby the fibres get impregnated with an insoluble, impermeable, pulverulent leather.
7. Plaster work is rendered impermeable by mixing artificial or natural asphaltum with it.
JEWELLERY, Art of. See [Gem] and [Lapidary].
INCOMBUSTIBLE CLOTH; is a tissue of the fibrous mineral called amianthus or asbestos. This is too rare to form the object of any considerable manufacture. Cotton and linen cloth may be best rendered incapable of taking fire, or burning with flame, by being imbued with a solution of sal ammoniac.
INCUBATION, ARTIFICIAL. The Egyptians have from time immemorial been accustomed to hatch eggs by artificial warmth, without the aid of hens, in peculiar stoves, called Mammals. The inhabitants of the village Bermé, still travel through the most distant provinces of Egypt at certain seasons of the year, with a portable furnace, heated by a lamp, and either hatch chickens for sale, or undertake to hatch the eggs belonging to the natives at a certain rate per dozen. M. de Reaumur published in France about a century ago, some ingenious observations upon this subject; but M. Bonnemain was the first person who studied with due attention all the circumstances of artificial incubation, and mounted the process successfully upon the commercial scale. So far back as 1777 he communicated to the Academy of Sciences an interesting fact, which he had noticed, upon the mechanism employed by chicks to break their shells; and for some time prior to the French revolution he furnished the Parisian market with excellent poultry at a period of the year when the farmers had ceased to supply it. His establishment was ruined at that disastrous era, and no other has ever since been constructed or conducted with similar care. As there can be no doubt however of the practicability and profitableness of the scheme, when judiciously managed, I shall insert a brief account of his ingenious arrangements. I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of this amiable old man at my first visit to Paris, many years ago, and believe all his statements to be worthy of credit. Some imitations of his plans have been made in this country, but how far they have succeeded in an economical point of view, it is difficult to determine. His apparatus derives peculiar interest from the fact, that it was founded upon the principle of the circulation of hot water, by the intestine motions of its particles, in a returning series of connected pipes; a subject afterwards illustrated in the experimental researches of Count Rumford. It has of late years been introduced as a novelty into this country, and applied to warm the apartments of many public and private buildings. The following details will prove that the theory and practice of hot-water circulation were as perfectly understood by M. Bonnemain fifty years ago, as they are by any of our stove-doctors at the present day. They were then publicly exhibited at his residence in Paris, and were afterwards communicated to the world at large in the interesting article of the Dictionnaire Technologique, intitled Incubation Artificielle.
The apparatus of M. Bonnemain consisted: 1. of a boiler and pipes for the circulation of water; 2. of a regulator calculated to maintain an equable temperature; 3. of a stove-apartment, heated constantly to the degree best fitted for incubation, which he called the hatching pitch. He attached to one side a poussinière or chick-room, for cherishing the chickens during a few days after incubation.
The boiler is represented in vertical section and ground plan, in [figs. 576.] and [577.] It is composed of a double cylinder of copper or cast-iron l, l, having a grate b (see [plan]), an ashpit at d ([section]). The water occupies the shaded space C, C. h, g, g, e, e, are five vertical flues, for conducting the burnt air and smoke, which first rise in the two exterior flues e, e, then descend in the two adjoining flues g, g, and finally re-mount through the passages i, i, in the central flue h. During this upwards and downwards circulation, as shown by the arrows in the section, the products of combustion are made to impart nearly the whole of their heat to the water by which they are surrounded. At the commencement, some burning paper or wood shavings are inserted at the orifice m, to establish a draught in this circuitous chimney. The air is admitted into the ash-pit at the side, in regulated quantities, through a small square door, movable round a rod which runs horizontally along its middle line. This swing valve is acted upon by an expanding bar (see [Heat-Regulator]), which opens it more or less, according to the temperature of the stove apartment in which the eggs are placed.