Elements of the Theory and Practice of Chymistry, 5th ed.

by Pierre Joseph Macquer

When this furnace is to be used, and a crucible to be placed in it, care must be taken to set on the grate a cake of baked earth, somewhat broader than the foot of the crucible. The use of this stand is to support the crucible, and raise it above the grate, for which purpose it should be two inches thick. Were it not for this precaution the bottom of the crucible, which would stand immediately on the grate, could never be thoroughly heated, because it would be always exposed to the stream of cold air which enters by the ash-hole. Care should also be taken to heat this earthen bottom red-hot before it be placed in the furnace, in order to free it from any humidity, which might otherwise happen to be driven against the crucible during the operation, and occasion its breaking.

We omitted to take notice, in speaking of the ash-hole, that, besides its door, it should have about the middle of its heighth a small hole, capable of receiving the nosel of a good perpetual bellows, which is to be introduced into it and worked, after the door is exactly shut, when it is thought proper to excite the activity of the fire to the utmost violence. The Forge is only a mass of bricks of about three feet high, along whose upper surface is directed the nose or pipe of a pair of large perpetual bellows, so placed that the operator may easily blow the fire with one hand. The coals are laid on the hearth of the forge near the nose of the bellows; they are confined, if necessary, to prevent their being carried away by the wind of the bellows, within a space inclosed by bricks; and then by pulling the bellows the fire is continually kept up in its greatest activity. The forge is of use when there is occasion to apply a great degree of heat suddenly to any substance, or when it is necessary that the operator be at liberty to handle frequently the matters which he proposes to fuse or calcine.

The Cupelling furnace is that in which gold and silver are purified, by the means of lead, from all alloy of other metallic substances. This furnace must give a heat strong enough to vitrify lead, and therewith all the alloy which the perfect metals may contain. This furnace is to be built in the following manner.

First, of thick iron plates, or of some such composition of earth as we recommended for the construction of furnaces, must be formed a hollow quadrangular prism, whose sides may be about a foot broad, and from ten to eleven inches high; and extending from thence upwards may converge towards the top, so as to form a pyramid truncated at the heighth of seven or eight inches, and terminated by an aperture of the width of seven or eight inches every way. The lower part of the prism is terminated, and closed, by a plate of the same materials of which the furnace is constructed.

Secondly, in the fore-side or front of this prism there is an opening of three or four inches in heighth, by five or six inches in breadth: this opening, which should be very near the bottom, is the door of the ash-hole. Immediately over this opening is placed an iron grate, the bars of which are quadrangular prisms of half an inch square, laid parallel to each other, and about eight or nine inches asunder, and so disposed that two of their angles are laterally opposite, the two others looking one directly upwards and the other downwards. As in this situation the bars of the grate present to the fire-place very oblique surfaces, the ashes and very small coals do not accumulate between them, or hinder the free entrance of the air from the ash-hole. This grate terminates the ash-hole at its upper part, and serves for the bottom of the fire-place.

Thirdly, three inches, or three and a half, above the grate, there is in the fore-side of the furnace another opening, terminated by an arch for its upper part, which consequently has the figure of a semi-circle: it ought to be four inches wide at bottom, and three inches and an half high at its middle. This opening is the door of the fire-place; yet it is not intended for the same uses as the door of the fire-place in other furnaces: the purpose for which it is actually destined shall be explained when we come to shew how the furnace is to be used. An inch above the door of the fire-place, still in the fore-side of the furnace, are two holes of about an inch diameter, and at the distance of three inches and a half from each other, to which answer two other holes of the same size, made in the hinder part, directly opposite to these. There is, moreover, a fifth hole of the same width about an inch above the door of the fire-place. The design of all these holes shall be explained when we describe the manner in which these furnaces are to be used.

Fourthly, the fore-part of the furnace is bound by three iron braces, one of which is fixed just below the door of the ash-hole; the second occupies the whole space between the ash-hole door and the door of the fire-place, and has two holes in it, answering to those which we directed to be made in the furnace itself about this place; and the third is placed immediately over the door of the fire-place. These braces must extend from one corner of the front of the furnace to the other, and be fastened thereto with iron pins, in such a manner that their sides next to the doors may not lie quite close to the body of the furnace, but form a kind of grooves for the iron plates to slide in, that are designed to shut the two doors of the furnace when it is necessary. Each of these iron plates should have a handle, by which it may be conveniently moved; and to each door there should be two plates, which meeting each other, and joining exactly in the middle of the door-place, may shut it very close. Each of the two plates belonging to the door of the fire-place ought to have a hole in its upper part; one of these holes should be a slit of about two lines wide, and half an inch long; the other may be a semi-circular opening of one inch in heighth and two in breadth. These holes should be placed so that neither of them may open into the fire-place when the two plates are joined together in the middle of the door to shut it close.

Fifthly, to terminate the furnace above, there must be a pyramid formed of the same materials with the furnace, hollow, quadrangular, three inches high on a base of seven inches, which base must exactly fit the upper opening of the furnace: the top of this pyramidal cover must end in a tube of three inches in diameter and two in heighth, which must be almost cylindrical, and yet a little inclining to the conical form. This tube serves, as in the furnaces already described, to carry the conical funnel, which is fitted to the upper part when a fire of extraordinary activity is wanted.

The furnace thus constructed is fit to serve all the purposes for which it is designed: yet before it can be used another piece must be provided, which, though it does not properly belong to the furnace, is nevertheless necessary in all the operations performed by it; and that is a piece contrived to contain the cupels, or other vessels which are to be exposed to the fire in this furnace. It is called a Muffle, and is made in the following manner.