hours, during which time the wood is converted into an excellent quality of charcoal without much loss to itself. The pig iron thus turned out from these furnaces is loaded on the backs of ponies, oxen, cows, men, and boys, and passed on to the foundries, where it is cast into plows, pots, and such other utensils as are in common use about the farms.
The foundry is constructed on the same general principles as the smelting plant, with no sort of house, not even a roof of any description except perchance a shed of brush or straw over the bellows to protect the men who play "seesaw" from the burning heat of the summer's sun. The cost of the entire plant from' start to finish would not exceed twenty-five dollars. Yet the quality of this ore is such that, notwithstanding the crude methods that are used, the iron produced is of a first-class quality, as the pots and plows of the farmer will attest.
It is an interesting sight to see one of these rude furnaces in full blast and the men turning out plows and rice pots by the wholesale. There is the stone-and-mud wall of which I spoke, with the men just behind it on each end of the bellows swinging up and down; while from the bellows comes a roaring, growling sound which is heard above the singsong of the men who are playing "up and down we go." Here on the other side of the wall is the rude cupola, filled with charcoal and pig iron, from the top of which forked tongues of flame leap high into the air at every puff of the howling bellows. At the bottom of the cupola there is an opening which is closed with a lump of clay till the
