Elements of the Theory and Practice of Chymistry, 5th ed.Macquer, Pierre Joseph
History
Elements of the Theory and Practice of Chymistry, 5th ed.
Macquer, Pierre Joseph
Chemistry -- Early works to 1800
Fourthly, in order to cover in the laboratory of the reverberating
furnace, there must be a roof made for it in the form of a cupola,
or concave hemisphere, having the same diameter as the furnace. This
dome should have a semi-circular cut in its rim, answering to that
above-directed to be made in the upper extremity of the furnace,
so that, when adjusted to each other, the two together may form a
circular hole for the neck of the retort to pass through. At the top of
this dome there must also be a circular hole of three or four inches
diameter, carrying a short tapering funnel of the same diameter, and
three inches high, which will serve for a chimney to carry off all
fuliginosities, and accelerate the current of the air. This passage may
be shut at pleasure with a flat cover. Moreover, as it is necessary
that the dome should be taken off and put on with ease, it should have
two ears or handles for that purpose: a portative or moveable furnace
should also have a pair of handles, fixed opposite to each other,
between the ash-hole and the fire-place.
Sixthly and lastly, a conical canal must be provided of about three
feet long, and sufficiently wide at its lower end to admit the funnel
of the aperture at the top of the dome. This conical tube is to be
applied to the dome when the fire is required to be extremely active:
it tapers gradually from its base upwards, and breaks off as if
truncated at top, where it should be about two inches wide.
Besides the apertures already mentioned as necessary to a reverberating
furnace, there must also be many other smaller holes made in its
ash-hole, fire-place, laboratory, and dome, which must all be so
contrived as to be easily opened and shut with stopples of earth: these
holes are the registers of the furnace, and serve to regulate the
activity of the fire, according to the principles before laid down.
When the action of the fire is required to be exactly uniform and very
brisk, it is necessary to stop carefully with moist earth all the
little chinks in the juncture of the dome with the furnace, between the
neck of the retort and the circular hole through which it passes, and
which it never fills exactly, and, lastly, the holes which receive the
iron bars that sustain the retort.
It is proper to have, in a laboratory, several reverberating furnaces
of different magnitudes; because, they must be proportioned to the size
of the retorts employed. The retort ought to fill the furnace, so as
to leave only the distance of an inch between it and the inside of the
furnace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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