He continued opening the valve. The flame pirouetted
irregularly down an invisible column, drawn toward the furnace.
"Air," he shouted. "Not enough air until it got way the hell up there."
"Keep going," George said.
The flame reached the top of the furnace and began to whirl in a tight
spiral. It plunged inside, roaring and spinning at high speed. The
floor shook. "Jesus," George said.
"It's like a Goddamn bomb," Oliver said.
George put an ingot of bronze into a carbon crucible and gripped the
edge of the crucible with long tongs. He lowered the crucible to the
bottom of the furnace. "Put the top on," he said. Oliver lifted and
pushed the top over the furnace. The roaring became muffled, contained.
It felt safer. "Nice going, about the air," George said. "I thought we
were going to burn the place down."
"Physics," Oliver said. George looked down through the hole in the top.
"Nothing yet." He stood back. A few minutes later the ingot began to
slide toward the bottom of the crucible. "There she goes," George said.
"It's working." He opened the door of the kiln, and, using a different
set of tongs, extracted the flask. He set the flask, glowing cherry
red, upside down in a flat pan of sand.
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