Jeremiah 6:29; "the bellows are burned," so intense a heat is made that the very bellows are almost set on fire; "the lead is consumed of the fire." Used in heating a furnace for smelting metals, not required for the wood fires which were the ancient fuel, and were commonly blown with a fan. The Egyptian bellows, as represented in paintings of the time of Thothmes III, contemporary with Moses, were worked by the feet alternately pressing upon two inflated skins sending the air through reed tubes tipped with iron into the furnace; as each skin became exhausted the blower raised it by a cord in the hand to admit a fresh supply of air.