It was the only industrial method of recovering sulfur from elemental deposits until replaced by the Frasch process.

[2][3][4] Sulfur, also known as brimstone (the stone that burns), has a variety of purposes such as bleaching agent, incense for religious rites, insecticides, and glue.

Sicilian industrial sulfur comes from the sedimentary Miocene rocks found about 200 meters underground.

[8] Sulfur ore was carried up manually from shallow mines and placed in fire pits.

A stack of ore was made of about 10 square feet (0.93 m2) in a ditch, and the floors were beaten hard and sloped downward, allowing the molten sulfur to flow to the bottom.

This stack was then set on fire and by the third-day molten ore started to flow from an opening called a Morto (Dead).

The side facing the wind tended to burn rather than melt, and efficiencies in the winter were lower.

[10][11] This archaic technology had the disadvantage of producing large quantities of sulfur dioxide and other compounds highly polluting and harmful for the health of workers, agriculture, and all the surrounding environment.

It was required to install these rudimentary facilities at a distance of at least 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from inhabited areas.

The largest pieces of ore were selected for the first layer, leaving spaces between them, and the size of the lumps gradually diminished as the height increased.

[8] The sulfur melts slowly downwards and, collected from the inclined floor, runs towards the exit.

Its yield was only around 50% due to the burning of the sulfur necessary for the heating process, which also caused environmental pollution.

It was a costly system to put in place, but it also reduced many gas and pollution that entered into the air.