4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Compare the ordinary method of using fuel for cooking with 

 the scientific use of fuel for the development of power in the 

 steam-engine. 



The sheet of lightly sized linen paper abstracted from the un- 

 used part of an old ledger, on which I am now writing the first 

 draught of this essay, measures 13" X 9" = 117 square inches, and 

 weighs half an ounce. In solid form it measures half a cubic 

 inch. If consumed under the boiler of the modern marine steam- 

 engine such as is used in the freight-steamers that carry our wheat 

 to England, two sheets of this paper in a solid form would be equal 

 to seventy-one per cent of the calorific value of a cube of bituminous 

 coal of the same size, and would drive a ton of wheat and its pro- 

 portion of the steamship 1 fo miles on the way from the producer 

 to the consumer at the present standard of power developed from 

 coal. Yet not over twelve per cent of the actual power of the 

 heat which this scrap of paper will yield would even then be act- 

 ually converted into work. A cube of pure wood-pulp of the 

 same size will do the same work. On the other hand, wood-pulp 

 until ignited is the best available non-conductor of heat ; I there- 

 fore build my ovens in greater part of wood-pulp prepared so as 

 not to ignite at any degree of heat which is necessary for cooking ; 

 but even in my oven it requires one quart of oil, measuring a frac- 

 tion under fifty-eight cubic inches, to cook fifty to sixty pounds of 

 bread, meat, and vegetables in four successive charges occupying 

 two hours each. Compared with the application of heat to the 

 development of power, even my oven must be utterly condemned 

 aswasteful of fuel ; but compare my quart of oil with the hod- 

 f uls of coal that would be required to cook sixty pounds of food in 

 the common range or stove, and then what is the verdict ? 



I now venture to submit the data of a dinner prepared by 

 myself, but little out of the usual course, as an example of the 

 common practice in my own family, and of what may be done 

 substantially with one lamp. The dinner was provided for my 

 own family of seven persons, with five guests, and it also sufficed 

 for four servants sixteen in all with something left over. My 

 summer kitchen is fitted with a cooking-stove, as it is more con- 

 venient to use the top of the stove, heated with hard-wood chips, 

 for boiling water, heating the soup, and boiling potatoes, than it is 

 to use a kerosene-oil stove of the common kind ; on this stove the 

 soup made the day before in the Aladdin cooker was reheated, 

 the potatoes were boiled, and the hot water was provided. 



The dinner cooked in the Aladdin oven consisted of three to 

 four pounds of fresh blue-fish, just caught, cooked in imitation of 

 broiling, one hour; six to seven pounds leg and loin of lamb, 

 roasted one and three fourths hours ; three tame ducks, weighing 

 about seven pounds, roasted one hour ; squash cooked in its own 



