DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF FUEL. 297 



sition recently expressed by an eminent authority relative to the prob- 

 able blending of those deposits with the marine deposits of the Tertiary : 

 " A careful study of these modern deposits " (meaning the Quaternary) 

 " will undoubtedly show consecutive links by w T hich it was united to 

 the Tertiary period, in the same manner as the Cretaceous and Tertiary 

 are connected." ' It is difficult to conceive how the sedimentary de- 

 posits of an epoch of submergence, like the Tertiary, which abound in 

 marine fossils, can show, however carefully studied, consecutive links 

 of connection with an epoch of debris transported and deposited 

 through the agency of vast continental glaciers. 



St. Anthony, Minnesota, March, 1873. 







DOMESTIC ECONOMY OF FUEL. 



By Captain DOUGLAS GALTON, C.B., F. E. S. 



II. 



THE question of saving fuel for cooking purposes is even more im- 

 portant than economy in warming ; because cooking is an opera- 

 tion required every day in the year, and the waste of fuel in cooking 

 is even more considerable than in warming. 



An ordinary cooking-range in houses, which, for convenience, may 

 be designated middle-class houses, is derived from the time when the 

 same fire was used for cooking and for warming. It is interesting to 

 consider Count Rumford's remarks on this question. He largely de- 

 veloped the use of steam for cooking in large establishments, but, in 

 considering private kitchens, he showed that nine-tenths of the heat 

 produced in cooking operations were wasted, and only one-tenth utilized 

 in cooking, by the use of open fireplaces. He laid down the following 

 principles on fireplace construction : 



1. Each fireplace should have its grate on which the fuel must be 

 placed, and its separate ash-pit, which must be closed by a door well 

 fitted in its frame and furnished with a register for regulating the 

 quantity of air admitted into the fireplace through the grate. It 

 should also have its separate canal for carrying off the smoke into the 

 chimney, whicji canal should be furnished with a damper or register. 

 By means of this damper and of the ash-pit door, the rapidity of com- 

 bustion and generation of heat is regulated, and on the proper use of 

 the two registers the economy of fuel will much depend. 



3. In fireplaces for all boilers which are too heavy to be easily 

 lifted with the hand, an opening just above the level of the grate 

 should be made for introducing fuel to the fire, which opening must 



1 Prof. F. V. Hayden, in " Geology of Wyoming." 



