and the Economy of Fuel. 1 3 



tation. My motive in doing it is merely to show that, 

 when I undertook to make the arrangements of which I 

 am about to give an account, the subject was by no 

 means new to me ; but, on the contrary, that I was pre- 

 pared, and in some measure qualified, for such inves- 

 tigation. 



I conceive it to be the duty of those who propose 

 useful improvements for the benefit of mankind not 

 only to merit, but also to do every thing in their power 

 to obtain the confidence of those to whom their pro- 

 posals are submitted ; and there appears to me to be a 

 much greater degree of pride and arrogance displayed 

 by an author in taking it for granted that the world is 

 already sufficiently acquainted with his merit and his 

 qualifications to treat the subject he undertakes to in- 

 vestigate, than in modestly pointing out the grounds 

 upon which the confidence of the public in his knowl- 

 edge of his subject and in his integrity may be 

 founded. 



But to return from this digression. In the first ar- 

 rangement of the kitchen in the House of Industry at 

 Munich, which was finished in the beginning of the 

 year 1790, eight large copper boilers, each capable of 

 containing about 38 English wine-gallons, were placed 

 in such a manner in two rows, in a solid mass of brick- 

 work, 3 feet high, 9 feet wide, and 18 feet long, built 

 in the middle of the kitchen, that, from a single fire- 

 place, situated at one end of this brick-work, by means 

 of canals (furnished with valves or dampers) going from 

 it through the solid mass of the brick-work to all the 

 different boilers, these boilers were all heated, and made 

 to boil with one single fire ; and though none of them 

 were in actual contact with the fire-place, and some of 



