130 Of the Management of Fire 



use full as well, if not better, than iron bars. By mak- 

 ing bricks on purpose for this use, of proper forms and 

 dimensions, and composed of the best clay mixed with 

 broken crucibles beaten to a coarse powder, kitchen 

 fire-places might be fitted up with them, which would 

 be both cheap and durable, and as perfect in all other 

 respects as any that could possibly be made, even 

 were the most costly materials to be used in their con- 

 struction. 



To diminish still farther the expense attending the con- 

 struction of closed kitchen fire-places designed for the use 

 of poor families, the opening by which fuel is introduced 

 might be closed with a brick, or with a flat stone ; an- 

 other brick or stone might be made to serve at the same 

 time as a register and a door to the ash-pit, and a third 

 as a damper to the chimney or canal for carrying off the 

 smoke from the fire-place. 



I lately had an opportunity of fitting up a kitchen on 

 these principles, in the construction of which there was 

 not a particle of iron used, or of any other metal, except 

 for the boiler. On the approach of the French army 

 under General Moreau in August last, the Bavarian 

 troops being assembled at Munich (under my com- 

 mand) for the defence of the capital, the town was so 

 full of soldiers that several regiments were obliged 

 to be quartered in public buildings, and encamped on 

 the ramparts, where they had no conveniences for cook- 

 ing. For the accommodation of a part of them, four 

 large oblong square boilers, composed of very thin sheet 

 coppers well tinned, were fitted up in a mass of brick- 

 work in the form of a cross ; each boiler with its 

 separate fire-place, communicating by double canals, 

 furnished with dampers, with one common chimney 



