and the Economy of Fuel. 145 



in Dublin, which I wished much to have had time to 

 have prosecuted farther. Finding that the expense for 

 wheaten bread for the House was very great (amounting, 

 in the year 1795, to no less than 384 1/. sterling), I saw 

 that a very considerable saving might be made by fur- 

 nishing those who were fed at the public expense with 

 oaten cakes (a kind of bread to which they had always 

 been used), instead of rendering them dainty and spoiling 

 them by giving them the best wheaten bread that could 

 be procured, as I found had hitherto been done. But 

 to be able to furnish oaten cakes in sufficient quantities 

 to feed 1500 persons, some more convenient method of 

 baking them than that commonly practised was neces- 

 sary, and one in which the expense of fuel might be 

 greatly lessened. 



With a view to facilitate this important change in the 

 mode of feeding the numerous objects of charity and of 

 correction, who were shut up together within the walls 

 of that extensive establishment, I constructed what I 

 would call a perpetual oven. 



In the centre of a circular, or rather cylindrical mass 

 of brick-work, about 8 feet in diameter, which occupies 

 the middle of a large room on the ground floor, I con- 

 structed a small, circular, closed fire-place for burning 

 either wood, peat, turf, or coals. " The diameter of the 

 fire-place is about 1 1 inches, the grate being placed 

 about 10 inches above the floor, and the top of the fire- 

 place is contracted to about 4 inches. Immediately 

 above this narrow throat, six separate canals (each fur- 

 nished with a damper, by means of which its opening 

 can be contracted more or less, or entirely closed) go off 

 horizontally, by which the flame is conducted into six 

 separate sets of flues, under six large plates of cast iron, 



