ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF KITCHEN FIRE- 

 PLACES AND KITCHEN UTENSILS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



IN contriving machinery for any purpose, it is indis- 

 pensably necessary to be acquainted with the nat- 

 ure of the mechanical operation to be performed ; and 

 though the processes of cookery appear to be so simple 

 and easy to be understood, that any attempt to explain 

 and illustrate them might perhaps be thought not only 

 superfluous, but even frivolous, yet when we examine 

 the matter attentively we shall find their investigation 

 to be of serious importance. I say of serious importance ; 

 for surely those inquiries which lead to improvements 

 by which the providing of food may be facilitated are 

 matters of the highest concern to mankind in every 

 state of society. 



The process by which food is most commonly prepared 

 for the table boiling is so familiar to every one, and 

 its effects are so uniform, and apparently so simple, that 

 few, I believe, have taken the trouble to inquire how or 

 in what manner those effects are produced; and whether 

 any and what improvements in that branch of cookery 

 are possible. So little has this matter been an object of 

 inquiry, that few, very few indeed, I believe, among the 

 millions of persons who for so many ages have been 

 daily employed in this process, have ever given them- 

 selves the trouble to bestow one serious thought on the 

 subject. 



