196 On the Construction of Kitchen 



difficult to be counteracted, especially when the form 

 of the cover is circular, that, for portable boilers and for 

 stewpans and saucepans, I should prefer covers made of 

 thin sheets of tinned iron, or of tin, as it is commonly 

 called. These covers (which must always be made 

 double) have already been particularly described in my 

 sixth Essay. 



Though boilers and stewpans should never be used 

 naked over an open fire, or otherwise than in closed 

 fire-places, yet it is not necessary in fitting up a kitchen 

 to build as many separate fire-places as it may be proper 

 to have boilers, stewpans, and saucepans ; for the same 

 fire-place may be made to serve occasionally for several 

 boilers or stewpans. Those, however, that are used in 

 the same closed fire-place must be all of the same diame- 

 ter; and, in order that their capacities may be different, 

 they may be made of different depths. 



As, in the hurry of business in the kitchen, one stew- 

 pan or boiler might easily be taken for another, were 

 their diameters to vary by only a small difference, and 

 were they not distinguished by marks or numbers, to 

 prevent these mistakes, their diameters, expressed in 

 inches, should be marked on some conspicuous part, 

 on their handles for instance, or on their brims, and also 

 on their covers ; and their fire-places should be marked 

 with the same number. 



To guard still more effectually against all mistakes 

 respecting the sizes of these utensils, and the fife -places 

 to which they belong, the difference of the diameters 

 of two boilers or stewpans should never be less than 

 one whole inch. In several private kitchens that have 

 been constructed on my principles, their diameters have 

 been made to vary by two inches, that is to say, they 



