Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 227 



sional Remarks respecting the Materials proper to be 

 used in constructing the Sides and Backs of open 

 Chimney Fire-places. 



THE kitchen fire-place of a family in easy circum- 

 stances in this country consists almost universally 

 of a long grate, called a kitchen range, for burning coals, 

 placed in a wide and deep open chimney, with a very 

 high mantel. The front and bottom bars of the grate are 

 commonly made of hammered iron, and the back of the 

 grate (which usually slopes backwards) of a plate of cast 

 iron ; and sometimes there is a vertical plate of iron, 

 movable by means of a rack in the cavity of the grate, 

 by means of which plate the capacity, or rather the 

 length of that part of the grate that is occupied by the 

 burning fuel, may occasionally be diminished. At one 

 end of the grate there is commonly an iron oven, which 

 is heated by the fire in the grate ; and sometimes there 

 is a boiler situated in a similar manner at the other 

 end of it. To complete the machinery (which in every 

 part and detail of it seems to have been calculated for 

 the express purpose of devouring fuel), a smoke-jack is 

 placed in the chimney! 



I shall begin my observations on the smoke-jack. 



No human invention that ever came to my knowledge 

 appears to me to be so absurd as this. A wind-mill is 

 certainly a very useful contrivance, but were it proposed 

 to turn a wind-mill by an artificial current of air, how 

 ridiculous would the scheme appear! What an enor- 

 mous force would necessarily be wasted in giving ve- 

 locity to a stream of air sufficient to cause the mill to 

 work with effect ! A smoke-jack is, however, neither 

 more nor less than a wind-mill, carried round by an 



