Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 301 



the fire, especially if their fire-places are situated at a 

 proper distance below them, and if the size of the fire 

 is kept within due bounds. But, after all, if the person 

 to whom the management of a roaster is committed is 

 determined to destroy it, no precautions can prevent it ; 

 and hence it appears how very necessary it is to secure 

 the good-will of the cooks. They ought certainly to 

 wish well to the success of these inventions ; for the 

 introduction of them cannot fail to diminish their 

 labour, and increase their comforts very much. 



Of large Roasters, that will serve to roast and bake 

 at the same Time. 



It has been found by experience that any roaster may 

 be made to roast and bake at the same time, in great 

 perfection, when the proper precautions are taken ; but 

 this can best be done when the roaster is of a large 

 size, from 20 inches to 24 inches in diameter, for in- 

 stance ; for in this case there will be room above the 

 meat for a shelf on which the things to be baked can be 

 placed. And even when there is no roasting going on 

 below it, any thing to be baked should be placed on 

 this shelf, in order to its being nearer to the top of the 

 roaster, where the process of baking goes on better 

 than anywhere else. In baking bread, pies, cakes, etc., 

 it seems to be necessary that the heat should descend 

 in rays from the top of the oven ; and as the intensity 

 of the effects produced by the calorific rays which 

 proceed from a heated body is much greater near the 

 hot body than at a greater distance from it (being most 

 probably as the squares of the distances inversely), it is 

 evident why the process of baking should go on best in 

 a low oven, or when the thing to be baked is placed 



