Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 319 



bottom of the oven. It will be indispensably necessary, 

 however, with such a (small) fire-place, situated far below 

 the bottom of an oven, to keep the fire-place door well 

 closed, otherwise so much cold air will rush in over the 

 fire that it will be quite impossible to make the oven hot. 



I have found by recent experiments that a fire-place 

 in the form of an oblong square or prism, 6 inches 

 wide, 9 inches long, and 6 inches deep, is sufficient to 

 heat an iron oven 18 inches wide, 24 inches long, and 

 from 12 to 15 inches in height; and that the grate of 

 this fire-place should be placed about 12 inches below 

 the bottom of the oven. More effectually to prevent 

 the fire from operating with too much violence upon 

 any one part of the bottom of the oven, the brick-work 

 may be so sloped outwards and upwards on every side 

 from the top of the burning fuel to the extreme parts 

 of the sides and ends of the bottom of the oven, that 

 the whole of the bottom of the oven may be exposed 

 to the direct rays from the fire. 



In some cases I have suffered the flame to pass 

 freely up both sides of the oven to the top of it, and 

 then caused it to descend by the end of the oven to 

 the level of its bottom, or rather below it, and from 

 thence to pass off by a horizontal canal into the 

 chimney ; and in other cases I have caused it to pass 

 backwards and forwards in horizontal canals by the 

 sides of the oven, before I permitted it to go off into 

 the chimney. Either of these methods will do very 

 well, provided the smoke be made to descend -after it 

 has left the top of the oven, till it reaches below the 

 level of the bottom of it, before it is permitted to pass 

 off into the chimney ; and provided the canal by which 

 the smoke passes off be furnished with a damper. 



