324 On the Construction of Kitchen 



been very large, I should have been under the necessity 

 of enlarging it, or at least of raising its mantel, in order 

 to have been able to introduce these ovens, and set them 

 at proper distances from each other. 



I shall now proceed to give an account of the experi- 

 ments that were made with this fire-place. 



My first attempt was to warm the room by means of 

 it. A small fire being made in its closed fire-place, its 

 oven doors were all set wide open, and the room, though 

 by no means small, soon became very warm. This 

 warming apparatus was now, to all intents and pur- 

 poses, a German stove. By shutting two of the oven 

 doors, the heat of the room was sensibly diminished ; 

 and by leaving only one of them open it was found that 

 a moderate degree of warmth might be kept up even 

 in cold weather. 



As no person in this country would be satisfied with 

 any fire-place, if in its arrangement provision were not 

 made for boiling a tea-kettle, I caused a very broad 

 shallow tea-kettle, with a bottom perfectly flat, to be 

 constructed of common tin, and, filling it with cold 

 water, placed it in one of the two lower ovens, and shut 

 the oven door. Although the fire under the ovens was 

 but small, it burned very bright, and the water in the 

 tea-kettle was soon made to boil. 



I was not surprised that the water boiled in a short 

 time, for it was what I expected ; but on removing the 

 tea-kettle I observed an appearance which did surprise 

 me, and which indicated a degree of heat in the oven 

 which I had no idea of finding there. The handle of 

 the tea-kettle resembled very much in form the handle 

 of a common tea-kettle, but, like the rest of the kettle, 

 was constructed of tin, or, to speak more properly, of 

 tinned sheet iron. 



