Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 361 



The steam-vessel in the kitchen of the Foundling 

 Hospital is a large wooden box lined with tin, capable 

 of containing a large quantity of potatoes; and the 

 steam comes through a small tin tube from an oblong 

 quadrangular iron boiler which is used daily for boiling 

 meat, etc., for the Hospital. As this boiler is furnished 

 with what I have called a steam-rim (which will pres- 

 ently be described), when the (wooden) cover of the 

 boiler is down, all the steam that is generated in the 

 boiler is forced to pass through the steam-box, and 

 the potatoes, greens, etc., that are in the box are 

 cooked without any additional expense of fuel. 



The steam-box has a steam-rim and also a wooden 

 cover which, when it is down, closes the box and makes 

 it perfectly steam-tight. 



When steam is generated faster than it can be 

 condensed in the steam-box, that which is redundant 

 passes off by a waste -tube, which conducts it into a 

 neighbouring chimney. 



The apparatus for cooking with steam in the kitchen 

 of the House of Correction, at Munich, is still more 

 simple. Here two equal quadrangular boilers are set, 

 one at the end of the other, at the same level, in the 

 same mass of brick-work ; and the flame and smoke 

 from the same fire pass under them both (see Plate X., 

 Fig. 7, and Plate XL, Fig. 9). Both boilers being en- 

 closed in brick-work and being covered with wooden 

 covers, it is evident that no part of the apparatus is 

 exposed to the cold air. I say no part of it ; for the 

 covers of the boilers being of wood, which is one of 

 the worst conductors of heat, very little heat can make 

 its way through them ; and to prevent even this loss, 

 inconsiderable as it is, these wooden covers may, if it 



