Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 367 



it will force the water in the steam-rim to ascend toward 

 C, and, getting under the rim, E, of the cover of the 

 boiler, it will make its escape, but no bad consequences 

 will result from this loss ; on the contrary, the steam- 

 rim will in this case serve instead of a safety-valve. 

 And, although this contrivance may not be adequate 

 to the confining of strong steam, it certainly answers 

 perfectly well for confining that kind of steam which is 

 most proper to be used for cooking. It will likewise be 

 found useful in many cases for covering boilers, where 

 the principal object in view is to prevent the contact 

 of the cold air with the contents of the boiler. It will 

 be useful for the boilers of bleachers, as also for laun- 

 dry boilers, for brewers' boilers, and for all boilers 

 destined for the evaporation of liquids under a boiling 

 heat. 



It appears to me that this contrivance might, with 

 a little alteration, be used with great advantage for 

 covering the boilers used by distillers. By making 

 the steam-rim deeper, the cover of the boiler would 

 be tight, under a considerable pressure ; and by mak- 

 ing the boiler broad and shallow, with several separate 

 fire-places under it (the flat bottom of the boiler being 

 supported on the tops of the flues of these fire-places), 

 a variety of important advantages would be gained, and 

 these would not be compensated by any disadvantages 

 that I can foresee. The boiler might be constructed 

 of very thin sheet copper, which would not only ren- 

 der it less expensive, but would also make it more 

 durable. 



When steam-rims were first introduced, they were 

 made of the form represented in the following figure, 

 which represents a vertical section of part of one side 



