1 2 Of the Management of Fire 



improvements I have brought into use in the kitchens 

 which have been constructed under my directions. 



But it is not alone in kitchens, in which cooking is 

 carried on over open fires, that useful alterations may be 

 made : kitchens with closed fire-places, and indeed all 

 the kitchens which have yet been contrived (as far as 

 my knowledge extends), are susceptible of great im- 

 provement. 



The various improvements that may be made in 

 mechanical arrangements for the economy of fuel will 

 appear in a striking manner from a detail of the differ- 

 ent alterations which have from time to time been made 

 in the kitchen of the House of Industry at Munich, 

 and in that of the Military Academy, and of the effects 

 produced by those progressive improvements. 



The House of Industry being an establishment of 

 public charity, and the number of those fed from the 

 kitchen amounting from 1000 to 1500 persons daily, 

 the economy of fuel, in a kitchen upon so large a scale, 

 became an object of serious consideration; and I at- 

 tended to this matter with peculiar pleasure, as it so 

 completely coincided with my favorite philosophical 

 pursuits. 



The investigation of heat, and of the laws of its 

 operations, had long occupied my attention, and I had 

 been so fortunate, in the course of my experiments upon 

 that subject, as to make some discoveries which were 

 thought worthy of being inserted in the Philosophical 

 Transactions of the Royal Society of London ; and for 

 my last paper upon that subject, published in the Trans- 

 actions for the year 1792, I had the honour to receive 

 the annual medal of the Society. I hope my mention- 

 ing this circumstance will not be attributed to osten- 



