Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 253 



visit I made to this country in the years 1795 and 

 1 796, I caused two of these roasters to be constructed 

 in London, one at the house then occupied by the 

 Board of Agriculture, and the other at the Foundling 

 Hospital ; and a third was put up, under my direction, 

 in Dublin, at the house of the Dublin Society. 



All these were found to answer very well, and they 

 were often imitated; but I had the mortification to 

 find, on my return to England in the year 1 798, that 

 some mistakes had been made in the construction, and 

 many in the management of them. Their fire-places 

 had almost universally been made three or four times 

 as large as they ought to have been, as neither the 

 cooks, nor the bricklayers who were employed in setting 

 them, could be persuaded that it was possible that any 

 thing could be sufficiently roasted with a fire which to 

 them appeared to be ridiculously small ; and the large 

 quantities of fuel which were introduced into these 

 capacious fire-places not only destroyed the machinery 

 very soon, but, what was still more fatal to the repu- 

 tation of the contrivance, rendered it impossible for the 

 meat to be well roasted. 



When meat, surrounded by air, is exposed to the 

 action of very intense heat, its surface is soon scorched 

 and dried ; which preventing the heat from penetrating 

 freely to the centre of the piece, the meat cannot possibly 

 be equally roasted throughout. 



These mistakes could not fail to discredit the inven- 

 tion, and retard its introduction into general use ; but, 

 being convinced by long experience of the utility of 

 the contrivance, as well as by the unanimous opinion 

 in its favour of all those who had given it a fair trial, I 

 was resolved to persist in my endeavours to make it 



