3io On the Construction of Kitchen 



semi-diameter below its centre or axis, there is a hori- 

 zontal shelf, which is fixed in its place, not by resting 

 on ledges, or by being riveted to the sides of the oven, 

 but by its hither end being turned down, and firmly 

 riveted to the vertical plate of iron, which I have 

 called the front of the oven. This shelf, which should 

 be made double to prevent the heat from passing through 

 it from below, must not reach quite to the farther end 

 of the oven : there must be an opening left, about one 

 inch in width, between the end of it and the farther end 

 of the oven, through which opening the air heated 

 below the shelf will make its way upwards into the 

 upper part of the oven. 



From what has been said, it will be evident that the 

 hollow space below the shelf we have just been de- 

 scribing, which I shall call the air-chamber, is intended 

 to serve in lieu of the blowpipes of a roaster ; and this 

 office it will perform tolerably well, provided means are 

 used for admitting cold air into it, from without, occa- 

 sionally. This is done by means of a register, which 

 is situated at the lower part of the vertical front of the 

 roaster, a little below the bottom of the door. This 

 register is distinctly represented in the Fig. 21. 



Fig. 22, which represents a vertical section of the 

 oven through its axis, shows the (double) door of the 

 roaster shut, and the two dripping-pans, one within 

 the other, standing on the shelf we have just been 

 describing, and a piece of meat above them, which is 

 supposed to be laying on a gridiron placed in the 

 second dripping-pan. The register of the air-cham- 

 ber below the shelf, which supplies the place of the 

 blowpipes, is represented as being open ; and a part of 

 the steam-tube is shown, through which the steam and 



