Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 321 



A great disadvantage under which I labour is that, 

 of those who might profit most from my writings, many 

 will not read, and others cannot. 



But to return to my subject. To save expense, small 

 ovens for poor families may be closed with flat stones 

 or with tiles ; and the fire-place door for such an oven, 

 and its ash-pit register, may be made of common bricks 

 placed edgewise, and made to slide against those 

 openings. 



There is a circumstance respecting the iron ovens 

 I am describing, which is both curious and important. 

 The fire-place for an oven of the smallest size should 

 be nearly as capacious as one which is destined for heat- 

 ing a much larger oven ; and I have found, by repeated 

 experiments, that a nest of four small ovens, set to- 

 gether, and heated by the same fire, will require but 

 very little more fuel to heat them than would be nec- 

 essary to heat one of them, were it set alone. An 

 attentive consideration of the manner in which the 

 heat is applied of the smallness of the quantity, in 

 all cases, that is applied to the heating of the contents 

 of the oven, and the much greater quantity that 'is 

 expended in heating the fire-place and the flues will 

 enable us to account for this curious fact in a manner 

 that is perfectly philosophical and satisfactory. 



A cottage oven 1 1 inches wide, 10 inches high, and 

 1 6 inches long, will require a fire-place 5 inches wide, 

 5 inches high, and 7 inches long ; and for four of these 

 ovens, set together in a nest, the fire-place need not be 

 more than 6 inches wide, 6 inches high, and 8 inches 

 long. 



I have in my house at Brompton two iron ovens, each 

 1 8 inches wide, 14 inches high, and 24 inches long, set 



VOL. III. 21 



