Fire-places and Kitchen Utensils. 449 



purpose of introducing the fuel without removing the 

 boiler. 



But even should no use whatever be made of this 

 cooking apparatus in warming the room, the use of 

 it will nevertheless be found to be very economical. 

 The quantity of fuel consumed in preparing food will 

 be greatly diminished ; and, as a fire may at any time 

 be lighted in one of these portable furnaces almost in 

 an instant, there will be no longer any necessity nor any 

 excuse for constantly keeping up a fire on the hearth 

 in warm weather, which is but too often done in this 

 country, even in places where fuel is neither cheap nor 

 plenty. And even in winter, when a fire in the grate is 

 necessary to render the room warm and comfortable, 

 it will still be good economy to light a small separate 

 fire in a portable furnace, or other closed fire-place, for 

 the purpose of cooking ; for nothing is so ill-judged as 

 most of those attempts that are so frequently made 

 by ignorant projectors to force the same fire to perform 

 different services at the same time. 



The heat generated in the combustion of fuel is a 

 given quantity ; and the more directly it is applied to the 

 object on which it is employed, so much the better, for 

 the less of it will escape or be lost on the way, and 

 what is taken away on one side for a particular pur- 

 pose can produce no effect whatever on the other, 

 where it is not. 



VOL. III. 39 



