on Cooking for the Poor. 537 



into the oven, and only 2 Ibs. 5^ loths when it came out 

 of it, the loss of weight each loaf sustained in being 

 baked was 10} loths, as has already been observed. 



Now this loss of weight could only arise from the 

 evaporation of the superabundant water existing in the 

 dough ; and as it is known how much heat, and con- 

 sequently how much fuel, is required to reduce any 

 given quantity of water, at any given temperature, to 

 steam, it is possible, from these data, to determine how 

 much fuel would be required to bake any given quantity 

 of bread, upon the supposition that no part of the heat 

 generated in the combustion of the fuel was lost, either 

 in heating the apparatus, or in any other way ; but that 

 the whole of it was employed in baking the bread, and 

 in that process alone. And though these computations 

 will not show how the heat which is lost might be saved, 

 yet, as they ascertain what the amount of this loss really 

 is in any given case, they enable us to determine, with 

 a considerable degree of precision, not only the relative 

 merit of different arrangements for economizing fuel in 

 the process of baking, but they show also at the same 

 time the precise distance of each from that point of 

 perfection where any farther improvements would be 

 impossible ; and on that account these computations 

 are certainly interesting. 



In computing how much heat is necessary to bake 

 any given quantity of bread, it will tend much to sim- 

 plify the investigation, if we consider the loaf as being 

 first heated to the temperature of boiling water, and 

 then baked in consequence of its redundant water 

 being sent off from it in steam. 



But as the dough is composed of two different sub- 

 stances, viz., rye-meal and water; and as these substances 



