'] l^ Letter to Pictet. 



most favourable circumstances, I have been able to bring 

 to boiling twenty pounds of ice-cold water, by the heat 

 produced in the combustion of one pound of ordinary 

 fir-wood, moderately dry; and that, by the heat pro- 

 duced in the combustion of thirty-three pounds of the 

 same wood, I have been able to roast one hundred 

 pounds of meat in a roaster of my invention in the 

 Military Academy in Munich. This roaster has been 

 used daily for seven years ; and all those who have 

 tasted the meat prepared in it agree that it is cooked 

 with an uncommon degree of perfection. 



I send herewith a description, which has been recently 

 forwarded to me from England, of the working of a 

 kitchen established according to my principles in the 

 Foundling Hospital in London. Mr. Bernard, secretary 

 of the Hospital, writes to me that several other large 

 hospitals are about to adopt these inventions. You 

 can make such use of the paper as you think best, but 

 I beg that you will finally return it to me. 



I send you also a trifle which you can keep. It is 

 the result of some reflections on a subject of great im- 

 portance, — a subject which, for the good of society, 

 we could wish had been meditated upon more often 

 than it has been, without passion, and with a philo- 

 sophic camlness. 



The following results of my experiments and re- 

 searches on heat will perhaps interest you. They are 

 taken from my Essay on the Management of Fire and 

 Economy of Fuel, which will soon appear, and from 

 another Essay on Kitchen Fire-places, which will fol- 

 low it. 



Here follows an abstract of the essays mentioned. 

 [This letter is translated from the French, as it appears in the 

 " Biblioth^que Britannique (Science et Arts)," iv., pages 7-1 1.] 



