R O A 
Ireland, with a number of small islands; 6 miles south-west 
of Skibbereen. Lab 51. 28. N. long. 9. 22. W. 
ROA'RY, adj. \rores, Lat.] Dewy. 
On Lebanon his foot he set, 
And shook his wings with roary May dews wet. Fair fax. 
To ROAST, v. a. [ rostir, rotir, Fr. r os ten. Germ, 
•repoytoft, Sax. roasted.] To dress meat, by turning it 
round before the fire.— Roasting and boiling are below the 
dignity of your office. Swift. —To impart dry heat to 
flesh. 
Here elements have lost their uses, 
Air ripens not, nor earth produces; 
Fire will not roast, nor water boil. Swift. 
To dress at the fire without water.—In eggs boiled and 
roasted, there is scarce difference to be discerned. Bacon. 
—To heat any thing violently. 
Roasted in wrath and fire. 
He thus o’ersized with coagulate gore. 
Old Priam seeks. Shakspeare. 
In common conversation, to jeer or banter. Scott. 
—Roast,, for roasted. 
And if Dan Congreve judges right. 
Roast beef and ale make Britons fight. Prior. 
ROAST, s. That which is roasted.—He dravehim thence, 
as Tobias drove away the spirit Asmodeus; for that was 
done with a roste, and this witha spit. Sir J. Harrington. 
—In common conversation, banter. 
To rule the Roast. To govern; to manage; to 
preside. 
Where champions rulctli the rost. 
Their daily disorder is most. Tusser. 
ROA'STER, s. One who roasts meat. Sherwood. —A 
gridiron. Ainsworth. 
ROASTING. The most ancient method of roasting, 
which is still the general practice, is by turning the meat 
before the fire; and it is still supposed, without any good 
reason, that meat cannot have its proper flavour when 
roasted in any other way. It is true that roasters or ovens 
of the common construction are apt to give the meat a dis¬ 
agreeable flavour, arising from the empyreumatic oil which 
is formed by the decomposition of the fat, exposed to the 
bottom of the oven. This evil has been completely reme¬ 
died in two ways; first, by providing against the evil of 
allowing the fat to burn; and secondly, by carrying off by a 
Strong current of heated air the empyreumatic vapours. 
The roaster used in the Derby Infirmary, and in many 
private houses in the neighbourhood, is not on any account 
objectionable, but it is particularly valuable in an economi¬ 
cal point of view. This is principally effected by casting 
the heat entirely upon the object of roasting, instead of 
sending three-fourths of the heat up a capacious chimney, 
and expending the greatest part of the remainder upon the 
cook, and the walls and furniture of the kitchen. 
The roaster above alluded to is made of sheet iron, of the 
strength of about one pound to the square foot; its form is 
that of a parallelepipedon, about twenty-five inches high, 
twenty-two long, and eighteen in breadth. The fire is put 
under it; but one course of bricks is placed immediately 
over the fire, and above this a cavity of five inches deep 
between the brick rOof and the oven bottom. The flame of 
the fire passes a little to the right and left, and rises perpen¬ 
dicularly up the sides of the roaster, freely communicating 
with the top of the same. By this means the flame and hot 
vapour will be the hottest at the top of the oven, because of 
its greater levity, and its not being allowed to escape at this 
point, according to the common practice. After the hot 
vapour has bestowed its heat on the superior part, it now 
descends and enters on each side the cavity under the oven, 
from whence it passes up the back of the same, which back 
forms one side of the smoke chimney. This arrangement is 
sufficient for distributing all the disposable heat equally on 
R O A 135 
every side of the roaster. We shall next point out the con¬ 
trivance for disposing of the smell above alluded to. The 
door of the oven is cased with wood, a piece of thick paper, 
steeped in a solution of alum, and smeared with clay, being 
placed between the wood and the iron, to prevent the wood 
from being charred. The door extends below the bottom of 
the oven about three inches. This, when the door is open, 
exposes a plate three inches deep, and the width of the oven, 
and which constitutes the front of the cavity under the oven. 
At one side of this plate is a hole at the entrance of the tube, 
which extends to the other end of the cavity, where it is bent, 
and returns on the other side of the cavity, and opens into 
another cavity formed by a double plate, which constitutes 
the iron part of the door. The first entrance of this tube 
corresponds with an opening at the bottom of the door, so 
that when the door is shut, cold air can enter the tube. In 
its passage it becomes heated, and then enters the oven at 
the top, from the cavity in the door. It now passes over 
the meat, and escapes through a tube in the back plate, 
which extends so high as to reach above the smoke damper. 
By this means the roaster is constantly cleared of any dis¬ 
agreeable vapour, by a force equal to the draft of the 
chimney. 
ROASTING, in Metallurgy, is a process by which the 
volatile parts of metals and minerals are separated by the 
application of heat. The minerals are generally mixed with 
the fuel, and fired in heaps exposed to the open air. When 
the volatile substance is driven off with difficulty, the rever¬ 
beratory furnace is sometimes employed. 
This process is frequently, though improperly, called 
calcining, since the latter is confined to the oxydation of 
metals. In expelling the volatile parts from lime-stone and 
gypsum, the process is termed burning, and in the latter 
sometimes boiling. The term roasting is principally con¬ 
fined to iron, and other ores abounding with sulphur and 
arsenic. 
ROATUN. See Ruatan. 
ROATH, a parish of Wales, in Glamorganshire, in the 
vicinity of Cardiff. 
ROB, s. [Arabic.] Inspissated juices usually boiled up 
to the consistence of honey.—The infusion, being evapo¬ 
rated to a thicker consistence, passeth into a jelly, rob, ex¬ 
tract, which contain all the virtues of the infusion. 
Arbuthnot. 
There are robs made of quinces, sloes, cherries, mulber¬ 
ries, elderberries, barberries, gooseberries, and other fruits, 
for various diseases. The juice of grapes thus prepared, is 
-more particularly called rob, or sapa simplex; this is almost 
of the consistence of honey. 
The rob is a form now quite out of use in medicine, but 
it is possible that great improvements might be made, by 
introducing the use of it among the malt-distillers. The 
great inconvenience attending that art being, that the 
malt having a large bulk, in proportion to its saccharine 
part, and requiring a larger proportion of water to extract 
that saccharine part, many large vessels, such as mash-tubs, 
coolers, fermenting backs, See. are necessary; and the neces¬ 
sary labour on the subject is increased, and the commodity 
rendered dearer. The remedy of this should seem the intro¬ 
ducing a new art subservient to that of the malt-distiller, and 
confining itself to the boiling down of malt-wort to a rob, 
so as to supply the malt-stiller with his subject, in the same 
manner as the fine-stillers are supplied with treacle from the 
sugar-baker. By this means the business of the malt-stiller 
would be reduced to a great degree of simplicity, and the 
spirit produced would be also much finer than at present, 
because the subject would come tolerably refined to his 
hands, and purged of its gross, mealy, and husky matter, 
which yields a disagreeable oil in distillation, and is also 
apt to burn to the still, and spoil the spirit. It is possible, 
that a spirit purer and finer than that from treacle might this 
way be procured from malt, prudently managed. 
To ROB, v. a. [rober, old Fr. robbare, Ital. and may 
be derived even from the Persian.]—To deprive of 
any thing by unlawful force; to plunder. 
It’s 
