The Chemistry of Cookery

in _one_ Friday evening lecture, rigidly limited to fifty-seven minutes (and consequently muddled my subject in the vain struggle to condense it), I tried to find the original roaster, but failed; all that remained of the original ‘repository’ being a few models put out of the way as though they were empty wine-bottles. I am not finding fault, as the noble work that has been done there by Davy, Faraday, and Tyndall must have profoundly gladdened the supervising soul of Rumford (supposing that it does such spiritual supervision), in spite of his neglected roaster, which I must now describe without further digression. It is shown open and out of its setting in Fig. 1, and there seen as a hollow cylinder of sheet-iron, which, for ordinary use, may be about 18 inches in diameter and 24 inches long, closed permanently at one end, and by a hinged double door of sheet-iron (_dd_) at the other. The doubling of the door is for the purpose of retaining the heat by means of an intervening lining of ill-conducting material. Or a single door of sheet-iron, with a panel of wood outside, may be used. The whole to be set horizontally in brickwork, as shown in Fig. 4, the door-front being flush with the front of the brickwork. The flame of the small fire below plays freely all round it by filling the enveloping flue-space indicated by the dotted lines on Fig. 4. Inside the cylinder is a shelf to support the dripping-pan (_d_) Fig. 1, which is separately shown in Figs. 2 and 3. [Illustration: FIG. 1.] [Illustration: FIG. 2.] This dripping-pan is an important element of the apparatus. Fig. 3 shows it in cross section, made up of two tin-plate dishes, one above the other, arranged to leave a space (_w_) between. This space contains water, half to three-quarters of an inch in depth. Above is a gridiron, shown in plan, Fig. 2, on which the meat rests; the bars of this are shown in section in Fig. 3. The object of this arrangement is to prevent the fat which drips