Rumford’s roaster was a very remarkable contrivance, that seems to have been forgotten. It probably demands more intelligence in using it than is obtainable in a present-day kitchen. When the School Boards have supplied a better generation of domestic servants we may be able to restore its use. It is a cylindrical oven with a double door to prevent loss of heat. In this the meat rests on a grating over a specially constructed gravy and water dish. Under the oven are two “blow-pipes,” _i.e._, stout tubes standing just above the fire so as to be made red hot, and opening into the oven at the back, and above the fireplace in front, where there is a plug to be closed or open as required. Over the front part of the top of the oven is another pipe for carrying away the vapor. It is thus used: The meat is first cooked in an atmosphere of steam formed by the boiling of water placed in the bottom of the double dish, over which the meat rests. When by this means the meat has been raised throughout its whole thickness to the temperature at which its albumen coagulates, the plugs are removed from the blow-pipes, and _then_ the special action of roasting commences by the action of a current of superheated air which enters below and at the back of the oven, travels along and finds exit above and in front of the steam-pipe before named. The result is a practical attainment of theoretical perfection. Instead of the joint being dried and corticated outside, made tough, leathery, and flavorless to about an inch of depth, then fairly cooked an inch further, and finally left raw, disgusting, and bloody in the middle, as it is in the orthodox roasting by British cooks, the whole is uniformly cooked throughout without the soddening action of mere boiling or steaming, as the excess of moisture is removed by the final current of hot dry air thrown in by the blow-pipes, which at the same time give the whole surface an uniform browning that can be regulated at will without burning any portion or wasting the external fat. Rumford’s second rule, that air be admitted only from below, and be limited to the requirements, is so simple that no comment upon it is needed. Although we have done so little in the improvement of domestic fireplaces, great progress has been made in engine furnaces, blast furnaces, and all other fireplaces for engineering and manufacturing purposes. Every furnace engineer now fully appreciates Rumford’s assertion that excess of cold air is a thief.