sufficiently to extract the essence, and yet
leaves the aroma untouched by too fierce a
heat, and it filters so rapidly as to lose neither
heat nor flavour."

A crown of laurels for the maker of the
Wolverhampton coffee-pot is the least that
can be awarded. Talk not of the forcing-
pump being merely a hydraulic apparatus: it
is a cooking apparatus also. See how the
forcing-pump here makes coffee. The pump,
of necessity very small in dimensions, is fixed
to the coffee-pot near the handle; the boiling
water is poured into the pump, the ground
coffee is put into a perforated vessel in the
middle of the coffee-pot, and the water is
forced through the infinitesimal coffee into
the receptacle beneath.

Some persons try to cook by the aid of
boiling water  or they try to enable other
persons to try to cook by such means. An
inner vessel is placed within an outer one;
the space between them is filled with water;
and this water, being heated to the boiling
point, similarly heats the space within the
inner vessel. But there is one permanent and
effective limit to the use of such a system;
water will not rise to a higher temperature
than two hundred and twelve degrees of
Fahrenheit, unless enclosed in formidable iron
casings unsuitable for kitchen arrangements;
and this temperature, though suitable for
boiling and some other processes, will not
suffice for roasting or baking. We can
imagine, however, that a cook would often be
thankful for the means of ensuring a temperature
limited exactly to this amount.

Cooking by steam is something of a puzzler.
It is a great thing for a school-boy to mount
up to the knowledge that a pound of feathers
weighs as much as a pound of lead; and it
requires an analogous degree of sagacity to
perceive that a pound of steam is as heavy as
a pound of hot water. But when we have
attained that height, we are still at a loss
concerning the advantage or economy of steam
cookery. The truth is, however, that
notwithstanding this equality in weight, a pound
of steam contains very much more heat than
a pound of the hottest of all possible hot
water; the makers of steam-engines know
this, and they laugh at all other caloric
engines; and the makers of cooking-engines
know this, and have sought to cook by steam.
Somehow or other, it must nevertheless be
owned, these steam-cookery affairs have
scarcely held their ground; we seldom hear
of their having attained a practical degree of
efficiency; a vessel may be enveloped in hot
steam, and may thereby be rendered equally
hot; but steam, like boiling water, cannot be
readily raised to so high a temperature as to
be available for many of the more important
operations of cooking. Steaming potatoes
over a vessel containing boiling water is
another affair; this is really a sensible
project, for it is making good use of heat which
else would be dissipated. As to the relative
advantages of applying boiling water and
steam to the food itself, we offer no opinion:
it does not belong to our present pot-and-
kettle philosophy.

Who can enumerate all the varieties in the
arrangement of gas-cookery apparatus? Here
is an arrangement with a fire-place of gas-jets
in the centre, and pots and kettles enow
around it to cook a dinner for fifty guests.
Here is another, of which the inventor claims
for it a power of cooking for a hundred
guests at once. Here is a maker, who
has a gas-cooking range, with roaster, oven,
copper boiler, and stewing-plate, "capable
for a dinner of sixty persons;" an
apparatus for stewing by jets of gas mixed
with atmospheric air; a gas gridiron for
broiling chops and steaks; and a gas apparatus
for toasting bread. A "pocket-stove"
is a conundrum not easily solved; but if
by pocket be meant portable, there is a nice
little affair entitled the "pocket stove for
cooking by gas;" this gas seems to be
generated in some way from heated spirits,
and in so far the stove is a humble relation
to the "magic" affair of M. Soyer. The
chef de cuisine, just named, was once
employed in cooking a monstrously-large piece
of meat, to assist some jolly farmers in mourning
over the effects of free trade, at an
agricultural dinner in Devonshire; he employed
gas; and it is asserted that by an expenditure
of five shillings in this aerial fuel, and five
hours of time, he cooked a baronial joint of
beef weighing five hundred and sixty-five
pounds. Another inventor presents us with
a hand-bill, in which is a picture of a gas stove
as beautiful as a cabinet, and not much unlike
it in shape; he tells us that by this apparatus
a joint weighing twenty-five pounds may be
roasted for less than one penny; that it
requires no servant and no basting; and that
we may have the pleasure of seeing joints of
meat under process of roasting daily at his
premises. The efficiency or non-efficiency of
gas-cooking is among the controversies of the
day. We know an establishment in the west
of London, consisting of a large number of
persons, who make a very observable impression
on several large joints of meat every day.
Until a year ago or so, there was a fine old
range in the kitchen, and a fine fat old cook
to attend to it; and the beef and mutton were
done " to a turn;" but the expenditure of
coal was awful; and the owners, willing to
march with the age, spent about one hundred
guineas in fitting up a gas-cooking apparatus.
Twelve months sufficed to ruin the reputation
of the new-comer; cook was dissatisfied with
it, because it disturbed all her old ideas about
cookery; and the diners were dissatisfied
with it, because they said all the food seemed
sodden, and neither baked, nor roasted, nor
boiled properly; and the owners were
dissatisfied because the others were dissatisfied.
The gas-apparatus has been removed, and the
kitchen-range restored. We offer no judgement