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to escape by during the heating, both of which must be perfectly closed duringthe baking, when the temperature must be at least 250° Fahr. at the beginning, and170° at the close. An oven should not be made to contain more than 500 rations,because it takes ten minutes to place that number in it; and more than ten minutes’difference of baking spoils the bread.
For every 100 rations a superficies of hearth of 30 square feet is required, and theheight inside should be about 18 inches.
Travelling ovens of iron have sometimes been used, but the advantage of havingthe means of baking thus always at hand is considered to be more than counter-balanced by their requiring a great number of horses for their transport.
Kneading troughs are made by digging trenches in a dry spot, 2 J feet deep, for thebakers to kneel in; and parallel to them, with an interval of a foot, smaller trenches1 foot deep, for the dough, having their sides levelled with planks, which should bedried by fires of chips; and the dough must be surrounded with dry branches, toinsure its rising.
OVEN FOR 200 MEN, ROYAL SAPPERS AND MINERS’ BARRACKS, WOOLWICH.
The oven shewn in the accompanying Plate requires half a bushel of coals to heatit sufficiently for all the ordinary purposes of baking for the soldiers’ messes. Thetime necessary for this purpose is three hours. It is the practice to throw a smallquantity of saw-dust into the oven, to hasten the process of heating it, and to burnaway the small quantity of soot that accumulates on the top of the oven. (See Plate.)
The arrangement of the flues is explained by the dotted lines : that marked a, in the.elevation, is the main flue, into which b is conducted, for the double purpose of creatinga draught and carrying off the hot air and steam when drawing from the oven. (Fig. 2.)
It is suggested by private Thomas Cliff, Royal Sappers and Miners, an experiencedcook, in charge of the oven, that it would be much improved by adopting thearrangement of the flues which he has seen in Commissariat ovens at Bermuda .
He would suppress damper b, which is seldom, if ever, used, reducing the throatof that flue at d (in section) to about 2 inches in width, but extending the wholewidth of the oven door. (Figs. 2 and 3.)
lie would also have a flue from the furnace to run into the main flue, with adamper at C (in elevation): thus, by cutting off the fire in the furnace from the ovenby a loose plate (p), and by opening the damper at C, the smoke, &c. would ascendby that flue; and it would be unnecessary to rake out the fire from the furnace foreach baking, as is now the case. (Figs. 4 and 5.)
PAH.f —The strength of the Pahs of New Zealand oonsists principally in thechoice of position.
They are generally situated on peninsular points, with three sides inaccessible,being steeply scarped towards the sea, usually from 50 to 60 feet in height, and pali-saded at top : the depth of water round them is such as to prevent any vessel largerthan those of 6 or 8 tons burden approaching them within the range of field guns; theattack of three sides, except by surprise, being impracticable j and the fourth sideis always cut off by a deep ditch having steep scarps from 20 to 30 feet in height,and counterscarps from 6 to 16 feet. The nature of the soil, being generally a stiffclay or soft sandstone, retains the slope of 60 degrees.