Pot-au-feu

“ The pot is put simply on the three logs that compose the fire where their ends meet. The hot embers in the centre give plenty of steady heat, and if more be required the pot must be placed on a tripod of branches and the embers fanned with a palm-leaf to a flame. ”

“ Next the minute brine-particles, driven into the air as fog forms above the ocean surface, are the burnt sulphur-particles emanating from the chimneys in towns. The brilliant flame, as well as the smoky flame, is a fog-producer. If gas is burnt in filtered air, intense fog is produced when water-vapour is introduced. Products of combustion from a clear fire and from a smoky one produce equal fogging. The fogs that densely fill our large towns are generally less bearable than those that veil the hills and overhang the rivers. ”

“ Indeed, during dry seasons it not infrequently happens that an immense tract of land is desolated with fire, communicated either by the design or carelessness of the natives, to the dry herbage on the surface. The moment the flame has been kindled, it only waits for the first breath of air to spread it far and wide; then, on the wings of the wind, the fiery tempest streams over the hillsides and through the vast plains. ”

“ The pottery ovens rise hardly higher than the ridges of the roofs of the houses, and when they are heated, and there is some wind, then, during the forty or sixty hours of firing, the houses to leeward are involved in coils of smoke that fill every crevice with grime.
Fortunately the pottery district lies high, between five and six hundred feet above the sea, and catches every wind. This prevents the burden of coal smoke from hanging over the region in black or brown fog as in London. But it is a cheerless district, where the eyes have no objects to rest upon that produce delight. ”

“ To add to our disgust, the wind flew right round into the North, and increasing to a gale, brought down upon us—not one of the usual thick arctic mists to which we were accustomed, but a dark, yellowish brown fog, that rolled along the surface of the water in twisted columns, and irregular masses of vapour, as dense as coal smoke. We had now almost reached the eightieth parallel of north latitude, and still an impenetrable sheet of ice, extending fifty or sixty miles westward from the shore, rendered all hopes of reaching the land out of the question. ”

“ As soon as the fire is lighted, the air next it gets warmed, and begins to mount, and the air in the room is drawn in from below to take the place of that which rises. All the air which lies above the burning coal gets warmer and lighter; it therefore flows up the chimney, carrying with it the smoke and gases. You will understand that though a bright blazing fire is a pleasant sight in winter, we do not get all the heat which it gives out. On the contrary, a great deal of the heat goes up the chimney; and, except in so far as it warms the walls, passes away and warms the outer air. ”

“ Sometimes vapor clouds cannot get above the earth. You know the steam from the boiling clothes could not get out of the kitchen until you opened a window at the top. If the air lies very heavy above it and does not open a place for vapor to go up, it lies on the earth. Such low clouds are called fogs. You remember the kitchen walls dripped with vapor, making the room damp? Thick fogs make people and plants almost as wet as rain. Fogs are oftenest seen over the ocean, lakes, river valleys and swamp land. Sometimes they cover miles of sea, and shut in ships with milky white curtains of vapor. ”

“ White country fog, ordinary clouds, or the so-called “steam” that is seen assuming cloud forms as it issues from the spout of a tea-kettle or funnel of a locomotive, consists of minute particles of water suspended in air, as solid particles of dust are also suspended. It has been called “vesicular vapor,” on the supposition that it has the form of minute vesicles, like soap-bubbles on a very small scale, but this hypothesis remains unproven. London fog consists of similar particles, varnished with a delicate film of coal-tar, and intersprinkled with particles of soot. ”

“ Another important point is that the flue be not too large, or currents of cold air descending will interfere with the ascending heated air. In old buildings flues are found of large size—as 18 in. by 12 in.—with wide throats, funnel-shaped, diminishing upward. But the fuel used in them was wood, and abundant, and men were more hardy, and minded not the roaring of wind in the chimney, or cowered over the embers within the vast embrasure of the fireplace, which formed an inner room of itself. ”

“ The perfect foam of the river, after its descent, and the ever-varying shapes of mist, rising up, to become clouds in the sky, would be the very picture of confusion, were it merely transient, like the rage of a tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, and perceives no lull in the storm, and considers that the vapor and the foam are as everlasting as the rocks which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of calmness. It soothes, while it awes the mind. ”

“ By heating water over a fire, bubbles rise from the bottom of the vessel, adhere awhile to the sides of it, and then ascend to the surface, and burst and go off in visible vapor, or, in other words, by evaporation. Water is evaporated by the heat of the sun merely, and even without this heat, in the open air. It is evaporated at very low temperatures, when fully exposed to the air. Even ice evaporates in the open air. We often observe in Winter, that a thin covering of ice or snow disappears from our roads, although there has been no thawing weather. ”

“ The Sun said “Yes,” and took ever so many other drops, too, so that Aqua might not be lonesome on the way. He did not know this, however, for they all had been changed into fine mist or vapor. Do you know what vapor is? If you breathe into the air, when it is cold enough, you will see it coming out of your mouth like steam, and you may also see very hot steam coming from the nose of a kettle of boiling water. When it is quite near to the earth, where we can see it, we call it “fog.” ”

“ You are wet through, your pants cling coldly and stiffly, like canvas, and all is misery. Home at night, and the wood is damp and burns badly, emitting volumes of stinging smoke, which an erratic breeze blows back in clouds into the main room—to hang about in clouds impossible to dissipate. Your "nap" is clammy and uninviting. Everything feels sticky, as if wet sugar had touched it, and your best boots get covered with a green moss. ”

“ The fogs will draw up the hollows towards the ponds, and hang densely round them. Fog and dew may or may not come together; but generally there is a heavy dew deposit on the grass when a fog lies on the hills. After such fogs, though rain may not have fallen for a month, and there is no water channel or spring near the dew pond, the water in it rises prodigiously. Every shepherd knows this, but the actual measurements of this contribution of the vapour-laden air have not often been taken. ”

“ Flues lead from the bed of each compartment to the central smoke-chamber, which communicates by a main flue with the chimney. The state and progress of the fire can be at any time easily seen through the apertures on the top, down which the fuel is passed; and as the draught is under perfect control, the heat can be at once raised or lowered as may be required. ”

“ As a part of the night’s irony the firemen were blistered by both fire and frost. While cold gales bit their necks and backs, and the wet streets congealed their feet to mere hobbles, the blast from the flames blistered their cheeks.
Everywhere the pavements squirmed with black snakes of hose, limp and empty; for the hydrants were frozen, the cisterns sucked dry. In the face of such fire, little new fires had to be started around the hydrants to thaw them out, but when the water came it turned to ice in the hose as the chilled engines refused to work. ”

“ The dryness of the air, which they occasion, should be remedied, either by placing a vessel, filled with water, on the stove, or by hooking a long and narrow pan, filled with water, in front of the grate; otherwise, the lungs or eyes may be injured. A large number of plants in a room, prevents this dryness of the air. Openings for pipes, through floors, partitions, or fireboards, should be surrounded by tin, to prevent their taking fire. Lengthening a pipe, will increase its draught. ”

“ Its chief sources are our breath, evaporation from damp clothes, and culinary operations, but there are many others. All the oil used in our lamps, and every candle we burn, is converted into nearly its own weight of water, and must condense somewhere. It either falls in large drops, well coloured with candle and lamp smoke, or reserves itself for warmer weather by freezing in all the nooks and crannies overhead and at our side. ”

“ I should point out that the smoke of London contains large quantities of these oils, and they, by coating the drops of mist on which they condense, give the fog that haunts our streets that peculiar richness which is so irritating and injurious to the system, and, further, by preventing the water from being again easily taken up by the air, prolong the duration of the fog. ”

“ A bluish or gray vapor is constantly rising from the canals, the rivers, the sea, and from the saturated soil: a universal haze forms a soft gauze over objects, even in the finest weather. Flying scuds, like thin, half-torn white drapery, float over the meadows night and morning. ”

“ When a long period of dry, hot weather has prevailed, the fire, once started, leaps from tree to tree, while the sparks soar high into the air and, dropping farther, kindle a thousand places at once. The furious uprush of heated air causes a strong draught, which fans the fire into a still more intense heat. ”

“ A priori we might suppose that the formation of fog would arrest cooling by radiation, and that fog would thus act as a protection of plants against frost. The condensation of water evaporated from wet ground, which affords the material for making fog, does apparently act as a protection, and heavy watering is sometimes used to protect plants from frost, but the same cannot be said of fog itself—cooling appears to go on in spite of the formation of fog. ”

“ But as in the summer time they are troubled with the fog, so in the winter season they are likewise plagued with the vapour called frost smoke, which, when the cold is excessive, rises out of the sea as the smoke out of a chimney, and is as thick as the thickest mist, especially in the bays, where there is any opening in the ice. ”

“ Oh, how biting cold it was! On in the grey snow light with a terrible wind sweeping up the long reaches of the river; nothing spoken, for such cold makes men silent, morose, and savage. After four hours travelling, we stopped to dine. It was only 9:30, but we had breakfasted six hours before. We were some time before we could make fire, but at length it was set going, and we piled the dry driftwood fast upon the flames. Then I set up my thermometer again; it registered 39 below zero, 71 degrees of frost. ”

“ This must be sunk below the level, and there must be a decided rise from the fire to the flue, to enable the draught to overcome the check which the heat encounters in taking the horizontal course of the flue. The simplest arrangement in the case of a lean-to is to take the flue along the front of the house, rising slightly all the way, and terminating in a chimney at the other end. In the case of a span-roofed house it will be desirable to take the flue round the house, rising gently all the way, and terminating in a chimney over the furnace. ”

“ Only seldom, when the slight breeze stirred and parted the everlasting, unbottled vapors, were we granted a fleeting glimpse, many hundreds of feet below on the bottom of the well, of the plummetless hole that spills upward its poisonous breath. If the frail-seeming ledge on which we hung had caved, not one of us could have reached bottom alive—the deadly fumes would have done for us far short of that. ”

“ The sun beat down on the iron roof. The heat beat up from the tracks. Red dust polluted the drinking water in the little upright tank. Dust filled eyes, nostrils, hair. Dust caked and grew stiff in the sweat that streamed down us. ”

“ I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside and upon the top, till I saw the pots in the inside red-hot quite through, and observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run; for the sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence of the heat, and would have run into glass if I had gone on; so I slacked my fire gradually till the pots began to abate of the red colour ”

“ When the flue is hot no water condenses in it; all the water formed in the combustion remains in the form of vapour, and is carried away by the chimney. A further advantage is that it is not often necessary to enter the flue to collect the soot; burning may be continued for a long time, and a large quantity of soot taken at once from the flues or soot chambers. ”

“ It is interesting to note the tendency of organic matter, when mixed with water, to give rise to explosive and combustible products. Explosions in cesspools and sewers have occurred many times. When wet hay is stored in stack it catches fire. When we stir the mud at the bottom of a pond or river, bubbles of combustible marsh-gas rise to the surface. ”

“ Aitken has shown, moreover, in an interesting paper communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, last year, that the fine dust resulting from the imperfect combustion of coal is mainly instrumental in the formation of fog; each particle of solid matter attracting to itself aqueous vapor; these globules of fog are rendered particularly tenacious and disagreeable by the presence of tar-vapor, another result of imperfect combustion of raw fuel, which might be turned to much better account at the dye-works. ”