IMPROVE- MENTS IN HEATING AND COOKING APPARATUS
Year: 1855

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Little at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the 13th December
1855.
I, JOHN LITTLE, of Glasgow, in the County. of Lanark, North Britain,
Ironmonger, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN HEATING AND COOKING APPARATUS" to be as follows, that is to say:-
This Invention relates to a simple arrangement of stove, fire-place, or
heating and cooking apparatus, whereby superior economy in the consumption
of fuel is gained, as well as a most effective heating and cooking power. Under
one modification of this apparatus it consists of a plain cylindrical external
chamber, having at its bottom a fire grate and fuel chamber of the kind
usually adopted in common stoves; the heated air, flame, and gases from the
burning fuel being passed directly into this main external chamber, which is
fitted with a discharge flue and regulating damper at the top. Within this
external chamber there is an internal chamber or hot-air space, coned or
rounded off at its lower end, which stands immediately over the fire, and is well
exposed to the heat. This internal case is of such a diameter that it leaves
only a narrow annular space between its external surface and the internal
surface of the outer chamber, and it is entirely closed, except that it has inlet
and outlet passages for the cold and hot air. The heat, flame, and gases from
the fire beneath play through the annular space, enveloping the internal

page_text: chamber most completely, the current passing off over the top of the inner
chamber by a space left for that purpose to a discharge flue, leading out into
the external atmosphere. By this plan, the internal chamber is obviously
subjected to a very intense heating power, and the air contained therein being
thus rarefied, it is discharged from the chamber by a pipe or thoroughfare at
its upper end, leading off into the apartment to be warmed; at the same time
cold air from the external atmosphere is admitted to the internal chamber by
a bottom pipe. In this way a strong air current is constantly kept up through
the internal heating chamber; this current, and consequently the heating power
of the stove, being adjustable by a valve upon the hot-air discharge pipe.
This modification is intended merely for heating rooms. When used as a
cooking stove the internal chamber answers as the receptacle for the articles
to be cooked, and it is then unnecessary to have a cold-air inlet, but the
vapours from the articles under cooking treatment are passed off to the ex-
ternal atmosphere by an upper pipe, in the position herein-before assigned, to
the hot-air warming pipe. The apparatus is capable of various modifications,
according to the special service which it is required to perform, but all such
modifications involve the general arrangements herein-before explained. For
example, a portable cooking apparatus is obtained by simply using internal
and external chambers, as described, but without any fire grate. This
apparatus may then be placed directly down upon an open fire in a kitchen or
other grate affording a speedy means of cooking.