PESTLE AND MORTAR.
FISH SLAB.
(F.) Passage. This space is three-and-thirty feet long and nine feet wide, dividing the rooms above described from the kitchen, although a passage, it is particularly useful; on the right from the second larder, and immediately under the stairs, there is fixed a white marble slab, four feet long and three feet three inches in width, surrounded with a slate border, of three inches in height, the slab is used for keeping fresh and cool all the fish brought in for use; at the extremity of the slab, which is an inclined plane, there is an horizontal shower-pipe supplied with iced water from a cistern above. On the opposite side, all along the wall, there is an hour shelf, thirteen feet and a half long and one foot six inches wide, divided by numbers showing the hour when dishes are to be cooked, which is from five to eight at night.
Upon the same line on the left is another dresser, four feet and a half long and three feet wide, to cool sauces and stock before they are removed to the second larder to be put by the side of those already cooled; a rule I would recommend, because the fermentation of hot sauces or stock would affect those in the second larder if put there whilst hot.
At the end of the passage on the right, and above the kitchen door, is a ventilating screen four feet square; it is a simple frame with two cross-pieces covered with canvas, and fixed horizontally above the door, with hinges so as to move it up and down at will, which is done by means of a cord nailed in the middle of the frame and passed through two pullies fixed in the ceiling, and tied with hooks on the wall opposite; you make use of the cord the same as for a Venetian blind, the only difference is, that you keep moving it up and down all the time required to diminish the heat of the kitchen. No one would suppose, without seeing it perform, what surprising effect this simple contrivance produces, as the ascending movement draws away the heat from the kitchen into the passage, and introduces fresh air into it perfectly unexpected; it is only on particular occasions, and in the heat of summer that it is made use of, as the ventilation of this kitchen is everything that can be wished for, it was more as a model for confined kitchens that I have applied this extra-ventilating screen.