Fig. 21.—Electric Range
The particular type of range herewith illustrated ([Fig. 21]) uses a burner of the open-coil type, both for the surface burners and for the oven. The ovens are highly insulated with a thick packing of best grade mineral wool, which reduces air leakage to a minimum and retains the heat generated for a long period. Many cooking operations which are performed in ordinary ovens with the burners on, can be prepared in this particular style of oven by using stored heat for the last half of the operation. The range is simplicity itself in operation. Each burner is operated by an indicating snap switch which has three separate heats, full, medium and low; medium being one-half of full and low one-half of medium. There are no matches; there is no danger from fire. There is no vitiated, foul air because of noxious gases from ordinary cooking stoves. There is no soot or grime, no ashes, no wood or coal to carry; there are fewer steps; there is less watching of the range; practically none at all, because when a burner is turned to medium, for instance, you know that you have a certain degree of heat for just as long as the switch is in that position. Results are eminently satisfactory and there is a sufficient saving in the weights and the nutritive value of foods cooked, especially in the oven, to make the electric range indeed a most desirable and economical addition to any home.
Today, the housewife, whether the provider of the home be a laborer or a merchant prince, can, with a simple touch of the button or a snap of the switch, bring to her immediate command, and subservient to her wishes, that subtle something which came in the snowflake, and which, while invisible, yet provides the greatest boon to mankind—electricity.
Why is there Always a Soft Spot in a Cocoanut Shell?
A cocoanut shell always has a soft spot at one end because this is the provision nature has made to allow the embryo of the future tree to push its way out of the hard shell.
Cocoanuts, as most of us know, have a thick, hard shell, with three black scars at one end. The soft scar may easily be pierced with a pin; the others are as hard as the rest of the shell. Outside of this hard shell we are accustomed to seeing another covering of considerable thickness, of an extremely fibrous substance. When cocoanuts are picked, however, they have still another covering-an outer rind which has a smooth surface.
The tree which produces the cocoanut is a palm, from sixty to a hundred feet high. The trunk is straight and naked, and surmounted by a crown of feather-like leaves. The nuts hang from the summit of the tree in clusters of a dozen or more together.