Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/828

808 in granite and other colors; spiders that will suit both right-handed and loft-handed cooks, having a lip on each side; two forms of "self-basting" roasting pans, designed to prevent meats from drying in the oven; knife-edge, torsion, and spring balances; and cast-iron ware polished and even nickel-plated. Portable ovens for gas and kerosene stoves also steam cookers jacketed with asbestos are shown. The jacket prevents the conduction of heat from the cooking food, thus utilizing a scientific principle which is too commonly disregarded in cooking. Cylindrical tin receptacles for flour and meal are shown which may be fastened against the wall at a convenient height. The flour is made to pass through a sieve by turning a crank and comes out by an outlet at the bottom. A measuring cup, which fits on to the outlet when not in use, forms part of the apparatus. There are quite a number of machines worked by a crank which save a great deal of tiresome and time-consuming hand work. One company exhibits a meat chopper, a fruit press, a sausage stuffer, and a cherry stoner. The same company makes a simple utensil, like a saucepan in form, for shaving ice. Another exhibitor has a little nutmeg-grater that is worked by a crank. A small roojn in the Woman's Building is devoted to inventions by women. Most of these are household articles, while some are of a wholly different character. These inventions are generally modifications of articles already in use, novel departures being rare. Among the cooking utensils in this room are a metal kneading-board, a kitchen knife especially adapted for slicing, a frying j>an with a hood and a flue to carry the smoke from the food down into the fire, and an egg and cake beater with a new form of stirrer. Another cake beater invented by a woman, and resembling the tin flour bin described above, is shown in the Agricultural Building. Inventions by women appear also in the Illinois Building, among them being a funnel, a baking pan, and a kettle holder for a stove. A fruit evaporator small enough for household use is shown in the Horticultural Building. The capacity of the smallest size is about half a bushel of apples. In the same building a German exhibitor shows knives of peculiar shapes, for paring and slicing vegetables and cutting them into ornamental shapes; also a cherry stoner. Household woodenware is to be found in the Forestry Building; one make has electrically welded flat hoops set in grooves in the staves, instead of the common riveted hoops; another has welded wire hoops which are imbedded in the wood at several points in the circumference. Near by are shown tubs, pails, keelers, bowls, milkpans, measures, etc., of indurated fiber (paper pulp), which are molded in one piece.

But few appliances are required for laundry work, hence the exhibits in this line are not conspicuous. Of course, wringing