Fireplaces for Cooking.—­The most elementary fireplace consists of three stones in a triangle, to support the pot.  If stones are not procurable, three piles of mud, or three stakes or green-wood driven into the earth, are an equivalent.  Small recesses neatly cut in a bank, one for each fireplace, are much used, when the fuel is dry and well prepared.  A more elaborate plan is to excavate a shallow saucer-like hole in the ground, a foot or eighteen inches in diameter, and kneading the soil so excavated into a circular wall, with a doorway in the windward side:  the upper surface is curved, so as to leave three pointed turrets, upon which the cooking-vessel rests, as in the sketch.  Thus the wind enters at the doorway, and the flames issue through the curved depressions at the top, and lick round the cooking-vessel placed above.  The wall is sometimes built of stones.

Trenches and Holes.—­In cooking for a large party with a small supply of fuel, either dig a narrow trench, above which all the pots and kettles may stand in a row, and in which the fire is made—­the mouth being open to the wind, and a small chimney built at the other end;—­or else dig a round hole, one foot deep, and place the pots in a ring on its edge, half resting on the earth, and half overlapping the hole.  A space will remain in the middle of them, and through this the fire must be fed.

Esquimaux Lamp.—­The cooking of the Esquimaux is wholly effected by stone lamps, with wicks made of moss, which are so carefully arranged that the flame gives little or no smoke.  Their lamps vary in size from one foot and a half long to six inches.  Each of the bits of moss gives a small but very bright flame.  The lamp is all in all to the Esquimaux; it dries their clothes, and melts the snow for their drinking-water; its construction is very ingenious; without it they could not have inhabited the arctic regions.

Ovens.—­Bedouin Oven.—­Dig a hole in the ground; wall and roof it with stones, leaving small apertures in the top.  They make a roaring fire in and about the oven (the roof having been temporarily removed for the purpose), and when the stones (including those of the roof) have become very hot, sweep away the ashes and strew the inside of the oven with grass, or leaves, taking care that whatever is used, has no disagreeable taste, else it would be communicated to the flesh.  Then put in the meat:  it is a common plan to sew it up in its own skin, which shields it from dust and at the same time retains its juices from evaporating.  Now replace the roof, a matter of some difficulty, on account of the stones being hot, and therefore requiring previous rehearsal.  Lastly, make the fire again over the oven and let the baking continue for some hours.  An entire sheep can be baked easily in this way.  The same process is used for baking vegetables, except with the addition of pouring occasionally boiling water upon them, through the roof.