n with large sales for
themselves, but will command the roasting for other parties.

Until the Burns roaster appeared, coffee roasters were usually cylinders
that revolved upon an axis; the other devices that were tried were not
successful. Jabez Burns thus describes the first roaster he ever saw at
Hull, England:

It consisted of a furnace, open at the top, and a perforated
cylinder with a slide door. The axis, or shaft, of the cylinder had
bearings on a frame which passed outside the furnace, while the
cylinder went down into the fire pit, the top of which could be
covered over. In this position it could be turned by means of a
crank on the end of a shaft The only means of testing was by the
escape of the steam or aroma, whichever predominated, passing out
through the perforations at the top; but so expert was the operator
and so quick to detect the aroma, that he seldom had to return the
cylinder to the fire to produce a satisfactory roast. This man
roasted fifty pounds or less in a batch for a number of retail
stores.

Globes, consisting of two hemispheres, made of cast-iron and so
arranged that they opened to fill and discharge, but operated
substantially as above, only with the method of lowering into the
fire changed somewhat, I have seen in use in Scotland in 1840. They
were called French roasters.

In this country a few years ago the use of the long sheet-iron
cylinder was almost universal, varying only in the method of
placing the cylinder over the fire--some sideways on a track,
others endwise, sliding on a long shaft or by turning on a crane,
in either case causing considerable labor and loss of time, which
often resulted in the hands of the inexperienced in more or less
spoiling the batch of coffee.

From his expert knowledge of coffee and coffee-roasting problems, Jabez
Burns quickly rose to a commanding position in the industry. He was a
trade teacher and a trade builder. He had very definite ideas on
roasting. He said:

The object of roasting is not attained until all the moisture
(water of vegetation) is driven off. Roast properly--uniformly and
sufficiently--and you will get all the aroma there is in the bean.
Coffees of various kinds can not be roasted to a uniform color.
Some will be of a light shade when sufficiently roasted while
others w