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A"“'§E€3 e-aeww-i- 6‘f¢‘-‘b‘u:u J’e‘d'fififl -'---“ #9;:.-;. " wa—«Ba * ‘o‘u‘a‘-‘%‘&'&‘$‘6" .43». " a‘o‘u‘ur‘ .» "b‘w' .v' v‘a‘b‘$'$‘~“‘ ‘» - 353-3-33 ---.-\L~-v..-;, _ ’ {r r- GOTHIC SUBURBAN (,‘U'I'TAHIC. '50? page L' > THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER A SERIES OF DESIGNS, PLANS, AND SPECIFICATIONS, ° FROM $200 TO $20,000, FOR HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE. TOGETHER WITH WARMING, VENTILATION, DRAINAGE, PAINTING, ARI. LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 137? {IC)IIIN’ ISIIIQIQ()(JI§, ARCHITECT, CIVIL ENGINEER, MECHANICIAN, AND EDITOR 05‘ “THE RUDIMENTB 0! ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING,” rm, ETC. @IIustmted 11g gerontg-fiive (Engravings, PHILADELPHIA: IH E N'R,Y‘ C A.R,E‘Y B A.I B D INDUSTRIAL PUBLISHER, 406 WALNU'P STREET. 1873. Entered acu‘ording to Act of Congress, in the year ,3“, BY STRINGER & TOWNSEND, In 0‘19 clerk's Oflice of the District Court of the United States for m Southern District of New York. PIREIFAXJE. THE object of this work is to furnish designs of cottages, from a twenty-five dollar cottage to a twenty-five thousand dollar palace—giving estimates as to cost, furnishing plans and specifications, and ' treating upon the rudiments of the Arts called into exercise by the practice of Cottage Building. This book being the third of the “Architectural Series,” the portions of the two former volumes, which might properly be incorporated in this, are . omitted. The first of the series is “The History and Rudiments of Architecture ;” the second, “ Rudi- ments of the Art of Building.”* The chapter on WARMING AND VENTILATION is edited from Tomilson, and that on GARDENING, from Glenny. Wherever, in other portions of the work, we have availed ourselves of the labors of others, we have given them proper credit. Although the book is intended to be of a practical character, I thought it not improper, in the chapter entitled “ GENERALLY,” to show the position and the difficulties of the Artist. In that chapter, and the one entitled “THE ARTIsr’s CALLING,” I have discussed Arts and Artists, and their influence on the progress * These two books are now published in one volume. 83632 PREFACE. of civilization, giving, to them their proper position as a motor, rather than an attendant of Progress. I hold that the Architect, to attain eminence in his calling, in this age, must recognize and act upon the principles there incmcated - JOHN BULLOCK. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. GENERAIlLY. W’here to Build aflottage ..... . .............. .... 11 Bird Cottage ................ ' .................... 11 Objects Desired ............... . .................. 12 CHAPTER II. THE VARIOUS PARTS. . ‘ W'alls ..... . ..................................... l5 Cob Walls............................. .... .. 18 Mud Walls ....................................... 18 Silverlocks’ Hollow Walls ............ . ............ 18 LDearnes’ Hollow Brick Walls ...................... 19 Lorfion’s Hollow Brick Walls ........ I. ............ 20 Flint Built Walls ................................ 21 ‘Valls of Framed Timber, Rubble and Plaster ...... 21 ‘Valls of Hollow Bricks .......................... 22 Covering for External Walls ...................... 23 Inside Work ..................................... 23 Floors ...... . .................................... 2; Lime-ash Floors ................................. 24 Concrete Floors ................. . ................ 25 Plaster Floor .................................... 25 Asphalte ........................................ 25 Floor of Hollow Pots ............................. 27 Tile Floor ....................................... 27 Floors of Arched Brickwork in Mortar ............. ‘27 (5) CONTENTS. Fire-proof Floor. .. .............................. 28 Tile-trimmer..... ................................ 28 GirderFloor............. ...... ............ 28 Stairs formed of Tile............. 29 Roofs. 29 Thatch ..... . .............................. 29 Tile‘fOI-Roofing...” .............. ...... 31 Slate Roof ...... . ............................ 31 - Castiron Roofing ....................... . ........ 31 Eaves-gutter..... 32 Chimney-shaft .................. . ................ 32 Ventilation and Warming ......................... 33 CHAPTER III. TERRA DEL FUEGO COTTAGE. CHAPTER IV.‘ PRAIRIE COTTAGE. Cottage of Unburnt Brick-Plan ................... 3'? Cross Section .................................... 38 Side View ....................................... 38 Manner of Laying the Brick and the Foundation.. . . 38 Chimney-cap, Perspective, and Top Views .......... 42 CHAPTER V. THE FARM COTTAGE. Ground Floor ........................... . ........ 45 Attic Floor ...................................... 47 CHAPTER VI. THE VILLAGE COTTAGE. CHAPTER VII. ITALIAN COTTAGE. CHAPTER VIII. THATCHED COTTAGE. CHAPTER IX. COTTAGE OF‘ THE SOCIETY FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE POOR. CONTENTS. 7 CHAPTER X. \VARMING AND VENTILATION. . Ventilation ............. . 163 CHAPTER XI. MODEL COTTAGE. Hollow Brickwork............................... 187 CHAPTER XII. RURAL COTTAGE. BaSementPlan......,............................ 189 Plan of the First Floor ........................... 190 Plan oftheSecondFloor......................... 190 CHAPTER XIII. OCTAGON COTTAGE. Plan of Basement ............................... 192 Plan of Principal Story ...................... . . . . 193 CHAPTER XIV. DRAINAGE. CHAPTER XV. RURAL HOMES. _ Circumstances to be taken into consideration in the Choice of a Situation ...................... . . . . . 210 Elevation ....................................... 210 The Character of the Surface on which to Build ..... 211 Aspect .......................................... 212 Soil and subsoil .................................. 212 \Vater ............. . ............................ 214 Villa .................................. . ...... ‘. . 214 Rural Home, NO. 1 ............................... 217 Views of a Suburban Residence in the English style. 217 Rural Home, NO. 2 ......... . .......... . ......... 218 Rural Home, No. 3 ..................... . ........ 219 Rural Home,No.4.............................. 223 . CHAPTER XVI. PAINT AND COLOR. 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVII. SUBURBAN RESIDENCES. Gothic Suburban Cottage of C. Prescott, Esq., Troy, N. Y ................ . ..... ....... . ........ 235 Basement....................................... 236 First Floor ....... . ...................... . ....... 236 Attlc, 237 SecondFloor................. ................... 237 Suburban Octagonal Cottage ......... ............. 239 CHAPTER XVIII. LANDSCAPE GARDENING. First steps in Forming a Landscape Garden ....... . 251 The Roads and Paths ............................ 253 Trees, Shrubs, and Planting. . .... .... .... .... .... 258 Hills and Mounds ........................ ... ..... 261 Valleys and Low Grounds ....................... . 265 Rock-work .............. . . . . .................... 267 Of Water, and its Appropriation or Adoption ...... 272 Fountains ..................................... . . 276 General Observations ............................. 277 Formal Gardening ............................... 278 Pleasure Grounds and Flower Gardens ............. 285 The Flower Garden ............... . ............. 292 TheGreenhouse...................... ........... 303 The Conservatory ...................... .. ........ 307 CHAPTER XIX. Cosr. The Terra del Fuegan Cottage . . . . . . . . . ........... 316 The Prairie Cottage ............. . . ........... A . . . . 316 The Village Cottage ..................... . .... . . . . 317 The Italian Cottage. . . . . . . . . . .................... 317 The Thatched Cottage .................. L ......... 317 The Cottage of the Society for Improving the Condi- tion of the Poor ............................... 317 Prince Albert’s Model Cottage. . .. ................ 317 The Rural Cottage ....... - ........... . ............ 317 CONTENTs 9 Mr. Fowler’s Octagonal Cottage. ._ ................. 317 RuralHome,No. 1.. 317 Rural Home, No. 2 .............................. 317 Rural Home, No. 3. . ........................ 317 The Suburban Residence .......................... 317 The Octagonal Suburban Residence designed by Wilcox ....................................... 317 The Byzantine Cottage ........................... 317 The Gothic Suburban Residence designed by Mr. Davis ........ . ................................ 317 CHAPTER XX. Two RESIDENCES. The Byzantine Cottage ........................... 318 Ground Plan . . . .. ................................ 318 Plan of Second Story. ........................... 318 The Gothic Suburban Residence of W. H. C. Wad- dell, Esq., N. Y ................................ 319 First Floor ...................................... 319 Second Floor..........’ .......................... 320 CHAPTER XXI. ARTIST’s AND ARTISAN’S CALLING. ‘2‘" ‘ , THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. CHAPTER I. _ GENERALLY. To DECIDE where to build a cottage is quite as diflicul' a task as to tell Imp to build it. The location of a house adds as much to its beauty and convenience, as does its stvle or arrangement. The bird which builds its nest, is one of nature’s own Architects, and practices its truest art. It first seeks a proper locality, and usually selects a place at such an height from the ground as to be secure from disturbing animals. It builds in the fork of a tree, or the (f/ é. r W” ‘ 4: 7 \ . beams of a barn, so as .. ‘ . ‘llvv, -- J —\ _ . N g\. . to be unlikely to be \’ $759“? 3 ‘.,"\“~ moved by the winds; it _ ‘9‘ \34“ . :63; § ‘ '1‘ ' seeks protection from the L = \\ storms under the over- :155 ®\ ‘ . 'fQ‘ » hanging leaves, the roof @511 of the barn, or perhaps $9} the thatch on the hay- stack; and thus it is that the bird shows its architectural skill in selecting a spot where to build a home. For the purposes for which the bird desires to use its nest, for the objects which it wishes to gain, it perfectly adapts its means to its end. 1* 12 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. We do not understand the object of Architecture to be to tell the bird that he should no longer be a bird living in trees, or to say to the monks on Mont Blanc, “ your loca- tion is bad, cold, dreary and uninviting.” Neither is it her province to say to the rustic, “thou should’st be a civilian,” or to the civilian, “ thou should’st seek a rural home ;” or even to the savage, “thou should’st build a house after the manner of the civilized nations.” The Architect'must first know the objects desired, before he can decide as to the proper locality or style. He comes to the monks of St. Bernard, and they say, “we wish to stay on Alpine heights, amid continued storms and eternal sndw, to practice the rites and to perform the duties of our holy religion, and relieve the suffering and weary that pass this way.” Some men might answer that more good could be done in other localities, or in the practice of other reli- gions. Not so the true Architect. He seizes upon the monk’s aspirations and desires, selects a locality as near as practicable to where the passing traveler would be exposed to the most hardships and dangers, and be most likely to need assistance. He then, in that same vicinity, selects the Spot least exposed to the storms and the tempests, and commences his edifice. Thus it is, that the desired object or end must first be made known to the Architect, and it is then his province to practice that peculiar and God-like attribute of seeing the end from the beginning, and adapting his means to the consummation ‘of his purpose. It is not Architectural to say to the residents of the granite hills of New Hampshire, “ you can find a more pleasant home, a more beautiful and rural residence in the everglades of Florida;” or to say to the gold-seeker upon ti nks of the Sacramento, “more beautiful, pleasant and commodious is the cottage home of your mother, on the banks of the St. Lawrence.” But it IS Architectural, to 'go to the granite hills and build for its residents homes convenient for the objects which its rm: AMERICAN COTTAGE «BUILDER. 13 occupants shall desire, and easy of access to and for the business Which each has decided for himself to pursue. Every nation and people have some peculiar systems or principles of government, of ethics, of religion, which form a part of the public mind, morals and sentiments. They control and subdue the passions, the aspirations and the desires; they develop themselves, in a. more _or less modified form, in every feature and ramification of society; in modes of living, and in the Architecture of the country. The Archi- tects, the Painters and the Sculptors of former ages and countries, have developed these feelings, in most instances, in a perfect manner. We say perfect, not because the prin- ciple or religion developed was perfect, but because it was fully and perfectly made manifest and shown. Take, for instance, Angelo’s painting of The Last Judgment—in which, by the side of the Supreme Judge and his angels, sits the Blessed Virgin. The Infidel may say there is no last judg- ment, and the Protestant will say that Mary will at that day be like any other creature ; but not so thought Angelo ——not so thought the Catholic world, at that time; and Catholics, Protestants and Infidels, all agree that Angelo was one of the greatest and truest Artists that ever lived. Thus we see that the productions of great minds, in one country or age, copied by another, are far from being proofs of the greatness of him who copies them. The man who, in the American Senate, should repeat Demosthenes’ greatest oration, instead of proving himself a statesman, would show himself a fool. The Architect that COpies a Greek or Roman edifice for an American occupant, shows himself less than an artist. The peculiarities of the, American people, their desires, their occupations and wants, must first be apprehended and understood, before any Architect, however great, can successfully and truly become an Architect for America. No man has contributed more to the true Archi- tecture of the country than the lamented DOWNING: pos- sessing at once the genius cf the artist, the knowledge and 11 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. skill of the mechanic, and the spirit of the people, he cor rected and improved the popular taste for rural homes. He was a perfect artist, and his death, in early manhood, was a national bereavement ; but his fame was firmly established ere he died, and his memory will ever remain green in the affectionate remembrances of his countrymen. In Catholic churches, where the celebration of the mass is the chief feature of public worship, the altar is justly and properly the most prominent thing in the church : built of the most costly material—of the finest workmanship—the most expensively ornamented—the most easily observed from every part of the building. This is correct. It gives expression to the ruling idea in the Catholic’s mind. The Protestant may ridicule it, but the Architect designs for him the simple lectern or the elevated pulpit, all in conso- nance with his creed. Did the Architect do less than this, he would be virtually saying, “be no longer a Catholic,” or, “be no longer a Protestant.” True, if it be the Architect’s desire to cripple the expression of the Catholic or Protest- ant mind—if that be the object—he can do it, and do it artistically. ; but that is never required. Neither Catholics nor Protestants want their churches built so as to cripple a fair expression of their respective creeds, and neither Pro- testants nor Catholics build churches for each other. As it is with churches, so is it with cottages. The pur- poses for which the house is desired, the character and sen- timents of the surrounding peOple, the surrounding scenery, the conveniences of water, drainage, &c., are all to be con- sidered and understood, before any directions can be given where or how to build a cottage, In our descriptions of different plans, we shall speak more in detail of each of these subjects, with special reference to each particular case. m: AMERICAN comes BUILDER. 15 CHAPTER II. THE VARIOUS PARTS. WALLS. The Walls of cottages may be formed of a great variety of materials, and the nature of the material used is a fertile source of variety and beauty. As a general principle, it may be- remarked that the walls of a cottage should always be built of the materials furnished by the soil or vicinity where it is situated; for in almost every part of the world the cheapest substance for building walls is taken from the earth or other substance on which they are to be built. In all countries where wood abounds it will be found the cheapest, and also a very suitable material for building. The common objection, its want of durability, may be in a great degree remedied by raisingfootings of masonry or brickwork, or even by forming a platform of dry earth or rub- bish, as a basement for the frame-work of the walls; and by having the timber well seasoned. The employment of different kinds of earth for construct- ing walls, dates from a very early period, and has been used by nearly all nations. Some houses have lately been pulled down which the title-deeds show to have been nearly 200 years old. The cob-walls of Devonshire have been known to last above a century without requiring the slightest repair; and the Rev. W. T. ELICOMBE, who has himself built several houses of two stories with cob-walls, says, that he was born in a cob-wall parsonage, built in the reign of Elizabeth, or somewhat earlier, and that it had to be taken down to be rebuilt only in the year 1831. 16 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. v Earths of different kinds may be formed into walls in either of the three following modes, vizz—In the Pisé man‘ ‘ ner, by lumps moulded in boxes, and by compressed blocks The Pisé appears to be the best method of forming walls of earth, and if carefully executed, is one of the warmest, driest, and most durable that can be erected, and at the same time one of the cheapest. Pisé is a peculiar mode of forming buildings, particularly those of cottages with some sort of stiff, earthy materials of a loamy quality. Various modes of forming these walls have been given by different writers:' the following appears, however, to contain most of the advantages sought for. Gravel is the best sort of earth for this kind of walling, and it should be of a loamy nature, with a large proportion of stones. It should be used as dry as possible, no cement being required, as it is held together by the force of cohe- sion alone. For a sample of the gravel wall, see the chapter on Octagon Houses. The foundation upon which Pisé walling is to be erected is formed of stone or brickwork, rising not less than six inches or a foot above the surface of the ground, and about six inches wider than the thickness of the intended wall. It should be covered with a layer of Roman cement, stone, or tile, to prevent the rising of damp. The foundation being completed, frames formed of planks of any convenient length are fixed by resting them on the edges of the stone or brickwork, on either side; they are held together at the top and bottom by iron bolts, and kept apart’ at the t0p by pieces of wood called ” guides,” placed about three feet asunder. The Pisé gravel is then thrown in, about half a bushel at a time, spread evenly, and rammed down till the surface becomes perfectly hard. The work proceeds in this way till the frame is filled to within an inch or two of the upper bolts. A portion of the wall being thus completed, the lower bolts are drawn Out and the upper ones slightly loosened: the frame is then raised bodily, till the lower holes THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 17 rise above the top of the wall; the bolts are then replaced, and, together with those at the top, screwed up, and the work is proceeded with as before. One course may be raised upon another, as thus de- scribed, immediately it is finished; but it is found more convenient, and makes better work, to carry on the courses horizontally, and keep them of an equal height. As the work proceeds, the tops of the walls are kept dry by COpings or other means; and when completed to the necessary height, the roof (which should be already framed and ready for fixing) is immediately put on and covered in. The spaces for the doorways and windows are formed by placing partition boards, fastened to the frame-work by bolts, of the breath of the wall and height of the frame, on either side of the space to be left vacant; and» pieces of timber, two or three inches thick, shaped .like truncated wedges, are then inserted, with their bases in the wall itself, and with their smaller sides touching the partition boards: to these timbers the door-posts and window-frames are afterwards fastened. If the building rises above a ground story, sleepers or plates are laid on the inner side of the walls, as in the ordinary manner, for the floor joists to rest upon. ' It has not been thought necessary to give drawings or par- ticular descriptions of the frame-work and implements used in the formation of Pisé walling, as they are probably as well known as any other of the implements used in the Builder’s art: a slight improvement, however, would be effected in the construction of the framework by doing away with the wooden guides, and by altering the form of the bolts. The above method of forming Pisé walling is different from the mode of building common in Devonshire and the West of England, and known by the name of cob-building, as will be seen, and is greatly superior to it, and far more durable. '18 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. The substance of which cob-walls are made, is loam or clay mixed with straw and moistened with water; it is formed in frames, in the same way as that above mentioned, but in courses of not more than one foot or one foot and a half in height; it is then left some time to dry and become consolidated, before a second course is imposed. The win- dow and door-frames are inserted as the work proceeds, and their respective openings cut out after the work is finished. The strength and solidity of cob-walling depends much upon its not being hurried in the process of forming; and, when finished, it must be left some months to dry and settle. ZlIud walls, or walls of clay lumps, are thus formed: The clay to be used is first freed from all large stones, and soaked with as much water as it will absorb; it is then well beaten, and a quantity of short old straw added, and the whole well and thoroughly mixed up together. The mixing should be continued by the treading of horses, or otherwise, till the clay becomes thoroughly broken, and about the consistence of mortar: it is then put into moulds, 18 inches long, 12 inches wide, and 6 inches deep, without a bottom, and moulded in the same manner as bricks. These lumps are then dried in the sun, and laid in the usual manner with mortar. For a sample of the mud or unburnt brick wall, see the Chapter on Prairie Cottages. As brickwork is so general in its application, and as the price only stands in the way of its still more universal adoption, it may be useful to describe the methods usually employed in building hollow walls of brick, and thus to economize material. Silverlock’s hollow walls are constructed of bricks set on edge, each course consisting of an alternate series of two bricks placed edgewise, and one laid across; forming a thickness of 9 inches, and a series of cells, each cell 9 inches, in the lengthway of the wall, 4 inches broad, and 4% inches deep. The second course is laid in the same way, but THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 19 the position of the bricks alternate, or break joint with the first. This method differs from that of Dearne, described below, in being carried up in Flemish instead of English bond. It is represented in section and elevation in the ad- joining figures. \\ I!” 4.... lection of Silverlock’s hollow Elevation. wall, 9 inches thick. Another method of building hollow brick walls is that of Mr. Dearne, in which the lower courses, up to the level of the floor, are formed in English bond. The next course consists of a series of stretchers, on edge on each side, thereby leaving a hollow Space throughout the length of the wall; the next course is a row of headers, laid flat; and the same system is continued throughout. The figures repre- sent a plan, section, and elevation of the wall. Plan of Dearne’s hollow brick wall, Section. 9 inches thick. 20 , THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. Elevation. Mr. London has proposed a method of building hollow walls 11 inches wide, by keeping the headers or cross bricks 2 inches within the line of the stretching or lengthway bricks, and consequentljr the latter will be 2 inches apart along the centre of the wall. “ Walls built in this way are handsome on the fair side; at least equally strong with solid walls, always dry, and less easily penetrated by cold in winter, or heat in summer. The inner surface, being uneven, is peculiarly favorable for receiving and retaining the plaster.” r_______ London’s hollow brick wall, 11 inches thick. Another mode, 12 inches thick, is represented in the fol- lowing engraving. Hollow brick wall, 12 inches thick. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 21 The following mode of building a hollow brick wall, .14 inches in thickness, requires but a few additional bricks ’to that required for a 9-inch solid wall. It is constructed as shown in the figure, which represents one course, the one above that being reversed. Hollow brick wall, 14 inches thick. In the chalk counties of England and elsewhere, the flint-built walls of the middle ages might be used. They are formed by building the flints up in frames, and pouring cement into the interstices. The cement employed may be composed of thoroughly burnt chalk, slaked with water, and mixed with two parts of rough sharp sand, and small sharp gravel—stones; the whole to be mixed up together while dry, and a sufficient quantity of water added to make it into a liquid paste. The foundations must be of brick or stone, and the roof should have a bold projection, to protect the walls from the rain. In this mode of forming walls are included all the small land-stones of a country, so far broken as to incorporate on the cementitious principle of construc- tion. The Roman circus at Toulouse, and the ancient castle at Hastings, besides many other buildings, are built of these materials, and have endured for centuries. The following mode of constructing external walls of framed timber, rubble, and plaster, is common in and about Paris, and is described by Mr. HOSKING: The framed timber structure being completed, strong oak batten latlis from 2 to 3 inches wide are nailed to the 22 THE AMERICAN CO’I'I‘AGE BUILDER. quarters horizontally, at 4, 6, or S’inches apart, according to the character of the work, and the spaces between are ‘ loosely built up with rough stoue rubble. A strong mortar is then laid on at both sides at the same time, and pressed completely through from the opposite sides, so that the mor— tar meets and entirely embeds the stone rubble by filling up all the hollows, and with so much body on the surface as to completely cover up and embed the timber and laths. Walls may bebuilt of hollow bricks,* which appear to have many advantages over those in common use. Accord‘ ing to Mr. CHADWICK, they are superior to the common stone and brick construction— In preventing the passage of humidity, and being drier. In preventing the passage of heat, and being warmer in' Winter and cooler in summer. In being a security against fire. In preventing the passage of sound. In having less unnecessary material, and being lighter. In being better dried, and burnt harder and stronger. In being more cleanly. In being cheaper. But however hollow bricks may answer for external walls, there can be no doubt of their applicability for inner par- titions. * It has been said that walls formed of hollow bricks are found to harbor insects ; but this must be from faulty construction, as there seems no reason why a hollow wall of burnt clay should do so more than a hollow partition of timber and plaster. It has been proposed to build the external walls of cottages and small houses as thin as 45 inches, With hollow bricks. This is absurd, as no materials, however good or carefully put together, can retain warmth and prevent the passage of sound if built so slightly. Mr. London is probably correct in fixing the minimum thickness of external walls in this country, for human habitations, at 18 inches: but. indeed, nothing less than a series of experiments with walls of different materials and different thicknesses can satisfactorily determine these matters. Some singular and unexpected results Would probably arise. A little money judiciously spent in making experiments of this kind would be of very great serwce. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 23 The form represented in the annexed drawing (which may be readily made with any tile machine) might be tried. They might be built up dry, and cement in a liquid state pour- ed in at the hollow space between them: quarte1s should be inserted on x\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ ’ either side Of doorways in Plan of hollow brick partition. angles and at distances of three or four feet.* The common quarter partitions, if based on abrick wall may be rendered nearly fire-proof by brick-hogging them, especially if care be taken to fill in between the joists, over the partitions. It has lately been proposed to use wire-work (galvanized or japanned to prevent corrosion), the wires being about i inch apart, in place of lath, for ceilings and partitions : this plan would of course greatly diminish the risk from fire. The cheapest and one of the most useful coverings for the external walls of houses formed of earth, or indeed of any other material requiring to be covered, and having pro- jecting eaves, is rough-cast. In the process of executing it, the wall is first pricked up with a coat of lime and hair, on which, when tolerably well set, a second coat is laid, as smooth as possible. As fast as the workman finishes this sur- face, another follows him with the rough-cast, with which he bespatters the fresh plastering, and smoothes it with a brush, 0 that the whole dries together. The rough- cast is a com- position of small gravel, finely washed, mixed with pure ime and water to a state of semi-fluid consistency For inside work, coarse stuff, or lime and hai1, is pre- pared like mortar, with sand; but in the mixing, hair of the bullock, obtained from the tanners’ yards, is added to it, .* Their most convenient size and least thickness must of course be a matter for experiment; and the author would take this opportunity of saying. that he has had no means of testing the efficiency of this or of any of the contrivances mentioned ; they must be considered, therefore. merely as suggestions. \ 24 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. and distributed over the mass as equally as possible. Mere laying or rendering is, however, the most economical sort of plastering, and does very well for cottages. The walls may be colored while the plaster is wet, on the principle of fresco: the colors, by this method, are fresher and more brilliant than by any other, and may be had at a very trifling expense. But the commoner sorts of paper being now so cheap—- and with greater simplicity of pattern, and by using but one color, they might be manufactured still cheaper—the walls of every cottage living-room, at least, should be covered with it, as conducing so much to the cheerfulness and comfort of the inmates. * FLOORS. The Floor: of cottages may be formed in a great variety of ways; the principal, and among the most economical, are the following : Lime-ash floors are formed in several ways, according to the locality. One of the most approved methods is the following: the sand to be used, after being well washed and freed from earth, is mixed with lime ashes, in the proportion of two-thirds sand to one-third ashes, both thoroughly mixed together. It is then, after being suffered to remain for two *The great beauty capable of being attained in a paper with but two colors (that is a ground color and a different one for the ornament) has been pointed out and illustrated by Mr. Pugin, but apparently to little purpose; for the most expensive modern papers consist of a set of unmean- ing patterns, or direct imitations of flowers, animals, parts of buildings, &c., in as many colors as the price of the paper admits of. and commonly with out the least regard to harmony of arrangement. Those who are unable to produce a beautiful and harmonious effect by the use of two colors, are not very likely to succeed by the use of ten or a dozen,—the difficulty of pro~ ducing a fine and harmonious effect increasing in a geometrical ratio (a) to speak) with every additional color employed. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 25 or three days, tempered with water, and laid on the ground, or other surface to be covered, to the depth of about 3 inches. In two or three days it becomes sufficiently hard to bear treading on, and is then beaten all over with a wooden mallet, till it becomes perfectly hard, using at the same time a trowel and a little water to render, the surface as smooth as possible. These floors are very durable, having been known tolast for a number of years Without any repair. Another and very economical mode for ground floors is to lay on a hard and well beaten foundation, clean gravel, sand, lime, and tar, forming a concrete, and covering this with an inch and a half of good cement, composed of one part of cement to three parts of sand, carefully floated and troweled. These floors require to be executed with great care. * ’ ' In using plaster or stucco for the upper floors, broad battens, or reeds, are laid on the joists (hOOp-iron in lengths to stretch from wall to wall, would perhaps be found better): the upper surface or floor of plaster is then laid and finished as above described, and the ceiling completed between the joists; If the hoop-iron is quite straight and flat, and ,///,, //,/,/, . / nailed here and there to the \L\ "’5’”? l\ 7;”) ’ ”’7‘ joists, close together, no plas- ’3 m - % ter ceiling needbe required, Section of plaster floor. ' the under side being painted. Asphalte has been much employed of late for the flooring of barns and outbuildings, as well as for pavements, roofs, 820., but does not appear to have been much used in cottages, for the floors of which it would seem to be admirably adapted, at least for rooms on the ground floor. It is laid down in thejfollowing manner: 011 a dry foundation a layer * The above modes of forming plaster floors are given from a variety of methods practised in various places : many more might be mentioned, all said to be equally good and lasting ; but Without a trial there is no way of testing their merits, or of judging which is the best. 2 26 THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. of gravel or small stones is laid, upon which the aSphalte, in a boiling state, is evenly spread to a thickness of about 2 inches, being at thesame time carefully pressed down and smoothed: very small stones are then sifted over, and pressed down on it.* As one principal object in the formation of floors in cot- tages on the ground story is to insure their dryness,‘f a method said to be practised in Bengal would seem to be very suitable in places where pottery is cheap. The earth of the room to be floored is made hard and level, and nnglazed earthen pots, about a foot in height, are then placed with their mouths downwards and close together, over the Whole surface: the vacant spaces between the pots are then filled in with pounded charcoal, and over the whole a floor is formed of coarse brick-dust and lime, well worked toge- ther. Common flower-pots would answer the purpose, as in the figure, but they would be better if made with a ledge, a, a, and thereby ofi'er a much firmer resistance to the pres- * According to Dr. Ure, an asphalt equal to the natural kind is made by mixing boiled coal tar with powdered chalk or bricks. 1- The importance to health of living in a dry habitation is thus shown by Captain Murray, R. N., in a letter to a distinguished medical practitioner in Scotland. He says that he succeeded in bringing back to England the whole of his ship’s crew without even one sick, after having passed two years among the icebergs of Labrador, and having gone from thence to the coast of Caraccas, and afterwards visiting the whole of the West India Islands and other places,—a severe trial to the constitutions of his men, in climates usually fatal to so many Europeans. And this he attributes principally to the dryness of his ship, to his having every part of it scrub- bed daily with hot sand and holy-stones, and to the employment of Brodie stoves, which, were constantly used until every appearance of humidity vanished. He says, “ I am quite satisfied that a dry ship will always be a healthy one, in any climate.” This, of course, must apply equally to houses. To insure dryness, therefore, as much as possible in places where the ground is low and damp, an artificial platform may be formed with dry ~ brick or other rubbish, 18 inches or 2 feet above the level of the ground, and on this the cottage should be built. .w—‘x‘k if” . ‘v I‘ r “x“ ' 3 , '“ E \<’; THE AMERICAN COTI‘AGE BUILDER. 27 sure above than the mere edge of the pot. The space between the pots may of course be filled in with any kind of dry rubbish, (char— ’ a C03]. being expensive, ) and Section of a plaster floor. the floor formed of lime-ash, as is above described. A still firmer floor, and one needing no cement covering, might be formed by using hexagonal pots with a rim, as above mentioned, and a groove and tongue, which would bind the whole together, rendering any cement unnecessary. On a. hard foundation, the under rim might, perhaps, be dispensed with. The entrance porch, lobby, kitchen, wash—house, &c., may be paved with brick, on edge,- and in the better sort of cottages, with ornamental tiles, set anglewise or square. These tiles may be considered to make the best sort of floors for cottages, as they are hard and nearly indestructible, readily cleaned, and remove all danger from fire. To their use on the ground floor there can be no objection but expense, and this would to a certain extent be removed by their more general use. They might also be readily employed in the upper floors by laying them on longer tiles, as seen in the drawing, and bedding them in cement, in the same way as the common plain tile floors are constructed. If- only 3mg, these latter are used, two Section of a floor formed of hollow pots. i151 li ‘ N3: ,3,» courses would be enough for b“ b ' f t f ,9, m a earing 0 wo eet from Section of tile floor. centre to centre of the joists. The upper floors of cottages have lately been executed of arched brickwork in mortar. The arches (in one case) were seven feet span, and turned in half a brick, except at the springing and the skew-backs; they rose about one . 28 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. inch in every foot in span; the spandrils were filled in with concrete, and the tile floor afterwards laid with mor- tar. , Instead of brickwork, arches formed of hollow pots have been proposed, which are much lighter. The annexed drawing represents a section of a fire—proof floor formed of iron bearers with brick or hollow pot arches: one or two rods might be necessary to prevent lateral Section of fire-proof floor. thrust, and to make the floor perfectly independent of the walls, except Where the bearers rest on them. Either a plaster, tile, or wooden floor might be laid on it. The subjoined engraving represents the opening for the - fire-place, with a slab for the hearth and trimming joists; and instead of an arch in brickwork, as usual, a series of curved tiles. This, it , , will be seen, must answer all Section of tile-trimmer. the uses. which the ordinary brick trimmer is supposed to possess, would be neater, and would require much less labor in the fixing. As the firmness and stability of a brick or stone wall de- pends so much on its being built without the admission of any W” other material, such as wood as“? for plates, &c., and on its W having as few points as need ; ‘ll be for the support of the floors, a great improvement would be effected by employing girders, .—m \\\ \\ \\ ‘\ Section of girder floor. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER 29 as in the figure, from wall to wall, and tenoning the joists into them. This would reduce the supporting points to four in number, and would entirely obviate the necessity of wall— ,. plates. Section. The figures also show the skirting-boards 0r fillets with the plastering brought down to the floor—boards, and car. ried through, thereby forming a perfect key, and at the same time leaving no hollow space for harboring vermin and dust. In connection with the floors, and fire-proof construction (a most important point in cottage building,) the Stairs may be mentioned. As commonly constructed, the hollow space formed by the tread’and riser is enclosed by a flat plaster covering or ceiling, having a most unsightly ap- pearance, and rather aiding than preventing their destruc- tion in case of fire. The engraving shows the bearers of wood, but the tread and riser of earthenware, to be formed in one piece, for strength. Stairs thus formed, would be fire-proof, and would have a neat appearance. Elevatm' The Roofs of cottages may be formed of a great variety of materials, and a number of modes of construction have been invented. For the humbler kind of dwellings, thatch, though falling into disuse, seems admirably adapted; not only as being cheap, but as being the warmest of all coverings, and less liable to admit the changes of temperature. The objection, its liability to take fire, may be, to a great extent removed Section of stairs formed of tile. 30 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. by soaking it in a mixture of alum water and size. It is usu ally made of combed wheat straw, called reed, consisting of the stiff, unbruised and unbroken stalks which have been care— fully separated from the fodder straw by the thrasher. A more durable thatch is formed of the spray of trees, previously well-seasoned, hoop chips, and the chips of coppice wood. ' The roofs may be covered with the common pan or plain tiles in the usual manner, the ridges and valleys being also formed in tile. The ridge tiles should always form a straight line; and a great improvement in the valley tiles would be the making them in long lengths, and forming the necessary fall in the thickness of the tile it- . self, as in the figures: no gutter fillets would be required, and it would be perfectly weather- tight, especially if where a joint occurs it were set in cement, Sections of valley tile. and the jOint formed- The French roofing tiles, are square in form, and about 9 inches across, with a raised- ledge on two sides. They are laid with or without mortar, diagonally, so that the rain- water never hangs to the joints, by capillary attraction, but runs to the lower points, and from thence to the flat surface of the next tile These tiles are lighter than pantiles. A great variety of ornamental tiles (some of them suffi- ciently fanciful) have of late been maufactured. A better mode of joining them, and one requiring no mortar, is shown / '35:? in the figure, as the water {7 ” ”MI/WW”, creeping in under the edge of 1Wlm_ . the upper tile would be effect- ”)Tg/é>>/11ally stopped by the curved ,1], l) H/fl inner rim, which, by its form, Section of /Roof Tile THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 3 would prevent the water from making its way to the roof- timbers. A very economical plan of covering a roof with slate has lately been introduced, as it only takes half the quantity of slates, requires no battens, and, if large ones are used, a less number of rafters; In this plan of covering a roof, the slates are fixed in the same manner as glass in a skylight, but instead of being inserted in a rebate, a fillet of wood is used, about 1% inch high, and 1 inch broad on the t0p, and g inch broad at the bottom: this slip is nailed down the cen- tre of each rafter, and the slate stOpped in with putty in the manner above mentioned, each slate having a lap of from 2 to 3 inches. This mode of slating, if carefully performed and kept well painted, will last for a number of years. One objection to it is its extremely slovenly appearance, as not only the line formed by the putty cannot be kept even, but the paint is commonly found smeared half over the slate. By forming it as in the fig- ure, this is remedied: a strong wooden fillet is nailed over both slates, thereby making a perfectly secure joint, as well as showing a neat appearance. The fillet should be well paint- ed before fixing. Cast-iron roofing has occasionally been employed for cot- tages, and corrugated iron may be used With great advantage, as no rafters are required, and it can be used in long lengths without fear of bending. As a slight improvement in these roofs, the method here shown might be adopted. The raised portion would not only greatly strengthen it, and allow the iron to be used in longer lengths, but it would have a better appearance. f Section of slate roof. Section of corrugated iron. The eaves-gutters, when there are any, are commonly 32 . THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. formed of cast-iron or zinc,* and have a very unsightly appearance, from the fall not allowing of their being fixed parallel to the line of eaves, besides their liability to sag between the supports, Of late, a wooden gutter has been used, with the fall formed within its own. depth, thereby keeping a horizontal line. The joints should be as few as may be, and where they occur should be carefully mitred. 'These wooden gutters must oc- casionally be painted. The same form might be used in tile, . as the figure, in as long lengths ‘as possible, and with the joints formed as above described for Section of tile eaves-gutter. the valley tiles- The angles formed by the chimney-shaft and the roof, as also those formed by the roof and wall, are, in the more expensive houses, cov- ered with lead, which, besides expense, does not harmonize in color with a tile roof; and in the commoner sort, are merely jointed with mortar or cement—a very imperfect ' method, as the weather speed- ily causes it to crumble away, andit then becomes ‘ necessary to renew it, and is continually a source of trou- bble and expense. Elevation of a chimney-shaft, showing “19 “9‘51" fillet” By using a tile—fillet of the _* Sometimes the ridges and gutters of a roof are formed of a substance called marine-metal; so named, apparently, from its wavy appearance and changeable properties when in such situation. \ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 33 shape indicated in the figure, and set in cement, a perfectly secure and water-tight joint would be formed, having a very neat appearance. It is here represented in elevation at a, a, and the figures 6, d, e, show different forms of tiles.* VENTILATION, AND WARMING. As economy in materials and construction is absolutely necessary in all that relates to cottage building, any mode of Ventilation which could be proposed must be accomplished without any extensive apparatus, and Of so simple a nature as to be nearly or quite incapable of derangement. The prejudice in favor Of an Open fire being so great, it is imperative in all cases to provide for it; and as it always makes the largest demand on the air of a room, it should be separately supplied, so as to be perfectly independent of doors and windows. The best way of doing this, at least in cottages, is tO connect each fire-place with the outer air by means of a flue- tube at the level of or under the floor, Opening out just above the ground surface, and admitting the air behind, or at the side of the grate. The tube may be either formed in the brickwork itself, of metal, or of earthenware. Both the external opening and the opening into the fire-place should be closed by a grating. This mode of supplying the fire with air would (from experiments made by Mr. HOSKISG) also supply the room as well with a sufficient quantity Of fresh and tempered air for all purposes; the more especially as, according to Dr. ARNOTT, a sufiicicncy of fresh air always enters a room by the spaces left in consequence of the imperfect closing of doors and windows, and the occasional Opening of the door. * Tiles of this form, made circular on plan, might be used with advantage for setting the common chimney-pots, instead of the unsightly mass of mortar usually cobbled round them.)* «I 34 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. In most cases where attempts are made to ventilate rOOms, the fresh air is admitted by an opening connected with the outer air, and at the level of the floor, through the skirting,—a very imperfect method, not only as being dirty, the air collecting dust as it passes, but as creating a draught along the floor in its passage to the opposite Opening. By ,7 admitting air through earthenware tubes, at about seven 'feet above the floor, or just above a person’s head, both these sources of annoyance and discomfort would be avoided; the clean earthenware tube would be free from dust, and the cold air would mix with the warm air in the room above the head, and could not therefore be felt as a draught; and as the fire is supplied separately, no down current would be likely to take place.* The vitiated and heated air in each room may be Carried 011' by the chimney-flue, through an orifice just below the ceiling, fitted with one of Dr. ARNOTT’S chimney-valves or some similar apparatus, or even by a simple opening. In this chapter we have made free use of Mr. ALLEN on “ Improving cottages for the laborer.” * In houses of two or more stories, it would be better to draw the air for- the supply of the fire; and also for ventilating the rooms, from the staircase, the air in it being warmer than the external atmosphere; and it would at the same time be itself ventilated, means being of course provided in it for the admission of a sufficient quantity of fresh air. 03 .}I THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. CHAPTER III. TERRA DEL FUEGO COTTAGE. FROM COMMODORE WILKEs’ report of his exploring expe dition, we extract the following account of the Fuegan houses: “ The houses are generally built near the shore at the head of some small bay, in some secluded spot, and sheltered from the prevailing winds. They are built of boughs or small trees, stuck in the earth, and brought to- gether at the tOp, Where they are firmly bound by bask, sedge and twigs. Smaller branches are then interlaced, forming a tolerably compact Wicker-work, and on this, grass, and turf and bark are laid, making the hut quite warm, and im- pervious to the Wind and snow, although not quite so to the rain. The usual dimensions of the huts are seven or eight feet in diameter, and about four or five feet in height. They have an oval hole in which to creep. The fire is built in a small excavation in the middle of the hut. The floor is of clay, and has the appearance of having been wet-kneaded. The usual accompaniment of a hut is a conical pile of muscle and limpit shells Opposite the door, nearly as large as the. hut itself.” We do not presume that any of our readers will adopt 38. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. the cottage of the Fuegans. Should an American or Euro- pean be just settling in a new country, where he enjoyed no greater facilities for building than does the Fuegan, "he would erect a house of the same materials, as much superior in convenience and beauty to the Fuegan but as its builder is his superior in intelligence ; instead of taking the twigs or branches of trees, he would take the trees them‘ selves, cut them in logs of even lengths, notch them at the ends, and place them upon each other—making a log—house as shown in the engraving. The roof may be made of straw, slabs, boards, or such other material as shall be convenient. The crevices between the logs may be filled with mortar or mud. The engraving is no fancy sketch; there are thousands of such log-cabins in our country, built by hardy hands, on soil owned by their occupants, and which possess every requisite for their owners’ convenience. comfort and happiness. Log-cabins are often made to assume the appearance of frame houses, by fastening perpendicular strips on the logs outside and nailing on clap-boards, and the inside may be plastered or lath and plastered. Such a cabin was the residence of President Harrison, at North Bend, Ohio. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 3T CHAPTER IV. PRAIRIE COTTAGE. THIS DESIGN is for a cottage of unburnt brick, and is peculiarly adapted to settlers on the prairies in the West- ern States. ' 10 20 so 1+0 1 l l I l i x v 1 I l l I I - 8ft 16ft oo 21' 0'?) 5? Fr" :33 00 2 rr ' Z W - 26 it PLAN. The above is the ground plan. The dotted lines Show in what direction the building should be extended. 353 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. CROSS SECTION. SIDE VIEW. I L‘; :— This engraving shows the manner of laying the unburnt brick and the foundation. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 39 The house is twenty-eight feet by eighteen, forming one room sixteen feet square, and two bed-rooms eight feet square, on the first floor. I The house has but one door, which is so located as to lead into the additional room, should one be built; a stairway is made into the upper story, (see cross—section) by extending the outer walls three or four feet above the joists, which rest oh the brick. The upper room will admit of a division, making a lodging-room over the bed-room, or it may be used to accommodate boarders. The window-frames are made of plank of the thickness of the walls—the panes being eight by ten inches; cost from three to five cents per light. Five windows are needed for the whole house. Unburnt brick, although suit- able for the walls, will not answer for cellar work: that must be of stone. Nearly every kind of clay is suitable. The above is a correct description of some cottages erected by Hon H. L. ELLSWORTH, late Commissioner of Patents, and as the plan is one of interest to emigrants and settlers in the western prairie States, we copy the following from leis plan for cizmp cottages:——Select a suitable spot of ground, as near the place of building as practicable, and let a circle, ten feet or more be described; let the loam be removed and the clay dug up one foot thick; or, if clay is not found on the spot, let it be carted in to that depth Any ordinary clay will answer. Tread this clay with cattle. and add some straw cut six or eight inches long—using two common bundles to one hundred brick. After the clay is tempered by working it, the material is duly prepared for the brick A mould is then formed of plank, of the size of the brick desired. In England, they are usually made. eighteen inches long, one foot Wide, and nine inches thick. I have found the most convenient size to be one foot long, ‘ six inches wide, and six inches thick. The mould should have a bottom not air-tight, since mortar will not fall when a vacuum is produced. The clay is then spread in the moulds in the same manner that brick moulds are ordinarily 40 THE AMERICAN COT'lAGE BUILDER. filled. A Wire or piece of iron hoop will answer very well for striking off the top. One man will mould about as fast as another can carry away—two moulds being used by him The bricks are placed upon the level ground, where they are suffered to dry for two days, turning them edgewise the second day; and then packed in a pile, protected from the rain, and left ten or twelve days to dry. During this time, the foundation of the building can be prepared. If a cellar is desired, this must be formed of stone or brick, two feet above the surface of the ground. For cheap buildings on the prairies, where stones are scarce, wooden sills, twelve or fourteen inches wide, may be laid on piles or stone. This will form a good superstructure. In all cases, before commencing the walls for the first story, it is very desirable, as in walls of brick, to lay aslngle course of slate. This will intercept the dampness so often arising in the walls of brick houses. The wall is laid by placing the bricks lengthwise—thus making the wall one foot thick. Ordinary clay, such as is used for clay mortar, will suffice for laying up the brick; though a weak mortar of sand and lime, where these articles are cheap, is recom- mended, as aifording more adhesive material for the plas- ter. A mortar composed of three parts clay, two parts ashes, and one part sand, is very good ; and this, when lime is not plenty, answers for plastering the inside. For ceiling, nowever, where there is walking over head, lime plaster should be used. The walls may safely be carried up one, two, or three stories, and the division walls may be six inches thick—just the width of the brick. The door and window-frames being inserted as the walls proceed, the building is soon raised. The roof may be shingles or thatch. In either case, it should project over the sides of the house, and also over the ends, at least two feet, to guard the walls from vertical rains. The exterior wall is plastered with good lime mortar, mixed with cattle’s hair, or hogs’ bristles, (short Ones,) and then with a second coat, pebble-dashed THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 4] The inside is plastered without dashing. The floors may be laid with oak boards, slit, five or six inches wide, and laid down without jointing or planing, if they are rubbed over with a rough stone after the rooms are finished. Doors, of a cheap and neat appearance,— may be made by taking two boards of the length or width of the doors—placing them vertically, they will fill the space. Put a wide batten on the bottom and a narrow one on the top, with strips on the sides and a strip in the middle. This door will be a batten door, presenting two long panels on one side and a smooth surface on the other. If a porch or veranda is wanted, it may he made with cedar posts placed in the ground, with shingle or thatched roof. Houses built in this way are dry and warm in winter, and cool in summer, and furnish no retreat for vermin. They can be made by common laborers in a very short time, (a little carpenter’s work excepted, ) and with a small . outlay for materials, exclusive. ' I These walls have stood well in Canada, Europe, and South America, effectually resisting the action of the frost and rain. Unburnt brick being less porous than burnt brick, do notabsorb moisture, and are consequently less damp. On the western prairies, Where clay is usually found about fifteen inches below the surface, and where stone and lime are often both very cheap, these houses might easily be built. The article of brick for chimneys is found to be quite an item of expense in wood houses. In these mud houses no bricks are needed, except for the top of the chim- neys, the oven, and castings for the fire-place; though this last might well be dispensed with; and a cement to put around the chimneys, or to fill any other cracks, is easily, made, as before mentioned, by a mixture of one part of sand, two of ashes, and three of clay. This soon hardens, and will resist the weather. Boiled linseed oil may be added, to make the composition. 42 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUIIDER. For receipts for washing buildings, see the Chapter on Paints. The following plan of a chimney-cap for insuring a draught and preventing the wind from blowing down the stack, is worth attention. It is represented by these two drawings: O PERSPECTIVE VIEW. TOP VIEW. The perspective view shows a part of the stack with the cap on. The top view consists of four planes, c, o, c, c, placed at the top of the stack 1), and on each side of the fine a, and inclining downwards therefrom, at an angle of about -45 degrees; the junctions of the planes c, being provided with Wings 11, d, d, d. A current of wind impinging on one or two of the planes c, is deflected in an upward direction by the inclination of the plane or planes, and its velocity gradually increased in passing from the base to the top of the plane, by means of the wings, which narrow the space through which the cur- rent has to pass. ‘ This gives great force to the current in passing over the top. of the fine in an upward direction, and carries with it downward currents, which otherwise might blow down the stack. TIIE FARM COTTAGE. {See p.43] 'THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 43 CHAPTER V. THE FARM COTTAGE. THE MAIN BODY of this cottage is in the form of a paralellogram, 34 feet long, including the portico, and 132 feet wide, having 14-foot posts, 2 feet of which extends above the attic floor, sustaining a roof of a 16~foot pitch with the gable end facing the south or south-west. The back part of the house, which extends to the kitchen, is 18 by 23 feet, including the veranda, with 10-foot posts, supporting a roof of a ll-g-foot pitch, with the gable towards the north or north-east. The kitchen is 12 by 23 feet, including the passage to the vault, with 6-foot posts, and a lean-to roof, having a 4—foot pitch. The whole building is designed to be elevated On a ter- race of mason work, 3 feet above the commonlevel of the ground, to be built of wood, with the outer walls to be ' lined with bricks. ' The roofs, also, are designed to be built of wood, coVered either with common shingles, or water—proof cement. On the centre of the main body of the house, a false chimney-top is shown, which may be formed of metal, bricks or artificial stone, for receiving the stove pipes from the rooms below. Those who prefer fire-places to furnaCes or stoves, can erect a chimney at each side of the cottage, extending their tOps about 16 feet above the eaves. Be- tween the dining-room and kitchen, there is a chimney de- signed to communicate with the cooking range and stoves in those parts of the house. Thishouse is designed to be entered from the front gate I through a portico, 6 feet wide, extending across the whole width of the house. The entry of the kitchen and dining- 4% THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. room, is also designed to be passed into on the easterly side of the back part of the building, through a veranda 3 feet ' wide. The windows are all designed to be of good dimensions, and protected by wooden blinds. Towards the top of each gable end, there is a latticed window for ventilation, which may be closed at pleasure in stormy weather. Under the entire floor of the main body of the house, a cellar is intended, with walls and arches laid in cement, to be entered by stairs from the dining-room, and by a 6-foot door-way, on the easterly side, from without. Beneath the kitchen there is also another cellar, designed for storing wood or coal, entered from the kitchen through a trap-door, and likewise by apassage, on the easterly side, from out—doors; If circumstances require it, a dairy or milk-cellar, may also be constructed under the dining-room, and lighted or ventilated by windows at each side of the house. The whole building is designed to be protected from lightning by a half-inch copper rod, 48 feet long, erected at the gable end, near the back parlor window, and secured in its place by means of wooden props, extending from the roofs. ! THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 45 Elm C [H $1M E [I raj—“mm I: A GROUND FLOOR. II, denotes the front hall or lobby, 7 feet Wide, includ- ing the front stairs. 45 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. P, a double parlor, 14 by 28 feet, with folding doors communicating with the front lobby or hall. Either or both of these parlors might be used as sleeping apartments, should circumstances require. L, a room, communicating with the front hall, 11 by 12 feet, with a closet 4 feet square, and may be used for a libra- ry, office, living room or nursery, according to the tastes or Wants of the occupant. B, is a bed-room, designed for the head of the family, 11 by 12 feet, with a closet 4 'feet square, and communi- cating with the library and dining-room. D, the dining-room, 14 by 28 feet, communicating with the front lobby, II, the back entry E, and the cellar at S. K, the kitchen, 12 by 20 feet, communicating with the dining-room, by the back entry E, and a sliding window in the pantry C, with the wood cellar at D, and the back yard by the steps S. E, the back entry 4 by 4 feet, communicating with the veranda, kitchen, the dining-room and the back garret stairs. V, the vault 5 by 6 feet, communicating with the veran- da, by a passage under cover, 3 feet wide. 0, C, C, closets or pantries. S, S, S, S, stairways or steps. 0, kitchen and dining—room chimney. d, tiap-door covered, over the wood cellar stairs I, the lightning conductor. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 47 illll‘llllll J ATTIC FLOOR. A, A, denote two front bed-rooms, 12 by 14 feet, enter- ed independent of one another, from a lobby 6 feet wide. B, B, two back bed-rooms, 10 by 14 feet; entered, also, independently of each other, from the lobby at the head of the front stairs. G, a back garret, communicating With the front part of the attic, at the steps S, and serves as a passage-way to the kitchen and veranda by the back stairs. 42 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE immune. S, S, S, denote stair-ways or steps. 0, the chimney of the dining-room and kitchen. f, the stove funnel, communicating with the rooms below. Between the wall-plates and bed-rooms, spaces are left 3 or 4 feet Wide, which may be found convenient for storage. The design is by D. J. BROWNE, Esq. It is designed not for a city or village, where the buildings are pre- scribed in their limits. The architectural style, in order to break the monotony often observable in our larger towns, should be displayed in single and double cottages, neat and appropriate out-buildings, factories, and other public build- ings. ., There are a variety of considerations with respect to Farm Cottages In selecting the locations, care should be taken to get a good foundation. Stone -or gravel is preferable. The house should be near the barn and out-buildings, for reasons of convenience and security. The drainage of the buildings is an important item. The drain should decline at least two feet in every one hundred. Water may be taken from wells, or collected from the roof. A roof containing 100 square feet, will ordinarily catch 4,000 gallons of water per year It is generally considered the best to have cottages front the south, the west, or the south-west, especially in cold :limates. In cold climates, prominence should be given to the chimney,top, both as to its size and its mode of construction. It is suggestive of comfort, sociality, and good cheer. At the tropics, instead of the chimney, we need the veranda—the shade.’ The Architect furnishes both: but change their locations, and each would be considered im- proper. , ”W” m a,” rm" WWW/W” _/ 4—7mum 4 THEVILLAGECOTTAGE. [Seep.4‘J.J ran AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 49 CHAPTER VI. —.. THE VILLAGE COTTAGE. THIS DESIGN, BY JACKSON, represents a style of cottages much recommended and adopted in England. It should be built of stone, the walls about eighteen inches thick, and is suitable for mechanics. It consists of a living-room, fifteen feet by thirteen feet, having a south and western aspect. This room is entered by a porch on the east side. Behind the room is the kitchen, nineteen feet by thirteen feet, part of the space being appropriated to the stair-case, affording access to the bed-rooms, and the under side of the stair-case, leaving space for a small pantry. A lean-to building against the kitchen, is divided into a wash-house or scullery, and fitted up with the usual conveniences, and a tool-house and the requisite out-offices. The scullery door opens into a back yard.- ' ' The thickness of the stone walling should be from one to two feet, and the masonry, simple in its kind, receives its character from the COped gables and chamfered mullions of the Windows and jambs of external doors. The ancient chimney-shaft has a base formed into two water-tables, above which rises the octangular shaft, springing from a square pedestal, and terminated by a single moulded and embattled cornice, With a neck-mould twelve inches in di- ameter, and the chimney seven feet high from the water- table. - The various parts of this cottage are fully described in Chapter II. ‘93 50 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER CHAPTER VII- ITALIAN COTTAGE. THIS DESIGN is for a position visible from a considerable distance, and commanding from its site an extensive View. The Italian style being selected, it is desirable to make the tower useful,» as well as an ornamental appendage, and there- fore the ground plan of the tower‘is used as a porch, and its second story as a bed-room. A door on the side, opens in the living-room. The tower is eight feet and a half high. The ' door is thus placed to avoid a 'direct draught into the room, and the square space between it and the back wall of the porch, would be occupied by a bench, afi'ording a pleasant seat forthe family of the occupant, during fine weather. JACKSON proposes that the living-room be fourteen by twelve feet, having on one side a narrow stair-case, afl'ording access to the bedrooms. Connected with this room, is the kitchen or' wash-house, twelve feet square, fitted up with a cottage range, oven, sink and pump. Attached as allean-to, is the pantry, with the usual outer-offices. Vines should be cultivated and allowed to run up and around the tower. The drainage would be taken from the ‘ kitchen- out-deor way, to the nearest point at which .it could be emptied with a good fall. .A house in this style, built'cheaply of wood, should‘not cost over. $450, while, if made of stone in a substantial manner, it would cost $900. The cottage is especially adapted for a lodge, in which case the tower might be used as an observatory, or it may be occupied by a small family, when the tower would be used- as a bed-room. The rural beauty of the house would be ' greatly increased by the arrangement of the trees, foliage, and grounds about it. -/j V _ ; r'f ‘ i ’\ Nflé‘flgn 5mm >_— {I u \,‘_ ’, fin M {Iv/XV ) ’Ui N‘ [’2 ‘ § v ‘kfll/m r5 ‘ ’7‘ 74(3fo -,-,I ~ 70. ITALIAN COTTAGE. {seeps} E I Q //Z///ALV/VVV/flfllfmb* . / v éf‘iv/M/ T H. A T C H E D (,‘Q T T A (i 1‘). See p. M THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 51. CHAP TER VIII. .— THATCHED COTTAGE. Ix MANY situations, Thatched Cottages form a distinguish— ‘ ing feature in the landscape; and, says JACKSON, combine essentially with the scenery of the country. This style is well worthy of occasional use, and very suitable for lodges. - Straw thatching' is a covering easily provided in any agri- cultural vicinity, and is capable of being repaired from time to time, at a trifling cost: but it is easily accessible to ver- min, and, therefore objectionable, for the better class of cot- tages. Reed, being more impervious to their attacks, is the material to be recommended—withit closeness of texture and harmony of view, aided by the neatness of effect which can be given to it by experienced thatchers. Creeping- plants spreading over‘the surface of the roof, greatly con- tribute to the general effect; and a cottage in this style, derives great assistance, in its picturesque character, from the judicious aid of the landscape gardener. Thatched Cottages are less frequent in this country than in EurOpe, in consequence of the cheapness of better mate- rial, and the ability of the cottager to get it. Mr. JACKSON designed the “ Thatched Cottage ” for England. Although we feel bound to give a specimen of a Thatched Cottage, in fulfilment of our design, still, we must record our pride that. our peeple generally, can afford better houses. - ' The design does not aspire to a high degree of Archi— tectural beauty. ' The design is an adaptation of this material to a lodge, and the roof is extended sufficiently to answer the purposes 52 1'. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. of a veranda, on the south, or principal front of the dwelling. The entrance, on the west side, is a porch, seven ,feet by five feet, opening into a living-room, fifteen feet by thirteen feet, exclusive of a bay Window, and having on its east side a kitchen, thirteen by eleven feet, fitted with oven and sink. Two bed-rooms are obtained over the kitchen and living-room. Attached to the kitchen, is a Wing build- ing comprising tool-house and the usual out-buildings. The veranda gives access, under cover, to these buildings, in addition to its importance as an ornamental feature. In selecting the uprights to support this veranda, much care should be exercised, and a degree of artistical judgment employed. They should be neither too regular in form, nor on the contrary, too distorted. If any arms, or branches, are retained at the upper extremity, to give the semblance of an arch, the same observations will apply; but a practiced artist’s eye can only succeed in this point. Oak unbarked posts, having lead at the head and foot, should be the ma- terial selected. Considerable drip Will fall from the eaves, and the building must be surrounded with a channel drain, under this drip. The cost will vary from $400 to $900. WW,“ 7’" W! ‘ w _,_,m ‘7“ ""WP!"‘T""F' 1‘") IV” ’1] [HM (J('I'I"I‘A('II‘Z OF THE SUUIETY FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION U1“ 'I'IIE POUR—[5001). .331] L‘BRAR 01' Tu; UNIVERSITY p 0’: CA LIFO Rf“ enter-v ~ - THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER 53 CHAPTER IX. COTTAGE OF THE SOCIETY FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE POOR. THIS DESIGN provides a living-room fourteen-six by fifteen feet, and eight feet high, with a window on the south side, a chimney on the east, and the door into the room at the north-west angle—thus affording the utmost possible space for the little furniture Which the tenant may have to arrange in his “ best room.” _A lobby three and a half feet square protects the entrance to this room from the draughts of the external air, and this lobby forms the outer entrance, giving also access to the pantry, three and a half feet Wide, running north-ward ; and a scullery, eight feet square, fitted up with sink, pump, copper, and if requisite, an oven of small dimen sions. The first step of the stairs commences at the north- ern jamb of the living—room chimney, and under the stairs adjacent, the entrance is obtained to a coal or wood closet The scullery is made one foot lower than the living—room, and by this means access is obtained off the stairs to a room over, thus providing three bed—rooms, each with a chimney A ll the rain water is collected from the roofs into a water butt placed at.the northern extremity of each pantry. A small yard is formed on this side, in Which a well is sunk for the use of the pair of cottages, and at the extremity of this yard the dust-holes, &c., are placed, thus keeping the house clear from all contamination on the score of drainage. The garden is to Occupy the south front of the cottage, and the aid of the cottager would of course be expected in training honeysuckle 01' Whatever he most desired along its frontage The cost of the pair would vary from $800 to $1,000. 54 . THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER, CHAPTER X. WARM-INC}. AND VENTILATION. THE atmosphere is composed essentially of two gases, in a state of mechanical mixture, named oxygen and nitro- gen. In its pure state, oxygen is chiefly remarkable for its energetic properties in promoting combustion, decomposi- tion, and various chemical changes. A taper, with a mere spark of fire in the wick, will, when plunged into oxygen, burst into flame and burn brilliantly; iron Wire, made red- hot at one extremity, will burn away with the greatest ease in this gas. An animal in an atmosphere of pure oxygen, suffers from excess of vital action ; its pulses throb with in- creased rapidity and vigor, the vital spark, as it were, bursts into flame, and destroys the animal. Nitrogen (or, as it is sometimes called, azale,) is as inert in its properties as oxygen is active. . It supports neither life nor combus- tion, and its principal use in the atmosphere seems to be to dilute the oxygen, and to subdue the wonderful energy of this vigorous element to the endless number of useful pur- poses which it has to perform in the economy of nature. The proportions in which these two gaseous bodies are mingled, are very unequal ; every atom or particle of oxygen in the atmosphere is accompanied by four atoms or particles of nitrogen; or, in other words, if we take a mea- sure of any capacity, divided into five equal parts, and de- cant it into four parts of nitrogen and one part of oxygen, we get a mixture identical'in all respects with pure atmos- pheric air. In the great chemical operations of nature, which are de- pendent or. the atmosphere, oxygen passes through various mutations, and enters into new combinations, which form THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 55 the bases of grand and wonderful contrivances. Some of the most importantof these operations depend on the pro~ cess of combustion, of which the following is a simple illus- tration: A piece of wax taper, fixed in the centre of a cork, is lighted and floated on the surface of water in a shallow dish; if this be enclosed within a glass bell, the mouth of which dips into the water and rests on the dish, the air of the glass will be cut off from any communication with the external atmosphere. The flame of the vapor will immediately diminish, and in a few seconds be extinguished. On examining the air left in the glass, it will be found in- capable of supporting animal life or combustion; four-fifths of the original bulk of air is still nitrogen“ and this is apparently unchanged; the remaining fifth is no longer oxygen, but a compound of oxygen with the carbon and hydrogen of the flame—oxygen and carbon producing car- bonic acid, and oxygen and hydrogen producing water, which, in the form of vapor, condenses on the inner surface of the glass. _ N ow, the product of combustion called carbonic acid, is incapable of supporting life and combustion, and thus resembles nitrogen. But there are these differences between them; nitrogen is a little lighter than its own bulk of at- mospheric air—carbonic acid is considerably heavier; nitro- gen is an elementary or simple substance, that is, one which has never yet been resolved into two or more dissimilar parts—carbonic acid, on the contrary, is a compound cap- able of being separated or decomposed into carbon or char- coal and oxygen. Moreover, pure nitrogen, shaken up in a bottle, with a little lime water, produces no effect; car- bonic acid renders it turbid, by combining With the lime and rendering it insoluble; nitrogen is scarcely absorbed by water, but water absorbs its own volume of carbonic acid; nitrogen has no taste or smell—carbonic acid has a sharp taste and an acid reaction. Hence it will be seen, that these two bodies, which have the common property of ex 56 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. tinguishing life and preventing combustion, are marked by characteristic difi'ereuces. Some idea may be formed of the enormous demands on the oxygen of the atmosphere, for supporting combustion, from the fact, that a single iron furnace burns or consumes, in the course of twenty-four hours, not less than three hun- dred and ten tons weight of atmospheric air, or as much as would be required for the respiration of two hundred thou‘ sand human beings within the same period. Carbon, which forms the solid basis of most fuel, and in a minutely-divided state renders flame luminous, is a simple substance, and exists in nature under a variety of forms. Its purest form is the diamond, as is proved by the forma- tion of carbonic acid only, when it is burnt in pure oxygen. Charcoal and Coke are other well-known forms of carbon, the one obtained from wood, the other from coal; coal is a compound of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, with a mineral and earthy residue. Wax, tallow, &c., are com- pounds of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen, which is the source of all common flame, is the lightest substance that has ever been weighed: it is more than fourteen times lighter'than its own bulk of atmos- pheric, at the same temperature; it neither supports life nor combustion. A lighted taper, plunged into it, is “extin- guished, but the hydrogen itself takes fire and burns at the mouth of the jar, where it is in contact with the oxygen of the air, with which it unites and forms water. One volume of oxygen combines with two of hydrogen to form water; or by weight, one grain of hydrogen unites with eight grains of oxygen, and as the hydrogen is sixteen times lighter than its own bulk, of oxygen, it follows that one grain of hydrogen will occupy twice the bulk of eight grains of oxygen. Pure hydrogen burns with scarcely any light ; in the flame of our lamps, candles, gas-lights, &c., the minutely—divided carbon, in rising up through the flame, becomes white—hot, and presents innumerable luminous points; at the exterior THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 57 of the flame the oxygen of the atmosphere seizes the minutes atoms of carbon as they escape, and by combining with them, forms invisible carbonic acid. A cold substance, such as a piece of glass or metal, held in a flame for a moment, will condense a portion of the carbon ina minutely—divided state. If a lamp have a deficient supply, it Will smoke, that is, a portion of the carbon of the flame will escape without being burned. Lamp-black is formed by burning oil in a close chamber with a deficient supply of air. Hydrogen unites with nitrogen to form ammonia, three ‘ volumes of hydrogen being required to one of nitrogen. This substance 18 pungent and acrid, but when diluted With air, is an agreeable stimulant. It is very soluble in water, which, at the temperature 50°, takes up 670 times its bulk of the gas. Ammonia is an alkali, and combines readily with acids, producing an important class of ammoniacal salts. Nitrogen and oxygen combine to form nitric acid, one part of nit1ogen uniting with five parts of oxygen. Not only are these numbers different from those which represent the compbsition of the atmosphere, but the mode of combi- nation is difierent. The oxygen and nitrogen of the atmos- phere are mixed mechanically, just as a portion of fine sand diffused through water, may be said to mix with it Without combining. In either case, the bodies preserve their own peculiar prOperties ; or the properties of the compound form a mean between those of its component elements. But in a chemical combination between two bodies, a third body is formed, whose properties need not, and seldom do resemble those of the component elements. Thus sulphur and oxygen combine chemically to produce snlphurous or sulphuric acid—— substances whose properties are quite different from those of the sulphur and oxygen which produce them; the sulphur~ 011s has also very different properties from the sulphuric. So with nitric acid; this compound has none of the proper- ties of the constituents of the atmosphere, but a new set 3% 58 THE AMERICAN .COTTAGE BUILDER. of prOperties’ peculiar to itself. This powerful acid may be formed artificially in various ways, but only one need here be mentioned By passing a succession of electric sparks through a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, this acid is formed; so also during a thunder storm, the lightning striking through vast masses of atmospheric air,.produces nitric acid, which, combining with ammoniac, also formed in the atmosphere, descends with the rain upon the earth in the form of nitrate of ammonia. Now, the object for which these details have oeen brought forward, is to enable the reader to take an enlarged view of the process of combustion, for this, in fact, constitutes the chief means by which which nature accomplishes her annual ’ cycle. An accurate knowledge of. the homely processes of warming and ventilation depends upon a clear insight into the principles of combustion, and itis only an oft-repeated truism, that our useful arts become more eflicient in practice, more economical and more conductive to our happiness, in proportion to our knowledge of the principles upon which they depend. Now, according I to the common acceptation of the term, combustion is the rapid union of a combusti< ble‘with a supporter of combustion whereby new com- pounds are formed, heat and light accompanying the forma- tion.- Thus, a piece of iron wire or of phosphorus ignited and plunged into a jar of oxygen gas, burns vividly, the iron falling in molten drops amid showers of scintillations, and the phosphorus emitting a vivid flood of painful light. By this process, the oxygen and the iron unite to form a new substance—oxyde of iron; the oxygen and the phosphorus also form a new sustance, phosphorous acid. If, however, the iron be exposed long enough to the atmosphere, the oxygen will combine with it in precisely the same manner, and form oxyde of iron. Months or even years may be required for the completion of the process which in the jar of oxygen was accomplished in a few seconds; but the result is the same. The same amount of heat is evolved by THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 59 the combination of the oxygen and the iron during the slow process of rusting, as in the rapid process of burning. So also with the phosphorus. A piece of this substance exposed to the air combines with the same amount of oxygen, and evolves precisely as much heat during the time that it slowly wastes away, and produces the same weight of acid as it would do if burnt in a jar of oxygen. - Now, it must be evident, that if a process, rapidly brought about in one case andslowly in another, produce the same results, we do not add to our ‘knowledge by as- sociating diiferent names and difl'erent trains of thought with the one as compared with the other; on the contrary, we disembarrass the subject by considering the processes as identical; whether the combustion be rapid or slow, it is still combustion. Undoubtedly there are cases where slow combustion is not possible. A piece of coal and the oxygen necessary to its combustion may remain in contact for cen- turies without undergoing any change; but the moment a spark‘ of fire is introduced, they begin to combine and dis- appear, with all the more obvious phenomena of combustion. In such a case, all we can say is, that a high temperature is necessary for the combination; but this case does not disturb the view we are endeavoring to impress upon the reader, that combustion may be a very slow process as well as a very rapid one. Let us take another case of combustion. If a portion of the solid food of animals be placed in a red-hot platinum crucible, it will burn away; its carbon will unite with Oxy- gen from the air, and form carbonic acid; its hydrogen will unite with oxygen from the air and form water; its nitrogen may escape free,.0r it may unite with a portion of its hydrogen, and form ammonia; and in this’way all the ' gaseous volatile products will be expelled from the crucible, leaving behind only a small portion of ash, which consists of salts, some of which are soluble in water, and others insol uble in that fluid. ' 60 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. Now, in a chemical point of view, the living animal frame is a real apparatus for combustion ; it is a vital furnace, in which the carbon supplied by the fuel which we call fuel, is burnt, and, combining with oxygen, es- capes by the lungs and the skin into the atmosphere, under the form of carbonic acid. In this apparatus, also, the hydrogen of food is burnt, and uniting with oxygen, escapes as aqueous vapor ; the nitrogen of the air, as taken into the lungs, is again exhaled by respiration, but the nitrogen and soluble mineral portions of the food are rejected in an insoluble or soluble form. Every portion of food which a person of mature age takes into his system, is thus dispersed from day to day. In infancy and youth, a portion is retained to form mate- rials for growth ; in old age, the individual loses more than he receives, and consequently, wastes slowly away. But in each case, the natural process is similar to the artificial one represented in the heated platinum crucible. W'e cannot, therefore, resist the evidence that the combustion of food, whether. in the animal or in the crucible, is one and the same process ; the only difference being, that in the crucible the heat is intense and the process comparatively slow. That which is_called animal heat (98° Fah.) is in fact the heat of combustion, and the object of the domestic process of warming and ventilation is to enable the animal to main tain this heat, and to conveyaway the gaseous products of combustion as fast as they are formed. The soluble and in~ soluble products of combustion are conveyed away by other natural means ; and it will be our duty, hereafter, to show that it is as unwise to neglect the means for clearing off our gaseous excrements, as it would be insane and unnatural to attempt to retain those of another kind. Another proof of the identity of the two processes is that nature disposes of the products of combustion in pre- cisely the same manner, whether derived from ordinary combustion or animal respiration. The vegetable kingdom l THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER 61 is the grand laboratory wherein these products of combus- tion are decomposed and elaborated into.new combustion. Plants inhale or absorb carbonic acid, decompose it, retain the. carbon as materials for growth, and return the oxygen back to the atmosphere; plants absorb water or aqueous vapor, decompose it, retain its hydrogen, and also return the oxygen back to the atmosphere; plants sometimes take nitrogen directly from the air, and also sometimes indirectly from the oxide of ammonium or from nitric acid. Thus it will be seen that the chemical function of plants is directly . the reverse of that of animals—the animal kingdom consti‘ tuting an immense apparatus for combustion—the vegetable kingdom an equally grand apparatus for reduction; in which reduced carbonic acid yields carbon, reduced water its hydrogen, and in which also reduced oxide of ammonium and nitric acid yield their ammonium or their nitrogen The organic matter which constitute the food of animals is destroyed by them, and rendered for the most part inor- ganic: this, in its turn, becomes the aliment of plants, the materials with which plants elaborate organic compounds, the atmosphere serving as the means of communication be- tween the two kingdoms. Organic vegetable substances pass, ready-formed, into herbivorous animals, which destroy a portion of them, and appropriate the remainder as mate- rials for growth. From herbivorous animals, these organic matters pass, ready—formed, into the carnivorous, who de- stroy or retain some of them, according to their wants. The herbivorous animals are slaughtered for the use of the carniverous, and when these, in their turn, cease to live, they decompose, and the atmosphere again takes up, in various ways, and by various processes, the materials of which they are composed. ' The great stimulus Which gives motion to the wonderful machinery of the vegetable world, is solar light. Under its influence, the carbonic acid yields its carbon, the water its hydrogen, the ammonia its nitrogen. It is not for the pur- 62 i I THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILQER. pose of purifying the air that plants are especially necessary to animals. Their great use is to furnish a never-failing supply of organic matter, ready-prepared for assimilation, in short, with fuel, which animals can burn for their own use. The purification of the air by vegetation is a remote service ; the other service is so immediate, that if it were to fail us during a single year, the earth would be depopulated. The mean amount of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, is scarcely one volume in 2,000, which is a surprisingly small quantity, when we consider how numerous and productive are the sources of this gas. Volcanoes, fires, animals, fermen- tation and decay, are constantly producing it. Nor will the quantity given ofi' by a single individual appear insignificant, when it is stated that Sir HUMPRHEY DAVY found that he . required for the purposes of respiration, during the 24 hours, _ 45,504 cubic inches of oxygen, weighing 15,751 grains; and producing 31,680 cubic inches of carbonic acid, weighing 17,811, grains or 4,853 grains of carbon. These numbers vary with different individuals, and also in the same individu- al at different periods of the day. According to Dr. PROUT, the maximum quantity of carbonic acid is given off about noon, up to which period it gradually increases from the beginning of twilight; and after noon, it as gradually dimi- nishes until evening, and is at its minimum during the night. ' It appears, from the mean of a large number of observa- tions, that the average quantity of carbon evolved from the lungs amounts to 130 grains per hour, or 3,120 grains in 24 hours, which is rather more than 7 ounces daily. This calculation does not take into account the carbonic acid' evolved by cutaneous respiration. The quantity of oxygen consumed in respiration varies also with the state of exer- tion or repose of the individual. According to an observa- tion of LAVOISIER, the consumption of oxygen in the two states was as 32 to 14. The quantity of vapor given off by the lungs has also been variously stated, but the average is TEE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 63 supposed to be about three grains per minute. According to THENARD, the amount of vapor given off by the skin varies from 9 to 26 grains per minute. In the process of respiration, a full grown man draws into his chest about 20 cubic inches of air; only one-fifth of this is oxygen, and nearly one-half of this oxygen is con- verted into carbonic acid. Now, allowing fifteen inspirations per minute for a man, he Will vitiate about 300 cubic inches, or nearly one-sixth of a cubic foot of atmospheric air; and this, by mingling as it escapes with several times as much,- renders at least two cubic feet of air unfit for respiration. Now, the removal of this impure air, and the bringing. in of a constant fresh supply, have been provided for by nature in the most perfect manner, and it is by our ill-contrived arti- ficial arrangements that the provision is defeated. The expired and vitiated air, as it leaves the chest, is heated to very near the temperature of the body, viz. 98°, and being expanded by the heat, is specifically lighter than the sur- rounding air at any ordinary temperature; it therefore ascends and escapes to a higher level, by the colder air pushing it up, as it does a balloon. The place of this heated air is constantly supplied by the colder and denser air clos~ ing in on all sides. In the open air, the process is perfect, because there is nothing to prevent the escape of the vitiated air; but in a close apartment, the hot air, rising up to the ceiling, is prevented from escaping; and gradually accumu- lating and becoming cooler, it descends and mingles with the fresh air, which o‘ccupies the lower level. We thus have to inhale an atmosphere which every moment becomes more and more impure and unfit for respiration; and the impuri- ties become increased much more rapidly by night, when lamps, or candles or gas are burning, for flame is a rapid consumer of oxygen. Under these circumstances, our only chance of escape from suffocation is in the defective work- manship of the house carpenter; the crevices in the window- frames and doors allow the foul air a partial exit, as may be. 64 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. proved by holding the flame of a candle near the top of a closed door, in a hot room; it will be seen that the flame is powerfully drawn towards the door in 'the direction of the outgoing current; 'and on holding the flame near the bottom of the door, it will be blown away from the door, showing the direction of the entering current. If we stop up these crevices, by putting list round the windows and doors, so as to make them fit accurately, we only increase the evil. The first effect is, that the fire will not draw for want of suffi- cient draught; if the inmates can put up with a dull fire and a smoky atmosphere, they soon become restless and uncom- fortable; young people get fretful and peevish—their elders irritable; respiration becomes impeded—a tight band appears to be drawn round the forehead, Which some invisible hand seems to be drawing tighter and tighter every moment; the eyeballs ache and throb; a sense of languor succeeds to fits of restless impatience—yawning becomes general—for yawn- ing is nothing more than an effort of nature to get more air into the lungs. Under these circumstances, the announcement of tea is a welcome sound; the opening and shutting of the door necessary to its preparation give a vent to the foul air; the stimulus of the meal mitigates the suffering for a time, but before the hour of rest, the same causes of discomfort have been again in active operation, and the family party retires for the night indisposed and out of humor. But in the bed-room, the inmates are not free from the malignant influence. The closed doors, the curtained bed, and the well-closed windows, are sentinels which jealously guard against the approach of fresh air. The unconscious sleepers, at each respiration, vitiate a portion of air which, in obedience to the law of nature, rises to the ceiling, and would escape, if the means of escape were provided; but, in the absence of this, it soon shakes off those aerial wings, which would have carried it away, and becoming cooler and denser, it descends, and again enters the lungs of the sleepers, who unconsciously inhale the poison. \Vhen the THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. _ 65 room has become surcharged with foul air, so that a portion must escape, then, and not till then, does it begin to escape up the chimney. Hence many persons very prOperly object to sleeping in a room which is unprovided with a chimney; but it is evident that such a ventilator is situated too low down to be of much service. If there be no chimney in the room, a portion of the foul air escapes by forcing its way out of some of the cracks and crevices which serve to admit the fresh air. That this sketch 1s not overdrawn, must be evident to any one who, after an early morning’s walk, may have returned directly from the fresh morning air into the bed-room which he had left closely shut up an hour before. What is more disgusting than the odor of a bed-room in the morning? Why is it that so many persons get up without feeling refreshment from their sleep? Why do so many persons pass sleepless nights? The answer to these and many other similar questions may be frequently found in defective ventilation. How much disease and misery arises from this cause, it would be difficult to state with any approach to accuracy, because the causes of misery are very complicated. Among the poor, the want of suflicient nourishment, neglect of temperance and cleanliness, and excessive labor, all act with aggravating efl'ect upon want of ventilation and drain- age. Among the middle classes, mental anxiety, over- tasked powers insufficient out-door exercise, are also ago oravatiug causes; but there IS a Similar want of attention to ventilation and drainage. The rich suffer least, because they pass much of their time in the pure air of the country, and are relieved from a good deal of anxiety, by being inde- pendent in circumstances; their rooms are also larger and less crowded than those of the other classes; but still there is a neglect of ventilation, and they often breathe a poison- ous atmOSphere for hours together in the crowded and heated ball-room, the theatre, and the fashionable assembly; _ fainting, headache, and sickness, are not uncommon results. 66 THE AMERICAN comer, BUILDER. ‘ A poisonous atmosphere! The expression will not be found too strong, when we examine the ingredients of the air of an unventilated room. ' The products of combustion, whether they be thoseof the respiration of human beings, 01' the burning of. artificial light, consist of—l. Carbonic acid; 2. Nitrogen; 3. Vapor of water, mingled with various animal products of a very offensive nature. Gas also often contains a minute portion of s'ulphuretted hydrogen which escapes, and a minute portion of the gas itself (carburettcd hydrogen) also escapes unburnt. Carbonic acid gas is a deadly poison. If we attempt to inhale it by putting the face over the edge of a beer vat, the nos- trils and throat are irritated so strongly, that the glottis closes, and inspiration becomes impossible. In its pure state, then, it is impossible to breathe carbonic acid gas; but when, this gas is largely diluted with air, it can be breathed, and the symptoms resemble those of apoplexy. Professor CHRITISON quotes a case related by M. CHOMEL, of Paris, of a laborer, who was suddenly let down to the bottom of a well containing carbonic acid diluted with air, where he remained three-quarters of an hour. On being drawn up, he was first affected with violent and irregular convulsions of the whole body, accompanied by perfect insensibility; fits of spasm, like tetanus, then came on. During the second day, these symptoms went off, and he continued afterwards to be affected with dumbness. It is especially to be noted, that, contrary to general popular belief, these effects may be produced in situations where the air is not sufficiently impure to extinguish the flame of a candle; nor does the lurking danger display itself to the 'sense of taste or of smell. The danger of using charcoal as a fuel will be. noticed further on; but we may here remark, that the proportion of carbonic acid necessary to produce a poisonous atmos- phere is very small; so much so, that in attempts at suicide by burning charcoal in an open room, the people who have entered the apartment have found the air quite respirable, THE AMERICAN CO'I'I'AGE BUILDER. m i ' 6'1 and the choffer burning, although the person they sought was in a state of deep coma, from having been long exposed to the noxious influence. Now, as no person would consent habitually to swallow a small portion of liquid poison, knowing it to be such, though diluted with a very large portion of pure water, sc it is equally unwise t6 consent habitually to inhale a small portion of gaseous noison, knowing it to be such, though diluted with a very large portion of pure air; and yet this is what the majority of persons actually do who occupy apartments unprovided with proper ventilating apparatus. Nitrogen gas, which constitutes four-fifths of our atmos phere, is not, like carbonic acid gas, a poison. Its preper‘ ties are altogether inert: it will not support resPiration nor combustion, simply from the absence of oxygen. An animal plunged into an atmosphere of nitrogen would die, simply because this gas is incapable of oxygenizing the blood. A flame is extinguished in this gas, simply because there is no affinity between it and the incandescent hydrogen and carbon. The vapor given 011' by the lungs and the skin is charged with ofl'ensive animal efluvia, which greatly promote the contamination of the air of a crowded apartment. Doctor FARADAY expressed his opinion, in 1835, on the subject of. ventilation, that—“Air feels unpleasant in the breathing cavities, including the mouth and nostrils, not merely from the absence of oxygen, the presence of carbonic acid, or the elevation of temperature, but from other causes, depending on matters which are communicated to it by the human being. I think that an individual may find a decided difference in his feelings when making part of a large com- pany, from what he does when one of a small number of persons, and yet the thermomether give the same indica- tion. When I am one of a large number of persons, I feel an oppressive sensation of closeness, notwithstanding the temperature may be about 60° or 65°, which I do not feel in a small company at the same temperature, and which I 68 THE AMERICAN‘COTTAGE BUILDER. cannot refer altogether to the absorption of oxygen, or fill!- evolution of carbonic acid, and probably depends upon the eflluvia from the many present; but with me, it is much diminished by a lowering of the temperature, and the sen. sations become much more like those occuring in a small company. . The object of a good system of ventilation is to ' remove the effects of such air.” The effects of air, vitiated by animal eflluvia, is evident in the diseases of the lower animals when crowded together in confined places. The glanders of horses, the pip offowls, and a peculiar disease in sheep, all arise from this cause; and it is stated that, for some years past, the English nation has been saved £10,000 a year, in consequence of the army veterinary surgeons adopting a simple plan for the ventila— tion of the cavalry stables. Our systems of artificial illumination have even a greater deteriorating effect upon the air of an apartment than the respiration of human beings. The leakage of a gas-pipe, or the imperfect combustion of the gas itself, in an apartment, would cause the inmates to inhale a portion of the gas. Sir HUMPHREY DAVY found, that when he breathed a mixture of two parts air, and three of carburetted hydrogen, he was attacked with giddiness, headache, and transient weakness of the limbs; but common gas is often contaminated with sulphuretted hydrogen, as the blackening of the white painted wainscoting of rooms proves, in spite of the purifying processes adopted at the gas works. This gas is the most deleterious, of all the aerial poisons. It has been found by experiment, that air, impregnated with a 1,500th part of the gas, kills a bird in a short space of time; and that with about twice that proportion, or an 800th, it will soon kill a dog. This gas is emitted by cesspools and sewers, and has been a frequent cause of death when breathed in a state of concentration. “ The individual becomes suddenly weak and insensible; falls down, and either expires immediately, or if he is fortunate enough to be quickly extricated, he may THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BL’IIJ)ER. 6f! revive in no long time, the belly remaining tense and full for an hour or upwards, and recovery being preceded by vomiting and hawking of bloody froth.” When the noxious emanations are less concentrated, the symptoms are still very alarming; and in the dilute form, as in the emanations from. the gully-holes of the sewers of London, persons inhal- ing them have often been attacked with sickness, colic, impelfectly-defined pains in the chest, and letha1gy. The emanations arising f1 om the imperfect or slow com- bustion of oil and tallow are most injurious to health. The vapor of a smoky lamp, if disengaged in small quantities, excites intense head—ache. The fumes 0f the burning snufi' of a candle are probably of the same nature, and are very poisonous, and every one must have remarked their pene- trating nature; they fill the room the moment a candle is blown out, and their disgusting odor pervades the Whole house in a very short time. Dr. CnRIerSON quotes a case in which they proved fatal: A party of ironsmiths, who were carousing on a festival day at Leipzig, amused themselves with plaguing a. boy, who was asleep in a corner of the room, by holding under his nose the smoke of a candle just extinguished; at first he was roused a little each. time, but when the amusement had been continued for half an hour, he began to breathe laboriously; was then attacked with incessant epileptic convulsions, and died on the third day. In addition to all these contaminating agents, carbonic acid, nitrogen, animal cflluvia, carburetted and snlphuretted hydrogen, &c., to which the air of an unventilated apart- ment is liable, there is yet another cause of injury to health in the disturbed electrical condition of vitiated air. This is a subject on which science has hitherto thrown no light. All that we can do is to record the fact, that pure air, such as is fit for respiration, is positively electric, while the air which has become impure, and consequently unfit for respiration, is negatively electric. The effects of breathing an impure air have frequently ‘ 70 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. been insisted upon by medical and other writers. It is stated, that scrofulous diseases are a common result of bad ventilation, and that, in the case 'of silk weavers, who pass their lives in a more close and confined air than almost any other class of persons, their children are peculiarly subject to scrofula, and softening of the bones. Dr. ARNOTT stated, that an individual, the ofi’spring of persons successively living in bad air, will have a constitution decidedly different from a man who is born of a race that has inhabited the country for a long time; that the race would, to a certain extent, continue degenerating. Defective ventilation dead- ens both the mental and bodily energies; it leaves its mark upon the person, so that we can distinguish the inhabitants of a town from those of the country. This witness, in alluding to the want of knowledge among all classes on the subject of ventilation, states, that he had heard at the Zoological Gardens of a class of animals where fifty out of sixty were killed in a month, from putting them into a house which had no opening in it but a few inches in the floor. “It was like putting them under an extinguisher; and this was supposed to be done upon scientific principles.” Some of the details in this report of diseases consequent on the habitual breathing of air vitiated by a number of human beings, crowded together in a badly drained and ill- ventilated part of London, are so frightful, that it is impos- sible to quote them here. No doubt these details refer to extreme cases among the poor and destitute; but no one will contend that the scien‘ce and legislation of the day should be exerted only for those who have influence to com- mand, or means to purchase their aid. Every one who has knowledge or wealth at his disposal, is bound to exert it as much for the benefit of his ignorant and poorer brethren as for his own pleasure and p1 ofit There is not only a moral law requiring us to do so, but there 1s also a natural law, and both have this distinguishing p1 00f of their divine or10111- - they are self-acting; they confer the reward of obedience, THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER 71 and inflict the penalty of transgression, with a precision and certainty which find no parallel in mere human laws and institutions. The fevers and contagious diseases arising from our neglect of the poor, find their way into qur own dwell- ings; the miasma of our courts and alleys enters our lungs, and casts us on a bed of sickness. If, through the mercy of God, we are permitted to rise again, ought we not to practise the lesson which the penalty has been seeking“ to convey to us ? But not only are our dwelling houses badly ventilated, but those buildings on which the architect has lavished all his art and skill are, for the most part, entirely destitute of Special means for ventilation; and are so constructed, as to render the application of such means extremely difficult, or even impossible. Such a contrivance seldom enters the mind of the architect. A building capable of holding from 800 to 1000 persons, whether it be achurch, a lecture room, an assembly room, or a concert room, is, in consequence of this neglect, the too-frequent scene of much painful suffer- ing. When such a room is crowded, and the meeting lasts for some hours, especially in winter, the consequences are sufficiently marked; “ either such a multitude must be sub- jected to all the evils of a contaminated and unwholesome atmosphere, or they must be partially relieved by opening the windows, and allowing a continued stream of cold air to pour down upon the heated bodies of those who are near them, till the latter are thoroughly chilled, and, perhaps, fatal illness is induced; and unfortunately, even at such a price, the relief is only partial, for the windows being all on one side of the room, and not extending much above half way to the ceiling, complete ventilation is impracticable. This neglect is glaringly ‘the result of ignorance, and could never have happened, had either the architects or em- ployers known the laws of the human constitution.” Dr. COMBE remarks, that in churches fainting and hysterics occur more frequently in the afternoon than in the morning, I2 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. because the air is then at its maximum of vitiation Indeed, in a crowded church, the effects of a deficient air are Visible in the expression of the features of every one present—— “ either a relaxed, sallow paleness of the surface, or the hectic flush of fever is observable, and, as the necessary accom- paniment, a sensation of mental and bodily lassitude is felt, which is immediately relieved by getting into the open air.” Some persons, however, do not find this relief ; the headache often lasts for hours, and ends in a biliOus or nervous attack. Our school rooms are so sadly defective in respect to ventilation, and we have known cases where, with all the windows open, a proper supply of air could not be intro- duced into the crowded apartment. When the weather did. not allow of open windows, the atmosphere of the room . was most loathsome to a visitor entering it from the fresh air. All the inmates complained of a sensation of fullness— tightness in the forehead, and headache more or less acute. Command of temper on the part of the teachers, and mental progress on the part of the pupils, are of course next to - impossible under such circumstances. The writer would appeal to the experience of teachers in general, whether the slow comprehension and listlessness of children in school, who are sharp and clever on the playground, may not be traceable in a great measure to the vitiated air which they are compelled to inhale ? . , In curious contrast to the defective arrangents of most of our public buildings, with respect to ventilation, are our public theatres. These are, for the most part, tolerably well ventilated, or at least some attempt is made to procure . ventilation, and the managers do not fail to parade the fact in their playbills at the Opening of the season. They are practical men; they. know that for some years past, the attention of the public has been directed to the subject of ventilation, and that a studious attention to the comfort of the house is as likely to bring peOple to it as attractive performances. They know, too, that people are more likely THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. 73 to enjoy and applaud the business of the stage when they can breathe freely, than when the head is aching and the senses are steeped in the drowsiness of a mephitic atmOSphere. Some. of the methods of ventilating theatres, are clever and efficient, as will be noticed hereafter, and could easily be applied to those far more important buildings, the church and the lecture room. The traveler, in pursuit of health, business, or pleasure, is everywhere exposed to inconvenience and sufi'ering from want of ventilation. In our coaches, railway-carriages, and steam-boats, there are no means—or very inefficient ones— for ventilation. Many of our- readers will probably be able to call to mind their nights of suffering in the heavy coaches of twenty years ago, or less. - In these introductory remarks, we do not insist upon the necessity of warming our rooms and other enclosed spaces, for that is an art which is practically well understood, and will receive a share of attention in this little work. But if warming is easy and well understood, ventilation is also easy and badly understood; that is, it is very easy to venti- late a room or a building, but the necessity for doing so is not generally admitted by the great mass of the people, nor . even by those whose duty is to teach them and to provide for the practice. But to combine the two arts, to warm ' a room sufficiently, and at the same time to ventilate it thoroughly, is not easy, for the very means employed to ventilate a room, must necessarily dissipate and carry away the heat employed in warming it. Something, however, may and ought to be done to combine the two methods, as we shall endeavor to show; but before entering upon prac- tical details, it is necessary to invite attention to such of the laws of heat as are more immediately connected with our subject. We can scarcely do more, in our limited space, than bring together a few of the results of scientific princi~ ples, and refer the reader to large and more comprehensive treatises for their verification. 4 74 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. Heat is given off from bodies by two distinct processes-— radiation and conduction. In radiation, rays of heat diverge in straight lines from every part of a heated surface, and also from extremely minute depths below such surface. Theserays, like rays of light, are Subject to the laws of refraction and reflection, and their intensity decreases as the square of the distance. When we approach an open fire, or the surface of a stove, we feel its heat by radiation, and it has been ascertained that, at the ordinary temperature of hot water pipes, about one-fourth of the total cooling effect is due to radiation. ‘ But the amount of radiation of a body heated above the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere depends greatly upon the nature of its surface. If a vessel of hot water, coated with lamp black, radiate 100 parts of heat within a given time, a similar vessel, containing water of the same temperature, coated with writing paper, will radiate 98 parts of heat; resin, 96; China ink, 88; red lead, or isinglass, 80; plumbago, 75; tarnished lead, 45; tin, scratched with sand paper, 22; mercury, 20; clean lead, 19; polished iron, 15; tin plate, 12. In order to ascertain the velocity of cooling for a surface of cast iron, Mr. Hoon selected a pipe of thirty inches long, 2% inches diameter internally, and 3 inches diameter exter- nally. The rates of cooling were tried with different states of the surface; first, when covered with the usual brown surface of protoxide of iron; next it was varnished black, and finally the varnish was scraped off, and the pipe painted white with two coats of lead paint. The ratios of cooling 1° were found to be for the black varnished surface 1.21 minutes; for the iron surface, 1.25 minutes, and for the White painted surface, 1.28 minutes. “These ratios are in the proprrtiou of 100, 103.3, and 105.7; but, as the relative heating effect is the inverse of the time of cooling, we shall 'find that 100 feet of varnished pipe, 103} feet of plain iron THE AMERICAN comer BUILDER. 7.5 pipe, or 105 if feet of iron pipe, painted White, will each pro- duce an equal effect.” * LESLIE found that tarnished surfaces, or such as are I roughened by emery, by the file, or by drawing streaks‘ or lines with a graving tool, had their radiating power con- siderably increased. But, according to MELLONr, the rough- ness of the surface merely acts by altering the superficial density, which varies according as the body is of a greater or less density, previous to the alteration of its surface by roughening. The following experiment gives the data for this conclusion: MELLONI took four plates of silver, two of which, when cast, were left in their natural state, without hammering, and the other two were planished to a high degree under the hammer. All four plates were then firmly polished with pumice-stone and charcoal; and after this, one of each of the pairs of .plates was roughened, by rubbing with coarse emery paper in one direction. The quantity of heat radiated from these plates was as folloxvs:+ Hammered and polished plate, - - - 10 degrees. Hammered and roughened plate, ‘ - 18 “ Cast and polished plate - - 13.7 “ Cast and roughened plate - - . - 11.3 “ Thus it appears that the hard-hammered plate was increased in radiating power four-fifths, by roughening its surface, while the soft—cast plate lost nearly one—fifth of its power by the same process. When a body is exposed to a source of heat, a portion of it is absorbed, and it has been proved, experimentally, that the absorptive power of bodies for heat is precisely equal to their radiative power. It was long supposed that color had great influence on radiation and absorption. By exposing variously-colored surfaces to the heat of the sun,- their absorbing power was in the following order—black, blue, green, red, yellow and white. Hence it would naturally be expected, that the radiating powers of difl'er~ * Practical Treatise on Warming Buildings, (512., London, 1844. 76 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ently—colored bodies would be in this order, and that by painting a body of a dark color, we should increase its radiating power. Such, however, is not the case, for the absorption and radiation of simple heat, or heat without light, depend on the nature of the surface rather than on color. Heat of low‘temperature, or that which proceeds from bodies of low temperature, becomes less connected with color the lower the temperature. The numbers which represent the radiating powers of different bodies for invisible or non-luminous heat, or heat of low temperature (as given above), evidently bear no relation to color, for lamp-black and writing paper are nearly equal; Indian ink is much less, and plumbago still 'less. A thermometer bulb, coated with a paste of chalk, is affected by invisible heat even more than a similar one coated with Indian ink; but this result does not occur when the heat is from a luminous source. Thus it'Was found by SCHEELE that when two spirit thermometers, one containing Colored, the other colorless alcohol, were exposed to the sun, the colored liquid rose much more rapidly than the colorless;’but when they were both plunged into a vessel containining hot water, they rose equally in equal times. The prOpagation of heat by conduction is a very different process from that of radiation. By conduction, the heat travels through or among the particles of solid matter; and is gradually‘communicated by one group of particles to the neighboring group, and by this to the next group, and so on, until the temperature of the body in contact with the source of heat is raised more or less above the temperature of the air. When heat is communicated to a fluid body, the processis difi’erentr In consequence of the great mobility of its particles, those which first come under the action of the source of heat, being raised in temperature, escape from its influence, and ascend through the fluid mass, distributing a portion of their acquired heat among other particles on its way; other particles immediately take THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ' 7'! its place, and, being heated, ascend in like manner, and distribute their heat. By this process of convection, as it’is called, the Whole of the particles in a confined mass of fluid come under the action of the heating body; those first heated, escape as far as possible from the source of heat, and becoming cooled; descend again to be heated, and again to ascend and descend. In this way a circulation is main- tained in the whole mass of fluid. ’ It is only by this process of convection that air may be Said to be a conducting body, for if a mass of air be confined in such a way as to prevent the free motion of its particles, it ceases almost entirely to conduct heat, and may be use- fully employed to retain heat; as in the case of double windows, the‘ enclosed mass of air prevents the heat escaping from the apartment, and shields the glass which is in contact with the warm air of the room, from the cooling action of the external air. According to some experiments by Mr. H001), each square foot of glass will cool 1.279 cubic feet of air 1° per minute, when the temperature of the glass is 1° above that of the external air. This, however, is in a still atmosphere. The cooling effect of external windows, when exposed to the action of winds, has not been accur- ately determined. It appears that the cooling effect of wind, at different velocities, on a thin surface of glass, such as the bulb of a thermometer, is very nearly as the square root of the velocity. But there are many objections to applying the results obtained from the thin glass of a thermometer bulb to the comparatively thick glass of windows. Glass is a very bad'conductor of heat, and the, cooling efi'eet of wind upon it is not so great as is generally suppOSed. Solids differ greatly in their heat-conducting powers. If gold conduct 100 parts of heat, platina will conduct 98.10 parts; silver, 97.30; copper, 89.82; iron, 37.43; zinc, 36.30; tin, 30.39; lead, 17.96; marble, 23.60; porcelain, 12.20; fire-brick, 11.40. The slow conducting power of such 78 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. bodies as porcelain, brick and glass, may be contrasted with the rapid conducting power of some of the metals by holding one end of a piece of each substance 1n a flame; the metal will soon become too hot for the hand, while the porcelain may be heated to “redness 1n the flame without its being felt to be mudh warmer at the other end. A practical application of this preperty is also to be found in the materials of close stoves for heating apartments; for while those in which the outer case consists of copper or iron, receive their heat quickly and part with it quickly, those which are lined with brick and covered with porcelain receive their heat slowly, and communicate it slowly to. the air of the apartment. Much, however, depends on the thickness of the metal casing, for, by increasing this, it will, of course, retain its heat longer. When a heated body cools under ordinary circumstances, it is by the united efi'ects of radiation and conduction, and the rate of cooling increases considerably, in proportion as the temperature of the heated body is greater than that of the surrounding medium. We have seen that the cooling effect of radiation depends greatly on the nature of the sur- face; but it is a remarkable fact, that the cooling effect of the air by conduction, has no reference to the nature of the surface; ‘it is the same on all substances, and in all states of the surface of those substances. The air, in contact with such surfaces, robs them of a portion of heat, and imme- diately ascends to make way for other portions of air, which repeat the process. By these two processes the body cools down to the temperature of the surrounding air, the conduc- tive power of which varies with its elasticy, or barometric pressure; the greater the pressure the greater also the cooling power. It has also'been shown by DULONG and Psrxr, that the ratio of heat, lost by contact of the air alone, is constant at all temperatures; that is, whatever is the ratio between 40° and 80° is also the ratio between 80° and 160°, or between 100° and 200°. ran AMERICAN come}: BUILDER. 79 It was long supposed that a certain relation existed between the radiating and conducting powers of heated bodies, that the variation between them was exactly prepor- tional to the simple ratio of the excess of heat; that is, supposing any quantity of heat =to be given off in a certain time, at a specified difference of temperature, at double that difference twice the quantity of heat would be given off in the same time, This law does, to a certain extent, apply where low temperatures are concerned, but does not hold at high temperatures. Thus, in a set of experiments by DULONG and PETIT, the total cooling at 60° and 120° (Centigrade), was found to,be about as 3 to 7; at 60° and 180°, as 3 to. 13; and 60° and 240°, as 3 to 21; Whereas, according to the old theory, these numbers would have been as 3 to 6, 3 t0 9, and 3 to 12. When the excess of temperature of the heated body above the surrounding air, is as high as 240° Cent, 01‘ 532° Fahr., the real velocity of cooling is nearly double what it would have been by the old theory, varying, however, with the surface. Since the heat lost by contact of the air is the same for all bodies, while those which radiate most, or are the worst conductors, give out more heat in the same time than those bodies which radiate least, or are good conductors, it might be supposed that those metals which are the worst conduc- tors, would be best adapted for vessels or pipes for warming rooms by radiation. “ Such would be the case if vessels were infinitely thin ; but as this is not possible, the slow conducting power of the metal (iron) Opposes an insuperable obstacle to the rapid cooling of any liquid contained within it, by preventing the exterior surface from reaching so high a temperature as would that of a more perfectly conducting metal under similar circumstances; thus preventing the loss of heat both by contact of the air and by radiation, the effect of both being proportional to the excess of heat of the exterior suface of the heated body. If a leaden vessel were infinitely thin, the liquid contained in it would coo] 80 THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. sooner than 1n a similar vessel of copper, brass, or iron; but the greater the thickness of the me al, the more apparent becomes the deviation from this rule; and as the vessels for containg water must always have some considerable thick- ness, those metals which are the worst conductors, will oppose the greatest resistance to the cooling of the contained liquid. ”— Hood. The reflective power of different substances for heat is inversely as their radiating power. If a surface of brass reflect 100 parts of heat; a similar surface of silver will reflect 90 parts; tin foil, 85; block tin, 80; steel, 70; lead, 60.; tin foil, softened by mercury, 10; glass, 10; glass, coated with wax, 5. When similar substances are exposed to the same tem- perature, they all become heated to the same degree, as measured by the thermometer; but if the temperatures of dissimilar substances have to be raised to the same degree the quantities of heat required for the purpose will be very different for different substances. Thus, if we place side by side, upon a hot plate, two equal and similar vessels, one containing a certain weight of water, and the othci an equal weight of mercury, the melcury will soon become much hotter than the water. So, also, on lowermg the temperature of dissimilar substances to an equal degree, some will give out more and others less heat. Different bodies, therefore, display different degrees of susceptibility from receiving free heat within their molecules; this is called their capacity for heat, and the quantity required to raise equal masses or equal weights 1°, is termed their specific heat. The theory of Spe- cific heat is of great importance in a practical point of view, for on it depend many of the calculations for ascertaining the prOportions of the various kinds of apparatus employed in warmng buildings. The Specific heat of different substances can be ascer- tained by mixing together, with certain precautions, ascer~ tained quantities of the'substances under consideration, when THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 81 their mutual capacities for heat are determined by the decrease in the temperature of the hotter body, and by its increase in the cooler. Thus, if 1 lb. of mercury at 32°, and 1 lb. of water at 62° be mixed together, the common temperature will be 61°. The temperature of the metal has, therefore, risen _30°, while that of the water has fallen 1°. If the mercury had been at 62°, and the water at 32°, the common temperature of the mixture would have been 33". In this case the water would have gained 1° of tem- perature, and the mercury would have lost 30°. Thus it appears, that the capacity of water for heat exceeds that of mercury 30 times. If the water be taken as unity, the specific heat of the mercury will be 31;, or 0.033. ' Again, if 7 lb. of iron filings at 68° be mixed With 1 lb of water at 32°, the temperature of the mixture Will be 36°. That quantity of heat, therefore, the loss of which lowers the temperature of iron 32°, raises the’temperature of water only 4°; so that eight times as much heat is required to raise or depress the temperature of the water 1° as would raise or depress the temperature of an equa? weight of iron 1°. Hence the Specific heat of iron is 3;, or 0.125. ' The capacity of substances for heat may also Je found by observing the quantity of ice which the body under investigation is capable of thawing. Thus, if equal weights of iron and lead be operated on, it Will be found that the iron requires a greater quantity of heat than the lead to pro- duce the same change of temperature, in the proportion of nearly 11 to 3. If a bar of iron, in falling from 100° to 95°, melt 11 grains of ice, then a bar of lead. of equal weight, under similar circumstances, would melt rather less than .3 grains; heat is therefore more effective in warmng lead than iron. Again, an ounce of . mercury and an ounce of water, in falling from 60° to 55°, will melt quantities of ice, in the preportion of 33 to 1000, or very nearly one to 30; that is, to raise water from 55° to 60°, requires a greater 4* ' 82 4an AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. quantity of heat than to raise an equal weight of mercury through the same range of. temperature, in the proportion of 30 to 1.’ - The specific heat of bodies has been determined not only for equal weights, but also for equal volumes; and this is called their relative heat, which is to the specific heat of any substance directly as its specific gravity It may be found by multiplying the specific heat. into the specific gravity; and conversely, the specific heat may be found by dividing the relative heat by the specific gravity. Now, as the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of llb. of water 1° is sufficient to raise 11b. of mercury 30°, we say that the specific heat of mercury is glo, taking water as unity; and since the specific gravity of mercury is about 13.6, it follows that the relative heat of an equal volume of this metal is 510 + 13.6 = 0.453. With respect to gaseous bodies, it has been found that their'specific heat is inversely as their specific gravity or density; and, consequently, equal weights of such gases contain a larger quantity 'of heat, less their specific gravity. But as the relative weights of equal volumes of gas are in- versely as their specific gravities, it follows that equal vol- umes of these gases will have equal relative heat; that is, * The quantity of ice melted by different kinds of mel, affords a con- venient method of estimating their relative values. Thus it has been found that . _ 11b. of coal, of good quality, melts 90 lbs. of ice, “ coke, “ “ 84 lbs. “ “ wood, “ “ . 32 lbs. “ ‘f ' wood charcoal, “ 95 lbs. “ “ peat, “ “ 19 lbs. “ One method of estimating how much of the heat of a common fire is radiated around it, and how much combines with the smoke, is to allow all the radiant heat to melt a quantity of ice contained in a. vessel surrounding the fire, and all the heat of the smoke to melt the ice in another vessel sur- rounding the chimney. By comparing the two quantities of water thus obtained with the quantities of ice melted, it will be found, according to Dr. ARNOTT, that the radiant portion of the heat is, in ordinary eases, rather ess than the combined, or less than half the Whole heat produced. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 83 they will contain equal quantities of heat as the atmospheric air itself. This, however, refers to mixtures of gases, for when they are chemically combined, they have a different relative heat, which exceeds that of common air, and each such gas has a distinct index to express its relative heat, so that the quantity of heat contained in them exceeds that contained in an equal volume of atmospheric air. The ca pacity of atmOSpheric air is taken as the unit by which to estimate the specific heat of gaseous bodies;-but sometimes that of water is assumed as the unit, and then the capacities of gases are comparable with those of solids and liquids. The latter values are obtained by multiplying the former into 0.2669, which is the index of the specific heat of at- m'ospheric air compared with that of water. The following table shows the specific heat of various substances referred to water as the standard, and are sup- posed to represent the quantity of heat contained in equal weights of the several substances:— Water - - - 1.0000 Carbonic acid - 0.2210 Aqueous vapor - 0.8470 Carbonic oxide 0.2884 Alcohol - - - 0.7000 Charcoal - - 0.2631 Ether - . - 0.6600 Sulphur - - 0.1850 Oil - - - - 0.5200 Wrought iron - 0.1100 Air - - - - 0.2669 Mercury - - 0.0330 Hydrogen - - 3.2936 Platinum - - 0.0314 Nitrogen - - 0.2754 Gold - - - 0.0298 Oxygen - - 0.2361 It appears, however, that bodies do not possess the same capacity for heat at all temperatures, but that it in- creases with the temperature; the quantity of heat given out by any substance in cooling a given number of degrees, is. greater at high temperatures than at 'low ones. The method of ascertaining the specific heat of gases is as follows: The gas to be examined is well dried, and then brought from a vessel, surrounded with water at 212°, gra~ dually through a spiral tube, surrounded by cold water, the gas escaping through the opposite end of the spiral. In the course of its passage, the gas parts with a portion of its 84 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. heat to the cold water which surrounds the spiral, and the temperature of the water gradually rises, until after some time it becomes stationary. The equilibrium thus estab- lished between the water and the gas is measured by a thermometer, so as to find both the rise in the temperature of the water, and the fall in that of the gas. If the experiment be made with some other gas, and the result should give .a higher temperature to the water, then this second gas must have imparted to the fluid a greater amount of heat than the former one did. If, on the contrary, the temperature of water be less this time than before, it will have given out less heat, and the respective capacities for heat of these two gases will be proportional to the temperatures of the water through which they have been admitted. The capacity of atmospheric air being taken as the unit, the specific heat of other gases may be expressed by proportionate numbers. To raise 11b. of water from 32° to 212°, requires the same quantity of heat as will raise 41b. of atmospheric air the same number of degrees. The specific heat of air is there- fore i, or, more exactly, 0.2669 that of water, as stated in the above table. When heat is added to a solid body, the first effect which marks the increase of temperature is erpansion ; that is, the cohesive or attractive force becomes more and more opposed by the repulsive force of heat; the particles are consequently separated to greater distances, and the temper- ature rises. At a certain point, however, the temperature, as marked by the thermometer, becomes stationary, and although the heat be continually applied, the temperature does not rise. The solid is now undergoing a change of state; it is passing frOm the solid into the liquid state; and no rise in temperature will be observed until the whole of the solid has become liquid. The point at which a body begins to fuse or melt, is called its fusing point, or point of liquefaction, and is different in difi’eren‘t substances. The quantity .of heat absorbed by the body, and unaccounted THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. . 85 for, as far as the thermometer is concerned, is called latent neat. When the body is liquefied, the temperature again begins to rise, until another point is attained, when it again becomes stationary, and the liquid begins to pass off in the form of vapor or steam. This point is called the boilingpozat, and is different in different substances. The heat absorbed during the process of boiling, or vaporization, is also called latent. If, for example, a quantity of snow, at the temperature of zero, with a thermometer in it, be placed in a vessel on the fire, the temperature will be observed to rise to 32°; the snow will then immediately begin to be converted into water, and the thermometer will become stationary at 32°, until . the whole of the snow is melted. This temperature is, therefore, the melting or fusing point of snow or ice, and the heat absorbed or rendered latent during the process, being that which is necessary to produce liquefaction, is hence called also the lieat of liquefaction, and amounts to no less than 140°; that is, although snow or ice may be of the same temperature as water, yet the water actually con- tains 140° of heat more than the solid snow or ice. As soon as the whole of the snow is melted, the temperature of the water will begin to rise, and will continue to do so until it reaches 212°, when the boiling point of water is attained. While steam is rapidly escaping, the water remains'at 212°; the heat which is absorbed, called the heat of vaporization—being that which is required to maintain water in the state of vapor or steam—amounts to no less than 1000° of temperature; that is, although water may be at 212°, and steam may be at 212°, yet the steam contains a larger amount of heat than water, such as is represented by 1000". on the scale of the thermometer. In the following table, the melting points of a few sub- stances are noted, together with the quantity of heat rendered latent by each in passing from the solid into the liquid state. From these, and other results, it may be seen that, in general, the higher the point of fusion, the great-er 86 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. will be the quantity of heat absorbed in liquefaction. There is, hOWever, no proportion between these effects, for ice and spermaeeti melt at 32° and 112°, and yet the quantities of heat rendered latent are nearly the same. MELTING POINT. LATENT POINT Water . . . . 32 degrees . , . . 140 degrees Sulphur . . '. . 213 “ . . . . . 143.7 “ Spermaceti . . . 112 “ . . . . . . 145 “ Lead. . .. 612 “ ......16 “ Bees’ Wax . . . 150 “ . . . . . . 175 ‘- ,Zinc . . . . . 773 “ . . . . . . 493 “ Tin . . . . . 442 “ . . . . . . 500 “ Bismuth . . 476 “ 550 “ In the following table the boiling points of a few sub- stances are given, together with the quantity of heat rendered latent by each in passing from the liquid into the aeriform state. BOILING POINT. LATENT HEAT. Water - - - 212 degrees. - - 1000 degrees. Alcohol (sp. gr. 0.7947) 173 “ (barom. 29.5) 457 “ Ether - - - 98 “ - - - 312.9 “ Oil of Turpentine - 314 “ - '- 183.8 “ Nitric Acid (sp. gr. 1.50) 210 “ - - 550 “ Ammonia - - - - - - - 865.9 “ Vinegar — — - - - - - - 903 1“ Petroleum - - - - - - - 183. 8 “ When water is boiling 1n an Open vessel, the steam which escapes from it is of the same pressuie and elasticity as the atmospheric air, and at 212° is equivalent to 30 inches of mercury. In a close vessel, hovvever, the temperature of the steam may be increased to any extent, and is only limited by the strength of the vessel containing it. Thus, at 212°, the pressure of the steam is equal to 'one atmos— . phere, or 15le. on every square inch of surface; at 250°, the pressure of the steam, tending to burst the vessel con- taining it, is equal to two atmospheres, or 301bs. on the square inch; at 275°, the bursting pressure is that of three atmospheres, or 45lbs. on the square inch, and so on. But it is a remarkable fact, that at all temperatures and pressures, the steam contains exactly the same absolute THE AMERICAN (lC-TTAGE BUILDER. 87 quantity of heat; for While the temperature, as measured by the thermometer, increases almost indefinitely, the latent heat of high pressure steam diminishes in exactly the same ratio, so that the sum of the latent and sensible heat of steam always amounts to 1800° above the freezing point of water. Thus, a certain weight of steam at 212°, when condensed into water at 32°, gives out 180° of sensible heat, and 1000° of latent heat:1180°; and the same weight of steam at 400°, condensed into water at 32°, gives out 368° of sensible heat, and 812° of latent heat=1180°. The same fact may be observed With steam at all other temperatures. These details respecting latent heat will enable the reader to compare the merits of the twosystems of heating buildings by pipes filled with hot water, and by similar pipes filled with steam. In the former system, it is not desirable to raise the water to the boiling point (212°) because, in such case, .steam would be formed, and this escaping by the safety- pipe, would abstract much useful heat from the apparatus. In the latter system, it is desirable to maintain the pipes at 212°, because at a lower temperature, the steam would condense, and also absorb much useful heat from the apparatus. From the necessity of maintaining the temper- ature of 212° in steam pipes, it is evident that a given length of steam pipe will afford more heat than the same quantity of hot water pipe; but the following remarks by Mr. HOOD, on the relative permanence of temperature of the two methods, will show an advantage in favor of the hot water system: “The weight of steam, at the temperature of 212°, com- pared with the weight 20f water at 212°, is about as. 1 to 1694; so that a pipe which is filled with water at 212°, contains 1694 times as much matter as one of equal size filled with steam. If the source of heat be withdrawn from the steam, pipes, the temperature will soon fall below 212°, and the steam immediately in contact With the pipes 88 THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. will condense; but in condensing, the steam parts with its latent heat; and this heat, in passing from the latent to the sensible state, will again raise the temperature of the pipes. But as soon as they are a second time cooled down below 212°, a further portion of steam will condense, and a further quantity of latent heat will pass into the state of heat of temperature; and so on, until the Whole quantity of latent heat has been abstracted, and the Whole of the steam con- densed, in Which state it will possess just as much heating power as a similar bulk of water at the like temperature; that is, the same as a quantity of water occupying 1—5137 part of the space which the steam originally did. “ The specific heat of uncondensed steam, compared with water, is for equal weights as .8470 to 1; but the latent heat of steam being estimated at 10009, We shall find that the relative heat obtainable from equal weights of con- densed steam and of water, reducing both from the temper- ature of 212° to 60°, to be as 7.425 to 1; but for equal bul‘ks, it Will be as 1 to 228; that is, bulk for bulk, water will give out 228 times as much heat as steam, on reducing both from the temperature of 212° to 60°. A given bulk of steam will, therefore, lose as much of its heat in one minute, as the same bulk of water will lose in three hours and three-quarters. ” But when the water and the steam are both contained in Iron pipes of the same dimensions, the rate of. cooling will difi'er from this ratio, in consequence of the greater quantity of heat contained in the metal than in the steam. The specific heat of iron being nearly the same as that of water, the pipe filled With water Will contain 4.68 times as much heat as that which is filled with steam; and if the latter cools down to 60° in one hour, the other will require about four hours and'a half to do the same. There are other circumstances to be noticed hereafter, which cause the hot water apparatus to be six or eight times (instead of 4%) more efficient as a source ofi warmth than steam. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 89 The process of boiling is by no means indispensable to the formation and escape of steam or vapor; for at all tem . peraturcs below the boiling point, vapor is formed at the surface of liquids, and escapes therefrom by a process called spontaneous evaporation. The difi'erence between this process and ebullition is chiefly this: when a liquid boils, the vapor which escapes therefrom constantly maintains the I same temperature, provided the pressure remain the same; but evaporation may go on at all temperatures and pres- sures, the quantity of liquid evaporated depending on -the temperature and the amount of surface exposed; or the pressure may be increased or diminished, or removed alto- ' gether, without affecting the result, or that quantity of vapor which can exist in a given space at a given temperature; the saturation of that space requiring a longer time in prOportion to the density of the air contained in it, while in a vacuum the saturation is instantaneous. This is the only. difference. , We have seen that the pressure or elasticity of vapor at 212° is sufficient to support a column of mercury 30 inches high; the force of vapor at lower temperatures is also measured by the length of the mercurial column which it will support; Vapor at 200° will support 23.64 inches of mercury; at 150°, 7.42 inches; at 100°, 1.86 inches; at 80°, 1 inch; at 60°, .524 inch; at 50, .375 inch; at 32° .2 inch. The amount of evaporation, h0wever, is greatly in- fluenced by the motion of the air, which carries off the vapor from the surface of a liquid as fast as it is formed. A strong wind will cause twice as much vapor to be discharged as a still atmosphere. DALTON ascertained the number of grains weight of water evaporated per minute from a vessel, 6 inches in diameter, for all temperatures between 20° and 212°, when the air was still, or in gentle or brisk motion. When the water was at 212°, the quantity evaporated was 120 grains per minute, in a still atmosphere; 154 grains per minute, with a gentle motion of the air, and 189 grains per 90 THE AMERICAN ' COTTAGE BUILDER. minute with a brisk motion of the, air. The following is an . extract from his table between the temperatures of 40° and 60°:—- ' TEMP. FORCE 0F VAPOR IN EVAPORATING FORCE IN GRAINS FAX-1R. INCHES 0F MERCURY. OF WATER. Still. Gentle. Brisk. 40 deg. - 0.263 — 1.05 - 1.35 - 1.65 42 “ - .283 1.13 - 1.45 - 1.78 44 “ ‘ - .305 - 1.22 - 1.57 - 1.92 46 “ - .327 - 1.31 - 1.68 - 2.06 48 “ I - .351 -- 1.40 - 1.80 - 2.20 50 “ - .375 1.50 - 1.92 - 2.36 52 “ - .401 - 1.60 - 2.06 - 2.5] 54 “ - .429 - 1.71 - 2.20 - 2.69 56 “ - .458 -- 1.83 - 2.35 . 2.88 58 “ - .490 - 1.96 _- 2.52 - 3.08 60 “ - .524 - 2.10 ' - 2.70 - 3.30 The amount of spontaneous evaporation is also greatly influenced by the quantity of vapor already existing in the air. In order to find this, we must ascertain the dew point of the air, or the temperature at which the vapor in the air begins to condense, and then, by referring to the table, the quantity of vapor in the air at the time can be found, and this, deducted from the quantity shown by the table to be given 011' at the ascertained temperature of the evaporating liquid, will give the quantity of water that will be evaporated per minute. In finding the dew point, we must bring some colder body into the air, or have the means of cooling some body to such a point as shall just condense the vapor of the air upon its surface. Dr. DALTON used a very thin glass vessel, into which he poured cold water from a well, or cooled down the water by adding a small portion of a freezing mixture. If the vapor was instantly condensed, he poured out the cold water and used some a little warmer, and so on, until he could just perceive a slight dew upon the sur- face. The temperature at which this took place, was the dew point. In DANIELL’s hygrometer, the cold is produced by the evaparaticin of ether. Now, suppose the dew point of the air to be 40°, and the temperature of the air and of .THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER 91 the evaporating liquid to be 60°, with a still atmosphere, the vapor in the air,.as shown by the table at 40°, is 1.05 grains; which substracted from that at 60°, or 2.10, gives 1.5 grains per minute as the quantity of vapor given off from a surface six inches in diameter. During the spontaneous evaporation of wet surfaces, a considerable degree of cold is produced by the quantity of heat rendered latent by the formation of the vapor, and the heat is mostly derived from the liquid itself, or the surface containing it. By proper contrivances, Water may be frozen, in consequence of the abstraction of heat during -the rapid formation of vapor. When a person takes cold from wearing wet clothes, the vapor from the wet clothes obtains its heat from his body, and the chilling sensation is often the. greater the warmer the air. A person‘with damp clothes, entering a. room filled with hot, dry air, is very likely to take cold, on account of the powerful effect of warm air in abstracting moisture. In a badly ventilated room, the moisture from the breath of the inmates, and from the combustion of lamps and candles, accumulates nearly to the point of saturation. This is well shown by an experiment of the late Professor DANIELL. The temperature of a room being 45°, the dew point was 39°: a fire was then lighted in it, the door and window shut, and no air was allowed to enter; the thermo- meter rose to 55°, but the point of condensation remained the same. A party of eight persons afterwards occupied the room for several hours, and the fire was kept up; the temperature rose to 58°, and the point of condensation rose to 52°. Now, if this room had been properly ventilated, the vapor would have been removed as it was formed, and with it the efiluvia and impure air. In Normandy, where the cold of winter is severe, and fuel expensive, the lace—makers, in order to keep themselves warm, and at the same time to save fuel, agreewith some farmer who has 'cows in winter quarters, to rent the close 92 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. sheds. The cows are tethered in a row on one side of the shed, and the lace-makers sit cross-legged on the ground on , the other side, with their feet buried in straw. The cattle, being out in the fields by day, the poor women work all night for the sake of the steaming warmth arising from the animals. ' The Laplander, during eight months of the year, inhabits a little hut with a small hole in the centre of the roof for the admission of light and the escape of smoke, and obtains heat from a smoky lamp of- putrid oil, as the Esquimaux does in his hut of snow. The effect of this arrangement is, that the whole nation of Laplanders are afflicted with blear eyes. The Greenlander, indeed, builds a large hut, and contrives it better, but ‘it is often occupied by half a dozen families, each having a lamp for warmth and for cooking, and the effect of this arrangement, says EGEDE, “is to cre- ate such a smell, that it strikes one not accustomed to it to the very heart.” The method of obtaining'warmth in Persia, is scarcely an improvement on the smoky lamp of the Laplanders and Greenlanders. A large jar, called a leeway, is sunk in the earthen floor, generally in the middle of the room. This is filled with wood, dung, or other combustible; and when it is sufficiently charred, the mouth of the vessel is shut in with a square wooden frame, shaped like a 10W table, and the whole is then covered with a thick-wadded quilt, under which the family, ranged around, place their knees, to allow ' the hot vapor to insinuate itself into the folds of their cloth- ing; or, when they desire more warmth, they recline with the quilt drawn. up to their chins. The immoveable position necessary for receiving the full benefit of the glowing embers is inconvenieni ; and the effluvia from the fuel is nau~ seous and deleterious. Headache is always produced, and, from the number who sleep entirely under the quilt at night, suffocation is not an uncommon accident. The koarcy‘ also serves for an oven, and the pot is boiled on its embers. This THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 93 ' rude and unwholesome method is adopted in the noblest mansions of the cities, as well as in the dwellings of the poorer classes; only, in the former,’a more agreeable fuel is burnt, and the ladies sit from morning till night under rich draperies spread over the wooden cover, endeavoring to overcome the s0p0rific influence of the foul air by occasiona‘ cups of coffee, or the delightful fumes of the kalioum. The burning of fuel in the midst of an apartment, is by no means confined to nations whom we are in the habit of calling barbarous and uncivilized. In Seville and other parts of Spain, preparations for winter are made about the mid- dle of October. The lower summer apartments are stripped of their furniture, and the chairs and tables are removed to other rooms on the opposite side of the court. The brick floors are covered with thicker mats than those used in the warm season. A flat and open brass pan, about two feet in diameter, raised a few inches from the ground by a round wooden frame, on which those who sit near it may rest their feet, is used to burn a sort of charcoal, made of brushwood, called cisco. The carbonic acid vapor is most injurious to health; but such is the effect of habit, that the natives are seldom aware of the inconveniences arising from the stifling fumes of their braziers. The charcoal brazier is a very ancient method of warming an apartment; the Greeks and other nations commonly used it, and sought to correct the deleterious nature of the fumes, by burning costly odorous gums, spices and woods. The braziers of the Romans were elegant bronze tripods, supported by satyrs and sphinxes, with a round dish above for the fire, and a small vase below to hold perfumes. A kind of close stove was also used ; but, in either case, the smoke was so considerable, that the winter rooms were dif- ferently furnished from those appropriated to summer use. The former had plain cornices and no carved work or mOuld- ings, so that the soot might be easily cleared away. In order to prevent the wood from smoking, the bark was 94 - THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. peeled off, and the wood kept long in water, and then dried, and anointed with oil. It is not, however, evident how this plan should prevent the smoke of the burning fuel. The great convenience of the brazier, and the apparent cleanliness of the fuel, are arguments in favor of its con- tinued use even in our own day. A visitor tobsome of the Eng- lish cathedrals,'in winter, during the time of divine service, Salisbury Cathedral, for example, will be astonished to see on the floor of the choir two or three enormOus braziers full of live charcoal; a peculiar odor arises from them, and per- vades the building; a pleasing sensation creeps over the whole frame, and the tendency to sleep is often irresistible; persons troubled with cough cease to cough, and an unusual effort is required when the service is over, to rise and quit the building. The enormous size of the enclosure prevents any fatal effects from the abundant evolution of carbonic acid, nor have we ever heard of any well-authenticated case of injury to any one; but a very little consideration will show that, in a smaller space, such as a room, this primitive method of obtaining warmth might lead to dangerous con- sequences. A single pound weight of charcoal consumes in burning 2 {lolbs weight of oxygen, which is the quantity contained in between 13 or 14le of atmospheric air. Xow, a good-sized room, 20 feet by 13 feet, and 10 feet high, does not contain more than about 200 pounds weight of air, and as the combustion of one pound of charcoal produces 3 Folbs. ' of carbonic acid, which, by mingling with the rest of the air of the apartment, renders at least 361bs. weight of air unfit for respiration— making in all about 501bs. weight of air—it follows that, in such a room, the air will require, for healthy respiration, to be renewed many times an hour. In addition to the brazier, the ancient Romans were acquainted with fines for warming rooms and buildings; but as these were costly contrivances, their use was confined to _ the wealthy. These flnes, forming what was called the lzypocauslum, were conducted below the floor of the room THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 95 intended to be warmed. The hypocansts were C‘.‘ two kinds—the first, constructed with flues running under the floor, and heated from a fire-place on the outside of the building; and the second kind fermed like a low chamber, having its ceiling supported by small pillars or by dwarf walls, and sometimes with flues leading from them to other apartments. I . The hypocaustrum is well known to the Chinese, and is in common use about Pekin, where the Winter climate is very severe. The houses of the better class are built with double walls, and with hollow flues extending beneath the floors. The fire-place is constructed either against the exterior wall of the apartment to be heated, or in an inferior room adjoining; by which means the annoyance from dust and smoke are avoided, as well as the inconvenience of servants entering the room to attend to the fire. From the fire-chamber proceeds a main flue, which is connected with the horizontal flue. From this another fine proceeds at right angles to about three-fourths of the extent of the room; these fines are perforated with holes at proper distances, in order to give out the smoke and heated air equally over the whole area of the flooring. Two horizontal fines are built in or attached to the side walls, in order to carry off the smoke into the external air. The flooring of the apartment consists of flat tiles or flag-stones, neatly embedded in cement, so as to prevent the escape'of the smoke or heated air from the fines beneath into the room. These stones or paving-tiles, resting on blocks of stone or bricks, may be of any thickness required for the extent of the air—flues which are employed. By this contrivance, the heat, coming in contact with every part of the floor, is uniformly diffused over the apartment. The floors, also. being very imperfect conductors of heat, being once suffi- ciently heated by the fines, and the apertures of the main lines outside being stopped, retain a' sufficient heat for domestic comfort during many hours. The paving-tiles of 96 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER, the rooms are often made of ornamental porcelain ware of considerable thickness. Even the benches and sleeping- places are warmed by this contrivance. These are built hollow, with bricks, in the form of a square bench or oblong bed, and communicating with the fines, or having their own separate flue, are thus heated. Those who dislike lying on the hot bricks, or on the felt mat that is spread over them, suspend from the ceiling, over the heated bench, a kind of hammock, made of coarse cloth; and thus they enjoy warmth and repose. In the morning, the bed-places are covered with carpets and mats, on which the inmates of the house sit. The ingenious economy of the Chinese (from which we might often borrow a useful lesson), prevents the flues from becoming choked by soot. Instead of employing pit-coal of good quality, they make use of the inferior or small refuse coal for this purpose, and mix it with a compost of clay, earth, cow-dung, or any refuse vegetable matter; and then form it into balls, which are dried in the sun or open air. This method is not adopted on account of any scarcity of fuel, for coal is abundant in China; but the Chinese know how to take care of it. They find that their fire-balls, during combustion, give out very little smoke; and they are ”largely manufactured in the coal districts, and distributed by canal carriage-over a large portion of the empire. In the inferior class of houses, instead of having the fire outside the house or room to be heated, it is built in the corner of the dwelling-room. A pit is dug for the body of the fire-chamber an'd draught-hole; and the top, or head of the stove, is used for the different operations of cooking. That no portion of heat may be lost, or escape into the room directly from the fire, beyond what is necessary to maintain a given temperature, vessels of water are placed on the head of the stove, and thus the heat, which would otherwise be lost, is absorbed and economized; while it affords, by its evaporation, the necessary supply of moisture THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 97 to preserve the atmOSphere of the room in a healthy con- dition as to moisture. The Chinese call a stove which is heated by a furnace, a kang; the ti—kamg is a furnace of which the flue runs under the floor or pavement of a room; and the kao-Icang is that used for heating benches and beds. There is yet a third variety, towg-kang, which is formed in the wall, and this difi'ers from the pti-kang only in being perpendicular instead of horizontal. In the tong-kang, the heating—flue is carried along the floor, with Openings from it, at which the heated air and smoke ascends into the spaces of a hollow wall. The necessity for providing for the exit of smoke seems to have caused the invention of the chimney. Chimneys appear to have been common in Venice about the middle of the fourteenth century. An inscription over the gate of the school of Santa Maria della Carita states, that in 1347, a great many chimneys were thrown down by an earthquake—a fact which is confirmed by JOHN VILLANI, who refers the event to the evening of the 25th of January. Chimneys had also been in use at Padua before 1368, for in that year GALEAZO GATARO relates, that FRANCISCO DA CARRARO, lord of Padua, came to Rome, and finding ne- chimneys in the inn Where he lodged, (because at that time fire was kindled in a hole in the middle of the floor,) be caused ’ two chimneys, like those that had been. long used in Padua, to be constructed by the work-people he had brought with him. Over these chimneys—the first ever seen in Rome—he afiixed his arms, which were remaining in the time of GA- TARO. Winwall House, in Norfolk, which has been described as the most ancient and perfect Specimen of Norman domestic architecture in the kingdom, has not only recessed hearths, but flues rising from them, carried up in the exter- nal and internal walls. Now, if Winwall House really be an Anglo-Norman edifice, its chimneys must have been built in the twelfth century, and, consequently, the claim of the Italians to the invention cannot be supported. The chim- 5 98 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. neys at Kenilworth and Conway were also probably erected anterior to the date of those on which the Italians rest their claim. LELAND, also, in his account of Bolton Castle, which he says was “ finiched or Kynge Richard the 2 dyed,” notices the chimneys. “One thynge I muche notyd in the hawle of Bolton, how chimeneys were conveyed by tun- nells made on the syds of the walls betwyxt the lights in the hawle, and by this means and by no covers, is the smoke of the harthe in the hawle wonder strangely conveyed.” In all places where wood exists in abundance, coal is not sought after for the purposes of domestic fuel. To show the objections raised to everything new, it may be stated, that when coal was first generally used in England, it was supposed that the fumes of coal had a peculiarly cor- rupting effect upon the air, and were most injurious to health. Its value, was appreciated by brewers, dyers, smiths, and others, whose occupatiOns lead to the consumption of a large quantity of fuel, and towards the close of the thirteenth century, coal was imported into London from Newcastle, for the use of those trades. In 1306, however, parliament peti- tioned the king to prohibit the use of the noxious fuel in the city. A proclamation was accordingly issued, prohibiting the use of coal; and as this failed in its effect, a commission was issued for the purpose of ascertaining who burned sea- coal within the city and'its neighborhood, and to punish them by fine for the first offence, and by the demolition of their furnaces if they persisted. But even these severe pro- ceedings failed to put down the nuisance. A law was therefore passed, making the burning of sea-coal within the city a capital offence, and permitting its use only in the forges of the neighborhood. In the reign of the first Ed- ward, a man was tried, convicted, and executed, for burning sea-coal in London. Even in districts where coal abounded, it. was not used as a domestic fuel; for we read that in 134 9, in the religious house at Whalley, peat, with a very little wood, was the only fuel used. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 99 So deeply rooted was the prejudiceagainst coal, that it was not until the commencement of the seventeenth century that its use became more general. Ladies had an idea that a coal fire injured their complexions, and they would not even enter a house or reomwhere the obnoxious fuel was used; nor would they even partake of meat which had been roasted at a coal fire. When BEN J oxsou had to entertain a party of guests at his house, he warmed his room with a charcoal fire; but, on ordinary occasions,.he used coal; for we find that, on more than one occasion, his fine caught 'fire from an accumulation of soot. There was, doubtless, good reason for the objections of our ancestors to the use of sea-coal, for the chimney fire- places were usually' made in the form of a large square recess, and the breast of the chimney was of the same size as the recess itself. In order to rid sea-coal of its noxious sulphurious vapor, Sir J 03x HACKET and OCTAVIUS DE STRADA proposed, in 1626, to convert. the coal into coke, and thus make it as agreeable a fuel for chambers as wood and char- coal. A patent was obtained for the purpose, but the spe- culation‘did not succeed, as the vapor given off by the coke was found to be nearly as unpleasant as that from coal. About this time, a great improvement was made in France in fire—places. Loris Savor, in his Treatise on Architecture, remarks that large rooms only are free from smoke, and that when fires are made in small apartments, 3. door or a win- dow had to be left open, or else the air came down the wide flue, and drove the smoke into the room. To correct this defect, he raised the hearth about four inches, and lowered the mantel so as to make the Opening of the fire-place about three feet high. The width between the jambs was reduced to three feet; the jambs from the mantel were to be carried up sloping to the waist, or where the flue begins to be of uniform width, and the opening of the fire—place was formed iike an arch. But, where the fii'e-plaCe could not be con- veniently altered, SAVOT perforated with small holes a plate 100 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. of iron, whose width and length was nearly equal to the hearth, and this was fixed three inches above the tiles of the ‘ common hearth. On' this perforated plate he placed a grille defer of the same length as the billets to be burned. and raised ' nine inches above the plate ; the wood was placed on the grate, the charcoal on the perforated plate, and the hearth received the ashes. The air, rising through the small holes, made the charcoal burn briskly, and this so much assisted the burning of the wood, that a rapid draught up the chimney *1" was established, and smoke prevented. About the year 1658, the project for burning coke, instead of coal, was revived by Sir JOHN WINTER, who invented an improved fire-place for the purpose. The cra- dle, or fire-cage, was placed on a box about eleven inches high, in the front of which was an opening, fitted with a door, which was always kept closed, except when the ashes were removed. A pipe, inserted into the side of the box, communicated with the external air, at a level of two or three feet below the bottom bars of the fire-cage. This pipe could be closed at pleasure by a valve. When the coke, or charcked coal in the fire-cage did not burn well, the valve was opened, and the air from the outside rushed in a strong current into the box, and, by its powerful blast, soon roused up the fire; the valve was then closed, and all communica- tion with the external air was thus cut off. The flue was closed with an iron plate or register, that moved on a hinge. It had an Opening, 8 inches square, for carrying the smoke into the chimney, and this was found large enough for a fire- place of any dimensions. This ingenious contrivance does not seem to have succeeded, although both it and the arrangement described by SAvo‘r have, with slight variations, been brought forward several times within the last three- quarters of a century, and patented as notable inventions. In 1678, Prince RUPERT invented a fire-place, so contrived that the draught took a downward direction before entering the flue THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 101 "‘ The fire-cloth,” says Mr. BERNAN, “was a common appendage to a_ fire—place, particularly where wood was burned, for then the flue was large, the hearth wide and low, and the mantel high; when the chimney smoked, in certain winds only, the cloth was suspended from each corner of the mantel-piece But when the disease was unremitting, the curtain was fixed by rings, running on a rod that went across the fire-place. When not used, it was d1awn to one side, like the curtain of 'a cottage window. Very often the fire-cloth was contrived to be drawn 11p like a modern Venetian blind, and made so deep, as to reach from the mantel to the hearth, and serve the office; of a fire—board, when there was no fire in the yawning chimney. The first variety of smoke-cloth was seldom more than fifteen inches deep, and was frequently made of painted leather; but in good houses, the suspended fire—cloths were usually of damask and tapestry. None of these contriv- ances are yet extinct. ” In 1680, a stove was exhibited at the fair of St. Germains, near Paris, in which the smoke not only descended, but was also consumed. It is formed of ham- mered iron, and stands on the floor of the room. The fuel, wood, or coal, is contained in a vase, with a grating at the bottom, and this vase is placed on a box or cylinder, from which a pipe is carried into a fine, which has no communi- cation with the hearth recess, nor with the air, except at the tOp, above the roof. The vase being filled with fuel, some dry brushwood is placed upon it. The upper part of the pipe is then heated by a lamp, or hot iron, in order to establish a current of air from the cylinder, which current passes down through the fuel in the vase. A piece of lighted paper is then placed on the brushwood, and the downward current carries the flame downwards, first igniting the wood and then the coals, and consuming the smoke in descending. The products of combustion thus carried into the cylinder, rise through the pipe into the '102 _ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. chimney. The descending current may be made evident by holding a flame over the vase, and it will be drawn down- wards. J USTEL, who described this arrangement to the Royal Society in 1681, says, that “the mest feeted things, matters which stink abominably when taken out of the fire, in this engine make no ill scent; neither do red-herrings broiled thereon. On the other hand, all perfumes are lost, and incense makes no smell at all when burned therein.” _An improved edition of this stove was made by Dr. FRANKLIN. _ ' A very economical method of heating two rooms by one fire is described by Silver. A plate of iron is made to sepa. rate the fire-places of the two adjacent rooms. A fire made on the hearth heats the plate, and this, in its turn, by its radiation, warms the air in the adjacent room, as efi’ectually as a stove would do, provided its flue is properly closed. Or if the second room have no chimney, it may still be warmed by making an opening in the wall, at the back of the fire-place, and closing it with an iron plate. When Dr. FRANKLI'N was in Paris, he saw an example of this contriv- ance, and estimated it highly. In all these early contrivances there is much ingenuity, and we bring them forward thus prominently, because they are really the legitimate ancestors of many reputed modern inventions, whose authors are either ignorant of, or have failed 'to acknowledge, their legitimate descent therefrom. Invent- ors would often be spared much anxiety and expense, if they would condescend to study the subject to which their inven- tion refers, before they introduce to the public a contriv- ance which may have been as well if not better done a long time before. Inventions, whether in the fine arts, or in the useful arts, require genius often of a high order; and although it is not expected that every inventor should have the genius of WATT, it is at least required that they should possess some of his method of patient research. But there is one writer whose inventions have especially THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. , 103 served as the type of many a modern fire-place, and at the time of its publication in 1713, showed a great and sudden advance in the art of warming apartments. The author of the treatise referred to is no less a man than the Cardinal POLIGNAC, who, under the assumed name of GAUGER, pub- lished a treatise, entitled “ La, Mechanique du Few, mo l’A'rt ri‘en augmentcr les efets et d’en dimimter la dépense, canteozant le Traite dc Arourelles Oil/ami'nées qui echaufi'ent plus que les Chemilnms ordinaries, et qui ne sont point sujettes a fumer." This treatise was reprinted at Amsterdam in 1714, and a translation of it, by Dr. DESAUGULIERS (from which we are about to quote), was published in London in 1716. In the preface, the author has some sensible observation: on the subject" of warming and ventilation. After remark~ ing that persons who judge of the value of machines by their complication, will not find his inventions to their taste. He bestows a complaint on those who estimate “ such devices from the simplicity of their construction, and the facility of their execution,” and then proceeds thus:——“ A plate of iron or copper bowed or bended after such a manner as is not at all disagreeable to the sight; a void behind, divided by certain small iron bands or partition plates, forming sev- eral spaces that have communication one with another; a. little vent—hole in the middle of the hearth, a register plate in the upper part of the funnel: and for some shafts, a capital on the top, make up the whole construction and workmanship of our modern chimney. Now, can there be anything more simple or plain, or more easy to execute ?” “ To be able to kindle a fire speedily and make it, if you please, flame continually, whatever wood is burning, Without the use of bellows; to give heat to a spacious room, and even to another adjoining, with a little fire; to warm one’s self at the same time on all sides, be the weather ever so cold, without scorching; to breathe a pure air, always fresh, and to such a degree of warmth as is thought fit; to be never annoyed with smoke in one’s apartment, nor have any 104 ‘ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ,moisture therein; to quench by one’s self, and in an instant, any fire that may catch in the funnel of a chimney; all these are but a few of the effects and properties of these wonder- ful machines, notwithstanding their apparent simplicity. Since I used this sort of chimney, I have not been troubled one moment with smoke, in a lodging which it rendered before untenable as soon as a fire was lighted. I have always inhaled, even during the sharpest seasons, a fresh air like that of the spring. -In 1709, water that froze hard every- where else very near the hearth, did not congeal at night in my chamber, though the fire was put out before midnight; andall'that was brought thither in the day soon thaWed; neither did I ever perceive the least moisture in winter, not even during thaws.” The treatise opens with the following remark :—“ It seems that those who have hitherto built or caused chimneys to be erected, have only taken care to contrive in the chambers certain places where wood may be burnt, without making a due reflection that the wood in burning ought to warm those chambers, and the persons who are in them;' at least, it is certain that but a very little heat is felt of the fire made in the ordinary chimneys, and that they might be ordered so as to send forth a great deal more, only by changing the disposition of their jambs and wings.” A number of complicated varieties of fire-place are described in this treatise, all of which are furnished with par- abolic jambs and the soufflet; but the back, the jambs, the hearth, and the mantel, were also made hollow, for the purpose of pouring a copious supply of heated air into the apartment. These hollow spaces, named caliducts or meat» ders, are in one arrangement formed by perpendicular divi- sions. In another variety they are horizontal. In this variety the hearth is also hollowed out, and divided into a series of square spaces. A simple, but highly ingenious grate, in which the burn- ing fuel was made to consume its own smoke, was one of the THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 105 many original contrivances of FRANKLIN. It consisted of a circular fire-cage, about a foot in diameter, and from 6 to 8 inches wide from front to back. The back is of plate-iron. and the front filled with bars, of which the three middle are fixed and the top and bottom moveable, and either one may be drawn out for the purpose of filling the grate With fuel. The fire-cage turns upon axes, supported by a crochet, fixed on a stem, which revolves upon a pivot fixed to the hearth. The fire is lighted by withdrawing the upper bar and then placing wood and coals in the cage, as in a common grate; the bar is then replaced. So, also, in adding fresh fuel, the upper bar is removed and then replaced. When the grate is first lighted, a quantity of thick smoke is emitted by the fuel; but, as soon as it begins to burn well, the cage is turned round on its axes, so that the burning coals at the bottom shall occupy a position at the t0p. The Whole is then turned round on the pivot, so as to bring the bars again in front; by this arrangement the fresh coals below the lighted fuel will gradually ignite, and their smoke, having to pass through the. fire above them, will be entirely consumed. In this way the combustion is perfect, or nearly so, and this economy of fuel is accompanied by a much greater heating effect; little or no soot is deposited, for all the combustible matter of the fuel is converted into heat. For want of some such contrivance, a very considerable portion of our fuel is wasted by our open fires, under the best management. Soot is very inflammable, and one pound of it gives as much, if not more heat, than one pound of coal; and the quantity bf soot which lines our chimneys. when bituminous coal is used, is very inconsiderable, compared with that which escapes unconsumed at the chimney-top, and fills the neighborhood with blacks, and returning into our houses through the open windows. makes the furniture dirty, or, entering our lungs, offers an impediment to free respiration. Another advantage of the revolving grate is, that it may be turned into any 5* 106 . THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. position, so as to radiate its heat in one direction rather than another; and, by placing the bars in a horizontal position, a tea-kettle, or other cooking utensil, may be conveniently set on it. Count RUMFORD deserves honorable mention as an improver of grates, and an economizer of fuel. The Rumfm-rl tore has made his name familiar among all classes, and is so well known, that a description is unnecessary. The Count’s essential improvement consisted in contracting the area of the fire—chamber, and placing a flat surface in each interior angle, so as to reflect that portion of heat into the room, which in the old square-chambered grates escaped up the chimney. The throat of the chimney was also greatlv reduced in size, and the breastwork rounded off, in order to afford less obstruction to the ascent of the smoke. When the chimney required sweeping, the plate or flag-stone could be removed so as to Open the throat, and be replaced after the operation. According to RUMFORD, in order to obtain the greatest elfect from the fuel, the sides of the fire-place ought to be placed at an angle of 135° with the back of the grate; or, which is the same thing, at an angle of 45° with a line drawn across the front of the fire-place. These angular covings were not to be of iron, but of some non-conducting substance, such as fire-clay, and polished with black-lead. He objected to circular covings, on the ground that they ‘ produced eddies 0r currents, which would be likely to cause the chimney to smoke; and he also objected to the old form of registers or metal covers to the breast of the chimney, for the same reason; and also because, by their sloping upwards, towards the back of the fire-place, they caused the warm air from the room to be drawn up the chimney, and thus inter- fered with the passage of the smoke. These registers are now arranged so as to be lower at the back than at the front of the stove, but they are usually placed too high up. If brought down lower and placed at an angle of 45°, much of the heat of the fire would be reflected into the room. lf~ F. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 107 The Count also greatly diminished the size of the fire-grate, and considered the best proportions for the chimney-recess to be, when the width of the back was equal to the depth from front to back, and the width of the front or opening between the jambs three times the width of the back. “ Although the best form for register stoves has nowfor several years past been adopted, the desire for novelty has caused the true principles of construction to be frequently departed from; and we accordingly find, in the most modern stoves, considerable deviations from these principles.” An economical mode of forming the living-room fire-place and stove, is shown in the annexed drawings. The chimney- jambs, arch and back, are. formed of bricks glazed on the outer surface, which would have a very neat and clean appearance. The plan shows the back of the fire-place as \ \ \\> \\ PLAN OF COTTAGE LIVING-BOOK FIREvPLACE. muuox. . 108 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. circular, with the grate placed as far forward and as nearly in the focus of the reflecting surface as possible. The chimney-mouth should be small, and provided, where the cost will allow of it, with a register-flap, to regulate the draught. The fender may be formed with stone or earthenware. The grate is shown of a simple construction, and may be ren. dered still more so by forming the supports of bricks o tiles. ' We think we have now indicated all the various families of open fire-places, at least as far as their principles are con- cerned. The species are innumerable, and it would be impossible, in. our limited space, to give even a list of them. Those who desire further information on the subject, are referred to Mr. BERNAN’S entertaining little volumes. But as the subject of open fires is closely connected with that of smoky chimneys, it may be useful to introduce a few details respecting this complaint and its cure. Science often follows as well as precedes the useful arts. In the former case, she has to correct defects; in the latter case, the progress of those arts depends on her own improvement. The invention of chimneys was not a scientific result, but an act of necessity. The first object proposed . to be accomplished by them was to discharge into the air the. products of combustion, instead of allowing them to spread over the apartment. . With the huge wood fires of our ancestors, the large hearth recess and the capacious flue did not interfere with the accomplishment of the object proposed; but as circumstances changed—When fire-places were introduced into small rooms, and coal was substituted for wood—the arrangements which were. then suitable did not apply. Science was unable, or did not con- descend, to investigate the subject, and thus the defects of chimneys continued to exist through many genera- tions. One great defect arose from the great capacity of the fine in proportion to the extent of the fire, the heat- of which was often insufficient to determine an upward cur- THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 109 rent for carrying off the smoke. It is now a matter of everyday experience, that the force of the draught in a chimney is so much the greater as the column of air which passes up it is longer or more heated; or, in other words, the taller the chimney, or the hotter the fire, the more rapid will be the draught. The ascentional force of this current is the difference between the weight of the column of heated air in the chimney, and a column of the surrounding atmosphere of equal height. The draught, therefore, is increased by increasing the perpendicular height of the chim- ney. Its length in a horizonal direction does not increase, but diminishes the draught, by cooling the air before it gets into the effective part of the fine. The draught is also increased, by making all the air which enters the chimney pass through or very near the fuel; for when much air gets into the chimney above the fire, by having a high mantel-piece, the mass of air in the chimney cannot get sufliciently heated. It is a laW of expansion for atmospheric air and all gases, that they dilate almost equally and very nearly in proportion to the increase of temperature. According to GAY LUSSAC, 1,000 cubic inches of air at the freezing temperature increase in bulk to 1,375 cubic inches at the temperature of boiling water. For an increase of tempera- ture, therefore, from 32° to 212°, amounting to 180°, the increase of volume is 375 parts in 1,000, or g of the Whole hulk ; and since the expansion is uniform, the increase of volume for 1° Will be found by dividing this by 180, which will give an increase of 20% parts in 10,000 for 1° of Fah- renheit’s thermometer. The recent experiments by MAGNL‘S and REGNAULT have thrown a doubt on the correctness of this result. By methods perfectly independent of each other, these philosophers have arrived at 0.3665, instead of 0.375, as the true co-eificicnt' for the expansion of atmos- pheric air. Now, as this law of expansion applies equally to air in 110 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. motion as to air in a state of rest, we can thus calculate the amount of dilatation undergone by the column of air in a chimney from the heat of the fire in the grate. But as the heat is constantly varying, so also is the volume of ascending air. The air of the room which passes through the fire and undergoes a chemical change is intensely heated, and passing up the flue becomes reduced in temperature at every step. The air which rushes into the cavity above the fire becomes also suddenly expanded, rises, and mingling with the heated gaseous products of combustion, diminishes somewhat of their temperature, while 'it augments their bulk. The mean temperature of the heated ascending column may be found by taking the temperature a short distance above the burning fuel, and also at the top of the chimney; by adding these two results together, and divid- ing by two, we get the mean temperature, or a near approximation thereto. We are then able to calculate the force of the draught by applying one of those rules which scientific men have formed for the purpose. The method of calculation proposed by MONTGOLFIER is very simple, and , appears, from recent inquiries, to be accurate. It is this: Ascertain the difference in height between two equal columns of air when one is heated to a certain temperature, the other being the temperature of the external air—and the force of the draught, or the rate of efliux, is equal to the velocity that a heavy body would acquire by falling freely through this difi’erence of height. Now, the space through which a heavy body falls in perpendicular height in one second is rather more than sixteen feet; but by the law of accelerating forces, the velocity of a falling body at the end of any given time is such as would carry it, in an equal time, through twice the space .through which it has fallen in that time; or the velocity, in feet per second, is equal to eight times the square root of the number of feet in the fall; or, to the square root of the number obtained by multiplying 64 by the height of the fall in feet. ’ 21 Ti A H y’ .' "" ”bind-17- 0’: CAJW'“ ‘ H THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. "“filll When the force of the draught of a chimney is the ‘ difference in weight between two columns of air caused by the expansion of one of these columns by heat, the decimal . ' .00208 which represents the expansion of air by 1° of Fahrenheit, must be multiplied by the number of degrees the temperature is raised, and this product again by the height of the heated column. The mean temperature of the heated ascending current in a chimney is much greater than 20° above that of the colder column with which it is compared; but it is most probable that air expands more proportionally at high temperatures than at low ones for equal increments of heat. As the law of expansion for high temperatures has not, as far as we know, been determined, it was thought better to select an example within the range of our knowledge, than to assume a higher temperature, which would more nearly represent the conditions of the case. By the same means, the efflux of air, under any given pressure, can also be calculated. The pressure being known, we calculate the hight of a column of air equal in weight to this pressure. In these cases, however, there must be an allowance for ‘loss by friction, which will vary according to the nature and size of the chimney-shaft, and also with the velocity of the air. The retardation of the air by friction, in passing through straight tubes, will be directly as the length of the tube and the square of the velocity, and inversely, as the diameter. In this way the action of chimneys is brought within the domain of science. There are, however, practical difficulties and Special cases which usually come under the pathological treatment of the smoke-doctor; these may all be resolved by reference to well-known scientific principles; but, unfortu- nately, the smoke-doctor is not always—indeed very seldom— a man of science. The following cases of smoky chimneys and the method of cure, will include as much as need be said on this subject to the intelligent reader. 112: THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. Chimneys may smoke for want of a sufficient supply of air. This is sometimes the casein a new house, where doors and windows fit tightly and accurately, so that scarcely a chink is left for the admission of air. Or if the house be not new, the windows and doors are often listed, sandbags are placed over the junction of the two Window-frames, and a thick mat closes the bottom of the door, and even the key- hole is often stopped. It is no wonder that, under such cir- cumstances, the chimney should smoke; for the air necessary to support the fire must come down the chimney (the only way left for it) instead of passing through the fire and up it. To ascertain, in a rough way, how much air is required per minute to make the fire burn. well without smoking, set the door open until the fire is burning properly, then gradually close it until smoke again begins to appear. Then open it a little wider and hold it in such a position as will admit the necessary supply. Now observe the width of the open crevice between the edge of the door, and the rabbet into which it would shut. Suppose this distance to be half ' an inch in a door eight feet high; the room would, in such case, require for the entrance of the air an aperture equal to 48 square inches, or a hole six inches by eight inches. This, however, would be more than is usually required. Dr. FRANKLIN found that a square opening of six inches to the - side, was a good medium size for most chimneys. But now comes the difficulty (at least in English houses, where no air-duct is provided by the architect and builder, as in the POLIGNAC fire-place), where to make this opening. If made in the door, it not’only interferes with the privacy of the _ room, but admits of cold draught to the back and feet of those sitting near the fire; if made in the window-,- it brings a cataract of cold air down upon the heads of the inmates. It has been prOposed to cut a crevice in the upper part of the window-frame, and to place‘below this a thin shelf, sloping upwards, in order to direct the air towards the ceil- ing, where, mingling with the heated air of the apartment, THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 113 it would mitigate its temperature, and bring it dOWn again to feed the fire. The objection to this plan is, that it would cool the room; but as fresh air admitted from any other source would have a similar cooling effect, it is not easy to propose a better plan. An old-fashioned contrivance for kitchens, was to place in one of the spaces of the window- frame a circular tin‘ plate, containing a wheel mounted on an axis, the radii or vanes being bent obliquely; these being acted on by the entering air, forced it round like the vanes of a wind—mill, and at the same time dispersed the air to a certain extent, and prevented a distinct draught from being felt. Another method was to take out a pane of glass and substitute a, tin frame, giving it two springing angular sides, and being furnished with hinges below, it could be drawn in more or less above, so that the incoming air might be directed upwards, and regulated as to quantity. A con- trivance has lately been introduced for ventilating rooms, but when there is a fire in the room, it must serve the pur- pose of introducing air instead of letting it out. It consists of a number of strips of plate glass, arranged after the fash- ion of a Venetian blind, occupying the position of one of the panes of glass in the upper window-frame. By a little adjusting motion, the strips can be separated more or less apart, to regulate the supply of air, or closed entirely, so as to exclude it. Perforated panes of glass have also been in- troduced as ventilators, but they must also bring air into the room instead of letting it out, when a fire is burning. A second cause of smoky chimneys arises from the size of the fire—place; it may be too wide or too high. Dr. FRANKLIN recommended that the openings in the lower rooms should be about 30 inches square and 18 deep; and those in the upper rooms only 18 inches square and not quite so deep; the intermediate Openings diminishing in proportion to the height of the funnel. But the funnel itself may be too high compared with the size of the fire. The hot air ascending to a certain height 114 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. may distribute its heat to the air in the upper part of the flue, so that the whole may cool down, and the column within the flue be nearly of the same weight as an equal p column on the outside. In such a case there will be little I or no draught to carry 01? the smoke, and it will, therefore, enter the room. But it more frequently happens that the funnel is too short. The remedy, in such a case, is to contract the opening of the chimney, so as to force all the air that enters to pass ' through or very near the fire. In some houses, instead of having a separate chimney for" each room or fire-place, the flue is bent or turned from an upper room into the flue of another fire from below. In . such a case, the upper chimney is too short, since the length can only be estimated from the place where it enters the flue of the lewer room; and this, in its turn, is also shorten- ed in efficient length by the distance between the entrance at the second funnel and the top of the stack; for all that part being supplied with air from the second funnel, adds 'no force to the draught; and if there is no fire in the second chimney, it cools the hot current of the first, and so diminishes the draught. The remedy, in this case, is to close the opening of that chimney in which there is no fire. Chimneys often overpower each other, and so cause them to smoke. If, for example, there. are two fire-places in one large room, with fires in each, and the doors and windows closed; if the two fires do not burn equally .well, either from not being lighted at the same time, or not equally supplied with fuel, or from any other cause, the stronger fire will overpower the weaker, and draw the air down its funnel to supply its own demand. The air descend- ing the funnel of the weaker fire brings the smoke with it, and thus fills the room. Two chimneys in different rooms, which communicate by a door, may also act in this way whenever the door is opened; so, also, in a house where all the doors and windows fit tightly, a strong kitchen chimney THE ‘AMERICAN comer: BUILDER. ll 5’ on the lowest floor may overpower any other chimney in the ‘ nouse, and draw air and smoke into the rooms as often as a door communicating with the staircase is opened. Dr. FRANKLIN mentions the case of a nobleman’s house in Westminster afflicted with this troublesome complaint. It was a new heuse, and after the owner had paid for it, and discharged all claims,'he had to expend £300 more before the smoky chimneys were cured. Of course, the only remedy for this disorder is, to provide each room with the means of furnishing the fire-place with a sufficient supply of air for the combustion of the fuel. When will architects and builders be convinced of the fact, that fire—places, as well as human beings, require constant supplies of fresh air, and that it is their duty to provide every room with air- channels, placed so as to feed the fire without annoying the inmates ? . Another fruitful source of smoky chimneys is, when their tops are commanded by higher buildings, or by a bill, so that the wind blowing over them, falls like water over a dam, sometimes almost passing over tlie‘tops of the chim- neys, and beating down the smoke. If the funnels cannot be raised, so that their t0ps may be of the same height or higher than the eminence, the only remedy is to mount one of those ugly contrivances with which the chimney-doctors delight to satirize the architect and builder, and which are thus enumerated by an amusing writer in Chambers’s Edin- burgh Journal :———“ The simplest of all consists in the well- known revolving bonnets, or cowls, with wind-arrows on their summits; which, by the way, were once called BishOps, in Scotland, while a friend assures me, that in the west of England he has heard them called Presbyterians. The philosophy of this contrivance is sufficiently simple: in whichever direction the wind blows, the mouth of the chim- ney is averted from it. This principle has its development in a thousand devices—some looking like Dutch—ovens come up to see the world; some like half sections of sugar-loaves; 116 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. some like capital H’s, and sundry other pleasing objects The red chimney-pots, too, have contrivances of a similar intention, in the diverging spouts and cavities and twists which some of them delight in. A different Species, is the perforated whirling variety, which seem perpetually whizzing round, for the mere fun of the thing, since any good they do is extremely apt to escape detection. They are a lively- looking apparatus; but on squally nights, and when the pivot, becomes a little rusty, the musical sounds they give forth can scarcely be considered agreeable. Among the more ingenious of smoke-curers, an invention of recent origin, named the Archimedean screw-ventilator, deserves a place. It consists, as its name implies, of wine-vanes attached to the extremity of a revolving screw. When the Wind strikes these vanes, it produces a rapid revolution of the screw, which is thus supposed to wind up the smoke or vitiated air » from below. Perhaps it serves the proposed end; but Wheth- er the positive advantage thus gained is not lost by the obstruction of such apparatus to the free passage of smoke in calm weather, is a point in my estimation, more than questionable. For the relief of such chimneys as only smoke in Windy weather, perhaps, this and other forms of external apparatus are best adapted. Another invention of equal merit, is a chimney-cap of metal, externally grooved in a series of spiral curves up the pipe, which end in a kind of mouth-piece, from whenCe the smoke issues. The Wind, when impelled against this apparatus, is supposed to take somewhat of the direction of the spiral grooves, and thus to form an upward current to assist the emission of the smoke.” One of the most recent of this class of inventions is Day’s wind-guard, which consists of an octagonal metallic chimney-cap, having four slits in it, which are pne- tected by projecting pieces or slips of metal. When a current of air strikes in any direction against the cap, it reflects or turns the air in such a manner, as immediately to produCe a draught up the pipe. “ In casting one’s eye THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 117 down the long streets of the smoky city, in taking a survey of the roofs and their tormented chimneys, the infinity of other contrivances is so great, that it is scarcely a poetical hyperbole to say our pen starts back from it. Here is patent upon patent, scheme after scheme, each doing its best, no doubt, to obtain the mastery over that simple thing ——smoke; and each with a degree of success of a very hopeless amount. There appears to me something intensely ludicrous in these struggles against What seems to be an absurd, but an invincible foe; the very element of whose success against us lies in our not strangling him in his birth. Many obstacles are in the way, no doubt; there are Obstacles in the way of every good; but I have little doubt, that had the perverted ingenuity which has mis-Spent itself upon the chimney-pots been directed to the fire-place, we might have now had a difierent tale to tell. The smoke nuisance is laughed at as a minor evil, by a great practical people like ourselves, who heroically make up our minds to put up with it; but when it is considered as an item in the comfort, cleanliness, and health of a Whole nation, it assumes, or should assume, a different position.” We do not by any means affirm that the above contri- vances are always effectual in the cure of smoky chimneys; for it is easy to imagine cases Where chimneys will, or rather must smoke, in spite of the Whole host of caps, cowls, and vanes. For example, when a commanding eminence is farther from the Wind than the chimney commanded, the wind would, as it were, be dammed up between the house and the eminence, and force its way down the chimneys, in whatever position the turn-Cap or other contrivance might be situated. Dr. FRANKLIN mentions a city in which many houses were tormented with smoky chimneys by this opera- tion; for their kitchens being built behind, and connected by a passage with the houses, the tOps of the kitchen chim- neys were thus lower than the tops of the houses; and thus, when the wind blew against the backs of the houses, the 118 THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. whole side of a street formed a dam and the obstructed wind was forced down the kitchen chimneys, and passed along the passages into the houses, and so into the street. This was especially the case when the kitchen fires were burning badly. In summer, the annoyance assumed a different form, for the smoke was wafted from the kitchen chimneys into the chambers of the upper rooms. Chimneys, which otherwise draw well, will ‘ often smoke from the improper situation of a door. Thus, when the door and the chimney are on the same side of the room, and the door, being in the corner, is made to open against the wall, as is usually done, to have it more out of the way. it follows that, when the door is partially opened, a current of air rushes in and passes along the wall into and across the opening of the fire-place, and Whisks the smoke into the room. This happens more frequently when the door is being shut, for then the 'force of the current is increased and persons sitting near the fire feel all the inconvenience: both of the draught and the smoke. A remedy may be found by an intervening screen, projecting from the wall and passing round a great part of the fire-place; or, still better, by shifting the hinges of the door, so as to throw the air along the other wall. A room with no fire in it is sometimes filled with smoke from the funnel of another room, in which a fire is burning. This arises from changes in density of the air in the cold funnel, from changes in temperature by day and by night, as well as from changes in the direction of the wind. It is found that when the temperature of the outer air and of that in the funnels is nearly equal, the air begins to ascend the funnels as the cool of the evening comes on, and this current will continue till nine or ten o’clock next morning; then, as the heat of the day approaches, it sets downwards, and continues to do so till evening; it then changes again, and continues to go upwards during the night. Xow, when the smoke from the tOps of neighboring funnels passes over THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER 119 the tops of funnels which "are drawing downwards, the smoke is also drawn down, and descends with the air into the chamber. The remedy proposed by Dr. FRANKLIN, was to contract the opening of the chimney to about two feet between the jambs, and to bring the breast down to about three feet of the hearth. An iron frame is then placed just under the breast, and extending to the back of the chimney, so that a plate of iron may slide horizontally backwards and forwards in the grooves on each side of the frame; this plate, when thrust quite in, fills up the whole space, and shuts up the chimney entirely, when there is no fire. But when there is a fire, it can be drawn out, so as to leave between its further edge and the back, a space of about two inches, which is sufficient for the smoke to pass; and so large a part of the funnel being stopped by the rest of the plate, the passage of warm air out of the room, Up the chimney, is in great measure prevented, as is also the cold air from crevices to supply its place. The effect is seen in three ways: 1. When the fire burns briskly in cold weather, the bowling or whisking of the wind, as it enters the room - through the crevices when the chimney is Open, ceases as soon as the plate is slid into its proper distance. 2. Open- . ing the door of the room about half an inch, and holding the hand against the opening near the top of the door, you feel the cold air coming in against your hand, but weakly, if the plate be in. Let another person draw it out, so as to let the air of the room go up the chimney with its usual freedom in Open chimneys, and you immediately feel the cold air rushing in strongly. 3. If something be set against the door, just sufficient when the plate is in to keep the door nearly shut, by resisting the pressure of the air that would force it Open, then, when the plate is drawn out, the door will be forced open by the increased pressure of the outward cold air endeavoring to get in, to supply the place Of the warm air that now passes out of the room to go up the chimney. “ In our common open. chimneys,” says the 120 THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER. Doctor, “ half of . the fuel is wasted, and its effect lost; the air it has warmed being immediately drawn off.” The form of the chimney-pot has also an influence on the free passage of the smoke. Many of those fancy chim- ney-pots ornamented, singly or clustered together, will . cause the chimneys to smoke in strong winds; the ornaments serving as points of resistance to the wind, alter reflecting it down the chimney; and the clustered arrangement pre- sentng a broad resisting surface, so that the wind, in blow- ing against them, rises up along the surface, and blows strongly over the mouths of the pots, so that the smoke cannot force its way through the blast. In Venice, the top of the flue is rounded into the true form of a funnel, and this is often found to answer the purpose; but, at present, we do not know of any remedy except a turn- cap, or one of the many elegant contrivances which give such wonderful variety to the sky-line of most of our houses and public buildings. Cases of smoky chimneys may arise, which may puzzle the science of the most accomplished smoke-doctor. We borrow two such cases from FRANKLIN. “ I once lodged,” he says, “in a house in London, which, in a little room, had a single chimney and funnel. The opening was very small, yet it did not keep in the smoke, and all attempts to have a fire in this room were fruitless. I could not imagine the reason; till at length, observing that the chamf her over it, which had no fire-place in it, was always filled with smoke when a fire was kindled below, and that the smoke came through the cracks and crevices of the wain- scoat. I had the wainscoat taken down, and discovered that the funnel which went up behind it, had acrack many feet in length, and wide enough to admit my arm; a breach very dangerous with regard to fire, and occasioned, proba- bly, by an apparent irregular settling of one side of the house. The air entering this breach freely, destroyed the drawing—force of the funnel. The remedy would have been, THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. .' 21 filling up the breach, or rather rebuilding the funnel ; but the landlord rather chose to stop up the Lchimney.” The second case occurred at the house of a friend near London. ” His best room had a chimney, in which he told me he never could haire a fire,_for all the smoke came out into the room. I flattered myself that I could easily find the cause, and prescribe the cure. I opened the door, and ' perceived it was not want of air. I made a temporary contraction of the Opening of the chimney, and found that it was not its being too large that caused the smoke to issue. I went and looked up at the top of the chimney; its funnel was joined in the same stack with others, some of them shorter, that drew very well, and I saw nothing to prevent its doing the same. In fine, after every other examination I could think of, I was obliged to own the insufficiency of my skill. But my friend, who made no pre— tension to such kind of knowledge, afterwards discovered the cause himself. He got to the top of the funnel by a ladder, and looking down, found it filled with twigs and straw cemented by earth, and lined with feathers. It . seems, the house, after being built, had stood empty some years before he occupied it; and he concluded that some large birds had taken the advantage of its retired situation to make their nests there. The rubbish, considerable in quantity, being removed, and the funnel cleared, the chim- ney drew well, and gave satisfaction.” It has been remarked, that chimneys situated in the north wall of a house, do not draw so well as those in a south wall; because when cooled by north winds, they are apt to draw downwards. Hence, chimneys enclosed in the body of a house, are more favorably situated than those in exposed walls. Chimneys in stacks often draw better than separate funnels, because those that have constant fires in them warm those in which there are none. We have devoted a considerable space to this subject, because we think the reader has a right to expect, in a 6 122 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. practicalbook of this kind, tolerably full information on a . subject in which all are interested; and the above cases seem to include most of the causes of smoky chimneys and their remedies. The Open fire-place is so intimately connect- . ed with our ideas of domestic comfort, that it can never be expected, while coals are plentiful, that a more economi- cal method of warming our rooms will become very common. It is, therefore, the duty of scientific men, to make the open fire-place as comfortable, as it certainly is wholesome, and if a better method of supplying air to the fire than the present chance-arrangement were adopted ; if ' caliducts were led round the fire, so as to discharge warm air into distant parts of the room, and even over thehouse; if the various parts of the fire-place were of the proper shape and dimen- ' sions, there seems to be no good reasOn against retaining our cherished open fire, and converting it from a trouble- some, uncertain, smoky, and expensive companion, into a source of health, pleasure, and economy. . One of the most intelligent advocates (Dr. ARNOT’I‘) in the cause of the CLOSE-STOVE versus the OPEN FIRE-PLACE, has preferred a very serious bill of indictment against the defendant. It consists of no less than eleven counts, of which the following is a summary : 1. Waste of fad—Of the whole heat produced from the fuel used, about seven-eighths ascend the chimney and are wasted. The loss ofheat is, first, more than half, which is in the smoke as it issues from the burning mass. Secondly, that carried ofi' by the current of the warmed air of the room, which is constantly entering the chimney between the fire and the mantel-piece, and mixing; with the smoke. This is estimated at nearly two-eighths. Thirdly, the soot, 'or visible part of the smoke, is unburned fuel; and if more than half of the heat produced be in. the smoke, and nearly a fourth of it in the warm air from the room, which escapes with the smoke, and if about an eighth of the combustible pass away unburned, there is a' loss of at least. seven-eighths THE AMERICAN corner: BUILDER. 123 of the whole. Count RUMFORD estimated the loss at four~ teen-fifteenths. > These estimates must of course be supposed to refer to the open fire-place with square jambs. II. Unequal heating at dg'fl'emtt distances from the fire.— As the intensity of radiant heat is only one—fourth as great at a double distance, and so on, its effect being inversely as the square of the distance, the walls of the room are scarcely heated, and therefore reflect no heat to persons round the fire. There is usually one circular line around the fire in which persons must sit to be comfortable; and within this line they are too hot, and beyond it too cold. III. Cold draughts from doors and windows IV. Cold foot-bath.—The fresh-entering air, being colder than the general mass already in the room, occupies the bottom of the apartment, and forms a dangerous cold air- bath for the feet of the inmates, so that they must keep their feet raised out of it by foot-stools, or wear warmer clothing. We see how anxious cats are to get out of this cold air~bath by occupying the seats of chairs, &c., instead of the carpet. V. Bad mutilation—The heated respired air ascends to the ceiling, and getting cool, descends, and is breathed over again; or, if the fire be not sufficiently supplied with air from the door and windows, it will come from other quar- ters, and bring in foul air from drains, &c. VI. Smoke and dust. VII. Loss of time in lighting the fires in the morning, and again during the day, if neglected and allowed to go out. VIII. Danger to property. . IX. Danger #0 1/22 person—Children get' burnt, and the dresses of ladies sometimes take fire by a sudden draught from the door, or coming too near the fire. X. Expense of attendance-It is contended that servants have more work to do in houses with Open fires, than where stoves are kept. 124 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. XI. Nmssity of sweeping-boys, when bituminous coal is used, This is certainly a formidable indictment, but after the details given in the last chapter, it is not necessary to enter upon any further defence. There is no doubt that, upon some of the counts, the defendant must be found guilty; but it will be seen, in the present chapter, that the plaintiff does not come into court with clean hands, for there are many objections to the close stove, from which the open grate is entirely free. These will be stated as we proceed. ' The close stove is used chiefly in those countries where fuel is scarce. One. of the simplest forms is the Dutch stove which is a cylinder, standing upright. The fuel rests on the bars of a grate, near the bottom, and the air enters below the grate. The pipe enters the side of the cylinder, near the top. The fuel is introduced by a door on the side above the grate, which door is closed while the stove is in 'action, and as this is the only opening in the stove above the fuel, no air can reach the chimney, except that which has passed through the fire, thus saving the waste of warm air, which, in open fires, passes between the fire and the mantel-piece. The heating effect of this stove is due to the whole surface of the stove, and its fine, receiving the direct heat of combustion, as well as much of the heat of the pro- ducts of combustion, as they escape into the chimney; and, if the flue be made sufficiently long, so as to expose a large surface in the room, nearly the whole of the heat may be applied to use, without draughts, or smoke, or dust. These are the good qualities of the Dutch stove; now for its bad ones. The heated iron surface acts upon the air in contact with it, so as to impair its purity and fitness for respiration. “The air,” says Dr. ARNOTT, “ acquires a burnt and often sulphurous smell, in part, no doubt, because dust, which it often carries, is burned, and in part, because there is a peculiar action of the iron upon the air. It becomes very dry, too, like that of an African simoom, shrivelling everything which it touches; and it acquires probably some new electrial pro- THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 125 perties. These changes combined make it so offensive, that persons, unaccustomed to it, cannot bear it. Many forms have been proposed, some of them gracefully designed, with transparent talc doors, and other attractions; and they have been tried in rooms, public oflices, passages, halls, &c., but have been afterwards very generally abandoned. Per sons breathing the air heated by them, are often affected by headaches, giddiness, stupor, loss of appetite, ophthal- lnia, &c. A north—east Wind, which distresses many people, bringing asthmas, croups, &c., and which Withers vegeta- tion, is peculiar chiefly in being dry.” This stove is much used by laundresses and others for drying, and in this appLication of it, the Doctor admits, it is good and econo- mical. The ornamental varieties of it are also furnished with vases and other receptacles for water, which, by its evaporation, greatly mitigates the evils complained of ; but it must be admitted, that the list of objections‘brought against the Dutch stove forms as formidable a bill of indict- ment as that preferred against the Open fire. Another objection, not noticed in the above quotation, arises from the overheating of the flue. It has often been known to get red-hot, and has thus led to serious conflagrations. A stove is common in the United States, which consists of a square, close iron box, with a vessel of water upon it, to give moisture to the air. It has a plate projecting under the door; the wood fuel is burned within, and the flame passes along to the chimney, around an inner box, which is the cooking oven of the family, opening by a door in the side of the stove. The fuel is introduced by a large door, in which there is a smaller one, which, as well as the larger, is usually kept shut, because a sufficient supply of air enters by the joinings around; but in cold weather, the small door is opened to increase the combustion. The stove has iron legs. In Russia, Prussia, and the North of EurOpe generally, the stove is a very important article of domestic furniture, 126 THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. in which the largest possible amount of heating effect is Obtained from the smallest possible quantity of fuel. In the construction of these stoves, the following points are kept 1n view: To maintain in the fire-place the high temperature necessary for the perfect combustion of the fuel, by surround- ing it with such substances as are bad conductors of heat, such as fire-stone or bricks; to have the means of regulating the quantity of air admitted to the fuel, by valves in the doors Which enclose the ash-pit and fire-chamber, and by accurate fitting of the doors and valves themselves. Thirdly, ' to bring all the gaseous productions of combustion, as they escape from the fuel, into contact with the largest possible area of. slowly-conducting surface, so as to maintain it at an eqUal temperature; and, lastly, to make the smoke enter the chimney with the smallest velocity, or lowest temperature, that is practically consistent with the first condition. In no case should this temperature exceed 150°, nor should the metallic surface ever be raised higher than 100°, nor the stream of air issuing from it exceed 706. In every case, the combustion is regulated by limiting the supply of air; and if the heating surface be small, the fire is reduced so as to produce no more heat than can be carried off by the radia- tion and conduction of such‘ heating surface. The author of “ A Residence on the Shores of the Baltic,” 1841, refers to these stoves in the following terms:— “ Within these great houses, not a breath of cold is experi— enced. The rooms are heated by stoves, frequently orna- mental rather than otherwise; being built in tower-like shapes, story over story, of pure white porcelain, in various 01 aceful architectural mouldings sometimes surmounted with classic figures of great beauty, and Opening with brass doors, kept as bright as if they we1e of gold. In houses of less display, these stoves are merely a projection in the wall, colored and corniced in the same style of the apartment. 111 adjoining rooms they are generally placed back to back, so that the same fire suffices for both. These THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. . 127 ‘ are heated but once in the twenty-four hours, by an old cali- ban, whose business during the winter it is to do little else. Each stove will hold a heavyarmful of billet, which blazes, snaps, and cracks most merrily; and when the ashes have been carefully turned and raked with what is termed an ofew gabel, or stove-fork, so that no unburnt morsel remains, the chimney aperture is closed over the glowing embeis, the brass doors firmly shut, and in about six hours after this, the stove is at the hottest—indeed, it never cools.” The useful efi‘ect of this stove depends very much on retaining in the roOm the air already heated by it. A small, open fire in the same room will actually diminish the heating effect of the stove, and even draw the warm air from adjoin- ing apartments. In the houses of English merchants at St. Petersburg, Open fires are sometimes introduced into rooms with stoves; and the consequenée is, that it is found neces sary to light the stoves twice a day, and yet the houses are cooler than those of the Russians, who light them only once. To our notions, however, a cool in-door atmosphere is pre ferable to a nauseous stagnant one, such as the Russians and Germans are accustomed to breathe throughout the winter; and even in summer,.they are very averse to an open win- dow. The temperature of the winter apartments is kept nearly always at 65°, and as every .part of the room is equally warm, the inmates have no occasion to crowd round the stove as We do round the fire. “But I can testify,” says Dr. BUXTQN, “ that in German rooms there is a close- ness of feeling, to a person accustomed to free air, which is unpleasant, if not unwholesome—no change of ail—the Win- dows closed as tight as can be, and the door fits as exactly as the carpenter can make it. The stove 1s air-tight with regard to the room, and there is nothing to occasion a cur- rent like our open fires. The apartments of the sick almost invariably smell disagreeably I do not, however, recollect seeing a single ventilator 1n Germany; but I have repeat- edly seen double windows.” As ventilation can only be .128 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. procured at the expense of heat, the people prefer retaining the foul air to expending an extra portion of fuel. In the houses of the poorer classes in Russia, where the windows- are single, and a number of persons occupy a small stove- heated room, a thick icy crust forms on the inside of the windows during frosty weather, arising from the condensa- tion of the breath, perspiration, and the aqueous fumes of candles, and of the stove, ,&c. When a thaw comes on, this icy crust is converted into water, and'a deleterious principle is disengaged, which produces effects similar to those arising from the fumes of charcoal. Persons so affected are imme— diately carried into the open air, and placed on the snow, with very little clothing; the temples and the region of the stomach are well rubbed with snow, and cold water is poured down their throats, and the friction is continued until the livid hue of the skin disappears, and the natural color is restored. The Chinese are wiser in this respect than the Russians, for, although their rooms in winter be are hot and as crowded, they have two openings at the top of each win- dow, which are never allowed to be closed, and through these Ventilation is carried on. The stove last described belongs rather to that variety called the Swedish stove, than to the Russian or German. "In the Russian or German stove, the smoke, after rising from the fuel, recedes into the flue, and becomes cooled by contact with the walls of the circulating chambers, and the heat is by this means retained in the apartment which would otherwise have escaped combined with the vapor. In the Swedish stove, the circumvolutions of the smoke are . exposed to a vivid heat, so that every particle of soot undergoes a Second combustion in the circulating channels. Some of the Swedish stoves have from four to nine chan- nels for the circulation of the smoke; some are contrived to receive one or more boilers, and others to act as ovens; and they all greatly economize the fuel. According to MORVEAU, the quantity of wood which is consumed in twenty-three days THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 129 in an Open fire, with-less efi‘ect, will last sixty-three days in a stove. . . In erecting the ponderous German stoves, it is necessary to arrange the various pieces of clay, or porcelain, so that no part should crack or give way, and thus admit the smoke or carbonic acid vapor. into the room. When the parts are put together with cement, or held by iron cramps, a leakage commonly occurs at the joinings, where different pieces of clay are difi'erently heated, and perhaps were of a different baking when' made; hence, by expanding unequally and working on each other, one of them must give way. But instead of making the joints close and using any cement, the best method is to make each upper piece stand in a groove formed in the piece below it, and then to Sprinkle a little powdered chalk or clay over it, which will effectually prevent the passage of any air, and, at the same time, allow space for any expansion or contrac- tion at the joint. ' 1 Some valuable experiments by Mr. BULL are quoted by Mr. BERNAM, to show the effect of ascending and descend- ing flues in the Russian and Swedish stoves, and of elbows or bends in the fine of the common Dutch stove. From these experiments, it appears that the same length of pipe is much more efficacious in imparting heat to a room when it has elbows than when it is straight; that a descending current may be somewhat more efiicacious than an ascend- ing one, but is about equal with a horizontal one; a hori- zontal pipe, with the same number of elbows, is more efficacious in imparting heat, than when placed vertically for an ascending and descending current. The cause of the increased effect is supposed to arise from the shape of the pipe forcing the heated air to make abrupt turns ; in doing which, it impinges against the elbows with sufficient force to invert its internal arrangement, by which a new stratum of hot air from the interior of the current is brought more frequently in contact with the sides of the pipe, and par 130 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ticularly with the lower half of the horizontal pipe, which, from various causes, gives out very little heat to the room, Without the aid of elbow-joints. But the advantage gained by increasing the length of pipe and number of joints, has a limit very far short of that which is found to be necessary to impart all, or the greatest part, of the heat generated to the air of the room. Only five parts of heat in 100 were lost by using 13% feet of pipe, consisting of nine elbow-joints; whereas, eight additional elbow-joints, and (16% feet additional of straight pipe—in all 28% feet of pipe— were required to save these five parts, and prevent their flowing into the chimney. By diminishing the diameter of the pipe, the heating effect is increased, partly from the retardation of the current, and partly from the small pipe exposing a greater surface to the air with the-same quantity of smoke than a pipe of larger diameter. An excellent stove with a descending-current was con- .strueted by Dr. FRANKLIN, for his own use. It was shaped like a pear or vase, and stood on its small end. There was an opening in the top to put in the fuel. About two-thirds the way down was a grate. The lower end of the stove opened into horizontal flues, which commu- nicated with the chimney. The vase and fines are contained in a niche formed by closing up the fire-place, and there is no communication between the room and the fine, except through the opening in the lid or cover. The fire is first lighted between 8 o’clock in the morning and 8 o’clock in the evening, when there is usually a draught up the chim- ney, as already explained; but the direction of the draught had better be ascertained by holding a flame over the air- hole at the top of the vase. If the flame be drawn strongly down, the fire may be lighted by first putting in a little charcoal 0n the grate; then lay some small sticks on the charcoal and some paper on the sticks; set light to the paper and shut down the lid; the air will pass down through the air-hole, and blowing the flame of the paper through the THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ' 131 sticks, kindle them, and they, in their turn, will kindle ‘the charcoal. The flame and hot vapor descending through the grating, passes into the chamber and through the second grating in its bottom into the ash-pit. The hot current will then be divided—one portion turning to the left, and pass- ing into horizontal channels and entering. the vertical flue, will be conducted into the chimney; the other portion will make a similar circuit on the left, and entering another fine, will in like manner pass into the chimney. The surfaces of the vase and air-box, and the part of the horizontal chan- nels exposed to the room, are heated by these circumvolu— tions of the vapor, and the air warmed by contact with them, spreads into the room. The large pieces of coal that, fall through the grating on the vase, are caught by the second grating, and the ashes fall through it into the ash-pit box. The success of this excellent contrivance depends, of course, upon maintaining an upward, steady draught in the chimney fine, so that the ash-pit drawer and a door in the chamber, to Withdraw the Cinders, must be made air-tight. In order to determine an upward current on lighting the fire,- a small door may be made in the side of the fine, and a piece of lighted paper inserted. A combination cf the stove and the grate, combining the heating effect of the stove with the cheerful appearance and ventilating preperties of the Open fire, is known under the name of the store-grate, or Chapelle ; the latter name being derived from its resemblance to the chapels or oratories of the great churches. Professor ROBISON describes it as the most perfect method of warming an apartment. Its construction is as follows: In the great chimney-piece is set a smaller one, of a size no larger than is sufficient for holding the fuel. The sides and back are of cast iron, and are kept at a small distance from the sides and back of the main chimney-piece, and continued down to the hearth; so that the ash—pit is also separate The pipe or chimney of the stove-grate is 132 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. carried up behind the ornaments of the mantel-piece, until it rises above the mantel-piece of the main chimney-piece, and is fitted with a register, or damper-plate, turning round a transverse axis. The best form of this register is that of . an ordinary fire-place, with its axis or joint close at the front, so that when open or turned up, the burnt air and smoke, striking it obliquely, are directed with certainty into the vent, without any risk of reverberating and coming out into the room. All the rest of the vent is shut up by iron plates or brick-work out of sight. The fuel being in immediate contact With the back and sides of the grate, raises them to a great heat, and they heat theair contiguous to them. This heated air cannot get up the vent, because the passage above these spaces is shut up. It therefore comes out into the room ; some of it goes into the real fire-place, and is carriedup the vent, and the rest rises to the ceiling, and is difi’used over the room. The heating effect of this stove is remarkable. Less than a quarter of the fuel consumed in an ordinary fire-place is sufficient, and this, With the same cheerful, blazing hearth, and the salutary renewal of the air. Indeed, it often requires attention to keep the room cool. The heat communicated to those parts of the apparatus which are in contact with the fuel, is needlessly great, so that it has been found an improvement to line this part with thick plates of cast iron, or With tiles of fire-clay. These being bad conductors, mod- erate the heat communicated to the air. If the heat be still found too great, it may be brought under perfect man-. agement, by opening passages in the vent for the spaces on each side, so that the air heated by the sides of the stove- grate may ascend directly into the flue, instead of escaping ' into'the room. These passages may be closed by valves, or trap-doors, moved by rods’concealed behind the orna— ments of the fire-place The stove-grate is under complete control as to tempera- ture. A cheerful fire mav be insured within five minutes, THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER 133 simply by hanging a plate of iron in front so as to reach down as low as the grate; and when the fire is by its means blown up, the plate may be taken down and sent out of the room, or. set up behind the grate out of sight. If, on the other hand, the room be found inconveniently warm, the temperature may be cooled down within a quarter of an hour, by Opening the side-passages to any extent, for the escape of the hot air. In this arrangement the ash-pit is enclosed, because the light ashes, not finding a ready passage up the chimney, are apt to escape into the room with the heated air. Few contrivances for warming apartments have excited more attention and discussion of late years, than Dr. Anxorr’s stove. The principle of this invention consists, in allowing the fuel to burn very slowly, the admission of air for combustion being regulated by a peculiar contrivance. There are various forms and modifications of this stove, but the principle is the same in all. The stove consists of a square or cylindrical box of iron, lined with fire-clay, with a grating near the bottom for the fuel, or the fuel may be contained in a small fire-box Within the stove. Sometimes the fuel is burned within a hollow cylinder of fire-clay, and then the stove .is not lined with that material. There is an ash-pit below for the ashes, and the products of combustion are carried off by a‘ vent. The chief feature of this stove is, the contrivance by which the air is admitted to the fuel. When the stove-door or ash-pit door is open, the combus- tion is vivid; but when these are perfectly tight, as they ought to be, then the air is admitted by a regulator. A mercurial gauge was used to regulate the draught of the stove. A glass tube was used, partially filled with mercury; on the tOp of the mercury was placed a float, from which proceeded an upright rod, kept steady by passing through a support; from this upright rod descended another wire, terminated by an ordinary plate-valve in the tube of the stove. When the heat is great, the expansion 134 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. of the mercury raises the float, which raises the rods and the plate-valve, bringing it in nearer contact with the mouth of the vent by which less air is admitted to the stove. When the room is cold, the operation is exactly the reverse—opening instead of closing the valve. There were a number of alterations or improvements on this arrangement. In some, the shape of the tube was such, that the expansion of the air in the tube caused the mercury to rise and fall. .. These arrangements are liable to the objections already stated, viz: that the air of the room, though sufficiently heated, is nevertheless stagnant. Another objection is that which is considered its chief merit, viz: the slow com- bustion of the fuel, whereby carbonic oxide is generated, and, from the small draught of the chimney, is liable to escape in the room. The method of warming buildings by STEAM, depends on‘ the rapid condensation of steam into water when admitted into any vessel which is not so hot as itself. At the moment of ' condensation, the latent heat of the steam is given out to the vessel containing it, and this diffuses the heat into the surrounding space. The first practical application of this principle was made by JAMES WATT, in the winter of 1784—5, who fitted up an apparatus for warming his study. The room was 18 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 8% feet high. The apparatus con- sisted of a box, or heater, made of two side-plates of tinned iron, about 3% feet long by 2% feet wide, separated about an inch by stays, and jointed round the edges by tin plate. This heater was placed on its edge, near the floor of the room. It was furnished with a cock to let out the air, and was supplied with steam by a pipe from a boiler, entering at its lower edge; and by this pipe, the condensed water also returned to the boiler. The heating effect of this apparatus was not so great as was expected, in consequence, perhaps, THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 135 of the bright metallic surfaces of the box not being favor- able to radiation. In 1791, Mr. HOYLE, of Halifax, took out a patent in England for heating by steam pipes, and his method seems to, have been the foundation for subsequent attempts. The steam was at once conveyed from the boiler, by a pipe, to the highest elevation of the building required to be heated; and, from that point, by a gentle declivity, the condensed water flowed into the supply-cistern of the boiler. The effect of the pipes (which were of COpper) was too small, and as the apparatus was constantly getting out of order, it was pronounced a failure. In 1793, ‘Mr. GREEN took out a patent in England for ' a different method, Which consisted in enclosing a hollow\ vessel, or worm—pipe, in a boiler containing hot water or steam. The air, on its way to the room to be warmed, was made to pass through this worm, and was thus heated to an agreeable temperature. By another method, pipes from a steam-boiler Were enclosed in other pipes, and, in the interval between them, the air was heated on its passage to the room. This apparatus was erected in a mansion on W'imbledon Common. The encased pipewas fixed along the ceiling of the basement floor, with an inclination of two inches in 68 feet. The inner steam—pipe was three inches in diameter, the outer pipe nine inches, and both of copper. The lower end of the casing-pipe was left open for the cold air to enter; the other end was joined to a pipe four inches in diameter, with three horizontal elbows, that roSe about twelve inches, where it opened into the first suite of rooms that were to be heated. It was supposed that the air would enter at one end in great quantity, and flow out through the small pipe at the other end into the rooms; the effect, however, was so feeble, that no useful heating was produced. About this time, steam was introduced into hot-houses, not by circulating in pipes, but by being discharged into the body of the hot-house, the effect of which was to raise its 136‘ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. temperature and moisten the air to such a degree, "that the plants grew rapidly and luxuriantly. It is also said. to have , had the effect of destroying insects. In the winter of 1795—6, Mr. BOULTON erected a steam heating apparatus in the library of his friend, Dr. WITHER- ING, “which, in point of heating, answered perfectly; but the pipes being made of copper, and soft-soldered in some places, the smell of the solder was rather unpleasant to the Doctor, who was then in an infirm state of health with diseased lungs. Theyapparatus was, ,in consequence, re- moved to Soho, where Mr. BOULTON proposed erecting it in his own house, in which he was making alterations about this time, and had it in view to heat every room in the house by steam. A boiler was put up for that purpose in one of the cellars, but some circumstance occurred to prevent his con- tinuing the plan. The subject, however, underwent frequent discussions, and the different modes of effecting it were amply Considered by Messrs. BOUL’I‘ON and WATT, as was known to many of their friends—no secret having been made, of calculations of surface, or the modes of applying them.” About the end of the year 1799, Mr. LEE, of Manches- ter, under the direction of BOULTON and WATT, erected a heating. apparatus of cast-iron pipes, which served also as supports to the floor. This answered perfectly, and was, in point of materialsand coustruction, the earliest of its kind. Mr. LEE afterwards had his house heated by steam, and the staircase, hall, and passages, were warmed by the apparatus. It was placed’in the underground story, and consisted of a vertical cast-iron cylinder, surrounded by a casing of brick-work, leaving a space of two and a half inches all round, and having openings below, to admit the air. This casing was surrounded, at the dist ance’ of three or four inches, by another wall, forming a sort of well. The colder and heavier air falling. to the bottom of this well, entered by the holes into the space, where it came in contact with the cylinder, and, being heated, ascended. - THE AMERICAN cornea BUILDER. 137 The entranceof the steam into the cylinder was regulated by a valve, the air being allowed to escape by a stop-cock, while the steam was entering; the condensed water escaping by a pipe. The transmission of the heated air was regu- lated by a valve on the top of the brick-work. This apparatus was so efl'ective, and heated the staircase to such a degree, that after it had been in operation a short time, it was necessary to suspend its action by closing the valve which admitted steam into the cylinder. ‘ The method of heating’ buildings by steam has scarcely ' advanced since the time when Messrs. BOULTON, and WATT erected their apparatus for the purpose, and Mr. BUCHANAN wrote a practical treatise on the subject. The hot-water apparatus has, for the most part, .supe1seded the steam apparatus, so that our details need not be very full. In establishments where a steam-engine is in daily use, the steam-pipes may be supplied from the engine-boiler, its dimensions being enlarged at the rate of one cubic foot for every 2, 000 cubic feet of Space, to be heated to the temper- ature of 70° or 80°. A boiler adapted to an engine of one-horse power, is sufficient for heating 50,000 cubic feet of Space. Hence an apparatus specially erected for the purpose need not be of very large size, nor is the quantity of fuel consumed great. If the fire under a small boiler be carefully managed, 14lbs. of Newcastle coal‘will convert one cubic foot of water at 50°, into 1,800 cubic feet of steam at 216°; and only l2lbs. of coal are required to convert the same quantity of water into steam at 212°. The shape of the boiler, and the method of setting it, must also be considered, and the furnace must be arranged so as to admit no more air than is required to support the com- bustion. The hot air must also be kept in contact with the sides of the boiler, until as much of the heat as possible be abstracted from it. In such an arrangement, according to Dr. An\0rr, nearly half of all the heat produced in the combustion' 1s applied to use 138 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER In estimating the extent of surface of steam-pipe required to raise the rooms to the proper temperature, it is necessary to consider how the heat is expended. This is done in three ways: 1. Through the thin glass of the windows. 2. More slowly through the walls, floors and ceiling; and 3. In combination with the air which escapes at the joinings of the windows and doors, or through openings expressly made for the purpose of ventilation. The amount of heat lost in this way has been variously estimated by different writers, but Dr. ARNOTT states it thus: That in a winter day, with the external temperature at 10° below freezing, to maintain in an ordinary apartment the agreeable and healthful tem- perature of 60°, there must be a surface of steam-pipe, or other steam-vessel heated to 200° (which is the average surface-temperature of vessels filled with steam of 212°), about one foot square for every six feet of single glass window of usual thickness; as much for every 120 feet of wall, reof and ceiling of ordinary material and thickness; and as much for every six cubic feet of hot air escaping per g minute as ventilation, and replaced by cold air. A window, with the usual accuracy of fitting, allows about eight feet of air to pass by it in a minute, and there should be for ven- tilation, at least three feet of air per minute for each person in the room. According to this view, the quantity of steam-pipe, or vessel, needed, under the temperature sup- posed, for a room 16 feet square by 12 feet high, with two windows, each 7 feet by 3, and with ventilation, by them, or otherwise, at the rate of sixteen cubic feet per minute, would be: FEET. For 42 square feet of glass (requiring 1 foot for 6) - - i - - - - T “ 1,238 feet of wall, floor and ceiling (requiring 1 foot for 120 - - 10; “ 16 feet per minute for ventilation, (requiring 1 foot for 6) - - 23 Total of heating surface required -’ ------- 20 ' Which is 20 feet of pipe, 4 inches in diameter, or any other vessel having the same extent of surface,—as a box two feet THE AMERICAN comer BUILDER. 139 high, with square top and bottom of about eighteen inches. .It may be noticed, that nearly the same quantity of heated surface would suflice for a larger room, provided the quan- tity of window-glass, and of the ventilation, were not greater; for the extent of wall, owing to its slow-conducting quality, produces comparatively little efi‘ect. The same excellent authority also supplies the~ following illustrations: A, heated surface, as of iron, glass, &c., at temperatures likely to be met with in rooms, if exposed to colder air, gives out heat with rapidity, nearly proportioned to the excess of its temperature above that of the air around it, less than half the heat being given out by radiation, and more than half by contact of the air. Thus, if the external surface of an iron pipe, heated by steam, be 200°, While the air of the room to be warmed by it, is at 60°, showing an excess of temperature in the pipe of 140°, such pipe will give out nearly seven times as much heat in a minute as when its temperature falls to 80°, because the excess is reduced to 20°, or + of what it was. Supposing window glass to cool at the same rate as iron plate, one foot of the steam pipe would give out as much heat as would be dissipated from the room into the external air by about five feet of window, the outer surface of which were 30° warmer than that air. But as glass both conducts and radiates heat about -} slower than . iron, the external surface of ’the glass of a window of a room, heated to 60°, would, in an atmosphere of 22°, be under 50°, leaving an excess of less than 30°; and about six feet- of glass would be required to dissipate the heat given off by one foot of the steam pipe. In double windows, Whether of two sashes, or of double panes, only half an inch apart in the same sash, the loss of heat is only about one-fourth of what it is through a single window. It is also known that one foot of black or brown iron surface, the iron being of moderate thickness, with 140° excess of temperature, cools in one second of time 156 cubic inches of water, one degree. From this standard fact, and the law above given, a rough 140 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. calculation may be made for any other combination of time, surface, excess, and quantity. And it is to be recollected, that the quantity of heat which changes, in any degree, the temperature of a cubic foot of water, produces the same change on 2,850 cubic feet of atmospheric air. The arrangement of the steam-pipes has next to be con- sidered. A common method is that in which the pipe from the boiler rises’ at once to the upper story. From this pipe proceed horizontal branches, to each floor. Each branch is furnished with a stop-cock, by which means the steam can be turned on or off at pleasure, in any one of the three stories. The water arising from the condensation of the steam in each pipe, floWs back into the boiler along the ascending pipe. But if it be not convenient to place the boiler below the level of the lowest floor, the condensed steam is received into a reservoir, from which it is pumped into the feeding- cistern. At the extremity of each'horizontal branch, is a stop-cock, which is opened, when the steam is filling, to allowthe air to blow off. It is necessary to prevent the condensed water from accu- mulating in the pipes, otherwise it would be impossible to maintain them at a uniform temperature, Moreover, this water condenses the steam sorrapidly, that a vacuum is formed within the boiler and pipes ; and should they not be firm enough to resist the external pressure of the atmos- phere, the boiler may be crushed in, and the whole system deranged. By a special arrangement, the conden’sed water is collected at certain parts of the system, where it con- tinues to give out heat after the steam has ceased to flow into the pipes; In such cases, stop-cocks may be employed, so arranged as to allow the water to be afterwards withdrawn from the pipes; the same cocks also serve for letting the air out of the pipes when the steam is first admitted ; but when the water is returned into the boiler, the advantage of this supply of heat cannot be reserved; and in these THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 141 cases, a self-acting apparatus is used for taking 011' the water of condensation. _ The various methods of connecting the cast-iron pipes are by the flanch—joint, and the spigot and faucet, or socket joint. Mr. BUCHANAN gives minute directions for these, but he seems inclined to recommend the thimble-joint. Care must, of course, be taken in joining the pipes, to allow room for expansion. This is sometimes done in the thimble-joint, inwhich the adjoining ends of the pipes are turned true on the outside, and have a thimble, or short cylinder of wrought- iron, to enclose them, leaving "only a small space for the current. A piece of tin, or inner thimble, is interposed, and made to fit well to the turned parts of the pipes, which, under the influence of heat or cold, work forwards or back- wards, like a piston in a cylinder. In a range of pipes 120 feet in length, there was a motion from expansion of three- quarters of an inch; but the usual allowance for the expan- sion of cast-iron pipes, is one-eighth of an inch in 10 feet, or 131; of their length. Cast-iron heated from 32° to 212°, expands 3—37 of its length, which is nearly one and three- eighths of an inch in 100 feet. A similar expansion-joint applied to the spigot and faucet connection, answered very well. Lead cannot be substituted for tin or iron cement in joints, for, by frequent heating, it becomes permanently expanded, while the iron pipes always contracting in cool- . ing, and the lead not participating in the contraction, the joints soon get loose. Count RUMFORD introduced an expansion—drum, of thin copper, between the extremities of two pipes, which in elongating, pressed the sides of the drum inwards, and in cooling drew them outwards. The pipes should not be connected with any part of the building, but be quite independent thereof; all the horizontal‘branches should be supported on rollers, and nothing done to inter- fere with the expansion ‘of the different parts. In private dwellings, where the appearance of the pipes is objectionable, they may be concealed behind perforated 142 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. , mouldings, or skirtings or cornices; or the steam may be brought into ornamental vases dispersed about the room, each furnished with a small stop-cock, to allow the air to escape while the steam is entering. The method of heating buildings by steam has long been superseded by hot water apparatus of various kinds; which, however, may be resolved into two distinct forms or modi- cations, dependant on the temperature of the water. In the first form of apparatus, the water is at or below the ordinary temperature of boiling. In this arrangement the pipes do not rise to any considerable height above the level of the boiler, so that the apparatus need not beof extraor- dinary strength. One pipe rises from the top of the boiler, and traverses the places to be warmed, and returns to terminate near the bottom of the boiler. Along this tube the heated water circulates, giving out its heat as it pro- ceeds. The boiler may be open or closed. If open, the tube, when once filled with water, acts as a siphon, having an ascending current of hot water in the hotter leg, and a descending current of cooled water in the longer leg. If the boiler be closed, the siphon-action disappears, and the boiler with its tubes become as one vessel. In the second form of apparatus, the water is heated to 350° and upwards, and is, therefore, constantly seeking to burst out as steam, with a force of 70lbs. and upwards on the square inch, and can only be confined by very strong or high-pressure appa- ratus. The‘pipe is of iron, about an inch in diameter, made very thick. The length extends to 1,000 feet and upwards, and where much surface is required for giving out heat, the pipe is coiled up like a screw. A similar coil is also sur- rounded by the burning fuel, and serves the place of an oiler. The heating of rooms by the circulation of hot water in pipes, seems to have occupied the attention of a few specula- tive individuals, long before the attempt was actually made. The first successful trial is assigned to Sir BIARTIN-TRIE- WALD, a Swede, who resided for many years at Newcastle- THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. 143 on-Tyne, and about the year 1716, described a method for warming a green-house by hot water. The water was boiled outside the building, and then conducted. by a pipe into a chamber under the plants. But the. first successful attempt, on a large scale, was in France, in 1777, by M. BONNEMAIN, in an apparatus for hatching chickens, for the purpose of supplying the market of Paris. The water was heated in a boiler—ascended a feed—pipe, and ran through the heating-pipes which traversed the hatching-chamber, fore and aft. These heating-pipes have a gradual slope towards the boiler, to which the water returns by the pipe, carried near- ly to the bottom. In this way the water, cooled by being circulated through a long series of pipes, is being con- stantly returned to the lowest part of the boiler, where it receives a fresh amount of heat, and being. thus rendered ‘lighter, rises up the pipe, and descends the inclined planes of the pipes, losing a portion of its heat on the way, and at the same time increasing in density; the velocity of the current depending on the difference between the temper- ature of the water in the boiler, and that in the descending- pipe. ,At the highest point of the apparatus is a pipe, fur-- nished with a stop-cock, for the escape of the air which the cold water holds in solution on entering the boiler. The water that rises along with it is received into the vessel. The arrangements of this apparatus are excellent ; they have been taken as a model in many subsequent methods, although the merits of the inventor have not always been acknowledged. Whatever be the arrangement adopted for warming buildings by this method, two considerations must be specially attended to, namely, sufiicient strength to bear the hydrostatic pressure, and freedom of motion for currents of water, of varying temperatures, and consequently of vary- ing densities. As fluids transmit their pressure equally in every direction, a column of water rising from a strong vessel to a certain height, may be made to burst the vessel 144 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. with enormous force. Thus, a tube whose sectional area is, one inch, rising to the height of 34% feet from the bottom of a vessel of water, will, if the tube be also full of water, exert a bursting pressure on every square inch of the inner surface of such vessel of one atmosphere, or 15 lbs. If the sec- - tional area of the tube be increased, the pressure remains the same, because it is distributed over a larger surface of the ves- sel. If a boiler be'3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 feet deep, with a pipe 28 feet high from the top of the boiler, when the apparatus is filled with water, there will be a pressure on the boiler of 66,8161bs., or very nearly'30 tons. This will show the necessity for great strength in the 'boiler, especially when it is considered that the’efl'ect of heat upon it is to diminish the cohesive force of its particles. But even sup- posing the apparatus were to burst, no danger would arise, because water, unlike steam, has but a very limited range ' of elasticity. The boiler just described'would contain about l“lt'i‘gallonsof water, which, under a pressure of one atmos- phere on the square inch would be compressed about one cubic inch ; and if the apparatus were to burst, the expan- sion would only be one cubic inch, and the only effect of bursting, would be a cracking in some part of the boiler, occasioning a leakage of the water. The circulation of water is brought about by the prin- ciple of convection already explained in the case of air. When‘heat is applied to a vessel containing water, the prin- ciple of conduction altogether fails, for water is so imperfect a conductor of heat, that if the fire be applied at the top, _ the water may be made to boil there without greatly affect- ing the temperature below. But When the fire is applied below, the particles in contact with the bottom of the boiler, being first affected by the heat, expand, and thus becoming specifically lighter than the surrounding particles, ascend, and other particles take their place, which in like manner becoming heated, ascend also; and the process goes on in this way until the whole contents of the boiler have received THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 145 an accession of temperature. If the process be continued long enough, the water will boil and pass off in steam; if the boiler be closed in on all sides, so as to prevent the escape of steam, it will burst with a fearful explosion. 'If a tube full of water rise from the top of the boiler in a verti- cal line to any required height, and then by a series of gentle curves descend, and enter near the bottom of the boiler, the process of heating is still the same. The par- ticles of water first heated will rise, and, in doing so, distri- bute their heat to other particles, which will also rise; these, in their turn, will lose a portion of their heat to other particles, which rise in their turn; until at length an equili- brium is established. .'But as the source of heat is perma- nent, other particles are rapidly brought under its action, and, being heated, ascend. By Continuing the process a short time, the particles in the vertical tube become heat :d, and, by their expansion, exert a pressure on the water ton- tained in the lateral branches ; this, together with the increasing levity of the water in the boiler, establishes a current, and the water from the branches begin to set in, in the direction of the boiler; the water in the lowest branch, where it enters the boiler, supplying colder and heavier particles every moment to take the place of the warmer and lighter particles which are being urged upwards along. the vertical pipe. ' Now, to ascertain the force with which the water returns to the boiler, we must know the specific gravities of the two columns of water, the ascending and the descending, and the difference between them will be the effective pressure, or motive power. This can be done by ascertaining the tem- perature of the water in the boiler, and in the descending pipe. When the difi'erence amounts to only a few degrees, the difference in weight is very small, but quite sufficient, in a well-arranged apparatus, to maintain a constant circulation. For example, suppose an apparatus to be at work, in which the temperature in the desc'pnding pipe is 170°, and the 146 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. temperature of the water in the boiler, the height of which is 12 inches, is 178°. The difference in weight is 8.16 grains on each square inch of the section of the return-pipe. Mr. HOOD made an experiment by taking a boiler two feet high, containing 30 gallons of water, and letting two 4-inch pipes of one hundred yards length, running parallel, enter the boiler—one three inches from the top and the other three inches from'the bottom—so connected at their farther end that the water could flow through and return freely, and found that there was 190 gollons, or 1,9001bs. of water, kept in motion by a force equal to one-third of an ounce. The amount of motive power increases with the size of the pipe. The power being four times, as great in a pipe of four inches in diameter as in One of two inches, as the former contains four times as much water as the latter; but ' as the resistance increases equally with the power, the actual working effect is the same in pipes of all sizes. The motive power is increased by allowing the water to cool before it returns to the boiler, or by increasing the height of the ascending and descending columns of water. By doubling the difference of temperature between the flow- pipe and the return-pipe, the same increase of power is obtained as by doubling the vertical height; and by tripling . the difference in temperature, the same effect is produced as by tripling the vertical height. The difference in tempera, ture may also be increased by increasing the quantity of pipe, or by diminishing its diameter, so as to expose a larger amount of surface, in proportion to the quantity of water contained in it, so as to allow it to part with more heat within a given time. But the method which must be principally depended on, when additinal power is required to overcome any unusual obstruction, is to increase the height of the ascending column. Another method of estimating the velocity of motion of ' the water of a hot-water apparatus, is to regard the two THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 141 portions of the system, as the lighter and heavier fluids in the two limbs of a barometrical aériometer. This instru- ment is an inverted siphon, and its use is to ascertain, in a rough way, the specific gravities of immiscible fluids. If mercury be poured, into one limb, and water into the other, and the stop-cock at the centre be turned, so as to establish a communication between them, it will be found that an inch of mercury, in one limb will balance thirteen—and—a— half inches of water, in the other limb; thus showing that the densities, or specific gravities, of the two fluids, are as thirteen-and-a-half to one. If oil be used instead of mer- cury, it will require ten inches of oil to balance nine inches of water. Or if equal bulks of oil and water be poured into the limbs of the siphon, and the stop-cock be then turned, the oil will be forced upwards with a velocity equal to that which a solid body would acquire in falling, by its own gravity, through a space equal to the additional height which the lighter body would occupy in the siphon. Now, as the'relative weights of water and oil are as nine to ten, the oil in one limb will be forced upwards by the water with a velocity equal to that which a falling body (in this case, the water) would acquire in falling through one inch of space, and this velocity is equal to 138-feet per minute. In estimating the velocity of motion of the water in a hot water apparatus, the same rule will apply. “If the average temperature be 170°, the difference between the temperature of the ascending and descending columns 8°, and the height ten feet; when similar weights of water are placed in each column, the hottest will stand .331 of an inch higher than the other; and this will give a velocity equal to 79.2 feet per minute. If the height be five feet, the difference of temperature remaining as before, the velocity will be only 55.2 feet per minute; but if the difference of temperature, in this last example, had been double the amount stated ;—that is, bad the difference of temperature 148 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. been 16°, and the vertical height of the pipe five feet,- then the velocity Of motion would have been 79.2 feet per minute, the same as in the first example, where the vertical height was ten feet, and the difference of temperature 8°.” But, in all these calculations, a considerable deduction must be made for the effects of friction. In the centre Of , the ascending pipe, the heated particles meet with the smallest amount Of obstruction, and there the motion is quickest; but at and near the circumference of the pipe, the retarding effects Of friction are most apparant. In the descending pipe the friction is less, for the water descends more as a Whole, and is, moreover, assisted by the gravity of the mass. In an apparatus where the length of pipe is - not great, where the pipes are of large-diameter, and the bends and angles few, a large deduction from the theoretical amount must still be made, to represent, with anything like accuracy, the true velocity; and Mr. HOOD states, that in more complex apparatus, the velocity of circulation is so much reduced by friction, that it will sometimes require from 50 to 90 per cent, and upwards, to be deducted from the calculated velocity, in order to obtain the true rate of circulation. The amount of friction not only varies accordingto the arrangement of the apparatus, but also according to the size of the pipes. It is much greater in small pipes than in large one, on account of the relatively larger amount of surface inthe former; besides this, small pipes cool quicker than large ones, and this increases the velocity of the circu- lation, and with it, the friction is also increased. When the velocity with which the water flows, is the same in pipes of different sizes, the relative amount of friction is as follows:— Diameter Of the pipes, 5 inch, 1 in. 2 in. 3 in. 4 in. The amount of friction, 8 4, 3, 1.3, 1. So that, if the friction in a pipe of 4 inches diameter be represented by 1, the friction of a'pipe 2 inches in diameter is twice as much, and a 1-inch pipe four times as much. By THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 149 increasing the velocity, the friction increases nearly as the square of the velocity; but as the water in a hot—water appa- ratus circulates with various degrees of speed in its different parts, it is not easy to calculate the amount of friction from this cause. It will be seen, then, that when all the deductions are made, the circulation of the water is produced by a very feeble power, so that, as may be supposed, a very slight cause is sufficient to neutralize it. Mr. HOOD has known so trifling a circumstance as a thin shaving accidentally getting into a pipe, effectually to prevent the circulation in an apparatus otherwise perfect in all its parts. ‘ But the great point to be attended to, is so to diSpose the pipes, that the water, in its descent, may not be obstructed by differences of level, or angles in the pipes, Where air may accumulate; for this, by dividing the steam, effectu- ally prevents the circulation. With respect to the accumulation of air in the pipes, every part of the apparatus, Where an alteration of level occcurs, must be furnished with a vent for the air. When it is required to heat a number of separate stories by the same boiler, one of two methods may be adopted. The vertical pipe from the boiler may be carried up to the highest story, and the return—pipe meander through each story, until it finally terminates in the boiler. But it is obvious, that in such case, the top story will get the larger share of the heat, and the lower stories will be gradually less heated, on account of the cooling of the water in its passage to the boiler. The second method is to supply each story with a separate range of pipes branching out from the main pipe, and returning either together, or separately, into the boiler. The application of this principle, however, requires caution, for if the branch pipes are simply inserted into the side of a vertical ascending pipe, the hot current may pass by instead of flowing into them. In some arrangements, the hot ascending current of the 150 TZIE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. vertical main is made to discharge into an open cistern at the tep, and from the bottom of this cistern the various flow- pipes are made to branch off. By this means, the expense of cocks or valves is avoided; for by driving a wooden plug into one or more of the pipes which open into the cistern, . the circulation will be stopped until the apparatus is heated; but, in that case, water will flow back through the return- pipe. This, however. may be prevented, by bending a lower portion of the return-pipe into the form of an inverted siphon. This will not prevent the circulation, when the flow-pipe is open; but if that be closed by a plug in the cis- tern, the hot water Will not return back through the lower pipe. Any sediment that may accumulate in the siphon may be removed, from time to time, by taking ofi' the cap at the lower part of the bend. In such an arrangement, the vertical main pipe need not be of larger diameter than the branches, unless these extend to a very considerable distance, and then the diameter of the main pipe may be somewhat enlarged. It is not, however, desirable to increase the diameter of the main, because it is an object to economize the heat in this pipe, and there are circumstances in which a small main loses less heat than a large one. If one main pipe, eight inches in diameter, supply four branches in a given time, it is evident, that by reducing the main to four inches in diameter, the water must travel four times faster through the smaller pipe to perform the same amount of work; and, under such circumstances, the water will lose only half as much heat in passing through the small main as it would do in ascending the larger one, for the loss of .heat sustained by the water is directly as the time and the surface conjointly. 'Hence, in warming by the same boiler two rooms separa- ed from each other by a considerable distance, the pipe con necting the two rooms may be of smaller diameter than the pipes used for diffusing the heat. A pipe of one inch diame- ter may be used to connect pipes four inches in diameter THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 151 The great Specific heat of water, whereby it is enabled to retain its heat for a very long time, has been already shown to be a great advantage of this method of warming build- ings. The rate at which this apparatus cools, depends chiefly on the quantity of water contained in it with respect to the amount of surface exposed, and the excess of tempe- rature of the apparatus above that of the surrounding air; but for temperatures below the boiling-point, this last cir- cumstance need only be taken into account in estimating the velocity with which this apparatus cools. Now, the variation in the rate of cooling for bodies of all shapes, is inversely as the mass divided by the superficies. In cylindrical pipes, the inverse number of the mass divided by the superficies is exactly equal to the inverse cf the diameters; so that, sup- posing the temperature to be the same in all, In pipes of -------- l 2 3 4inches diameter. The ratio ofcoolingwfllbe - - - 4‘ 2 1.3 l “ That is, a pipe of one inch in diameter will cool four times as quickly as a pipe four inches in diameter, and so on These ratios multiplied by the excess of heat in the pipes above that of the surrounding air, will give the relative rates of cooling for different temperatures below 212°; but if the temperatures be the same in all, the simple ratios given above will show their relative rate of cooling without multiplying by the temperatures. These calculations supply practical rules for estimating the size of the pipes under different circumstances. If the heat be required to be kept up long after the fire is extin- guished, large pipes should be used; if, on the contrary, the heat is not wanted after the fire is put out, then small ones will answer the purpose. Pipes of larger diameter than four inches should never be used, because they require a very long time in being heated to the prOper temperature. Pipes of four inches in diameter are well adapted for hot-houses, green-houses, and conservatories. Pipes of two or three 152 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. inches may. be used for warming churches, factories, and dwelling-houses; such pipes retain their heat for a sufficient length of time, and they can be more quickly and more intensely heated than larger pipes, so that, on this account, a smaller quantity will often suffice. With respect to the quantityof pipe required for warm- ing a building of ascertained size, it is necessary to bear in mind the rate at which a given quantity of hot water, in an iron pipe will impart its heat to the surrounding air. Now, it has been shown by Mr. H001), that the water contained in an iron pipe four inches in diameter internally, and four and a half inches externally, loses .851 of a degree of heat per minute, when the excess of its temperature is 125° above that of the surrounding air; and as one cubic foot of water, in losing 1° degree of its heat, will raise the tem- perature of 2,990 cubic feet of air the like extent of 1°, so one foot length of four-inch pipe will heat 222' cubic feet of air 1° per minute, when the difference between the temper- ature of the pipe and the air is 125°. We must now take into account the loss of heat per . minute, arising from the cooling power of glass, ventilation, radiation, cracks in doors and windows, and other causes. An allowance of from three and a half to five cubic feet of air ought to be made per minute for each person in the room; so that, for the purpose of respiration, this quantity will have to be discharged, and an equal supply of air brought in to be warmed. , One square foot of glass will cool 1.279 cubic feet of air as many degrees per minute as the internal temperature of the room exceeds the temperature of the external air. If the difference betwen them be 30°, the 1.279 cubic feet of air will be cooled 30° by each square foot of glass; that is, as much heat as is equal to this will be given off by each square foot of glass. From these and other calculations, for which we must refer to Mr. Hoon’s able work, the following corollary is THE AhERIGAN comer: BUILDER. 153 drawn: “ The quantity of air to be warmed per minute in habitable rooms and public buildings, must be three and a half cubic feet for each person the room contains, and one and a quarter cubic feet for each square foot of glass. For conservatories, forcing-houses, and other buildings of this description, the quantity of air to be warmed per minute must be one and a quarter cubic feet for each square foot of glass which the building contains. When the quantity of air required to be heated has been thus ascertained, the length of pipe which will be necessary to heat the building, may be found by the following rule: multiply 125 (the excess of temperature of the pipe above that of the sur- rounding air) by the difl’erence between the temperature at which the room is purposed to be kept when at its maximum, and the temperature of the external air; and divide this product by the‘ difference between the tempera- . ture of thepipes and the proposed temperature of the room; then, the quotient thus obtained, when multiplied by the number of cubic feet of air to be warmed per minute, and this product divided by 222 (the number of cubic feet of air raised 1° per minute by one foot of 4-inch pipe) will give the number of feet in length of pipe four inches diameter, which will produce the desired effect.” When 3-inch pipes are used, the quantity of pipe required to produce the same effect will, of course, be different. To obtain it, the number of feet of 4-inch pipe obtained by the above rule must be multiplied by 1.33, If 2-inch pipe be used, the quantity of 4-inch pipe must be multipled by two. If we wish to determine the quantity of pipe required to maintain a constant temperature of 75° in a hot-house, we must suppose the external air occasionally to fall as low as 10°, and calculate from this temperature. The amount of heat to be supplied by the pipes is obviously that which is expended by the glass, the cooling power of which is exactly proportioned to the difierenpe between the internal and the 154 THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER. external temperature, the actual cubical contents of the house making no difference in the result. If such a house have 800 square feet of glass, it can easily be calculated , from the preceding data, that this quantity will cool down 1,000 cubic feet of, air per minute from 75° to 10°, which ‘ will require 292 feet of 4—inch pipe. If the maximum tem- perature of the pipe be 200°, and the water be 40° before lighting the fire, the maximum temperature will be attained in about four hours and a half ; with 3-inch pipe in about three hours and a quarter; and with 2-inch pipe in about two hours and a quarter—depending, however, upon the structure of the furnace, and the quantity of coal consumed. If the external temperature be higher than 10°, the effect will be produced in a proportionally short time. In churches and large public rooms, With an average number of doors and Windows, and moderate ventilation, a more simple rule Will apply for ascertaining the quantity of pipe required. ' Where a number of persons are assembled, a large amount of heat is generated by respiration, so that a very moderate artificial temperature is sufficient to pre- vent the sensation of cold. In such a case, the air does not require to be heated above 55° or 58°, and the rule is to take the cubical measurement of the space to be heated, and dividing this by 200, the quotient Will be the number of feet of 4-inch pipe required. The efficiency of any fOrm of hot-water apparatus will, of course, greatly depend on the boiler, which ought to be so constructed as to expose the largest amount of surface to the fire in the smallest space; to absorb the heat from the fuel, so that as little as possible may escape up the chimney; to allow free circulation of the water throughout its entire extent, and not be liable to get out of order by constant use. A variety of boilers are figured in Mr. Hoon’s work, and their respective merits considered on scientific grounds. One of these boilers is thus described : It is of castirou, and the part exposed to the fire is covered with a series of ribs THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 155 two inches deep, and about one-fourth or three-eighths of an inch thick, radiating from .the crown of the arch at an aver- age distance of two inches from each other. These ribs greatly increase the surface exposed to the fire, exactly where the effect is greatest; for being immediately over the burning fuel, it receives the whole of the heat radiated by the fire. The form of this boiler being hemispherical, will also expose the largest amount of surface Within a given area. The boiler being of wrought-iron, and, therefore, thinner than cast-iron, absorbs the greatest amount of heat from the fuel. With reSpect to the size of the boiler, it has been shown by experiment that four square feet‘ of surface in an iron boiler will evaporate one cubic foot of water per hour when exposed to the direct action of a tolerably strong fire. The same extent of heating surface which will evaporate one cubic foot of water per hour from the temperature of 52°, will be sufficient to supply the requisite amount of heat to 232 feet of 4-inch pipe, the temperature of which is required to be kept 140° above the surrounding air; or one square foot of boiler surface exposed to the direct action of the fire, or three square feet of flue surface, will supply the necessary neat to about 58 superficial feet of pipe; 01', in round num- bers, one foot of boiler to 50 feet of pipe. But as this is the maximum effect, a somewhat larger allowance ought in general to be made. If the difference of temperature be 120° instead of 140°, the same surface of boiler will supply the requisite amount of heat to one-sixth more pipe, and if the difference be only 100°, the same boiler will supply above one-third more pipe than the quantity stated. With respect to the furnace, the rate of combustion of the fuel will depend chiefly on the size of the furnace-bars, provided the furnace door be double and fit tightly. The ash-pit should also be provided with a door to exclude the excess of air when the fire is required to burn slowly. A dumb-plate should also be provided, to cause the combustion 156 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. D ' to be most active at the hinder part of the furnace, instead of directly under the boiler. The fuel will thus be gradually coked, the smoke consumed, and the fuel economized. In an apparatus, containing 600 feet of 4-inch-pipe, the area of the furnace-bars should be 300 Square inches, so that . 14 inches in width and 22 inches in length will give the amount of surface required. 'To obtain the greatest heat ' in the shortest time, the area of the bars should be proportion ally increased, so that a larger fire may be obtained. The fire ought at all times to be kept thin and bright, and to obtain a good effect from the fuel, one pound weight of coal ought to raise 39 lbs. of water from 32° to 112°. The best kind of pipes for hot water apparatus are those with socket-joints; flange-joints having long been out of use for this purpose. Where the socket-joints are well made, there is no fear of leakage, for the pipes themselves will yield before the joints will give way, or before the. fau- cet end of one pipe can be drawn out of the socket of the other. The joints must be well caulked with spun-yarn, and filled up with iron cement, or with a cement made of quick- lime and linseed oil. , Soft or rainwater ought always to be used in the hot- water apparatus, because, if hard water be used, its salts will form a sediment or crust in the boiler, and interfere with its action. But as there is very little evaporation from this kind of apparatus, the boiler will not require cleaning out for years, if a moderate'degree of attention be bestowed on the water employed. When the apparatus is not in use, care must be taken to prevent the water from freezing in the pipes, or the sudden expansive force of the water in freezing may crack them. If the apparatus is not likely to be used for some time during winter, it is better to empty the pipes than incur the risk of freezing. It has been proposed to fill the pipes with oil instead of water, and as the boiling point of oil is nearly three times higher than that of water, it was thought that THE AMERICAN” comer: ‘ BUILDER. 151 a temperature of 400° might be safely given to the pipes. It was found, however, that the oil at high temperatures became thick and viscid, and at length changed into a gel- atinOus mass, completely stopping all circulation in the plpes. In the forms of apparatus to which the preceding de- tails refer, the temperature of the water never rises to the ordinary boiling point (212°;) but we have now to notice a method, in which the temperature of the water is often beyond 300°; this is the high-pressure method contrived by Mr. PERKINS. In its simplest form, the apparatus con- ' sists of a continuous or endless-pipe, closed in all parts, and filled with water; There is no boiler to this apparatus, its place being supplied by coiling up a portion of the pipe (generally one~sixth .of the whole length) and arranging this in the furnace The remaining five-sixths of the pipe are heated by the circulation of the hot water, which flows from the t0p of the coil, and cooling in its progress through the building, returns to the bottom of the coil to be re—he’ated. The diameter of the pipe is one inch externally, and half an inch internally, and is formed of wrought-iron. The coil in the furnace being entirely surrounded by the fire, the water is quickly heated, and becoming also filled with innumerable bubbles of steam, these impart a great specific levity to the ascending current. At the upper part of the pipe, the steam bubbles condense into water, and uniting with the column in the return-pipe, which is comparatively cool, the descent is rapid in proportion to the expansion of the water in the ascending column; or, in other words, according to the relative specific gravities of the two columns of water. As the expansive force of water is almost irresistible, in consequence of its extremely limited elasticity, it is neces- sary, in the high-pressure apparatus, to make some provision for the expansion of the water when heated. The necessity for this will appear from the fact, that water heated from 39.45° (the point of greatest condensation) to 212°, 158 "THE AMERICAS: COTTAGE BUILDER. expands about 51-3 part of its bulk; and the force exerted on the pipes by this expansion, would be equal to 14,1211bs. on the square inch. The method adopted, is to connect a large pipe, called the expansion-pipe, 2% inches diameter, with some part of the apparatus, either horizontally or vertically. It should be placed at the highest point of the apparatus, and at the bottom of the expansion—pipe is inserted the filling-pipe through which the apparatus is filled. While the apparatus is being filled with water, the expan- sion-tube is left open at the top; water is then poured in through the filling tube, and as it rises in the pipes, drives out the air before it When the pipes are full, the filling- pipe and the expansion—tube are carefully closed with screw- plugs. It 1s important to expel all the air from the pipes, and this is done, in the first instance, by pumping the water repeatedly through them. The expansion-pipe is, of course left empty, as its use is to allow the wate1 in the spies to expand on being heated, and thus prevent the dan5 e1 of bu1sting. From 15 to 20 pe1 cent. of expansion space is generally allowed 1n practice. The furnace is generally so arranged in the building required to be heated, as to allow the tube proceeding from the top of the coil to be carried straight up at once to the highest level at which the water has to circulate; here the expansion-tube is situated, and from this point, two or more descending columns can be formed, which, after circulating through different and distant parts of the building, unite at ‘ length in one pipe, just before entering the bottom of the coil in the furnace. The heat is communicated to the air of the rooms from the external surface of the pipes, which are coiled up and placed within pedestals, ranged about the room with open trellis-work in front, or they may be sunk in stone floors, placed behind skirtings, or in the fire-places of each floor, the fines being stopped, 01' arranged in any other convenient manner. ' THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. '159 In. consequence of the great internal pressure which these tubes have to sustain, considerable care is required in their manufacture. . They are made 'of the best wrought- iron, rolled into sheets a quarter of an inch thick, and of the proper width. The edges are then brought nearly to- T gether, the whole length of the iron, which is generally about 12 feet. In this state it is placed in a furnace, and heated to a welding-heat. One end is then grasped by an instru- ment firmly attached to an endless-chain, revolving by steam- power, and a man applies a pair of circular nippers, which, when closed, press the tube into the required size, and which he holds firmly while the tube is drawn through them by the engine. The edges are thus brought into perfect contact, and are so completely welded after passing two or three times through the nippers, that a conical piece of iron driven into the end of the tube will not open it at the joint sooner than at any other part. . When the tubes are screwed together at each end, they are proved by hydrostatic pressure, with a force equal to 3,0001bs. on the square inch of internal surface. When the tubes are properly arranged and fixed in the building, the whole apparatus is filled with water by a force- pump, and subjected to considerable pressure, before lighting the fire. In this way, faulty pipes or leaky joints are detected. The tubes are joined by placing the ends within a socket, forming a right and left-hand screw, the edge of one tube having been flattened, and the other sharpened: they are then screwed so tightly together, that the sharpened edge of one pipe is indented in the flattened surface of the other. Another method of connecting the pipes is by a cone-joint. A double cone of iron is inserted into the ends of the pipes to be joined, and is made tight by two screw-bolts. This joint is quickly made, and is very‘strong. The furnace varies in form and dimensions according to circumstances. 160 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. In the apparatus erected at the British Museum for warming the print—room and the bird-room, the furnace is in a vault in the basement story, and the pipes, entering a. fine, are carried up about forty feet to two pedestals, one in each room; one containing 360 feet, of pipe, and the other 400 feet. About 140 feet of pipe are employed in the flow and return-pipes in the flue, and 150 feet are coiled up in the furnace. In this way, 1,050 feet of pipe are employed The apparatus is very powerful, and supplies the requisite amount of heat. The print-room is about 40 feet long by 30 feet wide, and the ceiling contains large sky-lights. The temperature of 65° can easily be maintained in this room during winter. The fire is lighted at 6, A: M., and is allowed to burn briskly till sufficient heat is produced in the rooms, when the damper in the flue in partially closed. A slow fire is thus maintained: at 11 A. M., afresh supply of fuel is added, and this supports the fire till 4, P. M., when all the fires at the Museum are extinguished. The above details will suflice to show the nature and application of this apparatus. The cabins of the ferry-boats on the Fulton Ferry, New York, and boats in other parts of the country, are warmed by water-pipes. These pipes run under the seats, on each side of the cabin. The advantages which this method of heating possesses will be apparent when it is stated that hot water and iron pipes are better conductors of heat than the air itself. Heat can be carried by pipes from one part of a room to the other, easier through the pipes than Without them—the temperature of the room is more uniform. We fully agree with Mr. RICHARDSON, that in any build- ing where this apparatus is intended to be erected, it ought not to be introduced as an after-thought. “It should be remembered, that as its complete success and its economical character, depend, in a great measure, upon due considera- tion of its benefits being given at the commencement of a building, so it ought, in future, to engage the primary con sideration of the architect and builder” THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 161 It is, however, of great importance, to ascertain whether this apparatus is perfectly safe, for even a doubt on the subject must be fatal to its general introduction. The average temperature of the pipes is stated to be generally about 350°; but a very material difi‘erence in temperature, amounting sometimes to 200° or 300°, is said to occur in different parts of the apparatus, in consequence of the great resistance which the water meets with in the numerous bends and angles of this small pipe. The temperature of the coil will, of course, give the working effect of the apparatus, but the temperature of any part of the pipe will furnish data for estimating its safety; for whatever is the temperature, and, consequently, the pressure in the coil, must be the pressure on any other part of the apparatus; for by the law of equal pressures of fluids, an increased pressure at one part will generate an equally increased pressure at every other part of the system. A very elegant method of ascertaining the temperature of a heated surface of iron or steel, consists in filing it' bright, and then noting the color of the thin film of oxide which forms thereon.* Mr. H000 states, that in some apparatus, if that part of the pipe which is immediately above the furnace be filed bright, the iron will become of a straw—color, showing a‘ temperature of about 450°. In other instances, it will become purplezabout 530°, and, in some cases, of a full blue color:560°. Now, as there is always steam 1n some part of the apparatus, the pressure can be calculated from the temperatuie, and a temperatule * Steel becomes a very faint yellow - at - 430 deg. Fahr. “ pale straw-color - “ - 450 “ “ full yellow - - " - 470 “ “ brown - - - “ - .490 “ _“ brown, with purple spots “ - 510 “ “ purple - - - “ - 530 “ “ blue - ~ “ - 550 “ “ full blue - - - “ - 560 “ dark-blue. verging on black “ 600 “ 162 THE .MERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ' of 450°:a pressure of 4201bs. on the square inch; 530°: ' 9001bs.; and 560°:l,1501bs. per square inch. Although these pipes are proved, at a pressure of nearly 3,0001bs. per square inch, and the force required to break a wrought-iron pipe of one inch external, and half an inch internal diameter requires 8,2322le; per square inch onthe internal diameter, yet these calculations are taken for the cold metal. By exposing iron to long-continued heat, it loses its fibrous texture, and acquires acrystalline character, whereby its tenacity and cohesive strength are greatly weakened. In. order to make this apparatus safe, Mr. Hoon sug- gests that, instead of hermetically sealing the expansion- pipe, it should be furnished with a- valve, so contrived, as to press with a weight of 135lbs. on the square inch. This would prevent the temperature from rising above 350° in any part: the pressure would then be nine atmospheres, which is a limit more than sufficient for any working appa- ratus where safety is of importance. But, supposing the apparatus were to burst in any part, the effects would, by no means, resemble those ‘which ac- company the explosiOn of a steam-boiler. One of the pipes would, probably, crack, and the water, under high-pressure, escaping in a jet, a portion of it would be instantly converted into steam, while that which remained as water would sink to 212°. This would have the effect of scalding water under ordinary circumstances, but the high pressure steam would not scald, because its capacity for latent heat is greatly increased by its rapid expansion, on being suddenly liberated, so that instead of imparting heat, it abstracts heat from surrounding objects. The only real danger that would be likely to ensue, would be from the jet of hot water, and this must, in any case, be of trifling amount. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUIL'DER. 163 VENTILATION. ’ As Nature is the best, as well as the earliest, teacher, we take our first example, in the history of ventilation, from the lower animals; and, we venture the assertion, that a more difficult, or apparently more hopeless problem, does not exist in our rooms and crowded assemblies, our mines and ships, than in the case about to be proposed. Imagine a dome-shaped building, perfectly air-tight, except through a small hole at the bottom, capable of con- taining thirty or forty thousand animals, full of life and activity; every portion of the enclosed space that can be spared being filled with curious machinery; the problem is, how to warm and ventilate such a space, so as to maintain a proper temperature, and yet to give to every individual within it a proper supply of air. ' New, this is the condition of a common bee-hive, and we may remark, that if, with all our machines and contrivances, and scientific resources, the combined Operation of warming _ and ventilating a room be difficult, or unsatisfactory, how infinitely more so must be that of a small bee-hive, crowded with bees, the greater part of the interior filled up with combs of waxen cells, and only one small Opening for the ingress and egress of the inhabitants, or for the escape of foul air, and the entrance of fresh. In a common hive, there is absolutely no other door or window, or opening, than this small entrance-hole; for, on taking possession of a new hive, the bees stOp up all the cracks and chinks, with a resinous substance named propolis, for the purpose of keeping out insect depredators; and the proprietor, with the same object, generally plasters the hive to the stool, and, in order to keep off the rain, covers it with a heavy straw cap, or turns a large pan over it. It must not be supposed that, because the vitality of insects is greater than that of warm-blooded animals, bees are not affected by the same agencies which affect us, for 164 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. they are so, and in a similar manner: they fall down appa- rently dead, if confined in a close vessel; they perish in gases which destroy us; they perspire and faint with too much heat; and are frozen to death by exposure to too much cold. HUBER introduced some bees into the receiver of an air- pump. They bore a considerable rarefaetion of the air without any apparent injury; onvcarrying it further, they fell down motionless, but revived on exposure to the air. In another experiment, three glass vessels, of the capacity of sixteen fluid ounces, were taken; 250 worker bees were introduced into one, the same number into another, and 150 males into the third. The first and the third were shut close, and the second was partially closed. In a quarter of an hour, the workers in the close vessel became uneasy; they breathed with difficulty, perspired copiously, and licked the moisture from the sides of the vessel. In another quarter of an hour, they fell down apparently dead. They revived, however, on exposure to the air. The males were afl’ected more fatally, for none survived; but the bees in the vessel which admitted air, did not sufl'er. On examining the air in the two close vessels, the oxygen was found to have dis- appeared, and was replaced by carbonic acid: other bees, introduced into it, perished immediately. On adding a small portion of oxygen gas to it, other bees lived in it; but they became insensible instantly on being plunged into carbonic acid, and revived on exposure to the air: they perished irre- coverably in nitrogen and hydrogen gases. Similar experi- ments, performed with the eggs, the larvae, and the nymphs of bees, preved the conversion of oxygen into carbonic acid, in all three states. The larvae consumed more oxygen than the eggs, and less than the nymphs. Eggs, put into ,foul I air, lost their vitality. Larvae resisted the pernicious influ- ence of carbonic acid better than the perfect insect would have done, but the nymphs died almost instantly therein. These, and many other analagous experiments, prove THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 165 that the respiration of bees has a similar vitiating effect upon a confined atmosphere, as the respiration of larger animals, and that bees require constant supplies of fresh air, in the same manner as other living creatures. They also require their dwelling to be kept moderately cool. When, from any circumstance, such as exposure to the sun, overcrowding, or the excitement produced by fear, anger, or preparation for swarming, the temperature of the hive is greatly raised, the bees evidently sufi‘er. They often perspire so c0piously, as to be drenched with moisture; and on fine summer nights, thousands of them may be seen hanging out in festoons and clusters, for the purpose of relieving the crowded state of the hive. ’ On inquiring into the method adopted by the bees for renewing the air of the hive, HUBER was struck by the con- stant appearance of a number of the-workers arranged on each side of the entrance—hole, a little within the hive, inces- santly engaged in vibrating their wings. In order to see what effect a similar fanning would produce on the air of a glass receiver, containing a lighted taper, M. SENEBIER advised him to construct a little artificial ventilator, con— sisting of eighteen tin vanes. This was put into a box, on the top of which was adapted a large cylindrical vessel, of the capacity of upwards of 3,000 cubic inches.- A lighted taper, contained in this vessel, was extingished in eight min- utes; but, on restoring the air, and setting the ventilator in motion, the taper burnt brilliantly, and continued to do so as long as the vanes were kept moving. On holding small pieces of paper, suspended by threads, before the aperture, the existence of two currents of air became evident; there was a current of hot air rushing out, and, at the same time, a current of cold air passing in. On holding little bits of paper or cotton near the hole of the hive, a similar effect was produced: they were impelled towards the entrance by the in-going current, and when they encountered the out- going current they were repelled with equal rapidity. 166 , THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. These two currents are established in the hive, by the fan- ning motion of the bees’ wings. The worker bees‘perform the office of ventilators, and the number, at one time, varies from eight or ten to twenty or thirty, according to the state of the hive, and the heat of the weather. We have fre quently watched their proceedings with interest. They station themselves in files, just within the entrance of the hive, with their heads towards the entrance, while another and a larger party stand a considerable way within the hive, ‘ with their heads also towards the entrance. They plant their feet as firmly as possible on the floor of the hive, stretching forward the first pair of legs, extending the second pair to the right and left, While the third, being placed near together, are kept perpendicular to the abdomen, so as to give that part a considerable elevation; then uniting the two wings of each side by means of ,the small ‘ marginal hooks with which they are provided, so as to make them present as large a surface as possible to the air, they vibrate them with such rapidity, that they become almost invisible. ' The two sets of ventilators, standing with their heads opposed to each other, thus produce a complete cir- culation of the air of the hive, and keep down the tempera— ture to that point which is fitted to the nature of the animal. When a higher temperature is required at one particular spot, as,'for example, on the combs containing the young brood, the nurse bees place themselves over the cells, and by increasing the rapidity of their respirations, produce a large amount of animal heat just where it is wanted. The ' carbonic acid, and other products of respiration, are got rid of by ventilation. ‘ The laborious task of ventilating the hiVe, is seldom or - never intermitted in the common form of hive, either by day or by night, during summer. There are separate gangs of ventilators, each .gang being on duty for about half an hour In winter, when the bees are quiet, and their respiration only just sufficient to maintain vitality, the ventilating pro- THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER. 167 'cess 1s not carried on; but by gently tapping on the hive, its inmates wake up, increase the number of their respira- tions, and, consequently, the temperature of the hive, to such a degree, that the air becomes intolerably hot and vitiated. To remedy this, a number of worker bees go to the entrance of the hive, and begin to ventilate the interior as laboriously as in summer, although the open air be too cold for them to venture out. Bearing in mind the details given in the introduction and the cOnclusion arrived at, that the animal frame is a true apparatus for combustion, we can understand how bees regulate the temperature of their hive : when greater heat is wanted, they increase the rapidity of their respirations, or in other words, they burn more carbon; but they get rid of the products of combustion, and also prevent the heat from accumulating, by the process of ventilation. Bees, in general, maintain a temperature of 10° or 15° above that of the external air; but, at certain periods, this tem— perature is greatly increased. Mr. NEWPORT observed, in the month of June, when the atmOSphere was at 56° or 58°, that the temperature of the hive was 96° or 98°. This high temperature arose from the nurse bees incubating on the combs, and voluntarily increasing their heat by meana of increased respiration. In winter, on the contrary, when only just suflicent heat is required to maintain vitality, less carbon is burnt, and the temperature of the hive is accord. ingly low. In one observation by Mr. NEWPORT at 7.15, A LL, on the 2nd January, 1836, when there was a clear, intense frost, and the thermometer in the open air stood a little above 17°, a thermometer permanently fixed in the hive, marked a temperature of 30°, or two degrees below the freezing—point. The bees were roused by tapping on the hive, and in the course of sixteen minutes, the thermometer rose to 70°, or 53° above the temperature of the external air. On another occasion, when the temperature of the hive had been raised to about 70°, the external air being 168 THE AMERICAN CO'I'I‘AGE BUILDER, at 40°, the bees soon cooledit down to 57° by their mode of ventilation,-and kept it at that point as long as the hive continued to be excited. ' By this process of ventilation, bees get rid of noxious odors in the hive. HUBER found that, on introducing into the hive Some penetrating vapor, disagreeable to the bees, they always increased the amount of ventilation, until they got rid of it. Humble-bees adopt the same method of dispelling pernicious odors; but it is remarkable, that neither their males, nor those of domestic bees, seem capa- ble of using their wings as ventilators. “Ventilation is, therefore,” says HUBER, “one of the industrial operations peculiar to the workers. The Author of Nature, in assign- ing a dwelling to those insects where the air can hardly penetrate, bestows the means of averting the fatal effects resulting from the vitiation of their atmosphere. Perhaps the bee is the only creature entrusted with so important a func— tion, and which indicates such delicacy in its organization.” The circumstances under which our rooms are placed, are far more favorable to ventilation than the bee-hive. Whether the ventilation be left to chance, 01' whether any special apparatus be erected for the purpose, the foul, vitiat- ed air must be got rid of, and fresh air, adapted to the pur- poses of respiration, admitted in sufficient quantity—that is, at the rate of about four cubic feet per minute, for each individual in the room. The air must leave the room at certain openings, or be drawn out of it thereby at this rate, while a similar amount of fresh air must enter to supply the loss; or, to speak more accurately, the force or impetus of the incoming air ought slightly to compress the air of the room, and assist the efllux of the vitiated air, and this, in its turn, ought to be so heated, as to have a certain amount of ascentional force over that of the incoming air. In some cases, mechanical means are necessary to expel the air, such as fanners, bellows, pumps, &c.; but it is generally more convenient, as well as economical, to trust to the natural THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 169 method of getting rid of the vitiated air, by making cer- tain ventilating tubes or openings at the highest point of g the room towards which the hot air tends to flow. ' p The same cause which produces the draught of common chimneys, and of the glass chimneys of our oil and gas lamps will, if circumstances be favorable, set in motion and discharge the vitiated air Of our rooms, at the same time that it brings in the fresh. For example, the air of a com~ mon chimney, under the influence of the fire, expands according to a law applicable to all gases, namely, 73., of its volume for each degree of Fahrenheit’s scale from 32° to 212°. Now, if a chimney or ventilating flue were ten feet high, and the temperature of the column of air within it were raised 20° above the temperature of the external air, the expansion would be fifths, or fifth of its bulk. This would so far diminish the Specific gravity of the heated column, that it would require 10% feet thereof to balance a column of the external air of 10 feet. It has been already stated, that the velocity of efi‘lux is equal to the velocity of a heavy body falling thrOugh the difference in height between the two columns; and in the case before us, the difference of five inches is equal to 5.174 feet per second, or 310 feet per minute; and this is the velocity with which a heated column of air would be forced through the ven- tilating tube or chimney: and supposing the dimensions of this to be one foot square, then 310 cubic feet of air would escape per minute. This, however, is the theoretical amount, which does not take into account the retarding effects of friction arising from the roughness of the tube, or any angles or bends in it, or the increased density of the hot ' air from the presence of carbon from the fuel, in a minutely- divided state. In practice, it is usual to allow from one- fourth to one-third for the effects of friction. As the velocity of a falling body, in a second of time, is known to be eight times the square root of the heighth of .he descent, in decimals of a foot, so the velocity of dis- 8 170 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. charge per second, through vent-tubes or chimneys, may be briefly stated as equal to eight times the square root of the difference in height of the two columns of air, in decimals of a foot. This number, reduced one-fourth for friction, and the remainder multiplied by 60, will give the true velocity ‘ 0f efflux per minute; and the area of the tube, in feet, or decimals of a foot, multiplied by this last number, will give the number of cubic feet of air discharged per minute. In estimating the total height of a column of heated air, we must calculate the total vertical height from the floox of the. room to be ventilated to the top of the tube, where it discharges into the open air. All horizontal bends and angles may be neglected, for these make no difference in the vertical height, but only increase the amount of friction, and deprive the heated column Of a portion of its ascen-‘ tional force, by cooling. As the vertical height of the column gives the velocity of discharge in the ratio of the square root of the height of the column, it is necessary, where several vent-tubes be employed, that they all be of the same vertical height or the highest vent will prevent the efficient action of the lower ones, so that there may actually be a smaller discharge through two tubes than through one only. So, also, when several openings are made above the level of the floor of a room, the highest may be the only one capable of acting as an abduction—tube, the other lower openings often serving as inductiOn—tubes, discharging cold air into the room instead of taking it out; and, in doing so, lower the temperature of the hot, vitiated air, and prevent it from escaping; thus not only causing the bad air to be ‘ breathed over again, but filling the room with unpleasant draughts. But if the highest abduction tube be too small to carry off the requisite quantity of hot air, the tube next . below it in elevation at any pait of the room will act as an abduction- tube. 1f the lower openings for the admission of cool, fresh air THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER. 1'1] be too small in pr0portion to those for the escape of the hot air, a current of cold air will descend through one part of the hot-air tube, and the hot air will ascend through anothel part of the same tube—an efl'ect' which we have already seen takes place in the ventilation of a bee-hive. This effect may also be shown by a very pleasing experiment: Place a lighted taper in a 'flat dish, and cover it with a glass receiver, furnished with a long glass chimney placed immediately over . the flame. 'If the bottom of the receiver does not come into very close contact with the dish, enough air will enter td support combustion, and the draught or current of hot air will escape up the chimney, and the taper will continue to burn for any length of time. If we now shift the receiver a little on one side, so that the flame may not be immediately under the chimney, the products of combustion will impinge upon the glass, and cooling down and mingling with the air ' of the receiver, will contaminate it so much, that the taper immediately begins to burn dimly, and Will soon be extin-- guished. On bringing the chimney over the flame, it will speedily improve in appearance; the smoke and other pro- ducts of combustion will be rapidly discharged, and the receiver will become bright and transparent as before. But suppose we cut off all communication with the external air from below by pouring a little water into the dish, so as to cover the mouth of the receiver, we shall then have the case of a room which is provided with a vent- tube near the ceiling, but has no provision for admitting fresh air from any lower Openings; in such'case, the fresh air will seek to enter by the ventilating tube. If this be, large enough, the outgoing hot air and the incoming cool air will divide the tube into two parts. But if, as in the experiment before us, the ventilating tube or chimney be too narrmv, the hot and cold currents will interfere with each other; the tendency of'the hot air to rise and of the cold air to descend, will prevent the escape of the one and the entrance of the other, and the taper will soon be extin- 172 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. guished for want of fresh- air. But if the chimney be divided into two'portions by a flat strip of tin plate passed V down" it, and the taper be lighted and placed in its former position, it will continue to burn for any length of time; for, by this arrangement, the two currents of hot and cold air areyprevented from interfering with each other; the hot air will pass up one channel and escape, and the cold air Will descend the other channel to feed the flame. By hold- ing a piece of smoking paper or the glowing wick of a taper on one side of the chimney, the smoke will be drawn down, thereby indicating the descending current of cool air; while, on the other side, the smoke will be driven up by the as- cending current of heated air. In the same manner, these counter-currents may be fre- quently noticed in churches and other crowded. places, where due provision is seldom made for the entrance, of fresh air, and the escape of the foul. It is usual in summer to mitigate the effects of the hot, vitiated atmosphere, by throwing open the windows. A portion of the foul air, it is true, escapes by these channels, but a counter-current immediately sets in through each of them, exposing the persons near them to the dangerous efl'ects of draught, and also cooling the foul air which is seeking to escape, and sending it down to be breathed over again. Now, in order that these open windows or any other ventilating openings be effective, it is necessary that the lower openings for the admission of fresh air be as numerous, or, at least, as large as the upper ones, and larger, if possible. By making these lower Openings, or induction- pipes, or doors, orvalves, or any other contrivances both numerous and capacious, the entering current is broken up ‘ and divided, and cold draughts are avoided. This remark is equally applicable to fresh air, which has been previously warmed by an artificial process; for, by admitting it into the room through numerous channels, it distributes its warmth more equally, and does not rise to the ceiling too rapidly. THE AMERICAN_ COTTAGE BUILDER. 173 Ventilation is more difficult in summer than in Winter, because, in warm weather the difference between the inter- nal and the external temperature is much less than in cold weather. In all cases of spontaneous ventilation, it will therefore be necessary in summer to increase the number or the size of the ventilating tubes. . When these tubes are constructed, their number and size ought to be adapted to the full amount of summer ventilation. In winter some of them can be closed, and others, if too large, ought to admit of being reduced in size.’ Perforated zinc is 'now getting into use as a ventilator. The pane of glass furthest from the fire-place and in the upper row is taken out, and its place supplied with a sheet of zinc, having 220 perforations to the square inch. Panes of perforated glass are also abundantly supplied, as well as glass louvres. TREDGOLD has given some very sensible directions for the ventilation of a church, which, of course, apply equally to any other public building, and, to a certain extent, to pri- vate houses. He advises, that the spaces for the admission of the cold air be abundantly large, and divided as much as possible ; they should be in or near the floor, so that the air may not have to descend upon any one ; by making the Openings large, and covering them on the inside with rather close wire-work (sixty-four apertures to the square inch), most of the current may be prevented ; and it may be still further prevented by bringing tubes under the paving to admit fresh air into the central parts of the church. Of course these openings must be provided with shutters, so as to close them when desirable. Provision should be made for the escape of the warm air at different parts of the ceiling, through air-trunks furnished with registers. The form of the mouth of the vent-tube, is a circular aperture, with a balanced circular register-plate, to close it. This plate should be larger than the aperture, in order that the air may be drawn into a horizontal current, for the purpose of taking away the portion of air next the ceiling. If the 174 - . THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. tube were left without a plate, the air immediately under it would 'press forward up the tube, and very little of the worst air which collects at the ceiling would escape. A flat or level ceiling is not well adapted to the purposes of ventilation ; but a still worse form of ceiling is that which is divided into cofi'ers, for in these the air collects, gets cooled, and descends. For effective ventilation, ceilings ' ought always to be dome-shaped, coved, arched, groined, or of the form of a truncated pyramid, so as to rise in the centre, and at the centre or most elevated point, the ventil- ating tube shOuld be placed. When curved lines are not used, ceilings of this form ought always 'to be adopted; they'are not much. more expensive than flat-ones; they'have a better effect, and are vastly superior as far as ventilation is concerned, supposing an opening be made in the central or highest point for the escape of the vitiated air. As it is not always possible to conduct the vent—tube at once in a vertical line from the highest point of the ceiling, there is no objection to giving it a horizontal direction for some distance. ' Where the vent-tubes can be carried up vertically from the ceiling to the top of the building, it is always better to do so, because the friction of the hot ascending current is thereby diminished. If the vent be made through the ceil- ing of a church into the space in the roof, and from this space, an air-tube be taken- up within the steeple or bell- turret, an effectual ventilation may be obtained Without adding outlets to the roof. Where external appearance is less regarded, a common louvre-boarded top, for an outlet from the roof, will answer. All side and end windows should be kept closed ; for if the apertures at the ceiling be of the proper size, and due provision be made for supplying fresh air, these open Windows, as already explained, Will diminish, not increase the amount of ventilation. The reason has been already stated Why ventilation is difficult to maintain in warm weather. Of course, it becomes especially THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 1‘5 so-in very calm, warm weather. Mr. TREDGQLD gives a case of this kind : Suppose we wish to provide ventilation sufficient to prevent the internal ail from being of a higher temperature than 5° above that of the external air Now, if the external air be at 70°, we shall not be able to keep the internal temperature down to 75° with a less escape of air than 212— cubic feet per minute for each person ; because each person ‘will heat at least that quantity of air5° in a minute, at these tempertures. When a church contains 1,000 persons, and the height from the floor to the t0p of the tube is 49 feet, the sum of the apertures that will allow 2,200 cubic feet of air per minute to escape, when the excess of temperature is 5°, must be equal to 12 square feet. If the height be only 36 feet, the size of the aperture must be 14 square feet, nearly. When the ceiling is level, this area should be divided among five or more ventilators, disposed in different parts of the ceiling ; but in a vaulted or arched roof, three are recommended to be placed in the highest part of the ceiling. . It is also recommended, that the Openings for admitting cold air be about double the area of those at the ceiling. The air should not be'taken from very near the ground, nor from a confined place. In designing and constructing a new building, flues might be made for the special purpose of supplying the interior with fresh air. Each flue might Open in the cornice, pass down between the piers, and undei the floming of the church or other building, and telminate in apertures which would be covered with grat-' ings. By disposing some of these flues on each side of the chmch, they would act With the wind in any direction These exteiior openings should, however, be covered with a grating, to prevent birds from building in them, and thus 'stopping them up. 111 some of the old buildings, which still excite the admiration of persons of cultivated taste, by the beauty of their arrangements and architectural details, we semetimes 176 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER meet with special provision for ventilation, arranged on the truest principles. Thus, in the “Hall of the Baths” in the ’Alhambra, at Granada, the roof is perforated with ventilat- ing openings, and is not only of the best possible form for the purpose of ventilation, but the openings themselves are. of the best possible shape, being wider at the lower extrem‘ ity than at the upper; and in order that these Openings may present the least possible amount of friction to the outgoing air, they are provided with short tubes of baked earth, covered with a green, vitreous glazing. Such are the methods by which churches and other pub- lic buildings may be spontaneously ventilated. In the rooms of private houses, the ventilation must also be spon- taneous, for if the slightest trouble be entailed on the in- mates, even to the opening of a window, it will be neglected. The means of ventilation must be cheap, easily procurable, always in place, self—acting, not'liable to get out of order, requiring no adjustment, .no care whatever on the part of the inmates. It would seem impossible, at first view, to contrive‘anything at all likely to answer these conditions, and yet the thing has been done in the most perfect manner by that truly patriotic individual, Dr. ARNorT, so well known for his water-bed, his stove, and other inventions, which he has freely presented to the public, without seeking or desiring any emolument to himself. In the autumn of 1849, when the cholera was raging in England, the Board of Health recommended, in one of . their notifications published in the London Gazette, that in every badly-ventilated dwelling, “considerable and immedi- ate relief r'nay be given by a plan suggested by Dr. ARNOTT, of taking a brick out of the wall near the ceiling of the room, so as to open a direct communication between the room and the chimney. Any occasional temporary inconvenience of down-draught will be more than compensated by the bene- ficial results of this simple ventilating process.” A few days after this authoritative recommendation of THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 177 this contrivance, and in consequence of numerous applica- tions for further information on the subject, Dr. ARNOTT addressed a letter to the Times neWSpaper, dated Septem ber 22, 1849. This admirable letter is so interesting and so pertinent, that we venture to transfer nearly the whole of it to our pages :— “ I assume,” says Dr. ARNOTT, “that most of your readers already understand, or will now learn, that the air which we breathe, and which is used to stuff air-pillows, consists of material elements, as much as the water which we drink, or the food which we eat—indeed, consists altogether of oxygen and nitrogen; the first of which forms also seven-eights, by weight, of the substance of water, and the other nearly one- fifth, by weight, of the substance of flesh; and that there is surrounding our globe, to a depth of about fifty miles, a light, fluid ocean of such air, called the atmosphere, into which, near the surface of the earth, certain impurities are always rising from the functions of animal and vegetable life and the decomposition of substances in putrefaction, combustion, &c., just as into the sea and great rivers some impurities are always entering from the sewers—all which impurities, however, are quickly so diluted or dissipated in the great masses, as to become absolutely imperceptible, and eventually, by the admirable process of natuie, are decom- posed and changed, so that the great oceans of air and water retain ever their state of perfection. I assume, fur- ther, that your readers know that fresh air for breathing is the most immediately urgent of the essentials to life, as proved by the instant death of any one totally deprived of it through drowning or strangulation; and by the slower death of men compelled to breathe over again the same small quantity of air, as when lately seventy-three passen- gers were suffocated in an Irish steamboat, of which the hold was shut up for an hour, by closely-covered batches; and by the still slower death, accompanied generally by some induced form of chronic disease, of persons condemned to 1'18 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. breathe habitually impure air, like the dwellers in crowded, ill-ventilated rooms, and foul neighborhoods; and, lastly, as proved by the fact, that pestilence or infectious diseases are engendered or propagated almost only where impurities in the air are known to abound, and particularly where the poison of the human breath and other emanations from liv- ing bodies are allowed to mingle in considerable quantity—— as instanced in the gaol and ship fevers, which so lately, as in the days of the philanthrOpist Howard, carried off a large proportion of those who entered gaols and ships; and, as instanced in that fearful disease, which, at the Black Assizes at Oxford, in July, 1577, spread from the prisoners to the Court, and within two days had killed the judge, the sheriff, several justices of the peace, most of the jury, and a great mass of the audience, and which afterwards spread among the people of the town. This was a fever which did its work as quickly as the cholera does now. “ Assuming that these points are tolerably understood, I shall proceed to show, that from faults in the construction and management of our houses, many persons are uncon- _ sciously doing, in regard to the air they breathe, nearly as fishes would be doing in regard to the water they breathe, if, instead of the pure element of the vast rivers or bound- less sea streaming past them, they shut themselves up in holes near the shores filled with water defiled by their own bodies, and from other foul sources. And I shall have to show, that the spread of cholera in this country has been much influenced by the gross oversights referred to. “ All the valued reports and published opinions on cholera go far to prove, that in this climate, at least, any foreign morbific agent or influence which produces it, comes com- paratively harmless to persons of vigorous health, and to those who are living in favorable circumstances; but that if it find'persons with the vital powers much depressed or disturbed from any cause, and even for a short time, as hap- pens from intemperance, from improper food or drink, from THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 179 great fatigue or anxiety—but, above all, from want of fresh air, and, consequently, from breathing that which is foul, it readily overcomes them. It would seem as if the neculiar morbid agent could as little, by itself, produce the fatal disease, as one of the two elements concerned in common gas explosion—namely, the coal-gas and the atmos plieric air—can alone produce the explosion. ~The great unanimity among writers and speakers on the subject, in regarding foul atmosphere as the chief vehicle and fa'Vorer, if not a chief efficient cause of the pestilence, is seen in the fact of how familiar to the common ear have lately become the words and phrases ‘malaria, filth, crowded dwellings, crowded neighborhoods, close rooms, faulty sewers, drains, and cess—pools—or total want of these—eflluvia of grave- yards,’ &c.; all of which are merely so many names for foul air, and for sources from which they arise. Singularly, how- ever, little attention has yet been given, from authority, to the chief source of poisonous air, and to means of ventila- tion, by which all kinds of foul air may certainly be removed. “A system of draining and cleansing, water-supply and flushing, for instance, to the obtainment of which, chiefly, the Board of Health has hitherto devoted its attention, can, however good, influence only that quantity and kind of aerial impurity which arises from retained solid or liquid filth within or about a house, but it leaves absolutely un- touched the other aud really more important kind, which, in known quantity, is never absent where men are breathing— namely, the filth and poison of the human breath. This latter kind evidently plays the most important part in all cases of a crowd, and, therefore, such catastrophes as that of the TOOTING School, with 1,100 children, of whom nearly 300 were seized by cholera, of.the House of Refuge for the Destitute, and of the two great crowded lunatic asylums here, where the disease made similar havoc,—for places so public as these, and visited daily by numerous strangers, could not be allowed to remain visibly impure with solid 180 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. and liquid filth, like the Rookery of St. Giles’s, and other such localities. Now, good ventilation, which, although few persons comparatively are as yet aware of the fact, is easily to be had, not only entirely dissipates and renders inert the breath-poison of inmates, however numerous, and even of fever patients; but in doing this, it necessarily at the same time carries away at once all the first-named kinds of poison, arising from bad drains, or want of drains, and thus acts as a most important substitute for good draining, until there be time to plan, and safe opportunity to estab- lish such. It is further to be noted, that it is chiefly when the poison of drains, &c., is caught and retained under cover, and is there mixed with the breath, that it becomes very active, for scavengers, night-men, and grave-diggers, Who work in the open air, are not often assailed with dis- ease; and in foul neighborhoods, persons like butchers, who live in open shops, or policemen, who walk generally in the open streets, or in Paris, the people who manufac- ture a great part of the town-filth into portable manure, suffer very little. “ To illustrate the efficacy of ventilation or dilution with fresh air, in rendering quite harmless any aerial poison, I may adduce the explanation given in a report of mine on fevers, in 1840, of the fact, that the malaria or infection of marsh fevers, such as occur in the Pontine marshes near ' Rome, and of all the deadly trOpical fevers, affects persons almost only in the night. Yet the malaria or poison from decomposing organic matters which causes these fevers, is formed during the day, under the influence of the hot sun, still more abundantly than during the colder night ; but in the day, the direct beams of the sun warm the surface of the earth so intensely, that any air touching that surface is similarly heated, and rises away like a fire-balloon, carry- ing up with it, of course, and much diluting, all poisonous ' malaria formed there. During the night, on the contrary, the surface of the earth no longer receiving the sun’s rays THE AMERICAN cor'rAGn BUILDER. 181 soon radiates away its heat, so that a thermometer lying on the ground is found to be several degrees colder than one hanging in the air a few feet above. The poison formed near the ground, therefore, at night, instead of being heated and lifted, and quickly disssipated, as during the day, is rendered cold and comparatively dense, and lies on the earth a concentrated mass, which it may be death to inSpire. Hence, the value in such situations of sleeping apartments near the top of a house, or of apartments below, which shut out the night air, and are large enough to c011- tain a sufficient supply of the purer day air for the persons using them at night, and of mechanical means of taking down pure air from above the house to be a supply during the night. At a certain height above the surface of the earth, the atmosphere being nearly of equal purity all the earth over, a man rising in a balloon, or obtaining air for his house, from a certain elevation, might be considered to have changed his country, any peculiarity of the atmosphere below, owing to the great dilution efl'ected before it reached the height, becoming absolutely insensible. “ Now, in regard to the dilution of aerial poisons in houses by ventilation, I have to explain, that every chim- ney in a house is what is called a sucking or drawing air- pump, of a certain force, and can easily be rendered a valuable ventilating pump. A chimney is a pump—first, by reason of the suction or approach to a vacuum made at the open top of any tube across which the wind blows directly ; and, secondly, because the flue is usually; occupied, even when there is no fire, by air somewhat warmer than the external air, and has, therefore, even in a calm day, what is called a chimney-draught proportioned to the difference. In England, therefore, of old, when the chimney-breast was always made higher than the heads of persons sitting or sleeping in rooms, a room with an Open chimney was tolerably well ventilated in the lower part, where the inmates breathed. The modern fashion, how- 182 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ever, of very low grates and low chimney openings, has changed the case completely, for such openings can draw air only from the bottom of the rooms, where generally the coolest, the last entered, and therefore the purest air, is found, while the hotter air of the breath, of lights, of warm food, and often of subterranean drains, &c., rises and stag- nates near the ceilings, and gradually corrupts there. Such heated, impure air, no more tends downward again to escape or dive under the chimney-piece, than oil in an inverted bottle immersed in water will dive down through the water to escape by the bottle’s mouth; and such a bottle or other vessel containing oil, and so placed in water with its Open mouth downwards, even if left in a running stream, would retain the oil for any length of time. If, however, an opening be made into a chimney flue through the wall near the ceiling of the room, then will all the hot, impure air of the room as certainly pass away by that opening, as oil from the inverted bottle would instantly all escape upwards through a small opening made near the elevated bottom of the bottle. A top window-sash, lowered a little, instead of serving, as many people believe it does, like such an opening into the chimney flue, becomes generally, in obedience to the chimney draught, merely an inlet of cold air, which first falls as a cascade to the floor, and then glides towards the chimney, and gradually passes away by this, leaving the hotter impure air of the room nearly untouched. “ For years past, I have recommended the adoption of such ventilating chimney openings as above described, and I devised a balanced metallic valve, to prevent, during the use of fires, the escape of smoke to the room. The advan- ’tages of these openings and valves were soon so manifest, that the referees appointed under the Building Act added a clause to their bill allowing the introduction of the valves, and directing how they were to be placed, and they are now inrvery extensive use. A good illustration of the THE AMERICAN CO'I'I‘AGE BUILDER 183 subject was afforded in St. J ames’s parish, where some quar- ters are densely inhabited by the families of Irish laborers. These localities formerly sent an enormous number of sick to the neighboring dispensary. Mr. TOYNBEE, the able medical chief of that dispensary, came to consult me respect ing the ventilation of such places; and, on my recom- mendation, had Openings made into the chimney fines of the rooms near the ceilings, by removing a single brick, and placing there a piece of wire gauze, with a light cur- tain-flap hanging against the inside, to prevent the issue of smoke in gusty weather. The decided effect produced at once on the feelings of the inmates was so remarkable, that there was an extensive demand for the new appliance, and, as a consequence of its adoption, Mr. TOYNBEE had soon to report, in evidence given before the Health of Towns Commission, and in other published documents, both an extraordinary reductiou of the number of sick applying for relief, and Of the severity of diseases occurring. Wide experience elsewhere has since obtained similar results. Most of the hospitals and poor-houses in the kingdom now have these chimney-valves; and most of the medical men and others who have published Of late on sanitary matters, have strongly commended them. Had the present Board of Health possessed the power, and deemed themeans expedient, the chimney Openings might, as a prevention of cholera, almost in one day, and at the expense of about a shilling for a poor man’s room, have been established over the whole kingdom. “ Mr. SIMPSON, the registrar of deaths for St. Giles’s par- ish, an experienced practitioner, whose judgment I value much, related to me, lately, that he had been called to visit a house in one of the crowded courts, tO register the death of an inmate from cholera. He found five other persons living in the room, which was most close and offensive. He advised the immediate removal Of all to other lodgings. A second died before the removal took place, and soon after, . 184 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. in the poor-house and elsewhere, three others died who had breathed the foul air of that room. Mr. SIMPSON expressed to me his belief that if there had been the opening described above, into the chimney near the ceiling, this horrid his tory would not have been to tell. I believe so too, and I believe there have been in London, lately. very many similar cases.” Among other modes of spontaneous ventilation, may be mentioned the mulguf, or. wind-conductor, of the ancient Egyptians, and still in use in modern Egypt. It was erect~ ed at the top of the house, and consisted of a frame covered or enclosed on all sides, except at the mouths, which were open in the direction of the prevailing winds. The roof of the mulguf sloped down from each open end to the centre, where a partition divided it, and deflected the wind down into the apartments below. Mr. WILKINSON, in his work on Egypt, gives a view of part of Cairo, showing the mulgufs on the ‘ houses of the modern Egyptians. The ancient mulgufs were double, as shown in the figure, but the modern ones are. single, and the opening is in the direction Of the prevailing north-west wind. They consist Of a strong frame-work, to which several planks of wood are nailed, according to the breadth and length proposed; and, if required of cheaper materials, reeds or mats, covered with stucco, are used instead of planks. , This contrivance acts on a similar principle to the wind- sail used on board ships, which consists of a sail spread out to the wind: from the lower part proceeds a cylinder Of canvas, distended by hoops, which may be carried down through the hatches, to any deck or hold where fresh air is required. Its action depends on the force of the wind, and the mode of arranging it. It is of no use in calm weather, . when ventilation is often most needed: and it is equally unavailable in stormy weather, when the hatches are bats tened down, and the men crowded below. Indeed, unless some contrivance could be made for getting rid of the vitiat- THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 1815 ed air by other openings, the supply of fresh air by the wind sail must always be partial and defective. The next class of mechanical contrivances for ventilation, is that in Which the aid of an attendant is required, either to maintain the ventilating machine in motion, or to super- intend the mechanical power that does so. The simplest of these contrivances is the fan, which has been used from time immemorial, especially in warm climates, Where it is often made of an enormous size, and being wielded by an attend- ant with a dexterity acquired by long practice, its effect is very powerful in giving motion to the air, and producing the sensation of coolness, by bringing a larger supply to the person, and abstracting the heat by its motion. The pun/call, as commonly used in India, is nothing more than a gigantic fan, suspended in the centre of the apartment, above a bed or table. Attached to one side is'a line, which passes out of the apartment through the wall, to an attendant on the outside, who thus gives'motion to the large extended surface within, and thus prevents the air from stagnating. A machine called the zeplzyr was proposed some years ago by Mr. Donsox, for giving motion to the air of a room Two sails, or punkahs, crossing each other at right angles, were mounted on a frame, and a rotary motion was given thereto, by suspending it from a case containing a mechan- ism like that of a bottle-jack. This case was suspended by lines passing over pullies in the ceiling, and balanced by weights, so that the sails could be made to play at any elevation. In all these contrivances, motion is given to the air, but the rooms containing them are not ventilated there- by; the vitiated air is whirled and whisked about, but not driven out, and its place supplied by fresh air. We have stated, as fully as the limits of this work will allow, the principles which should govern in warming and ventilating houses, so as to enable the reader to judge cor- rectly as to the best mode to adopt in any particular case. 186 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. CHAPTER XI. —— MODEL COTTAGE. THIS CUT is an elevation of the Model Cottages erected by PRINCE ALBERT, near the Great London World’s Fair Exhi— bition. We insert it, not on account of any intrinsic merits which it possesses, as adapted to American occupants, but as a compliment to its notoriety. The building is intended for four families—two on each floor. Each family Will'be " blessed with one living-room, one bed-room and one pantry. The only peculiarity in the Model Cottages, worthy cf especial attention, is the “ Hollow Brick,” with which the, walls are built. These brick are, it is claimed, more dry. , and warm than solid brick, and, at the same time, are: ‘ twenty-five per cent cheaper in their cost. The annexed section is illustrative of the construction represented in PRINCE ALBERT’s Model Houses. The span of the arches being increased over the living-rooms to 10 feet 4 inches, with a proportionate addition to their rise. The external springers are of cast-iron, with brick cores, con- nected with wrought-iron tie-rods. 1 and 2, represents the plan of window and door jambs, on alternate courses. \ 3. Partition block. 4 and 5. Plan of angles, on alternate courses. 6. Square jamb and chimney brick. 7. Section of a one foot and two inch wall. 8. Internal door and chimney brick. These hollow bricks have never been used in this country: they are, however, used in France, where they are of a different form from the English, being about five inches THE MODEL (3 0 1‘ T A (i 1‘} [See p. 186.] A 'Illluumu- L _ ,ulllllL_ 7 _ 1116 Shawn" , “minimal"... 1] imam... l I 'il“; 1mm invalid-"T i “gm-w - _ I . T murmur ...,iuwii,"m ., m .i "iiitll'l" .IlnlithJ with! l :‘ \gz; iné=':im..-« l "mun-l T mill l3“=“_._’ ‘WQ % Min ll'tillll’" .t --3 \ 11 fl , 7" HOLLRWIBEICISWDE—lgvfj w M Wfiw ($33M ‘ k ‘ 1 by six, with square holes through them. They are stronger than the English brick, by about one third. JOSEPH E. HOLMES, Esq. director of the machine depart- ment in the New York Worlds Fair, in connection with Mr. F. B. TAYLOR, has invented a machine for the manufacture of hollow brick, which will undoubtedly be successful. The frequent use of hollow brick in this country is not far distant. The process of the manufacture of hollow brick, would, I doubt not, be quite interesting to my readers, but the iimits of the work will not permit me to give it. 188 ‘ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. I hope that the day is far distant when PRINCE ALBERr’s Model Cottages will be thought an appropriate residence for - an American laborer. The room is too confined, the size is too small for our peOple. PRINCE ALBERT deserves great credit for aiding 1n bring- ing to the English laborer such cottages; they are by far more comfortable than those which the bulk of their laborers enjoy. But With us, the case is different; nine-tenths of our laborers and Mechanics live in far better residences than the “Model Cottage.” To us, Prince ALBERr’s Model , House possesses no value—except as the ideas advanced by its peculiar mode of construction. I I) My MW. -,._.7| ‘ 4 ‘. _ M s1 V x mfg T, 1m. chug”, RURAL COTTAGE. ZSeep.18‘J.] U . ; if»? Slrfxlr a?” o F who ran AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 189 CHAPTER XII. RURAL COTTAGE. Tm. wow: is a representation of the residence of ALEX- ANDER Inns, Esq. Stuyvesant, New York. The architect is ROBERT WARRY, Esq. It is situated on a bank above the railroad, and commands a pleasant though not very exten- sive View of the Hudson River. The house wears an air of .Onvenience, gentility and comfort. ICE HOUSE ASEMENT PLAN. 190 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. ifwmsmuat mxxfi-Vx‘ uh] \\ ‘ x. “s “““mwwWWW.mammgmwmmmw w pone“ KITCH E N /a W BED noon E § ' ' § \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\k\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\‘\\\§ AW\\§ wmsma WASHSTAND ¥ “W § 3 Q % “\“m‘mw ' mummdA\\ E s" . WM l PABLOR \ PORCH \. PARLOR i “Q Dr'Bealr-oom % V , § \ . —— 3 I23: m 5 g &‘ i\\~ ,\ “mm ‘ x ‘>\\ \\:~\\\-x\ mm PLAN OF THE FIRST FLOOR, \\ BEDROOM *‘- ‘ “W‘Mm‘W F \. § BED Room \ k ASH ‘ “K g STAND cmntsmss ennui-3% a ‘ "53$? L L Q : 3W: E_E~u“ m I: ‘ § § 2-. § . .‘35‘ BED ROOM § BED BOOM ‘ 3 § § ‘0 x ;; \ , A \\\\\\V ‘. \\\\\\\\\\\\\ “mm“ PLAN OF THE SECOND FLOOR. if K i] ' 3,! THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 191 The cellar or basement, is all in one room, and that the whole size of the house, with two brick pillars, supporting the centre of a timber each, on which a part of the floor timbers rest. The thickness of the foundation walls is two feet, except the front above ground, which is brick twenty inches thick The thickness of the first and second story walls is sixteen inches, with four-inch opening, or hollow wall, and plas- tered on the brick. In the Chapter on “ MODEL COTTAGES,” and in the Chapter on “THE VARIOUS PARTS,” the advan- tages of building walls with hollow bricks, are discussed. It will be observed that all the advantages of the hollow brick, are gained by building the walls apart, and plastering on the brick. The walls are impervious to dampness. There is a cistern in the rear, as also a well near the kitchen door. The same pump in the sink, supplies the water from either. The design is, that the house be warm- ed by a heater, in the basement, although it may be heated by stoves. -' The house fronts on the Hudson River, nearly west. It is drained by pipes running under the door-sill, through the cellar into cess-pools. ’ The cost of this house was six thousand dollars,——built of brick; but if it were made of wood, it would lessen the cost very materially. The cellar is very large—larger than most families desire. The expense of building could be much cheapened in the construction of the foundation and cellar. An additional closet or two, would, perhaps, add to its convenience. The house is painted yellow, which harmonizes with the sur- rounding objects, giving it a neat, tasty appearance. Houses might be built of wood after this design, retaining all its convenient arrangement, for from $3,500 to $5,000, varying according to the place in which it was built—the price of ma terials and labor being different in different localities. 192 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. » CHAPTER XIII. OCTAGON COTTAGE. THE COTTAGE of Octagon Form possesses‘some valuable points in the economical arrangement of room. _ 'The engraving of “Octagon Cottage” is a perspective view of _the residence of O. S. FOWLER, Esq” the Phrenolo. gist. The design 1s by Mr. FOWLER himself. PLAN OF BASEMENT. There are sixty rooms in the house. The arrangement is novel and peculiar. All the cellar is above ground, except the holes 0, L, andM ' M is the milk apartment. A P, is the room for fruits and vegetables. K S, is the kitchen-stove apartment; in its corner is 11 ~ closet C', and stove~pipe hole S. WR, is the wash-room, in one corner of which is a cis. tern. C is the cistern. K' 1s the kitchen. At the left of the cistern IS the dark cellar C. L is the lumber-room. S T, is the stove-room. F E, front entrance ; R E, rear entrance. R R, receiving-room. F, furnace. G, gas apparatus. R, range; 0 L, clothes-press; P, pantrv. IV D, workmen’s dining-room. 'V S, Winter sitting-room. HH ‘7 .1 I/ m HIH H H IIHHI ITIIHIHIH N H |l|| |lHH|| mm F HIHIHIE‘ 011,1, A ’ ‘ (10‘ ‘ N LUTHF:X(}13 Hm ‘ 11,1..11 \DHAM ’5‘ ' ‘ULJL «'7.7,;_(_ :31: OF CALIFORN‘ " PLAN OF BASEMENT OF OCTAGON COTTAGE. 7’6 ' HALL. 4 6x80 ' F.E.I [: : IBE. . 5.20 [UHHIHWEWWHHHJ' . I RR. 2' 20x20 [:2 K- 20><22 \ g R. W S W. D ISX’ZZ I |5><22 \/ C H E: [Sec p 192.] MINIMUMULEV/ PLAN OF PRINCIPAL STORY OF OCTAGON COTTAGE [See p, 193.] ’\§o{ARY RSI”! Y .0 ‘ “J ,..‘ L f L? THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 193 PLAN OF PRINCIPAL STORY. The main story is surrounded with a portico, which makes it very desirable as a southern residence, where shade is at once a necessity and a luxury. The portico is a covered circle (around the house) of three hundred feet. F E, front entrance ; R E, rear entrance. 8, stairway. IV, dumb waiter. D r, drawing-room. D i, dining-room. ”W“ P r, parlor. Am. Amusementproom. IV 8, winter sitting-room. L, library. B, bed-room. F, sleeping-room. - “ There are two stories to the ice house—the upper one for ice—the lower, a room kept, by the ice and its dripping, as a preservatory for fruit, butter, eggs, &c. The melt- ing ice keeps this room at a temperature just above the freezing point, and surrounded by stifled and cold air, so that its preserving powers are remarkable.” The ice-water is gathered at the door, under which it runs through a lead pipe, bent up like a new moon, which allows water to pass out, but prevents air. It passes into the cellar, C, L, and the milk closet M, which also has two stories, the lower for preserves, and the top for milk, having two floors, which admits the cold air up into the milk room yet, prevents dirt from descending by the lower. The walls are of gravel-concrete—slate, stones, and gravel mixed with lime of the coarsest kind, such as farmers put upon their land for 4% cents per bushel. To eight wheel barrow loads of lime were added from sixteen to eighteen narrows of sand, and then from sixty to eighty barrows of coarse rubble stone. 9 194 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. This gravel-concrete becomes harder the longer it is exposed to the weather. It may be desirable to put some stone within the wall, so as to keep it in its place, until it becomes thoroughly hard. The ground story walls are nine feet high, and eighteen inches thick; those of the second story are fourteen feet high and sixteen inches thick; those of the third story twelve feet high, and twelve inches thick. The walls are anchored and plastered outside and in. The cost of the brick is ten times that of this gravel-concrete. Mr. FOWLER, in his work, “ Homes For All,” urges the adoption of octagon houses, built with walls of gravel-concrete as the best for “all.” He con siders that “ masons’ wages and the cost of the brick are SAVED.” The octagon ferm of the house makes a far more economi- cal and convenient arrangement of room, than the square. Some houses in New Jersey, near few York city, are built of a concrete which is much similar to Mr. FOWLER’S. The foundation being laid, the walls of the building were formed thus: a strip of board about five inches wide and one thick is laid on the foundation wall. On this strip another strip'of the same width is nailed, but projects over the first strip half an inch; the third strip is nailed on the second strip, and projects over the opposite side, about one half an inch; these strips are laid on projecting over each other alternately, the outside half an inch, and the inside half an inch. In this way the whole wall is laid, presenting, when complete, a series of grooves running the whole length of the walls, an inch apart. These walls are plastered up, outside and in, with a sort of stucco or concrete, which hardens with age, and becomes as solid as stone. It is less impervious to the rain than brick, and is a verycheap mode of building The plan of the house may be either square or octagon, as shall be desired. . The cost of Mr. FOWLER’s house was about ten thousand dollars. The octagon form is adapted to smaller cottage; than Mr. FOWLER’S, to school houses, and public buildings THE AMERICAN comer: BUILDER. lob CHAPTER XIV. DRAINAGE. DRAINAGE is an important matter in the building of cot. tages, as on it depends the health and convenience of the occupants. ’ In suburban residences, almost invariably, the water is supplied by “ water-works,” from the adjoining city, and the refuse water is taken off by drains into the sewers of the street. \Vatcr—closets, baths and wash-basins are a. part of the fixtures of the house, and in the basement a boiler is so connected with the range, that hot water is forced through pipes to any desired place in the building. It is estimated that the inhabitants of towns Will consume on an average twenty gallons of water for each person. This quantity would be sufficient to allow also for an ordinary proportion of manufacturing Operations, for the supply of public buildings, and for the extinction of fires. When baths are used, not less than fifty-four gallons of water should be provided for the ablution of each person. The necessity for a constant supply of pure water, great . as it is in all buildings, is still more important in supplying those of which the'demaud is of a variable character. In certain seasons, when the occasion for the repeated bathing of persons and cleansing of apartments is greatest, these duties require a much larger quantity of water than will suffice at other periods; and this demand of course increases in the same ratio with the number of persons to be supplied. In prisons, asylums, and public buildings, the quantity of water required varies considerably from time to time, and all methods of supply short of constant service, and all provisions for storage fail, in one way or another, in secur- ing the constant and unlimited command of fresh and pure l 196 THE AMERICAN corms}: BUILDER. water. These house-tanks, cisterns, and reservoirs, how ever capaeious and well-designed, serve to receive only limited quantities, and if these be ample for all purposes, it follows that if the consumption be lessened, the greater quantity of water will remain in a stagnant condition, to be added to, but not replaced, by the next delivery from the main. The lower body of water in the cistern will thus remain slightly changed, and stirred up only, and in this way a low bed of impure water, surcharged and rendered heavy with deposited matter, gradually accumulates, sufi'er— ing a slow diminution by the proportion drawn oif for imme« diate use. Pure or fresh water is by this arrangement put ‘altogether out of the question. In cases Where the constant supply of water cannot be obtained, and in consequence it becomes necessary to provide cisterns for buildings, they should be so constructed and furnished as to combine the operation of filtering with the purpose of storing the water. For this purpose, the best form of cisterns Will be that of which the bed inclines down- wards, so that the discharge-pipe may be inserted at the lowest point, and the water always drained from that part of the cistern. The material used being commonly slate, the bottom may still be formed in a single slab for house cisterns, (so as to avoid extra joints,) declining in both directions. The filtering media, consisting of beds of sand and gravel, of different degrees of fineness, will be arrang. ed in horizontal layers, excepting the lower one, which will lie in the bottom of the cistern, and be dressed to a level on its upper surface.‘ The head of the discharge-pipe should be protected with a fine Wire-gauze cap, to prevent the gravel washing in the pipe. Below this pipe another cistern for the filtered water should be provided of proportionate capa- city; and if the process be too tedious to admit of the filtration of all the water used, that for inferior purposes may be drawn from a pipe entering the cisterns just above the filtering-beds. THE AMERICAN comes BUILDER. 197 The superior quality of rain-water in respect to its soft ness, as compared with water from all other sources, renders it exceedingly desirable, in an economical view, that all .the supply requisite from this source should be carefully collect- ed and preserved. In towns and cities, this water is com- monly wasted, or, at least, allowed to subserve the inferior purpose of assisting the flow of drainage. Yet the quantity which might, by eflicient arrangements, be commanded of this superior water, is by no means insignificant. The roof of a house of average dimensions of twenty feet square, presenting a plane surface of four hundred square feet, re- ceives at least eight hundred cubic feet of rain-water annually, or about four thousand eight hundred gallons. If well-com structed and capacious gutters are provided, this quantity ma.)r be collected with little loss from evaporation, and will form a reserve stock for such special household purposes as it is peculiarly adapted for. This quantity should be imme- diately received in a filtering tank, and the best available method be adOpted of purifying it from the carbonaceous matters with which it becomes saturated in passing through a smokey atmosphere and flowing over roof-surfaces covered with a» deposit of similar impurity. An economical and welLdevised apparatus for effecting this purpose, and appli- cable to private buildings of all classes, is a desideratum yet wanting in the economical supply of water. If rain-water be not collected for household cleansing purposes, it should at least be made as efficient as possible for securing the house-drains. In many houses the rain- water is conducted into a cistern, the lower part of which should be formed like an inverted cone, and fitted with a conical valve at the head of a pipe, discharging into the house-drain. This conical valve is to be attached to a ver- tical chain above it, and connected with the short end of a lever, to the other arm of which a cord or chain is fixed, and by which the valve may be occasionally removed from its seat and the water discharged from the cistern into the drain- 198 , THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. pipe below the valve, so as to prevent the cistern overflow ing, in case the water accumulates faster than it is discharged; the lower end of the waste-pipe being trapped, to pxevent the effluvium in the drain-pipe passing into the cistern. One of the most important of the occasional services for which a supply of water is required for application to build- ings is the extinction of accidental fires. For extensive buildings, tanks have been adopted, in which a considerable quantity may be stored and ready for instant application for this purpose. This arrangement is, however, scarcely applicable for private buildings; and, where it is employed, the quantity commanded is of course limited, and can never be safely trusted to as affording an adequate supply for extinguishing the fire. In this application of water, again, the system of constant service offers great advantages. Thus, if the mains are always kept filled, an adequate supply is at all times at hand in every direction, and the grievous losses and dangers incurred by delay in obtaining water on these occasions are avoided. The combination of high service with constant service in the supply of water, also affords the means of instantly applying jets of water upon the fire until the fire or pumping engines arrive. These jets are thus available as substitutes for the engines, and the experiments made to ascertain the height to which a jet of water will rise from the main and service-pipes under a fixed pressure, have shown consider- able facility in applying jets for this purpose and a corres- ponding efficiency in their actions. The practical limit to this mode of delivery appears to arise from the extent of supply required, the economy of the use of jets depending upon the amount of pressure that can be obtained, and the small number of jets which will suffice for the extinction of the fire. The available power in this instance is found to decrease in prOportion to the extent to which it is employed, and the loss by friction in the leather hose reduces the delivery, and, consequertly, the height or force of the jet THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 199 2; per cent. for every 40 lineal feet of hose through which the water passes. The following experiments show the action of water through the pipes: The first experiment was made over an extent of 800 yards of 7-inch main, which were connected with 500 yards of 9-inch; this length being joined to 200 yards of 12-inch, continued by 550 yards of 15-inch main to the great main—- 5,500 yards distant. The height to which the water was thrown from 2%—inch stand-pipes, with 40 feet of hose and a g-inch jet, were as follows :— With 1 stand-pipe the water rose - - ~ ‘ 50 feet. it 2 fl ‘( (l _ . . - 45 (‘ u 3 u u u ‘ _ _ _ 40 4‘ u 4 u u u _ _ _ - 35 u H 5 H H (£ _ . . . 30 (( u 6 u u u _ _ _ _ 27 “ When all the fire-plugs on the main were closed, except the first and one 2%-inch stand-pipe, and ‘160 feet of hose with a g-inch jet applied, the water rose to a height of 40 feet. The quantity of water delivered from the same (7-inch) main through one stand-pipe, and different length of hose, was as follows :— With 40 feet of hose 96 gallons in 59 seconds. “ so “ 112 “ “ 65 “ u 160 u 116 “ “ 7o “ ' “ 40 “ and 25-inch jet, 118 feet in 27 seconds. The second experiment was made with a 9-inch main 1,400 yards in length, joined to a 15-inch main of 1000 yards in length, and at a distance of 6,650 yards from the works. The stand-pipes used were 2§-inch, the hose '40 feet long, and the jet g-inch, as before. With 1 stand-pipe the water rose (6 2 H (I [I - 60 feet. _ 60 u 45 (I _ 40 u U 4 fl . (I l‘ . . . . u 6 u u u _ 200 ~ ’ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BLILDER. The quantity delivered with the same pipes, length of hose and size of jet, being With 1 stand-pipe 114 gallons in - - . - 64 seconds. 5‘ 4 u 115 u . _ . - 75 6‘ u 6 u 112 H . - - - 78 “ These experiments, with the two sizes of main-pipe, will indicate the rate at which the quantity is diminished by the friction of the water in smaller pipes, a result confirmed by another experiment made with the addition of 200 yards of 4-inch service and 200 yards of 5-inch pipe to the 9-inch main, last referred to. The hose, 40 feet long, and the jets fez-inch as before. ' With 2g-inch stand-pipe fixed on the 4-inch service near the 5-inch pipe, the water rose - . - - 40 feet. H 2 u U u u u H 31 H “ 1 “ “ “ fixed at the end of service or 200 yards from 5g-inch pipe, the water rose 34 feet. (‘ 2 u U H H 23 H The quantity delivered in each of the last four cases being respectively as follows :— 112 gallons in - - - - - - - 82 seconds. 117 “ - - - . - - - - 103 “ 112 “ - - - - - - - 90 “ 114 u _ . _ _ - _ _ _ 118 u The piping for the conveyance of water to buildings has to be graduated in capacity according to the quantity required, in the same way that the mains and service-pipes are proportioned to the building or buildings intended to be served. In some cases, in order to provide very fine cold water to private houses, an iron cistern, to hold not less than 20 gallons, is sunk eight or ten feet below the bottom of the cellar, and supplied with water through a small lead pipe entering it at the top, while the water is drawn off for use through another smaller pipe, inserted a few inches above the bottom of the cistern. It would appear, however, that the cleansing of cisterns thus situated must be a somewhat troublesome duty, and the means of regular access to a THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 20] cistern so deeply sunk in the ground must involve a con- siderable additional expense in construction. The several operations carried on within a building de- voted to manufacturing purposes should afi'ord the data upon which to determine the extent of drainage required ; but the most ready way of estimating the amount of refuse waters produced, will be reached by assuming this to equal the sup- ply of water rendered to the building. The application of the same rule to domestic buildings or dwellings, admits of a more exact calculation as to the capacity of drains required; but these must all alike be governed by the principle that ample capacity for immediate discharge is to be sought with due regard to the fact that all passages for the conveyance of liquid or semi-liquid matters are efficient in proportion to the narrowness of the surface over which these matters are required to flow. This is one of the most important results which recent inquiries have established. Sewers and drains were formerly devised with the single object of making them lavage emcg/z, by which it was supposed that their full effi- ciency was secured. But sluggishness of action is now recognized as the certain consequence of excess of surface equally as of deficiency of declination. A small stream of liquid matter extended over a wide surface, and reduced in depth in proportion to this width, suffers retardation from this circumstance as well as from a want of declivity in the current. Hence a drain which is disprOportionally large in comparison to the amount of drainage, becomes an inopera- tive apparatus, by reason of its undue dimensions; while if the same amount of drainage is concentrated Within a more limited channel, a greater rapidity is produced, and every addition to the contents of the drain aids by the full force of its gravity in prOpelling the entire quantity forward to the point of discharge. There are four conditions which are to be regarded as indispensable in the construction of all drains, from all build- ings. whatsoever. These conditions are—First. That the 9* 202 THE “MERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. entire length of drain is to be constructed and maintained with suficient declivitg/ towards the discharge into the sewer to enable the average proportion and quantity of liquid and solid matters committed to it to maintain a constant and uninterrupted motion, so that stagnation shall never occur Second. That the entire length of drain is to be constructed , and maintained in a condition of complete impermeability, so that no portion of the matters put into it shall escape from it. Third. That the head of the drain shall be so effi- ciently trapped that no gaseous or volatile properties or products can possibly arise from its contents. And, fourth. That the lower extremity of the drain, or the point of its communication with the sewer, shall be so properly, com- pletely and durably formed, that no interruption to the flow of the drainage or escape shall there take place, and that no facility shall be ofl'ered for the upward progress of the sewage in case the sewer becomes sureharged, and thus tends to produce such an effect. These conditions appear so simple in their statement, that we are disposed to regard them as self-evident necessi- ties; yet an acquaintance with the details of house-drainage, as commonly regulated, reveals the fact that they have been generally neglected, and that at the best the attention they have received has been most unwisely ‘erippled by considera- tions of cheapness in first cost at the expense of permanent economy and usefulness. Thus we know that house-drains are frequently laid with very imperfect fall—not sufficient, indeed, to propel the matters sent into them, except with the aid of gushes of drainage—water; that they are often com posed of defective and carelessly-built brickwork, with wide joints of sandy mortar; that the head of the drain is com- monly untrapped, and that the entire formation is badly designed and defectively executed. We will endeavor to show the arrangements by which the efficient action of the separate drains of houses and other buildings is most likely to be secured. THE AMERICAN comer. BUILDER. 203 The utmost practicable declivity being obtained in the direction of the drain, the efficiency of its action will be further much controlled by the construction adopted and the kind of surface presented to the sewage. Any roughness or irregularity in this surface will of course impede the pass. age of the sewage, and hence arises the necessity for the- greatest care in the construction, whatever the. material and kind of formation. The first step in the arrangement is to collect the whole of the drainage to one point—the head of the intended draining apparatus—and the determi- nation of this point requires a due consideration of its rela- tion to the other extremity of the drain at which the dis. charge into the sewer is to take place. In buildings of great extent this will sometimes involve a good deal of arrangement, and it will, perhaps, become desirable to divide the entire drainage into two or more points of delivery, and conduct it in so many separate drains to the receiving sewer. The length of each drain being thus reduced to a manage- able extent, the necessary fall will be more readily commanded, and the efficiency of the system secured. All main sewers should be formed with concave bottoms, to allow the water, however small in quantity, passing along with solid matter, to act with the utmost possible effect ; and they should be evenly built, not only that any solid matter may be unobstructed, but that the force of the running water may be as little lessened by friction and dis- tribution as possible. They should have arched tops, and be of sufficient height and width to allow men to pass along to repair or cleanse them. They should have a fall of not less than 1%—inch in every 100 feet in length, and more than this in all cases where the flow of water is variable. They should have a constant flow of water through them, or powerful flushes at stated intervals. Means should be provided for their complete ventilation; that is, fresh air should enter them from a low level, and 204 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. the heated and foul air should pass away at as high a level as possible. All soilage drains are found to be of sufiicient dimensions, and the soil and water find ample room to pass along, in a tube equal in capacity to a cylinder of six inches in diameter. They should have a fall of not less than one-half an inch in every one hundred feet, under favorable circumstances; and when the water is likely to be small in quantity, as much as two to three inches. They should be made water-tight, that the liquid portion of the soilage may not escape and leave the solid matters in the drain. They should have a constant flow of water through them, or water in continuous flushes on the lower levels, to carry the soilage onward, and to prevent any solid matter from being deposited within them. To prevent the foul air generated in or returning by the drains, the waste-ways should be double trapped by a well- trap at a sink where the waste water enters, and by a well- trap short of the inlet to the drain. All drains should be so constructed as to admit of being opened for the purpose of cleansing, without breaking them, and of the displaced portion being afterwards replaced. The average quantity of water which falls on a square yard of surface, in this country, is about 125 gallons, which for a building containing 50 square yards of roof, give 6,250 gallons. The best position for a water closet in any building, is that in which all the waste water shall be made the best use of in scouring the contents directly through the pan of the :loset, and propelling them forward through the private drain into the common sewer. And since the matters dis- charged into the closet will be—if the house-drain is reserved for its proper use—more solid and less readily conveyed than the other sewage matters; it will, moreover, be desira- ble to place the closet as near as possible to tl.e point at . 3k \ I - 3‘ .\ ‘l , -, . ' i" ., r ‘ . x . ’ 51‘ i :. n , , ”Rim-*3 \ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 205 which the drain discharges into the sewer. The velocity and force of the liquid sewage are increased to the lower or sewer end of the drain, and its effect is thus augmented in scouring away the contributions of the closet. But if this preferable position cannot be commanded for the closet, it must at any rate be so situated with regard to the head of the drain and the inlet for the liquid sewage, that these shall be behind or above it. When the closet and the house-sink are near to each other, the water from the latter may be conducted directly into the trap or basin of the closet, and thus secure at once a rapid discharge of its contents and a constant supply of liquid to preserve its action and efficiency. The rudest form of domestic accommodation or open privy over a cesspool is a contrivance which deserves notice only on account of its several imperfections, and which will, it may be hoped, be soon reckoned among the obsolete mis- takes of our forefathers. These cesspools are sometimes mere pits or holes excavated in the ground, and the contents of course rapidly permeate the surrounding soil; by which process pits of this kind frequently are found to drain them- selves, the perviousness 0f the material permitting the escape of the sewage, so that little accumulation takes place within the pit itself until the whole neighborhood becomes fully saturated with the drainage, which will then ooze through and appear upon the surface, or find its way through some defective foundation, and poison the basement of an adjoin- ing building. Constructed cesspools formed with brickwork of substantial quality will prevent this saturation in prOpor- tion as their walls are carefully and imperviously built. The matters daily discharged into these depositories accumulate, and their decomposition is constantly proceeding and engendering gases of the most noisome and pestilential kind. The open privy formed over a pit of this description afl'ords an outlet for the escape of these gases which are thus regularly supplied to the building above or adjacent to the closet. If a trap or water-basin and pan be applied to this 206- THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. privy, so that the pan dips into the trap, the eScape 3f elfluvia may be prevented so long as the trap is kept sup- plied with water. The supply of water for this purpose will, however, considerably augment the bulk of the sewage, and ' necessitate cleansing much more frequently than otherwise, unless some defect in the joints of the work afl‘ord a passage for the liquid matters into the surrounding strata, or a communication be afforded with a drain. In this latter case of combination of a cesspool with a drain, a waste-pipe may be laid from the former into the latter, so that the contents of the cesspool shall always be maintained at the same quantity and depth; the trap may then be dispensed with by attaching a vertical pipe to the lower part of the pan, so that this pipe shall dip into the sewage, and being thus con- stantly kept below its surface, no gas can pass upward through the pipe. The cost of the pan or basin and pipe required for this contrivance, if of stone-ware, is small, and its advantages in preventing the escape of efiluvia are obvious. The great importance, however, of avoiding all sources of unwholesome and offensive elfluvia, and of preserving the foundations of the buildings and the substrata of the soil of a town in a dry and clean condition, creates a severe neces- sity for relinquishing cesspools, and all receptacles for sewage, within or connected with all buildings and places whatso- ever, except those to which it is conducted for the purposes of collection and treatment. The sole purpose of all house apparatus of water closets, sin/rs, and drains, and of all public constructions of branch or tributary sewers, and main setters, should be that of aflording a passage for the conveyance of the refuse waters and other matters produced in a town. This con- veyance should be immediate, every particle corriruilted to the entire ramification of passages being preserved in ceaseless motion until it arrives at the final collectinnglace. In the country 01' in villages, these objections to cesspools have less force. Discarding cesspools upon these grounds. we are at the THE‘ AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 20'? same time led to the principle which should govern the Whole of the details of house-draining apparatus, which should be soarranged and combined as to afford the fewest possible inlets for efiluvia from the matters committed to the drains, and to make the total of the liquid refuse useful in advancing the current within the drains. The position of the water closet being determined, it becomes desirable to select the most economical and efficient construction for it, and for the apparatus connected with it. The head of the drain, and every inlet to it, requires to be fitted with a trap to prevent the escape of eflluvia, and this will equally form an indispensable part of the closet apparatus. The perfect action of the trap will demand a means of supplying water on each use of the closet, and although all possible advantage should be taken of the house sewage water in promoting the action of the drains, a separate and constantly-commanded source should be pro- vided for this purpose. If the supply of water to the house or building be rendered upon the constant—service system, a mere tap Will be sufficient to afl’ord the means of discharg- ing a volume of water through the trap of the closet. If the water be supplied upon the intermittent system, a cistern or reservoir of some kind, provided for the house supply, must be made to communicate With the pan of the closet by a pipe with a valve and apparatus for working it. For general use, it is especially desirable that economy and sim- plicity be combined in the whole of the apparatus of the closet. Delicacy of adjustment, requiring a complicated arrangement of parts, and a corresponding costliness of con- struction and repairs, and carefulness in management, is inadmissible in a design adapted for general adoption; and combinations of levers and cranks, liable to accidental derangement and injury by roughness of treatment, are therefore to be avoided as much as possible. The position of the cistern in relation to the closet will affect, in some degree, the force and efficiency of the volume of water dis- 208 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. charged on each occasion; and, if the supply of water to the building be constant, the service-pipe should be so conducted over the closet that the tap can be conveniently placed for admitting the required quantity to the pan. If the supply is obtained from a house-cistern, this must, of course, be placed above the pan, and at such elevation that the water may acquire a suflicient impetus to flow with rapidity. Glazed stoneware basins or pans, with syphon traps combined, before referred to, are very economical and effective for general purpOses. These are made in several forms; viz: with the pan and trap in one piece, and adapted to communicate either With a vertical or a horizon- tal drain, with a separate trap, having a screwed socket on the head, in which the lower part of the pan is received, being formed with a collar and screwed end; or as a some- what more complicated arrangement, consisting of a trap with a flanged head, and a separate dip-pipe, having a pro- jecting flange about its mid-length, and a Spreading mouth above, into which the lower part of the pan is fitted with cement. The dip-pipe, extending downwards into the trap, below the level at which its contents flow out, is secured to the head of the trap by bolts, passing through the holes in the flanges. The reason for making the pan separate from the dip-pipe, would appear to arise from a difficulty in forming them together with the wide projecting flange, so as to give sufficient steadiness t0 the pan above. Self—acting valves or traps are constructed of stoneware or metal; and the valves being hung at a slight inclination, and well filled with a rim on the meeting surface, they remain closed against any retrograde movement of the sewerage or gases, but are readily opened by a slight force of water in the outward direction of the drain. Sink traps are also formed of either substance, with perforated heads or covers, and syphon bends below, Which, remaining filled with the drainage water, prevent the escape of any eflluvia from the drain into which they give access. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 209 Although complexity of parts is to be avoided in water- _closets intended for use, in the greater number of dwellings, some of the more complete forms of apparatus adapted for self-action, and which necessarily comprise considerable detail of arrangement, are preferable in superior buildings, in which close economy of construction is not a first con- dition, and regular care and attention can be secured for the action of the apparatus employed. In some of these closets, the valve which opens and closes the opening into the water pipe, is attached by a rod to a lever, which, by means of a cord or chain, is connected with the door of the closet, so that the opening of the door opens the valve, and thus discharges a quantity of water into the pan. In another form of apparatus, the pressure of the person on - the seat produces a similar effect. One form of this closet is self—acting and doubly trapped, and designed to secure a supply and force of water, which shall always be eflicient and uniform without waste. It is so contrived that no soil can remain in the basin after use, and an ample supply of water being secured in the basin so as to form a “ water- lute” between that and the syphon-trap, the rising of smell is effectually prevented. The lower part of the pan dips into a water-pan or trap, which is hinged and maintained in a horizontal position, by a rolling balance—weight. The effect of pressure on the seat of the closet is to depress a lever and open a valve in the ’snpply-box of the cistern, and thus pour a volume of water into the water-pan or trap, sufficient to throw it Open, and thus afford a passage for the soil into the lower basin, which terminates in a syphon, and is also trapped with water. When the pres- sure is removed from the seat, the water-pan or upper trap is immediately brought back to a horizontal position by the rolling weight, and receives sufficient water before the closing of the valve to fill it, and thus effectually shut all communication with the lower basin. \ I 210 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. CHAPTER XV. RURAL HOMES. IN THE choice of the situation for a villa residence, twc classes of circumstances require to be taken into considera- tion: the one includes such as are absolute or permanent, and the other such as are accidental, or liable to vary from temporary causes. The permanent considerations include climate, elevation, surface, aspect, soil, water, and the sea; and the temporary or accidental circumstances are chiefly its locality, present State, prospective improvement, and the personal peculiarities of its intended possessor. Climate is. perhaps, the most important of the permanent circumstances which require to be kept in view in fixing on the situation of a villa; because it is less subject to human improvement than any other. In every country of any extent, the climate difl'ers in different parts of it, and the popular divisions may be stated to be the cold, the warm, and the moist. The last is unquestionably the least desir- able; because it admits of least amendment by human means. The cold climate, provided it be dry, is often one of the healthiest, and it may always be improved by plant- ing, to afford shelter, and by increasing the dryness of the soil by draining. The warm climate, if it be dry, is always agreeable; and if the heat be intense during summer, it can be readily moderated by the shade of trees. A wet climate can scarcely be improved; it must necessarily be unhealthy, compared with a dry one, on account of the moisture with which the atmosphere is always charged; and it precludes the exercise of the greatest of rural improve ments—the surrounding the house with plantations. Elevation is the next most important circumstance to climate, although some may assign the second place to the THE AMERICAN COTTAGE. BUILDER. 211 character of the surface. The great advantage of elevation is, that it gives a command of prospect, without ‘which, a villa may be beautiful, picturesque, or romantic; but it can never be dignified or grand, and scarcely even elegant or graceful. The term elevation must always be considered as relative; and not to be determined by measurement. In a flat country, a knoll of one hundred feet in height, by raising the ground floor of the house above the level of the tops of the highest trees in the surrounding plain, will allow the eye to range over an extensive distance; to catch a view, in all probability, of some river or stream; and in a cultivated country, to command towns, villages, farms, and human dwellings. On the other hand,’where the whole of the surface is hilly, he that prefers elevation, must fix on a' hill somewhat higher than those by which it is surrounded, so as, at all events, to look over some of them. It is not necessary to dignity of effect and variety of prospect, that a house in a hilly country should enjoy such extensive views as a house on a plain, because in the former case, the variations of the surface produce that expression in the landscape, which in the flat country is unknown, and but faintly compensated for by the movement of the clouds, and other atmospherical changes. In every country, however, there is a limitation to the height at which it is desirable to build dwelling houses; and this limitation is clearly determined by the growth of the principal timber trees of the country, indigenous or acclimated, and the ripening of the hardy fruits. In other words, it is determined by the capacities of the situation for gardening. Whenever a situation is so high that trees will not attain sufficient dimensions to shelter the house, or fruit not ripen on the garden walls, it ought to be abandoned, unless a better one cannot be found. The character of the surface on which to build a villa, is the next consideration, and is also one of great importance. A surface may be uniformly hilly, or irregularly so; and \ 212 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. may consist of ridges and valleys, or of ridges or. the sides of hills, rising above each other without valleys. The variety, in short, is so great, that it can scarcely be clas- sified with sufficient distinctness. It is hardly possible, how- ever, to conceive a hilly surface in which excellent situa- tions may not be found for setting down a villa. Perhaps “One of the most desirable is where a prominent knoll stands forward from a lengthened, irregular ridge; and where the latter has a valley with a river in front, and higher hills, rising one above another, behind. One of the worst is, per- haps, the steep, uniform side of a high hill, closely sur. rounded by other bills equally high and steep. On the whole, it may be observed, that though an irregular surface affords the greatest variety of excellent situations for build- ing on, yet, at the same time, it is one in which the inex. perienced are likely to commit the greatest errors; and one, also, respecting which it is more difficult to lay down general rules than any other. Aspect is next in the order of importance. There are some considerations respecting aspect which appiy to every country; and others to particular countries or districts of country only. Nothing in the architecture or appendages of a house can compensate for its being set down on the north side of a high hill or ridge, where it is precluded from partaking of the direct influence of the sun during three or four months of the year. In most countries, there is some point of the compass, from which rain and storms are more frequent than any other; and to set down a house in such a manner as .to be exposed to these tempests is evidently injudicious. An aspect exposed to high Wind is less objec- tionable than one exposed to driving rains; since shelter may be afforded from the former by trees, but not from the latter by any means. Soil and subsoil are very generally reckoned among the primary considerations in the choice of a site for a villa; and they are undoubtedly the first, as far as respects the THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 213 value of the estate. But it must be recollected that the soil about a house can be totally changed by art, While the previously mentioned requisites of climate, elevation, sur- face and aspect, hardly admit even of improvement. Where these circumstances are favorable, the nature of the soil and subsoil, though of secondary importance, have yet still considerable influence, both in regard to health and enjoy- ment of the occupant, and the growth of the plantations. A soil which retains moisture on its surface, which is the case with most clays and loams with retentive bottoms, may be considered as the least healthy; and the one which admits of being walked on without wetting the feet, the soonest after a shower of rain, is the most so. For the present purpose, it will be sufficient to consider all soils as either clayey, sandy, gravelly or chalky; and all subsoils as either based on granite, argillaceous rock, sandstone, lime- stone, or chalk. Soils based on rocky subsoils, whatever may be the nature of the stone, may always be considered healthier than alluvial soils, sands or gravels. Soils laying on calcareous and sandstone rocks, are found to produce healthier surfaces than those on chalk or slatestone; and surfaces, also, which are much better adapted for cultivation and the growth of trees. In this respect, the subsoil is sometimes of more importance than the soil ; for the latter, in general, can be improved by draining—and its suscepti- bility of this improvement varies materially, according to the nature of its subsoil. The most difficult subsoils to underdrain, are those composed of moist, retentive clays; and when, to this subsoil is joined a flat surface, the situa- tion, as far as respects the enjoyment of walking in the open air, is one of the most hopeless kind. A bad subsoil is an effectual barrier to the thriving of timber trees; and, as these constitute the finest ornaments of every country seat, the importance of choosing a subsoil either naturally congenial to them, or capable of being rendered so by art, is sufficiently obvious. In an economical point of View, 't 214 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. is always more desirable to choose a poor soil than a rich one, provided it be dry, for the immediate site of a house. Rich soils are better reserved for cultivation; and indeed, for the purpose of lawns and kept grounds, they only serve to increase the expense of mowing and weeding, by the luxurious growth of herbage. On the whole, therefore, the most important consideration, in respect to the soil of the site for a villa, is, that it should be dry, and placed on a subsoil favorable to the growth of trees. Water is the remaining consideration; but it is one of very secondary importance. For all domestic purposes, it can be procured almost everywhere, by boring 'or sinking wells; and pieces of artificial water, where expense is not an object, may be supplied by machinery, from natural sources, at the distance of miles. The word VILLA was originally used by the Romans tc denote a farm house, with the offices requisite for the accom- modation of a husbandman. Afterwards, when luxury in- creased, the term villa was applied to the country residence of the opulent Roman citizen; and it is in the same sense that we now use it to signify a gentleman’s residence in the country. As a villa is to be a place of agreeable retire- ment, and not one of seclusion from the world, it should be situated, if possible, in a beautiful country, within reach of a public road, and at an easy distance from the city. Were we to select a residence of tln's description, we would choose a country neither flat nor mountainous, varied with hill and vale, and rather approaching to the mountainous than to the dull monotony of a level surface. We should prefer a situation removed about a mile from a great public road, and not exceeding a day’s journey from the city. Here we would enclose a park of one hundred or one hundred and fifty acres, bounded on the north and west sides of it by lofty wooded trees; on another side, by a road; and else. where, by the enclosed country of the district; the surface .of the park varied, but generally inclining to the south, THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 215 with a rapid stream of water passing through it at no great distance from the site of the house. The park, in form, should be irregular—neither round nor square—but the length greater than the breadth. The country itself would, in great measure, determine the line of the boundary fence. Near to the woody hill, on the nerth side of the park, on a gentle eminence, should be the situation for the house; and we would so place the principal front as to be seen from the public road, and to command a beautiful and extensive prOSpective over a fertile country—having, in the middle distance, a town or village with its “heaven-directing Spire” reflected in the broad reach of a noble river, and, in the extreme distance, a mountainous country, or the sea- the foreground of the view to be well broken up by the timber in the park. The house should stand near the north boundary, nearly but not quite in the centre of the length of the park, which we would divide into three unequal por- tions. That portion which would be before the house, should be an Open lawn of an irregular shape, crossed 0b- liquely by the stream, widened in parts, and having the banks fringed with underwood and a few trees—the lawn itself being broken irregularly with thorns, holly, furze, fern and trees; and varied, where the surface indicated a place for them, with groups and single trees. The other two portions we would make unequal—the smallest towards the village. There should be laid out, in imitation of forest scenery, with Open glades and thickets, an irregular lawn in each, with occasional openings to the principal lawn before the house, and to the distant prospect, or any pic- turesque object in the surrounding country—taking advan- tage of the inequalities of the surface, and following as closely as possible the most beautiful natural scenery. An irregular green, drive or walk may be formed around the whole. As to trees, we would have every kind of forest tree that soil and space would allow; but we should prefer the oak, sycamore tree (one of the noblest trees when old)_ 216 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. the elm (narrow leaved), Spanish and horse chestnut, the maple, hornbeam, and a few others. Of course we should add lower growths, such as thorn, holly, broom, fern, and even furze. To have a close, even turf, which is one of the chief beauties in park scenery, we should keep it well stocked with cattle, young horses, sheep, and, if possible, a few deer. Many parks, beautiful in themselves, convey an unpleasant feeling of dullness and solitude. Cattle and domestic animals always give a certain air of cheerfulness to a park scene; but still the effect is often solitary, where there is no appearance of human habitation besides the mansion. An ornamental temple or summer house; a pigeon house—often a very picturesque object; the keeper’s lodge, which should be Within the park; and even a few gables of the farm buildings, seen at a distance—would all contribute to give the effect of cheerfulness and a pleasing variety to a richly-wooded park. We should even wish to have a public foot-path across it and within sight of the house, though at such a distance as to be no inconvenience. Nothing is more cheerless than that exclusive, solitary grandeur, so much affected in the present day, which for- bids the poor even to set a foot within the precincts of greatness. As the most beautiful landscape is incomplete without figures, so the general effect of a park is always lonely, unless it have a foot-path frequented by the pictur- esque figures of persons less favored than the occupant of the villa, and giving life and interest to the scene. Even the line of a foot—path is in itself beautiful, and breaks the monotony of the green turf. The next appendage to the villa which requires atten- tion is the farm. Every person occupying a residence such as we have described, should occupy a farm of sufficient extent to supply the family with provisions—such as meat, bread, poultry, milk, butter, cheese, &c. The perfection of rural economy is to purchase nothing which the estate can be made to produce; and the advantage of this system, “A“... “nun“u ; ////////// , /;/ //////// R >45. l0 5 f£.-H_-{Uv~ GROI'ND PLAN. J ‘ é . L._Il ”WW 9 \‘ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\§ \ \ \\\\\ m \\\\\\\\\\‘\\ \\ \ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\‘\\\\\\\\ 1*: 1" ‘ \'\ u R A H Y J[‘- A IA U N 1 f1: 1mm ‘x’ THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 217 under judicious management, is, that you have an abund- ance of everything, and a liberal style of housekeeping, at prime cost. Thus, under the system of management sup- posed, besides the ordinary provisions supplied by the farm, the estate might afford game and wild fowl. If it be said that it would be, perhaps, better economy to buy than to produce these luxuries, we answer, that in that case, things are not well managed; and probably the owner of the place is a thoughtless, idle person, who does not make him- self acquainted with his own concerns. But supposing it to be rather more expensive to produce than to purchase these luxuries; at all events, when you produce them, you have then an abundance; they are always ready on any sudden emergency; and you can have them much oftener. In ”RURAL HOME No. 1,” the style of architecture in- tended to be conveyed by the elevation is decidedly of Swiss origin and the general form perfectly simple—the variety in the external elevation being produced by the projecting roof. The protected bay window also tends to enliven the design, and is always an agreeable addition. The accomodations are as follows: a, entrance to ofiice; b, otlice; c, clothes-pantry; d, main hall and staircase; e, reception-room; f, parlor with porch; g, kitchen; It, cook- room; 2', scullery; If, If, water tank and sink; 1, m, 72, pan- tries, closets, &c.; o, sitting-room; p, q, water closets, &c A .. _.;_.-_..4 218 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. These embellishments embrace two views of a surburban residence, in the English castellated style, strikingly illustra- tive of the great beauty attainable by a happy mixture of the different orders. In connection with “ RURAL HOME No. 2,” we have the following description: “ We bethink us of a cottage in the pointed style, a mixture of Elizabethan and Gothic, situated adjacent to the} beautiful. Hudson. The house approxi- mated to the tasty—but we must term it the mongrel order—and was all that the most fastidious could require; in fact, the acme of convenience, comfort and beauty; but the features that comprised more particularly the beau. ideal of elegance, was the green, velvety, undulating lawn, which occupied that portion of the estate directly fronting the mansion, spreading over an area of nearly half-a-mile in extent, interspersed with islands of shrubbery, clumps of evergreens, tall, spreading pendulous conifers, umbrageous oaks, rare trees from far distant climes, covered with all the luxurious foliage and flowers of the tropics. Another attribute, and by no means an unimportant one, was the garden contiguous, forming a sort of back ground to the lawn, in which luxuriated the more tangible and substantial requirements of our corporeal existence. There flourished ' the luscious peach, With its downy cheek, the buttery-melting RURAL HGMI‘P—No. 234 ISN’JLL’NJ - ¥:l'r- .F: Ww—w—p—Www , mumm u umuuml ”— 5—1-31,— u II)1||II[N?|IIHIJL 1 J.‘ 7"]: , 9/ €f{~“r?"J-__”> ‘ ‘ ' 1‘: r ' at» ’ ’ axfiv \~:,, - k4i1f\r\;'§’\r§;?/f/f- - \. \ ,V , RURAL HOME No.3 [Seep‘WH THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 219 pear, the red-checked cherry, the golden apricot; and, peeping out, nearly smothered by its own habiliments, we discovered that never-cloying delicacy, the strawberry, as if endeavoring to escape that inevitable destiny peculiar to strawberries, of being smothered in cream. These were but a tithe of the many provocatives and inducements to sojourn in the country, by which we were surrounded The beautiful cottage “N o. 2,” is a design by LOUDON. There are many reasons which would lead a person to select the mixed style for a country residence: for instance, it is more picturesque and ornamental; it best accords with rural scenery; and, as it admits of great irregularity of form, it afl‘ords space for the various offices and conveniences necessary to a country home. In the accomodations of the ground plan, we have an entrance porch, which is to be finished with a coned roof, and to have Gothic niches in the angles for statues, &c. From this we pass to the hall and staircase by a Venetian door, the upper part of which is glazed with stained glass; thence to a small ante-room, from which there is a door, to the covered terrace. From the hall we enter the dining-room, containing two windows, which are to be brought down to the floor and to Open like French easements, so as to admit of easy access to the terrace when the ante—room is occupied. From the hall, we likewise enter the drawing-room, which has a door to the ante-room—also to the kitchen. The kitchen door from the hall is finished, on the staircase side, in the same manner as the doors of the principal rooms. This door will only occasionally be used as an entrance from the porch to the kitchen, as there is an entrance through the yard and wash- house for servants, etc. The above description embodies all that our plate recognizes. In the engravings representing “ RURAL HOME No. 3,” we have a beautiful design by Mr. W. H. VVILLcox, a young Architect of much promise. “’6 give the artist’s own words :— .6- ..:‘.‘.z.>. ..,.‘ @ma“ ’- ’ , -L..- .~_L.» .. a “Akin, .te 220 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. “ The design of this cottage is simple yet expressive, and is of the modified Italian style; a style which, With its broad, overhanging, bracketed roofs—sheltering thoroughly the walls from the weather—and pleasing piazzas, is well adapted to our northern climate; and while there is nothing diflicult or expensive in the construction of the various details, its bold, projecting roofs and bay windows give character to the exterior. It is intended to meet the requirements and exigencies of a small family; and, simple and inexpensive as it is, it contains more of the real essen- tials which a house should possess, than many that have cost double the sum.” The plan of the principal floor suificiently explains itself, showing an ample hall, with a handsome staircase (this hall might be used as a sitting-room) abundantly lighted, and giving easy access to both drawing and dining—rooms, and by means of a lower staircase, to kitchen and other base— ment apartments. There is also a back door Opening to rear of house. The drawing-room is fifteen by twenty feet, with a large semi-octagonal bay window, surrounded with a piazza, alfording an agreeable accompaniment. At the end, the green-house or conservatory is entered by means of a sliding- sash door; and to add to the effect produced, a fountain of pleasing proportions might, with great taste, be introduced. The dining-room is fifteen by twenty feet, also provided with a bay window, and contains a good closet. The bay windows (the semi-octagonal being carried up in the second floor,) form very striking features in this design, and the result is not altogether unpleasant. The basement contains a good-sized kitchen, with its seve- ral adjuncts of pantry, closets, &c.; a cellar, laundry, and store room, all sufficiently lighted—the kitchen being ahnOst above ground, owing to the surface on this side falling off sufficiently for that purpose. The second floor contains three bed-rooms, a bath-room, water-closet, and several closets—Lthose indispensable attach- THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 22l ments to every country-house. In the attic we have two rooms, large Open attic closets and cistern. All the rooms are quite large, adequately ventilated, and showing a very convenient and compact arrangement; one Where comfort and good effect are combined to a very considerable degree. N o flimsy ornamentation or filigree work enters in the slight- est degree into this composition. All is plain, simple and expressive, as a cottage Should be. The great criterion of perfection in design, is, that all the parts about a building should be subservient to convenience, construction, and propriety. Discard these, and we have a building at once unsatisfactOIy. Discordant emotions imme— ‘ diately supplant those of harmony. Says a celebrated writer: “If you cannot be consistent in decoration, at least be consistent in the omission of it, and do not seem even to aim at what you can only imper- fectly accomplish. If circumstances prevent you from pro- ' ducing a finished picture, do not work up in parts, here and there, While others are merely sketched in. In a. word, attend to keeping.” And this is good, sound advice. Were it more attended to, we should not be grieved to see such enormous sums irrecoverably sunk to produce that beau- ty ('3) which, although it may seem to please the vulgar taste for a time, does not fail to end in disappointment. Decorations that are added to the essential portions of cottages, require the same degree of judgment and judicious application as relates to other works of art. They should be distributed with discrimination and economy, and should be conformable with the character of a country residence: and all ornamentation applicable to the interior, should exhibit a rural air, expressive of the liberty, enjoyment and gayety, that reign supreme in the country. As we too often see them, cottages are made to put on affected airs, and ape palaces and castles. Great care is taken that the exterior shall “show to advantage,” and consequently we see filagree work and gew-gaws nailed on 222 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. in places where neatness and modesty should. appear; and what with pinnacles, turrets, battlements, and other objects, which a nomenclator would find it difficult to assign any particular title, we are induced to eXclaim with Petruchio— “What! up and down, carv’d like an apple tart? Here’s snip, and nip, and cut, and slish, and slash, Like to a censer in a barber’s shop : Why I what, o’devil’s name, t’ailor, call’st thou this?” Perhaps nothing is more indicative of the character of its occupants than the external appearance of a country dwell- ing; a house standing in an exposed situation, costly though it may be, has a very repulsive and uninviting appearance. N0 grateful shelter of umbrageous trees and shrubs offers to protect us from- the scorching rays of a summer sun; and it ' is but natural to portend the want of taste, as well as intel- ligence, in those who occupy it. But far different is the result of the neat cottage, surrounded with shady shrubs and trees; and though the cottage be ever so-humble in its pre- tensions, it has a clean, tidy appearance; and, with its grounds richly cultivated, its flowers “All woven in gorgeous tissues, Flaunting gayly in the golden light,” shrubs and trees pleasantly disposed, and a patch of well- kept lawn,lare indicative of attention paid to other than “ mere animal enjoyments.” Nor is this privilege denied to any possessor of a country residence, for the. most limited spot of ground may be adorned with much beauty and effect. It may be laid out with winding or curved paths, neatly bordered with various flowers, blending their gaudy colors harmoniously together; planted with a goodly assortment of shade trees and ornamental shrubs,'of Which there can be ever had a bountiful variety; a trellis here, with‘climbing' plants; a bower there, with its cool, refreshing shade; a few vases, disposed with care over the lawn, receptacles for flow- ering plants. These, and more (according as the place is larger or smaller) are susceptible of giving an air of refine- E EEE R U R A L H 0 HF, No. 4—N0n'rn ELEVATION. {See p. ‘22?“ ‘ F ' , H | ~u an“ m :\ “WWW" I H ‘ 1““ II III [See p. ‘2 2.3,] SOFT" ELEVATION—EIUH’I‘ FEET TO ’I‘IH') l.\‘('ll RURAL HOME. No. 4.—Wms'r ELEVATIOR. [Seep.223.] or 1r ‘1; _ UNIVT'RSIT'Y 0“ cam-'03!” THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 228 ment, otherwise quite unattainable, and at a very slight expense. Were our country residences more generally deck- ed with simplicity and taste, we imagine that the number of our young men who wander from the patrimonial estate, and precipitate themselves into the dissipated and vitiated follies of a city life, would be very materially lessened. A great desideratum for the ebuntry is the wire fence (such as manufactured by WICKERSHAM, N. Y.) Inconspicu~ ous, and combining in an eminent degree lightness and cheapness, it offers a very striking contrast to the miserable, rickety, zig—zag, post-and—rail fence often met within the country. It is more durable, and far more economical than any other species of fence, since by this mode no ground is lost or made unproductive, and it combines “taste and orna- ment with the utmost permanence and security.” We hope to see this style of country fencing in more general use than at present. . WM. H. WILLCOX, ARCHITECT, 381 Broadway, N. Y. The design “ RURAL HOME No. 4,” is by Mr. LEOPOLD' EIDLI'rz, a New. York Architect of established reputation. It is in the Swiss style, and is intended to stand on a hill- side, opening on a lawn toward the north. The house pos- sesses great external beauty and harmony and is internally convenient. The view toward the north would, if the house were on an elevation, be quite pleasant; while to travelers on the road toward the south, who see the house as shown in the “South Elevation,” (see engrav- ing} the snug, comfortable and pleasant appearance, is quite striking. The “Drawing Room” is in the south-western portion of the house, which, by general consent, is the pleasantest part of the building. All the conveniences of a house of the first class are designed for the cottage—such as, baths, water, &c., &c. Chancellor LIVINGSTON used to prefer a house or country residence situated on ground SIOping from the north to the 224. THE AMERIC,AN COTTAGE BUILDER. south. On the most northern portion of the ground he would plant a hedge or grove of trees, to shelter the house from the northern Winds or storms. Trees should not be planted close to the house, as they are supposed to harbor dampness, and consequently make the residence unhealthy. It is usual to place trees at least twice as far from the house, as the trees are high; that is, a tree thirty feet high should be at least sixty feet from the house, and a tree forty-five feet high should be at least ninety feet distant from the house. The Chancellor would plant the trees of the largest growth on the extreme north, and come down gradually to the smallest; then from the largest shrubs down to the smallest; then from the largest plants down to the strawberry, which would be on the extreme south. The V house should be about two-thirds the distance from the strawberry to the northern boundary. The pathways, walks, and fences around a cottage should always be curved, rather than straight. HOGARTH found the line of beauty in the letter S—in a. curve. This branch of the subject, however, is fully discussed in the chapter on “Design in Architecture,” in the first book of this series, “History and Rudiments of Architecture.” RURAL HOME—N0. 4. (C W io a LIBRARY DRAWING ROOM 22' O 35 BED ROOM 33’4” »—I-=u PLAN 0? FIR-ST STORY. \- I460" SERVANIS ROOM SERVANTS BED ROOM BED ROOM l BED BOOM PLAN or SECOND STORY. [See p. 223.] THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUXLDER. 225 CHAPTER XVI. PAfNT AND COLOR. IN all decisions respecting the relative beauty of objects or of qualities, we find no source of difference and misunder- standing so fertile as the confusion between owular and mental pleasure—that which addresses itself to the external sense alone, or through it to the mind alone. Continual mistakes, arising from this confusion, run through eVery- thing we see or hear on the subject, from the simple “ I like it,” or “ I do not like it,” without giving a reason, up to the most subtle and elaborate theories of beauty and taste, as those of Hogarth, Burke, Price, and Alison. It seems, therefore, that nothing is more difficult than to define the exact boundary between the provinces of the mind and of the eye; or, in an object that pleases both, to distinguish which of its qualities or excellencies address themselves to each exclusively of the other, and which (if any) are calculated to afford pleasure both ways: yet nothing is more necessary than this, in the outset of any rational inquiry into the truth or falsehood of an alleged rule or principle, in architecture or any other fine art. So great has been the difference of opinion on' this point that some authors (Milizia, for instance) have denied the existence of ocular forms of beauty, 1'. e., they deny that any form is more pleasing than another to the mere sense or vision, apart from mental inferences or associations; which has led, on the other hand, to the question, whether this sense differs from all others, in having no preference of one sensation to another- -no likes or dislikes. Such an anomalous deviation from the analogy that obtains between all the other senses cannot for a moment he admitted; and accordingly, we shall find that the eye has 10* ‘ 226 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. its choice and preference of one simple sensation to another, not perhaps with regard to forms, (which cannot be regard- ed as simple sensations, or even sensations at all ,) but cer tainly'with regard to colors, whiCh are the only occular qualities coming under this denomination. Children and savages, who, in the choice of colors, consult nothing beyond the immediate gratification of the eye, invariably prefer a certain class of colors—those termed crude or positive—to another class—those which we term dull colors or tones. Now, that the preference shown to the former is purely a matter of sensation, with which the mind has nothing to do, will be plain from the fact that the mind has, in these and most other cases, no knowledge whatever of what consti- tutes the difference between these sensations: it knows nothing of any physical resemblance that may exist between the colors included in each of these classes, which does not apply to the other class; nor have we any name to distin- guish these two qualities, otherwise than by their pleasing or displeasing‘efi'ects. Thus we apply the term bright to the more pleasing class; but every one perceives that this is only done by a metaphor, (because light is more pleasing than darkness,) for the pure or positive colors are not neces- sarily more luminous than the others, but only more eye- pleasing. The purer of two colors may be, and often is the darker; and then, in comparing them, we discover the insufficiency of the word bright to express what we mean, and are therefore obliged to replace it by the word rich—- another metaphor, observe, still implying nothing more than fine or pleasing. Thus. the preference of one color to another, abstractedly, without reference to fitness or associ- ation, must be regarded as merely and wholly a sensuous preference, like that of one simple sound, or one flavor to another. The analogy, therefore, between the eye and the other organs of sense, is complete and unbroken, without any necessity for supposing it to have a. preference of one form to another. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 227 The discovery, indeed, of a physical reason for those pre- lerences, inthe case of two of the senses (sight and hearing) -—1the discovery why red is more pleasing than brown, or blue than gray, or the sound of a string than that of a stick “that is, the discovery of some describable quality common to the red and blue, and other colors of the same class, and to the string and other musical sounds, which quality is not possessed by the dull colors and the unmusical noises—- must be considered one of the greatest triumphs of inductive science. It is now perfectly known in what this difl‘erence consists; and, moreover, that it is the same in both senses. For, as both light and sound affect their respective organs by an inconceivably rapid repetition of vibrations or pulsa- tions, so, in both cases, it is found that the pleasurableness of the sensation, Whether of sound or of color, increases just in proportion as these vibrations are more regular, iso- chronous, or equal-timed; that, in the colors of the spec- trum, or the sounds of a glass bell, they are perfectly so; and that the duller or more dead thecolor or sound becomes, the more irregular are these vibrations, till, when they are totally irregular, we perceive only a sensation, not a plea- surable one, a wooden sound of no definite note, or a neutral tint of no definite color. An eminent artist has observed reSpecting tame, “a pro- perty or quality of color, the opposite of gaudiness or harsh- ness,” that “ it bears that relation to colors in general, that the quality of a musical note does to that of an unmusical sound or mere noise. In music this is known to depend upon the vibrations of the air being isochronous, or at equal intervals. Should it be discovered that colors are also produced by vibrations, tone, in its present application, may prove to arise from similiar regularity.” But physical optics exactly contradict this ingenious surmise, by disclos- ing that crude or gaudy colors correspond to musical sounds, and that it is precisely the sober “tones” of color that are non-isochronous, like noises. The error evidently arose 228 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. from the artist, absorbed in the higher excellencies of his art, mistaking a mental for an occular beauty. If he had observed the conduct of children, who look only for the latter, he would have perceived that it is the crude positive colors which are the sweets of the eye, and that the tones are its bitters, or at least, its insipid, ordinary food. In fact, that whenever the latter are preferred to the former in a picture, it is from a mental, not an occular preference; and a sensuous beauty is sacrificed, as it should be, to an intel- lectual one. \ But for how many ages were these differences perfectly well seen and heard, and these preferences shown—by how many millions is this still done, without a possibility of knowing in what the differences consist? We hence learn that the mind can have no share in appreciating this lowest species of beauty. So, also, the harmony of colors—that is, the preference given to a juxtaposition of two certain colors rather than to that of other two, though equally bright or pleasing when seen separately, must be wholly an occular beauty; for the mind cannot (by the direct evidence of the unaided sense) discover any relation between red and green, for instance, which does not exist between the blue and green. We can only say that the former harmonize together, and the latter do not. As the mind knows, in general, nothing at all about this harmony, the mind can have nothing to do with an appreciation of it. It required the utmost refinement of modern science to discover that this case is analogous to that of two harmonizing sounds; and even in this latter instance, though most persons would know whether the two notes were in harmony or not, the finest musical ear in the world would never discover, from the sound alone, (unless he has studied acoustics or seen the strings,) that the.lengths or tensions of these strings bore certain ratios to each other, and that when the notes were discordant, these ratios were incommensurable. It was very right for the contem THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 22$ poraries of Aristotle, or Vitruvius, to reason from this to all manner of hidden sympathies between the mind and mathematical ratios—which it perceived without being able to state—which it discovered and yet did not discover. This was the best way of accounting for the fact then, the highest generalization that the science of those times rendered pos- sible. It would be a disgrace to science at present, because we have a plain physical reason which not only generalizes all the phenomena of harmony and discord, but brings them under the very same principle that distinguishes between notes and noises. For it is evident that two sets of vibra- tions which are each regular in itself,.and which bear a simple ratio to each other, by uniting together form a vibration which is also regular, and therefore musical; but two vibrations which, however regular, each may be alone, bear no commensurable ratio to each other, will, by their union, produce a totally irregular vibration, i. e., a noise. ‘Ve may illustrate this principle by supposing two clocks placed side by side, one beating every second, and the other twice in a second; the combination of the two beats will produce a regular repeated sound. Suppose the beating of both be 100 or 1000 times more rapid, and you have the case of two notes sounded together, having the interval of an octave. If one clockbeat seconds, and the other thrice in two seconds, or five times in four seconds, a regular sound would also in both cases result; and this would resemble the case of two notes differing from each other by amusical fifth in the former case, or a third in the latter. But let one clock beat as before 3600 times an hour, and the other 6211 times, as these numbers have no common measure, a Whole hour must elapse, before the beat will recur in the same order as at first; so that in listening to this sound, we shall perceive no regularity whatever. This is the case with the vibrations of two discordant notes. They may also be incommensumble, so as never to coincide in any length of time. Thus, suppose a grating of bars one 230 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. inch apart (including their breadth,) to be laid on one an other, of which the bars are three—quarters of an inch apart, or any other distance, exactly expressed in parts of an inch, the two will combine to form a regularly striped pattern, which will be larger or broader, the more complex the ratio between the two gratings may be; the breadth of one alternation of the pattern being the smallest space that contains an exact number of each set of bars. But let the intervals in one of the gratings be an English inch, and in the other a French centimetre; or let one be an inch and the other the diagonal of a, square inch ,- as they are incom- mensurable, no regular alternation can occur, however far the gratings may be extended. This is in general the case with two discordant vibrations. When the nerve has been affected with a particular vibra- tion, it will necessarily‘accomodate itself with more ease to a new vibration, the more simple the ratio that this vibra- tion bears to the former; so that those which bear the simplest ratios to each other, are most in harmony with each other. Such is the plain physical harmony, which shows it to be altogether a matter of the ear, and not of the hand. . Harmony in color is perfectly identical with this, only on account of the comparatively limited range of the eye’s sensi- bility to vibration, as compared with the ear. Sir JOHN HER- SCHELL considers the whole compass of the scale of visible colors to correspond only to the interval called in music minor—sixth. It happens that in this case there is only one har- monic ratio; that is to say, that, though a given note in music may harmonize with many others, as the third, fifth, octave, twelfth, &c., above it, and one below it, a given color in the spectrum can only have one harmonic, viz., that vibration which in music would be called the third, either above it (never both, because the scale is not long enough to include them); so that, between the vibrations of two colors that harmon- ize, there is always 'the same ratio as between the two firear- THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 23] est musical vibrations that harmonize, viz., the ratio of four to five. ' As few seem aware of the universal application of this rule to harmony in colors, we insert the following table, in which the first column contains the names of the simple colors; the second column their number of undulations in an inch, according to the measurements of Sir JOHN HER- SCHELL. This number being increased or diminished in the ratio of four to five, or_five to four, gives that in the third column, corresponding (according to the same authority,) to the color named in the last column, which is, in every case, the harmonic or contrast to that. in the first : Undulations per inch. Extreme red (crimson), 37,640x1.25=47,050 . . Green. Red, . . . . . . . . . . . 39,180X1.25=48,975 . . Bluish-grcen. Reddish—orange, ..... 40,720x1.25=50,900 . . Grcenish—blue. Orange, . . . . . . . .- . 41,610X1.25=52,012 . . Blue. Orange-yellow, ..... 42,510x1.25=53,137 . . Indigo blue. Yellow, ..... . . . . . . 44,000X1.25=55,000 . . Purplish—indigo. Yellowish-green, . . . . 45,600X1.25m’7,000 . . Violet. Green, .......... 47,460+1.25=37,968 . . Crimson. Greenish—blue, ..... 49,320+i.25=39,456 . . Red. Blue, ........... 51,110+1.25=40,888 . . Orange-red. Indigo blue, ....... 52,910+1.25=42,328 . . Yellowish-orange. Indigo, .......... 54,070+1.25=43,256 . . Orange~yellow. Purplish-indigo, . . . . 52,240+}.25=44,192 . (Yellow. Violet, .......... 57 ,490+1.25=45,992 . . Yellowish—green. Extreme (reddish-violet)59,750+1.25=47,800 . . Green. It must be remembered that each color in the first or last column is harmonic, not only to the one placed in a line with it, but to all modifications thereof ; that is, 1. To all its tints, from the purest or most intense color up to White. 2. To all its shades, from the same pure color down to black. 3. To all its shaded tints or diluted shades, formed in 232 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. painting, by mixing it with both black and white in any proportion; or, in other words, with any neutral tint in any pr0portion. 4. By mixing it with any exact harmonic color in any proportion—for every color neutralizes an equivalent portion of its opposite color, so that painters who wish to avoid black- ness often paint the shadows on a colored object, not with neutral tint, but with the color opposite to that of the object; for, by this means, its color may be lowered most with the least diminution of luminosity. No one could discover the harmony of 4ths and 5ths from the inspection of a red and a green, or any other twc harmonic colors; so that this, no less than abstract beauty of single colors, is purely an occular beauty, arising from the retina of the eye, when impressed with a certain vibra- tion, accommodating itself most easily to a new vibration that bears a simple ratio to a former one. 'Colors that harmonize are commonly said to form contrasts; at least, such is the case if they be both of equal purity and intensity, which, however, is not neCessary to harmony. A nice dis- tinction has been attempted to be drawn between simulta- neous and successive contrasts; but the fact is, they are always successive; for when two colors are placed in juxta- position, the continual motion of the eye-balls bring the image of each, alternately, over the same portion of the retina; and each point of that delicate nerve is successively exposed, in an inconceivably short time, to each and all of the colors that may happen to be before us. On the whole, it would appear that the laws of coloring, as a gratification of the eye only, are simply these : 1. That the more isochronous (or equal—timed) the vibra- tions of any given color may be, the more pleasing will it be in itself, apart from fitness or association with others. 2. That these isochronous (or equal-timed) colors, how ever, have a more exciting effect on the retina than those which are of the same brightness but not equal-timed: the THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 233 ' repose afforded by 'a change from the former to the latter is also grateful; so that we should follow the example of nature’s works, throughout which the sober, mixed, or sub- dued tones, are the rule, and the pure or isochronous colors the exception; for it is a less evil to be unable to find excite- ment, than to be unable to find repose. 3. That variety of coloring is abstractly, (without refer- ence to fitness, &c.,) more pleasing than monotony— espeeially when the colors that adjoin each other have their vibrations in the harmonic ratio of four to five; that is, when they form contrasts, and still more when they are varied in intensity or brilliancy, or both, as well as contrasted in quality. 4. That, as variety is an exciting quality, owing to the rapid changes which each point of the retina undergoes, the change from variety to sameness of color is required for repose; so that here, again, we should imitate nature, in which sameness of coloring is the rule, and variety the exception; the former being found in all large and grand objects, and broad surfaces, and the latter only in small and scattered organisms. This would lead us to infer that in architecture, or at least in its grander forms, varied coloring should have as little place as it has in the elephant, the oak, or the moun- tainchain. In this connection we would state our opinion that the new architectural sect of poly-chromists who have placed themselves in Opposition to the general opinion of civilized man for the last two centuries are wrong. A proper understanding of the nature of physical har- mony, whether in sound or colors, will guard the‘readcr against the immense abuse which mystics make of this com~ mon sense principle, in the theories of what is called propor- tion in architecture—a sort of beauty-made-easy, an artistic philosopher’s stone, by which baser productions are to be transmuted into works of art ; expressions of thought, with- out the trouble of thinking, only by applying arithmetical 234 THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. rules. It will be seen that, while the analogy between sounds and colors is real as far as it goes, there is no sort of foundation for the extension of these ratios to the dimen- sions of visible objects, except the active imaginations of ancient ill-informed philosophers, who in these speculations did their best, While their modern followers do their worst. Whyshould the height and breadth of a window bear a certain simple ratio to each other? Because, says VITRU- vrus, two strings of the same thickness and tension, having their lengths in the same ratio, will yield concordant notes. The logic is truly admirable; but it was a very fair deduc- tion for the science of that day, and only unfit for the present, because ,we happen to know rw/zy the notes harmo- nize, and it is for a reason which has nothing at all analogous to it in the case of the window. If there be any architec- tural analogy, it is in the case of equallyspaced rows of objects, placed one tier over another, as the ornamental mouldings of a cornice, which in many ancient buildings are- not (as is now the universal practice)’ regulated so as to harmonize, i. e., so as to have an exact whole number of dentals in another moulding, or of eggs and anchors in another. It is not within our present purpose to give a review of the painter’s art: that subject cannot be properly treated alone in a work of less dimensions than this. THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 235 CHAPTER XVII. SUBURBAN RESIDENCES. THE GOTHIC SUBURBAN COTTAGE (see onntispiece) is the residence of C. PRESCOTT, Esq. ., Troy, New York. The o1iginal plans were designed by his intelligent lady, Mrs. PRESCOTT, who, not being an Architect, called to her aid II. TH H ER, the Architect by Whose united lab01s the designs and plans were completed. The material of which the house is built is brick. The foundation is stone—two feet thick. The first story walls are sixteen inches thick ; the other walls are one foot thick. The inner walls stand four inches from the brick, and are hard finished. The outer walls may be either painted in imitation of stone, or plas- tered with stucco or concrete. The building is warmed by a furnace, or heater, being placed in the basement. The water which collects on the roof is taken to a cistern in a cellar, and close to the house is a spring of clear, pure water. The situation of this house makes it singularly beau- tiful, and desirable, it stands on a hill, in the eastern part of the city of Troy,N ..,Y and faces, from the west, the End- son River, and takes 1n 3. fine view of it for several miles, north and south. At the south is the city of Albany and a beautiful Rural Cemetery; immediately in front is the city of Troy, West Troy and the United States Arsenal; to the northerly is Mount Olympus, the Troy Cemetery, Lansing- burgh, the State Dam, Cohoes, and Waterford. In connec- tion with these are the canals and railroads, with their ever- busy vehicles. The owner of the house has a large stream of water, some four hundred feet east of the house, from which he intends to bring the water in pipes to his residence THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER. 236 7 /.% W 5 {f ///1 WW m, zfido 29:28 /////7//// ,——r//}//// 7/ ////w ,//,/ .FZ q.:4..._n<: iljllt {lilll .Mooqh Emma“. >ZOUJ .6?” THE AMERICAN COTTAGE BUILDER: A ‘96 “3 b q, 6, Cf; 3mm m wmb 100?. 023920 a >de—C. .7. 3’33 _ / 2 / u r; 9 9229—395 W m In , an; m , x /. 25am: mmonmdoz m J, , m>< , ‘ m>< . ,fl 2282, .2282 2 02.. 1 mHOOZO m. FOG”. V - 238 THE AMERICAN cornea BUILDER. The head‘of the water being forty feet higher than the foundation of the house, all the rooms will be supplied as well as the fountains, which are to be plaCed in the front and on the sides of the house. Between .the building and .the head of the water-course there is a large ravine, 180 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 70 feet deep, of which the owner ‘ intends to make a fish-pond—4it now being well known that fish are as easy of cultivation by artificial means as straw- berries, and that they can be made perfectly tame, being quickly called by the human voice or the sound of a bell. The day is not far distant when a fish-pond, filled in abun- dance with the rarest fish, will be as frequent an adjunct to a _Villa or Suburban Residence as sheep on the lawn, a bird 1n the cage, or a rabbit 1n the yard. The ravine is sur- rounded w1th trees, and wild vines run riot up and -down and over the rocks, making it a most delightful place. Its proximity to the city renders the use of gas an easy matter. It will be' observed that this house possesses one of the most captivating requisites of a suburban residence. It has ' at one and the same moment a’ wide and extended view of the Country, rural and commercial; the river. and the rail- road; the canal and the waterfall over the dam; the moun- tain and the rustic cemeteries; men in busy life, and the tombs of the silent dead; churches with their spires peeping over the distant green hills, an emblem of m .in’s bet- ter natuie struggling upward from earth, even though she be decked with beauteous,.but enticing flowers. Within and about‘ the house, all is rural beauty, quiet, comfort, and peace. On a Sabbath morning, no matter whether the . wind comes blowing from the north or the south, from the east or the west, it bears the welcome sound of the church- going bell, inviting men to repose. The rippling of the stream in the brook is a silver tone, which, to him whose mind is tuned to harmonious beauty, is in harmony with the bells. Nature” answers unto art and art unto nature. The silver streamlet ever singeth the song of rest, till now and A IlllIIIHI I R .IIIIIIIIIIIIII _;lj__IIIIIIIIllIIII —_—_———-—- ----&‘ "‘ 'IIIIITIIIIIIIIII I IIIIIIIIIIIIII'IIIIIIITIIIIIIIIITII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII "' II O ”X 16.9 I I I III IIII MIL: ‘II II If in ,H II 4- . I IL‘Jwide 9.6;I11 ' meow?» onu. SUIIUIHAI AN’I C'I‘AIIIINAL C'Iso'rI‘AII [mnew] l‘lilNCll’AL A B C l ) E F . H aarxfim . Entrance Hall . Sltllug Kliwlil. . Dining loom. . Drawing l'hmm . “'aiting Rom”. Buudnir. . Green-lwuse, _ Principal Stain. an . Stain: to Kitchen, Table. l'pper Hall Pas