In the office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. CONTENTS. PAGE MISCELLANEOUS ARTS AND MANUFACTURES HISTORY OF THE BIBLE-CHRISTIANITY. CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. HEATING, VENTILATION, LIGHTING. Crox judicious means of heating, ventilating, and tighting apartments, manufactories, and several classes ef public buildings, very important consequences depend, including not only the ordinary comfort, but the health of human beings. We propose here to treat the three subjects (with the addition of the kindred usd of smokeconsumption) in one paper, but to confine our attention chiefly to plans involving scientific principle, as well as ingenious mechanical contrivance. HEATING It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the mode of heating apartments most prevalent is by a fire of coal placed in a grate, having a chimney above, through which the vaporized products of the fuel are carried off. Of one class of results from this mode there can be no doubt. The fire, sparkling or glowing in its appropriate receptacle, has an air of cheerfulness and comfort which strikes every beholder, causing the domestic group to cluster around it with that feeling of satisfaction which makes an Englishman regard his fireside as among the most precious things connected with his existence. But while the common open fire is almost an object of worship among us on account of its pleasant look and power of concentrating the whole family in one social circle, it is not unattended with certain drawbacks, difficulties, and disadvantages; nor can it be applied well in any❜place besidos an ordinary apartment. The greatest drawback is the uneconomical use which it makes of fuel. About one half of the heat produced by a common fire'ascends with the smoke. The smoke itself is an unconsumed part of the fuel. Finally, about a fourth of the heat which is radiated into the apartment is, in ordinary circumstances, carried into the chimney between the fire and the mantel-piece, and thus lost. It is calculated by Dr. Arnott that only about one-eighth part of the heat-producing power of the fuel used in common fires is realized, all the rest being dissipated into the surrounding atmosphere. Count Rumford gave even a more unfavourable calculation, making the dissipated or lost part to be no less than fourteen-fifteenths. He probably over-estimated the loss considerably; but that a very large portion of the power of fuel is forfeited in the use of common chimneys, is just as certain as it is that an open fire is an object which every eye delights to rest upon. Dr. Arnott's estimate is VOL. II.-2 probably not much, if at all, above the truth. It is also unquestionable that often a common fire is found to give a partial kind of warrath, heating the side of our persons next to it, but leaving the rest cold; that it also produces draughts into our rooms which are any thing but safe or agreeable; that often one active fire deranges the action of the chimneys of other fires, and fills the house with smoke; that smoke and dust are annoyances more or less inseparable from it in all its shapes; and that it is by no means a mode of heating free from danger to both property and person. These are disadvantages of which every one is aware and although they are not sufficient to extinguish the pleasure which we take in our sea-coal fires, they may certainly be allowed to furnish reason for inquiring. if, by any modification of present plans, fuel could be applied more economically, and at the same time agreeably. There is also, we must recollect, the necessity for modes of heating applicable to public buildings, where the common fire is of little service. WARMING BY HIGHLY HEATED SURFACES. One of the first attempts to arrive at a mode of warming more economical than the common fire, and applicable to large buildings, suggested the raising of plates of iron to a high temperature, and causing air to pass over then on its way to supply the rooms or halls where it was required. In some part of the building a furnace was employed to heat the plates, which were of cast iron, and the air, after passing over them, was sent forward through a tunnel, and ushered into the hall or other place required to be heated, either through a grated aperture in the floor, or by pipes distributed round the walls or galleries. This mode was introduced into many churches in the early part of the present century, and it was fully tried in the London Custom-house. In the latter building there are several large rooms, in which a great number of clerks and other officers are assembled for business. Into one, called the Examiners' Room, the air rushed at a temperature of 170 degrees, to be reduced to a more moderate heat by its mixing with the air already in the apartment. In another called the Long Room, the air entered at a temperature varying from 90 to 170 degrees, being liable to be reduced by a regulated admission of cold air into the apartment from without. It is not easy to excuse the ignorance which dictated this mode of heating. When air passes over plates raised to red heat, as these were, it is desiccated, or deprived of its natural hu 9 midity; animal and other matters floating in it are de- | the house of Sir John Robinson, Randolph Crescent, composed; it is charged with sulphurous fumes from the aron; and lastly, by the drying or desiccation, it is thrown into a state highly electric. The condition of the air is then nearly the same with that which African travellers recognised with terror under the name of the simoom. The consequence in the Custom-house was a general falling off in the health of the officers, which became at length so alarming, that that mode of warming the apartments had to be given up. Edinburgh, fitted up on this plan, there are two culverts giving a total area of fourteen square feet. The constant rushing of so large a volume of air into the house implies a necessity for some flues or apertures to carry it off after it has served its purposes. The collective areas of these flues or apertures ought to be the same as those of the cold air passages or culverts. In the stove used in the Derby Infirmary, it was found that one pound of coal raised 20,000 pounds of air through one degree of temperature.* The Arnott stove is upon the same principle of an ex tensive and moderately warm heating surface, but it has as yet been only constructed in a portable form. Dr. Arnott was gradually led to the adoption of this mode of The mode of warming by highiy-heated surfaces is now generally condemned on account of its deleterious effects on the air; but it is still in practice to some extent, and we have therefore thought ourselves called upon to introduce a brief description of it, in order to have an opportunity of explaining its unsuitableness, and warn-warming. He had got a large box of hot water fitted ing against its use. It may be safely set down as a first principle in the science of heating, that no mode which materially alters the chemical character of the air can be compatible with health. Common stoves are liable to this objection in greater or less measure, and are therefore rarely used excepting in lobbies. WARMING BY MODERATELY HEATED SURFACES. The objections to the above mode of heating would obviously be in a great measure overcome, if, instead of a small surface highly heated, a large oire moderately heated were used. This may be done in v various ways, as-1. By a furnace operating upon the heat-giving surface; 2. By steam in tubes; .or 3. By hot water also in tubes. Surfaces Heated by Internel Furnaces-Strutt's and The first attempt of which we are aware to give warmth by hot air from large moderately heated surfaces, was made by Mr. William Strutt of Derby, in 1792. The cotton-mill of the copartnery to which he belonged was in that year fitted up with a stove costructed upon this principle; and the same plan, after being tried in his own house and those of his friends, was introduced, with all the improvements of which it was deemed capable, into the Derby Infirmary in 1807. It has since been copied in various public and private buildings. Shortly, and dismissing unimportant details, the Struttstove consists of a cockle, or plate-iron box, of about two feet in height by one in breadth of sides, inverted with he open mouth downwards over a small close furnace, which heats it about 280 degrees. Another somewhat larger box surmounts this, leaving the space of an inch or so between. This outer box is perforated with nymerous holes, into which short open tubes are fitted, pro jecting outwards. This apparatus being constructed-in. a small close room, a channel or culvert of considerable width is made to communicate between that room and the open air on the outside of the house. On the fire being kindled in the furnace, the cockle is heated to the the sired height, and no more, a control being exercised overthe fire by a valve for communicating air to the furnace. The air immediately without the cockle is warmed, and, by virtue of its increased temperature, begins to ascend. To replace it, fresh air is drawn in through the culvert, and through the numerous tubular apertures of the outer case, and made to rush against the heated vessel within. This air is accordingly heated too, and pursues the same line of ascent. Thus there is a constant flow of moderately heated air upwards. This may either be allowed to pass into an open hall, staircase, or any other single space which it is desired to warm, or it may be carried along in flues and distributed into different rooms. It will be observed that the instrument or medium for warmth in this case is a stream of heated air: the temperature desired for it is about 64 degrees, and it is kept at this low point by the spaciousness of the culvert. In up in his study, which gave the requisite temperature; but the hot water being supplied by a pipe from the kitchen fire below, some inconveniences were experienced, which suggested to him the fitting up of what has been called a water-clad stove, namely, an ordinary room stove, surrounded by a close outer case containing water, which the fire within maintained at boiling heat. From this it was but a step to the adoption of a similar large case, to be maintained at about the temperature of boiling water by a small and regulated fire within. Such is the Arnott stove. The learned inventor has described several modifica tiens of his stove,† and it has been copied in many various ways, generally with little regard to the original principle. We shall select for description one simple form, which seems to have been the first exemplified by Dr Arnott, and in which the fundamental principle seems to be as well brought out as in any other. This stove con sists of a sheet-iron hox, a b d, which may be of any d dimensions, in proportion to the size of the room to be heated. It is divided by the partition g h into two chambers of unequal dimensions, which communicate freely at the top and bottom. A fire-box, e, composed of iron lined with fire-brick, rests at the bottom of the larger chamber. Access is obtained to it, for the purpose of supplying fuel, by the door i, which must fit closely. The refuse of the fire falls into an ash-pit, the door of which is at b. Here, also, is a valve for the supply of air to the fire-box. The fumes and heat of the fire pass in the direction indicated by the arrows, giving warmth to the outer case, The smoke finally passes off, by the * Sylvester's Philosophy of Domestic Economy, &c., 1819. † Dr. Arnott on Warming and Ventilating, 1838. |