greater heat to the plates and room. But find the brands warm, and ready for a speedy where more ordinary wood is used, half a dry rekindling. The shutter alone will not stifle faggot of brush-wood, burnt at the first mak- a fire, for it cannot well be made to fit so exing the fire in the morning, is very advan- actly but that air will enter, and that in a viotageous, as it immediately, by its sudden lent stream, so as to blow up and keep alive blaze, heats the plates, and warms the room the flames, and consume the wood, if the (which with bad wood slowly kindling would draught be not checked by turning the regisnot be done so soon) and at the same time by ter to shut the flue behind. The register has the length of its flame, turning in the passages, also two other uses. If you observe the consumes and cleanses away the soot that draught of air into your fire-place to be strongsuch bad smoky wood had produced therein er than is necessary (as in extreme cold weathe preceding day, and so keeps them always ther it often is) so that the wood is consumed free and clean. When you have laid a little faster than usual; in that case, a quarter, half, back log, and placed your billets on small dogs, or two thirds, turn of the register, will check as in common chimneys, and put some fire to the violence of the draught, and let your fire them, then slide down your shutter as low as burn with the moderation you desire and at the dogs, and the opening being by that means the same time both the fire-place and the room contracted, the air rushes in briskly, and pre- will be the warmer, because less cold air will sently blows up the flames. When the fire enter and pass through them. And if the chimis sufficiently kindled, slide it up again.* In ney should happen to take fire (which indeed some of these fire-places there is a little six- there is very little danger of, if the precedinch square trap-door of thin wrought iron or ing direction be observed in making fires, and brass, covering a hole of like dimensions near it be well swept once a year; for, much less the fore-part of the bottom plate, which being wood being burnt, less soot is proportionably by a ring lifted up towards the fire, about an made; and the fuel being soon blown into inch, where it will be retained by two spring- flame by the shutter, or the trap-door bellows, ing sides fixed to it perpendicularly (See the there is consequently less smoke from the fuel plate, Fig. 4.) the air rushes in from the hol- to make soot; then, though the funnel should low under the bottom plate, and blows the fire. be foul, yet the sparks have such a crooked Where this is used, the shutter serves only to up and down round about way to go, that they close the fire at nights. The more forward are out before they get at it.) I say, if ever you can make your fire on the hearth-plate, it should be on fire, a turn of the register shuts not to be incommoded by the smoke, the sooner all close, and prevents any air going into the and more will the room be warmed. At night, chimney, and so the fire may easily be stifled when you go to bed, cover the coals or brands and mastered. with ashes as usual; then take away the dogs, and slide down the shutter close to the bottomplate, sweeping a little ashes against it, that no air may pass under it; then turn the register, so as very near to stop the flue behind. If no smoke then comes out at crevices into the room, it is right: if any smoke is perceived to come out, move the register, so as to give a little draft, and it will go the right way. Thus the room will be kept warm all night; for the chimney being almost entirely stopt, very little cold air, if any, will enter the room at any crevice. When you come to rekindle the fire in the morning, turn open the register before you lift up the slider, otherwise, if there be any smoke in the fire-place, it will come out into the room. By the same use of the shutter and register, a blazing fire may be presently stifled, as well as secured, when you have occasion to leave it for any time; and at your return you will * The shutter is slid up and down in this manner, only in those fire-places which are so made as that the disbottom plate, is the same as the distance between it and the top plate. Where the arch is higher, as it is in the draught annexed (which is agreeable to late im. provements) the shutter is set by, and applied occasionally; because if it were made deep enough to close the whole opening when slid down, it would hide part of it when up. tance between the top of the arched opening, and the The advantages of this Fire-place. Its advantages above the common fire-places are, 1. That your whole room is equally warmed, so that people need not crowd so close round the fire, but may sit near the window, and have the benefit of the light for reading, writing, needle-work, &c. They may sit with comfort in any part of the room, which is a very considerable advantage in a large family, where there must often be two fires kept, because all cannot conveniently come at one. 2. If you sit near the fire, you have not that cold draught of uncomfortable air nipping your back and heels, as when before common fires, by which many catch cold, being scorched before, and, as it were, froze behind. 3. If you sit against a crevice, there is not that sharp draught of cold air playing on you, as in rooms where there are fires in the common way; by which many catch cold, whence proceed coughs,* catarrhs, tooth-aches, fevers, pleurisies, and many other diseases. Lord Molesworth, in his account of Denmark, says, "That few or none of the people there are troubled with coughs, catarrhs, consumptions, or such like diseases of the lungs; that in the midst of winter in the churches, which are very much frequented, there is no 8. This fire-place cures most smoky chimneys, and thereby preserves both the eyes and furniture. 4. In case of sickness, they make most ex- | place, you will find that the flame burns quite cellent nursing rooms; as they constantly upright, and does not blare and run the tallow supply a sufficiency of fresh air, so warmed down, by drawing towards the chimney, as at the same time as to be no way inconveni- against common fires. ent or dangerous. A small one does well in a chamber; and, the chimneys being fitted for it, it may be removed from one room to another, as occasion requires, and fixed in half an hour. The equal temper too, and warmth of the air of the room, is thought to be particularly advantageous in some distempers; for it was observed in the winters of 1730 and 1736, when the small-pox spread in Pennsylvania, that very few children of the Germans died of that distemper in proportion to those of the English; which was ascribed, by some, to the warmth and equal temper of air in their stove-rooms, which made the disease as favourable as it commonly is in the West Indies. But this conjecture we submit to the judgment of physicians. 5. In common chimneys, the strongest heat from the fire, which is upwards, goes directly up the chimney, and is lost; and there is such a strong draught into the chimney that not only the upright heat, but also the back, sides, and downward heats are carried up the chimney by that draught of air; and the warmth given before the fire, by the rays that strike out towards the room is continually driven back, crowded into the chimney, and carried up by the same draught of air. But here the upright heat strikes and heats the top plate, which warms the air above it, and that comes into the room. The heat likewise, which the fire communicates to the sides, back, bottom and air-box, is all brought into the room; for you will find a constant current of warm air coming out of the chimney-corner into the room. Hold a candle just under the mantelpiece, or breast of your chimney, and you will see the flame bent outwards; by laying a piece of smoking paper on the hearth, on either side, you may see how the current of air moves, and where it tends, for it will turn and carry the smoke with it. 9. It prevents the fouling of chimneys; much of the lint and dust that contributes to foul a chimney, being, by the low arch, obliged to pass through the flame, where it is consumed. Then, less wood being burnt, there is less smoke made. Again, the shutter, or trap-bellows, soon blowing the wood into a flame, the same wood does not yield so much smoke as if burnt in a common chimney; for as soon as flame begins, smoke in proportion ceases. 10. And if a chimney should be foul, it is much less likely to take fire. If it should take fire, it is easily stifled and extinguished. 11. A fire may be very speedily made in this fire-place by the help of the shutter or trapbellows, as aforesaid. 12. A fire may be soon extinguished, by closing it with the shutter before, and turning the register behind, which will stifle it, and the brands will remain ready to rekindle. 13. The room being once warm, the warmth may be retained in it all night. 14. And lastly, the fire is so secured at night, that not one spark can fly out into the room to do damage. With all these conveniences, you do not lose the pleasing sight nor use of the fire, as in the Dutch stoves, but may boil the tea-kettle, warm the flat-irons, heat heaters, keep warm a dish of victuals by setting it on the top, &c. Objections answered. There are some objections commonly made by people that are unacquainted with these fire-places, which it may not be amiss to endeavour to remove, as they arise from prejudices which might otherwise obstruct, in some degree, the general use of this beneficial machine. We frequently hear it said, They are of the nature of Dutch stoves; stoves have an unpleasant smell; stoves are unwholesome; and, warm rooms make peo7. When you burn candles near this fire-ple tender, and apt to catch cold.-As to the 6. Thus, as very little of the heat is lost, when this fire-place is used, much less wood* will serve you, which is a considerable advantage where wood is dear. noise to interrupt the attention due to the preacher. I am persuaded (says he) their warm stoves contribute to their freedom from these kinds of maladies." page 91. *People who have used these fire-places, differ much in their accounts of the wood saved by them. Some say This is owing to the great difference there was in their former fires; some (according to the different circumstances of their rooms and chimneys) having been used to make very large, others middling, and others, of a more sparing temper, very small ones: while in these fire-places, their size and draught being nearly the same, the consumption is more equal. I suppose, taking a number of families together, that two thirds, or half the wood, at least, is saved. My common room, I know, is made twice as warm as it used to be, with a quarter of the wood I formerly consumed there. five sixths, others three fourths, and others much less. first, that they are of the nature of Dutch stoves, the description of those stoves, in the beginning of this paper, compared with that of these machines, shows, that there is a most material difference, and that these have vastly the advantage, if it were only in the single article of the admission and circulation of the fresh air. But it must be allowed there may have been some cause to complain of the offensive smell of iron stoves. This smell, however, never proceeded from the iron itself, which, in its nature, whether hot or cold, is one of the sweetest of metals, but from the general uncleanly manner of using those stoves. If they are kept clean, they are as sweet as an ironing-box, which, though ever so hot, never offends the smell of the nicest lady: but it is common to let them be greased, by setting candlesticks on them, or otherwise; to rub greasy hands on them; and, above all to spit upon them, to try how hot they are, which is an inconsiderate, filthy, unmannerly custom; for the slimy matter of spittle drying on, burns and fumes when the stove is hot, as well as the grease, and smells most nauseously; which makes such close stoverooms, where there is no draught to carry off those filthy vapours, almost intolerable to those that are not from their infancy accustomed to them. At the same time nothing is more easy than to keep them clean; for when by any accident they happen to be fouled, a lee made of ashes and water, with a brush, will scour them perfectly: as will also a little strong soft soap and water. That hot iron of itself gives no offensive smell, those know very well who have (as the writer of this has) been present at a furnace when the workmen were pouring out the flowing metal to cast large plates, and not the least smell of it to be perceived. That hot iron does not, like lead, brass, and some other metals, give out unwholesome vapours, is plain from the general health and strength of those who constantly work in iron, as furnace-men, forge-men, and smiths; that it is in its nature a metal perfectly wholesome to the body of man, is known from the beneficial use of chalybeate or iron-mine-waters; from the good done by taking steel filings in several disorders; and that even the smithy water in which hot irons are quenched, is found advantageous to the human constitution.-The ingenious and learned Dr. Desaguliers, to whose instructive writings the contriver of this machine acknowledges himself much indebted, relates an experiment he made, to try whether heated iron would yield unwholesome vapours; he took a cube of iron, and having given it a very great heat, he fixed it so to a receiver, exhausted by the air-pump, that all the air rushing in to fill the receiver, should first pass through a hole in the hot iron. He then put a small bird into the receiver, who breathed that air without any inconvenience, or suffering the least disorder. But the same experiment being made with a cube of hot brass, a bird put into that air died in a few minutes. Brass, indeed, stinks, even when cold, and much more when hot; lead, too, when hot, yields a very unwholesome steam; but iron is always sweet, and every way taken is wholesome and friendly to the human body-except in weapons. That warmed rooms make people tender, and apt to catch cold, is a mistake as great as it is (among the English) general. We have seen in the preceding pages how the common rooms are apt to give colds; but the writer of this paper may affirm from his own experience, and that of his family and friends who have used warm rooms for these four winters past, that by the use of such rooms, people are rendered less liable to take cold, and, indeed, actually hardened. If sitting warm in a room made one subject to take cold on going out, lying warm in bed should, by a parity of reason, produce the same effect when wc rise. Yet we find we can leap out of the warmest bed naked, in the coldest morning, without any such danger; and in the same manner out of warm clothes into a cold bed. The reason is, that in these cases the pores all close at once, the cold is shut out, and the heat within augmented, as we soon after feel by the glowing of the flesh and skin. Thu no one was ever known to catch cold by the use of the cold bath; and are not cold baths allowed to harden the bodies of those that use them? Are they not therefore frequently prescribed to the tenderest constitutions?-Now every time you go out of a warm room into the cold freezing air, you do as it were plunge into a cold bath, and the effect is in proportion the same; for though perhaps you may feel somewhat chilly at first, you find in a little time your bodies hardened and strengthened, your blood is driven round with a brisker circulation, and a comfortable, steady, uniform inward warmth succeeds that equal outward warmth you first received in the room. Farther to confirm this assertion, we instance the Swedes, the Danes, and the Russians: these nations are said to live in rooms, compared to ours, as hot as ovens * yet where are the hardy soldiers, though bred in their boasted cool houses, that can, like these people, bear the fatigues of a winter campaign in so severe a climate, march whole days to the neck in snow, and at night intrench in ice as they do? The mentioning of those northern nations, puts me in mind of a considerable public advantage that may arise from the general use of these fire-places. It is observable, that though those countries have been well inhabited for many ages, wood is still their fuel, * Mr. Boyle, in his experiments and observations upon cold, Shaw's Abridgment, Vol. I. p. 684, says, "It is remarkable, that while the cold has strange and tragical effects at Moscow and elsewhere, the Russians and Livonians should be exempt from them, who accustom themselves to pass immediately from a great degree of heat, to as great a one of cold, without receiving any visible prejudice thereby. I remember being told by a practice among them, to go from a hot stove into cold person of unquestionable credit, that it was a common water; the same was also affirmed to me by another who resided at Moscow. This tradition is likewise abundantly confirmed by Olearius."-" It is a surprising thing," says he, "to see how far the Russians can endure heat; and how, when it makes them ready to faint, they can go out of their stoves, stark naked, both ter; and even in winter wallow in the snow." men and women, and throw themselves into cold wa |