more powerful in drawing smoke; but, having still the same height and the same opening below, have performed no better than their predecessors.

What is it then which makes a smoky chimney; that is, a chimney which, instead of conveying up all the smoke, discharges a part of it into the room, offending the eyes and damaging the furniture?

The causes of this effect, which have fallen under my observation, amount to nine, differing from each other, and therefore requiring different remedies.

1. Smoky chimneys in a new house are such, frequently, from mere want of air. The workmanship of the rooms being all good, and just out of the workman's hand, the joints of the boards of the flooring, and of the pannels of wainscoting are all true and tight, the more so as the walls, perhaps not yet thoroughly dry, preserve a dampness in the air of the room, which keeps the wood work swelled and close. The doors and the sashes too, being worked with truth, shut with exactness, so that the room is as tight as a snuffbox, no passage being left open for air to enter, except the keyhole, and even that is sometimes covered by a little dropping shutter. Now, if smoke cannot rise but as connected with rarefied air, and a column of such air, suppose it filling the funnel, cannot rise, unless other air be admitted to supply its place; and if, therefore, no current of air enter the opening of the chimney, there is nothing to prevent the smoke coming out into the room. If the motion upwards of the air in a chimney, that is freely supplied, be observed by the rising of the smoke or a feather in it, and it be considered, that, in the time such feather takes in rising from the fire to the top of the chimney, a column of air equal to the content of the funnel must be discharged, and an equal quantity supplied from the room below, it will appear QQ*

absolutely impossible that this operation should go on if the tight room is kept shut; for, were there any force capable of drawing constantly so much air out of it, it must soon be exhausted like the receiver of an airpump, and no animal could live in it. Those therefore who stop every crevice in a room to prevent the admission of fresh air, and yet would have their chimney carry up the smoke, require inconsistencies, and expect impossibilities. Yet, under this situation, I have seen the owner of a new house, in despair, and ready to sell it for much less than it cost, conceiving it uninhabitable, because not a chimney in any one of its rooms would carry off the smoke, unless a door or window were left open. Much expense has also been made, to alter and amend new chimneys which had really no fault; in one house particularly that I knew, of a nobleman in Westminster, that expense amounted to no less than three hundred pounds, after his house had been, as he thought, finished and all charges paid. And after all, several of the alterations were ineffectual, for want of understanding the true principles.

Remedies. When you find on trial, that opening the door or a window enables the chimney to carry up all the smoke, you may be sure that want of air from without was the cause of its smoking. I say from without, to guard you against a common mistake of those, who may tell you the room is large, contains abundance of air, sufficient to supply any chimney, and therefore it cannot be that the chimney wants air. These reasoners are ignorant, that the largeness of a room, if tight, is in this case of small importance, since it cannot part with a chimney full of its air without occasioning so much vacuum; which it requires a great force to effect, and could not be borne, if effected.

It appearing plainly, then, that some of the outward

air must be admitted, the question will be, how much is absolutely necessary; for you would avoid admitting more, as being contrary to one of your intentions in having a fire, viz. that of warming your room. To discover this quantity, shut the door gradually while a middling fire is burning, till you find, that, before it is quite shut, the smoke begins to come out into the room, then open it a little till you perceive the smoke comes out no longer. There hold the door, and observe the width of the open crevice between the edge of the door and the rabbet it should shut into. Suppose the distance to be half an inch, and the door eight feet high, you find thence that your room requires an entrance for air equal in area to ninety-six half inches, or forty-eight square inches, or a passage of six inches by eight. This however is a large supposition, there being few chimneys, that, having a moderate opening and a tolerable height of funnel, will not be satisfied with such a crevice of a quarter of an inch; and I have found a square of six by six, or thirty-six square inches, to be a pretty good medium, that will serve for most chimneys. High funnels, with small and low openings, may indeed be supplied through a less space, because, for reasons that will appear hereafter, the force of levity, if one may so speak, being greater in such funnels, the cool air enters the room with greater velocity, and consequently more enters in the same time. This however has its limits, for experience shows, that no increased velocity, so occasioned, has made the admission of air through the keyhole equal in quantity to that through an open door; though through the door the current moves slowly, and through the keyhole with great rapidity.

It remains then to be considered how and where this necessary quantity of air from without is to be admitted, so as to be least inconvenient. For, if at the

door, left so much open, the air thence proceeds directly to the chimney, and in its way comes cold to your back and heels as you sit before your fire. If you keep the door shut, and raise a little the sash of your window, you feel the same inconvenience. Various have been the contrivances to avoid this, such as bringing in fresh air through pipes in the jambs of the chimney, which, pointing upwards, should blow the smoke up the funnel; opening passages into the funnel above, to let in air for the same purpose. But these produce an effect contrary to that intended; for, as it is the constant current of air passing from the room through the opening of the chimney into the funnel, which prevents the smoke coming out into the room, if you supply the funnel by other means or in other ways with the air it wants, and especially if that air be cold, you diminish the force of that current, and the smoke in its effort to enter the room finds less resistance.

The wanted air must then indispensably be admitted into the room, to supply what goes off through the opening of the chimney. M. Gauger, a very ingenious and intelligent French writer on the subject, proposes with judgment to admit it above the opening of the chimney; and to prevent inconvenience from its coldness, he directs its being made to pass in its entrance through winding cavities made behind the iron back and sides of the fireplace, and under the iron hearth-plate; in which cavities it will be warmed, and even heated, so as to contribute much, instead of cooling, to the warming of the room. This invention is excellent in itself, and may be used with advantage in building new houses; because the chimneys may then be so disposed, as to admit conveniently the cold air to enter such passages; but in houses built without such views, the chimneys are often so situated, as not to afford that

convenience, without great and expensive alterations. Easy and cheap methods, though not quite so perfect in themselves, are of more general utility; and such are the following.

In all rooms where there is a fire, the body of air warmed and rarefied before the chimney is continually changing place, and making room for other air that is to be warmed in its turn. Part of it enters and goes up the chimney, and the rest rises and takes place near the ceiling. If the room be lofty, that warm air remains above our heads as long as it continues warm, and we are little benefited by it, because it does not descend till it is cooler. Few can imagine the difference of climate between the upper and lower parts of such a room, who have not tried it by the thermometer, or by going up a ladder till their heads are near the ceiling. It is then among this warm air that the wanted quantity of outward air is best admitted, with which being mixed, its coldness is abated, and its inconvenience diminished so as to become scarce observable. This may be easily done, by drawing down about an inch the upper sash of a window; or, if not movable, by cutting such a crevice through its frame; in both which cases, it will be well to place a thin shelf of the length, to conceal the opening, and sloping upwards to direct the entering air horizontally along and under the ceiling. In some houses the air may be admitted by such a crevice made in the wainscot, cornice, or plastering, near the ceiling and over the opening of the chimney. This, if practicable, is to be chosen, because the entering cold air will there meet with the warmest rising air from before the fire, and be soonest tempered by the mixture. The same kind of shelf should also be placed here. Another way, and not a very difficult one, is to take out an upper pane of glass in one of your sashes, set in a tin