room is well warmed. But, as the underside of the floor must grow foul with soot, and a thick coat of soot prevents much of the direct application of the hot air to the tiles, I conceive that burning the smoke, by obliging it to descend through red coals, would in this construction be very advantageous, as more heat would be given by the flame than by the smoke, and the floor being thereby kept free from soot would be more heated with less fire. For this purpose I would propose erecting the funnel close to the grate, so as to have only an iron plate between the fire and the funnel, through which plate, the air in the funnel being heated, it will be sure to draw well, and force the smoke to descend, as in Plate XIV. Fig. 9, where A is the funnel or chimney, B the grate on which the fire is placed, C one of the apertures through which the descending smoke is drawn into the channel D of figure 10, along which channel it is conveyed by a circuitous route, as designated by the arrows, until it arrives at the small aperture E, through which it enters the funnel F. G, in both figures, is the iron plate against which the fire is made, which, being heated thereby, will rarefy the air in that part of the funnel, and cause the smoke to ascend rapidly. The flame thus dividing from the grate to the right and left, and turning in passages, disposed, as in figure 10, so as that every part of the floor may be visited by it before it enters the funnel F, by the two passages EE, very little of the heat will be lost, and a winter room thus rendered very comfortable.

No. IV.

Page 513. Few can imagine, &c. It is said the Icelanders have very little fuel, chiefly drift wood that comes upon their coast. To receive more advantage from its heat, they make their doors low, and have a

stage round the room above the door, like a gallery, wherein the women can sit and work, the men read or write, &c. The roof being tight, the warm air is confined by it and kept from rising higher and escaping; and the cold air, which enters the house when the door is opened, cannot rise above the level of the top of the door, because it is heavier than the warm air above the door, and so those in the gallery are not incommoded by it. Some of our too lofty rooms might have a stage so constructed as to make a temporary gallery above, for the winter, to be taken away in summer. Sedentary people would find much comfort there in cold weather.

No. V.

Page 532. Where they have the art of managing it, &c. In some houses of the lower people among the northern nations of Europe, and among the poorer sort of Germans in Pennsylvania, I have observed this construction, which appears very advantageous. (Plate, Fig. 11.) A is the kitchen with its chimney; B, an iron stove in the stove room. In a corner of the chimney is a hole through the back into the stove, to put in fuel, and another hole above it to let the smoke of the stove come back into the chimney. As soon as the cooking is over, the brands in the kitchen chimney are put through the hole to supply the stove, so that there is seldom more than one fire burning at a time. In the floor over the stove room is a small trap door, to let the warm air rise occasionally into the chamber. Thus the whole house is warmed at little expense of wood, and the stove room kept constantly warm; so that in the coldest winter nights, they can work late, and find the room still comfortable when they rise to work early. An English farmer in America, who makes great fires

in large open chimneys, needs the constant employment of one man to cut and haul wood for supplying them; and the draft of cold air to them is so strong, that the heels of his family are frozen, while they are scorching their faces, and the room is never warm, so that little sedentary work can be done by them in winter. The difference in this article alone of economy shall, in a course of years, enable the German to buy out the Englishman, and take possession of his plantation.

Miscellaneous Observations.

Chimneys, whose funnels go up in the north wall of a house, and are exposed to the north winds, are not so apt to draw well as those in a south wall; because, when rendered cold by those winds, they draw downwards.

Chimneys, enclosed in the body of a house, are better than those whose funnels are exposed in cold walls.

Chimneys in stacks are apt to draw better than separate funnels, because the funnels, that have constant fires in them, warm the others, in some degree, that have none.

One of the funnels, in a house I once occupied, had a particular funnel joined to the south side of the stack, so that three of its sides were exposed to the sun in the course of the day, viz. (Plate, Fig. 12,) the east side E during the morning, the south side S in the middle part of the day, and the west side W during the afternoon, while its north side was sheltered by the stack from the cold winds. This funnel, which came from the ground floor, and had a considerable height above the roof, was constantly in a strong drawing state day and night, winter and summer.

Blacking of funnels, exposed to the sun, would probably make them draw still stronger.

VOL. VI.

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