230 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the resumption of a work suspended when the workmen of antiquity 

 were interrupted by the shadow of the great eclipse the millennium 

 of ascetic insanity. 



The true significance of the anti-cosmic principle was first revealed 

 by the analytical studies of Arthur Schopenhauer, whose conclusions 

 were strikingly confirmed by the historical researches of Wassiljew, 

 Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, Beal, Rhys Davis, Hue, Burnouf, Kern, Las- 

 sen, and Oldenberg. Like the doctrine of evolution, his theory met 

 at first with obstinate opposition, but, like the doctrine of evolution, 

 it will prevail by solving many riddles. 



-- 



THE PRINCIPLES OF DOMESTIC FIKEPLACE CON- 

 STRUCTION.* 



By T. PKIDGIN TEALE, F. E. C. S. 



IF there be a place in the kingdom in which a lecture on the subject 

 selected for to-night could appropriately be given, surely it is the 

 theatre in which we are assembled. Some of my hearers may be 

 aware of the mutual fitness of subject and place. Many, perhaps, are 

 not aware, as, indeed, was the case with myself three months ago, that 

 the principles of fireplace construction which will be laid before you 

 to-night, and which I have been working out and teaching for the last 

 three or four years, were urged, written about, and acted upon at 

 the end of the last century by your founder, Count Rumford, and 

 that a great portion of his time, his writings, and his work was de- 

 voted to this very question. 



Hardly any subject would be more in harmony with the aims 

 which he set before him in founding this society, as we may learn 

 from the following quotation from the "Prospectus of the Royal 

 Institution," published at the end of the fifth volume of Rumford's 

 works : " But if it should be proved, as in fact it may, that in the 

 applications of fire, in the management of heat, and in the production 

 of light, we do not derive half the advantage from combustion which 

 might be obtained, it will readily be admitted that these subjects must 

 constitute a very important part of the useful information to be con- 

 veyed in the public lectures of the Royal Institution." 



And why should it be necessary, at the end of this nineteenth 

 century, to give a lecture on " The principles of fireplace construc- 

 tion " ? Why should such a title draw together an audience ? Clearly 

 from the fact that correct principles have been habitually, and, until 

 the last few years, almost universally violated, and because the rules 

 so ably worked out, so earnestly and forcibly advocated by Rumford, 



* A lecture delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, February 5, 18S6. 



