474 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



chimneys that smoke unless a door or -window be open. Our drawing- 

 rooms should not be invaded by sooty chimney-sweepers, and all 

 ought not to have to scramble for a place near the fire in a room to be 

 warm, nor when there to have to rotate like a smoke-jack to prevent 

 beins frozen on one side while we are scorched on the other. 



Such evils are to be obviated by simple means, and yet ninety-nine 

 out of every hundred Englishmen submit to them supinely if not pa- 

 tiently. Whole streets, occupied by men of means, have their sky-line 

 fringed with demon-like excrescences which tell a sure tale of internal 

 discomfort. Such was the case with that in which my own residence 

 is situated. When I took my house upon lease, though it had been 

 well built by an eminent architect for his own use, yet, in common 

 with all its neighbors, it displayed a grim array of tall-boys and tortu- 

 ous contrivances as chimney terminals. All these I swept away at 

 once, without inquiry, feeling that, whatever might be needed, they 

 certainly could not be. I then introduced an air-pipe to each fireplace 

 through the floors, and, as I expected, found no smoky chimneys to 

 complain of, though my neighbors still grumble at theirs, as I do of 

 their futile and unsightly expedients to remedy them. 



So much depends upon the proper construction of fireplaces and 

 their flues, without which no appliance in the shape of a grate can 

 have fair play, that I shall in the first place describe the points to be 

 attended to in the erection of these portions of a building, and in 

 palliating evils in those which already exist. 



The first essential to insure a good draught is that the flue should 

 be sufficiently rarefied. For this purpose it is desirable that it should 

 not be in an outer wall ; but, if it be necessarily so,.the enclosing wall 

 should be thick (at least 9 in. between the flue and the outer air) or 

 else it should be protected by a double casing, with intermediate hol- 

 low space. Materials which absorb damp should be avoided for the 

 construction, as they tend to the evaporation and loss of the heat 

 generated ; and the interior of the flue should be well pargetted, to 

 further prevent the suction of external cold by the up-draught within. 

 Another important point is that the flue be not too large, or currents 

 of cold air descending will interfere with the ascending heated air. In 

 old buildings flues are found of large size as 18 in. by 12 in. with 

 wide throats, funnel-shaped, diminishing upward. But the fuel used 

 in them was wood, and abundant, and men were more hardy, and 

 minded not the roaring of wind in the chimney, or cowered over the 

 embers within the vast embrasure of the fireplace, which formed an in- 

 ner room of itself. There are those who would revive these large flues, 

 on the ground that no cowls decorate their terminals. If, however, we 

 are to recur to the practice of our ancestors, we might as well revert 

 to that of a still earlier age, when the stately hall of Penshurst had its 

 fire upon a hearth in the centre, and the graceful wreaths of smoke 

 thence found exit by the lantern in the roof. We must needs then have 



