IS ELECTRICITY LIFE? 477 



ascend and mix with the air in the room before it finds its ultimate 

 exit by the fireplace or outlet-flue. In fact, the fireplace itself should 

 be the fountain of warmed fresh air to an apartment, since no draught 

 thence can be annoying to any of the inmates of the room. The air 

 may be brought, according to its position upon different floors, from 

 below, by air-bricks inserted in the walls between the joists, or from 

 above the roof by a flue constructed for the purpose ; and if this flue 

 be carried in close connection with the chimney-flue, whether in sepa- 

 rate pipes, as by Mr. Jennings's method, by the use of Boyd's metal 

 withes, or ordinary brick ones, the air drawn down by the suction of 

 the fire will have the temperature considerably raised above that of the 

 outer atmosphere, the coldness of which, entering by windows, is un- 

 endurable. Builder. 



+ 



IS ELECTRICITY LIFE ? 



Br HENRY LAKE. 



TTTE have had many specimens of electricity this summer more, 

 V V perhaps, than for fifty years previously. Those, particularly, 

 who lived in the north and west of England, have had a greater demon- 

 stration of the powers of this extraordinary agent than in any ten 

 years, rolled into one, of the last quarter of a century. The thunder 

 season began with five days' successive storms in Liverpool and its 

 neighborhood. The first arrived on Monday, soon after the fire which 

 broke out at the Northwestern Hotel had frightened the people half 

 out of their senses. The storms culminated on Thursday, when the 

 fire literally " ran along upon the ground," and the thunder bellowed 

 in the ears of the merchants, so that business was suspended and 

 " high 'Change " was a desert at mid-day. Fortunately, the only 

 serious result was the firing of a house at Birkenhead, stunning the 

 lady inmates, knocking down the chimneys, fusing the bell-wires, and 

 melting the gas-pipes. After a few discharges here and there, with 

 more or less injury to life and property (notably in Manchester), the 

 atmosphere became wonderfully settled, and Monday, the 17th of June, 

 was one of the finest days, and one of the calmest and brightest even- 

 ings amid the usual long twilight of the North. Those particularly 

 who were travelling at that time will not soon forget that extraordinary 

 evening, when, by the most peculiar clearness of the atmosphere, 

 every object was brought out with a sharpness which rendered the 

 whole landscape a new sensation. It was the quiet rest of Nature 

 before the battle of the elements which was to follow. 



The 18th of June will long be remembered by all the people of the 

 north of England. An Egyptian darkness came down upon the land 



