6o6 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



tide of air lingers longer, until warmed enough to set off on its errand 

 of ventilation and warming. Variations of heat in the stove quicken 

 or retard the unconfined and full current rather than vary the heat of 

 each particle, and we claim to accomplish by a self-acting process a 

 fair uniformity of temperature. 



It will, no doubt, be urged that a house kept up to 50 and 55 

 makes people "delicate;" that they "catch cold" when they go out; 

 that a hardening process is healthy, and so on. 



Our reply is, that a uniform temperature of 50 and 55 is natural 

 and healthy. That the maintenance of this temperature in winter 

 must be a question of clothes or fuel on the one hand, or of depressed 

 functional action on the other. That the loving care which prescribes 

 a cold bedroom and a hot, sweltering bed is of the nature of that 

 kindness that kills. That children buried in blankets realize Prince 

 Bismarck's coarse threat to the Pai-isians : that their delicate skins 

 become overheated and relaxed while they are irritated by perspira- 

 tion ; at the same time that the most delicate tissues of all, in the 

 lungs, are dealing with air abnormally frigid. Fevered or relaxed, 

 the poor little victims of combined ignorance and kindness toss and 

 dream, troubled under a mass of bedclothes, while the well-meaning 

 mother, "wrapped in her virtue," and soothed by a bedroom-fire, 

 slumbers peacefully through the working out of the sad process of 

 " the survival of the fittest." 



The only other objection to be urged against the use of a stove is 

 the small part that the combustion of the fuel in it j^lays in tlie matter 

 of ventilation. As the ventilation by means of an open-air fireplace 

 is the principal cause of the waste of heat up the chimney, we cannot 

 consider this gain from arrested waste as an objection, except in ex- 

 treme cases of stove-misplacement. As, in the plan we are consider- 

 ing, the stove is the agent to supply a very large quantity of air, the 

 plea that it does not abstract any large volume, we take to be an ad- 

 vantage, not an evil. The open fires become the chief difi"users, draw- 

 ing the injected air within and then out of each room. We concede 

 their employment to the claims of luxury as wasteful adjuncts, but 

 minister still to comfort and luxury. At the same time we legitima- 

 tize their action and leave them free to work. We are no long-er at 

 enmity with Nature ; no longer spoiled children of civilization, strug- 

 gling against " what is good for us ;" but, freely accepting the imposed 

 conditions of an artificial life, we use reason and common-sense to 

 make them the best of their kind. We cook our air as we cook our 

 food. Both in a raw state are objectionable. Both subjected to the 

 modifying influence of heat become pleasant ministers to our daily 

 wants. One generates the blood which is the life, the other is its puri- 

 fier and renovator. The use of both is health, vigor, and enjoyment ; 

 the abuse of either counts up largely in the account we liave to pay 

 for what of evil there is in tjie world. Abridged from Westminster 

 Review. 



