( 261 ) 



Suggestions for the better Ventilation of Sailing and Steam- 

 Vessels. By Robert Ritchie, Esq., F.R.S.S.A.,&c., Civil- 

 Engineer, Edinburgh. (Communicated by the Royal 

 Scottish Society of Arts). 



{Concluded from page 182.) 



I could easily suggest other plans to attain the object, viz., 

 a current determined to one point ; for instance, the use of 

 hot- water-tube apparatus, in which case the foul-air-extract- 

 ing-trunk could pass through a coil of pipes heated by the 

 galley-fire, and of which there might be several so heated, or 

 the hot-water pipes could be placed within the trunk itself to 

 raise the temperature of the air. See Richardson''s work, 

 London, 1839. A very old plan used in buildings was to have 

 the hot smoke-pipe encircled by a tube of larger diameter, the 

 air passing upward between. 



The failure, however, of so many ingenious schemes, ex- 

 tending over so many years, for improving successfully the 

 ventilation of ships, has tended very strongly to impress me 

 with the idea, that any method to be extensively useful, espe- 

 cially as regards sailing-vessels, must enter into the original 

 construction of ships. And with this view I would suggest the 

 introduction into timber and iron-built ships, of a thorough and 

 efficient system of spontaneous or self-acting ventilation, af- 

 fording at all times an ample supply of fresh air in every 

 part of a ship, by means of a judicious arrangement of air- 

 flues in the former, and pipes in the latter. In a large class 

 of vessels now afloat, by application of the openings or inter- 

 stices between the timbers (presently in use for airing the 

 frame-work) where the plan of close timbers has not yet been 

 adopted, a free circulation of air might be effected at all times 

 in lower decks and cabins. As regards the airing of the frame- 

 work itself, its importance has long been a point of much in- 

 terest for the preservation of the parts below the surface, 

 though much difference of opinion among practical men is en- 

 tertained on this point, one class advocating a free circulation of 



