SANITARY ESSENTIALS. 317 



For seven months of the year we must resort to artificial 

 means of warming the air of our dwellings. 



It is essential to the comfort of a pleasant home that the 

 entire of the house should be warmed, — halls, living and 

 sleeping rooms, — it being just as healthy to live and sleep 

 in a warm as a cold room (and far more comfortable), good 

 abundant ventilation being always secured. 



In the " olden times," the spacious open fireplace, set in a 

 huge chimney, with its roaring wood-fire, served to warm the 

 living-room, and secure excellent ventilation. The sleeping- 

 rooms, being unwarmed, were, in severe weather, cold, and 

 uncomfortable to the last degree. 



The old fireplace and hearth-stone have been torn out, a 

 small chimney built, and the air-tight stove for wood or 

 coal has taken its place, to heat, not warm, the room ; to 

 prevent, not secure, ventilation, especially when aided by 

 double windows. Hot-air furnaces (a modified form of hot 

 air-tight stove), hot water circulating through pipes, and 

 steam, which are essentially alike in their operation, are now 

 used to warm our best and most comfortable dwellings. 



No device for warming is so cheerful, agreeable, and so 

 healthy, as the open stove, grate, or fireplace, and none so 

 expensive to maintain. The Galton stove is, perhaps, a more 

 excellent arrangement, and more economical. 



Next comes the furnace, which, when properly constructed 

 with tight joints to prevent the escape of the poisonous coal- 

 gases, and when freely supplied with fresh air and water for 

 evaporation, does very well ; but undoubtedly the very best, 

 most safe, cleanly, and powerful heating apparatus is a low- 

 pressure steam-boiler with direct or indirect radiation. 



Whatever may be the sources of artificial heat, it is essen- 

 tial to the purity and healthfulness of our houses that ven- 

 tilation and renewal of the air be secured by night and day. 

 For this purpose the most simple devices that will use or 

 control the forces of nature are the best. 



Chimneys should be built in two compartments of suita- 

 ble size, smoothly plastered on the inside, — one for the prod- 

 ucts of combustion ; the other, for ventilation. The cellar, 

 and every living and sleeping room in the house, should have 

 openings at the top of the room leading into the ventilating- 

 shaft, regulated by registers. Heat from fires and smoke 



