238 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fire — down, up, and horizontally ; and this without expense for pipes 

 or hot-air ducts. If one grate is not enough, put another on the oppo- 

 site side of your room. Coals are cheaper than coffins ; and wood is 

 better used to keep the body alive than to inclose it when dead. 



An almost perfect arrangement for warming a room would be an 

 open fire, and the entire surface of the walls and ceiling formed 

 of a reflecting material. Then the least possible fire would warm us, 

 because the heat would be kept alive, active, radiant ; being reflected 

 constantly from side to side, and up to ceiling and back, as quick as 

 lightning-flashes ; and so, impinging upon the body on all sides, would 

 give it a lively, glowing warmth, while the air might be at almost 

 any lower temperature. It would be like having a fire on every side 

 of the room. Of course, this could not, in practice, be perfectly carried 

 out, but it might easily be carried out approximately. Common tin 

 plate is said to reflect eighty-eight per cent of the rays of heat that 

 strike it. This might be stamped with some pleasant design, impress- 

 ing it very slightly, to break up any distorted reflection of images. 

 Possibly wall-paper might be made with a figured metallic reflecting 

 surface. For a school-house this would be a great improvement, as it 

 would reflect the light as well as heat from every side, and so pre- 

 vent distorted positions of sitting, which are often found to prevail 

 where the light is only on one side of the pupils. 



With the heat of an open fire radiating or reflected upon our bodies, 

 we should not want so warm an atmosphere by 20° or 30° as we do 

 when all the heat in the air. And so the air would be fresh and in- 

 vigorating, and the lungs would be braced up and strengthened to 

 resist any shock from inhaling the external air. Of course, we must be 

 comfortable. We must not suppose that suffering with cold is good 

 for health. But we want just as little warmth of air as is consistent 

 with comfort ; and we want the heat free from the air, and of an ac- 

 tive character. As long as we make our school-houses and dwellings 

 hot-houses, or rather hot-air houses, we must expect to see our chil- 

 dren grow up hot-air productions, liable to be withered by exposure, 

 and blasted by pneumonia and consumption. 



Some places among the high Alps have recently become famous as 

 winter health resorts. Dr. Wise, in a book recently published in Lon- 

 don, descriptive of some of these places, says that at Davos, a point 

 in the Alps five thousand feet high, and surrounded by still higher 

 snow-covered mountains, invalids can remain in the open air, even 

 when it is 15° or 20° below the freezing-point, simply by the warmth 

 of solar radiation and the reflection of the sun's rays from the sur- 

 rounding snow-crystals. lie says that the reflection of the sunbeams 

 from the surface of the snow is so strong that ladies who carry para- 

 sols over their heads, and so preserve their complexion from the in- 

 fluence of the direct rays of the sun, nevertheless become tanned 

 (" burnt " is the word he uses) by the reflected rays from the snow 



