HOW TO WARM OUR HOUSES. 239 



below and around them.* Altogether it is something like a great 

 room, half a mile wide, with mountain-walls covered with snow, two 

 or three thousand feet high, and floor of snow ; open above, with the 

 sun's rays pouring down, and the heat being reflected from every 

 side and from below, by a million million snow-crystals, warming the 

 bodies of the invalids ; while the mountain-walls keep off the winds, 

 and the quiet air is perhaps 10° or 20° below freezing. 



This is Nature's sanitarium (though the picture may be a little 

 overdrawn above the reality), and such a sanitarium, in miniature, 

 we may have in every house, and in every school and college, if we 

 will, by discarding our present abominable air-heating arrangements, 

 and using, instead, open fires, in proper positions and at proper eleva- 

 tions for obtaining the best results (either with or without reflecting 

 walls), and with ceilings of perforated tin plate, for the double pur- 

 pose of reflection and ventilation. We want no little, inefficient, pepper- 

 box ventilators, nor an air-supply that will send a perceptible current 

 of cold air upon one side of us. The perforated, metallic ceiling might 

 be stamped with appropriate artistic designs, which the light would 

 bring out and make pleasant to the eye. In public halls this might 

 be beautifully and appropriately carried out by an artist of good 

 taste. In any case the reflecting surface must be made of the proper 

 material, as some substances (a common looking-glass, for instance) 

 reflect light from an open fire, but not the heat, well. 



In a large room several grates on different sides would be required, 

 and to obtain the best results they should be set at somewhat different 

 altitude and in different position from the ordinary setting. Indeed, 

 they may be made to give out double the heat they usually give. 

 The front surface of a fire is the main efficient heating surface. Hence 

 the grate should be made several bars higher in front than common, 

 and if it is set higher up in the wall than usual and inclined forward 

 at the top, it will be found to radiate downward and warm the floor 

 much moi'e effectually. But all these improvements in the shape, posi- 

 tion, and setting of the grates can be easily come at by a little prac- 

 tice and philosophy. The main thing to be done is to quit the use of 

 debilitating hot air, and warm the body by radiant heat, giving the 

 lungs cool, refreshing, bracing air to breathe. It is a most important 

 matter. Money can not measure the value that such a change in 

 our method of warming houses and schools would be to the nation. 

 We would be healthier and happier, and in the course of generations 

 would have appreciably and measurably more perfect physical forms, 

 more active brains, clearer minds, and better mcrals — better morals, 

 I say, if for no other reason than that of our obeying the laws of 

 Nature, which are the laws of God. 



* See, also, an article by Professor Edward Frankland, entitled " A Great "Winter 

 Sanitarium for the American Continent," published in " The Popular Science Monthly " 

 for July, 18S5. — Editor. 



