130 



WARMING AND VENTILATION. 



REVIEW. 



The IIistort and Art of Warming and Ven- 

 TiLATiNfi Rooms and Buildings, by open fires, 

 stoves, steavx, hot water, Sfc, S(C.; with, notices 

 of the progress of personal and fireside com- 

 fort, and the management of fuel. Illustrated 

 by tiro hundred and forty figures. Hy Walter 

 i<KRNAN, Civil Engineer. 2 vols. 12mo. Lon- 

 ilon. 1845. 



An admirable Avork in two volumes, on the 

 important subject of warming and ventilat- 

 ing. No man, who builds or lives in a house 

 of any kind ; no man who has suffered from 

 smoky chimneys, fireplaces that Avaste fuel? 

 or stoves that render wholesome air impure, 

 will faii to derive much useful information 

 and many practical hints, of real value in 

 every day life, from these two small, but 

 well filled volumes. 



As a people, we still know nothing about 

 ventilation. One has only to travel in our 

 crowded steamboats, where three hundred 

 persons are content to lie down together, 

 like cattle, in the stifled atmosphere of a nar- 

 row cabin, which, as a sleeping apartment, 

 would contain wholesome air enough for 

 barely a dozen people ; or over railroads in 

 winter, Avhere thirty or forty thrust them- 

 selves in a car, with a fiery little anthracite 

 salamander burning up what little oxygen 

 may remain in the atmosphere there, after 

 being continually breathed over ; or be a 

 victim in that worst of all places, a lecture 

 room or concert room or church, when some 

 extraordinary attraction has drawn a " full 

 house," — to know that the sovereign people, 

 who have learned something of the value 

 of pure tenter, so as to pay, cheerfully, mil- 

 lions for Croton and Schuylkill, have not yet 

 been brought to acknowledge the indispen- 

 sable necessity of pure air. 



It is certainly one of the most important 

 of the " Rural Arts," to know how to build 

 a dwelling-house, so as to attain the maxi- 



mum of health and comfort within its walls. 

 The general ignorance on many of the all. 

 important subjects embraced in these vo- 

 lumes, is deplorable. We never met a 

 country mason, who really understood the 

 principles which govern the draught of 

 chimneys, and consequently half the chim- 

 neys in the country smoke grievously. Not 

 one in a hundred can set a grate, so that the 

 largest part of the heat does not pass into 

 the chimne}\ Not one person in a thousand 

 knows the principles necessary to the suc- 

 cessful ventilation of a large and crowded 

 public building. 



The subject of warming and ventilating 

 is very fully presented to the general reader 

 b}'' Mr. Bern AN. His style is lively and gra- 

 phic ; and he conveys instruction without 

 the tedious technicalities which some wri- 

 ters on these topics have indulged in. The 

 work comprises in its plan, a very complete 

 and interesting account of all the principal 

 modes of warming and ventilating from a 

 very early date down to the present time ; 

 and there is a vast deal of instructive mat- 

 ter, pleasantly and ingeniously conveyed, 

 regarding the domestic life and habits of 

 our ancestors. Our limits will not allow us 

 to enter into any of the details of this 

 work, but we quote the following, to draw 

 the attention of our readers to the import- 

 ance of a well regulated artificial climate — 

 we mean the climate of a properly Avarmed 

 house. 



" Anciently, Buckinghamshire was overgrown 

 Avith wood, until it Avas cut doAvn to prevent its 

 harboring the robbers, with which the district had 

 become infested. IJut the remote clTect of denud- 

 ing the land has been to dwarf its people, if not 

 somewhat to dull their wit. In the county of Lan- 

 caster, says Sir Gilbert Blanc, (Medical Disserta- 

 tions,) the great abundance and cheapness of fuel 

 is extremely favorable to life, liealth, and comfoi-t; 

 and he thinks it is OAving to this advantage that the 

 inhabitants of this district, i)articularly the females, 

 have become noted for their Avell-formed persons 



