336 Analysis of Scientific Books. 



are writers upon this subject who have been more communicative, 

 and as it is one of extreme importance and excessively neglected, 

 a few plain and simple details respecting it may not be altogether 

 unacceptable at this season of the year. We shall be as brief as 

 possible. 



There are two stoves nowin very general use for warming houses, 

 churches, and other buildings, which appear to us preferable to 

 most other contrivances of the kind ; they are neither difficult in 

 their application, nor very complex in their construction, and as 

 their inventors have fully described both, and are without the mo- 

 nopoly of a patent, we cannot well be accused of any unjust par- 

 tiality in recommending them. 



The first of these which we shall notice, as being the cheapest 

 and simplest, is the invention of Mr. Ferkins, and is described in 

 the .38th and 39th volumes of the Transactions of the Society of 

 Arts. There are two forms of it; one calculated for halls and 

 workshops, consists of a circular iron-stove, immediately at the 

 back of which is introduced a large column of cold air, by which 

 means the radiant heat from the stove is rapidly carried off. The 

 channel by which the cold air is admitted is so contrived as to 

 spread it over the greater part of the heated-iron surface, and 

 afterwards rapidly to diffuse it over the room. In this form of 

 the stove the smoke is supposed to be carried off either directly 

 into a chimney, or by an iron-pipe. In the other form of Mr. Per- 

 kins' stove, the iron-pipe by which the smoke is conveyed is made 

 the principal source of heat ; it is carried perpendicularly upwards, 

 and surrounded by a vertical air-trunk fitted in proper places with 

 sliding registers, by whicli the current of hot air may be checked 

 in its passage upwards, and directed by side apertures into any 

 particular apartment. The current of cold air beating against the 

 stove is admitted as before ; but, instead of being suffered to 

 diffuse itself below, it is received by the funnel-shaped aperture of 

 the air-shaft, and carried upwards for distribution. A stove of 

 this kind has been applied with considerable advantage for warm- 

 ing the amphitheatre of the Royal Institution, and though circum- 

 stances do not there admit of its most favourable application, it 

 effects its purpose very satisfactorily. It is obvious that in certain 

 situations the chimney, and its surrounding air-shaft, may be 

 carried up outside a house, and that the hot air may be thrown 

 into the building by one or more side apertures. The stove may 

 either be of the common construction, or so contrived as to have a 

 descending draught of air passing through the fuel, by which the 

 smoke is burned, and the accumulation of soot in the iron chimney 

 to a great extent prevented. 



Mr. Perkins' plan is recommended by its simplicity, cheapness, 

 and facility of general application, but it has several disadvan- 

 tages ; the heated air is readily contaminated by any dirt or du§t 



