V4 On the Marquis de Chalanne’s [Fun 
On reflection it will be evident to all that our present houses have 
but a small degree either of the comfort or salubrity of which they 
are easily capable. In a country like ours, where so many powerful 
minds are familiar with the principles of mechanical and chemical 
philosophy, daily investigating and daily applying them, it is sin- 
gular that up to the present time this intellectual energy should not 
have been directed to the improvement of what is so immediately 
important to every one of us. 
Our houses, to be perfect, should enable us to maintain in them 
at all seasons that mild» or summer warmth which agrees with us, 
and we should breathe the air in them as pure as it is on the moun- 
tain top. Contrary to all this, however, we find, first, as to heat- 
ing, that instead of the whole house being habitable in winter, as 
we would desire, there are only two or three rooms so, those, viz. 
in which fires are kept; and in them all that is comfortably warm 
is but a ring of space round the fire, beyond which it is too cold, 
and nearer than which it is too hot. Moreover, even in this favoured 
ring, in place of the equable heat which our constitution naturally 
demands, we find a thermometer on the side of the body next the 
fire, standing many degrees higher than on the other, and a chilling 
current of air constantly tending towards the fire. In producing 
these miserable effects, too, we err so much against proper economy 
that, instead of applying the whole of the heat evolved in the com- 
bustion of our fuel to the purpose for which it is wanted and in- 
tended, we allow thre>-fourths of it to ascend the chimney with the 
smoke, and to escape perfectly useless. As to the other object men- 
tioned,. the purity of the air or ventilation—as our houses are now 
constructed, the only outlet by which noxious exhalation from our 
lungs, &c. &c. can escape, is a chimney which opens near the floor 
of each apartment; and yet all know that the hot air from our 
lungs, &c. immediately rises to the ceiling. It must descend again 
from thence, when cooled, to reach the chimney; but it is evident 
that in so doing it must be again partially inhaled, and will be again 
sent aloft doubly pernicious still to descend. 
There are doubtless many persons in England to whom if such 
a staiement had been made, they would readily have found the 
yemedy; but, like many other simple applications of known prin- 
ciples, notwithstanding its universal importance, and probable 
future universal adoption, it has come later than might have been 
expected. The proposer of the new plans has first viewed the sub- 
ject in the necessary light, and he seems to have succeeded well in 
his attempt at correction. The following is an outline of the 
plans. 
1. As to Heating.—Instead of allowing the hot smoke of a fire 
to escape useless, as is now done, it is made in ascending to pass 
through certain pieces of apparatus called warmers, placed in diffe- 
rent parts of the house, to which it parts with its heat; and these, 
by becoming warm themselves, heat the air surrounding them in 
the apartments, as a hot iron or stone heats water into which it js 
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