m 



WARMING AND VENTILATION. 



WARlMNi; 



716 



Urge An was maintained at the bottom of this shaft, which caused a 

 powerful draught ; and the draught nicked out all the vitiated air 

 from the building, by a tunnel connecting the baeement story with the 

 abaft. The vitiated air in the House ascended by aperture* into a 

 space above the ceiling, and thence descended by pipes to the tunnel 

 which conveyed it into the abaft The experience derived from this 

 arrangement led to many improvements in the ventilation of the pre- 

 entHouse*. Mr. Cioldsworthy Gurney here employs mechanism, by 

 which freah air is drawn in from some of the open courts, and after 

 being filtered through a wire-gauze screen, is made to pass over steam- 

 heated boxes ; it is moistened by jets of spray, and enters the floors of 

 both Houses through holes covered with horsehair cloth. In sum- 

 mer the air is cooled by the wet spray, and does not come into 

 contact with any heated surfaces. Besides this mode of warming the 

 two principal chambers, there are steam-pipes to various parts of the 

 building. A large coke fire produces a draught, which drives the 

 vitiated air out of openings near the ceiling. 



The modern application of the two main principles of ventilation 

 the production of a current by a rotating fan, and by the ascensive 

 force of heated air are very varied. We can only notice a few of 

 them. One of the simplest and best known u Dr. Arnott'a chimney 

 valve, for ventilating ordinary sitting-rooms. The air of a room, 

 vitiated by breathing, smoking, Ac., ascends, but cannot easily escape, 

 because there are no openings near the ceiling ; it contaminates all the 

 air above the level of the chimney opening. A chimney valve corrects 

 this. A hole is made from the side of the room into the chimney, 

 near the ceiling. An iron door or valve is fixed in the opening, so 

 nearly balanced as to open or close with great ease. When opened, 

 the air in the upper half of the room enters by virtue of the draught 

 in the warm chimney. 



Lemre's method of ventilation, introduced in 1857, draws in cold 

 air from the atmosphere, warms it, discharges it near the ceiling, and 

 sends off the impure air from a room without mixing with the pure 

 warm air. To effect this, a fire is lighted in a small Btove or furnace ; 

 the products of combustion are carried at once through pipes into the 

 chimney ; and air enters through a hole in the outer wall, by a channel 

 to a receptacle beneath the fire-place, into the interior of a casing sur- 

 rounding the steve, but not in contact with any part of the tire or 

 stove. The air becomes heated during its passage, and at the same time 

 moistened by steam from a basin of water placed within the case ; it 

 escapes through an opening into the room, by lateral apertures 

 parallel with the ceiling. As the upper parts become filled with 

 warm air, the foul air finds its way to the fire and the chimney. In 

 Wemyas'a plan, introduced in 1859, an adjustable gridiron slide is 

 fitted up in the wall near the ceiling, the inner side flush with the 

 wall. The slide governs a passage into a metal chamber, fitted into a 

 hole in the wall behind the slide. The chamber baa two passages, one 

 to admit the passage of fresh air, the other of foul. There is a venti- 

 lating fan at the outer end of the chamber. A cord easily moves the 

 sliding valve, so as to make it open or close ; and the chamber ia made 

 telescopic, to suit it to the thickness of the wall. M'Kiunel's patent 

 ventilator, introduced in the same year, is intended to ventilate 

 carriages and ships as well as houses and public buildings. It is 

 planned to obviate certain evils arising from having the abduction 

 tubes, to draw off foul air, near the roof or ceiling, and the induction 

 tubes, for admitting fresh air, near the floor ; in all such arrangements 

 there is a cold current in the lower part of a room, productive of many 

 inconveniences. To remedy this defect, Mr. M'Kinnel proceeds as 

 follow*. Two concentric tubes rise from the ceiling of the room to be 

 ventilated, the inner one to a greater height than the outer. Both have 

 access, in various ways, to the outer atmosphere. The vitiated air of 

 the room escapes through the inner tube, while the pure air from with- 

 out descends through the annular space between the two tubes. Both 

 IHSMIIIIS have wire gauze screens to ward off rain, soot, Ac. ; and 

 valvular mechanism to regulate the current*. A lower apartment may 

 be ventilated in a similar way, by having the ascending and descending 

 flues in the outer walls, and a horizontal tube between the ceiling of 

 the room and the floor of that next above it 



The ventilation of hospitals has received much attention in France 

 and other parts of the Continent Dr. Van Eck6 introduced a system 

 in Belgium, which has been copied in some of the French hospitals, on 

 the recommendation of a commission presided over by Dr. Urasad. 

 A steve called a taitirifln is placed in the basement story. Air from 

 the garden of the hospital descends a shaft, passes horizontally into 

 the basement, and thence through the stove. The air warmed in the 

 stove pass us over a pan of water to imbibe moisture, and then ascends 

 to the wards above. In warm weather the air from the garden u 

 made to pas* up into the wards without passing through the oalorifere, 

 by simply turning a regulating valve. Thus all the air admitted to 

 the wards is derived from the garden. The warmed air enters each 

 story at the centre of the floor, through small holes. Some of the 

 warm air is in an inner tube, and ascends to the next highest story ; 

 and so on, up to the top range of rooms. The foul air rises from the 

 four corners of each ward, up pipes to the loft, and then to a central 

 drum or shaft A small steam-engine works a fan to draw out the 

 foul air more quickly. The smoke from the engine fire and from the 

 calorifere is made to warm a mass of air carried up to the drying-room 

 of the laundry. In England, Dr. Arnott has ventilated the York 



County Hospital in a peculiar way. There is an air-cylinder with a 

 capacity of 125 cubic feet, moving up and down eight times in a minute, 

 and connected with a beam having a central pivot A coin 

 water, 00 feet high, produce* a pressure which force* air into the 

 cylinder, and from the cylinder 2000 cubic feet per minute is forced 

 into the building. 



This subject, the ventilating of hospital*, U connected medically 

 with a recent proposition by Dr. Stenhouse, to use charcoal as a ven- 

 tilating filter for ship* and sick rooms. The antiseptic properties of 

 charcoal are well known. Dr. Stonhouse proposes to employ two 

 sheets of wire-gauze, enclosing a thin layer of powdered charcoal ; and 

 to place this apparatus wherever foul air ia likely to pass. In some 

 cases it would be well to employ a ventilating fan, to force a passage 

 of the air through the filter. Dr. Stenhouse remarks, that if a layer of 

 coarsely-powdered charcoal were placed under the floors of kitchens and 

 basement rooms, it might prevent, by a sort of nitration, the ascent of 

 offensive sewer odours from beneath. 



We may advert, lastly, to an inquiry made in 1859, at the instance 

 of the General Board of Health, by a commission consisting of Mr. 

 Fairbaira, Mr. Glaisber, and Mr. Wheatotone. Dr. Lyon Playfair was 

 also appointed; but as he could not assist in the investigation, he did 

 not sign the report The inquiry was generally into the modes of 

 warming and ventilating buildings. Experiments were made in the 

 board-room of the General Board of Health, on the temperature of the 

 air, walls, and floor, and on the hygrometric state of the air. Then at 

 the Wellington Barracks, in different soldiers' rooms, heated by tinier- 

 ent kinds of open fires. Other experiments were made to determine 

 the effect of duplicate panes of glass ; and to determine the chemical 

 and general state of the air. 



Among the results at which the commissioners arrived were the 

 following : Smoke from almost all fires for warming rooms may be 

 avoided. All fire-places ought to be constructed to prevent the forma- 

 tion of smoke at all. The ventilation of rooms ought not to be 

 attempted by any peculiar form of grate ; the grate ought to be devoted 

 to the due burning of the fuel, leaving the ventilation to be achieved 

 by other means. In all open fire-grates reflecting surfaces should be 

 used, to increase the amount of heat radiated into the rooms. Chimney- 

 flues should be of much smaller dimensions than is customary. The 

 flue should not be situated in the outer wall of the house, so as to 

 become chilled by the external air; it should be provided with a 

 closing aperture, placed far back to increase the intensity of the com- 

 bustion. Fire-brick linings should be used. Sunken ash pits and 

 hidden ash should be provided. The grate ia best placed when visible 

 from the greatest number of places in the room ; and the burning 

 moss in it should be brood rather than deep. The commissioners 

 agreed with Dr. Arnott, that the grate should not be so near the floor 

 as is now customary in the better kind of houses. 



The ventilation of mines is noticed under MINING. 



To those who wish to study this subject in detail, we refer to the 

 volumes on Warming and Ventilation by Tredgold, Hood, Richardson, 

 Arnott, Sutton, Jebb, Lloyd, Burn, Bernan, Reid, and Perkins. The 

 parliamentary Blue Books relating to the new Houses of Parliament, 

 and to the proceedings of the Board of Health, also contain much 

 information on the matter. A cheap, useful, and well-illustrated com- 

 pendium of the whole subject will be found in Tomlinsou's ' Treatise 

 on Warming and Ventilation,' forming part of Weole's Rudimentary 

 Series. 



WARPING, a mode of producing a deposition of the earthy matter 

 which is suspended in rivers. This causes a stirring of the water, 

 which prevents the finer particles from being deposited. It is only 

 necessary to produce a stagnation of the water for a few hours to have 

 a copious deposit, leaving the water clear over it. 



On the low flats which border the mouths of rivers, occasional inun- 

 dations often cause a deposit which ia highly fertilising. Thus the 

 polders in Holland and Flanders have been formed of the mud of large 

 rivers, and, being drained and kept dry by dykes and sluices, have 

 formed the most fertile soils. 



Warping is an imitation of this natural process : A bank of earth 

 is raised along the course of the river, so high that the floods cannot 

 pass over it. In some part of this dyke is a sluice for the double pur- 

 pose of letting in the water and letting it out at pleasure. When the 

 tide is setting in and counteracting the natural current of the rivi-r, 

 the sluice is opened and the water flows in by one or more channels 

 made for the purpose of conveying it over the lower land, and covers 

 it to the depth of high-water. The sluice is now shut, and the im- 

 prisoned water, becoming stagnant, deposits all the mud which it held 

 suspended before. The sluice is opened at low-water, and the water 

 is allowed to run out slowly ; it leaves a coating of mud or sediment, 

 which hardens and dries rapidly. This operation is repeated until n 

 thickness of several inches of new soil has thus been warped, when it 

 U allowed to dry, and is then ploughed and cultivated like any other 

 field. It takes some time before any corn will grow on the new warp : 

 at first it looks like barren mud ; but it soon dries to a better texture, 

 and ultimately produces very extraordinary crops. If its fertility 

 decrease, and its surface is still below high-water mark, a slight 

 warping, like the inundations of the Nile, immediately restores the 

 fertility. What is curious, is the almost total absence of organic 

 matter in the warp-soils, or rather, its intimate combination with the 



