HOLLY SYSTEM OF STEAM-HEATING. 



421 



she was captured by the British, and was kept 

 a prisoner of war at Bermuda until peace was 

 declared. He served under Decatur in the Al- 

 gerine war, and received from him a Turkish 

 saber for his bravery in the capture of an Al- 

 gerine frigate. After serving on the Guerriere, 

 the Washington, the Franklin, and the Colum- 

 bus, he took command at the close of the war 

 of an East India merchantman. In 1825 he 

 was made lieutenant and assigned to duty in 

 the West Indies. In 1841 he became com- 

 mander, and was assigned to the command of 

 the Pensacola navy yard. In 1844 he was flag 

 captain of the Pacific Squadron, and in 1846 

 again assumed command of the Pensacola navy 

 yard. In 1854 he bombarded and destroyed 

 the town of San Juan de Nicaragua. He was 

 in command of the navy yard at Sackett's Har- 

 bor in 1858, and was afterward ordered to join 

 the Mediterranean Squadron. He soon received 

 orders to return to the United States, which 

 he reached in 1861. He then resigned his 

 commission, but the Department refused to ac- 

 cept his resignation, struck his name from the 

 rolls, and ordered his arrest. He succeeded in 

 eluding the officers in search of him, went 

 South, and was made a commodore in the 

 Confederate navy. On October llth he at- 

 tacked the Federal blockading squadron at the 

 passes of the Mississippi, and was appointed 

 flag captain of the New Orleans Station for 

 what he claimed as an important victory. Be- 

 fore Farragut's attack on New Orleans in 

 April, 1862, Commodore Hollins was super- 

 seded by Commodore Whittle. After the war 

 he was pardoned by President Johnson, and 

 took up his residence in Baltimore, where he 

 became a crier in the City Court. 



HOLLY SYSTEM OF STEAM-HEATING. 

 The idea of generating the heat required in 

 thickly settled communities for the health and 

 comfort of the inhabitants, and perhaps also 

 for cooking and laundry purposes, in central 

 establishments, and of conducting it stored up 

 in steam or some such absorbent medium 

 through pipes and laying it on in dwellings in 

 'ike manner with water and illuminating gas, 

 has long been looked upon as a promising 

 scheme, which was likely to be realized in the 

 march of mechanical improvements and in the 

 evolution of social methods. Various invent- 

 ors have busied themselves with this scheme ; 

 but its first practical illustration on a large 

 scale has been accomplished by Birdsell Holly, 

 of Lockport, New York, previously known to 

 the public from his invention of the Holly 

 water-works system. Improvement and econ- 

 omy in the methods of artificial heating is of 

 more concern to the people of the United 

 States than to Europeans, owing to the more 

 continental climate of America, which is char- 

 acterized by a constant range of low tempera- 

 ture through about two thirds of the year 

 over all the Northern States, necessitating the 

 warming of inhabited rooms through the most 

 of the year. Among the inventions offered 



for that end was that of Coleman for steam- 

 heating from a central source, quite similar to 

 the Holly plan, but never carried into effect. 

 The Holly system was first introduced into the 

 town of Lockport, where the works com- 

 menced running in October, 1877. During 

 the following winter 40 houses were warmed, 

 besides a large schoolhouse and a public hall, 

 and the power was furnished to drive two 

 steam-engines, one of which was nearly half a 

 mile away from the boiler-house. In the sec- 

 ond winter (1878-'79) 1,000 consumers were 

 supplied, the total space heated amounting to 

 about 10,000,000 cubic feet. With the methods 

 used for isolating the conducting-pipes and re- 

 converting into steam a part of the water of 

 condensation, the steam is conveyed over long 

 distances without losing any material amount 

 of its heating power. With larger boilers and 

 mains than those employed in Lockport, steam 

 can be thus conveyed and distributed over an 

 area of four square miles from a single cen- 

 tral boiler-house. Mr. Holly first seriously 

 directed his studies to the problem of convey- 

 ing heat into the houses of a city in the year 

 1866. After he had satisfied himself of the 

 practicability of such a scheme by long experi- 

 ments, he started the Holly Steam Company 

 in January, 1877, with a capital of $25,000, 

 which undertook to warm the dwelling-houses 

 of Lockport at a price based on the cost of 

 coal consumed in the ordinary methods of 

 heating. A comparison of the cost of heating 

 by the Holly system and that by hot-air fur- 

 naces and private steam-heating apparatus was 

 made on the basis of the results of the first 

 winter's operation. The average cost of the 

 fixtures for each of 1,000 takers using the 

 Holly system was taken at $200 ; the annual 

 interest, with the depreciation and cost of re- 

 pairs, at $18 ; and the average yearly bills for 

 steam-service to the company amounted to 

 $39.80, making the total expense for a year 

 $57.80, against $113.75 required to keep a 

 furnace costing $275, and consuming 10 tons 

 of coal a year, and $197 expended annually 

 on a private steam-heater using 12 tons and 

 costing originally $800. This estimate of the 

 cost of the heat is certainly very insufficient, 

 being much higher than it would be if the 

 works were operated to their full capacity and 

 the houses served not so few and so scattered. 

 Improvements and economies in the working 

 of the enterprise can also be reasonably ex- 

 pected to reduce the cost considerably after a 

 longer trial ; but, on the other hand, the .safety 

 and durability of the elaborate conducting ap- 

 paratus can only be determined after several 

 years' experience, and the deterioration and 

 cost of maintenance calculated ; and the wear 

 and destruction caused by such an active ex- 

 pansive agent as steam, handled under novel 

 conditions, may more than counterbalance any 

 possible reduction in the working expenses. 

 The Holly system offers many other advan- 

 tages besides a more healthful and less trou- 



