3O Of the Management of Fire 



CHAPTER II. 



Of the GENERATION OF HEAT in the COMBUSTION OF 

 FUEL. Without knowing what Heat really is, the 

 Laws of its Action may be investigated. Probabil- 

 ity that the Heat generated in the Combustion of 

 Fuel is furnished by the Air, and not by the Fuel. 

 Effects of blowing a Fire explained. Of Fire-places 

 in which the Fire is made to blow itself. Of Air- 

 furnaces. These Fire-places illustrated by a Lamp 

 on ARGAND'S Principle. Great Importance of being 

 able to regulate the Quantity of Air which enters a 

 closed Fire-place. Utility of Dampers in the Chim- 

 neys of closed Fire-places. General Rules and Direc- 

 tions for constructing closed Fire-places ; with a full 

 Explanation of the Principles on which these Rules 

 are founded. 



WITHOUT entering into those abstruse and most 

 difficult investigations respecting the nature of 

 fire, which have employed the attention and divided 

 the opinions of speculative philosophers in all ages; 

 without even attempting to determine whether there 

 be such a thing as an igneous fluid or not, whether 

 what we call heat be occasioned by the accumulation, 

 or by the increased action of such a fluid, or whether 

 it arises merely from an increased motion in the com- 

 ponent particles of the body heated, or of some elastic 

 fluid by which those particles are supposed to be sur- 

 rounded, and upon which they are supposed to act, or 

 by which they are supposed to be acted upon : in 



