RESPIRATION. 157 



There was neither window nor door. The only opening 

 made into the chamber was a small hole in the floor, through 

 which the sleepers ascended from the room below. This 

 lower room was not ventilated much better. It had less 

 than 1400 cubic feet of space ; and there nineteen persona 

 boarded or lived in the day, and five slept at night, and there 

 all the operations of cooking, eating, and washing were 

 carried on. 



362. In this chamber, with less than 800 feet of air, four- 

 teen men slept through the night ; and for eight hours these 

 men breathed over and over the air from each other's lungs, 

 in the vain attempt to purify their blood, and refresh their 

 frames, and invigorate themselves for the next day's labor. 

 Here was air provided sufficient to last them less than nine 

 minutes, and yet it was required to last them 480 minutes ; 

 and in this, as well as in other crowded chambers, nothing 

 but the undesigned ventilation through the crevices of the 

 imperfect carpentry, saved these sleeping occupants from 

 suffocation. 



363. The crowded state of the cabins of steamboats, in 

 which the sleeping apartments are below decks, and of the 

 canal boats at night, leaves less air for respiration than even 

 these rooms. Not unfrequently, fifty or even sixty persons 

 sleep in the narrow cabin of a canal boat, which contains 

 no more space than some of the airy chambers where only 

 two cautious people would usually spend the night. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Crowded Workshops. Chambers. Public Halls. Churches. 

 School-Rooms. School-Rooms rilled with foul Air. Habit of 

 breathing each other's Expirations. Foul Air offensive. Ven- 

 tilation. 



364. SOME of the trades require a very small space for 

 iheir operations. The shops in which these are carried on 

 14 



