DOMESTIC VENTILATION. 341 



below it, dominates all the atmospheric movement in the 

 house, unless another and more powerful upcast shaft be 

 somewhere else in communication with the apartments. 

 But in this case the original or ordinary chimney would be 

 converted into a dowcast shaft pouring air downwards into 

 the room, instead of carrying it away upwards. I need not 

 describe the sort of ventilation thus obtainable while the 

 fire is burning and smoking. 



Effective sanitary ventilation should supply gentle and 

 uniformly-diffused currents of air of moderate and equal 

 temperature throughout the house. We talk a great deal 

 about the climate here and the climate there; and when 

 we grow old, and can afford it, we move to Bournemouth, 

 Torquay, Mentone, Nice, Algiers, etc., for better climates, 

 forgetting all the while that the climate in which we prac- 

 tically live is not that out-of-doors, but the indoor climate 

 of our dwellings, the which, in a properly constructed house, 

 may be regulated to correspond to that of any latitude we 

 may choose. I maintain that the very first step towards 

 the best attainable approximation to this in our existing 

 houses is to brick up, cement up, or otherwise completely 

 stop up, all our existing fire-holes, and abolish all our exist- 

 ing fires. 



But what next? The reply to this will be found in the 

 next chapter. 



DOMESTIC VENTILATION. 



A LESSON" FROM THE COAL-PlTS. 



WE require in our houses an artificial temperate climate 

 which shall be uniform throughout, and at the same time 

 we need a gentle movement of air that shall supply the 

 requirements of respiration without any gusts, or draughts, 

 or alternations of temperature. Everybody will admit that 

 these are fundamental desiderata, but whoever does so be- 

 comes thereby a denouncer of open-grate fireplaces, and of 

 every system of heating which is dependent on any kind of 



