50 Hood on "warming Buildi?igs hy Hot Water. 



if planted in good light loamy soil, in a glazed pit, where they 

 are protected from wet and severe cold in winter." The plant 

 is in Rollisson's Nursery, Tooting. {Bot. Reg., Nov.) 



REVIEWS. 



Art. I. A practical Treatise on Warming Buildings by Hot Water ; 

 and an Inquiry into the Laws of radiant and conducted Heat : to 

 xvhich are added, Remarks on Ventilation, and on the various Methods 

 of distributing artificial Heat, and their Effects on Animal and Vege- 

 table Physiology. By Charles Hood, F.R.A.S. 8vo, pp.216, and 

 numerous Woodcuts. London. 



" A NATURAL inclination for philosophical enquiries " first led 

 Mr. Hood " to investigate the principles of the invention for 

 heating buildings by the circulation of hot water ; and the many 

 favourable opportunities that have occurred for proving the ac- 

 curacy of" his " theoretical views have encouraged" him " to 

 persevere in the investigation." The result is the work before 

 us, which is the only book, that we are aware of, exclusively 

 devoted to the subject of heating by hot water. The author has 

 treated the subject in a manner sufficiently popular to be gene- 

 rally understood ; and, while he has been rigidly scientific on those 

 points which required it, he has avoided, as much as possible, all 

 abstruse algebraic calculations, or confined them to parts of the 

 subject of less immediate importance to practical men. 



The work consists of an Introduction, and twelve chapters. 

 In the Introduction, it is stated that " the merits and principles 

 of hot water, as a medium of conveying heat, being but partially 

 understood, the object of the present treatise is to facilitate its 

 application, and extend the sphere of its utility." A short 

 sketch of the origin and history of this mode of heating is given, 

 in which we regret to find that the first inventor. Bonne- 

 main (see Gardo Mag., vol. iv., for 1828), is not once men- 

 tioned. It is a singular fact, which we have noticed in" some 

 former volume of this Magazine, that the hot-houses in the 

 Royal Botanic Garden of Paris were heated by hot water in 

 Bonnemain's time, upwards of fifty years ago; and that the fact 

 had been so completely forgotten by the French gardeners and 

 engineers, that the government sent to England, in 1832, a 

 deputation of professional men, to study the subject, in order 

 to heat the hot-houses of the Paris Garden again by hot water. 

 In Petersburg, also, during the time of the Empress Catherine, 

 the immense conservatory built by Prince Potemkin, as a part 

 of the Taurida Palace, was heated by hot water, which, Storck 

 informs us, was circulated both above and under ground, in 

 leaden pipes. In Petersburg, this mode of heating was given 



