376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The material to be dried was stacked upon the slatted floor in 

 loose piles, through which the heated air from below could circu- 

 late more or less freely. For years these dry-houses they were 

 not then dignified by the name of kilns were only used in con- 

 nection with certain manufactories for drying stock already cut 

 up for tubs, pails, and other wooden ware ; small boxes, chairs, 

 and other furniture material; turned work and Yankee-notion 

 stock in general ; no regular lumber stock being subjected to the 

 process. 



Occasionally a little lumber for interior finish, where an extra 

 fine job was desired, was run through the dry-house for a final 

 drying, and later, after machine-made sash, doors, and blinds be- 

 gan to take the place of the old hand-made goods, being generally 

 made from air-dried stock, they were sometimes put through the 

 dry-house before being wedged and pinned. 



These dry-houses contained such an element of fire risk that 

 they were generally built in isolated positions as close to water 

 as possible. Even then they were a constant menace to all sur- 

 rounding property as well as to their own contents. Lumber, 

 except in small pieces, dried in them was apt to be checked and 

 warped or twisted more or less, and was not at all satisfactory 

 save in the one feature of being free from moisture. 



The fire risk at last became so great where the establishments 

 requiring the dry-houses were situated in towns, and the restric- 

 tions of underwriters so onerous, that along in the fifties some 

 crude attempts were made to substitute steam for the furnaces 

 by conducting the exhaust from the engines running the works 

 into the cellars. 



It is not definitely known when or by whom the first attempts 

 were made, but it is a fact that as early as 1855 the trial was 

 made by a manufacturer in northern Massachusetts. But the 

 experiment did not prove very satisfactory, for the reason that 

 the steam had to be carried quite a long distance ; the science of 

 protecting steam pipes so as to prevent condensation was not as 

 well understood as at the present day ; the engine was none too 

 large and the boiler capacity limited, and there was more or less 

 back pressure. 



But so certain were the experimenters that they were on the 

 right , road that they kept up the trials, though, from causes 

 stated, making but little attempt to use the steam during the 

 winter months. Success seemed near, when the panic of 1857 came 

 on, and the house met with reverses that stopped all further ex- 

 periments. Some additional attempts were made in the New 

 England States during the next four years, but in a rather 

 desultory way, when, the war of the rebellion coming on, the 

 inventive genius of the country seems to have been turned in 



