CHIMNEY SWEEPING. 



fires to the exterior. This will not, how- 

 ever, be effected, unless the draught of 

 air be decidedly from the bottom to the 

 top. To insure this, the fire-place should 

 be rather wide than narrow in the front, 

 and gradually taper backwards, so as to 

 proceed all the way up in rather a coni- 

 cal form, causing the smoke to rush forth 

 with velocity. This is the great secret, 

 the want of which, added to angular 

 instead of curved lines, where bends are 

 requisite in any part of the flue, and the 

 being overtopped by adjoining buildings, 

 trees, banks, Sec, has caused much incon- 

 venience. Some persons are so very par- 

 ticular in listing their doors, and in mak- 

 ing apartments completely wind-tight, 

 that the want of draught has occasioned 

 the best constructed chimnies to smoke 

 intolerably ; a few holes made with a gim- 

 let in the sashes have remedied the de- 

 fect. When a chimney is very foul, so 

 as to be choked in a certain degree, the 

 soot will generally check the draught. 

 Short flues are subject to repel the smoke, 

 because the wind from above can so ea- 

 sily reach all the way down, which in 

 long flues it cannot do. If it could be ap- 

 plied to general use, the form of a tile- 

 kiln should be generally adopted for that 

 of the chimney 



CHIMXKT sweeping. Smoke, in its pass- 

 age through a chimney, deposits a great 

 part of the soot with which it is loaded, 

 upon the sides of the flue, which causes 

 danger from fire, and is besides apt to fall 

 back into the room. It is therefore fre- 

 quently necessary to have the flues clean- 

 ed. To effect this, various expedients 

 have been resorted to, but that most com- 

 monly adopted is the use of climbing 

 boys, who ascend within the chimney 

 and sweep down the soot. The evils of 

 this disagreeable and unwholesome oc- 

 cupation to those engaged in it are ge- 

 nerally acknowledged, and of late years 

 the public attention has been directed to 

 this subject, and premiums offered for 

 the discovery of methods which might 

 be substituted to a practice so offensive 

 to humanity. 



In the year 1802, a number of public- 

 spirited and wealthy persons in London 

 associated for this purpose, and offered 

 considerable premiums to those who 

 might invent, and bring into practice, a 

 method of cleansing chimneys, by me- 

 chanical means, that should supersede 

 the necessity of climbing boys. Feeling 

 themselves, perhaps, inadequate to the 

 task of carrying their laudable intentions 

 into full execution, they applied to the 

 " Society for the Encouragement of 



VOL. m. 



Arts, Manufactures," &c. in the Adelphi* 

 requesting them to engage in it, and to 

 offer premiums on the subject. In con- 

 sequence of this application, the society 

 offered their gold medal to the person, 

 who should invent the most effectual me- 

 chanical or other means for cleansing 

 chimnies from soot, and obviating the ne- 

 cessity of children being employed with- 

 in the flues. In a few months there were 

 five candidates for this premium, whose 

 several inventions were jmt to the test of 

 experiment upon chimnies not less than 

 70 feet high. One of the inventions con- 

 sisted of a set of brushes with pullies and 

 weights, which were to be let down from 

 the top of the chimney ; but as the ob- 

 ject was to find an apparatus to effect the 

 purpose from the inside of the house, 

 this was deemed unfit to accomplish the 

 views of the society. Another gentle- 

 man proposed the plan of throwing gra- 

 vel up the chimney by means of con- 

 densed air : the machine was tried, and 

 deemed wholly inadequate to the pur- 

 pose. A third apparatus consisted of 

 elastic rods of whale-bone and cane, with 

 a brush at the end of the upper one, 

 which was found to answer only in short 

 and straight chimnies. The next consist- 

 ed of laths several feet long, which lock- 

 ed into one another, and on the upper 

 one was fixed an elastic expanding brush, 

 which, in its ascending- and contracted 

 state, occupied a space of only six or 

 eight inches, but which was to be open- 

 ed, when forced to the top of the chim- 

 ney, by means of a string attached to it, 

 the whole length of the rods. After 

 many experiments before divers persons 

 appointed to examine its merits, this was 

 given up as ineffectual to the purpose re- 

 quired. The only remaining apparatus 

 was invented by Mr. George Smart, the 

 patentee of a method of making hollow 

 masts for ships : to him, after a long se- 

 ries of practice, in which he has been al- 

 most uniformly successful, the gold me- 

 dal was adjudged ; he has received also, 

 we believe, some other premiums for his 

 invention. As his method is now practis- 

 ed by several persons in and near the 

 metropolis, we shall give a more particu- 

 lar account of it. The principal parts of 

 the machine are, a brush, some rods or 

 hollow tubes, that fasten into each other 

 by means of brass sockets, and a cord for 

 connecting the whole together. 



The method of using the machine is 

 this : having ascertained, by looking up 

 the chimney, what is the direction of the 

 flue, a cloth is then to be fixed before 

 the fire-place, with the horizontal bar, 

 Y 



