896 Teaxsacttoxs of the American Institute. 



rooms are always full of air of some kind, and then remember that it 

 is just as inipossiUe to put tioo quantities of air into "a room at the 

 same iim.e, as it is two quantities of anything else, and a man would 

 be just as sensible who should try to force twice as many cubic feet 

 of marble into a room as there were cubic feet of space, as he would 

 be who tries to force hot air into a room already full of cold air, 

 without first providing for the cold air to go out. To illustrate : The 

 writer, only a few days ago, was called to visit a large ciiurch, designed 

 to seat one thousand people, which, it was said, was arranged for ven- 

 tilation. And, upon examination, it was arranged to be heated by 

 four furnaces, and it had some eight or ten ventilating shafts or chim" 

 neys, expected to exliaust or take the air out of the building, hut not 

 one inch of opening lo as provided to take air in. But the furnaces 

 were to be set in the basement lecture room, and then take the air 

 from that room and heat it, and send it up into the main audience 

 room and out of doors through the cliimneys. 



Mr. Ruttan has demonstrated by many experiments, during the last 

 twenty years, and at an expense of over $30,000, that there is no way to 

 get the impure air out of a house except by chimneys or upright 

 shafts, and admitting the air into them at the very bottom. He has 

 j)erfected a plan to effect this result, which is simple and cheap, 

 and when put into the building as it is being built, costs actually 

 little or nothing more than to build the house the ordinary way with- 

 out providing for ventilation. His plan is to take the air into one 

 central apartment, usually the hall, through the " air-warmer," and 

 then pass it from it to the adjoining rooms through registers or tran- 

 soms, at the top of the room, over the doors, and thence downward 

 and out at the bottom through an open base-board, under the floor, 

 and thence into the chimney. By this arrangement we avoid all 

 currents of cold air over the floor, as in the case with stoves, 

 and keep the floor always warm, varying only some four or five 

 degrees from the temperature, say flve feet above the floor; while 

 in any ordinary room, warmed in the ordinary way, the ther- 

 mometer will show a difference often of thirty degrees. 



In a room thus ventilated, the air cannot be impure ; because as we 

 liave before stated, the carbonic acid exhaled from the lungs, being 

 heavier, falls to the lower part of the room and escapes, while pure 

 air from without takes its place. Here, tlien, we liave a perfect 

 system of \-entilation. AVe secure a comi)lete supply of pure warmed 

 air, but without strung currents being established ; while the impure 



