| Beonomy of Fuel 528 
of the room has been wholly neutralized, by the currents from doors, 
- windows, and other apertures. ‘Thus is the body kept in a manner 
oscillating between extremes of temperature, until a confirmed “ cold” 
er catarrh has taken possession of the system. 
That pulmonary complaints should ensue, is but the natural con- 
sequence of this artificial variableness of climate, to which we are 
frequently exposed, and such a consummation has, it is believed, of- 
ten been brought about by the ory prudent caution of keeping near 
@ good fire for a single evening.* 
It were needless to enumerate the duosons to which the inmates 
of a house, and even the house itself are exposed where young chil- 
dren have free access to an open fire. The many appalling acci- 
dents which are annually recorded as resulting from this cause, are 
sufficient to make us desire some more secure method of keeping up 
an agreeable warmth among the tender objects of maternal and paren- 
tal solicitude. 
hat the nursery may be secure from danger, recourse is had to 
close stoves; but in attendance upon these, many of the same evils are 
experinced which belong to the open fire. In apaamenss 3 for the 
sick, and particularly when wood is the fuel, they are 
on account of the constant watchfulness, required for preserving a 
uniform temperature Hence it is not in the construction only of 
sand ics; or in the arrangements of receptacles for the 
burning fuel, that a want of economy is visible. ‘The very manner 
in which the combustion is carried on, and the disposal made of its 
_ products, are widely at variance with philosophical principles. Every 
mode of producing combustion, in which more cold gaseous matter 
is allowed to approach the ignited mass, than is actually required for 
the support of combustion, involves a loss of useful effects depen- 
dent on the quantity and capacity of the gas, and on the elevation of 
temperature which it acquires by passing over the fire. — But the 
quantity of unburnt air which passes up an open chimney where 
‘wood is consumed, bears a very large proportion to the gaseous pro- 
ducts of the combustion. In stoves, the economy is but little better, 
especially where the gas-pipe passes almost immediately from the 
. — of the fuel into the chimney. The occupants of some an- 
= . "In a house heated in the manner hereafler described, Bae has for three winters 
be by the inmates. In the 
exempt from that troublesome and dangerous compla 
