710 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
the workmen, not as ‘‘the upright,” but as ‘‘the nigger.” An iron pipe, eight 
inches in diameter, receives the steam from these boilers; yonder, back of the 
nigger, it passes into the ground. Outside the building, we might trace its course 
along the street by the black line of bare soil, from which it has melted away the 
snow. 
This pipe is laid at a depth of three feet below the surface, sheathed in non- 
conducting materials, and inserted in logs of wood bored for the purpose. As 
the distance from the boiler-house increases, it diminishes in size from eight inches 
to one or one-half, to correspond with the amount of steam passed throughit. At 
intervals of one or two hundred feet are placed wooden ‘‘service boxes,” in 
which the expansion and contraction of the pipe under different temperatures is 
provided for by a nickel joint; from these boxes, also, the branches of the main 
diverge, and the service pipes are sent out to the buildings heated. The whole 
distributing system is divided into sections, from any one of which, in case of 
necessity, the steam can be excluded, without affecting the others. 
As it is but a few years since this new method of heating had its origin in 
Lockport, we cannot expect to find it universally adopted. But here is a pleas- 
ant, home-like, private house warmed these two winters by the city furnace, from 
which it is distant perhaps half a mile. It is a cold, January day, but, as the 
outer door closes behind us, we find ourselves in a genial, summer-like atmosphere. 
No cheerfully glowing grate, no ugly, black register, is to be seen in the parlor; 
against the wall stands the radiator, with its polished marble cap and single row 
of delicately painted tubes. Itis a hint of the housekeeper’s millennium, when 
dust and coal-ashes, her omnipresent foes, shall be brought into subjection. 
In the kitchen the family washing is in progress without any aid from the 
stove. Heat is conveyed to the boiler and tubs through rubber tubes attached to 
the service pipes. ‘The water in the bathroom above is heated by a similar 
arrangement. There is no nerve-startling hiss as the steam escapes; that ingen- 
ious invention called the ‘‘anti-thunder box’’ reduces it to perfect quiet. 
In the basement, also, we find the regulator. Perhaps at this moment the 
pressure in the boiler and mains may be forty or sixty pounds; in the house, as 
we ascertain by glancing at the gauge, it is only five. This reduction of pressure 
is due in part to the fact that, upon reaching the regulator valver, the water of 
condensation contained in the pipes is wire-drawn, and thus to a great extent 
reconverted into steam before being diffused through the building. Connected 
with the regulator is a steam-meter, which registers the number of pounds con- 
sumed daily, and also the hour at which each radiator in the house is opened or 
closed. 
What becomes of the used steam? It is condensed upon leaving the radi- 
ator, and, in the form of hot water, returns to the basement. There, within a 
brick-walled inclosure, it circulates through several coils of pipe, exposed to a 
current of cold air. This air, warmed in its progress through the cooler, passes 
upward by a register into the apartment above, which it serves to ventilate. ‘The 
water accumulates in a tank, the surplus being discharged into the sewer. Dip 
