VENTILATION. 131 



ether of the skies is, (alas ! that I should rather say ought to 

 be,) a question of the utmost interest. When open fires 

 were used, there was no lack of pure air, whatever else 

 might have been deficient. A capacious chimney carried 

 up through its insatiable throat, immense volumes of air, to 

 be replaced by the pure element, whistling in glee, through 

 every crack, crevice and keyhole. Now the house-builder 

 and stove-maker with but few exceptions* seem to have 

 joined hands in waging a most effectual warfare against the 

 unwelcome intruder. By labor-saving machinery, they con- 

 trive to make the one, the joints of his wood-work, and the 

 other, those of his iron-work, tighter and tighter, and if it were 

 possible for them to accomplish fully their manifest design, 

 they would be able to furnish rooms almost as fatal to life as 

 " the black hole of Calcutta." But in spite of all that they 

 can do, the materials will shrink, and no fuel has yet been 

 found, which will burn without any air, so that sufficient 

 ventilation is kept up, to prevent such deadly occurrences. 

 Still they are tolerably successful in keeping out the un- 

 friendly element ; and by the use of huge cooking-stoves 

 with towering ovens, and other salamander contrivances, the 

 little air that can find its way in, is almost as thoroughly 

 cooked, as are the various delicacies destined for the table. 



On reading an account of a run-away slave, who was for 

 a considerable time, closely boxed up, a gentleman remarked 

 that if the poor fellow had only known that a renewal of the 

 air was necessary to the support of life, he could not have 

 lived there an hour without suffocation ; I have frequently 

 thought that if the occupants of the rooms I have been de- 



* The beautiful open or Franklin stoves, manufactured by Messrs. 

 Jagger, Treadwell & Perry, of Albany, deserve the highest commen- 

 dation : they economize fuel: as well as life and health. 



