tlie wall, in which climbing plants may grow and creep up 

 behind the tables, space being left for this purpose. The 

 margin of each table is fitted with a handsome fringe or edging 

 of wire, worked into a sort of ledge, expanding both upwards and 

 downwards, looking like filagree work. Within this are placed 

 the pots, the interspaces as well as the outer edging being fiUed 

 with Lycopods and green Moss. 



The heating of the Conservatory has been executed upon the 

 most approved principles of modern science. 



Since 1851 a considerable change has taken place in the 

 plans commonly adopted for this purpose. It was then thought 

 that the mere introduction beneath the floor of a number of 

 pipes duly charged with hot water, with a grating in the floor for 

 the ascent of the heated air, was sufiicient to raise the tempera- 

 ture of the apartment to any desirable degree. It was believed 

 that air, being heated, would ascend of itself, and that when the 

 hot-water pipes were once laid down, all that was necessary had 

 been done. It is now admitted that, unless there are some means 

 of introducing a certain regulated quantity of cool air beneath 

 the pipes, more than half their effectiveness wiU be wasted. The 

 first idea would naturally be to briug cold air from the outside 

 of the building, but on reflection it will be seen that this would 

 not only supply the place of the ascending hot air, but also chiU 

 the house as much as the hot air heats it. What is wanted, 

 therefore, is air only so much cooler than that affected by the 

 pipes as to cause it to ascend, and the air most suited for this 

 is the atmosphere of the building itself. The application of this 

 fact to practice requires, if not scientific skill, at least some expe- 

 rience ; and a good accidental illustration of the consequences of 



MM 



♦ \ 



