APPLICATION OF HEAT. 
83 
Trans., vol. iii.) The plan, it is also stated, was tried many years ago by the late Mr. 
Gould, gardener to Prince Potemkin, in the immense conservatory of the Tauridian 
Palace, of Petersburgh. It was adopted to a certain extent by Davis, a sugar-boiler, 
in Essex ; but it does not appear likely to become general. 
As now, in the instance of the Polmaise projects, arguments were then adduced 
on both sides, and opinions ran in opposite directions. Strange to say, the same 
Mr. Loudon received a communication, and thus published it in vol. iii. of his 
" Gardener's Magazine" of 1828, page 186, No. 23. The article was headed, "An 
Account of a Plan of heating Stoves by means of Hot Water, employed in the Garden 
of Anthony Baker, Esq., F.H.S., by Mr. Whale, gardener to Mr. Bacon." 
There is an accompanying figure, which proves that a boiler was placed in a recess 
in the centre of the back wall of a house, 40 feet long, whence two pipes, three and 
a half inches diameter, passed from the boiler, and two others, of the same bore, re-en- 
tered it at a place nearer the bottom of that vessel. Mr. Bacon had, in 1822, put this 
mode of heating in practice, on a small scale, at his seat at Abernean, in Glamor- 
ganshire ; and Mr. Atkinson, the architect, had, at his residence at Grove-end, 
constructed a model of a similar apparatus — without, at the time, having any commu- 
nication with Mr. Baker — with which he tried the experiments successfully. 
Thus we have reason to believe that the year 1822 may be viewed as the era of 
the hot-water system. The boiler appears to have been a square vessel, 2^ feet 
long, 1-i- wide, and 1 foot 8 inches deep, heated by a fire at the bottom. 
Since that period, various improvements have suggested themselves ; boilers of 
different shapes, and differently situated in respect to the heating fuel, have become 
articles of commerce ; are eulogised and puffed off, or complained of and disqualified, 
according to circumstances ; and in many cases gutters or channels of cemented tiles, 
or of wood, have been substituted for pipes. Equability of heat, economy of fuel and 
of labour have been the general objects of all parties, and herein little remains to be 
added to the simple facts detailed by Mr. Whale, who, after pointing out the defects 
of the brick flue and steam-pipes, adds, " The heating with hot water has none of 
the objections belonging to flues and to steam. The apparatus is simple, and not 
liable to get out of order. The boiler has only a loose wooden cover, and no safety- 
valves are required. The fuel consumed is very moderate, and when once the water 
is heated for it, retains its heat for many hours after the fire has gone out," 
Thus the principles of this fine system of heating were established and worked out 
above 24 years ago, and all our subsequent improvements consist in giving intensity 
to the current by confinement and pressure, aided by position, so as to command the 
utmost equability attainable by means of any fluid which parts with some of its heat 
during every moment, and through every foot of its course. By the assistance of 
sliders in tanks and water-channels, or of valves in iron tubes, steam also is at com- 
mand ; and with appliances for the diffusion of bottom or atmospheric heat, and a 
moist vapour to almost any required extent, what more can be required ? To perfect 
our machinery — to economise in every way consistent with liberality, — are acts of 
