tofefthad, as well to the place of the bed, 
which is generally six or seven feet square, 
and the passage, as to the situation of the 
chimney ; which for this consideration, ought 
not to be placed just in the middle, but d s- 
tant from it about two feet, or two and a 
half, to the end that it may leave room for 
the bed ; and the inequality is hardly dis- 
cernible in buildings of four-and-twenty feet 
' within the work ; in such houses it may be 
placed just in the middle. 
All precautions should be taken to prevent, 
as much as possible the communication of 
| sound to the bed-room’. To this end, the 
best method is to till the space between the 
joints of the floor above the bed-room (if 
there should be any rooms there) with saw- 
dust ; which must be sustained by short pieces 
of board nailed between the joists, just above 
the deling of the lower apartment. 
In arranging servants’ rooms, we have only 
to consult the facilities our general plan ad- 
mits of; and, if possible, to make no cham- 
bers without fire-places. 
In country mansions, we are generally 
not confined in placing the kitchen, and have 
only to contrive it as near the dining apart- 
ment as other circumstances will-adinit ; and 
to arrange so that the effluvia produced by 
the cooking may not be inclined to penetrate 
to the dining-room, by the covered passage, 
which should always form the communication 
between these two apartments. 
But in town houses, the kitchen must al- 
ways be beneath the parlour floor ; and being 
nearer the dining-room than we would place 
it in a country mansion, and on a lower 
level ; the lighter, warmed air, charged with 
the smell of the various operations of cookery, 
is more apt to annoy us. 
A separate funnel, like the kitchen chim- 
ney, carried up in the stack with the rest, 
•and next to that of the kitchen, will almost 
always afford an effectual remedy against 
this inconvenience. This funnel, to be used 
only for this purpose, must have its throat or 
opening level with the deling of the kitchen; 
and, of course, higher than the mantle of the 
fire-place used for the cooking. The lighter 
air charged with the vapours of the cooking 
will then pass off into the atmosphere by this 
opening, instead of collecting under the del- 
ing in the kitchen, and forming a stratum of 
air, as low as the top of the kitchen-door, and 
then passing off, and ascending through the 
house by the stairs and passages. The open- 
ing'of this funnel or pipe may be closed by a 
hinged door, when no operation is going on 
in the kitchen, which can create a disagreea- 
ble smell. 
The modern improvement of traps, made 
of cast iron and other materials, or pipes 
bent down, so as to form an elbow, which 
always contains, and is filled in its whole 
diameter by, the last portion of fluid 
thrown down, effectually prevents the as- 
cent of air charged with the noisome ef- 
fluvia of drains, and courses for waste water. 
This neater invention renders superfluous the 
advice of the Italian builders, who prescribe 
upright vents or channels rising through the 
house like chimneys for carrying off these 
smells. Upon this principle is the invention 
of water-closets, which are now brought to 
such perfection, that they may be placed with- 
out inconvenience in any necessary part of a 
house) and are subject to no accidents except 
ARCHITECTURE. 
the bursting of the water-pipes and bason 
belonging to them in frosty weather. But 
this danger may be, in some degree, re- 
moved, provided the whole building is 
planned with due attention to the economical 
distribution of heat, and the pipes are so dis- 
posed as to receive the benefit of the warmth ; 
which may easily be done. 
The offices connected with the kitchen 
should generally be placed towards the north ; 
in town houses we cannot always do this, but 
are governed by the circumstances of the si- 
tuation. The larder should however be 
carefully placed out of the influence of the 
heat of the kitchen stoves. 
In the plan and construction of fire-places, 
more attention should be paid to their best 
form for reflecting into the apartments the 
heat generated in them, and earning off 
into the atmosphere the smoke which arises 
from the combustion of the fuel, than to any 
proportions prescribed by architects who had 
nothing in view but the symmetry of the apart- 
ment according to their ideas. Indeed a 
neater form may be obtained in following 
strictly the rules founded on the rational the- 
ory, and accurate experiments of the count 
Rumford ; and the invention of a good archi- 
tect will hardly stumble, at making that low 
compact dimension agree with the other 
members of the most magnificent apart- 
ment. 
The due inclination of the inner sides of 
the jaurnbs of the chimney, forming a very 
obtuse angle with the back, is most impor- 
tant, as well as the colour and material of 
which those jaurnbs are composed, for the 
purpose of obtaining as much reflected heat 
as possible from the combustion of a certain 
quantity of fuel. The breadth of chimney 
fire-places is not important, but they should 
not be narrow, that the sides may stand with 
their greatest power of reflection towards the 
room. But the height should seldom ex- 
ceed two feet six inches to the under part 
of the mantle ; the whole depth of the chim- 
ney should not be more than twelve or four- 
teen inches ; and the throat, or opening where 
the funnel begins, not more than four inches 
wide, with a part of the back moveable to al- 
low of sweeping. The size of the flue or fun- 
nel should not be less than twelve inches in 
diameter ; and circular is the best form, but 
most expensive in building. The flues should 
never contract or taper as they rise, but ra- 
ther increase in internal capacity ; and they 
should always be made with a view to the use 
of the new machinery for sweeping, approved 
of by the Society of Arts, and confirmed by 
experience. Stone and brick are the best 
possible materials for the sides and the back 
of a chimney fire-place. Architects however 
do not always think it a part of their business, 
or their duty, to enter into the arrangement of 
these details, relative to the internal comfort 
cf a building. If it were not so necessary to har- 
monise the whole together, they present field 
enough for a separate profession ; but the pos- 
sibility of completing these essential, though 
minnte parts, upon the principles of true philo- 
sophy and experience, with a view to economy 
and comfort, will in great measure depend'on 
the general plan of the building. 
Besides the precaution of double external 
doors, to preserve the internal temperature of 
a house, double windows, with a certain 
space between, should be used to winter 
Ml 
apartments ; for it is no less useful to confine 
the heat generated by the fuel consumed in a 
house, than it is to place it so that it shall give 
but in the apartments its full portion of 
warmth. 
It is hardly necessary to say that windows 
should be made perpendicularly one above 
another, and not too near the angles of a 
building. No particular proportions can be 
assigned for them ; but their jaurnbs should 
be bevelled off on the inside, so (hat the full 
benefit of the real size of the window may be 
received, in light spread over the apartment. 
A w indow so expanded will admit to diffuse 
in the room as much light as if its whole in- 
ternal size had been equal to its increased 
inner breadth, gained by cutting off the right 
angular corner of the wall. 
Till lately architects have neglected to 
avail themselves, by this means, of the full 
benefit of the openings of their windows, and 
to admit as much light as possible, with as 
little diminution of strength to the wall. The 
immense thickness of the walls of old Gothic 
edifices generally obliged the antient archi- 
tects to do it ; but in the more modern brick 
buildings, which succeeded, it was omitted. 
1 ,ofty windows, descending nearly to the 
floor, are most: graceful, noble, and airy ; 
and balconies, railed with cast iron for build- 
ings not of the most superb class, are a very 
great ornament and convenience. Ballusters 
of stone may agree more than, iron railings 
tor these projections, where’ the ornaments of- 
the front are bold and solid. 
Sky-lights, in our climate, so subject to 
damps, driving rains, and to snow, are pro- 
ductive of many inconveniences, and should 
never be admitted but for stairs, halls, pas- 
sages, or large public rooms. Unless they 
are doubled by a horizontal frame of glass 
beneath them, to produce a cavity of con- 
fined air, they waste the heat generated in a 
house very much ; as without this precaution 
the warmed air of the house escaping di- 
rectly upwards to the glass, easily mixes its 
acquired heat with the c.old external air of 
the atmosphere. To which operation a sin- 
gle pane of glass, however thick (though 
glass is a bad conductor of heat) affords but 
little retardation. 
When sky-lights are necessary, the aper- 
tures through the roof should spread as much 
as possible in descending, that the rays of 
light may not be confined from spreading as 
they would be were the sides vertical. 
I'or the form and proportion of rooms, we 
may observe that an oblong plan is most 
agreeable to the eye, and generally more con- 
venient than a square, or any other form. 
The length ofawell-proportipned. room should 
be equal to the breadth and a half of the 
same, and never more ; and for the height, 
take thTee-fourths of the breadth. An error 
in favour of height is preferable id making a 
room too low. 
( T he height of rooms on the second story 
may be one-twelfth part less than that of the 
chambers below ; and if there is a third story, 
divide the height of the second into twelve 
equal parts, of which take nine for the height 
of these room?. 
The ‘length of galleries may be five times 
their breadth, ; and a gallery should rarely 
exceed eight times its width in length. 
When the walls of a building have been 
raised to tire' desired height, the vaults made. 
