Analyses of Books. 
1883.] 
557 
districts organic pollution must gradually extend deeper and 
deeper into the earth’s crust. 
The author’s condemnation of the use of plaster of Paris in 
the sophistication of wine is very much needed. Were the 
Customs instructed to confiscate and destroy all wines contain- 
ing more sulphuric acid than the maximum found in the juice of 
the grape, this mal-praCtice would soon come to an end. 
Mr. Shilton’s work may be safely recommended. 
Economy of Coal in House Fires, or how to convert an Ordinary 
Fire-Grate into a Slow -Combustion Stove at a Small Cost. 
By T. Pridgin Teale, M.A., F.R.C.S. London : J. and A. 
Churchill. Leeds : C. Goodall. 
The author’s principle is to cut off the current of air which 
ordinarily passes through the fire-grate and its contents from 
below, and to keep the space beneath the grate hot. It is ad- 
mitted that the mere interception of the bottom draught without 
the warm chamber beneath the fire-box will be unsuccessful. 
With his first rule we agree most heartily : — “ As much fire- 
brick and as little iron as possible.” It is to be regretted that 
for the last half-century we have been retrograding in the con- 
construCtion of fire-grates. The objeCt of inventors in this 
direction — mostly founders or ironmongers — has been to sell a 
maximum weight of cast-metal. With the exception of Mr. 
Teale’s “ economiser,” a sheet-iron shield for shutting in the 
chamber under the fire, he returns in most points to the structure 
of the grates used a century ago. He recommends a horizontal 
fire, deep from front to back, and with its back and sides of fire- 
brick. 
We have no doubt that the arrangement here described is a 
step in the right direction. Nevertheless we think that comfort, 
economy, and the necessity of minimising the products of com- 
bustion in our towns, all bid us to go still further, and renounce 
our open fires in favour of stoves constructed of tiles and fired 
up in the passage. 
