AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
9 
rooms where needed; and, besides, gives per¬ 
fect and thorough ventilation to every room 
thus warmed. It will require more space 
than we can now give, to go into the details 
of this, but an investigation into the princi¬ 
ples of a properly constructed furnace will 
convince you of the fact. We have tried it, 
and know it. Large buildings may be heat 
by steam pipes. This is the most agreeable 
way of heating we know, in our dry, winter 
climate. 
After all this preparation, throw a steep, 
broad roof over the house, projecting from 
three to four, or five feet, according to the 
size of the building, beyond the walls, and 
let the water-gutters and conductors, if you 
have them, be at least a foot outside the 
walls, (two or three feet would be better,) 
that no water can, by possibility, accumulate 
and run down them, either inside or out. 
This broad roof is the most important of all 
the improvements which have been intro¬ 
duced into modern house-building. It keeps 
the upper walls cooler in summer and warm¬ 
er in winter, and protects them from beating 
storms, and gives the whole establishment 
a comfortable and sheltered look, which is 
wanting without it. We will illustrate this : 
Nearly twenty years ago we purchased and 
removed into a large two-story stone house. 
It had then been built twenty years, and was 
considered a grand affair in the country, and 
a model house of its time. It had stone 
parapets at the ends, wooden balustrades 
above the eaves on front and rear, wooden 
eave-tro'ughs or gutters attached to the 
plates, with any quantity of expensive fila¬ 
gree work upon them—a master-piece of 
workmanship, as the architect thought. The 
walls were massive, and well built, but not 
double, as we have recommended, nor were 
they furred, and lathed, inside. The chim¬ 
neys had separate flues, which all opened 
on a level at the top. It had, besides, a high 
basement, in which was a cellar kitchen, and 
other offices—those intolerable abominations 
which ought to be a crime to put in any 
house standing on an open lot—although this 
was in the midst of a lawn of several acres. 
The consequence of all these mistakes in an 
otherwise excellent house, was damp walls, 
the water, after a frosty time, frequently 
trickling down the outer sides of the inner 
rooms; smoky chimneys—at times intolera¬ 
bly so—and nearly double female labor re¬ 
quisite in housekeeping. We suffered these 
miseries for a while, and then, for the first 
time in our life, set about the study of house¬ 
building, for we liked the place, and did not 
wish to abandon it for deficiencies which 
could be remedied. The result was, that 
the stone parapets, the wooden balustrades, 
and the carved eave-gutters, were all torn 
down and thrown aside, a broad, hanging 
roof took their places, throwing the water 
more than four feet beyond the walls ; sep¬ 
arate chimney-tops were carried above each 
flue ; and a substantial furnace for wood 
built in the cellar under the main hall, car¬ 
rying warmth and ventilation into the rooms, 
which had before been supplied with stoves 
and fire-places. In addition to these a snug 
upper wing was erected at one end of the 
house for the kitchen, and its offices. With 
these improvements, the house is all that it 
need be—dry at all times, warm, comforta¬ 
ble, and convenient—before which, with all 
the cost and pains-taking about it, it was 
neither. 
We would not have mentioned these per¬ 
sonal matters, only as an example of the 
folly of spending money on outside decora¬ 
tion, to the manifest injury of a dwelling 
itself, and neglecting the great objects with¬ 
in, for which a house really ought to be con¬ 
structed. Thousands of existing houses in 
the United States may still be thus altered 
at small expense, giving absolute enjoyment 
where is now much discomfort and misery. 
CHEMISTRY 
for small and large boys and girls. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
Hydrogen—Symbol H—Atomic Weight 1. 
71. Hydrogen is found in almost all sub¬ 
stances that are produced by animal or veg¬ 
etable growth, but is seldom found in earthy 
or mineral substances that do not contain 
water in their composition. Water, howev¬ 
er, does form a part of the structure of many 
of the minerals and earths. Starch, sugar, 
gum, gluten, oils, and woody fiber, constitute 
the great mass of organic substances, or 
those which grow, and of each of these 
hydrogen forms a part. Starch, for example, 
makes up about four-fifths of flour, and 
starch is represented by Ci 2 Oi 0 H 10 , or car¬ 
bon 12 atoms, oxygen 10 atoms, and hydro¬ 
gen 10 atoms, but the hydrogen atoms are 
so small that there is only 10 lbs. of hydro¬ 
gen in 162 lbs. of starch, or about one ounce 
in a pound. 
72. How to Obtain Hydrogen. —As water is 
made of hydrogen and oxygen—HO—if we 
add something to the water which the oxy 
gen has a greater affinity (or liking) for than 
it has for hydrogen, it will leave the hydro¬ 
gen. There are many substances of this 
kind. A piece of iron or zinc put in water 
(HO), will in time unite with the oxygen and 
set the hydrogen free. Put a bright slip of 
zinc in a bottle of water, and it will immedi¬ 
ately be covered with a thin film of a white 
substance, composed of zinc and oxygen 
(ZnO) called oxide of zinc, and a little hy¬ 
drogen escapes unobserved into the air. But 
this film or coating keeps the water from 
coming in contact with more of the zinc, so 
that the continuance of the change is stop¬ 
ped. Now lift out the zinc and scrape off 
the coating of oxide of zinc (ZnO), and again 
put it into the water, and the same change 
will take place as before, and more hydro¬ 
gen will be set free. So we might go on 
cleaning the surface of the zinc and dipping 
it into the water, till all the water in the bot¬ 
tle would be decomposed—its oxygen all 
united with zinc to form oxide of zinc, and 
its hydrogen all set free in a gas or air-like 
form. By putting an empty bladder, or India 
rubber bag, over the mouth of the bottle eve¬ 
ry time the bright zinc is dropped into the 
water, the hydrogen would rise up into the 
bladder or bag, and we should thus catch it 
in its gaseous form ; though in such an ope¬ 
ration it would be mingled with some of the 
air in the bottle over the water. 
73. To avoid the trouble of cleaning the 
zinc, and of continually removing the bag, 
another simple process is usually employed. 
If, instead of wiping or scraping the zinc, 
we dip it into a mixture of sulphuric acid 
(oil of vitriol) and water, the acid and water 
will instantly dissolve the coating or film of 
oxide of zinc, and leave it bright for an in¬ 
stant. Knowing this, the chemist first puts 
his zinc and water into the bottle, and then 
pours in a little acid. Now the zinc grasps 
a particle of oxygen, letting its hydrogen 
escape, and no sooner is this done than the 
acid dissolves the compound formed and 
leaves another atom of zinc exposed, which 
undergoes the same change in turn. In this 
way millions of hydrogen atoms are freed ev¬ 
ery minute, and being very light, they rise 
up from the mouth of the bottle and escape 
into the air ; or we can catch them by plac¬ 
ing the mouth of a bladder or India rubber 
bag (freed from air) over the neck. 
74. Another way to catch the hydrogen is 
to hold a tumbler, glass jar, or any open- 
mouthed vessel, bottom upwards, over the 
bottle while the hydrogen gas is escaping. 
The gas is so light that it will rise into the 
inverted vessel and occupy the upper part of 
it, crowding down the heavier air. This is 
a very simple experiment, and any one who 
has a little sulphuric acid, some bits of old 
zinc, and a junk bottle, can produce hydro¬ 
gen from water. Break up the zinc so that 
it will go into the bottle, put in a handful of 
it, pour in water enough to cover it, and then 
add a spoonful or more of acid till the water 
appears to boil somewhat. The boiling ap¬ 
pearance is produced by the bubbles of hy¬ 
drogen gas escaping. Let this boiling go on 
for three or four minutes, or longer if it is 
not very brisk, so that the hydrogen can 
drive out the air; then put a tumbler over 
the bottle, and in a few minutes it will be 
filled with hydrogen gas. Put your hand 
over the mouth of the tumbler—keeping it 
bottom upwards—and remove it a little way 
from the bottle, then you can light the gas 
with a candle or a blazing match, and it will 
quickly burn, with very little color to the 
flame.* We shall, further on, learn that in 
burning it has united with oxygen from the 
air, and again formed a new quantity of 
water. 
In the next chapter we will describe some 
further experiments, which any boy or girl 
can make, without going to a laboratory for 
apparatus. We shall try to introduce such 
experiments as you can all make, and hope 
you will all try them. 
*Be careful in this experiment not to get any flame near 
the bottle, for hydrogen gas is very explosive, and should 
it be lighted in the narrow-necked bottle, while mixed 
with air, it might burst and result in injury. 
Hop Culture. —We have very frequently 
been asked for information on this subject. 
We are happy to be able to give a very full 
and complete practical essay upon this 
branch of agriculture, in a series of short 
articles, which will continue through several 
numbers. Those specially interested in this 
subject will find these articles alone worth 
