THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, March 2, 1858. 
GAS HEATING APPARATUS—FOR HOT AIR OR WATER. 
The merits of gas are not sufficiently considered. We 
will suppose a gardener sitting down, to make a comparative 
estimate of heating by gas, and the ordinary coal boiler. 
On the one hand he enters : 
— tons of Welsh coal, at 37 s. 
— tons of gas coke, at 23,?. 
£ 
0 
0 
s. 
0 
0 
d. 
0 
0 
On ( he other: 
Substracting the one from the other, he finds a balance of 
£0 0^. Od. in favour of the coal system. Hence he con- 
One-eighth full size. 
eludes that the ordinary method is cheaper, and resolves to 
stick to it. Now, a fairer statement would be as follows :— 
£ s. d. 
Original cost of copper conical boiler 
and fixing.500 
Original cost of gas boiler and ring made 
and fixed by ironmonger ..... 1 10 0 
At the onset a balance in favour of gas of £3 10 0 
Then we consider the practical working of each plan. 
Though the bare amount paid for coals will be below the gas 
expenditure, we have to consider wear and tear of apparatus, 
the mess and expense attendant on coal and coke carting, 
clinker removing, dust choking, fuel storing, coke breaking, 
sulphurising, draught regulating, stoking, night expedition- 
ising, &c., which, by the use of gas, are altogether avoided. 
It is desirable to heat with hot air 
in a small house; and with hot water , 
where the heat requires to be care¬ 
fully, and evenly, distributed through 
space. The air can be kept as moist 
by one method as the other. 
We introduce heating apparatus 
into our houses, in order to keep out 
cold, and to prevent excessive mois¬ 
ture in the atmosphere. Each step 
made in their arrangement has been 
an improvement. The Dutch system, 
with its large inconvenient hot-air 
pipes; the embrasure brick and tri¬ 
angular iron flue; the German suffo¬ 
cation stove ; the smoke compartment 
scheme; the steam mania—have all 
fallen before the hot-water principle. 
“There are no buildings, however 
large, to which it cannot be advanta¬ 
geously adapted, nor any that present 
insurmountable difficulties in its prac¬ 
tical application.” 
As to details , it is our opinion that 
a large proportion of water surface ex¬ 
posed to the heat, quick circulation 
and high temperature, in uniform 
pipes of small diameter, will yield the 
best results. 
By the use of a gas boiler, no larger 
than that described, with flow and 
return pipes of but three quarters of 
an inch in diameter, the writer was 
enabled to maintain a high and equable 
degree of warmth in a school building, 
accommodating three hundred chil¬ 
dren, and that with a minimum of 
trouble , and the greatest exactitude in 
working. 
Hot Air Apparatus. —Procure a 
cylinder of galvanised sheet iron 
twenty-two inches long, and fourteen 
inches in diameter, flanged in at one 
end. Also, a thirteen-inch flower-pot 
of good material, and a batswing gas- 
burner, and. a sufficient length of one 
inch and a half zinc piping by way of 
„ _ —-Q flue. Having fixed the gas burner in 
the desired place, cover it with the 
inverted flower-pot, its edge fixed on 
four bricks. Then inclose it in the iron 
cylinder, its lower rim also resting on 
the brick supports, and firmly affix 
the vapour-pipe (F). A plate of per¬ 
forated sheet iron covers the top, sup¬ 
ported on the flange. 
Hot Water Apparatus. —Where 
it is necessary to distribute the heat 
over large houses, a ring of copper, or 
iron tube, is substituted for the flower- 
