300 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
escape pipes traversing the common flue, adapted to carry the foul 
air from each story; but a matter of detail so small as that need not 
be discussed in this article, as the company concerned in introduc¬ 
ing the system, confessedly the most successful, will not fail to 
adopt every substantial improvement. , 
Ample experiments have demonstrated that pure air may be in¬ 
troduced into a room either at the top or bottom as may be most 
convenient; but the foul air should always be removed through the 
floor or on a level with it, and conducted to some central reservoir 
at the base of the ventilating shaft. The French architects, who 
have paid special attention to this subject, object to conducting the 
foul air from each story of a building upward to where the separate 
foul air flues unite above the ceiling of the upper story, because 
for this method a greater length of flues is necessary to accomplish 
the object; but, in cases where it is deemed desirable to carry the 
vitiated air from each story directly into the ventilating shaft, then 
this shaft must be divided into as many distinct compartments as 
there are stories in the building. 
Ventilation during the summer can be secured by the same sys¬ 
tem of house-breathing by causing a fire to be ignited at the base 
of the foul-air shaft. The current of air thus caused will afford 
thorough ventilation with cool air, without the necessity to open 
one window in the edifice. The advantages accruing from the ex¬ 
clusion of hot air, dust and insects need not be enforced. We 
would have the main expense incurred in the preparation of school 
buildings devoted, not to adornment, much as we admire beauty 
and value its aesthetic worth, but to the procurement of efficient 
ventilation at all seasons and healthful warmth in winter. 
Reference has been made to the necessity for additional floor- 
room in school buildings; and in some degree the same want is ex¬ 
perienced in all public buildings. Many persons suppose that if 
the requisite space in cubic feet is given for each individual, it mat¬ 
ters not whether it is supplied in height or in breadth. No error 
could be more pernicious. The breathing room of the individual 
must be comparatively near to his own level and unless it is suffi¬ 
cient to protect him from breathing the impurities emitted from his 
own and the neighboring lungs and bodies, he cannot fail to be 
poisoned in a greater or less degree by the noxiojs effluvia which 
every animal emits. The number of diseases arising from this 
