Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/907

 1869. Ventilation of Buildings in Germany. 739 he slept with his window open or not ! It would be regarded in the same light as an insinuation of a lack of personal cleanliness. There is one circumstance, however, which serves greatly to miti- gate the evils resulting from such tightly closed rooms, and that is the peculiar method of heating which is em- ployed in Germany. Instead of the little sheet iron keg or barrel, in use at home, and in which a fire is kept con- stantly burning, they employ a huge column or " oven " of glazed earthen- ware, that rises from the floor almost to the ceiling of the room. An armful of wood is put in the lower portion and burnt as rapidly as possible, the door of the fire-place being left wide open : the oven is then closed, and the landlady tells you that j t ou are "beautifully heat- ed." For the first hour or so, however, you cannot perceive that the making of the fire has made much perceptible dif- ference in the temperature of the room ; the full benefit is not realized for three or four hours. But even as man}- as ten hours after the first building of the fire, the oven will be found to be radiating a small amount of heat. In this way the room is always pro- vided with a heated flue, the entrance of which is at the level of the floor, and which, as I found by trial, induces a gentle draft for a very long time after the fire has been made. If there are any places which, more than others, should have the advantage of thorough ventilation, they are those Chemical Laboratories, where a number of young students are crowded together, and where deleterious gases are being constantly evolved. What can be said in this respect of the existing labora- tories of Berlin, the present centre of chemical study and science ? We shall not say anything of the laboratory of Dr. Sonnenschein, (Privat Docent in the University,) which is filthy, but being an enterprise of a private nature may not be so amenable to public opinion. Nor is that of the School of Mines (Berg Schule) which occupies the hall of the old Bourse, nor of the old laboratory in the third story of the Uni- versity building itself, but we shall con- fine ourselves to the one just completed, and placed under the direction of the famous Dr. Hofman. It is an immense, and when we consider the uses to which it is applied we might sa}', a superb building. The exterior is adorned with medallions of the great chemists, who have done so much during the past cen- tury to increase the knowledge and coin- forts of the civilized races, and the cor- ridors and grand staircase leading to the auditorium are frescoed in bright and attractive colors. In one room are boilers and retorts and stills for every variety of pharmaceutic al manipulation ; in another are furnaces for all forms of dry assaying. Still a third is set aside for gas analysis, and a fourth for weighing. There are other great rooms for tyro's in chemistry, and for those more ad- vanced. But in the apartment occupied >y experts, a number of men who were making original investigations under the guidance of Dr. Hofman, I found the atmosphere stifling. It was not due to the accidental presence of some noxious gas — that I could have detected im- mediately — but to an indiscriminate mixture of various smells and vapors, arising from all sorts of preparations, and confined in the room until the air had become thick with them. Whatever critics may say of this laboratory in other respects (and it was designed to be the most perfect structure of its kind and to afford all the facilities and advantages known to modern chemi- cal science) it is, so far as the physical health and comfort of the students is concerned, an immense failure. The other evening at the opera of Fra Diavolo, where the enchanting Lucca was performing, after her inimi- table way, I occupied a seat in the par- quet. The air, which was tolerable for a time, after the conclusion of the first act became, as usual, excessively hot and