Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/493

Rh ascend and mix with the air in the room before it finds its ultimate exit by the fireplace or outlet-flue. In fact, the fireplace itself should be the fountain of warmed fresh air to an apartment, since no draught thence can be annoying to any of the inmates of the room. The air may be brought, according to its position upon different floors, from below, by air-bricks inserted in the walls between the joists, or from above the roof by a flue constructed for the purpose; and if this flue be carried in close connection with the chimney-flue, whether in separate pipes, as by Mr. Jennings's method, by the use of Boyd's metal withes, or ordinary brick ones, the air drawn down by the suction of the fire will have the temperature considerably raised above that of the outer atmosphere, the coldness of which, entering by windows, is unendurable.—Builder.

 

E have had many specimens of electricity this summer—more, perhaps, than for fifty years previously. Those, particularly, who lived in the north and west of England, have had a greater demonstration of the powers of this extraordinary agent than in any ten years, rolled into one, of the last quarter of a century. The thunder season began with five days' successive storms in Liverpool and its neighborhood. The first arrived on Monday, soon after the fire which broke out at the Northwestern Hotel had frightened the people half out of their senses. The storms culminated on Thursday, when the fire literally "ran along upon the ground," and the thunder bellowed in the ears of the merchants, so that business was suspended and "high 'Change" was a desert at mid-day. Fortunately, the only serious result was the firing of a house at Birkenhead, stunning the lady inmates, knocking down the chimneys, fusing the bell-wires, and melting the gas-pipes. After a few discharges here and there, with more or less injury to life and property (notably in Manchester), the atmosphere became wonderfully settled, and Monday, the 17th of June, was one of the finest days, and one of the calmest and brightest evenings amid the usual long twilight of the North. Those particularly who were travelling at that time will not soon forget that extraordinary evening, when, by the most peculiar clearness of the atmosphere, every object was brought out with a sharpness which rendered the whole landscape a new sensation. It was the quiet rest of Nature before the battle of the elements which was to follow.

The 18th of June will long be remembered by all the people of the north of England. An Egyptian darkness came down upon the land