Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/622

604 of the receiver despise the ability of the progenitor which handed down to them a thing they hate to keep and dare not sell.

There is a hades, moreover, for inventors and teachers, as well as a paradise. Like people who write books, they give their enemies an advantage. The detailing of their plans is like drugging a coat at Donnybrook Fair. They invite attack from every one whose interests they jostle, or whose pride they wound; and hurt feelings are a species of cantharides to hostile criticism. Altogether, the man who steps ahead of the crowd is marked out for assault. He quits a comfortable insignificance, and, bidding for fame, usually achieves failure and gains ill-will.

Clearly comprehending the possible results, we nevertheless venture to speak of a combined system of warming and ventilation which, from experience, we can state has proved successful. It aims at surcharging a house with warm air, in reversal of the present custom of exhaustion. Ventilation is movement of air, or draughts; and cold draughts are dangerous, and expensive. We therefore warm our draughts, and, in lieu of enemies, make of them friends. By superseding the necessity for it, we put bad workmanship into its proper category of things to be avoided. A house being full of warm air, misfits and scamped work form outlets, not inlets, and are no longer mischievous. By generating heat in the most scientific way, and retaining the bulk of it in the dwelling instead of sending ninety per cent, up the chimney, we enlist the sympathy of the thrifty; and, by considering the question from the house-maid's point of view, we avoid irritation and bickering, and, in spite of new-fangled arrangements—

Our plan is simply this: If the basement be dry and eligible, we form therein a fresh-air chamber by boarding off or otherwise making it, if possible, under the staircase-hall. We have it carefully cleansed, whitewashed, and purified. We jealously isolate it from any illicit communication with the usually damp and fusty atmosphere of ordinary basement premises, but give to it an ample communication with the outer air, being careful that the supply is drawn from untainted sources. Between this chamber and the hall we also arrange a communication through a large ornamental iron grid.

Immediately under the grid in the air-chamber we have placed a large slow-combustion coke or German stove, and to prevent dust, noise, or effluvium during such lighting, we recommend a slide, or trap-door opening downward, to cut off communication until the fire has burnt up. Voilà tout! This simple arrangement, which does not merit the name of apparatus, sets a system of ventilation to work for which we claim the merit of efficiency, by merely lighting and adjusting the stove-fire. Of course everybody has thought of this, and we dare say some persons have tried some such arrangement; but we question whether it has not been hitherto too simple for enthusiasts, too