The airconditioner

The apparatus which has been devised by Prof. Elmer Gates of Washington for the ready cooling of rooms in summer he declares to be capable of being more cheaply operated in summer than a coal stove in winter. It is simply a tall cylinder of galvanized iron resting in a large basin or pan, and connecting at the top with the ordinary stovepipe or with a tube leading out of the widow. In the top of the cylinder’s interior is a perforated tubular ring, and on a cock being turned on this ring an artificial shower is caused inside the cylinder. The water thus flowing down the sides takes a rapid spiral motion, which sucks the air down through the cylinder at a rapid rate, a fine spray inside cooling the air thus entering, reducing its humidity to normal and taking out all dust and bad odors; the water collects in the basin below, from which it is drained off, the cool air escaping through openings just above the water surface of the basin. In some experiments exhibited with this contrivance, the temperature of the air on entering the cooling cylinder was observed to be about ninety-two degrees while it was as low as sixty-eight on its coming out at the bottom. When the temperature of the laboratory is ninety-two degrees, the atmosphere inside can thus he cooled to about seventy within three hours, and the humidity at the same time may go down from one hundred to about normal.