XXXVI.
WARMING AND VENTILATION
There is no department of science, as applied to practical matters,
which has so often baffled experimenters as the healthful mode of
warming and ventilating houses. The British nation spent over a million
on the House of Parliament for this end, and failed. Our own government
has spent half a million on the Capitol, with worse failure; and now
it is proposed to spend a million more. The reason is, that the old
open fireplace has been supplanted by less expensive modes of heating,
destructive to health; and science has but just begun experiments to
secure a remedy for the evil.
The open fire warms the person, the walls, the floors and the furniture
by radiation, and these, together with the fire, warm the air by
convection. For the air resting on the heated surfaces is warmed by
convection, rises and gives place to cooler particles, causing a
constant heating of its particles by movement. Thus in a room with an
open fire, the person is warmed in part by radiation from the fire and
the surrounding walls and furniture, and in part by the warm air
surrounding the body.
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