An Account of the new-invented Pensylvanian FirePlaces: wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated. With Directions for putting them up, and for using them to the best Advantage. And a Copper-Plate, in which the several parts of the Machine are exactly laid down, from a Scale of Equal Parts. BY B. FRANKLIN, (First printed at Philadelphia in 1745. ) IN these northern colonies the inhabitants keep fires to sit by generally seven months in the year; that is, from the beginning of October, to the end of April; and, in some winters, near eight months, by taking in part of September and May. Wood, our common fuel, which within these hundred years might be had at every man's door, must now be fetched near one hundred miles to some towns, and makes a very considerable article in the expence of families. As therefore so much of the comfort and conve niency of our lives, for so great a part of the year, depends on the article of fire; since fuel is become so expensive, and (as the country is more cleared and settled) will of course grow scarcer and dearer, any new proposal for saving the wood, and for lessening the charge, and augmenting the benefit of fire, by some particular method of making and managing it, may at least be thought worth consideration. VOL. II. The The new fire-places are a late invention to that purpose, of which this paper is intended to give a particular account. That the reader may the better judge whether this method of managing fire has any advantage over those heretofore in use, it may be proper to consider both the old and new methods separately and particularly, and afterwards make the comparison. In order to this, it is necessary to understand well, some few of the properties of air and fire, viz. 1. Air is rarefied by heat, and condensed by cold, i. e. the same quantity of air takes up more space when warm than when cold. This may be shown by several very easy experiments. Take any clear glass bottle (a Florence flask stript of the straw is best) place it before the fire, and as the air within is warmed and rarefied, part of it will be driven out of the bottle; turn it up, place its mouth in a vessel of water, and remove it from the fire; then, as the air within cools and contracts, you will see the water rise in the neck of the bottle, supplying the place of just so much air as was driven out. Hold a large hot coal near the side of the bottle, and as the air within feels the heat, it will again distend and force out the water.---Or, fill a bladder not quite full of air, tie the neck tight, and lay it before a fire as near as may be without scorching the bladder; as the air within heats, you will perceive it to swell and fill the bladder, till it becomes tight, as if full blown remove it to a cool place, and you will see it fall gradually, till it becomes as lank as at first. 2. Air rarefied and distended by heat is * specifically Body or matter of any sort, is said to be specifically heavier or lighter than other matter, when it has more or less substance or weight in the same dimensions. lighter lighter than it was before, and will rise in other air of greater density. As wood, oil, or any other matter specifically lighter than water, if placed at the bottom of a vessel of water, will rise till it comes to the top; so rarefied air will rise in common air, till it either comes to air of equal weight, or is by cold reduced to its former density. A fire then being made in any chimney, the air over the fire is rarefied by the heat, becomes lighter, and therefore immediately rises in the funnel, and goes out; the other air in the room (flowing towards the chimney) supplies its place, is rarefied in its turn, and rises likewise; the place of the air thus carried out of the room, is supplied by fresh air coming in through doors and windows, or, if they be shut, through every crevice with violence, as may be seen by holding a candle to a key-hole: If the room be so tight as that all the crevices together will not supply so much air as is continually carried off, then, in a little time, the current up the funnel must flag, and the smoke being no longer driven up, must come into the room. 1. Fire (i. e. common fire) throws out light, heat, and smoke (or fume.) The two first move in right lines, and with great swiftness, the latter is but just separated from the fuel, and then moves only as it is carried by the stream of rarefied air: and without a continual accession and recession of air, to carry off the smoaky fumes, they would remain crouded about the fire, and stifle it. 2. Heat may he separated from the smoke as well as from the light, by means of a plate of iron, which will suffer heat to pass through it without the others. 3. Fire sends out its rays of heat as well as rays of 9 2 light, light, equally every way; but the greatest sensible heat is over the fire, where there is, besides the rays of heat shot upwards, a continual rising stream of hot air, heated by the rays shot round on every side. These things being understood, we proceed to consider the fire-places heretofore in use, viz. 1. The large open fire-places used in the days of our fathers, and still generally in the country, and in kitchens. 2. The newer-fashioned fire-places, with low breasts, and narrow hearths. 3. Fire-places with hollow backs, hearths, and jams of iron (described by M. Gauger, in his tract entitled, La Mechanique de Feu) for warming the air as it comes into the room. 4. The Holland stoves, with iron doors opening into the room. 5. The German stoves, which have no opening in the room where they are used, but the fire is put in from some other room, or from without. 6. Iron pots, with open charcoal fires, placed in the middle of a room. 1. The first of these methods has generally the conveniency of two warm seats, one in each corner; but they are sometimes too hot to abide in, and, at other times, incommoded with the smoke; there is likewise good room for the cook to move, to hang on pots, &c. Their inconveniencies are, that they almost always smoke, if the door be not left open; that they require a large funnel, and a large funnel carries off a great quantity of air, which occasions what is called a strong draft to the chimney, without which strong draft the smoke' would come out of some part or other of so large large an opening, so that the door can seldom be shut; and the cold air so nips the backs and heels of those that sit before the fire, that they have no comfort till either screens or settles are provided (at a considerable expence) to keep it off, which both cumber the room, and darken the fire-side. A moderate quantity of wood on the fire, in so large a hearth, seems but little; and, in so strong and cold a draught, warms but little; so that people are continually laying on more. In short, it is next to impossible to warm a room with such a fire-place and I suppose our ancestors never thought of warming rooms to sit in; all they purposed was, to have a place to make a fire in, by which they might warm themselves when cold. 2. Most of these old-fashioned chimneys in towns and cities, have been, of late years, reduced to the second sort mentioned, by building jambs within them, narrowing the hearth, and making a low arch or breast It is strange, methinks, that though chimneys have been so long in use, their construction should be so little understood till lately, that no workman pretended to make one which should always carry off all smoke, but a chimney-cloth was looked upon as essential to a chimney. This improvement, however, by small openings and low breasts, has been made in our days; and success in the first experiments has brought it into general use in cities, so that almost all new chimneys are now made of that sort, and much fewer bricks will make a stack of chimneys now than formerly. An improve ment, so lately made, may give us room to believe, that still farther improvements may be found to remedy the inconveniencies yet remaining. For these new chimneys, though they keep rooms generally free from Q 3 smoke, |