PROFILE OF THE PENSYLVANIA CHIMNEY & FIRE-PLACE.

passage I, and ascending into the air-box through the air-hole in the bottom plate near

G The partition in the hollow to keep the air and

smoke apart.

P The passage under the false back and part of the hearth for the smoke.

The arrows show the course of the smoke.

The fire being made at A, the flame and smoke will ascend and strike the top T, which will thereby receive a considerable heat. The smoke, finding no passage upwards, turns over the top of the air-box, and descends between it and the back plate to the holes in the bottom plate, heating, as it passes, both plates of the air-box, and the said back plate; the front plate, bottom and side plates are also all heated at the same time. The smoke proceeds in the passage that leads it under and behind the false back, and so rises into the chimney. The air of the room, warmed behind the back plate, and by the sides, front, and top plates, becoming specifically lighter than the other air in the room, is obliged to rise; but the closure over the fireplace hindering it from going up the chimney, it is forced out into the room, rises by the mantle-piece to the cieling, and spreads all over the top of the room, whence being crouded down gradually by the stream of newly-warmed air that follows and rises above it, the whole room becomes in a short time equally warmed.

At the same time the air, warmed under the bottom plate, and in the air-box, rises and comes out of the holes in the side-plates, very swiftly, if the door of the room be shut, and joins its current with the stream before-mentioned, rising from the side, back, and top plates.

The

The air that enters the room through the air box is fresh, though warm; and, computing the swiftness of its motion with the areas of the holes, it is found that near ten barrels of fresh air are hourly introduced by the air-box; and by this means the air in the room is continually changed, and kept, at the same time, sweet and warm.

It is to be observed, that the entering air will not be warm at first lighting the fire, but heats gradually as the fire increases.

A square opening for a trap-door should be left in the closing of the chimney, for the sweeper to go up: the door may be made of slate or tin, and commonly kept closes hut, but so placed as that, turning up against the back of the chimney when open, it closes the va-. cancy behind the false back, and shoots the soot, that falls in sweeping, out upon the hearth. This trap-door is a very convenient thing.

In rooms where much smoking of tobacco is used, it is also convenient to have a small hole, about five or six inches square, cut near the ceiling through into the funnel: this hole must have a shutter, by which it may be closed or opened at pleasure. When open, there will be a strong draught of air through it into the chimney, which will presently carry off a cloud of smoke, and keep the room clear: if the room be too hot likewise, it will carry off as much of the warm air as you please, and then you may stop it entirely, or in part, as you think fit. By this means it is, that the tobacco smoke does not descend among the heads of the company near the fire, as it must do before it can get into Common chimneys.

The

The Manner of using this Fire-Place.

Your cord-wood must be cut into three lengths; or else a short piece, fit for the fire-place, cut off, and the longer left for the kitchen or other fires. Dry hickery, or ash, or any woods that burn with a clear flame are rather to be chosen, because such are less apt to foul the smoke-passages with soot; and flame communicates with its light, as well as by contact, greater heat to the plates and room. But where more ordinary wood is used, half a dry faggot of brush-wood, burnt at the first making the fire in the morning, is very advantageous, as it immediately, by its sudden blaze, heats the plates, and warms the room (which with bad wood slowly kindling would not be done so soon) and at the same time by the length of its flame, turning in the passages, consumes and cleanses away the soot that such bad smoaky wood had produced therein the preceding day, and so keeps them always free and clean. When you have laid a little back log, and placed your billets on small dogs, as in common chimneys, and put some fire to them, then slide down your shutter as low as the dogs, and the opening being by that means contracted, the air rushes in briskly, and presently blows up the flames. When the fire is sufficiently kindled, slide it up again.* In some of these fire-places there is a little

The shutter is slid up and down in this manner, only in those fireplaces which are so made as that the distance between the top of the arched opening, and the bottom plate, is the same as the distance between it and the top plate. Where the arch is higher, as it is in the draught annexed (which is agreeable to the last improvements) the shutter is set by, and applied occasionally; because if it were made deep enough to close the whole opening when slid down, it would hide part of it when up.

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