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openings, and so distribute the air that no draught is felt. I think, however, that it is only advisable to admit warmed air at a low level into rooms, but there is no reason why such openings should not be made high up in the rooms— -behind cornices, for example. Pritchett's paving, made of agricultural pipes, may also be used for making walls and partitions, and is obviously applicable for ventilation purposes, whether used as inlet or outlet.

We now come to speak of exit shafts and valves. The first and most important of these is the chimney, about which I have already spoken. I need only add here that it is advisable to do without

the use of cowls upon chimneys wherever it is possible. If the chimney can be made high enough it will not require a cowl, and if it cannot, a simple conical cap is generally sufficient to prevent down draughts. There is no doubt, however, that Boyle's fixed chimney cowl for preventing down draught not only does so, but produces an up

draught in the chimney when the wind blows down upon it, as I can readily show you by an experiment with the model I have here. A small piece of wool is made to ascend in a glass tube by blowing vertically down upon the fixed cowl placed upon the top of it. Of revolving cowls for chimneys, the common lobster-backed cowl is probably the best. Whilst speaking of cowls, I may as well mention that a variety of cowls, some of which I have here, have been invented with the object of increasing the up draught in exit shafts of various kinds, some are fixed, as Boyle's, Buchan's, and Lloyd's, and some revolving, as Scott, Adie & Co's., Howarth's, Stidder's, Banner's, Stevens', and the one invented by Mr. Boyle, but discarded by him some years ago. Whether any of these cowls increase the up current in exit shafts is a matter which is still under investigation, but I can show you, quite easily, that the common rough experiment, by means of which they are supposed to do so, is en

tirely fallacious. Cotton wool is drawn up a tube at least as easily by blowing across it in a slanting direction as by blowing through a cowl placed on the top of it. The fixed cowls have the advantage that they cannot get out of crder. The revolving cowls have the disadvantage which is common to all apparatus with moving parts, that they are certain to get out of order some day or other. Whether they increase up draughts or not, there is no doubt that most of them prevent down draughts, and, like any other cover, prevent the entrance of rain.

Openings are sometimes made high up in the room into the chimney flue and protected by valves, the best known of which is Arnott's valve, which consists of a light metal flap, swinging inside a metal frame work in such a way that it can open towards the chimney flue, but not towards the room. Any pressure of air from the room towards the flue will, therefore, open it and allow the air to escape from the room into the flue.

Pressure of air the other way will shut it. The disadvantages of this ventilator are that it makes an irregular noise, although this has been, to a considerable extent, obviated by the indiarubber padding with which it is now fitted. It also occasionally admits a little soot, and, of course, air at the same time, from the flue into the room. Boyle's chimney ventilator, made by Messrs. Comyn, Ching & Co., is a modification of this. Instead of the light metal flaps, there are a number of small talc flaps. These make little or no noise, but they are liable to be opened by a current of air in the chimney. It is obviously, it seems to me, at variance with sound sanitary principles to make openings from the interior of the room into the chimney flues, and then to trust to valves for preventing the air of the flue from coming in. A far better plan is to have shafts placed by the side of the flues, and this, of course, is better done when the houses are built. The easiest and most satisfactory way of

doing it is by means of air and smoke flues combined, in which the air flues are molded in the same piece of fire-clay as the smoke flue itself. These air flues can be connected with the upper parts of the rooms, and up draughts will be inevitably caused, as the air in them will be considerably heated on account of its immediate contact with the outer side of the flue. Such shafts can only serve as inlets when the flues are cold, and so it is advisable to use them especially with flues that are always hot-as, for instance, that of the kitchen chimneyand it is desirable, wherever it can be done, to connect the kitchen with a different air-shaft from the other rooms, or it is possible that air from the kitchen may get into some of the other rooms of the house.

Of exit ventilators not connected with the chimney flues, I may mention Mackinnell's, which also provides an inlet for air as well, and which is very useful in little rooms, closets, etc., having no rooms over them. It consists of two

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