Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883

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A constant change of air in every part of our dwellings is absolutely
necessary that we may have a "sweet home," and the open fireplace with
its flue materially helps to that end; but unless in every other respect
the house is in a good sanitary condition, the open fire only adds to
the danger of residing in such a house, because it draws the impure air
from other parts into our living rooms, where it is respired. Closed
stoves are useful in some places, such as entrance halls. They are more
economical than the open fireplaces; but with them there is danger of
the atmosphere, or rather, the minute particles of organic matter always
floating in the air, becoming burnt and so charging the atmosphere with
carbonic acid. The recently introduced slow-combustion stoves obviate
this evil.

It is possible to warm our houses without having separate fireplaces in
each room, viz., by heated air, hot water, or steam; but there are
many difficulties and some dangers in connection therewith which I
can scarcely hope to see entirely overcome. In America steam has been
employed with some success, and there is this advantage in its use, that
it can be conveyed a considerable distance. It is therefore possible
to have the furnace and boilers for its production quite away from the
dwelling houses and to heat several dwellings from one source, while at
the same time it can be employed for cooking purposes. In steam, then,
we have a useful agent, which might with advantage be more generally
employed; but when either it or hot water be used for heating purposes,
special and adequate means of ventilation must be employed. Gas stoves
are made in many forms, and in a few cases can be employed with
advantage; but I believe they are more expensive than a coal fire, and
it is most difficult to prevent the products of combustion finding their
way into the dwellings. Gas is a useful agent in the kitchen for cooking
purposes, but I never remember entering a house where it was so employed
without at once detecting the unpleasant smell resulting. It is rare to
find any special means for carrying off the injurious fumes, and without
such I am sure gas cooking stoves cannot be healthy adjuncts to our
homes.

The next difficulty we have to deal with is artificial lighting.
Whether we employ candle, oil lamp, or gas, we may be certain that the
atmosphere of our rooms will become contaminated by the products of
combustion, and health must suffer. In order that such may be obviated,
it must be an earnest hope that ere long such improvements will be made
in electric lighting, that it may become generally used in our homes as
well as in all public buildings. Gas has certainly proved itself a very
useful and comparatively inexpensive illuminating power, but in many
ways it contaminates the atmosphere, is injurious to health, and
destructive to the furniture and fittings of our homes. Leakages from
the mains impregnate the soil with poisonous matter, and it rarely
happens that throughout a house there are no leakages. However small
they may be, the air becomes tainted. It is almost impossible, at times,
to detect the fault, or if detected, to make good without great injury
to other work, in consequence of the difficulty there is in getting at
the pipes, as they are generally embedded in plaster, etc. All gas pipes
should be laid in positions where they can be easily examined, and, if
necessary, repaired without much trouble. In France it is compulsory
that all gas pipes be left exposed to view, except where they must of
necessity pass through the thickness of a wall or floor, and it would be
a great benefit if such were required in this country.

The cooking processes which necessarily go on often result in unpleasant
odors pervading our homes. I cannot say they are immediately prejudicial
to health; but if they are of daily or frequent occurrence, it is more
than probable the volatile matters which are the cause of the odors
become condensed upon walls, ceiling, or furniture, and in time undergo
putrefaction, and so not only mar the sweetness of home, but in addition
affect the health of the inmates. Cooking ranges should therefore be
constructed so as to carry off the fumes of cooking, and kitchens must
be well ventilated and so placed that the fumes cannot find their way
into other parts of the dwelling. In some houses washing day is an
abomination. Steam and stife then permeate the building, and, to say the
least, banish sweetness and comfort from the home. It is a wonder that
people will, year after year, put up with such a nuisance.

If washing must be done home, the architect may do something to lessen
the evil by placing the washhouse in a suitable position disconnected
from the living part of the house, or by properly ventilating it and
providing a well constructed boiler and furnace, and a flue for carrying
off the steam.

There is daily a considerable amount of refuse found in every home, from
the kitchen, from the fire-grate, from the sweeping of rooms, etc., and
as a rule this is day after day deposited in the ash-pit, which but
too often is placed close to the house, and left uncovered. If it were
simply a receptacle for the ashes from the fire-grates, no harm would
result, but as all kinds of organic matter are cast in and often allowed
to remain for weeks to rot and putrefy, it becomes a regular pest box,
and to it often may be traced sickness and death. It would be a wise
sanitary measure if every constructed ash pit were abolished. In place
thereof I would substitute a galvanized iron covered receptacle of but
moderate size, mounted upon wheels, and it should be incumbent on the
local authorities to empty same every two or three days. Where there are
gardens all refuse is useful as manure, and a suitable place should be
provided for it at the greatest distance from the dwellings. Until the
very advisable reform I have just mentioned takes place, it would be
well if refuse were burnt as soon as possible. With care this may be
done in a close range, or even open fire without any unpleasant smells,
and certainly without injury to health. It must be much more wholesome
to dispose of organic matter in that way while fresh than to have it
rotting and festering under our very noses.

A greater evil yet is the privy. In the country, where there is no
complete system of drainage, it may be tolerated when placed at a
distance from the house; but in a crowded neighborhood it is an
abomination, and, unless frequently emptied and kept scrupulously clean,
cannot fail to be injurious to health. Where there is no system of
drainage, cesspools must at times be used, but they should be avoided as
much as possible. They should never be constructed near to dwellings,
and must always be well ventilated. Care should be taken to make them
watertight, otherwise the foul matter may percolate through the ground,
and is likely to contaminate the water supply. In some old houses
cesspools have been found actually under the living rooms.

I would here also condemn the placing of r. w. tanks under any portion
of the dwelling house, for many cases of sickness and death have been
traced to the fact of sewage having found its way through, either by
backing up the drains, or by the ignorant laying of new into old
drains. Earth closets, if carefully attended to, often emptied, and the
receptacles cleaned out, can be safely employed even within doors;
but in towns it is difficult to dispose of the refuse, and there must
necessarily be a system of drainage for the purpose of taking off the
surface water; it is thereupon found more economical to carry away all
drainage together, and the water closet being but little trouble, and,
if properly looked after, more cleanly in appearance, it is generally
preferred, notwithstanding the great risks which are daily run in
consequence of the chance of sewer-gas finding an entrance into the
house by its means. After all, it is scarcely fair to condemn outright
the water closet as the cause of so many of the ills to which flesh is
subject. It is true that many w. c. apparatus are obviously defective
in construction, and any architect or builder using such is to be
condemned. The old pan closet, for instance, should be banished. It is
known to be defective, and yet I see it is still made, sold, and fixed,
in dwelling houses, notwithstanding the fact that other closet pans far
more simple and effective can be obtained at less cost. The pan of the
closet should be large, and ought to retain a layer of water at the
bottom, which, with the refuse, should be swept out of the pan by the
rush of water from the service pipe. The outlet may be at the side
connected with a simple earthenware s-trap with a ventilating outlet at
the top, from which a pipe may be taken just through the wall. From the
S-trap I prefer to take the soil pipe immediately through the wall, and
connect with a strong 4 in. iron pipe, carefully jointed, watertight,
and continued of the same size to above the tops of all windows. This
pipe at its foot should be connected with a ventilating trap, so that
all air connection is cut off between the house and the drains. All
funnel-shaped w. c. pans are objectionable, because they are so liable
to catch and retain the dirt.

Wastes from baths, sinks, and urinals should also be ventilated and
disconnected from the drains as above, or else allowed to discharge
above a gulley trap. Excrement, etc., must be quickly removed from the
premises if we are to have "sweet homes," and the w.c. is perhaps the
most convenient apparatus, when properly constructed, which can be
employed. By taking due precaution no harm need be feared, or will
result from its use, provided that the drains and sewers are rightly
constructed and properly laid. It is then to the sewers, drains, and
their connections our attention must be specially directed, for in the
majority of cases they are the arch-offenders. The laying of main sewers
has in most cases been intrusted to the civil engineer, yet it often
happens architects are blamed, and unjustly so, for the defective
work over which they had no control. When the main sewers are badly
constructed, and, as a result, sewer gas is generated and allowed to
accumulate, ordinary precautions may be useless in preventing its
entrance by some means or other to our homes, and special means and
extra precautions must be adopted. But with well constructed and
properly ventilated sewers, every architect and builder should be able
to devise a suitable system of house drainage, which need cause no
fear of danger to health. The glazed stoneware pipe, now made of any
convenient size and shape, is an excellent article with which to
construct house-drains. The pipes should be selected, well burnt, well
glazed, and free from twist. Too much care cannot be exercised in
properly laying them. The trenches should be got out to proper falls,
and unless the ground is hard and firm, the pipes should be laid upon a
layer of concrete to prevent the chance of sinking. The jointing must be
carefully made, and should be of cement or of well tempered clay, care
being taken to wipe away all projecting portions from the inside of the
pipes. A clear passage-way is of the utmost importance. Foul drains are
the result of badly joined and irregularly laid pipes, wherein matter
accumulates, which in time ferments and produces sewer-gas. The common
system of laying drains with curved angles is not so good as laying them
in straight lines from point to point, and at every angle inserting
a man-hole or lamp-hole, This plan is now insisted upon by the Local
Government Board for all public buildings erected under their authority.
It might, with advantage, be adopted for all house-drains.

Now, in consequence of the trouble and expense attending the opening up
and examination of a drain, it may often happen that although defects
are suspected or even known to exist, they are not remedied until
illness or death is the result of neglect. But with drains laid in
straight lines, from point to point, with man holes or lamp holes at the
intersections, there is no reason why the whole system may not easily be
examined at any time and stoppages quickly removed. The man holes and
lamp-holes may, with advantage, be used as means for ventilating the
drains and also for flushing them. It is of importance that each house
drain should have a disconnecting trap just before it enters the main
sewer. It is bad enough to be poisoned by neglecting the drainage to
one's own property, but what if the poison be developed elsewhere, and
by neglect permitted to find its way to us. Such will surely happen
unless some effective means be employed for cutting off all air
connection between the house-drains and the main sewer. I am firmly
convinced that simply a smoky chimney, or the discovery of a fault in
drainage weighs far more, in the estimation of a client in forming his
opinion of the ability of an architect, than the successful carrying out
of an artistic design. By no means do I disparage a striving to attain
artistic effectiveness, but to the study of the artistic, in domestic
architecture at least, add a knowledge of sanitary science, and foster a
habit of careful observation of causes and effects. Comfort is demanded
in the home, and that cannot be secured unless dwellings are built and
maintained with perfect sanitary arrangements and appliances.--_The
Building News_.

* * * * *

HOUSE AT HEATON

This house, which belongs to Mr J. N. D'Andrea, is built on the Basque
principle, under one roof, with covered balconies on the south side, the
northside being kept low to give the sun an opportunity of shining in
winter on the house and greenhouse adjacent, as well as to assist in the
more picturesque grouping of the two. On this side is placed, approached
by porch and lobby, the hall with a fireplace of the "olden time,"
lavatory, etc., butler's pantry, w. c., staircase, larder, kitchen,
scullery, stores, etc.

On the south side are two sitting rooms, opening into a conservatory.
There are six bedrooms, a dining-room, bath room, and housemaid's sink.

The walls are built of colored wall stones known as "insides," and
half-timbered brickwork covered with the Portland cement stucco,
finished Panan, and painted a cream-color.

All the interior woodwork is of selected pitch pine, the hall being
boarded throughout. Colored lead light glass is introduced in the upper
parts of the windows in every room, etc.

The architect is Mr. W. A. Herbert Martin, of Bradford.--_Architect_

[Illustration: HOUSE AT HEATON, BRADFORD.]

* * * * *

A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING.

The principal floor of this design is elevated three feet above the
surface of the ground, and is approached by the front steps leading to
the platform. The height of the first floor is eleven feet, the second
ten feet, and the cellar six feet six inches in the clear. The porch is
so constructed that it can be put on either the front or side of the
house, as it may suit the owner. The rooms, eight in number, are airy
and of convenient size. The kitchen has a range, sink, and boiler, and
a large closet, to be used as a pantry. The windows leading out to the
porch will run to the floor, with heads running into the walls. In the
attic the chambers are 10x10 feet, 13x14 feet, 12x13 feet, 10x101/2 feet,
and a hall 6 feet wide, with large closets and cupboards for each
chamber. The building is so constructed that an addition can be made
to the rear any time by using the present kitchen as a dining room and
building a new kitchen.

[Illustration: A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. First Floor.]

[Illustration: A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. Second Floor.]

These plans will prove suggestive to those contemplating the building
of a new house, even if radical changes are made in the accompanying
designs.--_American Cultivator_.

[Illustration: A MANSARD ROOF DWELLING. Front Elevation.]

* * * * *

THE HISTORY OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[Footnote: Aug. Guerout in _La Lurmiere Electrique_.]

An endeavor has often been made to carry the origin of the electric
telegraph back to a very remote epoch by a reliance on those more or
less fanciful descriptions of modes of communication based upon the
properties of the magnet.

It will prove not without interest before entering into the real history
of the telegraph to pass in review the various documents that relate to
the subject.

In continuation of the 21st chapter of his _Magia naturalis_, published
in 1553, J. B. Porta cites an experiment that had been made with the
magnet as a means of telegraphing. In 1616, Famiano Strada, in his
_Prolusiones Academicae_, takes up this idea, and speaks of the
possibility of two persons communicating by the aid of two magnetized
needles influenced by each other at a distance. Galileo, in _Dialogo
intorno_, written between 1621 and 1632 and Nicolas Caboeus, of Ferrara,
in his _Philosophia magnetica_, both reproduce analogous descriptions,
not however without raising doubts as to the possibility of such a
system.

A document of the same kind, to which great importance has been attached
is found in the _Recreations mathematiques_ published at Rouen in 1628,
under the pseudonym of Van Elten, and reprinted several times since,
with the annotations and additions of Mydorge and Hamion and which must,
it appears, be attributed to the Jesuit Leurechon. In his chapter on the
magnet and the needles that are rubbed therewith, we find the following
passage.

"Some have pretended that, by means of a magnet or other like stone,
absent persons might speak with one another. For example, Claude being
at Paris, and John at Rome, if each had a needle that had been rubbed
with some stone, and whose virtue was such that in measure as one needle
moved at Paris the other would move just the same at Rome, and if Claude
and John each had an alphabet, and had agreed that they would converse
with each other every afternoon at 6 o'clock, and the needle having made
three and a half revolutions as a signal that Claude, and no other,
wished to speak to John, then Claude wishing to say to him that the king
is at Paris would cause his needle to move, and stop at T, then at H,
then at E, then at K, I, N, G and so on. Now, at the same time, John's
needle, according with Claude's, would begin to move and then stop at
the same letters, and consequently it would be easily able to write or
understand what the other desired to signify to it. The invention is
beautiful, but I do not think there can be found in the world a magnet
that has such a virtue. Neither is the thing expedient, for treason
would be too frequent and too covert."

The same idea was also indicated by Joseph Glanville in his _Scepsis
scientifica_, which appeared in 1665, by Father Le Brun, in his
_Histoire critique des pratiques superstitieuses_, and finally by the
Abbe Barthelemy in 1788.

The suggestion offered by Father Kircher, in his _Magnes sive de arte
magnetica_, is a little different from the preceding. The celebrated
Jesuit father seeks however, to do nothing more than to effect a
communication of thoughts between two rooms in the same building. He
places, at short distances from each other, two spherical vessels
carrying on their circumference the letters of the alphabet, and each
having suspended within it, from a vertical wire a magnetized figure. If
one of these latter he moved, all the others must follow its motions,
one after the other, and transmission will thus be effected from the
first vessel to the last. Father Kircher observes that it is necessary
that all the magnets shall be of the same strength, and that there shall
be a large number of them, which is something not within the reach
of everybody. This is why he points out another mode of transmitting
thought, and one which consists in supporting the figures upon vertical
revolving cylinders set in motion by one and the same cord hidden with
in the walls.

There is no need of very thoroughly examining all such systems of
magnetic telegraphy to understand that it was never possible for them to
have a practical reality, and that they were pure speculations which it
is erroneous to consider as the first ideas of the electric telegraph.

We shall make a like reserve with regard to certain apparatus that
have really existed, but that have been wrongly viewed as electric
telegraphs. Such are those of Comus and of Alexandre. The first of these
is indicated in a letter from Diderot to Mlle. Voland, dated July 12,
1762. It consisted of two dials whose hands followed each other at a
distance, without the apparent aid of any external agent. The fact
that Comus published some interesting researches on electricity in the
_Journal de Physique_ has been taken as a basis for the assertion that
his apparatus was a sort of electrical discharge telegraph in which the
communication between the two dials was made by insulated wires hidden
in the walls. But, if it be reflected how difficult it would have been
at that epoch to realize an apparatus of this kind, if it be remembered
that Comus, despite his researches on electricity, was in reality only a
professor of physics to amuse, and if the fact be recalled that cabinets
of physics in those days were filled with ingenious apparatus in which
the surprising effects were produced by skillfully concealed magnets, we
shall rather be led to class among such apparatus the so-called "Comus
electric telegraph."

We find, moreover, in Guyot's _Recreations physiques et
mathematiques_--a work whose first edition dates back to the time at
which Comus was exhibiting his apparatus--a description of certain
communicating dials that seem to be no other than those of the
celebrated physicist, and which at all events enables us to understand
how they worked.

Let one imagine to himself two contiguous chambers behind which ran
one and the same corridor. In each chamber, against the partition that
separated it from the corridor, there was a small bracket, and upon the
latter, and very near the wall, there was a wooden dial supported on a
standard, but in no wise permanently fixed upon the bracket. Each dial
carried a needle, and each circumference was inscribed with twenty-five
letters of the alphabet. The experiment that was performed with these
dials consisted in placing the needle upon a letter in one of the
chambers, when the needle of the other dial stopped at the same letter,
thus making it possible to transmit words and even sentences. As for the
means of communication between the two apparatus, that was very simple:
One of the two dials always served as a transmitter, and the other as a
receiver. The needle of the transmitter carried along in its motion
a pretty powerful magnet, which was concealed in the dial, and which
reacted through the partition upon a very light magnetized needle that
followed its motions, and indicated upon an auxiliary dial, to a person
hidden in the corridor, the letter on which the first needle had been
placed. This person at once stepped over to the partition corresponding
to the receiver, where another auxiliary dial permitted him to properly
direct at a distance the very movable needle of the receiver. Everything
depended, as will be seen, upon the use of the magnet, and upon a deceit
that perfectly accorded with Comus' profession. There is, then, little
thought in our opinion that if the latter's apparatus was not exactly
the one Guyot describes, it was based upon some analogous artifice.

Jean Alexandre's telegraph appears to have borne much analogy with
Comus'. Its inventor operated it in 1802 before the prefect of
Indre-et-Loire. As a consequence of a report addressed by the prefect of
Vienne to Chaptal, and in which, moreover, the apparatus in question was
compared to Comus', Alexandre was ordered to Paris. There he refused to
explain upon what principle his invention was based, and declared that
he would confide his secret only to the First Consul. But Bonaparte,
little disposed to occupy himself with such an affair, charged Delambre
to examine it and address a report to him. The illustrious astronomer,
despite the persistence with which Alexandre refused to give up his
secret to him, drew a report, the few following extracts from which
will, we think, suffice to edify the reader:

"The pieces that the First Consul charged me to examine did not contain
enough of detail to justify an opinion. Citizen Beauvais (friend and
associate of Alexandre) knows the inventor's secret, but has promised
him to communicate it to no one except the First Consul. This
circumstance might enable me to dispense with any report; for how judge
of a machine that one has not seen and does not know the agent of? All
that is known is that the _telegraphe intime_ consists of two like
boxes, each carrying a dial on whose circumference are marked the
letters of the alphabet. By means of a winch, the needle of one dial is
carried to all the letters that one has need to use, and at the same
instant the needle of the second box repeats, in the same order, all the
motions and indications of the first.

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