Chapter 19

When tea is mixed with a sufficient quantity of sugar and good cream;--when it is taken with a large quantity of bread and butter, or with toast and boiled eggs;--and above all,--WHEN IT IS NOT DRANK TOO HOT, it is certainly less unwholesome; but a simple infusion of this drug, drank boiling hot, as the Poor usually take it, is certainly a poison which, though it is sometimes slow in its operation, never fails to produce very fatal effects, even in the strongest constitution, where the free use of it is continued for a considerable length of time.

Of Rye Bread

The prejudice in this island against bread made of Rye, is the more extraordinary, as in many parts of the country no other kind of bread is used; and as the general use of it in many parts of Europe, for ages, has proved it to be perfectly wholesome.-- In those countries where it is in common use, many persons prefer it to bread made of the best wheat flour; and though wheaten bread is commonly preferred to it, yet I am persuaded that the general dislike of it, where it is not much in use, is more owing to its being BADLY PREPARED, or not well baked, than to any thing else.

As an account of some experiments upon baking Rye Bread, which were made under my immediate care and inspection in the bake-house of the House of Industry at Munich, may perhaps be of use to those who wish to known how good Rye Bread may be prepared; as also to such as are desirous of ascertaining, by similar experiments, what, in any given case, the profits of a baker really are; I shall publish an account in detail of these experiments, in the Appendix to this volume.

I cannot conclude this Essay, without once more recommending, in the most earnest manner, to the attention of the Public, and more especially to the attention of all those who are engaged in public affairs,--the subject which has here been attempted to be investigated. It is certainly of very great importance, in whatever light it is considered; and it is particularly so at the present moment: for however statesmen may differ in opinion with respect to the danger or expediency of making any alterations in the constitution, or established forms of government, in times of popular commotion, no doubts can be entertained with respect to the policy of diminishing, as much as possible, at all times, --and more especially in times like the present,--the misery of the lower classes of the people.

END OF THE THIRD ESSAY.

Footnotes for Essay III.

[1] November 1795.

[2] The preparation of water is, in many cases, an object of more importance than is generally imagined; particularly when it is made use of as a vehicle for conveying agreeable tastes. In making punch, for instance, if the water used be previously boiled two or three hours with a handful of rice, the punch made from it will be incomparably better, than is to say, more full and luscious upon the palate, than when the water is not prepared.

[3] I cannot dismiss this subject, the feeding of cattle, without just mentioning another practice common among our best farmers in Bavaria, which, I think, deserves to be known. They chop the green clover with which they feed their cattle, and mix with it a considerable quantity of chopped straw. They pretend that this rich succulent grass is of so clammy a nature, that unless it be mixed with chopped straw, hay, or some other dry fodder, cattle which are fed with it do not ruminate sufficiently. The usual proportion of the clover to the straw, is as two to one.

[4] A viertl is the twelfth part of a schafl, and the Bavarian schafl is equal to 6 31/300 Winchester bushels.

[5] The quantity of fuel here mentioned, though it certainly is almost incredibly small, was nevertheless determined from the results of actual experiments. A particular account of these experiments will be given in my Essay on the Management of Heat and the Economy of Fuel.

[6] One Bavarian schafl (equal to 6 31/100 Winchester bushels) of barley, weighing at a medium 250 Bavarian pounds, upon being pearled, or rolled (as it is called in Germany), is reduced to half a schafl, which weighs 171 Bavarian pounds. The 79lb. which it loses in the operation is the perquisite of the miller, and is all he receives for his trouble.

[7] Since the First Edition of this Essay was published the experiment with barley-meal has been tried, and the meal has been found to answer quite as well as pearl barley, if not better, for making these soups. Among others, Thomas Bernard, Esq. Treasurer of the Founding Hospital, a gentleman of most respectable character, and well known for his philanthropy and active zeal in relieving the distresses of the Poor, has given it a very complete and fair trial; and he found, what is very remarkable, though not difficult to be accounted for--that the barley-meal, WITH ALL THE BRAN IN IT, answered better, that is to say, made the soup richer, and thicker, than when the fine flour of barley, without the bran, was used.

[8] By some experiments lately made it has been found that the soup will be much improved if a small fire is made under the boiler, just sufficient to make its contents boil up once, when the barley and water are put into it, and then closing up immediately the ash-hole register, and the damper in the chimney, and throwing a thick blanket, or a warm covering over the cover of the boiler, the whole be kept hot till the next morning. This heat so long continued, acts very powerfully on the barley, and causes it to thicken the water in a very surprising manner. Perhaps the oat-meal used for making water gruel might be improved in its effects by the same means. The experiment is certainly worth trying.

[9] This invention of double bottoms might be used with great success by distillers, to prevent their liquor, when it is thick, from burning to the bottoms of their stills. But there is another hint, which I have long wished to give distillers, from which, I am persuaded, they might derive very essential advantages.--It is to recommend to them to make up warm clothing of thick blanketing for covering up their still-heads, and defending them from the cold air of the atmosphere; and for covering in the same manner all that part of the copper or boiler which rises above the brick-work in which it is fixed. The great quantity of heat is constantly given off to the cold air of the atmosphere in contact with it by this naked copper, not only occasions a very great loss of heat, and of fuel, but tends likewise very much to EMBARRASS and to PROLONG the process of distillation; for all the heat communicated by the naked still-head to the atmosphere is taken from the spirituous vapour which rises from the liquor in the still; and as this vapour cannot fail to be condensed into spirits whenever and WHEREVER it loses ANY PART of its heat,-- as the spirits generated in the still-head in consequence of this communication of heat to the atmosphere do not find their way into the worm, but trickle down and mix again with the liquor in the still,--the bad effects of leaving the still-head exposed naked to the cold air is quite evident. The remedy for this evil is as cheap and as effectual, as it is simple and obvious.

[10] The Bavarian pound (equal to 1.238, or near one pound and a quarter Avoirdupois,) is divided into 32 loths.

[11] For each 100 lb. Bavarian weight, (equal to 123.84 lb. Avoirdupois,) of rye-meal, which the baker receives from the magazine, he is obliged to deliver sixty-four loaves of bread, each loaf weighing 2 lb. 5 1/2 loths; equal to 2 lb. 10 oz. Avoirdupois;--and as each loaf is divided into six portions, this gives seven ounces Avoirdupois for each portion. Hence it appears that 100 lb. of rye-meal give 149 lb. of bread; for sixty-four loaves, at 2 lb. 5 1/2 loths each, weigh 149 lb. --When this bread is reckoned at two creutzers a Bavarian pound, (which is about what it costs at a medium,) one portion costs just 10/16 of a creutzer, or 120/528 of a penny sterling, which is something less than one farthing.

[12] This allowance is evidently much too large; but I was willing to show what the expence of feed the Poor would be at THE HIGHEST CALCULATION. I have estimated the 7 ounces of rye-bread, mentioned above, at what it ought to cost when rye is 7s. 6d. the bushel, its present price in London.

[13] Farther inquiries which have since been made, have proved that these suspicions were not without foundation.

[14] Since writing the above, I have had an opportunity of ascertaining, in the most decisive and satisfactory manner, the facts relative to the weight of Indian Corn of the growth of the northern states of America. A friend of mine, an American gentleman, resident in London, (George Erving, Esq. of Great George street, Hanover-square,) who, in common with the rest of his countrymen, still retains a liking for Indian Corn, and imports it regularly every year from America, has just received a fresh supply of it, by one of the last ships which has arrived from Boston in New England; and at my desire he weighed a bushel of it, and found it to weigh 61 lb.: It cost him at Boston three shillings and sixpence sterling the bushel.

[15] The price of Indian meal as it here estimated,--(2d. a pound,) --is at least twice as much as it would cost in Great Britain in common years, if care was taken to import it at the cheapest rate.

[16] Those who dislike trouble, and feel themselves called upon by duty and honor to take an active part in undertakings for the public good, are extremely apt to endeavour to excuse,--to themselves as well as to the world,--their inactivity and supineness, by representing the undertaking in question as being so very difficult as to make all hope of success quite chimerical and ridiculous.

[17] The Housekeeper of my friend and countryman, Sir William Pepperel, Bart. of Upper Seymour Street, Portman Square.

[18] Molasses imported from the French West India Islands into the American States is commonly sold there from 12d. to 14d. the gallon.

[19] This gentleman, who is as remarkable for his good fortune at sea, as he is respectable on account of his private character and professional knowledge, has crossed the Atlantic Ocean the almost incredible number of ONE HUNDRED AND TEN TIMES! and without meeting with the smallest accident. He is now on the seas in his way to North America; and this voyage, which is his HUNDRED AND ELEVENTH, he intends should be his last. May he arrive safe,--and may he long enjoy in peace and quite the well-earned fruits of his laborious life! Who can reflect on the innumerable storms he must have experienced, and perils he has escaped, without feeling much interested in his preservation and happiness?

[20] This maccaroni would not probably have cost one quarter of that sum at Naples.--Common maccaroni is frequently sold there as low as fourteen grains, equal to five pence halfpenny sterling the rottolo, weighing twenty-eight ounces and three quarters Avoirdupois, which is three pence sterling the pound Avoirdupois. An inferiour kind of maccaroni, such as is commonly sold at Naples to the Poor, costs not more than two pence sterling the pound Avoirdupois.

[21] If maccaroni could be made in this country as cheap as it is made in Naples, that is to say, so as to be afforded for three pence sterling the pound Avoirdupois, for the best sort, (and I do not see why it should not,) as half a pound of dry maccaroni weighs when boiled very nearly two pounds, each pound of boiled maccaroni would cost only three farthings, and the cheese necessary for giving it a relish one farthing more, making together one penny; which is certainly a very moderate price for such good and wholesome Food.

CONTENTS of ESSAY IV.

of CHIMNEY FIRE-PLACES, with PROPOSALS for improving them to save FUEL; to render dwelling-houses more COMFORTABLE and SALUBRIOUS, and effectually to prevent CHIMNIES from SMOKING.

ADVERTISEMENT

CHAPTER. I. Fire-places for burning coals, or wood, in an open chimney, are capable of great improvement. Smoking chimnies may in all cases be completely cured. The immoderate size of the throats of chimnies the principal cause of all their imperfections. Philosophical investigation of the subject. Remedies proposed for all the defects that have been discovered in chimnies and their open fire-places. These remedies applicable to chimnies destined for burning wood, or turf, as well as those constructed for burning coals.

CHAPTER. II. Practical directions designed for the use of workmen, showing how they are to proceed in making the alterations necessary to improve chimney fire-places, and effectually to cure smoking chimnies.

CHAPTER. III. Of the cause of the ascent of smoke. Illustration of the subject by familiar comparisons and experiments. Of chimnies which affect and cause each other to smoke. Of chimnies which smoke from want of air. Of the eddies of wind which sometimes blow down chimnies, and cause them to smoke. Explanation of the figures.

ESSAY IV.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Author thinks it his duty to explain the reasons which have induced him to change the order in which the publication of his Essays has been announced to the Public.--Being suddenly called upon to send to Edinburgh a person acquainted with the method of altering Chimney Fire-places, which has lately been carried into execution in a number of houses in London, in order to introduce these improvements in Scotland, he did not think it prudent to send any person on so important an errand without more ample instruction than could well be given verbally; and being obliged to write on the subject, he thought it best to investigate the matter thoroughly, and to publish such particular directions respecting the improvements in question as may be sufficient to enable all those, who may be desirous of adopting them, to make, or direct the necessary alterations in their Fire-places without any further assistance.

The following Letter, which the Author received from Sir John Sinclair, Baronet, Member of Parliament, and President of the Board of Agriculture, will explain this matter more fully:

You will hear with pleasure that your mode of altering Chimnies, so as to prevent their smoking, to save fuel, and to augment heat, has answered not only with me, but with many of my friends who have tried it; and that the Lord Provest and Magistrates of Edinburgh have voted a sum of money to defray the expences of a bricklayer, who is to be sent there for the purpose of establishing the same plan in that city. I hope that you will have the goodness to expedite your paper upon the management of Heat, that the knowledge of so useful an art may be as rapidly and as extensively diffused as possible.--With my best wishes for your success in the various important pursuits in which you are now engaged, believe me, with great truth and regard, Your faithful and obedient servant John Sinclair Whitehall, London, 9th February 1796.

CHAPTER. I.

Fire-places for burning coals, or wood, in an open chimney, are capable of great improvement. Smoking chimnies may in all cases be completely cured. The immoderate size of the throats of chimnies the principal cause of all their imperfections. Philosophical investigation of the subject. Remedies proposed for all the defects that have been discovered in chimnies and their open fire-places. These remedies applicable to chimnies destined for burning wood, or turf, as well as those constructed for burning coals.

The plague of a smoking Chimney is proverbial; but there are many other very great defects in open Fire-places, as they are now commonly constructed in this country, and indeed throughout Europe, which, being less obvious, are seldom attended to; and there are some of them very fatal in their consequences to health; and, I am persuaded, cost the lives of thousands every year in this island.

Those cold and chilling draughts of air on one side of the body, while the other side is scorched by a Chimney Fire, which every one who reads this must often have felt, cannot but be highly detrimental to health; and in weak and delicate constitutions must often produce the most fatal effects.--I have not a doubt in my own mind that thousands die in this country every year of consumptions occasioned solely by this cause.--By a cause which might be so easily removed!--by a cause whose removal would tend to promote comfort and convenience in so many ways.

Strongly impressed as my mind is with the importance of this subject, it is not possible for me to remain silent.--The subject is too nearly connected with many of the most essential enjoyments of life not to be highly interesting to all those who feel pleasure in promoting, or in contemplating the comfort and happiness of mankind.--And without suffering myself to be deterred, either by the fear of being thought to give the subject a degree of importance to which it is not entitled, or by the apprehension of being tiresome to my readers by the prolixity of my descriptions,--I shall proceed to investigate the subject in all its parts and details with the utmost care and attention. --And first with regard to smoking Chimnies:

There are various causes by which Chimnies may be prevented from carrying smoke; but there are none that may not easily be discovered and completely removed.--This will doubtless be considered as a bold assertion; but I trust I shall be able to make it appear in a manner perfectly satisfactory to my readers that I have not ventured to give this opinion but upon good and sufficient grounds.

Those who will take the trouble to consider the nature and properties of elastic fluids,--of air,--smoke,--and vapour,-- and to examine the laws of their motions, and the necessary consequences of their being rarified by heat, will perceive that it would be as much a miracle if smoke should not rise in a Chimney, (all hindrances to its ascent being removed,) as that water should refuse to run in a syphon, or to descend in a river.

The whole mystery, therefore, of curing smoking Chimnies is comprised in this simple direction. --FIND OUT AND REMOVE THOSE LOCAL HINDRANCES WHICH FORCIBLY PREVENT THE SMOKE FROM FOLLOWING ITS NATURAL TENDENCY TO GO UP THE CHIMNEY; or rather, to speak more accurately, which prevents its being forced up the Chimney by the pressure of the heavier air of the room.

Although the causes, by which the ascent of smoke in a Chimney MAY BE obstructed, are various, yet that cause which will most commonly, and I may say almost universally be found to operate, is one which it is always very easy to discover, and as easy to remove,--the bad construction of the Chimney IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE FIRE-PLACE.

In the course all my experience and practice in curing smoking Chimnies,--and I certainly have not had less than five hundred under my hands, and among them many which were thought to be quite incurable,--I have never been obliged, except in one single instance, to have recourse to any other method of cure than merely reducing the Fire-place and the throat of the Chimney, or that part of it which lies immediately above the Fire-place, to a proper form, and just dimensions.

That my principles for constructing Fire-places are equally applicable to those which are designed for burning coal, as to those in which wood is burnt, has lately been abundantly proved by experiments made here in London; for of above an hundred and fifty Fire-places which have been altered in this city, under my direction, within these last two months, there is not one which has not answered perfectly well[1].--And by several experiments which have been made with great care, and with the assistance of thermometers, it has been demonstrated, that the saving of fuel, arising from these improvements of Fire-places, amounts in all cases to more than HALF, and in many cases to more than TWO THIRDS of the quantity formerly consumed.--Now as the alterations in Fire-places which are necessary may be made at a very trifling expence, as any kind of grate or stove may be made use of, and as no iron work, but merely a few bricks and some mortar, or a few small pieces of fire-stone, are required; the improvement in question is very important, when considered merely with a view to economy; but it should be remembered, that not only a great saving is made of fuel by the alterations proposed, but that rooms are made much more comfortable, and more salubrious;-- that they may be more equally warmed, and more easily kept at any required temperature;--that all draughts of cold air from the doors and windows towards the Fire-place, which are so fatal to delicate constitutions, will be completely prevented;--that in consequence of the air being equally warm all over the room, or in all parts of it, it may be entirely changed with the greatest facility, and the room completely ventilated, when this air is become unfit for respiration, and this merely by throwing open for a moment a door opening into some passage from whence fresh air may be had, and the upper part of a window; or by opening the upper part of on window and the lower part of another, and as the operation of ventilating the room, even when it is done in the most complete manner, will never require the door and window to be open more than one minute; in this short time the walls of the room will not be sensibly cooled, and the fresh air which comes into the room will, in a very few minutes, be so completely warmed by these walls that the temperature of the room, though the air in it be perfectly changed, will be brought to be very nearly the same as it was before the ventilation.

Those who are acquainted with the principles of pneumatics, and know why the warm air in a room rushes out at an opening made for it at the top of a window when colder air from without is permitted to enter by the door, or by any other opening situated lower than the first, will see, that it would be quite impossible to ventilate a room in the complete and expeditious manner here described, where the air in a room is partially warmed, or hardly warmed at all, and where the walls of the room, remote from the fire, are constantly cold; which must always be the case where, in consequence of a strong current up the Chimney, streams of cold air are continually coming in through all the crevices of the doors and windows, and flowing into the Fire-place.