A Practical Treatise on Chimneys. Containing Full Directions for Preventing or Removing Smoke in Houses. Illustrated with Copperplates,

ANDERSON (James)

Verlag:

First Edition, [6] vii [1], [1] 2 - 172pp., including a half title. Small errata slip before the half title. With a folding engraved plate (with 17 figures of various chimney designs, &c. Plate skilfully repaired from verso). Some contemporary ink underlining. Sometime rebound in paper over boards, the upper cover with a title label. A very good copy. Edinburgh: printed for C. Elliot Sold at London by T. Cadell, 1776.* James Anderson, 1739-1808, agriculturist and political economist, an LLD from Aberdeen University. He was a friend and supporter of Jeremy Bentham. By this date, when coal had become irretrievably the standard domestic fuel, the scramble was on to design an efficient fireplace that neither smoked nor devoured coal omnivorously. Of this effort, the present book is a very good representative example. In the 18thC most domestic dwellings were constantly polluted by acrid fumes from coal smoke - the result of badly designed chimneys. Here Anderson points out that a high chimney gives a better draught than a low one, because it provides a greater difference in height between the external column of air and the internal column of smoke etc. Anderson also gives an early (perhaps the earliest) analysis of how the domestic fireplace evolved: "Smoke is a dense elastic vapour, arising from burning bodies. Although this is in general disagreeable to the human sensations, yet in some places, as the natives have no other method of freeing themselves from the attacks of innumerable insects, than by involving themselves in a cloud of thick smoke, they have thus gradually inured themselves to breathe it without intolerable inconvenience, and therefore are at no pains to free themselves from it. The Laplanders, and some other savage nations, have no other openings in their houses to emit the smoke - than the doors and windows. But as mankind advanced in civilization, - as they become easy in their circumstances, and come to form a more adequate idea of enjoyment, - when they acquire an idea of cleanliness, and see what a high degree of luxury it is to enjoy it, smoke in their houses becomes so exceedingly inconvenient, as to be accounted one of the greatest interruptions to domestic enjoyment, and is therefore excluded from their apartments with all possible care. But if it is necessary in other parts of the world to exclude smoke merely for the sake of personal gratification, it becomes doubly so in Great Britain, where pit-coal is the most common sort of fuel, the smoke of which is not only disagreeable, but absolutely noxious, as many well-known facts too fatally declare… In these circumstances it was imagined, that the author would perform a grateful service to many individuals, if he should, in a concise and perspicuous manner, explain all the circumstances that can promote or retard the ascent of smoke in every case, point out the means of curing in the easiest and least expensive manner all chimneys that do not vent well, where they admit of a cure, and instruct the operative mason how to construct new vents, in such a way as to carry off the smoke effectually in all cafes whatever. Such is the very important design of this little treatise; - and the author is confident, that by duly attending to the following particulars, any one of ordinary capacity may be enabled to effectuate all these things with facility." p.1-6. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 25445

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Titel: A Practical Treatise on Chimneys. Containing...