During the investment of Paris, the Comptes Rendus of the Acadamy of Sciences were mainly filled with papers on the construction and guidance of balloons; with the results of ingenious researches on methods of making milk and butter without the aid of cows; on the extraction of nutritious food from old boots, saddles, and other organic refuse; and other devices for rendering the general famine more endurable. In like manner, our present coal famine is directing an important amount of scientific, as well as commercial, attention to the subject of economizing coal and finding substitutes for it.

A few thoughtful men have shocked their fellow-sufferers very outrageously by wishing that coal may reach 3l. per ton, and remain at that price for a year or two. I confess that, in spite of my own empty coal-cellar and small income, I am one of those hard-hearted cool calculators, being confident that, even from the narrow point of view of my own outlay in fuel, the additional amount I should thus pay in the meantime would be a good investment, affording by an ample return in the saving due to consequent future cheapness. Regarded from a national point of view, I am convinced that 3l. a ton in London, and corresponding prices in other districts, if thus maintained, would be an immense national blessing. I say this, being convinced that nothing short of pecuniary pains and penalties of ruinous severity will stir the blind prejudices of Englishmen, and force them to desist from their present stupid and sinful waste of the greatest mineral treasure of the island.

One of the grossest of our national manifestations of Conservative stupidity is our senseless idolatrous worship of that domestic fetish, “the Englishman’s fireside.” We sacrifice health, we sacrifice comfort, we begrime our towns and all they contain with sooty foulness, we expend an amount far exceeding the interest of the national debt, and discount our future prospects of national prosperity, in order that we may do what? Enjoy the favorite recreation of idiots. It is a well-known physiological fact that an absolute idiot, with a cranium measuring sixteen inches in circumference, will sit and stare at a blazing fire for hours and hours continuously, all the day long, except when feeding, and that this propensity varies with the degree of mental vacuity.

Few sights are more melancholy than the contemplation of a party of English fire-worshipers seated in a semicircle round the family fetish on a keen frosty day. They huddle together, roast their knees, and grill their faces, in order to escape the chilling blast that is brought in from all the chinks of leaky doors and windows by the very agent they employ, at so much cost, for the purpose of keeping the cold away. The bigger the fire the greater the draught, the hotter their faces the colder their backs, the greater the consumption of coal the more abundant the crop of chilblains, rheumatism, catarrh, and other well-deserved miseries.

The most ridiculous element of such an exhibition is the complacent self-delusion of the victims. They believe that their idol bestows upon them an amount of comfort unknown to other people, that it affords the most perfect and salubrious ventilation, and, above all, that it is a “cheerful” institution. The “cheerfulness” is, perhaps, the broadest part of the whole caricature, especially when we consider that, according to this theory of the cheerfulness of fire-gazing, the 16-inch idiot must be the most cheerful of all human beings.

The notion that our common fireplaces and chimneys afford an efficient means of ventilation, is almost too absurd for serious discussion. Everybody who has thought at all on the subject is aware that in cold weather the exhalations of the skin and lungs, the products of gas-burning, etc., are so much heated when given off that they rise to the upper part of the room (especially if any cold outer air is admitted), and should be removed from there before they cool again and descend. Now, our fireplace openings are just where they ought not to be for ventilation; they are at the lower part of the room, and thus their action consists in creating a current of cold air or “draught” from doors and windows, which cold current at once descends, and then runs along the floor, chilling our toes and provoking chilblains.

This cold fresh air having done its worst in the way of making us uncomfortable, passes directly up the chimney without doing us any service for purposes of respiration. Our mouths are usually above the level of the chimney opening, and thus we only breathe the vitiated atmosphere which it fails to remove.

Not only does the fire-opening fail to purify the air we breathe, it actually prevents the leakage of the lower part of the windows and doors from assisting in the removal of the upper stratum of vitiated air, for the strong up-draught of the chimney causes these openings to be fully occupied by an inflowing current of cold air, which at once descends, and then proceeds, as before stated, to the chimney. If the leakage is insufficient to supply the necessary amount of chilblain-making and bronchitis-producing draught, it has to enter by way of the chimney-pot in the form of occasional spasms of down-draught, accompanied by gusts of choking and blackening smoke. It is a fact not generally known, that smoky chimneys are especial English institutions, one of the peculiar manifestations of our very superior domestic comfortableness. It is true that, in some of our rooms, an Arnott’s ventilator opens into the upper part of the chimney, but this was intended by Dr. Arnott as an adjunct to his modification of the German stove, and such ventilator can only act efficiently where a stove is used. The pressure required to fairly open it can only be regularly obtained when the chimney is closed below, or its lower opening is limited to that of a stovepipe.

The mention of a German stove has upon an English fire-worshiper a similar effect to the sight of water upon a mad dog. Again and again, when I have spoken of the necessity of reforming our fireplaces, the first reply elicited has been, “What, would you have us use German stoves?” In every case where I have inquired of the exclaimer, “What sort of a thing is a German stove?” the answer has proved that the exclamation was but a manifestation of blind prejudice based upon total ignorance. These people who are so much shocked at the notion of introducing “German stoves” have no idea of the construction of the stoves which deservedly bear this title. Their notion of a German stove is one of those wretched iron boxes of purely English invention known to ironmongers as “shop stoves.” These things get red hot, their red-hot surface frizzles the dust particles that float in the atmosphere and perfume the apartment accordingly. This, however disagreeable, is not very mischievous, perhaps the reverse, as many of these dust particles, which are revealed by a sunbeam, are composed of organic matter which, as Dr. Tyndall argues, may be carriers of infection. If we must inhale such things, it is better that we should breathe them cooked than take them raw.

The true cause of the headaches and other mischief which such stoves unquestionably induce is very little understood in this country. It has been falsely attributed to over-drying of the atmosphere, and accordingly evaporating pans and other contrivances have been attached to such stoves, but with little or no advantage. Other explanations are given, but the true one is that iron when red hot is permeable by carbonic oxide. This was proved by the researches of Professor Graham, who showed that this gas not only can pass through red-hot iron with singular facility, but actually does so whenever there is atmospheric air on one side and carbonic oxide on the other.

For the benefit of my non-chemical readers, I may explain that when any of our ordinary fuel is burned, there are two products of carbon combustion, one the result of complete combustion, the other of semi-combustion—carbonic acid and carbonic oxide—the former, though suffocating when breathed alone or in large proportion, is not otherwise poisonous, and has no disagreeable odor; it is in fact rather agreeable in small quantities, being the material of champagne bubbles and of those of other effervescing drinks. Carbonic oxide, the product of semi-combustion, is quite different. Breathed only in small quantities, it acts as a direct poison, producing peculiarly oppressive headaches. Besides this, it has a disagreeable odor. It thus resembles many other products of imperfect combustion, such as those which are familiar to everybody who has ever blown out a tallow candle, and left the red wick to its own devices.

On this account alone any kind of iron stove capable of becoming red-hot should be utterly condemned. If Englishmen did their traveling in North Europe in the winter, their self-conceit respecting the comfort of English houses would be cruelly lacerated, and none such would perpetrate the absurdity of applying the name of “German stove” to the iron fire-pots that are sold as stoves by English ironmongers.

As the Germans use so great a variety of stoves, it is scarcely correct to apply the title of German to any kind of stove, unless we limit ourselves to North Germany. There, and in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Russia, the construction of stoves becomes a specialty. The Russian stove is perhaps the most instructive to us, as it affords the greatest contrast to our barbarous device of a hole in the wall into which fuel is shoveled, and allowed to expend nine-tenths of its energies in heating the clouds, while only the residual ten per cent does anything towards warming the room. With the thermometer outside below zero, a house in Moscow or St. Petersburg is kept incomparably more warm and comfortable, and is better ventilated (though, perhaps, not so much ventilated) than a corresponding class of house in England, where the outside temperature is 20 or 30 degrees higher, and this with a consumption of about one-fourth of the fuel which is required for the production of British bronchitis.

This is done by, first of all, sacrificing the idiotic recreation of fire-gazing, then by admitting no air into the chimney but that which is used for the combustion of the fuel; thirdly, by sending as little as possible of the heat up the chimney; fourthly, by storing the heat obtained from the fuel in a suitable reservoir, and then allowing it gradually and steadily to radiate into the apartment from a large but not overheated surface.

The Russian stove by which these conditions are fulfilled is usually an ornamental, often a highly artistic, handsome article of furniture, made of fire-resisting porcelain, glazed and otherwise decorated outside. Internally it is divided by thick fire-clay walls into several upright chambers or flues, usually six. Some dry firewood is lighted in a suitable fireplace, and is supplied with only sufficient air to effect combustion, all of which enters below and passes fairly through the fuel. The products of combustion being thus undiluted with unnecessary cold air, are very highly heated, and in this state pass up compartment or flue No. 1; they are then deflected, and pass down No. 2; then up No. 3, then down No. 4, then up No. 5, then down No. 6. At the end of this long journey they have given up most of their heat to the 24 heat-absorbing surfaces of the fire-clay walls of the six flues.

When the interior of the stove is thus sufficiently heated, the fire-door and the communication with the chimney are closed, and the fire is at once extinguished, having now done its day’s work; the interior of the stove has bottled up its calorific force, and holds it ready for emission into the apartment. This is effected by the natural properties of the walls of the earthenware reservoir. They are bad conductors and good radiators. The heat slowly passes through to the outside of the stove, is radiated into the apartment from a large and moderately-heated surface, which affords a genial and well-diffused temperature throughout. There is no scorching in one little red-hot hole, or corner, or box, and freezing in the other parts of the room. There are no draughts, as the chimney is quite closed as soon as the heat reservoir is supplied. If one of these heat reservoirs is placed in the hall, where it may form a noble ornament and can easily communicate with an underground flue, it warms every part of the house, and enables the Russian to enjoy a luxurious temperate climate indoors in spite of arctic winter outside.

In a house thus warmed and free from draughts or blasts of cold air, ventilation becomes the simplest of problems. Nothing more is required than to provide an inlet and outlet in suitable places, and of suitable dimensions, when the difference between the specific gravity of the cold air without and warm air within does all the rest. Nothing is easier to arrange than to cause all the entering air to be warmed on its way by the hall stove, and to regulate the supply which each apartment shall receive from this general or main stream by adjusting its own upper outlet. In our English houses, with open chimneys, all such systematic, scientific ventilation is impossible, on account of the dominating, interfering, useless, and comfort-destroying currents produced by these wasteful air-shafts.

I should add that the Russian porcelain reservoirs may be constructed for a heat supply of a few hours or for a whole day, and I need say nothing further in refutation of the common British prejudice which confounds so admirable and truly scientific a contrivance with the iron fire-pot above referred to.

There is another kind of stove, which, for the sake of distinction, I may call Scandinavian, as it is commonly used in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, besides some parts of North Germany. This is a tall, hollow iron pillar, of rectangular section, varying from three to six feet in width, and rising half-way to the ceiling of the room, and sometimes higher. A fire is lighted at the lower part, and the products of combustion, in their way upwards, meet with horizontal iron plates, which deflect them first to the right, then to the left, and thus compel them to make a long serpentine journey before they reach the chimney. By this means they give off their heat to the large surface of iron plate, and enter the chimney at a comparatively low temperature. The heat is radiated into the apartment from the large metal surface, no part of which approaches a red-heat. A further economy is commonly effected by placing this iron pillar in the wall separating two rooms, so that one of its faces is in each room. Thus two rooms are heated by one fire. One of these may be the kitchen, and the same fire that prepares the food may be used to warm the dining-room. The fire-worshiper is of course deprived of his “cheerful” occupation of staring at the coals, and he also loses his playthings, as neither poker, tongs, nor coal-scuttle are included in the furniture of an apartment thus heated. People differently constituted consider that an escape from the dust, dirt, and clatter of these is a decided advantage.

Of course these stoves of our northern neighbors are costly—may be very costly when highly ornamental. The stove of a Norwegian “bonder,” or peasant proprietor, costs nearly half as much as the two-roomed wooden house in which it is erected, but the saving it effects renders it a good investment. It would cost 100l. or 200l. to fit up an English mansion with suitable porcelain stoves of the Russian pattern, but a saving of 20l. a year in fuel would yield a good return as regards mere cost, while the gain in comfort and healthfulness would be so great that, once enjoyed and understood, such outlay would be willingly made by all who could afford it, even if no money saving were effected.

Only last week I was discussing this question in a railway carriage, where one of my fellow-passengers was an intelligent Holsteiner. He confirmed the heresy by which I had shocked the others, in exulting in the high price of coal, and wishing it to continue. He told us that when wood was abundant in his country, fuel was used as barbarously, as wastefully, and as inefficiently as it now is here, but that the deforesting of the land, and the great cost of fuel, forced upon them a radical reform, the result of which is that they now have their houses better warmed, and at a less cost than when fuel was obtainable at one fourth of its present cost. Such will be the case with us also if we can but maintain the present coal famine during one or two more winters, especially if we should have the further advantage of some very severe weather in the meantime. Hence the cruel wishes above expressed. The coal famine would scarcely be necessary if we had Russian winters, for in such case our houses, instead of being as they are, merely the most uncomfortable in North Europe, would be quite uninhabitable. With our mild winters we require the utmost severity of fuel prices to civilize our warming and ventilating devices.