The Sun.
London, England, 1838-01-31 00:00:00

CONSIDERATIONS ON MODERN THEORIES

OF GEOLOGY.
Be THOMAS GISBOANE, M. A., Prebendary of Durham.
On opening this Pamphlet our prejudices are in some
degree excited against the Author, by the indications of a
bigoted spirit, which appear in its first pages. But, as we
proceed, we are pleased, if not convinced, by the tem-
perate and philosophical tone in which he discusses the
sometimes irritating controversy between the theologists
and the geologists. Although he takes high ground as a
direct opponent of all modern geological theorists—of Cu-
vier, Lamark, and even of the more orthodox Buckland
and Lyell—his manner is wholly free from arrogance, and
his arguments are unembittered by any taint of sectarian
rancour or jealousy. He disputes no one established
fact in modern geological discovery ; but confines him-
self to assailing such inferences from those facts as seem
to him to be at variance with the Mosaic History of the
Creation, or to be reconcileable with the sacred narrative
only by such a straining of the latter as would degrade its
character, and impair its authority. Thus he will by no
means admit of the succession of epochs assigned to the se-
veral strata of which the Earth's crust is composed ; and
with great ingenuity he makes out a plausible case for the
opinion, that all geological phcenomena may be reconciled
with the literal interpretation of the Six Days of Genesis,
as six periods of 24 hours each, in the ordinary sense of the
word, day. His reasonings are clear and forcible, if not
conclusive, and deserve the attention of every student of
geology, as they at least point out the dangers of rash spe-
culations in that young and fascinating science.

ON WARMING AND VENTILATING, WITH
DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING AND USING
THE THERMOMETER STOVE, OR SELF-
REGULATING FIRE.
By NEIL AE.vorr, 114 D.
Physician Extraordinary to the Queen.
It would be inferred from the title of the treatise before
us, that the instructions to be found in it were directed
chiefly to warming and ventilating on a large scale—as in
barracks, hospitals, and schools. But, whilst all that con-
cerns such habitations in respect to these two necessaries
of life—warmth and air—is amply provided for, the chief
merit of Dr. Arnott's beautiful invention is, that it supplies
the cheap and easy means of diffusing health and comfort
in the garrets and even in the cellars of the poor. In this
view alone, we should regard the " Thermometer Stove" as
one of the most valuable improvements of our times, when
the progress of human invention is hurrying us so ra-
pidly onward that we have scarcely time to admire
the novelties as they arise. We cannot hesitate to
rank amongst the grandest achievements of modern
art a contrivance of which the certain effect will be
equal to the four-fold increase of all the coal mines
is the earth ; and in the mean time another great benefit
will follow from the abolition of open stoves, sooty chim-
neys, and climbing boys—the valuable carbon which is now
dissipated and wasted in vast quantities through the atmos-
phere of English towns, obscuring the light of heaven, de-
filing the public architecture, and poisoning the air, will be
preserved and turned to account. For in this stove the .!
cheapest fuel, and that which gives out no smoke (such as
anthracite, stone-coal, and coke) is the best ; whereas the
coal which is chiefly used in open stores, and is the most
valuable for the production of gas for light is the least fit
for burning in the thermometer stove. Nor is there any
possibility of dangerous or even unpleasant effects from the
generation of carbonic acid gas, as might be apprehended
from the nature of the fuel,; for the quantity to be burnt
at a time is very small, and a regular and perfect ventila-
tion is kept up by the action of the stove itself, which dis-
charges the gases as they are generated into the flue. The
cost of keeping up an equal and unvarying warmth in a mo-
derate sized room for twenty-four hours, without trouble,
dust or attendance, is estimated at no more than the cost
of the wood which would be used to light an ordinary'
fire ; so that the saving to Dr. Arnott from the use of his
thermometer stove in his library during the severe and
protracted winter of 1836-37 was equal to the whole of
his coal-merchant's bill!—and when such stoves become
universal in the habitations of the poor, the expense of
fuel for cooking, washing, and maintaining night and day
a comfortable and equally diffused warmth, will not be
more for a whole week, than it now costs a poor family
to keep a miserable and insufficient fire for only part of
a day. The thermometer stove, too, requires no attend-
ance, no poking, no bellowsing—consequently can never
put the hurried house-wife in ill-humour. Nor is it the
least important of its many advantages, that it will put an
end for ever to those distressing accidents by fire to the
children of the poor, which are of a frequency in this
metropolis of which, perhaps, none but the Coroners have
an adequate notion. In contemplating the uses of
the stove, we must not withhold our admiration
from the ingenuity—the exquisite simplicity and complete-
ness—of its construction. When the competition of the
makers brings down the price of the apparatus to the level
of its fair cost—(for be it remembered that Dr. Arnott,
with his characteristic benevolence and generosity, gives up
this invention as he before gave him his hydrostatic bed, to
the public use, and refuses to derive any pecuniary advan-
tage to himself from its sale, or to reserve any control over
it by a patent)—and the competition will so bring down
.
the price, the first expense of a thermometer stove will
scarcely exceed that of the common register stove now in
use. It consists of a box of sheet or cast iron, which may
he of any shape, as an urn, a statue, or a plain pannelled
box, and might be set in the place of the common stoves or
in the middle of a room, where it might have an ornamental
form—as of a writing desk, a flower-stand, &c. Within
this outer case or box, there is a small fire-pot to receive the
fuel, with an ash-pit beneath—a pipe inserted in the outer case
carries off the gases of combustion into the flue—air to
support combustion being admitted by another aperture to
which the thermometer regulator is affixed, coLtrouling the
supply of air, and thereby keeping the temperature at any
required degree. In the meantime the circulation of that
air within is maintained, so that scarcely a particle of the
heat produced is arrested ; but it would greatly - exceed
our limits to give a detailed description of the apparatus,
for which we must refer to the book itself, as well as for
Dr. Arnott's plans for the ventilation of crowded buildings,
and for maintaining the proper humidity in apartments
heated by the Dutch, Russian, or other close stoves, by
which the air is rendered of an unpleasant and unwholesome
aridity. The instructions are ample, minute, and perspi-
cuous, and no one who attends to them with moderate care
can fall into error_ or disappointment in making or using
the thermometer-stove. We fear it will be some time
before the invention makes its way where it is most wanted
—into the habitations of the poor. But we have societies
for supplying the poor with surgical apparatus, with
blankets, fire, and other necessaries ; might we not havt
one for providing them with warmth and pure air, and for
saving to them that large portion of their earnings which is
dissipated in the attempt to procure a scanty ray of heat
from the wasteful and comfortless open hearth ?