The Opelousas courier., 1891-05-09
THE RISE OF THE STOVE.
| ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS
OF KEEPING WARM.
Fires We're First Built in Open
hearths-Stovest of the Ancients-
The B~paZiar-The First Chimney.

The first step in the development of
the stove was an open hearth. In some
| nations it has never advanced beyond that
stage. The Esquimo to this day, and
the Indian, too for the matter of that,
heat their dwellings by building a fire in
the center of the room or hut, and per
hitting the smoke to escape through a
hole in the roof. The consideration of
light requires that this hole should be
large enough to give easy egress to the
vapor, and the larger it is, of course, the
more heat will escape.
Warm as Greece and Rome and Egypt
are, stoves were made there in the dim
and misty vistas of the past. It was not
| Just the pattern used In Chicago at pres,
ent, but was a metal basin in which char
| coal was burned. 1t sat in the middle OF
the room, and as the resulting smoke was
of the slightest no opening in the roof or
| elsewhere was necessary. The same ims
| plement, still called by its old Greek
name of brazier, is still employed in
many portions of continental Europe,
where it is utilized for heating as well as
cooking.
But the progressive Romans improved
on that and made hypocaust. It was
the germ of the present furnace.
1t was made under the house, in a
little cellar prepared for it, and the
heat was conducted to the rooms and
baths through c~revices left in the floor
and lower portions of the wall. Later
fues were provided, conducting heat to
any portion of the house. In some Of
the old Roman villas in England the re-
mains Of these old-time furnaces are still
found.
The first chimney was built in a house
in the fourteenth century. 1t was the
fireplace of to-day with scarcely a varia-
ton. In some cases the halls and lodges
of the great lords were provided with a
banqueting-room in which one whole end
of the apartment was taken up by the
chimney. This was largely for the pur-
pose of cooking, and a whole OK was
often roasted in sight of the table on
which it was later served. Distant por-
tions of the room were cold, but, as the
people were warriors and t~oughened in
fiber by constant exposure, they were
supposed to get along with an occasional
turn in the warm end of the room while
the feast was preparing. But if a pill
grim. a palmer, a man who had been to
the Holy Land, should come along, he
was a favored guest and was allowed to
sit in the palace of honor at the side OF
the great fireplace and to regale himself
on the choicest of the viands and the
best of wine, repaying the host for the
entertainment later by singing OF chant
ing an account of his experiences in the
land of the Saracens.
The old Germans themselves almost as
ancient as the Romans, made the first
metal stove. It was on the outside Of
the house to be warmed. But, while
that may seem like a curious place to put
your stove, your smiles may vanish when
YOU are informed that one end Of the
stove projected into the room. The fir
ing was done on the outside, and it must
have been a most unweleome thing in
deed, then, to get up first in the morn
ing and start a fire in the stove. The
ashes were taken from the bed without
being scattered over the carpet, and the
business end of the continuance which
reached into the room did all the good
our present stoves can accomplish ex-
cepting that they lost more heat than
do these.
A little over a century ago Mr. Street,
of London, took up the old Roman idea
of a hvpocaust and madea furnace, which
was warranted to warm all parts of the
house, to conserve the heat and save the
fuel and to overcome all the objections
against stoves and braziers. He must
have had a good time fulfilling his
guarantees, for the best furnace makers
Of this latter age cannot always accom-.
plish all they desire, or all that Mr.,
Street promised. But in any one of d
dozen good furnaces the problem Of
heating is perhaps as well settled as II
ever can be while we get III heat from
burning fuel.
But the furnace has by no mean
driven the older stove out of use. Neve
was the enterprise of s~tove-maklnG
: carried on to so great an extent as now
Never were SO many stoves made ant
sold; never were such skill and art ex
pended in their manufacture, and neve
were they such things of beauty as now
+ The modern parlor heater is a triumph
: no less in art than in utility. To tn
t very greatest possible extent it control
the heat generated, reducing and almos
~suspending combustion, conveying tn
: gases away perfectly, and even aiding i
| the work of purifying the atmosphere o
the room. And at the same time intens
b heat can be produced with the minimum
of trouble.
A comparatively very small proportion
of the homes in the country are supplied
or ever will be supplied, with furnaces
t The work Of heating must be done wit
r stoves. They are less expensive, the
heat a single room, while there is n
. economy in a furnace unless it is use
\ to heat the entire house. And then ther
is something in the homeless, wandering
: tenant character of our population tina
! will for many years insure permanenc
to an article of furniture that can /
moved from house to house or from rool
} to room.
And as the brazier and stove of th
b a~ncients could at times be used for cool
ing, the development Of this implemer
re took a two-fold direction. While tt
furnace and parlor- heater provid
IS warmth, the range discharges all dutit
lie in regard to cooking. Fine as were Il
te roasts prepared in the chimney of tt