Evening star., 1900-08-18
COOLING DRAUGHTS
To Be Breathed but Not Drunk at
the White House.
PLAN Was TRIED ONCE BEFORE THERE
Only Necessity for Open Windows
Lessened Results.
COST CAN BE REDUCED, TOO

Should war be declared or the Chinese |
question become SO acute as to call for the |
Presidents return to Washington it is the |
determination of Col Bingham. L. S. A. |
to that the Executive Mansion is made |
as tolerable as science will permit.
The recent hot weather has only served |
to empha size the STIFFNESS of the White |
House. and 1t is the intention to provide
cooling draughts for the Presidents Office
and bed room. at least, even If the weather
bureau and the temporary cussedness of
the sun to be thrown out of the calcula-
ton.
Even though the shirt waist man has
come to stay, 1t Is not considered officially
en- regle for the executive to be seen in his
shirt sleeves as in those good old days when
the presidential outfit and the cabinet ad-
journed to the back veranda OF the White
House, shed their top hamper and pro-
ceeded to fight the nations battles and the
| mosquitoes from the neighboring swamp
lands in an atmosphere of crushed mint and
cracked Ice.
1t is generally recognized that there will
be hot times this year even as far along as
November, and something must be done to
keep our chief executive as cool and COM
Portable as possible.
Col. Bingham is now busted with plans
looking to the fitting of a considerable re-
and everything is SO far settled that only
a few days would be needed to install the
outfit should the President return.
Should the apparatus be put In place 1t
will not be the first time that such ar
rangement has guaranteed presidential
| comfort during the worst part OF a WASH
ington summer. In 1881, when the late
President Garfield lay wounded at the
White House, ii became necessary to pro
vide a system of refrigeration capable OF
making the atmosphere of the sick room
| 10 ar,1 fhn hfrer yuvoG
after considerable thought had been exer-
cised by three departments of the govern
ment and a number of private citizens.
Three navy engineers, a professor of mathe-
ma tics-anore popularly styled astrono-
mer-a geological expert from the weather
bureau-then ur der the army-and a Mr..
Jennings of Baltimore. were selected to
| work out the problem. To the professor Of
ma thematicS fell the determination OF how
| much ice would be needed to produce
given condition of GOODNESS; and, in his own
words We learn: The first step necessary
| was to ascertain, roughly, how many units
| of heat per day were to be distracted from
/ the warm air and how much ice would
| have to he exposed and mehed In order to
| abstract this amount IF heat. One neces-
sary datum In the ,alculation was the
quantity of cool air required. This datum
| was supplied by one Of the attending ply
Sicians, who stated that 12,pD CUBIC feet or
| cool air per hour was desirable for the sick
room. l then made rough computation
| of the amount of ice it was necessary that
/
| melt in order that 1t might be cooled off and
| deposit the greater part of its moisture
| The principal parts of this Gale culation were.
| / 900 pounds air cooled 50 degrees would
| warm 20 pounds of water 90 degrees. and
| would melt, therefore, about 100 pounds OF
| ice per hour.
| The condensation of five grains of aque-
| Gus vapor from each cubic foot of air would
| require the condensation of some ten pounds
per hour. which would require the melting
of some seventy pounds of Ice Therefore:
I ,lyi,, oil for a
pounds of ice per hour. or, say, two tons
| per day. would have to be melted by cur
rent of warm air: allowing for waste II
might be estimated that three or four tons
of ice per day must be melted by the air
| itself. The next problem was to determine
the amount OF Ice surface which must be
| exposed in order to cool the air. This was
done by taking block of ice weighing
some 200 pounds and allowing it to stand
over a large tin basin thirty minutes. The
| amount of water which melted from Ii was
| then weighed and found to be six pounds
Such a block would, therefore. melt off 2SS
| pounds per day. To melt three tons of ice
| it was necessary that at least three tons
should be kept in contact with the cooling
| air
Plant and It's Effects.
The glacial expert OF the geological sur
vey was then called into council, and, after
due check and countercheck. a large wood
en- refrigerator or box was built, and air.
!. in sufficient quantity. was drawn into it
and over the ice, and then forced up into
! the sick room by means of a small steam
| driven blower. The conditions under which
| this plant worked were somewhat nuga-
! tory, because, for obvious reasons, ii was
| necessary that the windows of the sick
room should be left open. In consequence
| the refrigerating plant was working against
the accumulative odds of the whole atmos-
phere without and any breeze that might be
blowing at the time. In fact with the win
dows wide open and a strong southerly
breeze blowing right in-the outside tenn
hAinQ lpgrpaS-tEa a a
| room found to be "a degrees cooler
when the blower was forcing some % i99
| cubic feet OF air in the room every hour.
AS the report of the navy engineer officers
| says: This was in a measure disappoint-
ing, so far the reduction of temperature
was concerned, yet the character of the air
| was so greatly changed by the reduction of
| the relative humidity Of the air that it was
agreeable and could not have been reduced
to a lower degree with impunity. The at
| tending physicians said the first effect OBJ
| served when the cooling machine was start
| ed the change in the character of the
air. even before sensible change of tenn
perature occurred a benefit from the ma
| chine was experienced in the dryness of the
air in the room, which reduced the tenn
perature of the skin by more rapid evap-
Grafton of the moisture at Its surface
The reduction of the relative humidity of
the air In the Presidents room was OBJ
tained by the operation of a well-known
law in physics, by which the air is de-
prived of percentage of its moisture-con-
tained at high temperature-by lowering
of the temperature OF the same air in con-
tact with cooler surface In other words,
the artificial making of dew.
Cost Did Not Matter.
1.-The conditions under which President Gar
fields room was cooled precluded all consid-
erations of economy. The experiments,
therefore. are without value for the purpose
of determining the cost of ice sufficient to