The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-03-21
THE OPEN FIRE.
The Old Fashioned Chimney Place
as a Means of Heating Homes.

as Means OF Heating Homes.
From the Springfield Republican.
The scarcity of anthracite has served
to introduce many people accidental
ly, but not unpleasantly, to the lux
ury, obsolescent in recent years of an
open fire. The rich still enjoy the pure
superiority of the blazing log in
house already raised to a summer tenn
perature by steam, but the typical
house among the moderately well-to-
do, who constitute the larger part Of
the population, depends entirely upon
arid and cherries registers. Crates
or open fireplaces are commonly put
into the more modern houses, but only
for ornament, and are concession to
fashion. There is many careful house
wife who would never dream, except
under the compulsion of necessity, of
sOiling her spick and span things with
| a blaze. In the darkest days of house
| building, there was even mania for
false replaces-sometimes a mere
| blank section of thing with perma-
| nent screen over the non-existent fire
| hole, sometimes a white marble sepul-
chre of a fireplace, with elegant and
| irons and no connection whatever with
| a chimney. Perhaps such horrors are
| no longer perpetrated, but the crux of
| an actual test has revealed the Inin-
| full fact THAI the majority of the aux
| Hilary fireplaces that are put in to meet
| the mandates of fashion are as use
| less as the gift-book or a secret So
ciety tin sword. They are very well
| so long as they are not needed; there
| is, indeed, a distinct advantage in
| house already heated unwholesomely
| by a furnace in having the fireplace
| arranged so as to convey all the heat
| into the outer air. AS a mere display
| they are all that could be asked un-
| Unfortunately.
| many of them are so dextrously con-
| trived as to let the heat out and keep
| the smoke in.
The truth is that the building of fire.
| places is a delicate art, and, like other
| arts, declines when practised purely
| for purposes of ornament. The Chin
ney fire is the most extravagant as
well as the most delightful of all meth
| DDS of heating, and it was after the
| whole field of experiment had been
| gone over that Count Rumford and
| Benjamin Franklin developed the
stove. The Franklin stove is, indeed,
| to the present day, the best equivalent
for the luxury of the fireplace. and
| gives much of it's pleasure at far less
| cost there are old-fashioned families
that would be loath to give it up.
But while the fireplace at its best
squanders fuel, there is a vast differ
| ence between the practicable" fire.
| tested by the austerites of a, New Eng
land winter, and the fancy articles
| that pass muster in a modish modem
| domcile. The difference is not great
er between light pleasure yacht and
| a Gloucester schooner, built for any
weather. The true open fireplace or
CRATE is built to throw the heat out
into the room; its fictitious substitute
is simply a chimney with a place for
fire at the bottom. The case is made
worse when the chimney follows the
fashion of standing on the outside of
the house, fully exposed to the Glenn
ency of the weather. One might al
most as well build a bonfire in the
dooryard.
Many of the most satisfactory old
houses had the big chimney stuck in
the very center of the house, but his
is not essential. 1t is essential to good
heating, however to have the brick
pile of the chimney indoors out of the
weather, and the more the fireplace
follows the principle of the Franklin
stove the better With a straight
draught up flame, heat and all go
straight up to the frosty armament
II the fireplace is brought we'll for
ward into the room and the throat of
the vent is narrowed down and skill
fully twisted if the CRATE is so set
as to find a happy mean between too
much and too little draught, and to
radiate the heat out into the room, a
mode of heating is given which is en-
tirely practicable even in cold wealth
er, and only disadvantageous in that
it requires somewhat more fuel and a
good deal more work than the prosaic
and unitarian hot-air furnaces The
toy fireplace, however, is a mockery.