The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1911-08-09
INVENTS AN ice STOVE"
DIR. GRAHAM BELL OF WASHING
TON ENJOYS HOT DAYS NOW.
Inventor of the Telephone Keeps as
Cool as Cucumber While Neigh
bOrs Sweat and Swelter.

DOrS Sweat ana SWeIIeF.
WASHINGTON, D. C.-In the hot
test days of the hottest spell of the
summer, while all Washington swell
tered and wilted, vainly seeking to
find comfort behind closed shutters
and before electric fans, there was
one house that stood like cool oasis
! in the torrid city. Within a quiet
study there sat an elderly gentleman
! hard at work He didn't have his
coat off, neither did he pant and per-
spire and wish evil things of the
weather man. For the thermometer
On his study table registered but a
Scant 81 degrees.
The elderly gentleman thus sitting
so comfortable at his work while the
neighbOrs sweltered was the discOv-
erer of the telephone, the designer
of many important improvements in
aeronautics and the inventor and sci
enlist whose name is known through
all the seven seas, Prof. Alexander
Graham Bell. He wasn't suffering
from the heat, because through his
latest invention he had made that
study of his as cool as a garden of
cucumbers.
This invention, for the want of
better name, has been termed the
ice stove" Indeed it might be term
ed a stove turned upside down or in
side out or wrong end to-, for it c0Ols
instead of heats, and the furnace man
shoVels in ice instead of coal. 1t is
unique in the history of inventions in
fC
verbally luckless was the first to
reap substantial benefit and comfort
from his own invention.
The ice stove has been but recently
invented by Prof. Bell. Early in
June he returned from a trip around
the world. What seemed to impress
him most while on this tour was the
fact that in India and other torrid
zones the inhabitants took no means
to cool their houses during the Bills
tering summers. And so, on his re-
turn, he at once addressed himself to
the production of a practical device
that would do for a dwelling in sum-
mer what the ordinary stove does
in winter-render the temperature
comfortable. Of course he knew
there were numberless devices for
making ice and cooling air; but he
could find none that were practically
fitted for private dwellings, The
weather aided him, for June was a
hot month in Washington. But it
was not many days before the fertile
brain of the scientist had designed
and his practical hand constructed
something to offset the torrid tenn
perature. That something is the ice
stove. The first sight of the ice stove
is a disappointment.
rs that all it is?'' thinks the curl
Gus man; merely an ice box and a
fan and couple of tin pipes?" He
fOrgets that it's very cheapness and
simplicity is one of it's greatest ad-
vantages. There are countless cool
ing devices, full of complicated coils
and chemicals with hyphenated
names that it takes a millionaire to
finance and an expert to operate. But
anyone who can dump a cake of ice
in box and turn an electric light
key can operate it. This is it's meth
cd of construction just as it is set up
in Prof. Bells house:
On the window ledge is a small
electric motor, beside which is a fan
about six inches in diameter enclosed
in a casing A three inch pipe con-
meets this casing with the outer air.
Another three-inch tin pipe runs from
this casing to an ice box filled with
cakes of ice From the other side of
the box a third pipe, thickly covered
with asbestos, runs to the rooms it
is desired to cool. The ice box is
about three by three by four feet,
and the lid fastens down air tight.
All that is necessary to operate the
| ice stove" is to turn on. the electric
current. That operates the fan which
draws the air from the outside and
forces it into the ice box and thence
through the covered pipe into the
room desired cooled This pipe runs
into such room down the wall ending
about three inches from the floor
That is all, and that the inventor is a
man of genius is shown by the fact
that the device did all that was
expected of it from the start Prof
Bells study, which was the room in
which the cooling was first tried,
has been as comfortable as an Octo-
| Der morning all summer.
1t is stated on good authority that
! the inventor does not intend to pat
ent it, but will donate the use of it
to the suffering public. The inventor
dwells on the fact that cold air is
very heavy and therefore can be held
! in a receptacle like water; therefore,
when a room is filled with cool air
it is advisable that the floors and
walls for some distance up should
not leak, as the cool air thus rapidly
| escapes like water from a leaky
tank.