El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1913-07-05
! be piped into houses for cooling pur-
By
Rene Bachs

be piped into houses for cooling pur-
poses.
Inaugurated 20 Years Ago in Boston.
More than 20 years ago, in Boston,
the chairs in a theater were provided
with little pipes carrying cold air, so
that the Individual occupant Of seat
could turn it on or off at viii, but the
plan did not work out very SaLlsLdc-
rOrily. 1t was even seriously proposed
to fetch the sea breeze in from the
ocean beach by pipe line for the cool
ing of hotels and dwellings of people
who could afford to pay for the luxury
but this was never actually tried
A thoroughly practical method OF
cooling rooms at small expense mas
been devised by DR.. William F. Man
ming, the medical officer in charge at
the government printing office. II con
sists merely in suspending vertically
a wide sheet of muslin across a room,
the fabric being kept constantly wet
by water from pipe perforated at in
teryals. Extend the pipe lengthWlSe OF
the room. near the ceiling, SuSpenullS
the sheet from it, and you have the
idea, the water being supplied from a
faucet through rubber tube to one
END of the pipe. A great many square
feet of wet muslin being thus exposed
the rapid evaporation Of the water
produces cold. and the temperature OF
the room quickly falls
Used in Emergency Hospital
This simple device is used In the little
emergency hOSpital' at the printing
matter how hot the weather is, the
temperature of the room can always De
kept at about 20 degrees 1t has Deen
employed on q large scale IN the great
rooms where hundreds of people Work
at the typesetting machines, a muSlln
sheet being stretched from one end 10
the other, and has given utmost COM
fort to the work people Such con-
trivance, obviously, may be TlggeQ up
anywhere by anybody, but Dr. Man
ming suggests that the same result may
be accomplished to some extent by Lhe
ready eNpedient Of WettnE BED SneeI
and hanging it over clothes Inc
stretched between two opposite walls
May Save Babies Lives.
A small hint of this kind ought TO De
Of great value in cases where a differ
ence of a few degrees OF temperature
is of utmost Importance 10 Ine SlCA-
1t may be actually a question OF ire
and death to a baby. But, If expense
is not of absolute Importance, an IN
valid in hot weather cap always De hepL
cool by filling WashJub OF OlHeI
large receptacle with ice and blowing
air over it toward the bed with an
electric fan. Some hundreds Of pounds
of ice per diem will be required, per
hans but the effect is admirable The
ice and fan, of course, ought not TO De
too near the patient, lest the latter
catch cold. At the same time II should
be understood that the air is not rem
dered damp by this means, but IS &C
tually made dry, the moisture IL con-
tains being taken up by the ice
An idea now in use to some extent Is
that of throwing spray OF colo wafer
into a room until the air is supeEstlu I
ated, and then forcing TINS cooled ar
into other rooms. But the Application
of human ingenuity to such prOpIeLls
has evolved no end OF cOnJrlFancesi
and, as a curious Inversion OF Li!e luee'
we have methods of utilizing ice &C
tually for heating purposes. CARLOADS
of bananas are protected from cold IN
zero weather by throwing stream OF
water upon them with a hose and thus
covering them with a thick coat Of Ice
The ice keeps the fruit warm Dy pre-
venting radiation
CooIinE Fruit Cars.
More striking is the eNpedient Of
using ice directly for cooling cars
loaded with fruit and other perlshaole
merchandise. At each end are TOUR gal-
vanized iron cylinders, extending from
the floor to the roof of the vehicle. and
packed tightly with ice The normal
temperature OF ice being in the neigh
bOrhOOd of 90 degrees, II follows InaI
when the air inside the car tends TO
fall much below the freezing point the
sfce stoves" check 1t, regulating the
thermometer sufficiently to prevent
freezing. The stoves though filled
with ice. are relatively warm
Strange though it may seem. the
principles of cold storage are, at least
in some ways much better understood
by the Chinese than by ourselves Iney
have practiced such methods lot Ihou-
sands of years preserving in this way
a great many kinds of food supplies
So much do they value ice for the puT-
pose that in the winter time they col
lect every Obtaintable bit Of IL, even
when. it is no more than half an incn
thick and put il away IN thick vailed
ice houses of baked mud. which are Tar
superior to those We build because
practically heat proof.
One of the methods they adopt Tor
keepfng perishable fruits is to pack
them in thick earthen jars. In the bot
tom of each such receptacle is put a
quantity of broken ice. and on top OF
Il the fruit in wicker basket A
wooden cover. with a strip Of felt to
keep it tight is placed on top. By such
means results which we should regard
as quite wonderful are obtained, and
fresh grapes are actually kept from
year to year-a thing unknown to our
selves-in wicker reCeptacles set among
packets Of ice in deep dug-out cellars