Closets, when properly fitted up, and of a sufficient depth to be useful (that is, when the shelves are at least 12 in. wide), are a very great convenience; but, when the shelves are only 8 in. or 9 in. wide, the closets generally become sluts' holes, and the receptacle of all the rubbish of the house. When they are put up independently of the plastering, that is, unconnected with the plaster, or with the walls not plastered at all, they should be lined all round with deal, and made air and dust tight. If it can be avoided, they should never be placed against an external wall, unless the wall is battened. [To batten is to fasten narrow strips of wood against a wall, on which plaster laths are nailed, or canvass stretched, so as to preserve a vacuity between the plaster or the paper and the wall.] External walls, indeed, should always be battened in good rooms, as there is but little dependence on freedom from damp when the external walls are plastered on the brickwork, and the precaution of battening is neglected.

It frequently happens, even where the principal walls, roof, and floors of a house are sound and strong, that the middle partitions are infirm and weak: these, therefore, you should examine; for it is too common to find, either from the bad materials used in the walls in the basement story, or from neglecting the foundation, or, more frequently, from the bad construction of the timber partitions, that they sink. The consequences are, that the floors become out of a level, the doors do not fit their openings, the gutter-plates that rest on these partitions sink, and cause the water to lie in a pool in the hollow part, and the plastering and cornices crack. This, although a serious evil, is not always insurmountable, as it frequently occurs from the hasty manner in which buildings, particularly those built on speculation, are erected, the partitions being plastered before the building has settled to its proper bearing; and, when arising from this cause only, it may be remedied. One of the first questions asked by many gentlemen who are about to have a house built, or to have alterations made, is, "How soon is it in your power to get the works completed ?" and, generally speaking, the shortest possible time is allowed. This is a great error: a sufficient time to dry and season the materials (particularly in the bricklayer's and carpenter's work) should be allowed, before the joiner's work or plasterer's work is begun, in order that the defects arising from the shrinking of the timbers, and any unequal settling of the brickwork, may be remedied before the finishings are fixed. Should any settlement take place afterwards, the finishings, being attached to the brickwork and rough timbers, must necessarily partake of any unequal settlement or change of position that may occur in them. I. J. KENT. Manor Place, Paddington, March, 1834.

ART. VII. An Account of the Origin and Progress of heating Hothouses and other Buildings by the Application and Circulation of Hot Water, instead of by Fuel or Steam. By GEORGE COTTAM, Esq. F.H.S. Z.S., Associate Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

As the practice of warming buildings by steam preceded that of heating them by means of the circulation of hot water, it may not be uninteresting to notice the commencement and rapid progress of that invention; more particularly as the mode of heating buildings by steam is very similar in its operation to that of heating them by hot water.

The first notice recorded of heating chambers by steam is to be found in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1745, wherein it is stated that a Colonel William Cook had suggested the idea of warming apartments by the application of steam: it does not, however, appear that he carried his intention into effect.

In the third number of the Journals of the Royal Institution, Count Rumford mentions heating by the application of steam, and proceeds as follows:-"This scheme has frequently been put in practice, with success, in this country, as well as on the Continent." From this passage we might infer that heating by steam was well known in this country at the period alluded to; but I have never been able to ascertain where, or by whom, it was adopted. Buchanan, however, in his Essays on the Economy of Fuel and the Management of Heat, remarks:-"I have not been able to learn that any thing of importance was done previously to the use of steam in warming cotton mills, although we find a patent for heating by steam was granted to John Hoyle, dated 7th of July, 1791, and to John Green, dated the 9th December, 1793."

About the same period, Mr. Watt, being engaged in making various experiments on steam for other purposes, was naturally led to consider the subject of applying it to the warming of buildings. Buchanan informs us that, about the year 1784 or 1785, probably during the intervening winter of those two years, Mr. Watt had recourse to steam for the purpose of heating the apartment wherein he usually wrote. This room was 18 ft. long, by 14 ft. wide, and 84 ft. high; and the apparatus consisted of a box or heater formed with two side plates of bright tinned iron, about 3 ft. in length, by 2 ft. wide, kept an inch distant from each other, by means of stays, and joined round the edges by other tin plates. This box was placed upon its edge near the floor of the chamber, being furnished with a cock to let out the steam, and a pipe, proceeding from its lower edge, communicated with a boiler in an under-apartment; the said pipe serving to convey the steam, and return the water. The effect produced

by this apparatus was less than had been calculated by Mr. Watt, which may now be explained, by the experiments of Professor Leslie on the heat transmitted from a polished surface.

Mr. Bolton, at the close of the year 1794, assisted the Marquess of Lansdowne in the improvement of an apparatus, erected by a Mr. Green, for warming his library by means of air heated by steam: the use of this apparatus was, however, abandoned, in consequence of some defects in the pipes or joints. Twelve months afterwards, Mr. Bolton superintended the erection of a similar apparatus for his friend Dr. Withering's library. This apparatus, as regarded heating, proved altogether satisfactory but it was soon obliged to be disused, in consequence of the -pipes, which had been constructed of copper and softly soldered, emitting, in some parts, a most disagreeable effluvium, which rendered it unpleasant to Dr. Withering, who was then in an infirm state of health, and suffering from a disease on his lungs. The apparatus was in consequence removed to Soho, near Birmingham, where Mr. Bolton proposed its being erected at his own residence, in which he was then making considerable improvements; having, among other things, resolved to heat every apartment in the house by means of steam. A boiler was, in consequence, fixed in one of the cellars; but circumstances subsequently intervened to prevent the plan from being carried into execution.

About the year 1798, we find that Mr. Watt heated his bath by steam; and, in the course of the ensuing year, that Messrs. Bolton and Watt proceeded to fix cast-iron steam-pipes in various mills and manufactories throughout England and Scotland. These pipes soon came into general use; and, in 1807, Buchanan published his pamphlet containing an Essay on the Warming of Mills and other Edifices through the Medium of Steam.

In 1810, Buchanan published his Practical and Descriptive Essays on the Economy of Fuel and Management of Heat, which were duly noticed in the various scientific periodicals of the day. The use of steam having thus become general for warming public edifices, cotton and other mills, it was forthwith applied to horticultural purposes, such as forcing-houses for grapes, pineries, &c.; and was most efficiently resorted to by those spirited cultivators, Messrs. Loddiges of Hackney, on a grand scale, for heating their forcing-houses and stoves, where it was attended with so much success, as to supersede the use of brick flues. This favourable trial caused it to be adopted in various similar but minor establishments, where, however, it was not attended by equal success, from causes I shall more particularly demonstrate when engaged in comparing the value of warmth derived from hot water, with that produced by steam. This brings me down to the period when heating by hot water first

came into notice, in consequence of the experiments of a most ingenious and spirited gentleman, Anthony Bacon, Esq., of Aberaman in Glamorganshire, and, subsequently, of Elcot in Berkshire. The gentleman in question having made some experiments at his first residence in Wales, proceeded to put his plans into practice, more in detail, at his last-mentioned estate, where he immediately perceived the great advantage of heating forcing-houses by means of hot water. In consequence of these primary steps, a letter was addressed to the Horticultural Society of London, by Mr. Whale, gardener to Mr. Bacon, subsequently published in the Gardener's Magazine (vol. iii. p. 186.), which brought this system into notice; and, on its being generally adopted, several persons started up as claimants of the invention, when the Gardener's Magazine for 1828 became the grand arena for discussing the disputed point. Among the foremost claimants were Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Bacon, and Messrs. Bolton and Watt. During the progress of the discussion, numerous statements were adduced, by which it was most satisfactorily proved by Mr. Bacon, that he had preceded Mr. Atkinson in the idea, as well as in the trial; and that the latter gentleman derived his knowledge of the plan from inspecting Mr. Bacon's machinery. It became no less evident, from the facts elicited, that the idea or principle did not originate even with Mr. Bacon, as the Marquis de Chabannes had taken out a patent for precisely the same invention in the year 1814; and had also published a pamphlet, in 1815, containing plans, amply developing the nature of his patent, and proposing to diffuse heat through the medium of hot water, as applicable to vineries, hotbeds, pineries, dwelling-houses, &c. As a farther proof of the efficiency of his plans, he proceeded to put them in practice at the shops, Nos. 36. and 37. Burlington Arcade, as well as at No. 1. Russel Place. An extensive conservatory and vinery at Sundridge Park, near Bromley in Kent, the seat of Sir Samuel Scott, Bart., was also heated by the Marquis de Chabannes, in 1816, by means of hot water. The dwellings previously mentioned were publicly exhibited, and might, consequently, have undergone the inspection of those persons who laid claim to the discovery in the years 1821, 1822, and 1823. Notwithstanding this, and although the Marquis de Chabannes appears to have been the first individual who made the plan public in England, Messrs. Bolton and Watt stood forward as claimants to priority as to the adoption of the system in question; for, in a letter addressed to the editor of the Gardener's Magazine, under date March 18. 1828, and published in that work, vol. iv. p. 30., we find as follows:

"We may briefly observe, that the attention of this firm has been directed to the employment of steam and hot water as media for the transmission of heat upwards of fifty years, and

they have been used by us, with that view, under almost every modification, in the warming of rooms for all the various operations of manufactories, for habitations, for the heating of baths, vats, and various other purposes. Preference was given to the one or other according to the circumstances under which the application of heat was required, steam being naturally preferred for the more rapid diffusion of a high temperature, and water substituted when the heating of that liquid to a low temperature, or the steady maintenance of such a temperature in a room, was the object to be attained. The application of these principles to the warming of hot-houses has not attracted much of our attention, not possessing ourselves any house of that description; but the adoption in them of modes of heating practised in other buildings, where analogous desiderata were attained, must, we conceive, be a natural consequence of the diffusion of the practice.

"Whenever the horticulturist determined it to be a primary consideration, in the heating of the hot-house, to preserve with the least fluctuation any given degree of atmospheric temperature, the advantage of employing water, in preference to steam, for the attainment of that end, was obvious, and could not fail to present itself to any mind conversant with its use for that purpose. The practicable attainment of it could not be attended with difficulty, as it had long been effected under analogous circumstances."

From the above observations it would appear that the system of heating by hot water was in use in England in 1778; but the assertions contained in this letter do not seem to agree, in point of time, with the origin adduced of the discovery, by Messrs. Bolton and Watt, of heating by means of steam. After every enquiry that has been set on foot, it appears that the earliest date, at which the appropriation of steam by Mr. Watt for the purposes of warming buildings was resorted to, took place in his own apartment during the year 1784 or 1785, which experiment proved extremely defective; while the steam apparatus adopted by Doctor Withering (previously adverted to) was not set up until the year 1795 or 1796. The first perfect machinery used for this purpose was erected in the cotton mills of Mr. Lee of Manchester in 1799; and we find Buchanan, as previously observed, publishing his Essays on warming Mills and other Structures in 1807, and his Essay on the Economy of Fuel and Management of Heat in warming Mills and other Buildings in 1810, wherein very frequent mention occurs of Messrs. Bolton and Watt, yet no notice whatever is taken respecting the circulation of heat by means of hot water passing through pipes having been adopted by those gentlemen. This omission appears very singular; since it might have been naturally supposed that so simple, efficient, and beautiful a system of diffusing heat could not possibly have escaped the penetration and industry of such a genius