Thirty Degrees Below Zero, 1856

In January 1856 "F.W.S.," the editor of The Knickerbocker's "favorite 'Up-River' correspondent," ("Winter cannot freeze his fancy, nor snow thicken the ink that drops in gems from his potent pen," p. 192), reported to the magazine's city-based readership on the experience of extreme cold in the Green Mountains of northern New England:

Thirty Degrees Below Zero: This is ten degrees lower than the god Mercury had snuggled down in his crystal cell at my last. Amabile frigus! as Horatius has it. Delightful coolness! Have you ever tasted it? Clap your tongue on a bar of cold iron, or a smooth sleigh-runner, and it will polish it up, and remove the fur. [p. 311]

After pages of mid-Victorian prose about Dr. Kane, the American polar explorer, and Arctic cold, F.W.S. eventually got back to his subject, and closer to home:

[p. 313] I had not intended to allude to Kane, but commenced with a different object, to speak of the effects of intense cold. Thirty degrees below zero are sometimes experienced in this latitude, although we neither feed on train-oil, nor harness dogs, nor drive rein-deer, nor travel with snow-shoes; and I assure you that the weather is quite comfortable at that point. It is intense, but still. Ordinary winter clothing will suffice. When you snuff the open air, you are aware of its quality from the line and icy net-work, finer than spider's web, which is woven instantaneously within your nostrils as the breath goes out, and which is dissolved and spun again with a tickling and a tingling sensation. The lungs imbibe freely and refreshingly as if cool wavelets of a brook. The snow squeaks beneath the feet. Within doors you are startled by sundry noises; the timbers of the house groan, the boards contract, and tear up the nails with a sound which resembles the explosion of a pistol, and is repeated at short intervals. The smoke rolls upward from the chimneys in white volumes — white as the snow itself. The flanks of the horses are well powdered, their manes and shaggy coats are tagged with little pellets, a hirsute beard of icicles hangs from their chins. As they stand thus enveloped in vapor, and a white steam gushes from their nostrils, they seem like mythic creatures come back to realms of matter-of-fact The eaves of houses are adorned with massive, sharpened pendents, which would be deemed most rich if carved in wood or marble, but which are superber yet when of transparent crystals. This architectural ornamentation, made by the still and master-hand of Nature, alas! that it should be removed as quickly, as noiselessly, and as magically as it was fashioned, by a breath or by vapor, in a night or in a day; that one by one the icicles should all drop off, and nothing be left but a rude uncomely gutter. In the morning, the windows of your chamber are not covered with delicate frost-work, in which you can trace out many pictures, but coated with a thick snow, through which external objects are invisible. If you have courage to resume your walks, go visit the pools where you have once dropped your line for the speckled trout, the water-course, the cascade, or the cataract. There you will see superb congelations, immense icicles. Mill-dams are frozen, and, with all their foam and frothy billows, arrested and petrified as by a magician's wand; the great rocks are covered with a massive coating, and from the brow of the dripping precipice hang immense ice-drops, sharp and glittering pendents, while shafts and columns, and glittering boulders of every form, are seen about, and the whole landscape is arrayed in the utmost gorgeousness of winter.

Not long ago, at the midnight hour, I sat inditing this by a cheerful light. A stealthy cold crept along the floor, and stole about the feet. I heard the boards and timbers cracking, I arose and piled on the pitchy logs, then went out into the keen night-air. What a scene! The moon was at the full. Within a hundred yards, at the base of a steep hill upon the right, a range of manly Doric columns, carved out of native marble, and worthy of ancient Athens, composing the capital on the portico of this sovereign State, glistened in the whito beams, and a beautiful dome was upheaved in the very spot where, within the memory of living men, the audacious wolves, and bears, and catamounts were wont to prowl. All around lay [p. 314] a vast scene of rolling mountains, white from peak to base, the surface of the snow as hard as ice, and glistening like purest alabaster. It was a cold, a glorious, yet solemn sight. Light without warmth! You could read the finest print. I had a polar feeling, such as Kane had when he searched for Franklin's grave among the bergs of ice. I sniffed and snuffed the breeze bare-headed for a moment, and then retreated into summer heat. Cold contracts: it crystallizes iron, and it drives the soul into snug, concentred quarters. It makes home pleasant, and by contrast adds a new delight and zest to genial warmth. Now the historians please, now the poets satisfy. Ah! how pleasant to be in a snug home, when the tempest dashes against the windows and upon the roof; or in an illuminated library when the winter howls without! But I was about to describe the physical effects of intense cold. Man readily adapts himself to any climate, and can live sub Diofrigido — be very comfortable at thirty degrees below zero — or breathe, like the fireking, in an oven hot enough to bake bread. It is all habit. Other animals seem to suffer little. Cows and horses bear the weather well. As to hogs, they are not sensitive: they are as tough as J. B.: either their hides are leathery thick, or bristles are warm as Saxony wool. Give them provender, and a chance to put one hoof in the trough, and they do not care whether Mercury goes up an inch or down a foot. I can perceive no sign of suffering unless indicated by a grunt It would be unfair to interpret that dialect as expressing the voice of complaint.

Birds sometimes perish, and are pierced through the vitals by a sharp icy dart, as they are struck dead by electric fire; but if they belong to Northern climes, they bear up (penna metuente solvi) with an untiring wing.

The other day, I saw a flight of snow-birds sit down in a garden-patch to pick at the seed-vessels of a few dry weeds, and as they rose up to fly, and wheeled about, they seemed like a flurry of vast snow-flakes, their bosoms were 'so white as no fuller on earth could whiten them.' It is funny to see a single file of geese fast asleep, standing upon the ice on one leg, like so many zanies, looking like the relics of that great shot once made by Baron Munchausen. But a Shanghai rooster is out of place in this latitude. He can't stand it. There was a tall, scrawny fellow about the premises, and his feathers looked like porcupine quills. The first cold snap came, and in the night watches I no longer heard him crow the hours in accordance with the town clock. In the morning he came not down from his perch: he grappled it with the clutch of an eagle's talons: it was the grab of death. From crest to Pope's nose, he was as stiff a piece of poultry as you would find in the stalls. 

F.W.S., "Thirty Degrees Below Zero -- A Fact!" The Knickerbocker 47:3 (Mar. 1856): 311-314, http://books.google.com/books?id=J8gGAQAAIAAJ.

A Chilly February in Troy, NY, 1855

A reader of and contributor to The Knickerbocker explains why inhabitants of the northern United States were so enthusiastic about the technology of comfort.  'Paul Martindale' reports on how a bitter winter has exposed the inadequacy of his old Nott stove, state of the art when it was first introduced more than twenty years earlier, and seems to express regret or dissatisfaction about his decision to respond to the advice of Andrew Jackson Downing and others, and return to using an open fire.

-- 0 -- 

'Paul Martindale,' "Thermometer Twenty-Three Degrees Below Nothing," The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, 45:3 (March 1855): 320, http://books.google.com/books?id=9McGAQAAIAAJ.

[Troy Carpet-Mills, 27 Feb 1855]

DEAR KNICK: 

I thaw my ink to say / The weather's on a spree: / Thermometers have burst their bulbs, / Quicksilver's 'duty free.'

Business is dead -- all liquids are / Solidified stagnation; / And e'en the Hudson River can't / Go on in liquidation.

The water-fall's no more a fall, / So winterish is the weather; / And all the drops are dropping up / In frozen mist together.

My wheels have wheeled into line, / As one vast solid column; / And all my works are bound at last / In one stupendous volume.

The race-way's run its final race, / The waste-weir's now no waste wear: / While in my flume the anchor-ice / Is anchored everywhere.

My colors now are colorless -- / My dyeing all is dead: / And though I'm bothered with the blues, / My nose is very red.

My boiler's quit of all its boils, / The fireman's nose is frozen: / And my hot-water pails have kicked / The bucket by the dozen.

My old NOTT's stove is not a stove, / It's just a ventilator; / And my new grate has proved to be / A great refrigerator.

The watchman's fires all 'end in smoke'; / Even daylight is ice-bound: / For the shadow of the chimney-stack / Is frozen to the ground.

'Tis thus obtuse, we 're left, dear Knick, / Opaque, dull, lifeless, stolid: / No breath of life -- no genial warmth --  / In fact, I'm frozen solid!

The Pleasures of the American Winter

"Table-Talk," Appletons' Journal of Literature, Science and Art vol. 4, no. 90 (12 Dec. 1870), p. 742, 

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Tal9AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA742

HAWTHORNE, after spending a winter in Rome, declared that thereafter he would, if possible, pass that inclement season in some part of the globe where it is recognized as a legitimate institution. Hawthorne has not been the only traveller who has descanted upon the discomforts of winter when experienced in a climate where frost is but an irregular and uncertain visitor.  Olmsted, in his account of his winter travels in Texas, describes feelingly some of the sufferings underwent from the cold "northers," against which the imperfectly-constructed houses afforded a very inadequate protection. Winter, indeed, is only an affliction in places or with people where or with whom there is no suitable means for guarding against its rigors. To well-fed, well-housed, well-clothed people, winter is as delightful as any other season of the year. Its pleasures, of course, are essentially different from those of summer, but they are no less vivid and no less genuine. Not to mention those out-of-door sports, such as skating and sleighing, that are unexcelled by any of other seasons, it is within-doors that the winter supplies us with some of its best delights. In summer the hill-top, the brookside, the garden, the porch, the open window -- all places, in fact, that afford us quiet and pleasant air, have equal claims upon our affection; but it is only in winter that we come to understand the full significance of the word home. When the storm is shaking our casements, and the night is black and dangerous, then, within the drawn curtains and around the blazing fire, we discover how secure, and glowing, and peaceful, and rich in affections, are "hearth and home." Just as in spring the first blossoms give us delight, so in winter does the fire when first lighted give us singular pleasure. Perhaps of all our boyhood recollections those of the old winter's fireside are the keenest and the most delightful. When the first snow-fall comes this season, let the reader take down his copy of Whittier's "Snow-bound," and read the poem by the brisk blaze of crackling logs, with the sound of the outward blast reaching his ear in melancholy menace, and see what a relish the old-fashioned picture will have for him. By the brisk blaze of crackling logs! Alas! if he reads it at all, in all probability it will be over the hot air of a register, or by the burnt iron of a stove. Firesides and hearthstones are things of the past, and with their departure have gone nearly all the best charms of a winter-home. Modern life is surrounded with a good many conveniences, but every innovation in our households seems to signalize the death of some treasured pleasure. Your furnace, no doubt, diffuses an even warmth through the house, but, in shutting up the fireplace, it scatters the household and breaks up the old-time family-circle. It drives out of the home an artist who was wont to paint delicious pictures on your walls, and tint the cheeks of your dear ones with a rare glow. It excludes a friend whose bright, sparkling chatter once entertained you many a long evening, and whose blaze and glow rarely failed to fill your heart with cheerfulness and gratitude. There are a few old-fashioned people who cling to wood-fires, but many of the younger generation remain ignorant of what was once the greatest charm of a winter-home. "Coal," says Ik Marvel [Donald Grant Mitchell, Connecticut essayist 1822-1908], "may have its uses in the furnace, which takes off the sharp edge of winter from the whole interior of the house, and keeps up a night-and-day struggle with Boreas for the mastery, but a country home without some one open chimney around which, in time of winter twilight, when snows are beating against the panes, the family may gather, and watch the fire flashing, and crackling, and flaming, and waving, until the girls clap their hands and the boys shout in a kind of exultant thankfulness, is not worthy the name."

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Fire-Worship," December 1843.

This is one of the best and most famous literary responses to the coming of stove heating.  It was originally published in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review Vol. 13 n.s., No. 66 (New York: J. & H.G. Langley, December 1843), pp. 627-30, and then frequently republished in Hawthorne's collection Mosses from an Old Manse.  There are numerous editions of the latter, but the one used here is the London ed. (Wiley & Putnam, 1846), http://books.google.com/books?id=bTYJAAAAQAAJ.  Hawthorne had the standard prejudices of his class, community, and time (see also this post) -- in "The Old Manse" he wrote about "the abomination of the air-tight stove" (p. 25) --  but in "Fire-Worship" he articulated them at the greatest length, and with some interesting ambivalence.  The ambivalence is expressed even more clearly in his diary entry for 8 November 1842, shortly after he and his new wife had moved into the Old Manse of the title, in Concord, Massachusetts: "During the last week we have had three stoves put up; and henceforth, no light of a cheerful fire will gladden us at even tide.  Stoves are detestable in every respect, except that they keep us perfectly comfortable." [Emphasis added.] (Nathaniel and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, Ordinary Mysteries: The Common Journal of Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne, 1842-1843, ed. Nicholas R. Lawrence and Marta L Werner, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 256, 2005, p. 145, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wgMNAAAAIAAJ).

-- 0 --

p. 128 IT is a great revolution in social and domestic life -- and no less so in the life of the secluded student -- this almost universal exchange of the open fire-place for the cheerless and ungenial stove. On such a morning as now lowers around our old grey parsonage, I miss the bright face of my ancient friend, who was wont to dance upon the hearth, and play the part of a more familiar sunshine. It is sad to turn from the cloudy sky and sombre landscape -- from yonder hill, with its crown of rusty, black pines, the foliage of which is so dismal in the absence of the sun; that bleak posture land, and the broken surface of the potato field, with the brown clods partly concealed by the snow-fall of last night; the swollen and sluggish river, with ice-encrusted borders, dragging its bluish grey stream along the verge of our orchard, like snake half torpid with the cold -- it is sad to turn from an outward scene of so little comfort, and find the same sullen  influences brooding within the precincts of my study. Where is that brilliant guest -- that quick and subtle spirit whom Prometheus lured from Heaven to civilize mankind, and cheer them in their wintry desolation -- that comfortable inmate, whose smile, during eight months of the year, was our sufficient consolation for summer's lingering advance and early flight? Alas! blindly inhospitable, grudging the wood that kept him cheery and mercurial, we have thrust him into an iron prison, and compel him to moulder away his life on a daily pittance which once //p. 129 we now make our fire in an air-tight stove, and supply it with some half-a-dozen sticks of wood between dawn and nightfall.

l never shall be reconciled to this enormity. Truly may it be said, that the world looks darker for it. In one way or another, here and there, and all around us, the inventions of mankind are fast blotting the picturesque, the poetic, and the beautiful, out of human life. The domestic fire was a type of all these attributes, and seemed to bring might and majesty, and wild Nature, and a spiritual essence, into our inmost home, and yet to dwell with us in such friendliness, that its mysteries and marvels excited no dismay. The same mild companion, that smiled so placidly in our faces, was he that comes roaring out of Etna, and rushes madly up the sky, like a fiend breaking loose from torment, and fighting for a place among the upper angels. He it is, too, that leaps from cloud to cloud amid the crashing thunder-storm. It was he whom the Gheber worshipped, with no unnatural idolatry; and it was he who devoured London and Moscow, and many another famous city, and who loves to riot through our own dark forests, and sweep across our prairies, and to whose ravenous maw, it is said, the universe shall one day be given as a final feast. Meanwhile he is the great artizan and laborer by whose aid men are enabled to build a world within a world, or, at least, to smoothe down the rough creation which Nature flung to us. He forges the mighty anchor, and every lesser instrument. He drives the steamboat and drags the rail-car. And it was he -- this creature of terrible might, and so many-sided utility, and all-comprehensive destructiveness -- that used to be the cheerful, homely friend of our wintry days, and whom we have made the prisoner of this iron cage!

How kindly he was, and, though the tremendous agent of change, yet bearing himself with such gentleness, to rendering //p. 130 himself a part of all life-long and age-coeval associations, that it seemed as if he were the great conservative of Nature! While a man was true to the fireside, so long would he be true to country and law -- to the God whom his fathers worshipped -- to the wife of his youth -- and to all things else which instinct or religion have taught us to consider sacred. With how sweet humility did this elemental spirit perform all needful offices for the household in which he was domesticated ! He was equal to the concoction of a grand dinner, yet scorned not to roast a potato, or toast a bit of cheese. How humanely did he cherish the school. boy's icy fingers, and thaw the old man's joints with a genial warmth, which almost equalled the glow of youth! And how carefully did he dry the cow-hide boots that had trudged through mud and snow, and the shaggy outside garment, stiff with frozen sleet; taking heed, likewise, to the comfort of the faithful dog who had followed his master through the storm! When did he refuse a coal to light a pipe, or even a part of his own substance to kindle a neighbor's fire? And then, at twilight, when laborer or scholar, or mortal of whatever age, sex, or degree, drew a chair beside him, and looked into his glowing face, how acute, how profound, how comprehensive was his sympathy with the mood of each and all! He pictured forth their very thoughts. To the youthful he showed the scenes of the adventurous life before them; to the aged, the shadows of departed love and hope; and, if all earthly things had grown distasteful, he could gladden the fireside muser with golden glimpses of a better world. And, amid this varied communion with the human soul, how busily would the sympathizer, the deep moralist, the painter of magic pictures, be causing the teakettle to boil!

Nor did it lessen the charm of his soft, familiar courtesy and helpfulness, that the mighty spirit, were opportunity offered him, would run riot through the peaceful house, wrap its inmates in his terrible embrace, and leave nothing of them save their whitened //p. 131 bones. This possibility of mad destruction only made his domestic kindness the more beautiful and touching. It was so sweet of him, being endowed with such power, to dwell, day after day, and one long, lonesome night after another, on the dusky hearth, only now and then betraying his wild nature, by thrusting his red tongue out of the chimney-top! True, he had done much mischief in the world, and was pretty certain to do more; but his warm heart atoned for all. He was kindly to the race of man; and they pardoned his characteristic imperfections.

The good old clergyman, my predecessor in this mansion, was well acquainted with the comforts of the fireside. His yearly allowance of wood, according to the terms of his settlement, was no less than sixty cords. Almost an annual forest was converted from sound oak logs into ashes, in the kitchen, the parlor, and this little study, where now an unworthy successor -- not in the pastoral office, but merely in his earthly abode -- sits scribbling beside on air-tight stove. I love to fancy one of those fireside days, while the good man, a contemporary of the Revolution, was in his early prime, some five-and-sixty years ago. Before sunrise, doubtless, the blaze hovered upon the grey skirts of night, and dissolved the frost-work that had gathered like a curtain over the small windowpanes. There is something peculiar in the aspect of the morning fireside; a fresher, brisker glare; the absence of that mellowness, which can be produced only by half-consumed logs, and shapeless brands with the white ashes on them, and mighty coals, the remnant of tree trunks that the hungry elements have gnawed for hours. The morning hearth, too, is newly swept, and the brazen andirons well brightened, so that the cheerful fire may see its face in them. Surely it was happiness, when the pastor, fortified with a substantial breakfast, sat down in his armchair and slippers, and opened the Whole Body of Divinity, or the Commentary on Job, or whichever of his old folios or quartos might fall within the range of his weekly//p. 132 sermons.  It must have been his own fault, if the warmth and glow of this abundant hearth did not permeate the discourse, and keep his audience comfortable, in spite of the bitterest northern blast that ever wrestled with the church-steeple. He reads, while the heat warps the stiff covers of the volume; he writes without numbness either in his heart or fingers; and, with unstinted hand throws fresh sticks of wood upon the fire.

A parishioner comes in. With what warmth of benevolence -- why should he be otherwise than warm, in any of his attributes?  --  does the minister bid him welcome, and set a chair for him in so close proximity to the hearth, that soon the guest finds it needful to rub his scorched shins with his great red hands. The melted snow drips from his steaming boots, and bubbles upon the hearth. His puckered forehead unravels its entanglement of wrinkles. We lose much of the enjoyment of fire-heat, without such an opportunity of marking its genial effect upon those who have been looking the inclement weather in the face. In the course
of the day our clergyman himself strides forth, perchance to pay a round of pastoral visits, or, it may be, to visit his mountain of a wood-pile, and cleave the monstrous logs into billets suitable for the fire. He returns with fresher life to his beloved hearth. During the short afternoon, the western sun-shine comes into the study, and strives to stare the ruddy blaze out of countenance, but with only a brief triumph, soon to be succeeded by brighter glories of its rival.  Beautiful it is to see the strengthening gleam -- the deepening light -- that gradually casts distinct shadows of the human figure, the table, and the high-backed chairs, upon the opposite wall, and at length, as twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living radiance, and makes life all rose-color. Afar, the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame, as it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all snow, and solitude, and desolation. At //p. 133 eventide, probably, the study was peopled with the clergyman's wife and family; and children tumbled themselves upon the hearth-rug, and grave Puss sat with her back to the fire, or gazed, with a semblance of human meditation, into its fervid depths. Seasonably, the plenteous ashes of the day were raked over the mouldering brands, and from the heap came jets of flame, and an incense of night-long smoke, creeping quietly up the chimney.

Heaven forgive the old clergyman! In his later life, when, for almost ninety winters, he had been gladdened by the fire-light  --  when it had gleamed upon him from infancy to extreme age, and never without brightening his spirits as well as his visage, and perhaps keeping him alive so long -- he had the heart to brick up his chimney-place, and bid farewell to the face of his old friend for ever! Why did not he take an eternal leave of tho sunshine too? His sixty cords of wood had probably dwindled to a far less ample supply, in modern times; and it is certain that the parsonage had grown crazy with time and tempest, and pervious to the cold; but still, it was one of the saddest tokens of the decline and fall of open fire-places, that the grey patriarch should have deigned to warm himself at an air-tight stove.

And I, likewise -- who have found a home in this ancient owl's nest, since its former occupant took his heavenward flight -- I, to my shame, have put up stoves in kitchen, and parlor, and chamber. Wander where you will about the house, not a glimpse of the earth-born, heaven-aspiring fiend of Aetna -- him that sports in the thunder-storm -- the idol of the Ghebers -- the devourer of cities, the forest-rioter, and prairie-sweeper -- the future destroyer of our earth -- the old chimney-corner companion, who mingled himself so sociably with household joys and sorrows -- not a glimpse of this mighty and kindly one will greet your eyes. He is now an invisible presence. There is his iron cage. Touch it, and he scorches your fingers. He delights to singe a garment, or perpetrate any other little unworthy mischief; for his temper is //p. 134 ruined by the ingratitude of mankind, for whom he cherished such warmth of feeling, and to whom he taught all their arts, even that of making his own prison-house. In his fits of rage, he puffs volumes of smoke and noisome gas through the crevices of the door, and shakes the iron walls of his dungeon, so as to overthrow the ornamental urn upon its summit. We tremble, lest he should break forth amongst us. Much of his time is spent in sighs, burthened with unutterable grief, and long-drawn through the funnel. He amuses himself, too, with repeating all the whispers, the moans, and the louder utterances or tempestuous howls of the wind; so that the stove becomes a microcosm of the aerial world.  Occasionally, there are strange combinations of sounds -- voices, talking almost articulately within the hollow chest of iron -- insomuch that fancy beguiles me with the idea that my fire wood must have grown in that infernal forest of lamentable trees, which breathed their complaints to Dante. When the listener is half. asleep, he may readily take these voices for the conversation of spirits, and assign them an intelligible meaning. Anon, there is a pattering noise -- drip, drip, drip -- as if a summer shower were falling within the narrow circumference of the stove.

These barren and tedious eccentricities are all that the air-tight stove can bestow, in exchange for the invaluable moral influences which we have lost by our desertion of the open fire-place. Alas! is this world so very bright, that we can afford to choke up such a domestic fountain of gladsomeness, and sit down by its darkened source, without being conscious of a gloom?

It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and vivifying an element as fire-light. The effects will be more perceptible on our children, and the generations that shall succeed them, than on ourselves, the mechanism of whose life may remain unchanged, though its spirit be far other than it was. The sacred trust of the household -- fire has been transmitted in unbroken //p. 135 succession from the earliest ages, and faithfully cherished, in spite of every
discouragement, such as the Curfew law of the Norman conquerors; until, in these evil days, physical science has nearly sueceeded in extinguishing it. But we at least have our youthful recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and our life-long habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual bond in the domestic fire. Therefore, though the sociable friend be for ever departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present with us; and still more will the empty forms, which were once full of his rejoicing presence, continue to rule our manners. We shall draw our chairs together, as we and our forefathers have been wont, for thousands of years back, and sit around some blank and empty corner of the room, babbling, with unreal cheerfulness, of topics suitable to the homely fireside. A warmth from the past -- from the ashes of by-gone years, and the raked-up embers of long ago -- will sometimes thaw the ice about our hearts. But it must be otherwise with our successors. On the most favorable supposition, they will be acquainted with the fireside in no better shape than that of the sullen stove; and more probably, they will have grown up amid furnace-heat, in houses which might be fancied to have their foundation over the infernal pit, whence sulphurous steams and unbreathable exhalations ascend through the apertures of the floor.  There will be nothing to attract those poor children to one centre.  They will never behold one another through that peculiar medium of vision -- the ruddy gleam of blazing wood or bituminous coal -- which gives the human spirit so deep an insight into its fellows, and melts all humanity into one cordial heart of hearts. Domestic life -- if it may still be termed domestic -- will seek its separate corners, and never gather itself into groups. The easy gossip -- the merry, yet unambitious jest -- the life-like, practical discussion of real matters in a casual way -- the soul of truth, which is so often incarnated in a simple fireside word -- will disappear from earth. //p. 136 Conversation will contract the air of a debate, and all mortal intercourse be chilled with a fatal frost.

In classic times, the exhortation to fight "pro aris et focis" --  for the altars and the hearths -- was considered the strongest appeal that could be made to patriotism. And it seemed an immortal utterance; for all subsequent ages and people have acknowledged its force, and responded to it with the full portion of manhood that Nature had assigned to each. Wisely were the Altar and the Hearth conjoined in one mighty sentence! For the hearth, too, had its kindred sanctity. Religion sat down beside it, not in the priestly robes which decorated, and perhaps disguised, her at the altar, but arrayed in a simple matron's garb, and uttering her lessons with the tenderness of a mother's voice and heart. The holy Hearth! If any earthly and material thing -- or rather, a divine idea, embodied in brick and mortar -- might be supposed to pattern the permanence of moral truth, it was this. All revered it. The man who did not put off his shoes upon this holy ground would have deemed it pastime to trample upon the altar. It has been our task to uproot the hearth. What further reform is left for our children to achieve, unless they overthrow the altar too? And by what appeal, hereafter, when the breath of hostile armies may mingle with the pure, cold breezes of our country, shall we attempt to rouse up native valor?  Fight for your hearths? There will be none throughout the land. FIGHT FOR YOUR STOVES ! Not I, in faith. If, in such a cause, I strike a blow, it shall be on the invader's part; and Heaven grant that it may shatter the abomination all to pieces!

-- 0 --

In case anybody reading the above would like the assistance of modern literary critics in interpreting its meaning, two are quite helpful.  Duncan Faherty provides some context for it, explaining that in his short fiction of the 1830s and 1840s Hawthorne often "explored the social meaning of architecture as a means of considering the current state of the Republic's social nexus." [Remodeling the Nation: The Architecture of American Identity, 1776-1858 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2009), p. 176.]  Joel Pfister thinks of "Fire-Worship" as "more than just a charming sketch about the increasing popularity of parlor stoves. ... The stove facilitates and symbolizes industrial America's colonization of the home." It "helps produce a new form of air-tight domestic selfing characterized by mutual emotional privatization." ["Hawthorne as Cultural Theorist" in Richard H. Millington, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 39.]  

In this respect Hawthorne was really just echoing the sentiments of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Old Manse's previous occupant: "In America, out of doors all seems a market; in-doors, an air-tight stove of conventionalism.  Every body who comes into our houses savors of these habits..." ["The Young American: A Lecture Read before the Mercantile Library Association, Boston, February 7, 1844," pp. 351-83 at p. 376, in Nature: Addresses and Lectures (Boston: Phillips, Sansom & Co., 1850), http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C9QrAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA376).  This was the same Emerson who, a dozen years earlier, had written from Boston to his brother William in New York that he thought "I ought to have a Nott stove by your description of its beneficence." [R.L. Rusk, ed., The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Vol. 1 (New York: Columbia U.P., 1939), p. 342, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EAai9yxHmD4C]  It is not clear that Emerson followed through on his intention; his correspondence and other works are not lacking in stove references [https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=ralph+waldo+emerson+stove], but they cannot be said to have been among his main interests.

Holy Smoke: Warming Churches

Churches and meeting houses were the commonest public buildings in the United States, and presented particular challenges to any congregation wishing to improve their comfort (area and ceiling height, and therefore volume, number of windows, need to heat from cold for one day a week, lack of chimneys).  Despite these problems, as well as issues of cost and also cultural or quasi-theological reservations (notably the common association between the uncomplaining acceptance of discomfort while at worship and evident seriousness of religious conviction), churches and meeting houses began to be heated in increasing numbers in the post-revolutionary years, and by the time this article was written stoves and furnaces were pouring into New England, the most laggard and/or resistant region in the northern states in this respect.  This 1822 article is the longest and most detailed that I have found, addressing most of the common arguments of the opponents of change.

(For more about this topic, see the preprint of my "Conquering Winter" article, pp. 12-14, and items cited therein, particularly Gretchen T. Buggeln, Temples of Grace: The Material Transformation of Connecticut's Churches, 1790-1840 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2003); also my online map of recorded dates of stove installations in American churches, and the underlying spreadsheet.)

"In Side of the Old Lutheran Church in 1800 in York, Pa.," Watercolor with pen and ink by Lewis Miller, c. 1800,
The Historical Society of York County, Pennsylvania,
from Religion and the Founding of the American Republic (online exhibition, Library of Congress),
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/f0203s.jpg

E.F., "On Warming Houses of Worship," The Christian Spectator [New Haven, CT] 4:12 (Dec. 1822): 640-2, http://books.google.com/books?id=lRB8irTdA4UC&pg=PA640.

p. 640 As the season of cold weather is approaching, you will permit me to make a few remarks on a subject which concerns the comfort of many. I belong to a congregation which has one of the finest houses of worship in the United States. No pains nor expense have been spared to fit it up in the best style, and to render it as convenient as possible for //p. 641 both the preacher and his hearers. One or two thousand dollars have been expended to delight the ear and elevate the devotions by the combined power of vocal and instrumental music. Now, all this is as it should be, and certainly redounds greatly to the credit of those through whose instrumentality so much has been accomplished. But you will be surprised, when I inform you that no provision is made for warming the house and rendering it comfortable during the cold inclement season of winter.

Stoves are regularly found in the churches in nearly all of our populous places, even in those much further South than we are. They are also very common in most of the country churches in all the Northern States. And I cannot myself, see any substantial reason, why they are not used in every house of worship in New-England. In cases where the congregation cannot afford to be at the expense of purchasing stoves; (sic) they can be hired for a trifle. The amount of the rent and the necessary fuel would, when apportioned.be merely nominal, and a contribution of a few cents from each individual would defray the whole expense.

Should it be said that stoves are unsafe and dangerous; the objection applies with equal force to our ever lighting a fire in our private dwellings: great care should be used in both cases, but no greater in the former, than in the latter.

Is it objected that possibly the pipes might not be perfectly tight and that thus the whiteness of the walls would be tarnished by the smoke? Why, I ask, is there more probability of a stove's smoking in a Meeting House, than in a Legislative Hall, a Court House, a School Room, or any other large building? But suppose a little smoke should now and then unavoidably escape and find its way to the walls, and that they should indeed become slightly soiled in the course of a winter; who that knows how to balance evils--who that regards substantial comfort more than mere outside appearances, would on this account hesitate to try the experiment, at least? But it is not however a fact that stoves in churches usually smoke; I have myself been present in many where it is not the case, and know of several* {footnote} where the stoves are so located and the pipes are so fixed, that it is scarcely possible for them to smoke.--But if the fear of smoke is the only objection, this can be entirely removed. Houses of worship are often warmed by means of heated air. This is the case in some of our large towns; and the expense is said not to be greater, if as great, as that attendant on the mode ordinarily pursued. The very possibility //p. 642 of inconvenience from smoke, is in this way wholly prevented.

p. 641 * {footnote} I was much pleased with the winter arrangement of one which I lately visited. The stoves were placed in the anteroom or entrance to the building. The pipes, after rising a few feet perpendicularly, pass horizontally through the wall into the main body of the church and then pursue a course parallel with the lower edge of the gallery at a suitable distance to be supported by rods projecting from it, until they reach the opposite side of the house, and by means of a chimney on the outside, communicate with the external air. The different sections of the pipes are so inserted into each other, and so fastened by correspondent elevations and depressions on their surface, that they cannot get out of place, nor can any smoke possibly escape from them. This plan of having the stoves in the ante-room is on several accounts preferable to having them within the body of the church, where it is often very difficult to find a suitable place for them. They can when thus located always be regularly supplied with fuel as often as occasion requires, without the least interruption to the services of the sanctuary. In this situation too, the stoves are more convenient for those who come from a distance and have need of warming themselves before church opens, and during intermission. Again, the ante-room if it be thus warmed, and if it be of a sufficient size, furnishes, when the outer doors are closed and the room is supplied with seats, a very convenient place for occasional meetings during the cold weather; especially for Conferences, and Sunday Schools which can then without inconvenience be kept the whole year. It is devoted to this use in the Society to which I have referred.

[p. 642 cont'd] There is no more reason for being without fire and exposed to the cold two or three hours together, when worshiping God and attending to the all-important instructions of his house, than when attending to our secular concerns, or when visiting in parties of pleasure. We should think pretty lightly of the hospitality of the friend, who should invite us to spend an hour or two with him at his house in a pinching winter's day, and then keep us without fire; and we should with equal reluctance wait on the man of business with whom it might be necessary to spend some time, were he to show a similar disregard to our comfort. There is every reason why the house of God should be made as convenient, as dwelling-houses, and the situation of those who visit them be rendered as comfortable as it would be, were they seated by their own fire-sides. Men are naturally ready enough, to absent themselves from religious services, even when there is no sufficient reason for so doing. [See at end -- HJH] It is the bounden duty of those who duly appreciate this consideration, to lay aside their prejudices, and to endeavour to prevent the effects of this natural aversion, by removing every excuse for absence from public worship, that can be pleaded with reason and with justice. They should recollect that though they, being in perfect health, can endure the utmost severity of winter without injury; there are others who cannot. The feeble aged individual--the man in delicate health who is easily chilled by cold--and especially the person whose lungs are already affected and are consequently keenly sensible to every change of air,--all these and many others, must, for several months in the year, unless suitably accommodated, be deprived of the privilege of waiting on God in his hbouse. There are also many others who live so far from the place of worship that they cannot go home and return again during the intermission; such persons will of course usually be present at only one service. And not unfrequently they will absent themselves from both; for those only who have tried it, know how unpleasant it is to travel several miles through the cold, and then sit without fire during the whole of public worship.

But the most weighty consideration connected with this subject, is yet to be mentioned. Our object in visiting the house of God, is to be instructed in divine things, and to have our hearts suitably and profitably affected by religious truth. That these ends may be accomplished, it is necessary that we should fix our minds closely and constantly upon the subject presented to us. This it is impossible to do when we are suffering from the inclemency of the weather. The preacher cannot then speak with animation, nor the hearers listen with patience. The clearest and most conclusive trains of reasoning then fail of their effect; and the most moving strains of eloquence are spent in vain upon the audience whose limbs are shivering with cold.

I should not, Mr. Editor, have troubled you with these remarks, were it not for the hope that, through the medium of your work, they may possibly produce a salutary effect upon other congregations in a similar situation with the one of which 1 am a member. Yours, &c



"Excuses for Not Attending Public Worship," The Christian's Pocket Magazine (and Anti-sceptic) Vol. 9, n.s. 3 (1823): 498, http://books.google.com/books?id=bGEEAAAAQAAJ

(From an American  Paper.)--"Overslept myself--wasn't shaved in time--too cold--too hot--too windy--too dusty. Too wet--too damp--too  sunny--too cloudy--don't feel disposed. No other time to myself.  Look over my drawers. Put my papers to rights. Letters to  write to my friends. Taken a dose of physic. Been bled this  morning. Mean to walk to the bridge. Going to take a ride.  Tied to the store six days in the week. No fresh air but on Sundays.  Can't breathe in the church, always so full. Feel a little feverish--feel a little chilly--feel very lazy. Expect company to  dinner. Stumped my great toe. Got a head ache. Caught cold  last night at a party. Must watch the servants. Can't leave the  house for fear of fire. Servants up to all mischief when I go to  church. Intend nursing myself to-day. New bonnet not come  home. Tore my muslin dress coming down stairs. Got a new novel, must be returned on Monday morning. Wasn't dressed in  time. Don't like a liturgy--always praying for the same thing.  Don't like extempore prayer--don't know what is coming. Don't  like an organ--it's too noisy. Don't like singing without music -- makes me nervous. Can't sit in a draft of air--windows or  door open in summer. Stove so hot in winter, always get a  head-ache. Can't bear an extempore sermon--too frothy. Dislike  a written sermon--too prosing. Nobody but our Minister.  Can't always listen to the same preacher. Don't like strangers--too bombastical. Can't keep awake when at church. Snored  aloud last time I went there--shan't risk it again. Tired to death  standing to pray. Hate to kneel--makes my knees stiff. Mean to inquire of some sensible person about the propriety of going to  so
public a place as a church. Will publish the result." [Emphases added.]

Hot-Air Furnaces and Air-Tight Stoves, 1848

[The point of this and the preceding article is to give examples of something quite common in magazines for progressive country-dwellers from the 1820s onwards, i.e. detailed, practical, and very opinionated  discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of the new technologies of comfort and convenience.  These provide valuable evidence of how consumers used and experienced stoves and furnaces.]

X. "Hot-Air Furnaces and Air-Tight Stoves," The Cultivator [Albany, NY] 5:2 (Feb. 1848): 51.

http://books.google.com/books?id=EQHVprDnlhMC&pg=PA51
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editors Cultivator—I have noticed the remarks in the Cultivator during the past year, by Geo. Geddes and others, on the advantages of Hot-Air Furnaces. Having used one in my own house for the past seven or eight years, constructed in a manner precisely similar to those described, I can endorse with confidence all, or nearly all, that has been said in their favor. There are, however, some defects which should be known. These defects are not merely attached to poorly constructed ones, for mine was a good one with a large stove and eight drums, well put together so as not to smoke.

The advantages, as have been before stated, are chiefly, the facility with which large wood, four feet long, may be used without cutting or splitting; keeping up only one fire for several rooms; freedom from dirt and ashes, from stoves and fire-places; saving in room; freedom from cold currents through door-cracks, &c.; and uniform temperature day and night.

The disadvantages are, the furnace, unless in a very large cellar, so as to be entirely separated by partitions from the rest of the cellar, heats it too much, usually causing the speedy decay of apples, &c.; it occupies as much room below as it saves above stairs; the wood being heavy, but few women can lift it, and hence a man must be at hand; the fire being away, out of sight, is apt to be forgotten and neglected till too low; after standing and absorbing moisture during summer, the plaster and brick-work throw off an unpleasant and damp smell into the rooms for some days after the fire is first commenced in autumn; the cost, in no case, of a good furnace, can be much less than a hundred dollars. Not one of the least objections is the difficulty of regulating the heat properly in rapidly changing weather, as from cold to warm, from warm to cold, or from calm to windy. Large sticks six inches to a foot in diameter will be an hour or two in getting thoroughly on fire; and when once on fire, continue burning half a day or more. In the meantime there may be a considerable change in the weather, in which case the rooms may be greatly overheated, or become too cold to be comfortable. It often happens that a fire is built up for the night, while the weather is calm; a fresh wind springing up in the night will rapidly diminish the heat of the rooms; or, if the weather is windy when the fire is made, and the wind then subsides, the heat soon becomes oppressive. It is found to require twice as much wood in a high wind, at 25 degrees, as in a calm at zero. Wind also changes the course of the ascending hot air in the pipes, warming those rooms chiefly which lie in a direction from the wind, often sweeping the air from the windward rooms down the hot-air pipes, and out of the air chamber through the feeding pipe. This is a serious inconvenience. It may indeed be obviated by properly adjusting the registers, and by two or three cold-air feeding pipes on opposite sides of the furnace, to be closed or opened as the case requires; or a new fire may be built of small wood, if the weather suddenly becomes windy; or, on the other hand, if it suddenly becomes calm or warmer, the fire may be smothered with ashes, or lessened by shutting the fire draft. But all these require much attention; more than farmers generally are willing to give; and would be a grievous tax on a housekeeper where no man is at hand.

Every establishment, therefore, which cannot keep an attentive hired man always at hand, should not be encumbered with a furnace. But in a large house, where such care can be constantly given, and where there are as many as five or six rooms to be constantly heated, a good furnace will be found altogether the most convenient mode. It is also just the thing for large schools, where many apartments are in daily use, obviating the care and interruption of replenishing fires in the separate rooms; or for hotels, and large public buildings generally.

For small houses, nearly all the advantages of the hot-air furnace are secured by the use of the best airtight, self-regulating sheet iron stoves. The cost of two or three of these is much less than of a furnace; they are always at hand and easily fed; they consume less wood by nearly one-half, as I have amply proved by long experience with both; and they will maintain a fire as long during the night as a furnace. The very common objection to the furnace, that every part of the room is heated alike, and that every person whether thinly or warmly dressed, must endure the same heat; or those who have been all day riding in the cold can have no warmer fire than others, is wholly obviated by the air-tight stove. So rapidly may a room be heated with one of these, that five minutes are scarcely needed in any case; while the self-regulator, properly adjusted, will preserve an equable temperature for a long time. With an additional improvement — that of inserting a transparent plate of mica in the regulating valve, the light from the fire would be thrown into the room, and the advantage so much prized by many, of seeing the "cheerful blaze,"would be at least partially attained.

With one of the larger sized air-tight stoves, (Race's $14 ones,) I am enabled to heat a family room and three adjacent sleeping apartments, more comfortably than I could formerly with a furnace; for which one cord of good wood will last about one month of average winter weather; and my fruit and vegetables now keep well in the cellar.

But airtight stoves have their difficulties. These are two in number, namely—the sudden puffs of smoke or explosions; and the inconvenience of pipes choked with soot, or dripping with pyroligneous acid. The first never takes place except when the stove is closely shut. Impure carburetted hydrogen from the burning wood mixes with the air in the stove, and then taking fire causes the explosion. This is usually only a puff of smoke, but sometimes it has been sufficiently strong to lift the small cast iron plate which covers the hole in the top of the stove. The explosions may be obviated by adjusting the regulator so that it shall not entirely close, till the wood is half consumed. The carburetted hydrogen will not collect while a slight current of air is sweeping through the stove, and rarely except when the wood is in its early stages of combustion. The dripping of pyroligneous acid is prevented by reversing the joints of the pipe, those above being inserted into the next ones below, rendering it impossible for the liquid to escape. To prevent the pipe becoming soon choked with soot, nearly all should be perpendicular or nearly so, so that by knocking on its sides, the adhering soot may fall. One of my stoves was at first fitted with seven feet of horizontal pipe; but in five weeks it was perfectly choked with soot. The stove was then moved, and the pipe made vertical. By knocking down the soot once a fortnight, no difficulty from this source is now experienced. Where the draft is considerable, the soot does not so rapidly accumulate; hence in using another stove, less perfectly made, no inconvenience was found either from dripping or soot, for some months.

A self-regulating stove, made of Russia sheet-iron, will last, it is believed, under ordinary circumstances, not less than fifteen years. X.

Quercus, "Warming Houses," 1834 [furnaces, Nott stoves]

Quercus, “WARMING HOUSES,” The Genesee Farmer 4:2 (11 Jan. 1834): 13-14.

In one of my communications last winter, [vol 3, p. 30,] on the subject of fuel, I attempted to show that the ordinary cost of wood in the western villages of this state, was very little, if any, short of the price paid in New England for the same amount of acquired heat; for although the price of wood in this state was less by the cord than in New England, yet its more porous and gaseous qualities, rendered its specific gravity so much less, that it required more than double the quantity to produce the same effect. I also suggested the expediency of adopting more extensively the use of anthracite coal, as being not only more economical, but far less troublesome.

Circumstances have placed me this season in a different sphere of action, and where I have had a better opportunity of observing the use, and the effects of coal, in its various applications.

The grand desideratum in housekeeping, as well as in the arts, is to obtain the greatest amount of heat with the least expenditure of fuel and money; and notwithstanding the prejudice which has so extensively existed against anthracite coal, it must soon be universally acknowledged, that we have no means of combining so fully these desirable objects, as by its use. The enormous increase of our population too, is fast leveling our forests, so that ere long the use of coal will be absolutely necessary in our larger cities and villages. The sooner, therefore, we adopt it, the sooner we shall learn its use, and experience its happy effects upon our comfort and our purses

At present, I propose to confine myself wholly to the subject of warming dwelling houses ; and in so doing, I would suggest only two modes,which meet my views of comfort and economy.

The first is the "Hot Air Furnace," to which I alluded in my communication of last winter. The principle of this is simply a cylindrical iron furnace, with a grate at its bottom for draught and the transmission of ashes, and an opening on its side for feeding it with coal. This cylinder is then surrounded with either brick or sheet iron, so as to form an air chamber around the furnace, from whence the heated air is carried to any desired location, by means of tin tubes. Such a furnace, placed in a convenient situation in the cellar or lower apartment, renders all fire above stairs wholly unnecessary. To secure all the advantages of this plan, it is essential that the smoke pipe from the furnace should pass through a series of dumb stoves, placed in each story, either in the hall, or other rooms, as most convenient; while the heated air from the air chamber, is conveyed by lubes to such other rooms as are in constant use. By such an arrangement, a most delightful heat is disseminated through an ordinary sized house, from the cellar to the garret, by means of only one fire.

This plan combines several important and essential objects. First, the saving of fuel. A furnace of this description will not consume over one ton of coal per month, keeping fire night and day; and unless the weather is very severe, it need not average over half a ton per month. The best of Lehigh coal can be delivered in Buffalo in the summer season at $12 per ton, and in the same proportion at the intermediate places. Even then, at Rochester or Buffalo, the expense of supplying such a furnace, together with the comfort of an entire warm house, would not exceed $40 or $50. Where is the man, in either place, who lives at an expense of $800 or $1,000 per year, who does not pay nearly double the amount, for the privilege of healing the air above the top of his chimney!

Second—It is a great saving of comfort. Instead of having only one room warmed by a common fire place or stove, and that indifferently well, you have your whole house comfortable, so that you can pass from one room to another without the. danger of being chilled; and at night, your family may retire to their several apartments, to enjoy the luxury of a summer temperature, without either the hazard of colds and catarrhs, or the enervating influence of a load of bed clothes.

Third—It is safe and cleanly. No damage can accrue to children or others, from the burning of clothes or skin; nor are your carpets or furniture continually exposed to the depredations of sparks and coals; and as nothing but pure air is transmitted from the open atmosphere through the air chamber into your rooms, so neither dust nor ashes will arise to annoy your family or friends.

Fourth—You are not exposed to colds and catarrhs, and to the innumerable train of evils which follow as a consequence, from the currents of cold air which are continually forced into a common room, to supply the place of the heated air which passes up chimney. It will readily be perceived, that as hot air is by this plan forced into the room, and no draught out of it, the accumulation of this hot air will not only produce a uniform heat throughout the room, but by its constant accession heat must escape through the cracks and crevices of the building, thereby reversing the present course of currents. Hot air will force its way out of the room, instead of cold air into it.

Since using a furnace upon this plan, I have seen a suggestion in Silliman's Journal of Science, from Prof. Johnston of Philadelphia, which adapts the "Air furnace ' to culinary purposes, as well as heating the house. His principle is precisely the same as the one I have described, but using the same heat which ascends into the rooms above, for culinary purposes below. This is certainly a consummation greatly to be desired to the economy of families, for as the Professor justly //p. 14 remarks," the culinary operations of almost every family involve an immense waste of heat, and of beat too, which might be turned to valuable account, were but a small portion of the ingenuity bestowed on less important subjects, turned toward that much neglected branch of domestic operations." For a particular description of his apparatus, I would refer the reader to the 23d volume of the American Journal of Science and Arts, No. 2, January, 1833.

The other mode of warming dwellings to which I shall refer, is by means of Dr. Nott's Stoves. This is the very acme of stove invention. No one who has experienced the pleasure and comfort arising from the use of these stoves, will be disposed to deny the Dr. the full meed of praise, which this exhibition of his talents has called forth.

It has often been remarked that great minds, which are constantly engrossed with the contemplation and study of first principles, with their various ramifications through the arts and sciences, seldom descend to minute particulars; but in Dr. Nott, we have an instance of an intellect, which after having traversed the whole range of science, and for years investigated the principles of heat and caloric, at once descending to put these principles in practice, and bending its gigantic resources to the mechanical arrangement of furnaces and castings, and even to the formation of screws and rivets.

It is unnecessary here to enter into an analysis of these stoves. Suffice it to say that they combine the following great principles. Saving of fuel; saving of expense; saving of time; and saving of comfort. A stove which will cost $25 or $30, will abundantly heat two rooms with folding doors, besides two chambers with dumb stoves. And with all this heat, the consumption of fuel is so small, that one stove of the above price will not require to exceed one and a half tons of coal from November to April; and where the fire is not kept up at night, one ton will be sufficient. Now contrast this statement with the enormous expenditure of wood, in our inland villages. Take for instance Rochester or Buffalo, and compare the difference of expense, between burning wood in the ordinary way by stoves and fire places, and of coal, in Nott's stoves.

A ton of coal in the village of Rochester will be worth, say $11,00; and by the use of Nott's stoves, a ton and a half will abundantly supply a family through the winter. In the village of Rochester there are at lest 1,000 families who require, and actually use, stoves or other substitutes more expensive than Nott's stoves. These one thousand families burn on an average, (aside from their kitchens) twenty cords of wood each; for though some burn not over five or ten cords, yet others bum thirty or forty. We will say, however, that the average does not exceed fifteen cords per family, which when cut and ready for the fire will average $2 per cord. At this estimate, the value of wood burned by the 1,000 families, will amount to $30,000. Now for the coal. Averaging the quantity to each family at a ton and a half, and the price at $11 per ton, the whole cost for 1,000 families will be $16,500; to which you may add if you please, for cartage and extras, $3,500, and you then have the enormous saving in the village of $10,000, in a single winter, by the use of anthracite coal and Nott's stoves.— Now in all this there can be no mistake, for I am a daily spectator of similar results.

In conclusion, I would barely say to those who are sceptical, try it, and be satisfied; to those who love comfort, try it, and be ye warmed and filled; to those who love money, try it, and save your pence; but to those who prefer the old and frigid path, I must also say, go on, if you will, to your heart's content, but remember it will be at the expense of money, comfort, and health.

Quercus.

For the Genessee Farmer.

[“Economy of Fuel,” The Genesee Farmer 4:8 (22 Feb. 1834): 57-58 -- MARCUS BULL's pamphlet  “a matter of interest to every householder.”]