In a word, all our difficulties on this branch of the subject, seem to lie in excess of action: and we need only mitigate the general effect, to render this Machine useful, safe, and commodious.
There is another objection that must be met, on pain of direct censure, which is this: what will become of the ashes? (for smoke is as yet out of the question) my answer is—a recess, or several, must be found for them beyond o; to do which will not be more difficult than to lodge any other residue. But if this Machine fulfils my views in respect of power, this residue will be no burden. For example, if ever a farmer should hereafter drive his plough by such an engine as this, he will manure his land furrow by furrow with the ashes—an idea which I must not yet indulge, lest I should be thought fanciful beyond the due proportion.
But my mechanical impetus is not to be thus instantly checked. If what I hope, can be realized, there are properties in this invention, for locomotive engines, superior to any the steam engine itself can boast. A light Machine: a light combustible: no water to carry; no steam to condense, &c. &c. As however I have never tried this felicitous creation, I assert nothing.
But again, this seems to be a really good method of distributing heat in any useful direction: for there is an impulsive force which not only requires no draught to make the fire burn, but will drive heat to any distance through pipes of any form, and placed in any position. There is therefore, a certain utility attached to this Machine, whatever may be it’s merits as a power engine. Our present methods—of destroying coals—are excellent! but our methods of making them useful are defective in the extreme. If you have no draught in your chimneys you are stifled with smoke. If you have much draught, you have little heat—for the chimney swallows it, and half your room is in Norway. Use then an impulsive system, (of some kind) and you may send your caloric down into the cellar to be drawn from thence as wanted, for the upper apartments.
But my subject pullulates as I proceed. This idea is by no means exhausted. It is not an indispensable feature of it, to heat rooms with the same air that fed the fire. For instance, if a fire were made under the vertical cylinder K, and led into and through it by a proper pipe, almost filling it—then the cold air of the pump A B would pass round that pipe to the working cylinder C D, and there impel it’s piston E as before. Not perhaps so strongly; but with an air uncontaminated by burning, or by ashes—and therefore more congenial with some uses of the Machine. In fact, air thus introduced might be perfectly fit for breathing, and still get elasticity enough from this passage, to force heat to the bottom of any room we wished to have warmed; whereas, by using only the levity of heated air to give it motion, we scorch the tops of rooms and factories, and unmercifully freeze the bottoms. I must beg leave to be a little severe on this point:—since for a thinking people, as strangers call us, we have been extremely thoughtless in this respect: so that as much seems now to do by way of introducing comfort into our saloons, as was done about the year 1200, when those chimneys were introduced that are now become a kind of nuisance. In a word, and I am serious when I say it, the present arrangement of our chimneys, is in my humble opinion, essentially unphilosophical; and as such ought to be speedily discontinued or greatly modified.
In the above pages I have laid myself open to much animadversion, by a kind of cast for much honest fame. I have let the public into my secret—I have thought aloud: And if the greater part of these cogitations should prove to be imaginary, I shall only plead, that they are drawn from the same source as the many useful Machines I am known to have devoted to public utility.