On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
There are perhaps one hundred stoves made in these United States, for one in any other country of an equal number of inhabitants. There is an old saying," practice is perfection," which should be true, but common sayings are not always truthful ones, for assuredly we are far from having arrived at perfection in the manufacturing of stoves. We are not in possession of the statistics of the stove trade, but we have no doubt that it is one of the most extensive and prosperous in our country.— With all our extensive practice, where is there a stove to be found that has not some glaring defects. Our parlor stoves are destitute of tasteful and chaste ornament. The great majority of them seem to be designed upon the principles of elaborate and coarse flowered surfaces, as if these constituted the soul and body of stove beauty. While we are writing this, a parlor stove before us exposes a most inordinate amount of carved work, which, the designer no doubt thought would immortalize his name among the craft, or make his fortune. If he had left off all his flowers and devoted his attention to the form of the stove, he would have done more for his page 17, this volume, Scientific American, and our readers will acquire a perfect understanding of the whole subject by consulting the said description in connection with this one. Figure 1 is an outside view of the evaporator, and figure 2 is an interior view—a vertical section of figure 1 taken, through the dotted lines, D C. The same letters refer to like parts. This evaporator is simply a distilling apparatus, constructed with tubes of the same kind as that used for the condenser, and is merely to distil from salt water any deficiency of the fresh condensed water for the boilers. Very little will be required, but it is best to have appliances to meet every emergency. Salt over and over again for the boilers, and thus meet any loss. The surlace condenser was the first which was tried by Watt, but he found so many difficulties connected with it, that he early abandoned it for the jet condenser, which allows the eondensed water to flow away along with the injection. A good surface condenser for steamships is certainly a very desirable apparatus. The use of fresh water for the boilers instead of salt, which is now used, would save at least jn-iburth of the fuel, and "would in respect to its action upon the boiler, enable one to endure twice as long. Tubular boilers, owing to incrustations being so liable to form in the necks of the tubes, have always been objectionable for using salt water, although otherwise they are by far the most economical as steam generators. A good surface condenser whereby they might be fed over and over again with pure fresh water, is just what is required for them. We are well aware that many surface condensers have been tried and laid aside, owing to the unequal expansion and contraction ol the metals of which they were composed.— On our advertising page will be found the advertise ment of Cobb, Mason, & Hill, of North Point Foundry and Machine Works, Jersey City, who have used the condenser for more than a year,, and who will warrant them againstfracture by the expansion and contraction of metal. own credit and that of our country. Stove designers seem to be smitten with the idea that combinations of flowers, scrolls, &c, constitute the very perfection of their art. Do the flowers of sculpture and architecture constitute the highest degrees of these arts ? No, they are to the statute and temple what binding and lace are to a coat, they cannot make it look graceful or pleasing to the eye if it is of a bungling form. More attention should be devoted to the general iorm of parlor stoves; the French display much taste in the few stoves which they make. We have never seen a stove of a perfectly convenient construction for domestic use, especially in the cleaning out arrangement, and for kindling the fire. Cylinder stoves, although very neat and excellent in their way, are exceedingly inconvenient for cleaning out. The fire of all stoves should be so placed with reference to the door, that it can be cleaned out with a shovel. Now, no stove that we are acquainted with is thus conveniently constructed. A common stove, after being kindled, when it fails to ignite the coal, is very troublesome to clean out and re-charge again. The cylinder stove has no convenience in ar- ranging for kindling with wood and charcoal. We are speaking of coal stoves, those made for burning wood are convenient enough in this respect. For cleaning out the oveti—the low oven of a stove—it would be very easy to cast the back plate with an opening to be covered with a slide plate running in between side grooves like the lid of a box, this plate could be removed, and at any moment a small hoe might be introduced without any trouble to draw out the dust and soot, and thus keep the flues always clean. The patents for stoves are very numerous, but the right kind of stove has yet to be invented.
