Scientific American Supplement, No. 388, June 9, 1883 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 147 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 388, June 9, 1883.

Scientific American Supplement, No. 388, June 9, 1883 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 147 pages of information about Scientific American Supplement, No. 388, June 9, 1883.
power at every point.  But the terms on which such extensions must be made have been referred to in our illustration, and must be accurately ascertained and observed.  They constitute what is, in effect, the third factor in the phenomenon of a roaring draught, and also, therefore, ineffective ventilation.  That is, the entering or induced current of air must always find its channel of progress and exit certain correct degrees larger than the opening by which it entered.  Every one knows that a stove or chimney wide open admits of but little suction in connection with even the blaze of paper or shavings.

The mobility of air seems almost preternatural, when the proper conditions for setting a current in motion are supplied.  But without a current established, it is surprising in turn to find how obstinately and elusively immovable it can be.  It is like tossing a feather; or trying to drive a swarm of flies; dodging and evading every impulse applied.  But, given a flue, to define and conduct a stream; an upright flue, to take advantage of the slighter gravity of the warmed air within it; and a flue contracted at the inlet and expanded as it rises, so as to free, diffuse, and lighten the column of air, toward the exit; then, initiate an induced current of air at the inlet, by the injection of a jet of gas in the state of semi-explosive action called flame; the pressure pushing upward from the crowded entrance finds easier way and less resistance the farther it goes in the expanding flue; the warmth and reduced gravity of the stream comes in as an auxiliary in overcoming friction and any exceptional obstruction in the state of the atmosphere; and now, as the ball is once set rolling, with a little aid instead of resistance from gravitation, its initial impulse all the while sustained by the gas jet, and friction reduced to a very small incident—­there is nothing to prevent the current rolling on with accelerated velocity (within the limitations imposed by increasing friction) and rolling on forever.  I might, if I had time, add a curious consideration of the law of vortex motion in elastic fluids, demonstrated by Helmholtz, which relieves the motion of such fluids from friction, as wheels facilitate the movement of a solid; and which also sucks into the rolling vortex the contiguous air, thus entraining it, as we have seen, so much more effectively than could be done by a direct and rigid current, like a jet of water, for instance.  A wheel set in motion on an almost frictionless bearing of metalline, runs without perceptible abatement of velocity, until one begins to involuntarily question whether it will ever stop.  In the all but free winds that roll with minimized friction in the higher atmosphere, there seems to be a self-moving force; so persistent is simple momentum in a mass so infinitesimally obstructed and so infinitely wheeled.  An active current of air in a ventilating flue is only less perfect in the same conditions; and so it

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Scientific American Supplement, No. 388, June 9, 1883 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.