Chimney swift

“ A bricklayer might here observe, “Admitting you can sweep chimneys with the machine, how would you core them?” More effectually and with greater facility than boys can possibly do it. Chimneys that are straight, or nearly so, do not require coring, and the rubbish that falls on the diagonal part of the flue, where the angles are obtuse, can easily be dislodged by a stiff brush attached to the machine, and introduced into the top of the chimney. ”

“ Chimkent is visited by consumptive patients who wish to try the koumiss cure. It has cotton mills and soap-works.
CHIMNEY (through the Fr. cheminée, from caminata, sc. camera, a Lat. derivative of caminus, an oven or furnace) , in architecture, that portion of a building, rising above the roof, in which are the flues conveying the smoke to the outer air. Originally the term included the fireplace as well as the chimney shaft. At Rochester Castle (1130) and Heddington, Essex, there were no external chimney shafts, and the flue was carried through the wall at some height above the fireplace. ”

“ For a moment he brightened, but a sudden thought obscured him like a cloud.
“Not places with twisted chimneys!” he groaned.
That brought me up short. I stubbed my brain against the twisted chimney! But when I'd rubbed it—my head, not the chimney—I recovered.
“Yes, places with twisted chimneys! At least, one such place.” ”

“ Where the top of a Chimney is commanded by high buildings, by clifts, or by high grounds, it will frequently happen, in windy weather, that the eddies formed in the atmosphere by these obstacles will blow down the Chimney, and beat down the smoke into the room.—This it is true will be much less likely to happen when the throat of the Chimney is contracted and properly formed than when it is left quite open, and the Fire-place badly constructed ”

“ In these three boxes are three electric lights which can be turned on and off independently by the boy inside the chimney. Dry batteries have been used when an electric current was not available. The light shining through the cambric makes the face. Turning off, and on again, the light behind one of the eyes makes the chimney wink, etc. Small hooks or nails, sticking out above the eyes, under the nose, and under the mouth, should be provided to hold the snow which the fairies hang on to represent eyebrows, mustache and beard. ”

“ There are chimney-sweepers even now; but none of the old-fashioned kind. In many places it is forbidden by law to send boys up the chimneys. So the modern chimney-sweeper puts his brush on the end of a pole, which is made in joints, like a fishing-rod, and, by attaching joint after joint, thrusts it farther and farther up the chimney. ”

“ In the basement, also, there was a central hall that disappeared forever under an accumulation of porch chairs and lumber. Here was no light except what came around two turns from the laundry. Even Annie the cook, a bold venturesome person, had never quite penetrated to a full discovery of this hallway. A proper approach into the darkness was on hands and knees, and yet there were barrels and boxes to overcome. Therefore, as we were bred to these broader discoveries, a mere chimney in the sitting-room, which arose safely from the fenders, was but a mild and pleasant tunnel to the roof. ”

“ JACK FROST goes on talking: What do you mean, Mr. Chimney, by going to sleep in winter, I'd like to know? Summer is the time for you chimneys to go to sleep; but in winter when the people in the houses have their fires burning, you ought to keep wide awake, so as to carry off the smoke; don't you know that? Sleepy head! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.
THE CHIMNEY answers: Nothing of the sort. Have you forgotten what night this is, Jack Frost? Don't you know that this is Christmas Eve, when the fires are all put out, so that Santa Claus can climb down without getting burned? ”

“ As different circumstances frequently mix themselves in these matters, it is difficult to give precise dimensions for the openings of all chimneys. Our fathers made them generally much too large; we have lessened them; but they are often still of greater dimension than they should be, the human eye not being easily reconciled to sudden and great changes. If you suspect that your chimney smokes from the too great dimension of its opening, contract it by placing moveable boards so as to lower and narrow it gradually, till you find the smoke no longer issues into the room. ”

“ The chimneys proceed from the fireplace to the top of the house, and come out through the roof, above which they are carried up several feet; on their top is often an earthen pot, called a chimney-pot. The use of a chimney is to carry off the smoke. Chimneys have not been thought of above a thousand years ”

“ Another cause of smoky chimneys is, too short a funnel. This happens necessarily in some cases, as where a chimney is required in a low building; for, if the funnel be raised high above the roof, in order to strengthen its draft, it is then in danger of being blown down, and crushing the roof in its fall. ”

“ But the bricks—how are we going to get at them?”
“Your idee is good—as fur as it goes; but I think I can give you a better one than scrapin’ the chimney of soot.”
[Pg 75]
“Let’s have it.”
“I’d rig a cross-piece—shaped just like a cross—to work inside the chimney, from a rope over the top, like an elevator.”
Ben caught his breath. “How would you ever get a rope over the top?” he asked.
“O, that’s easy. I haven’t ben a sailor fur nothin’. Then, I’d chip off the whole inside of the chimney.”
“We’d work just the inside?”
“That’s all we want, ain’t it? It’s the golden linin’ we’re after. ”

“ This simple arrangement, the advantages of which were pointed out in an early edition of this work, renders fires in chimneys of little moment, as it is only necessary to draw down the shutter to put them out. If a chimney is stopped at top, instead of at the bottom, the whole of the smoke must, of necessity, be driven into the apartment. ”

“ It is strange, methinks, that though chimneys have been so long in use, their construction should be so little understood till lately, that no workman pretended to make one which should always carry off all smoke, but a chimney-cloth was looked upon as essential to a chimney. This improvement, however, by small openings and low breasts, has been made in our days; and success in the first experiments has brought it into general use in cities, so that almost all new chimneys are now made of that sort, and much fewer bricks will make a stack of chimneys now than formerly. ”

“ Thus too are tested the young and untried chimneys, which, should they smoke, are to be examined by a practical man before anything else can be done. They may smoke through faulty construction. In this case new grates must be had from Haines & Co., 83 Queen Victoria Street, who have a grate that can easily deal with this desperate strait. Or they may require tall chimney-pots, or a mere ‘blower,’ which is best when made of a clear thick sheet of glass. ”

“ A chimney is a pump—first, by reason of the suction or approach to a vacuum made at the open top of any tube across which the wind blows directly; and, secondly, because the flue is usually occupied, even when there is no fire, by air somewhat warmer than the external air, and has therefore, even in a calm day, what is called a chimney-draught proportioned to the difference. ”

“ Within thirty feet of the turf-sided road, my chimney—a huge, corpulent old Harry VIII of a chimney—rises full in front of me and all my possessions. Standing well up a hillside, my chimney, like Lord Rosse’s monster telescope, swung vertical to hit the meridian moon, is the first object to greet the approaching traveler’s eye, nor is it the last which the sun salutes. My chimney, too, is before me in receiving the first-fruits of the seasons. The snow is on its head ere on my hat; and every spring, as in a hollow beech tree, the first swallows build their nests in it. ”

“ At right angles, or when they are nearly so, an opening should be left six or nine inches square at the angle: and when the chimneys are finished, the core can be extracted in five minutes, which a boy would not be able to accomplish in several hours or days. It has frequently occurred, that a boy could not succeed in clearing the chimney of the core, and an opening has been made for that purpose at last. ”

“ Mysterious intimations appear in the nearest village paper, signed "Claude," to the effect that a certain structure, standing on a certain hill, is a sad blemish to an otherwise lovely landscape. Anonymous letters arrive, threatening me with I know not what, unless I remove my chimney. Is it my wife, too, or who, that sets up the neighbors to badgering me on the same subject, and hinting to me that my chimney, like a huge elm, absorbs all moisture from my garden? At night, also, my wife will start as from sleep, professing to hear ghostly noises from the secret closet. ”

“ The philosophy of a chimney is well explained by Dr. Arnott, in his Elements of Physics. He says: “Chimneys quicken the ascent of hot air, by keeping a long column of it together. A column of two feet high rises higher, or is pressed up with twice as much force as a column of one foot, and so, in proportion, for all other lengths ”

“ The plan adopted by the climbing-boy to ascend chimneys is, by pressing his feet, back, and knees against the sides of the flue, by which means he propels or hitches himself up by degrees, having one arm above his head, holding a brush, and the other arm by his side, as described in B. At C the boy is represented as putting his brush out of the top of the chimney-pot, but generally he rattles it with his brush, to satisfy the parties below that he has been to the top. ”

“ Sometimes the shanty has a window, sometimes only an open doorway, which admits the light and lets out the smoke*. A rude chimney, which is often nothing better than an opening cut in one of the top logs above the hearth, a few boards fastened in a square form, serves as the vent for the smoke; the only precaution against the fire catching the log walls behind the hearth being a few large stones placed in a half circular form, or more commonly a bank of dry earth raised against the wall. ”

“ Inveterately bent upon the extirpation of that noble old chimney, still to this day my wife goes about it, with my daughter Anna’s geological hammer, tapping the wall all over, and then holding her ear against it, as I have seen the physicians of life insurance companies tap a man’s chest, and then incline over for the echo. Sometimes of nights she almost frightens one, going about on this phantom errand, and still following the sepulchral response of the chimney, round and round, as if it were leading her to the threshold of the secret closet. ”

“ The door should be placed just below the smoke pipe opening, and care must be taken to see that it fits snugly and is always closed so tight that no air can get in.
SUPPORTING THE CHIMNEY.
All chimneys should be built from the ground up. None of the weight should be carried by any part of the building except the foundation. Proper foundations should be provided at least 12 inches wider all round than the chimney. If the chimney is an exterior one, and there is no basement or cellar, its foundation should be started well below the frost line. ”

“ To take out the backbone of anything, wife, is a hazardous affair. Spines out of backs, and chimneys out of houses, are not to be taken like frosted lead pipes from the ground. Besides," added I, "the chimney is the one grand permanence of this abode. If undisturbed by innovators, then in future ages, when all the house shall have crumbled from it, this chimney will still survive--a Bunker Hill monument. ”

“ Who is digging out the bricks, and for what purpose? And how, with the alarms all over the house, to account for the footprints in the flour?"
"It is quite likely that something is hidden in the chimney, and some one knows that it is worth hunting for. This chimney is the original, I should judge." Fitzgerald addressed this observation to the admiral.
"Never been touched during my time or my father's. But we can soon find out. I'll have a man up here. If there is anything in the chimney that ought not to be there, he'll dig it out, and save our midnight visitor any further trouble." ”

“ Unlike chimneys erected by our cottage builders of to-day, which appear to issue out of a single mould, those of the untutored architects of the past present every variety of treatment and appearance.
The old solidly built chimney seen in many of Mrs. Allingham’s cottages (Chiddingfold, Plate 44) is worthy of note as a type of many sturdy fellows which have resisted the ravages of time, and have stood for centuries almost without need of repair. In old days the chimney was regarded not only as a special feature but as an ornament, and not as a necessary but ugly excrescence. ”

“ Pussy walked back to the spark and continued to question it. "We cannot go into the fire," she said. "Now, pretty, bright spark, do tell us what becomes of you when you fly up the chimney. I am sure you only become soot and that cannot make you long to get to the top."
"Oh, you are very wrong," said the spark. "We are far from being black when we fly up the chimney, for once we reach the top, we live forever sparkling in the sky. You can see, if you look up the chimney, all of our brothers and sisters, who have been lucky and reached the top, winking at us almost every night. ”

“ Boyle an' th' wains are as hungry as we are," Anna remarked.
[Pg 138] "Wi' a bogful o' turf at th' doore?"
"Th' can't eat turf, Jamie!"
"Th' can warm their shins, that's more'n we can do, in a minute or two."
The rapidly diminishing coals were arranged once more. They were a mere handful now and the house was cold.
There were two big holes in the chimney where Jamie kept old pipes, pipe cleaners, bits of rags and scraps of tobacco. He liked to hide a scrap or two there and in times of scarcity make himself believe he found them. His last puff of smoke had gone up the chimney hours ago. ”