Description of an economical and useful stove for warming rooms and other purposes, invented by Bracy Clark / [Bracy Clark].

  • Bracy Clark
Date:
[1840?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Description of an economical and useful stove for warming rooms and other purposes, invented by Bracy Clark / [Bracy Clark]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Description of an economical and useful Stove for Warming Rooms and other purposes, invented hy Rracy Clark, F.L.S. and Member of the Royal Institute of France, fyc. Haying early in life been much attached to the pursuits of chemistry, and for amusement as well as economy, been led very often to construct the necessary furnaces and stoves with my own hands, so in years since, being desirous of warming my study in the most effectual and economical way, I contrived one which, after more than a twenty years’ use, finding it both pleasant, effectual, and beneficial, I am induced to make it, by giving figures of it, and a description of it, more fully known to the public. This stove or furnace combines in one all the essentials of an English fire-place, Gferman stove, and air furnace, being changeable from one to the other at pleasure in a few moments. I have called it The Megalifer, or Megacalifer Stove, from the great heat it gives out, with a comparatively small portion of fuel, conceiving the most useful property of a stove to be that of yielding from a given quantity of fuel the greatest share of absolute heat and of radiance when required, and to have these properties under good controul as to their proper degree; and, at the same time, to be simple in its con- struction, and of comparatively little expense. The fire in this machine can be wholly exposed as in a common English fireplace, or be half-exposed with a sharpened draft, or be wholly enclosed as in the German stove, and be kept out of view. Or, it can be made of the keen draft of an air furnace, which in the lighting of a fire quickly is a very great convenience. It admits also of boiling, roasting, or baking, in a small way; or for hastily warming water for shaving, or boiling an egg, &c. and this without soiling the tin vessels used, by the placing them in close contact with the stove on its outside, and opposite to the place of the fire, or on the fire itself for greater speed. For a private gentleman’s, or student’s apartment, it will be found invaluable; or for a large poor family, where the consumption of fuel, and the making the most of it, is an object, as it will render a considerable sized room perfectly warm everywhere in the coldest day of winter. It is also a sure antidote and remedy to a smoky chimney, and it enables us also readily, and in a remarkable degree, to renew a fire immediately that is nearly gone out; and will burn well with very inferior coals, and is easily controuled. I had a drawing of it made after a furnace I had had more than twenty years in use without its being near worn out, of which a lithographed copy is here given. And the following is a description of it. In its general figure it is a tall square tower, Fig. 1, narrowing backwards, by which we obtain as much radiant heat as possible, farther increased by its bowing out in front. And by contracting it backwards, we not only diminish very much the consumption of fuel, but at the same time prevent the operation and effects of the fire upon the back parts of the stove. The stove is made of common iron plate of moderate thickness, transmitting the heat readily to the air surrounding it, which air, as it cannot pass up the chimney, that being
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