THE ORIGIN OF CHIMNIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 3311, 18 December 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE ORIGIN OF CHIMNIES.

There seems reason to believe that the chimney in its present sense of a funnel from the hearth or fireplace to the roof of the house is a modern invention. In Greek houses it is supposed that there were no chimneys, and that the smoke, escaped througH a Hole in the roof. What the arrangement was in houses in which there was an upper story is not known ; perhaps the smoke was conveyed ’ by a short funnel througH the side wail of the house, which seems to have been the first form of chimney invented in the Middle Ages. ‘The Roman caminus, again, was not a chimney, but a sort of stove; and it has been a subject of much dispute whether the Romans had any artificial mode of carrying off the smoke, or whether it was allowed to escape through the doors, windows, and openings in the roof. As tho climate and the habits of. the people both led to the houses of the ancients being very much more open than ours are, it is probable that the occasional fires which they had of wood or charcoal may have given them no great inconvenience. .. It is known, besides, that the rooms in Roman houses were frequently heated by means of hot air, which was brought by pipes from a furnace below. In England, there is ho evidence of tho use of of chimney-s Hafts earlier than the 12th century. _ In Rochester Castle (A.D. 1130), complefe fireplaces appear; but the flues only go a few feet up in the thicknessbf. the. wall, and are then turned out through the wall to the back of the fireplace, the openings being small oblong idles. The earliest chimney-shafts are “circular, and of considerable height. Afterwards chimneys are found in a great variety of forms. Previous to the, Ifitlp - century many of them are shorthand, , terminated by a spire or pinnacle, having- * apertures of various shapes. Clustered . chimpey-staeks do hot appear/until .late in the ISlh/eehtury, when - .they seem to , have been introduced simultaneously with the use of brick for this purpose. Long after .they were invented, and in .use for other rooms, our ancestors did not' generally introduce them into their halls, which, till the end of the 15th, or beginning of the 16th, century, continued as formerly to be heated by a fire on an open hearth in the centre of the hall, the smoke escaping through an opening in the roof, known by the name of louvre. '