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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 14, 25 July 1884, Page 5

In the base of the Capitol at Washington are the engine* by which the House, the Senate, and committee rooms are warmed and ventilated, and the gas lighted by electricity. It is a big apparatus,, consisting of three immense fans, four engines and eight boilers, with the necessary appliances for regulating the temperature of the aix supplied to the nation's representatives. The instrument which tells whether this air is too moist or too dry is operated by a single human hair. A perfectly dry air is put at 0 ; saturated air, that ia, air carrying all the moisture it will hold, ia put at 100. A dial, with a hand like that of a clock, represents the different degrees from 9 to 100. The human hair absorbs moisture like a rope, and like a rope becomes shortest when wet. The difference between a hair six inches long when wet, aud the same hair when dry ia made to represent the hundred degrees of moisture on the dial ; and the hand oe pointer moves backward or forward as the moisture in the air varies. If it becomes too dry moro steam is thrown in ; if too moist lees steam is allowed to eseapa, and thus the atmosphere for tha nation's statesmen is regulated and kept afc the healthful point, which is about fifty degress.