Page:Family receipt book.pdf/19

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19

foul, great quantities of soot will be driven down. These rea-sons recommend a bend in some part of the funnel as abso-lutely necessary. Garret chimneys are more liable to smoke than any other in the house, owing to the shortness of the funnel: for when the composition of rarified air and smoke has made its way up a high funnel, it forms a strong column, and to repel it re-qnires a proportionably great force; but in a garret chimney this strong column eannot be obtained; therefore, what can-not be had from nature must be aimed at by art. The fault in most garret ebimneys is being carried up in a straight di-reetion from bottom to top in a slovenly manner, and with funnels as large as any in the bouse; whereby the little in-ternal rarefied air has the whole immediate pressure of the atmosphere to resist, which, in general, is too powerful for it. But a garret or cottage chimney carried up and executed in a proper manner, with due proportion in every part, aceording to the size of the room, and the funnel in an easy crooked di-rection, will draw and be as clear from smoke as any other.

TO PURIFY WATER.

Το purify water, put into a hogsbead of it a large table-spoonful of powdered alum, stir it, and in a few hours the im-purities will be sent to the bottom. A pailful of four gallons may be purified by a single ten-spoonful of alum. Freshly-burnt charcoal is also an excellent sweetener of water.

TO FILTER WATER.

Put into an earthen vessel (sueh as sugar-bakers use to form the loaves in, with a small hole at the bottom or pointed end) some picees of sponge, and on them a sufficient number of small clean peebles to quarter-fill the vessel. Hang this filter end downward, in a barrel with the head out, leaving a spaee of about two or three inehes between the end of the filter and the bottom of the barrel. The upper part of the filter should be kept a little above the top of the barrel, which must always be kept full of water. The sediment of the water will remain at the bottom of the barrel, and the pure water will rise through the sponge and pebbles to the vacant part of the filter. It may be hung in a cistern, or water-butt if more eonvenient. The pebbles and sponge should be eleansed oc-casionally. Another ceonomical filter may be made by taking out the head of a cask, setting it upright, and at a distance of about one-third from the bottom putting in a shelf or partition pierced with small holes; this shelf being covered with