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WARMING AND VENTILATING ROOMS.
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garment which has been variously called læna, lorum, and subarmale. See the instances cited, Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, Pt. X., in the description of a bust of Gordianus Africanus, and particularly the full length statue of a youth, engraved, Leplat, Marbres de Dresde, Pl. xi. Below the arched niche in this monument, is an inscription stating that Cornelius Castus and Julius Belisimnus and their wives erected it to Fortuna and Bonus Eventus.

We regret that our space does not here permit us to do more than glance at the contents of this volume, and that we must defer till our next number the notice of the unedited inscriptions, published by Mr. Lee, which have been copied with the greatest accuracy, and are some of them very interesting, not only from their contents but as specimens of late palæography.


The History of the Art of Warming and Ventilating Rooms and Buildings, &c. &c. with Notices of the Progress of Personal Comfort. By Walter Bernan. London, George Bell. 2 vols. 12mo., 1845.

This is an interesting work, apparently written with much care and research. The author undertakes to illustrate the theories of warmth and cold, and begins ab ovo by an account, not unentertaining, of the climate, dress, and comparative comforts of many different nations: he shews the effects on the individuals of each nation resulting from the greater or less degree of heat they enjoy by the aid of natural or artificial means, and points out many important moral and physical peculiarities which, he says, not untruly, may be referred to the same cause; he then discusses at length the state of the ancient world in this matter, and draws a picture, sufficiently cheerless and uncomfortable, of the manners of the Egyptians, Jews, and Greeks.

But the portion of his labours most valuable to the archæologist, will be found in his third Essay, in which he enters with considerable minuteness into the construction of the Roman hypocaust. As the subject is one not wholly uninteresting to the inhabitants of an island in which Roman remains are found in profusion, and as such details are not generally accessible, we propose to give the sum of what he states upon the subject of the hypocaust.

The objects of the hypocaust were two-fold, either to supply heat to the water with which warm baths were filled, or to heat the caldarium, or dry sweating room. Our author describes its construction for the second purpose thus; "The floor is made inclining, so that a ball placed on any part of it would roll towards the fire-place, by which means the heat is more equally diffused in the sweating chamber. The floor is paved with tiles eighteen inches square; and on these are built brick pillars, eight inches on the side and two feet high, and cemented with clay and hair mixed together. The pillars are placed at such a distance as will allow tiles two feet square to be laid on them to form the ceiling of the hypocaust