 There
were variations and interpretations of what constituted a Rumford
fireplace right from the beginning.
Jefferson wrote a couple of letters and made some drawings in an
effort to improve the Rumford design, but he didn't seem to understand
streamlining (or "pneumatics" as Rumford would have put it) and
neglected to round the breast.
Commanding all the logic of the blind men in
the Indian folk tale describing an elephant, Thomas Danforth introduced
the erroneous idea that the "smoke shelf" blocked down drafts in the
back of the chimney, in his essay "fully explaining" Rumford published
in 1796.
James Meese, editor of the influential 1804 Domestic Encyclopedia,
took it upon himself to interpret Rumford, weaving in much incorrect
information of his own about radiation. Others, like Gillespie in 1904,
sought to improve upon Rumford or take the best of Rumford for their own
profit and in so doing intentionally misrepresented Rumford.
 The
most popular book on Rumford fireplaces this century, Vrest Orton's
The Forgotten Art of Building a Good Fireplace, now in its 23rd
edition, was where many of us first heard about Rumford. Orton, however,
picks up and repeats many of these 18th and 19th century myths and
misinterpretations.
Fortunately, Rumford's essays on fireplaces,
although out of print, are still readily available in libraries. The
easiest to get is in The Collected Works of Count Rumford;
Sanborn Brown, ed.; Harvard Press; 1969; vol. 2.This century more
ordinary people are familiar with radiation and fluid dynamics than even
very well educated people like Thomas Jefferson and James Meese were two
hundred years ago.
The result is that Rumford fireplaces are being
built with straight backs and rounded breasts. Rumford fireplaces are
more like they used to be than ever before. |
