re usually supposed a modern invention; the ancients only making use of stoves: but Octavio Ferrari endeavours to prove chimneys in use among the ancients. To this end, he cites the authority of Virgil,

Et jam summa procul villarum culmina fumant: and that of Appian, who says, "That of those persons proscribed by the triumvirate, some hid themselves in wells and common sewers, and some on the tops of houses and chimneys;" for so he understands καμίνοις, καμίνοις, fumaria fulo teles pofita. Add, that Arifophanes, in one of his comedies, introduces his old man, Polycleon, shut up in a chamber, whence he endeavours to make his escape by the chimney. However, the few instances remaining among the ancients, together with the obscurity of the rules of Vitruvius on this head, make us rather conclude the use of stoves, whereof the ancients had entire apartments, induced them to neglect this part of building which the coldness of our climates obliges us to have a principal regard to.

Method of Building Chimneys that will not smoke. Workmen have different methods of drawing up the funnels of chimneys, generally according to their own fancies and judgments, and sometimes according to the customs of places. They are seldom directed by sound and rational principles. It will be found for the most part, that the smoking of chimneys is owing to their being carried up narrower near the top than below, or zig-zag, all in angles; in some cases, indeed, it is owing to accidental causes; but, for the most part, to those two above mentioned. Where they are carried up in the pyramid or tapering form, especially if the house be of a considerable height, it is ten to one but they sometimes smoke. The air in the rooms, being rarified, is forced into the funnel of the chimney, and receives from the fire an additional force to carry up the smoke. Now it is evident, that the further up the smoke flies, the less is the force that drives it, the slower it must move, and consequently the more room in proportion it should have to move in; whereas in the usual way it has less, by the sides of the chimney being gathered closer and closer together.

The method here proposed of carrying up chimneys will be objected to by some thus: The wider a chimney is at the top, say they, the more liberty has the wind to blow down. Very true; but is it not resisted in going down, both by the form of the chimney and other evident causes, so that it must return again? In the other way, when the wind blows down, the resistance being less, the wind and smoke are, if we may use the expression, imprisoned, and make the smoke puff out below. This method has proved effectual after all others had failed; and that in a house placed in the worst situation possibly, namely, under a high mountain to the southward, from which strong blasts blow down upon it. A vent was carried up without angles, as perpendicular as possible; and was made about three or four inches wider at top than at the bottom: the funnel was gathered in a throat directly above the fire-place, and so widening upwards. Since that time the house has not only ceased to smoke, but, when the doors stand open, the draught is so strong that it will carry a piece of paper out at the chimney-head. See more on this subject under the article Smoke.

CHIMNEY-Money, otherwise called Hearth-money, a duty to the crown on houses. By stat. 14 Char. II. cap. 2. every fire-hearth, and stove of every dwelling or other house, within England and Wales (except such as pay not to church and poor), was chargeable with 2 s. per annum, payable at Michaelmas and Lady-day to the king and his heirs and successors, &c.; which payment was commonly called chimney-money. This tax, being much complained of as burdensome to the people, has been since taken off, and others imposed in its stead; among which that on windows has by some been esteemed almost equally grievous.