The Times of last Monday had a very valuable account
of a mode of ventilation adopted by Mr. Tobin, a retired merchant of Leeds, and which rests on the principle that a narrow stream of air can be sent up through lighter air, like the jet of a fountain through the ordinary atmosphere, by atmospheric pressure from outside, and that when it reaches the ceiling it will be reflected off in all directions, just as the water falls back in a number of infinitesimal rills, and so melt away very gradually into the lese pure air of the room, before reaching the persons who need it. The modus operandi is to introduce verti- cal tubes, communicating with the outer air, in parts of a large room or public building where people are not likely to
sit or stand, tubes rising, say, four or five feet, above the floor. Directly the air in the room begins to be mrified, the pressure of the air outside sends streams of air up these tubes, which con- tinue to rise in narrow streams, just like jets of water, and with- out dispersing till they reach the ceiling, where they are reflected back in spray, as it were, of pure air, spray which mixes very gradually indeed, and so as to avoid all draught, with the rarified air of the room, and gradually expels all the bad air by way of the chimney. The system seems to have worked almost miraculously in the Leeds Borough Police Court, and also in the Liverpool Police Court, whose stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Raffles, has borne the most grateful testimony to the results of the experiment, and Mr. Tobin is now engaged in introducing it into London. If it had but been invented in time for the Tichborne trial, who knows what it might not have saved us ? Dr. Kenealy, for instance, might have taken throughout a saner and calmer view of his client and his case.
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