Chap. IV.

ROMAN.

131

columns ; D, is the vestibule conducting to the baths ; C, a hall communicating with the seabaths; D, is now occupied by the tower of the Stura; E, projects into the sea, at the ex-tremity of which is the mole ; F and G, are large, and H and I, smaller swimming baths, sur-rounded by rooms for the convenience of the bathers ; L, M, are passages and approaches fromthe side towards the town.

Baths at Nismes , situated north of the city, are supplied by a clear stream, and havebeen decorated with considerable taste: Palladio, Clerisseau, and many French architects,have shown great skill in their restoration. A, is a large court, surrounded by a coveredperistyle, B ; the lower portion of the baths is shown at C ; the source of the water is atD, which is entered by winding stair's at E, E ; a bridge over the canal remains at F ;

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Fig. MO.

lATHS AT NISMES.

another reservoir is shown at G, which passes by the canal H into different private baths;I, is the direction given to the waters on issuing from the baths; L, is a small templededicated to the presiding divinity, and M, another small reservoir.

For warming their houses the Romans had a very simple and admirable method; theword caminus , from the Greek kaminos, whence our word chimney is derived, would in-dicate that they had flues something like our own. The etymology leads to this sup-position, but we must take into consideration the various uses and forms to which italluded. The terms caminus and focus were applied both to the place in which the firewas lighted and to the fire itself; hence it is doubtful to which they referred. Focus is usedindifferently for a brasier or any of the portable fireplaces in which charcoal was burnt, orfor a place where wood was consumed.

Vitruvius , in his account of houses to be built in the country, used the word focus whenalluding to the kitchen fireplace. The kitchen, this author states, should be placed in thewarmest part of the court, adjoining to which should be the stalls for the oxen, with themangers at the same time towards the fire and towards the east, for oxen with their facestowards the light and fire do not get rough coated.

The word caminus probably meant at first a furnace for melting metals, in which acrucible was made use of; and Pliny has the word applied to a smith’s forge. It also in-dicated a hearth.

Seneca, in his 90th Epistle, gives us an account of a method introduced in his day to warman apartment. A large stove, or several, were formed in a vault under a building, andthese being filled with burning embers, the heat was conveyed away into the several roomsby means of pipes built up in the walls, the upper ends of which were ornamentedwith a lion’s or a dolphin’s head, and through their mouths passed the warm air ; thesecould be shut or opened at pleasure. These pipes, made square, of terra cotta, were laid inindents in the side walls around the whole apartment in a perpendicular direction, and actedas so many flues or chimneys from the fireplace below. This was a species of hypocaustumunder the floor, like that described in the baths, and the little smoke produced by burningwood in the prefurnium passed up the numerous perpendicular flues in the wall ; these,being made of thin burnt clay, radiated all the heat they absorbed into the room, and verylittle could have passed away after having circulated through such a length of pipe, wherethe draught was so much divided.

The manner of warming our greenhouses bears some resemblance to this method, par-ticularly where the flues are carried under the pavement, within a walled trench, into which

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