the mountain home of roswell shurtleff

7/29/2019 The Mountain Home of Roswell Shurtleff

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The Mountain Home of Roswell Shurtleff

Author(s): Mrs. Oliver Bell BunceSource: The Decorator and Furnisher, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Jul., 1896), pp. 104-105Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25584997 .

Accessed: 14/09/2013 22:45

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o4 THE DECORATOR AND FURNISHER J*iy. **9THE nOUNTAIN HOME OF ROSWELL SHURTLEFF.

^^^^r-^. By Mrs. Oliver Bell Bunce.

/^^BJ^^n^^P) VER\BODY knows Sburtleff'spicj^^^m^Kr ^kV^^P. tures. They are in every ex|^jy JHHjp hibition, in many homes, and ituflRfflBK ^mmmmWi *s ^e al?ne who stands as the great' ^^Hf painter of thewoods. A connois^JHt ^ w' seur *nart once sa^> when lookingS^W vi> at these landscapes, "Well, if I//iVyi*$C*


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July, 1896 THE DECORATOR AND FURNISHER 105to see what is really needed on a canvas a house-lightis absolutely necessary, as one can work only fromone to two hours on any picture, and do it well."This painter of the woods maintains that autumn isthe best time for work. If cold, one can put up a tent,heat stones and pile them about, putting the feet on thelargest, and so keeping up a good circulation.On rainy days, when in the Adirondacks, Mr. Shurtleff carries a small sheet, which he doubles over a bigumbrella, and then paints for hours without discomfort.The wide piazza is one of the features of the house.It is well furnished with rugs, chairs, hammocks andsmall tables. The yellow cushions which show fromthe front are, in a way, one of the landmarks of theShurtleff home. It is the tea place, in the afternoons,for all guests and all friends.Shirecliffe has now for some years been the showplace in Keene Valley, and as many as fifty people arecharmingly entertained there a day by the pretty wifeof the artist, who go away delighted to have had theopportunity of seeing these artistic wood gems.Mr. Shurtleff has lately sold one of his great pictures,"The Silent Woods," to the Metropolitan Museum,while another, "The Autumn Woods," has found itsway to the Springfield Art Museum.When in the city, their, studio, in Twenty-secondStreet, is opened to the public on the afternoons ofTuesday and Saturda)', where the artist's charming wifebids always a welcome to all. It is an artistic suite ofrooms?the centre one being the workshop of thispainter of the woods.

The Studio Mantelpiece.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE MODERN LAMP.4A By Edward C. Weaver.

JhL UR modern lamp has had two eras of. ./f*Sw3r^ *ts existence?that in which it wasy^^^Sl^JK^ fed with a fixed or animal oil or~fat,

W*^K53?)^ an(* e Present era ?* mineral oil^^^IIm^rP^ or kerosene. And I am now re- .w^. Mm minded that it is food for thought that^^jEi^^ it was as- late as 1853 that a Dr.f yf Brewer, of Pennsylvania, first sug- 'gested the use of rock-oil for illuminating. The oil of that time beingfound in certain natural springs. A year or two moreand boring for oil was tried, and now petroleum practically lights the world. rTo go back to the beginning of the older era of modern lamps. To begin, in fact, where the old Romantype left off, and were little more than oil chamberswith orifices in which an absorbent wick was inserted.The "cruise" used until very late years in the Highlands of Scotland is one of these lamps, a pioneer ofthe class. As the wick was merely a cord ofloosely-plaited material, it burned in an incompletemanner. The admission of air was not sufficientto completely burn the gases generated from the oil,this causing both a smoking of the unconsumed carbonand the emanation of certain acrid gases produced bythe distillation of fatty substances. This feature wasthe first one to impress itself upon the mind of the inventor, and in 1783 M. Leger, of Paris, brought into usethe flat wick, which, from its form, gave an increasedaccess of air, and, consequently, a more perfect combustion. It was found, however, after a short use ofthis form of wick, that there was a great defect in theflat form of flame in that it gives a very meagre lightat its ends. Leger remedied this by giving a crescentform to the ribbon wick. Ami Argand, a physician andchemist of Geneva, ingeniously brought the edges of theribbon wick together, thus forming the tubular wick ~which bears his name to this day. This was done in1784. Argand devoted much of his life to the improvement of lamps. While the first tubular wick was quitea success as far as it went, his younger brother, entirelyby accident, hit upon the use of a tubular glass chimney to increase the natural draft of the flame-cone. Anarrowing of the body of this chimney in close proximity to the flame completed Argand's inventions, thiscontraction operating to throw the air of the outer draftinto the flame. Poor Argand soon became involvedwith his lamp with one Lange, of Paris, and, to avoidlawsuits and ruin, joined in with him and securedFrench Letters Patent for a term of fifteen years. Butat this time "the revolution came on and carried thepromising monopoly down into the vortex of generalruin. It may be said that Argand died of a brokenheart, for his end was a sad one. .The argand lamp, however, was ushered into thenew century with little improvement, if we except theLiverpool button, which came from no one knowswhere, but was probably first used in that city, as itsonly heritage is its name. This button is the flat button placed at the top of the inner argand tube, and hasfor its purpose the deflecting of the air current directly.into the flame. It is to be remembered that lamps ofthis period burned a heavy animal oil, which was thinned _somewhat by the heat of the near burning flame. For

~"this reason, it will be seen the flame must needsbe close to the surface of the oil, otherwise it would notrise freely in the wick by the capillary attraction. Thenext step of invention was prompted by this fact.

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the mountain home of roswell shurtleff

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