Note 48 — LETTERS AND PAPERS ON PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECTS. (continued 5)

People who have used these fire-places, differ much in their accounts of the wood saved by them. Some say five-sixths, others three-fourths, and others much less. This is owing to the great difference there was in their former fires; some (according to the different circumstances of their rooms and chimneys) having been used to make very large, others middling, and others, of a more sparing temper, very small ones: while in these fire-places (their size and draught being nearly the same), the consumption is more equal. I suppose, taking a number of families together, that two-thirds, or half the wood, at least, is saved. My common room, I know, is made thrice as warm as it used to be, with a quarter of the wood I formerly consumed there.