Herbert Can Be Ever Ready

While the hearth and fireplace has been with us for tens of thousands of years, it took one man to make a major improvement in this simple technology — two hundred and sixty seven years ago, in 1742, Benjamin Franklin, in a life noted for a veritable inventing spree, created in addition to bifocals, the public library, and the use of electricity, the reinvention of the fireplace.  Of course, I’m talking about the cast iron stove.  He called it the Pennsylvania Fireplace, and today we know it, more simply, as the Franklin Stove.

In Franklin’s time, the fireplace was a dangerous thing, using a lot of wood and wasting a lot of heat.  The Franklin Stove allowed people to cook and warm their homes with a little less danger and with less wood.  The cast iron stove looks like a fireplace but it contains metal baffles and this increases its heating efficiency to such a degree that it has been used now to warm homes and farm houses for over two hundred and fifty years!

Here are some of the highlights of this amazing device.  Two years after he invented the stove, he wrote a pamphlet titled, “An Account of the New-Invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces.”  Then, in 1744, twenty-eight years later, a man named David Rittenhouse made the first real improvement to the stove: He added the L-shaped chimney.  By 1790, the stove was considered a vital part of America.  In 1895, the design was adjusted again, adding a flue damper you could adjust as well as a slanted fireback.  In 1800, several manufacturers strove to improve the design, making the stove even more popular.

The state’s governor offered Franklin a patent, which would provide Franklin with the sole right to make and sell the stoves.  Franklin turned down the patent, believing, as he said, that the appreciation of his invention was better than financial reward — a selfless act that would one would find hard to replicate here in the 21st Century.

Filed by Herbert Jones at 5:55 pm under Home and Garden
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This morning we wandered down Ramblas again but this time with the intent of taking pictures. My photos do Barcelona no justice. There are flower shops with an amazing array of roses, orchids, hibiscus, palms and geraniums; pet shops with little striped mammals, birds and turtles’ performance artists of all sorts; scam artists abound and on a Saturday morning, an amazing amount of humanity swarming about.

Part-way down the Ramblas is a covered market, which hosts several hundred shops and stalls. It’s so big they gave us a map at the entrance. As the map was forced into my hand, I imagined some poor lost tourist skeleton in a dark corner still with his camera around his neck. We wandered around for a bit and bought some bread, coffee and a fruit salad. The market had the best biggest, freshest figs I’ve ever tasted and dates where still on the branch. We made our way down Ramblas to the waterfront. We watched the swing bridge in action. When we read about this bridge in the tour book, we imagined a rope bridge, but it a very beautiful, art inspired pedestrian bridge. A part of the walk way retracts to allow boats through. We found a cafe and sat outside to have breakfast while we waited to see the bridge retract.

We headed back to one of the five star Barcelona hotels where we were staying to take a siesta. Later that afternoon, we were determined to see the Sagrada Familia, it’s not far from our hotel, so off we went. It was created by Gaudi, and the structure in huge and gorgeous. There were throngs of tourists all waiting to go inside, seemed like it could take hours, so we took a few photos and wandered off to find lunch. Gaudi will just have to wait. Barcelona, you gotta love it here.

Filed by Herbert Jones at 3:27 pm under Travel
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