ABSTRACT
The end of all philosophical inquiry is, to lessen the number of evils to which the people are liable, and to increase the sum of our natural and social enjoyments. The habitations of man from the humble cottage to the superb palace, have hitherto been constructed without any regard to the best principles for affording the greatest comfort to their inhabitants. Before the improvement in gaseous chemistry, the relative value of situation so far as regarded the purity of the air, was considered as of the utmost importance; those matters in the atmosphere which were deemed deleterious, were supposed to occupy the lowest situations, and it became a prevailing custom to build houses on the highest ground, for the sake of breathing a purer atmosphere. That branch of domestic economy which has for its object the virtue of cleanliness, is by no means beneath the attention of the philosopher.
