ould be equal to
the angle of incidence did not the constant tendency of smoke to ascend
modify this rule.

Throw a rubber ball against the wall and the direction from your hand to
where it strikes the wall makes the angle of incidence; when the ball
bounces away from the wall it makes the angle of reflection.

Management of the Fire

But, before we enter into the question regarding the structure of the flue
we will take up the management of the fire itself. In the first place,
there is but one person who can manage a fire, and that is yourself.
Servants never did and never will learn the art, and, as I am writing for
men, and the ladies are not supposed to read this article, I will state
that the fair sex show a like deficiency in this line. The first thing a
woman wants to do with a fire is to make the logs roost on the andirons,
the next thing is to remove every speck of ashes from the hearth, and then
she wonders why the fire won't burn.

The ashes have not been removed from my studio fire since it was first
lighted last fall. Ashes are absolutely essential to control a wood-fire
and to keep the embers burning overnight. Fig. 288 shows the present state
of the ashes in my studio fire. You will see by this diagram that the logs
are not resting on the andirons. I only use the andirons as a safeguard to
keep the logs from rolling out on the hearth. If the fire has been
replenished late in the evening with a fresh log, before retiring I pull
the front or the ornamental parts of the andirons to the hearth and then
lay the shovel and poker across them horizontally. When the burning log is
covered with ashes and the andirons arranged in this manner you can retire
at night with a feeling of security and the knowledge that if your house
catches afire it will not be caused by the embers in your fireplace. Then
in the morning all you have to do is to shovel out the ashes from the rear
of the fireplace, put in a new backlog, and bed it in with ashes, as shown
in Fig. 286. Put your glowing embers next to the backlog and your fresh
wood on top of that and sit down to your breakfast with the certainty that
your fire will be blazing before you get up from the table.

Don't make the mistake of poking a wood-fire, with the idea, by that
means, of making it burn more briskly, or boosting up the logs to get a
draught under them.

Two logs placed edge to edge, like those in Fig. 288, with hot coals
between them, will make their