Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899Various
Science
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, February 1899: Volume LIV, No. 4, February 1899
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
Let us next consider the causes of high temperature in the city of New
York. It is a well-established fact that the temperature of large and
densely populated towns is far higher than the surrounding country.
This is due to a variety of causes, the chief of which are the absence
of vegetation; the drainage and hence the dryness of the soil; the
covering of the earth with stone, bricks, and mortar; the aggregation
of population to surface area; the massing together of buildings; and
the artificial heat of workshops and manufactories. The difference
between the mean temperature of the city at Cooper Institute and at
the Arsenal, Central Park, for a single month, illustrates this fact.
Another striking difference between the temperature of these two
points of observation is that the range is much greater at Central
Park than at Cooper Institute, the temperature falling at night more
at the former than at the latter place. The effect of vegetation is to
lower the temperature at night, while brick and stone retain the heat
and prevent any considerable fall of temperature during the
twenty-four hours. It may be said of New York that it has all the
conditions of increased temperature above given in an intensified
form. It has a southern exposure; all of its broad avenues run north
and south; the surface is covered with stone, brick, and asphalt; it
is destitute of vegetation except in its parks, which have a very
limited area compared with the needs of the city; its buildings are
irregularly arranged and crowded together so as to give the largest
amount of elevation with the least superficial area; ventilation of
courts, areas, and living rooms is sacrificed; its ill-constructed and
overcrowded tenement houses, especially of certain districts, have the
largest population to surface area of any city in the civilized world.
To these natural and structural unfavorable sanitary conditions must
be added the enormous production of artificial heat in dwellings. When
the summer temperature begins to rise the solar heat is constantly
added to the artificial heat already existing. The temperature of the
whole vast mass of stones, bricks, mortar, and asphalt gradually
increases, with no other mitigation or modification than that caused
by the inconstant winds and occasional rainstorms. And the evils of
high temperature are yearly increasing as the area of brick, stone,
and asphalt extends. The records of sunstroke during the past few
years is appalling, both on account of the number of cases and their
comparative increase. If no adequate remedy is discovered and applied,
the day would not seem to be distant when the resident, especially if
he is a laborer, will remain in the city and pursue his work during
the summer at the constant risk of his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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