A MODEL DWELLING-HOUSE. The late Sir John Robison’s House at Edinburgh. The various contrivances for rendering a dwelling-house complete in all that respects the comfort of the inmates, could not perhaps be better illustrated than by taking some actual instance, and showing what has really been effected. The late Sir John Robison, an enlightened man of science at Edinburgh, erected a house in the north-west part of that city, and fitted it up with a care which has been rarely observed in other places. So much has this house been regarded as a model, that a full description of it has been given in the Supplement to LOUDON’S _Encyclopædia of Cottage and Villa Architecture_; and we propose to give an abstract of such portions of this description as can be understood without the aid of elaborate drawings. The distribution of the internal space of the house is so managed, that, with the exception of two partitions in the first chamber-floor, which cross the floors without resting on them, all the internal walls reach from the foundation to the roof. The two partitions here mentioned are of stone, and are supported on cast-iron beams isolated from the floors, the joists of which are supported by wooden beams placed alongside, but not connected with the iron beam. The movements of the flooring, therefore, are not communicated to the partitions, and do not consequently affect them by vibration. The arrangement of the rooms, staircases, and passages, has especial reference to the ventilation of the whole house. While the mass of air in the rooms and passages is constantly undergoing renewal by the escape of the vitiated air above, and the admission of large supplies of fresh air from below, no currents are perceived in the apartments, which, even when crowded with company, and amply lighted, preserve a remarkable degree of freshness. Cylindrical flues of earthenware, nine inches in diameter, are built into the gables, in close proximity to the smoke flues of each room; and the lower ends of these ventilating flues open into the spaces between the ceilings of the respective rooms and the floors of those above them; and there is one or more of these exit air-flues in each room, according to its size and use. The heated and vitiated vapours pass upwards through the ceiling by a continuous opening of about one inch and a half wide (behind one of the fillets of the cornice) all round each room; and having thus passed into the space between the ceiling and the floor immediately above, they ascend by the flues in the wall, and are discharged by them into the vacant space between the ceilings of the attics and the roof, from whence they find their way through the slates to the open air. The passage for the air through the cornice is not visible from the floor of any of the rooms, an ornamental moulding being so arranged as to conceal it. The air flues are made to terminate above the ceilings of the attics, and