Although, in a country where the temperature generally reaches, and even
often exceeds, 40° C., it is absolutely necessary to obtain by every
means possible a factitious coolness without which the Indies would not
be habitable for Europeans; and although there is no hesitancy in putting
up these punkas everywhere to be maneuvered by bahis, the elevation of
the temperature is not such in France that we are obliged to have
recourse to such processes. But, without being forced thereto by nature,
it is none the less true that we are often the more incommoded by heat in
that we are not accustomed to it, and that in southern France, at certain
hours of the day, such heat becomes absolutely unbearable. We can, it is
true, obtain a little air by moving a fan, but, aside from the fact that
this exercise soon becomes tiresome, it prevents the use of the hand that
is fanning.

[Illustration: FIG 2.--AN APARTMENT FAN.]

The new apparatus which have just been devised by Mr. G. Bozerian permit
of one's fanning himself all day long if he wants to, without any
fatigue, and while he is eating, reading, writing, etc.

In one of these apparatus, designed to be used in the open air (Fig. 1),
we find a table, a tent, and a fan combined; but as each part is
independent, we can have the table and fan without tent, or the fan and
pedals alone without table or tent. Under the tent there is arranged a
frame which pivots freely in apertures formed in the uprights that
support both the tent and table. This frame is connected, through two
levers, with the pedals upon which one's feet rest. The motion of the
pedals is an alternating one like those of sewing machines; but while in
the case of the latter a pressure has to be exerted that soon becomes