Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Salamander heaters Login/Join
 
Member
posted
I've found some regional differences in terms between Oregon and Indiana, one of which is "salamander heater." In Oregon they're called "torpedo heaters." I can't find any rationale regarding the salamander name, whereas the long, cylindrical forced air heaters do resemble a torpedo such as fired from a submarine. Can anyone find an explanation?


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
 
Posts: 6168 | Location: Muncie, IndianaReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Salamander heaters


The OED Online lists salamander as both a noun and a verb:
quote:
n.
Etymology: < French salamandre (12th cent.), < Latin salamandra, < Greek σαλαμάνδρα. Compare Middle High German, modern German salamander.

A lizard-like animal supposed to live in, or to be able to endure, fire. Now only allusive.
attested from 1340

quote:
v.
Etymology: < salamander n.

a. intr. To live amidst fire, like the salamander.
1857Chambers's Jrnl. 7 25 In one apartment‥dwells a maker of lucifer-matches, salamandering in fire and brimstone.

b. trans. To submit to great heat.
1904 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 782/1 His [sc. the Arab peasant's] garments must be salamandered and his carcass must be baked.

c. Cookery. To brown by means of a salamander.
1878 Amer. Home Cook Bk. 65 When it is cooked, glaze the top and salamander it.


Origin of Name
quote:
For the Spanish and Portuguese (Chilean), a traditional wood-burning stove is referred to as a "salamandra." This name reportedly came from a legend that the salamander could withstand fire, which probably derived from instances where a type of salamander which lived in dead logs would emerge when the log was thrown on a fire.

The above source cited astronomy.com as its source.

Astronomy.com
quote:
  • Of all the traits ascribed to salamanders, the ones relating to fire have stood out most prominently in salamander lore. This connection probably originates from a behavior common to many species of salamander: hibernating in and under rotting logs. When wood was brought indoors and put on the fire, the creatures "mysteriously" appeared from the flames. The 16th-century Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini(1500–1571) famously recalled witnessing just such an appearance as a child in his autobiography. According to some writers, the milky substance that a salamander exudes when frightened and which makes its skin very moist gave rise to the idea that the salamander could withstand any heat and even put out fires.

  • The salamander is mentioned in the Talmud (Hagiga 27a) as a creature that is a product of fire, and anyone who is smeared with its blood will be immune to harm from fire. Rashi (1040–1105), the primary commentator on the Talmud, describes the salamander as one which is produced by burning a fire in the same place for seven years. According to Sahih Bukhari (810–870), Muhammad said that salamanders are "mischief-doers" and "should be killed".

  • Leonardo da Vinci(1452–1519) wrote the following on the salamander: "This has no digestive organs, and gets no food but from the fire, in which it constantly renews its scaly skin. The salamander, which renews its scaly skin in the fire,—for virtue." Later, Paracelsus(1493–1541) suggested that the salamander was the elemental of fire, which has had substantial influence on the role of salamanders in the occult. (An elemental is a mythological being first appearing in the alchemical works of Paracelsus. Traditionally, there are four types:*gnomes, earth elementals; undines, water elementals; sylphs, air elementals; salamanders, fire elementals.)

  • Early travelers to China were shown garments supposedly woven from salamander hair or wool; the cloth was completely unharmed by fire. The garments had actually been woven from asbestos.


Astronomy.com cites Wikipedia as its source. Isn't amazing how so many things are traced backed to Wikipedia?

The Medieval Bestiary: Salamander
quote:

General Attributes

The salmander is a cold animal. It can live unharmed in a fire, and its coldness will extinguish the hottest flames. If it enters hot water, the water will become cold.

From the salamander comes a material that is unlike any other cloth; when it becomes dirty, it must be thrown into a fire, which will consume the dirt without harming the cloth. This cloth is made in the deserts of India, and is worn by important people. This is a good description of asbestos, which some sources link with the salamander.

The salmander's poison is very strong, and can kill many at once. If it climbs an apple tree, the apples become poisonous; if it enters a well, the water becomes deadly.


Allegory/Moral

The salamander represents righteous people, who can withstand fire, just as Daniel could emerge unharmed from the fiery furnace.


Sources (chronological order)

Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 10, 86): The salamander is a shaped like a lizard, but is covered with spots. A salamander is so cold that it puts out fire on contact. It vomits from its mouth a milky liquid; if this liquid touches any part of the human body it causes all the hair to fall off, and the skin to change color and break out in a rash. Salamanders only appear when it rains and disappear in fine weather. (Book 11, 116): It is fatal to drink water or wine when a salamander has died in it, as is drinking from a vessel from which the creature has drunk.

Augustine [5th century CE] (City of God, Book 21, chapter 4): If the salamander lives in fire, as naturalists have recorded, this is a sufficiently convincing example that everything which burns is not consumed, as the souls in hell are not.

Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 4:36): The salamander alone of animals puts out fires; it can live in fire without pain and without being burned. Of all the venomous animals its strength is the greatest because it kills many at once. If it crawls into a tree it poisons all of the fruit, and anyone who eats the fruit will die; if it falls in a well it poisons the water so that any who drink it die.


Notice two conflicting ideas: salamanders are "mischief-doers" and "should be killed" and the salamander represents righteous people, who can withstand fire, just as Daniel could emerge unharmed from the fiery furnace.
 
Posts: 2878 | Location: Shoreline, WA, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of Kalleh
posted Hide Post
I've heard of neither, Asa. Are they what we'd call space heaters?
 
Posts: 24735 | Location: Chicago, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of arnie
posted Hide Post
I wonder if the regional differences are perhaps because they were similar stoves made by different makers that have now become generic descriptions.

I'll also mention I've never heard of either name.


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 
Posts: 10940 | Location: LondonReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
 
Posts: 2878 | Location: Shoreline, WA, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of zmježd
posted Hide Post
Some books I looked through at Google Books said that the difference between torpedo heaters and salamander heaters is one of fuel used: i.e., the former use kerosene and the later use propane. There were also some mention of actual heaters for warming up torpedoes.


Ceci n'est pas un seing.
 
Posts: 5148 | Location: R'lyehReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Great job, Tinman! I did not know any of the mythology of the salamander! Here in Muncie the long, horizontal cylinder type is what they're referring to, not the vertical ones, although your references suggest a more general usage. Since I'm now employed by a hardware store that sells them, I've had to learn to repair them. Not a disagreeable job with snow on the ground!

As for heaters to warm torpedoes, I'll leave that job to someone else! Eek


It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -J. Krishnamurti
 
Posts: 6168 | Location: Muncie, IndianaReply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Geoff:
I did not know any of the mythology of the salamander!

Neither did I. I learned it just before you did. Now I've got to find me some salamander hair.
 
Posts: 2878 | Location: Shoreline, WA, USAReply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 


Copyright © 2002-12