i09: A brief History of Pneumatic Tube Systems While Slate has a
good short history of air conditioning: Attempts to control
indoor temperatures began in ancient Rome, where wealthy
citizens took advantage of the remarkable aqueduct system to
circulate cool water through the walls of their homes. The
emperor Elagabalus took things a step further in the third
century, building a mountain of snow—imported from the mountains
via donkey trains—in the garden next to his villa to keep cool
during the summer. Marvelously inefficient, the effort presaged
the spare-no-cost attitude behind our modern-day central air-
conditioning systems. Even back then some scoffed at the concept
of fighting heat with newfangled technologies. Seneca, the stoic
philosopher, mocked the "skinny youths" who ate snow to keep
cool rather than simply bearing the heat like a real Roman ought
to. Such luxuries disappeared during the Dark Ages, and large-
scale air-conditioning efforts didn't resurface in the West
until the 1800s, when well-funde