APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES. 615 



is a piece of leather-bound canvas, ten feet square. Handles 

 along the sides enable a group of firemen to hold the net taut 

 to catch any one who may jump from above. The life net did not 

 originate in this country with the pompier service. Canvas nets 

 have been in use for some time, and at the present day their place 

 is being taken by circular rope nets that are more yielding. Be- 

 ing formed in a circle, each man obtains a direct pull from the 

 center. The Hunter net is composed of a spiral of rope, and the 

 Empire net is made of concentric circles of rope, the ropes in each 

 case being supported with radial lines. It is a most difficult 

 matter to hold a life net securely and receive the shock of a fall- 

 ing body. When a man has jumped from an upper story, pos- 

 sibly sixty feet above the street, and his helpless body suddenly 

 emerges from a cloud of smoke and flame that is pouring from 

 lower windows, the firemen must instantly have the net directly 

 under him and then brace themselves to receive the shock. The 

 pompier ladders, etc., are also often carried on hose wagons, that 

 every chance may be given to put them in use at the earliest 

 moment. 



There are several other articles carried on ladder trucks. The 

 life gun or life pistol is used to shoot a slug or arrow, to which is 

 attached a loosely coiled rope, over the roof of a building. The 

 inmates can then pull up a stronger rope and descend to the 

 ground. There are also short roof ladders with hooks to cling- 

 over the ridge-pole, and some departments carry a tripod ladder 

 that may be stood under an electric wire, where a fireman with 

 insulated shears can remove the dangerous obstruction. This 

 ladder is the invention of Captain Griffin, of the Boston Fire De- 

 partment. The ram, a heavy battering pole worked by three or 

 more men, held a place in departments for a long time, and was 

 used to batter down doors, etc. This is being replaced to a great 

 extent by the Detroit door opener, a simple prying device which 

 rips the entire lock out of place or the door off its hinges in a 

 shorter space of time than that in which the same could be 

 battered down. Ladder trucks are also provided with chemical 

 extinguishers, rubber blankets, medicines for burns, and several 

 sundries. 



Although the protective departments had a forerunner in 

 some of the early fire companies whose members carried canvas 

 bags to be used in saving property, the insurance companies did 

 not introduce their patrols or salvage corps for several years 

 later. Some of the insurance companies of New York in 1839 

 organized a corps of bagmen, who saved what they could of en- 

 dangered property. Later a two-wheeled hand wagon, supplied 

 with half a dozen rubber covers, was put in service. Later a per- 

 manent station, equipped with a four-wheeled wagon, drawn by 



