618 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of 1857 illustrates a truck carrying a roll of sheet iron that can 

 be raised to form a screen ; and in 1872 another is pictured com- 

 posed of plates that can be raised one above another. The mod- 

 ern high buildings make such apparatus useless at the present 

 time. 



The numerous hand pumps would not receive notice here, 

 were it not for the fact that one of them has been incorporated 

 into a regular fire department. The Johnson pump, made by the 

 National Manufacturing Company of Boston, is composed of a 

 vertical cylinder and piston, provided with an air chamber. A 

 short piece of hose that can be held in the hand is attached near 

 the top. The pump is placed in a pail of water, and an adjust- 

 able clamp enables the operator to steady both pail and pump. 

 Mr. Joseph Bird, in his interesting book entitled Protection 

 against Fire, emphatically advocates the extended use of this 

 pump, in addition to the existing apparatus. The experiment 

 has been tried in Wakefield, Mass., with gratifying results. Al- 

 most a hundred of these pumps are owned by the town authori- 

 ties and distributed in easily accessible places over the town. 

 Every year a majority of the fires are quenched in their incipi- 

 ency by some citizen with the aid of one of the pumps, and the 

 steam fire engine is therefore seldom called upon to answer an 

 alarm where a moment's delay might result in a large fire. The 

 United States Government uses these pumps for the same pur- 

 pose in armories, etc. 



Some experiments have been made in the way of running an 

 electric wire with each line of hose, that a fireman with a tele- 

 graph key or push-button at the nozzle may notify the engineer 

 by telegraph or prearranged bell siguals when to turn the water 

 on and off, when help is needed, etc. The idea is a good one, but 

 as yet has not been entirely perfected, as in dragging a line of 

 hose through a burning building the wire may become broken at 

 a critical moment when it is most needed. 



Bicycles are being introduced in some European departments 

 to enable the men to reach the fires as soon as possible. In some 

 cases small chemical extinguishers are attached. As yet very 

 little has been done in this line in America. The hose wagons 

 and ladder trucks so well accommodate the men that the need of 

 bicycles has not been greatly felt. 



It does not come within the scope of this article to mention 

 the fire-alarm telegraph, the stationary fire equipment of build- 

 ings, fire escapes, etc. It is also hardly necessary to mention the 

 numerous lanterns, trumpets, uniforms, and other objects of like 

 nature. The historical data at the beginning of the article are 

 doubtless incomplete, for historians generally give very little 

 attention to the primitive methods that were so long in use in 



