APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES. 477 



should be made of every person, to determine the best kind of 

 exercise for that particular person. And these examinations 

 ought to be made by a thoroughly educated physician. It will 

 not do to trust such an important agent in education as physical 

 culture to a man or woman who has only a smattering of knowl- 

 edge. 



Systems of exercise are not half as important as the person 

 who exercises. Systems are only important in what they can 

 do for that person. The systems studied apart from the indi- 

 vidual may be perfect. Applied without judgment to particular 

 individuals they may prove disastrous failures. The persons ex- 

 ercising must be studied first, last, and all the time ; next, their 

 environment ; and then the kinds of exercise suited to their con- 

 dition and needs. 



-*- 



APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES. 



By JOHN G. MORSE. 



DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE 

 COLUMBUS. XIX. 



A PECULIARITY common to all nations is the fact that not 

 until the industries of peace and the armaments of war 

 had been well developed was attention paid to procuring safe- 

 guards against conflagrations ; and when it was at last realized 

 that means for the extinguishing of fire were necessary, so little 

 was attempted that the results were entirely inadequate. Even 

 in the United States, noted the world over for advanced methods 

 of fire-fighting, the marked improvements have been so long in 

 coming that half the men alive to-day can remember the time 

 when the most marked changes were made. 



It is believed that the first hose used for the extinguishing of 

 fire was made from the gut of an ox. This was attached to a bag 

 filled with water, which, being pressed, would force out a jet. 

 Charles F. T. Young, C. E., the author of Fires, Fire Engines, 

 and Fire Brigades, considers it probable that some mechanical 

 devices capable of squirting water existed in Nineveh, Tyre, 

 Babylon, etc. Ctesibius, of Alexandria, who flourished in the 

 second century b. c. during the time of Ptolemy, is said to have 

 invented a fire engine. Philadelphus and Euergetes are also said 

 to have worked in the same direction. 



Certain it is that Hero in 150 b. c. invented and had made a 

 fire engine that was provided with an air chamber, and therefore 

 played a continuous stream. During the darkness of the middle 

 ages fire engines seem to have been forgotten, and it is doubtful 

 if syringes were kept in use. The Chronicles of Augsburg, 



