APPARATUS FOR EXTINGUISHING FIRES. 497 



played at once. When using the one powerful stream at the bow 

 a brick wall can be penetrated, and the fire is not only deluged, 

 but the force of the stream knocks the flaming timbers to pieces, 

 and so distributes the fire that it can be quenched more rapidly. 

 When playing a multitude of smaller streams the fire boat can go 

 between a warehouse and a group of vessels, no matter how furi- 

 ous the fire may be, and there obtain a point of vantage impos- 

 sible to a land engine. It is stated that the New-Yorker could 

 sink herself in fifty seconds. The crew live in a house on the 

 wharf where the boat is stationed, and can reach their places as 

 rapidly as the members of a land fire company can reach their 

 engines. Fires are kept banked at all hours, and every alarm 

 within reach of the water front is answered. It will not be out 

 of place to quote a passage from an article on Modern Fire Appa- 

 ratus in Scribner's of January, 1891 : 



" It is not uninteresting to note that there are floating fire 

 engines in London. They consist of steam pumps placed on scows 

 which are moored at long intervals along the water front. When 

 an alarm of fire comes in, the captain of the scow goes whooping 

 up and down the water front to get a tug to tow him to the place 

 from which the alarm has come ! " 



Many cities increase the possibilities of fire boats by laying 

 empty pipe lines from the water front inland. The fire boat can 

 couple on the line nearest the fire and the land engines can draw 

 from this unlimited water supply in addition to the regular city 

 system. The time is probably not far distant when every town 

 and city bordering navigable water will have one or more fire 

 boats in its department. 



Steam locomotives can be made to serve as fire engines by 

 attaching a device made by the Nathan Manufacturing Company 

 of New York. It consists of a pipe placed at a point just below 

 the level of the stationary water tanks in use on the railroad. 

 There are two receiving nozzles in the center and two delivery 

 nozzles at the base. The former are connected with a tank or an 

 ordinary hydrant, and steam entering at the top of the pipe will 

 force one eleven-sixteenths-inch stream one hundred and fifteen 

 feet or two half -inch streams sixty feet. This device can be used 

 very effectively in crowded freight yards where the regular fire- 

 men have difficulty in working with promptness, and also at way 

 stations where there is no fire department. 



It has long been known that certain chemicals will not sup- 

 port combustion, and during the middle of this century a number 

 of chemists began to devise means by which such chemicals could 

 be used to advantage at fires. The first practical results were 

 five to ten gallon cans filled with a mixture of gas and water. 

 Small hose was attached, through which the fluid could be played. 



VOL. XLVII. 40 



