264 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the architects and engineers of Europe. They really have nothing to 

 compare with our superior buildings. Take, for instance, the Singer 

 Tower in jSTew York and regardless of its height, there is nothing in 

 Europe to compare with it in the way of fire-resisting qualities. The 

 trouble with us is that there are so few of those buildings. We have 

 something like 12,000,000 structures in the country, but of that vast 

 number there are but 8,000 in which even the slightest effort has been 

 made at fire-prevention ! It is our average construction that is so poor 

 and that makes such a bad showing compared with Europe. You can 

 readily see that in a city composed of buildings that are not fire-proof, 

 but that are comparatively incombustible, the fire hazard is much less 

 than it is in a city of fire-traps with a few perfect buildings scattered 

 here and there. And, too, in order to resist fire those fire-proof build- 

 ings have to be superlatively perfect because there is so much fuel all 

 around them that a fire attack against them is vigorous in the extreme. 

 In the European cities the big and important buildings need not to be 

 so perfectly constructed because the danger of fire from within is always 

 the minimum and the danger of fire from without is not very great on 

 account of the superior general quality of construction. There it is 

 seldom that a fire gets beyond the building in which it originates. 

 Here, in spite of our splendid fire departments — and there are none 

 superior to them, for none have the practise and the experience they 

 have — fires frequently extend to neighboring buildings, entire blocks 

 and indeed whole sections of cities. 



Municipalities, states and even the country at large are beginning 

 to realize the gravity of this fire waste and that sometliing drastic has 

 to be done towards fire-prevention. The great trouble is that whatever 

 we may do now can simply be an abstaining from adding fresh fuel to 

 burn because we have received such a heritage of combustible buildings 

 that it will be yet many years before those old fire-traps will have all 

 been destroyed or torn down to be replaced with better buildings. But 

 a beginning has to be made some time and most of our cities have so 

 revamped their building regulations that at least within certain dis- 

 tricts nothing of an •inflammable nature may not be erected. But that 

 is not enough, because immediately outside of those districts we are 

 permitting fire-trap construction that, in turn, will be the inheritance 

 of our successors and will be in congested districts and prove almost 

 insuperable barriers to real i^rogress. The thing to do is to absolutely 

 prohibit inflammable construction, the use of wood, in the structural 

 parts of buildings erected anywhere within the jurisdiction of a city. 



Many may deem this a great hardship upon the poor man and that 

 it would be almost prohibitive in cost. That is a most popular mistake. 

 The first cost of a fire-proof building is but 12 per cent, or 15 per cent, 

 more than that of ordinary construction. But, considering the differ- 



