FIRE'S HAVOC 



265 



Aetistic Bricklaying. 



Indestructible by fire ; as effective as 



granite or marble and less costly. 



ence in repairs, the longevity of the better building and the lessened, 

 i'f any, insurance tliat need be carried, inside of four or five years that 

 difference is wiped out and, as a 

 matter of fact, the best construction 

 is an actual economy, for in no case 

 does the interest on the added cost 

 of good construction amount to 

 anything like the insurance pre- 

 miums, the wear and tear and de- 

 terioration of the ordinary or al- 

 legedly cheap building. The only 

 man who profits by the so-called 

 ordinary or cheap building is 

 the Buddenseick, the speculative 

 builder whose business it is to put 

 up the flimsiest kind of a con- 

 traption, paint it gaudily and sell it at a fat profit to the easily gulled 

 individual who believes in buying ready-made houses. 



The space assigned me will hardly permit our going very extensively 



into the minutiffi of fire-proof con- 

 struction. Suffice it to say that in 

 general terms it means the avoid- 

 ance of anvthing combustible. But 

 farther than that it is also well to 

 remember that many materials 

 that are in themselves incombust- 

 ible, non-inflammable, are most 

 seriously damageable, nevertheless, 

 l)y flame or great heat. Iron, for 

 instance, can not burn but sub- 

 jected to heat it will twist and con- 

 tort and in column form, as an il- 

 lustration, it will collapse to the 

 utter destruction of whatever it is 

 supporting. So that many mate- 

 rials have in turn to be protected 

 from fire though they will not 

 themselves burn. Many people 

 imagine that stone represents the 

 very epitome of safe and perma- 

 nent construction, yet all granites, marbles, sand and limestones spall 

 and go to pieces under severe fire tests. My idea of a perfectly 

 fire-proof building, therefore, is one whose exterior walls are of un- 

 damageable material, brick and terra-cotta, products that have gone 



An 



Insufficiently protected Steel 

 colujin after a fire. 



