1000 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H. 
them time to subdue the successive inroads made by the fire in 
one part or other of the building. | Much emphasis has also been 
laid on the protection afforded by the wire gauze covering the 
windows, because on the north side, facing Brooks and McGlashan’s 
warehouse, and only separated by a narrow right-of-way, many 
of the window-frames remain intact; but at the northern end of 
the east side, facing Crawford’s, with a street of double the width 
between, the gauze coverings failed completely and a couple of 
rooms were burnt out. The explanation is that on the north side 
the wind drove the flames away and thus did not test the gauze 
severely, while on the east, Crawford’s being a lower building, an 
eddy was formed which drove the flames on to the windows. It 
is therefore clear the gauze is a failure, and I would much prefer 
iron shutters, when the precaution is taken to have the runners 
securely fixed. Grinnell’s Sprinklers are fitted throughout the 
building, but they only came into play in a few places. 
The Mutual Store is claimed in Melbourne to be the first 
building of its kind in Australia; but I think it only right to put 
on record that the Head Office building of the Mutual Life Associa- 
tion of Australasia, in Sydney, which I designed, is constructed 
on the same lines, and was completed before the Melbourne 
example was commenced. 
Every great fire, if its conditions and spread are carefully 
observed and analysed, teaches some new lessons and confirms and 
enforces old ones. I will now endeavour to state these as they 
have occurred to me. The first and most important is the 
absolute necessity of the earliest possible information of an out- 
break being conveyed to the fire stations, so that a fire may be 
checked at its commencement. In the present case the first call 
was received at 2:20 a.m. on Sunday, and afew minutes after, 
when the men arrived, flames were breaking out of the windows 
of the four lower storeys of Craig, Williamson, and Thomas’s 
warehouse, thus showing the place must have been burning a long 
time—in Mr. Stein’s opinion since ] p.m. on Saturday, when the 
employees left. The possibility of such a thing happening in one 
of the busiest blocks of a great city without discovery is a grave 
impeachment of present methods. The solution of the problem 
is, however, more a question of administration than of building 
construction, and as such the Fire Brigades Board, the Insurance 
Offices, and the owners of premises, are the most competent to 
deal with it. The question seems to resolve itself into the 
respective advantages or disadvantages of human or mechanical 
methods. If decided in favour of the latter, architects, and 
engineers may have something to say, but otherwise had better 
leave the matter to those specially concerned. 
The next lesson is one that other cities have learnt, but which, 
till lately, we have ignored: I mean the rigid limitation of the 
