THE FIREPROOFING OF CITY BUILDINGS. 585 



portion of the floor began to show signs of yielding, but it did not give way 

 for amither h)iir, wlien a portion fell in. The flames then readily laid hold 

 of the battens on their exp ised sides, burning them ort" one after the other. 

 It was then determined to extinguish the lire so as to save a portion of the 

 floor, to ascertain what weight it would carry after its exposure to the 

 flames. A fire engine was therefore called into requisition, and in about 

 an hour the fire was subdued. About 6 ft. of the flooring was thus saved, 

 the greater portion of which was that to which the plaster was held up by 

 means of nails. Althougli the underside of the flooring was charred to a 

 depth of about 4 inches, it sustained a weight of about 3.5 tons before giving 

 way. The weight consisted of a pile of granite pitcliing stones, which 

 were gradually loaded on to the remnant of the floor until it broke down. 

 These results show that timber flooring, thus constructed, presents an 

 extraordinary amount of I'esistance to fire, and the experiments may be 

 pronounced as most satisfactory. The brickwork was still green at starting, 

 and the giving out of one of the Avails readily admitted tlie fire to the first 

 series of battens, otherwise it is a questien if tliey would have- yielded to 

 the flames so soon. The experiments demonstrated that after -ih hours 

 exposure to an intense fire — and about three hours after the rolled joist had 

 been crippled — the plaster-protected portion of the floor was still sutticiently 

 safe for firemen to walk upon. In no case in the event of a fire, would a 

 floor be subjected to such a crucial test as was this, for efforts would 

 quickly be made for the extinction of the fire. But should such a remote 

 contingency happen with one of Messrs. Evans and Swain's floors, it will be 

 seen that other things being equal, a remarkable margin of safety will be 

 left. ^Ve may observe that the floor was the lightest form recommended by 

 tlie patentees for ordinary buildings " 



Appendix B. 



(From the Sydney Morning Herald, December 3rd, 1SS8J. 



THE LATE FIRE. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE HERALD. 



Sir, — The recent destructive fire has called especial attention to the 

 system of building generally adopted in this city, and Superintendent Bear 

 in his letter in your issue of Tuesday also refers to the inflammable character 

 of a large amount of city property, and the necessity of revised building 

 laws to regulate the new and lofty buildings now being erected. Being 

 much interested in this subject, I had the pleasure last .August of reading 

 a paper before the Australian Association for the Advancement of Science 

 on the " Fireproofing of Buildings," and in one of my opening paragraphs 

 described the ordinary city structure as follows :— 



" Our i>resent mode of building is to run up brick or stone walls as thin 

 as the Building Act will permit, fill the openings with wooden frames, form 

 the floors of inflammable Oregon joists, cover them witli boards and ceil 

 with thin wooden linings, cut them through from top to bottom for lifts, 

 cased in with wood (if cased at all), divide the rooms with wooden 

 partitions, erect a wooden staircase, and finally cover all with a wooden 

 roof What is this but a magnified matchbox ? " These remarks have 

 been forcibly illustrated by the recent fire. For instance, unprotected 

 floors of Oregon are aljout the most inflammable that can be devised. Lifts 

 cut right through these floors from top to bottom act as a vertical flue for 

 the rapid exten.sionof the fire, and would doom any building, notwithstand- 

 ing the most vigorous attempts of the n.ost perfect fire brigade, in confirma- 

 tion of this eye witnesses noticed that the fire rushed up the lift-shaft and 

 so set the upper stories of the front ablaze. One gentleman who was in 

 Roberts's Hotel at the time also informed me that the flaming debris as it 



