> ST a 
Protection of Persons from Fire. 10! 
sistence; then mixed with common size, and subjected to the usual 
process for making pasteboard. These sheets have sufficient con- 
sistence to admit of being smoothed without abrasion. It has been 
manufactured under the author’s direction at Milan, Florence, Bo- 
logna, and other places in Italy, in sheets of about half a yard long 
and a foot wide. 
Cuar. Iil—New method of enabling firemen to preserve them- 
selves from the violence of flame. 
The author adverts to the power of the human body of sustaining, 
by well known artificial expedients, extremes of temperature from 
that at which mercury congeals, to that of the burning valley of the 
Niger, and even, as in the case of Blagden, Fordyce and others, to — 
aheated air, exceeding in temperature that of boiling water. But all 
these are vastly below the heat of flame. The only means of sup- 
porting, even for a short period, such burning and destructive heat, is 
a defence similar to that which the author proposes—the interposi- 
tion between the exposed parts of the body and the burning source, 
a substance which is at once a slow conductor, and incombustible. 
The finer the metallic gauze, that is, the smaller the wire, and the 
more humerous the meshes, the better will it repel the flame. The 
non-conducting substance must evidently be such as to resist violent 
’gitations of the air, and whirlwinds of flame, and of course it must 
have strength and weight. Amianthus would be preferable to every 
thing else, if it could be every where easily procured, and the prepa- 
tation of its cloth were less expensive. 
To prove by a simple experiment the efficacy of metallic gauze, 
“ie author takes two tubes of this wire tissue, the one enchased with- 
in the other, but separated by a thin stratum of air. Its diameter is 
such as to admit a finger clothed with amianthus. He then exposes 
the finger fully to the flame of a lamp or candle for three or ‘four 
minutes with impunity. This isa much greater heat than that to . 
Which firemen are generally exposed. 
In whatever way the defensive armors are arranged for the pro- 
hang of firemen, the author lays down the following as rules of 
Practical importance. 
1. That the firemen avoid carefully all contact of their bodies with 
substances that are rapid conductors of heat. 
= That: the armor. be. so prepared as to present the fewest pos- 
sible openings, 
