108 Protection of Persons from Fire. 
pared basket containing a child whose head was covered with a eap 
made of amianthine pasteboard, through flames several yards in 
length, and to reduce the defensive dress to the greatest simplicity, 
he shewed that when the fireman was covered with a cloth dress of 
a single piece, with bootees, gloves, and cap of wire gauze, anda 
mask of amianthus, he could walk through the flames carrying the 
child, &c. without danger. 
In the month of February, 1829, by the direction of the govern- 
ment, the experiments were repeated in the yard of the barracks of 
St. Gervais, where the spectators were arranged in several rows and 
two towers were erected two stories high, surrounded by heaps of 
inflamed materials consisting of faggots and straw. The firemen 
braved the danger with impunity. One man with the basket and 
child, against the advice of M. Aldini, rushed into a narrow place 
where the flames were raging eight yards high. ‘The violence of 
the fire was such that he could not be seen, while a thick black 
smoke spread around, emitting a heat insupportable to the spectators. 
The man was so long invisible that serious doubts were entertained 
of his safe return; but he at length issued from the fiery gulf sale 
and sound, and proud of the danger which he had braved. 
Some time afterwards a circular fire was made in a large mead- 
ow, into the flames and smoke of which firemen entered, two of 
whom passed many times backwards and. forwards carrying theit 
own children on their shoulders, and were followed by a third who 
wore a dress entirely of amianthus, then made for the first time a 
Bologna. 
The grand duke of Tuscany who had attended some of the ex- 
periments at Milan, engaged the author, through his minister, Fos 
sombroni, to prepare suitable apparatus for the instruction of the fire- 
men of Florence, and on the 26th of May, 1829, the author exhib- 
ited in that city before the grand duke a series of experiments, which 
were repeated on the first of June before the first authorities of the - 
city, civil and military, the members of the Academy des George 
philes, and a large part of the corps diplomatique. 
Three rows of wood in the form of an amphitheatre, were arrang- 
ed so as to form two alleys twenty five fathoms in length. A large 
number of firemen, properly prepared, rushed through the fames: — 
and some of them passed through the alleys of fire six times. 9° 
of them carried his own child, eight years of age, through the flames 
another carried upon a crotchet covered with an incombustible v4" 
