FIRE ESCAPE 



still largely used to-day. It con- 

 sisted of two cylinders with 

 plungers working in them and 

 connected with a common wooden 

 beam by which the plungers were 

 alternately moved up and down 

 in then* cylinders. In the former 

 movement the plungers drew water 

 into the cylinders, and in the latter 

 they forced it out through a com- 

 mon jet, the double arrangement 

 permitting a continuous discharge. 

 It also appears that the apparatus, 

 either by design or accident, in- 

 cluded an air chamber which would 

 give steadiness to the discharge. 



The Romans made large leather 

 bags which they filled with water 

 and then forced the water out by 

 pressing the bags, thus enabling 

 them to throw the water some 

 considerable distance through long 

 spouts attached to the bags. Water 

 syringes were used in Germany in 

 the 16th century and in Great 

 Britain till the end of the 17th. 

 The latter took two or three men 

 to work them, but were not very 

 effective. In 1657 there existed in 

 Nuremberg a fire engine which was 

 drawn by horses and took 30 men 

 to work it which from the de- 

 scription given by a contemporary 

 writer was a practical adaptation 

 of the apparatus described by 

 Hero. The hose and suction pipe 

 were introduced by the Dutch 

 engineer Jan der Heide in 1670, 

 while in 1684 the French architect 

 Claude Perrault suggested the use 

 of the air chamber. 



The immediate precursor of the 

 modern fire engine was the machine 

 made by Richard Newsham, a 

 pearl button maker of London, 

 who took out patents for his engine 

 about 1730. Again in essential 

 ideas this machine was on the lines 

 of the form described by Hero, 

 but it was a practical and efficient 

 apparatus, and Newsham con- 

 structed a considerable number, 

 one of which at least was sent to 

 New York. At a demonstration 

 in London, Newsham threw a jet 

 of water over the grasshopper which 

 crowned the top of the then Royal 

 Exchange, a height of 160 ft. One 

 of his engines, supplied to Dart- 

 mouth, is now in the museum at 

 South Kensington, in good work- 

 ing condition. Newsham' s engine 

 was similar to the hand-power 

 engines now found in many large 

 country mansions. 



A modern fire engine consists of 

 a special type of tubular steam 

 boiler, very compact, and capable 

 of raising steam to a pressure of 

 from 100 to 200 Ib. per square 

 inch in a few minutes, and one or 

 more steam-driven pumps, all 

 mounted on a light but strong 

 wheeled carriage. Until recently 



31 60 



the engine was drawn by horses, 

 although it has frequently been 

 proposed to draw it by its own 

 steam ; but of recent years the 

 petrol motor tractor has displaced 

 horses to a very large extent. Such 

 an engine will throw from 500 to 

 1,400 gallons of water per minute 

 to a height of 150 feet. Its total 

 weight will be about 2 tons. 

 Specially powerful engines will 

 weigh from four to five tons, inclu- 

 sive of the water in their boilers. 

 Engines with motor tractors and 

 motor- opera ted pumps are also 

 largely adopted. The whole engine 

 is much lighter than a steam engine, 

 thus reducing the weight that 

 has to be transported through 

 the streets, while the trouble of get- 

 ting up steam is avoided. Neverthe- 

 less, many competent fire engineers 

 consider that the steam-operated 

 pumps still have the balance of 

 advantages. 



Fire Escape. Device of two 

 general classes : those which are 

 permanently attached to the build- 

 ing, and those which are brought 

 to it when a fire has broken out. 

 To the former belong many ap- 

 pliances, from the simple knotted 

 rope attached at one end to a win- 

 dow frame, and by the aid of which 

 a cool man may climb down to the 

 ground in safety or lower a per- 

 son from a considerable height, 

 to the elaborate external stair- 

 cases and balconies built of iron 

 with which many modern buildings, 

 such as factories and large hotels in 

 this country, and still more in the 

 United States, are now provided. 



Of the portable appliances the 

 chief is the familiar wheeled ladder, 

 consisting of a principal ladder and 

 a number of supplementary or ex- 

 tension ladders, which when joined 

 together permit a height of 60 feet 

 and over to be reached. The escape 

 is also provided with a chute or 

 shoot of copper wire netting which 

 is attached to the under side of the 

 ladders and rises with the exten- 

 sion. A person may slide down 

 this shoot to the ground without 

 risk of injury. For the same pur- 

 pose shoots of stout canvas are 

 adopted and kept permanently 

 ready for use in many establish- 

 ments where numerous workers 

 are congregated on upper floors. 

 They are in the form of a large pipe, 

 with appliances at one end by 

 which the shoot may be attached 

 to a window or held from the inside 

 of a room in the building. When in 

 use the lower end is held by two or 

 three persons on the ground, stand- 

 ing at a distance from the building, 

 so that the shoot hangs at an angle. 

 A child may be sent down such a 

 shoot with perfect safety. The 

 hook ladder may be used as a fire 



FIREPLACE 



escape, although its primary object 

 is to enable a fireman to gain access 

 to the upper floors of a burning 

 building. See Fire Prevention. 



Firefly. Name applied generally 

 to beetles which are luminous in 

 the dark. In Europe they are 

 represented by the family Lampy- 

 ridae, of which the glow-worm is a 

 familiar example. In America and 

 the West Indies the genus Pyro- 

 phorus of the elater beetles are 

 famed for the green and red lights 

 which they display in flight. Fire- 

 flies are frequently used as hair 

 ornaments in the W. Indies, and 

 also in S. Italy. 



Firelock. Musket in which the 

 means of igniting gunpowder was 

 by flint and steel. About 1690 it 

 replaced the matchlock, a musket 

 that required a burning match to 

 discharge it. In the old drill books 

 the command " Shoulder your fire- 

 lock " was used before " Shoulder 

 arms " came into use. See Flint 

 Lock ; Gun ; Musket. 



Fire-making. Artificial pro- 

 duction of flame, spark, or glowing 

 heat. Of primeval invention, it 

 became one of the mightiest factors 

 in human culture. Natural mani- 

 festations of fire were doubtless 

 feared before man perceived its 

 beneficent possibilities. Use gave 

 rise to preservation, preservation 

 to production at will. 



Artificial fire may have origi- 

 nated in wood-friction. A Mous- 

 terian beechwood fire twirl (Tylor's 

 fire drill) was found in 1904, at 

 Krapina, in Croatia. Fire twirls 

 are rotated between the palms in 

 Australia, as in ancient India and 

 Mexico, are aided by a cord by the 

 Maoris, and by a bow in early 

 Egypt ; they are gripped by the | 

 teeth by the Eskimo, and weighted 

 with a spindle-whorl by the Chuk- 

 chi. Other frictional appliances 

 are stick-and-groove fire ploughs 

 rubbed along the grain in Poly- 

 nesia, and fire saws rubbed across 

 the grain by the Malays. A pneu- 

 matic fire piston is peculiar to 

 modern S.E. Asia. The primeval ! 

 percussion implement strike-a- 

 light resulted from flmt-knapping, 

 and flint and pyrites developed into 

 the early iron -age flint and steel. 



Fireplace. Recess in the wall 

 of a room, formerly consisting of 

 an open space walled on three sides 

 by stone or bricks, but now 

 generally filled with a metal fitting, 

 which contains a fire for heating 

 purposes. The earliest form of 

 fireplace is commonly believed to 

 have been the hearth in the centre 

 of a room, but there is evidence 

 that the wall fireplace has an 

 equally long ancestry. In the 

 Norman keep, for example, where 

 the rooms were placed one over the 



