48 SAFETY OF LIFE FROM FIRE AT SEA. 



The Chairman : — That would make for water, tank and fittings at least twenty-five 

 tons up in the air about sixty feet above the surface of the water on a boat drawing but thir- 

 teen and a half feet of water. That would be a serious matter for a steamer like the Com- 

 monwealth, which has now ample reserve stability, but it would be more serious for many 

 ocean liners. 



Mr. Teague: — What is the total tonnage? 



The Chairman : — It is not a question of tonnage, it is a question of stability. Pardon 

 me, I want to get you straight on the difference between tonnage and stability. 



Mr. Teague: — I thank you very much. 



The Chairman : — Evidently you do not understand the question of stability. The 

 meeting will kindly forgive me for interrupting at this particular point, but it is evident 

 that Mr. Teague, not being a naval architect, does not understand the difference between the 

 tonnage and the stability of a vessel, and I would like to put him straight, in order that he 

 may discuss the subject from the standpoint of the naval architect. 



Mr. Teague : — I think this remark is hardly pertinent, since I am a naval archi- 

 tect by training and several years' experience. During my work in fire protection, if I have 

 strayed from the principles and theory of naval architecture, I am not surprised. 



The second speaker brought up the point regarding the use of automatic sprinklers and 

 referred to their use on cargo vessels. My paper was intended only to cover passenger 

 steamers, and I have not gone into the matter of cargo vessels at all in this paper. I do 

 wish to bring out the fact strongly that I have not laid claim to the automatic sprinkler 

 as the only means of protection on shipboard. I have tried to bring out the point that the 

 automatic sprinkler is the best form of protection, but in addition to that some value 

 should be placed upon the use of gases and steam. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 



The Chairman : — The question of danger from fire on board of vessels seems to come 

 up perennially in this Society, and very properly, too, I suppose, but the remarks of the 

 author of the paper just presented in closing the discussion calls to my mind some figures 

 given at the 1910 meeting, Volume 18, as to the danger from fire on board of vessels. I have 

 sent for a copy of the Proceedings of that meeting. You will recall that the speaker just said 

 that we have on a steamer like the Commonwealth, for instance, a situation comparable to that 

 of a frame building on shore. In the City of New York frame buildings are few and far be- 

 tween. If they exist they must be sixty or seventy years old and it is a curious fact that 

 fires rarely occur in them. 



The fires in the City of New York occur in brick or stone buildings, or in so-called 

 fireproof buildings. In our Transactions for 1910, page 215, can be found certain figures. 

 In the years 1908, 1909 and 1910 — at that time the only years for which the information 

 could be obtained from the Fire Department of the City of New York — there were in this 

 city 227 lives lost in fires, while in the same three years on board of all, of the vessels in- 

 spected in the United States there were lost by fires the lives of 7 passengers and 43 of 

 crews, 50 lives in all. 



