374 

of water continuously applied in fair force and 
bulk from buckets and hand-pumps.. The possi- 
bility of applying water in bulk continuously with 
a good cooling effect cannot be obtained from the 
ordinary householder’s supply of extinguishers. 
Of course, in public buildings where there are 
many extinguishers immediately at hand, where 
they are thoroughly maintained, and are handled 
by skilled or trained men, they are most useful. 
They are the most handy of water economising 
minor fire appliances in. the hands of a profes- 
sional fire brigade, although we observe the 
London brigade only used them in 577 instances 
last year, whilst they used buckets in 1248 
cases. They are essential makeshifts for con- 
ditions where buckets and hand-pumps cannot 
be equally well stowed or applied, as, for 
instance, on trains, in small boats, or for other 
awkward places, as, for instance, on the aero- 
plane in flight, but, to repeat, the alpha and 
omega of fire extinguishing is not to be found in 
the extinguisher for the ordinary man in the 
street. His vade mecum should be the bucket 
and hand-pump, although they are less showy. 
These observations, however, should not pre- 
clude the purchase, and, in fact, should not dis- 
courage the purchase of well-made mechanical 
portable liquid fire-extinguishers, where there is 
a probability of their being properly maintained 
and looked after, as, for instance, in public and 
semi-public buildings, in large industrial estab- 
lishments, or estates having private fire brigades, 
etc., especially if their attempted application can 
be immediately followed by the application of a 
hydrant or fire engine. In such places, if of good 
make in the first instance, and regularly looked 
after, they are neither likely to burst and injure 
the operator nor are they likely to get clogged up 
and fail at the critical moment. The danger of 
bursting is no small danger, and has resulted in 
fatalities as well as many personal injuries, whilst 
in the large majority of establishments where 
these appliances are not properly looked after they 
will be found defective at the time they are to be 
used. 
Thus at the initial stage of purchase, some 
standard as to safety for extinguishers is essential 
to limit the risk of careless users. It is very much 
to the credit of the British Fire Prevention Com- 
mittee, to whose work we have had frequent occa- 
sion to refer, that it has for some years been 
pressing towards obtaining a sound standard of 
manufacture in chemical fire-extinguishers, and 
that it has further succeeded in getting these 
standards adopted as necessary standards by the 
Government and other principal purchasers at 
home and in the colonies. 
One of the first results of the Committee’s pro- 
paganda in 1911-12 was that the fire insurance 
companies early in 1913 adopted an American 
specification which had been long in force in the 
United States, and started listing extinguishers 
that complied with this form. The American 
model, however, being insufficient for British con- 
ditions, the British Fire Prevention Committee, 
NO. 2379, VOL. 95] 
NATURE 



[JUNE 3, 1915 

which had been making exhaustive tests both 
with new appliances and appliances in actual use, 
issued its own provisional specification later in 
that year, which form was immediately adopted 
by several authorities of importance in their pur- 
chases. Extinguisher construction accordingly 
commenced to improve. 
Next, the lire Prevention Committee suggested 
some form of conference with the Government 
departments on the matter, so that the Govern- 
ment departments might be specifying either on 
the committee’s provisional specification or some 
similar—preferably stronger—specification. The 
result of this conference has been that, in turn, 
H.M. Office of Works last summer, the Metro- 
politan Police last autumn, the Board of Trade 
this March, and other departments have either 
issued their own specifications, which are now 
practically identical, or have adopted the im- 
proved form of the British Fire Prevention Com- 
mittee’s specification of January 1, known as the 
1915 standard. The-only corporations which still 
keep to the lower standard are the insurance com- 
panies, but no doubt they will also come into line 
as time goes on, whilst in the meantime they 
benefit from the fact that the more responsible 
makers are now all making their appliances to 
either the Fire Prevention Committee’s 1915 
specification or to those of the Government depart- 
ments named. The recent War Office contracts, 
for instance, are all for extinguishers to the Office 
of Works’ specification, whilst half-a-dozen other 
departments are specifying their war emergency 
supplies to the Committee’s schedule. 
A point has, of course, been made by the 
traders that the existence of several specifications 
makes it difficult for makers to keep suitable 
stocks, but this is not the case in actuality, inas- 
much as it will be found that any maker who will 
stock cylindrical extinguishers made to the 1915 
specification will meet the requirements of either 
one of the authorities and the committee. 
All this, of course, touches the great corpora- 
tions, the great public authorities, and the public 
when using establishments controlled by public 
authorities, be they theatres, factories, or the like. 
The misfortune, however, is that the general 
public, the householder, the ordinary  estate- 
owner, the ordinary motor-car owner, etc., are 
still subject to the cheap-jack extinguisher and the 
specious tout who sells nothing more than a dan- 
gerous “tin can” at an exorbitant price—a can 
which probably costs somewhere around tos. to 
manufacture, and for which he asks anything he 
can get—frequently as much as 2l. to 3). 
It is an open secret that the best-made chemical 
fire-extinguishers can be produced in large quan- 
tities and sold according to external finish, and 
after allowing for a fair profit, from, say, 17s. to 
20s., to comply with the specifications named, 
and they should thus be obtainable in lesser quan- 
tities of handsome finish at 25s. or less. The 
whole myth of purchasing extinguishers at prices 
varying from 2l. to 3l., holding 2 gallons of 
liquid, gaudily furbished, is bad enough when the 
