108 Protection of Persons from Fii'e, 



pared basket containing a child whose head was covered with a cap 

 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, and a 

 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 safe 

 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 their 

 own children on their shoulders, and were followed by a third who 

 wore a dress entirely of amianthus, then made for the first time at 

 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 Georgo- 

 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 fiuhoms in length. A large , 

 number of firemen, properly prepared, rushed through the flames, 

 and some of them passed through die alleys of fire six times. One 

 of them carried his own child, eight years of age, through die flames^ 

 anoUier carried upon a crotcliet covered with an incombustible var-: 



