Protection of Persons from Fire. 109 



nish, a man upon a saddle made for the purpose, and whose face 

 was covered with a mask of amianthus ; the captain of the company 

 and some others carried large bars of red hot iron, protected by the 

 gloves, and others plunged their heads into the flames guarded either 

 by the mask or cap. Several physicians who attended the experi- 

 ments, observed that some of the experimenters experienced very 

 little aheration of the pulse. The result of these trials " surpassed 

 any expectation that could have been conceived of the execution of 

 a project of so much apparent danger." 



Chap. ^.-^Application of the safeguards against fire to many of 



the arts. 



The author supposes that in several of the arts in which high heat 

 is employed, some of the contrivances which have been described 

 may be of use. 



In glass blowing the melting pot is sometimes overturned or 

 nearly so, and must be righted. The ovens are exposed to the same 

 accident. If the head and hands of the workmen were protected 

 by the prescribed covering, the damages alluded to might be repair- 

 ed more promptly and effectually and with much less risk than they 

 now are. The same remarks apply to a certain extent to pottery. 



In high furnaces, reverheratory furnaces, melting, moulding, <^c. 

 — The workmen would often be saved from injury in these arts if their 

 faces were protected from inflamed cinders, and their lower limbs 

 from torrents of inflamed metal. But they have never thought of 

 rendering their clothes incombustible or of handling red hot metal 

 in the act of forging. 



Architecture. — The immense utility of wire gauze in closing pas- 

 sages against flame without interrupting the circulation of air, the 

 passage of gas, Sic. will sooner or later be appreciated by architects. 

 To devise a suitable protection against fire is surely no less im- 

 portant than to guard against thunder by lightning rods, and no less 

 worthy of architectural skill. 



Varnish making, paper coloring, magazines of inflammable mate- 

 rials, &fC. 



The progress of the flames, in cases of accident in these fabrics 

 is often too rapid for external assistance. The metallic gauze and 

 other armor if at hand, might be of essential service to life and 

 property. 



