118 Protection of Persons from Fire. 



that the death of a single person occurs. The corps is daily em- 

 ployed in working the engines, and in infantry and gynanastic exercises. 



Experience has proved that when a fire takes place in a theatre, 

 assistance arrives from without always too late. Such places are 

 therefore furnished with engines, which are placed in cellars in such 

 a manner that those who play them may be sheltered from danger 

 during the fire. The water is drawn through a hose from a reservoir 

 immediately beneath, which is filled by the city aqueducts. An as- 

 cending pipe passes through the vault of the cellar, and leads to the 

 fire. This pipe has branches at different stories, through which, by 

 simply opening the stopper, the water plays. At each of these stop 

 cocks is a screw on which is fixed a hose (boyau,) fifty feet long, at 

 the end of which is a lance. These are enclosed in a closet, in 

 which is placed a bell rope corresponding with a closet below, so that 

 if the fireman in the upper story wants water, he rings to the one be- 

 low ; the latter does the same, and so on in succession to the cellar. 

 When the fire is over, a second ring warns the engineer that it is 

 time to stop. 



In each closet is an axe, a hand sponge, another sponge on the 

 end of a long rod, and a long hook for cutting cords and pulling 

 down inflamed parts. 



Reservoirs are also constructed in the upper stories of the theatre, 

 from which pipes descend to the different parts of the house. Hose 

 which can be speedily adjusted to these pipes are kept in due order 

 in the closets, 



Explanation of the Plates and dimensions of the Apparatus. 



PLATE I. I 



Fig. 1. The height of this apparatus is six inches. The lamp 

 should be kept level so that the flame may not vary eitlTer in size or 

 intensity. In bringing an iron wire about one tenth of an inch thick 

 very near the flame it goes out. 



Fig. 2. A wrapper of wire gauze and amianthus into which a fin- 

 ger is inserted and then held over a lamp, to shew the advantage of 

 a glove for handling and carrying hot articles. The amianthus should 

 be at least one tenth of an inch thick, and the two cylinders of wire 

 gauze (the one inserted into the other,) must be of such dimensions 

 that the fore finger may remain at ease in the enclosure. The ex- 

 terior gauze may have sixteen wires to the inch and the interior thirty. 



