292 Of securing houses and their inhabitants from fire, 



2. Another means, then, of preventing the progress of fire in a 

 building, is to render it difficult for the fire to make an open passage 

 through the combustible substances which it attacks, merely hy hav- 

 ing those substances closely lined behind with some material which re- 

 sists fire. By an attention to this simple rule, Lord Mahon (now 

 Earl Stanhope) and Mr. David Hartley, (the person vi^ho signed the 

 definitive treaty of peace between this country and Great Britain in 

 1783,) were able to cover with combustibles, in a flaming state, the 

 floors of whole rooms and whole stair-cases, without injury to the 

 buildings of which those rooms and stair-cases made a part ; neither 

 flame nor air being able to pass in this case through and beyond the 

 substance of the wood-work on which those burning materials rested. 

 — Lord Mahon succeeded in his object on this occasion, by placing 

 mortar close below or behind his wood-work ; and Mr. Hartley, if I 

 remember well, accomplished his purpose by fixing sheets of iron in 

 the same situations, closely connecting these sheets with each other. 

 Experiments were publicly exhibited, with perfect success, on each 

 of these plans, before numerous spectators of every rank ; and if 

 my memory does not deceive me, the well known Abbe Mann con- 

 firmed the efficacy of this practice by corresponding trials made in 

 Flanders. — -Here, then, we have a second mode offered to aid our 

 attempts to preserve buildings from fire ; concerning which mode 

 various details, which are truly interesting, will be given in the post- 

 script. It shall only be added in this place, that the principle of this 

 new rule strongly operates, (as has been hinted above,) in favor of 

 those wooden ceilings, in France, where the floors above them are 

 composed of incombustible materials. 



We now proceed lo a third expedient of importance on these occa- 

 sions, of a nature wholly distinct from any thing which has yet been 

 mentioned. 



3. Another particular, then, deserving attention as a guard against 

 conflagrations, especially where an elevated building is concerned, is 

 the establishment of cisterns for holding water in different parts of 

 such edifices; which cisterns may receive their water, either from 

 rain, or from any other convenient mode of supply. 



This plan, in effect, was formerly proposed for one of the public 

 theatres in London ; and it has certainly been adopted for one of the 

 buildings connected with the powder magazines at Purfleet in Essex, 

 in England ; and I am not sure that it has not been employed at the 

 Capitol at Washington, since I know that this suggestion was once 



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