PB:pVENTION AND EXTINGUISHMENT OF FIRES. 149 



observed in tfee construction of all classes of buildings, and it is very rare 

 indeed that a fire in one of them spreads beyond the room in which it 

 originates, even should the stock of goods or other contents be entirely de- 

 stroyed. 



The same reasoning applies to a eonsidorable extent to the construction 

 of staircases, halls and elevators in public buildings, hotels and dwellings, 

 which, in many cases, become and serve as swift conductors of fire. 



Most of you will recall the burning of the Fifth Avenue hotel, in New 

 York, a few years since (and more recently, the Southern hotel, in St. 

 Louis, Missouri), at which times a number of lives were lost and much 

 property destroyed, simply from the fact that the flames of a fire origi- 

 nating in one of the lower stories were drawn, as through a tall flue, 

 up the passage-way of an elevator and through the halls, thus communiea- 

 ting almost simultaneously with the whole six or seven stories and cutting 

 off the sole means of escape for many of the occupants of the house. 



No stairway should ascend continuously fram bottom to top of tall 

 buildings without being provided with some effective means for cutting off 

 the current of air between the different floors. No hall should extend from 

 end to end or side to side of our large asylums, seminaries or hotels without 

 being furnished with iron doors which, in case of fire, could be easily closed 

 and effectually secured, so as to cut off the draught of air through them, thus 

 cheeking the rapid spread of the flames and giving the inmates a chance 

 to escape with their lives, if no more. A very small expense, comparatively, 

 for such doors for hallways and for appliances for closing the well-holes of 

 staircases and the hatchways of elevators on each floor, were they nothing 

 more than curtains of some substantial woolen stuff which could be quickly 

 stretched and fastened over the openings, might, in many instances, save 

 costly buildings and preserve valuable human lives. (Since writing the 

 above I am informed that Yassar college is provided with iron doors for 

 the hallways). 



The apparent impossibility of rendering buildings absolutely fire-proof 

 has been abundantly demonstrated by the ever memorable conflagrations 

 of Chicago and Boston, where massive structures of iron, granite, marble 

 and brick, upon which immense sums had been expended to render them^ 

 incombustible, were swept away and consumed almost like straw or paper. 

 This being for the present admitted to be the case, we will turn our atten- 

 tion to such details in the construction of our buildings as will enable them 

 to resist primary ignition under ordinary exposure and sufficiently retard 

 the combustion after ignition to give time for applying the means of extin- 

 guishment before the heat is too great to be overcome. Much may be done 

 by the use of iron beams, rafters, joists, floors, lath, roofs and cornices in 

 buildings of stone and brick, but as such buildings can only be erected at 

 great expense, and as it is not to be expected that the use of wood as a 

 building material will ever be abandoned, we will confine ourselves to look- 

 ing for some method of placing these inflammable materials in the condition 



