160 PREVENTION AND EXTINGUISHMENT OF FIRES. 



instance under floors or within partitions in buildings, in the holds of ves- 

 sels and in mines. 



The first of these agencies to be considered is steam, which from its al- 

 most universal use and ready applicability to such cases, becomes a very im- 

 portant and effective power. Suppose a fire originates in a basement or 

 •other underground room from the furnace which is generating the very 

 steam subsequently used for its extinction ; it is not readily accessible to 

 firemen with their hose and pipes, neither can it be reached with water from 

 buckets • but with no loss of time whatever a jet of steam can be turned upon 

 it, the doors of the apartment closed, and in a few minutes every corner 

 and cranny will be filled with an overwhelming and certain extinguisher. 



In the same manner steamships and steamboats may often be saved from 

 destruction by fires originating in their holds where no amount of water 

 ■short of enough to sink the vessel will reach them, while by closing the 

 hatches and forcing in steam through pipes connected with the boilers the 

 flames will be very soon subdued and with but little or no damage to the 

 •cargo from the extinguishing agent. 



It is but a year or two since reports of a terrible fire in a coal mine in 

 Pennsylvania reached us through the newspapers ; a fire which raged irre- 

 pressibly for several months, doing vast damage. After exhausting all 

 means within their power to quench it,unavailingly, the owners determined 

 to try the effect of steam. The entrance was made as tight ^s possible and 

 immense quantities of steam forced in, which fortunately resulted in the 

 speedy extinction of the conflagration. 



Dr. Weidenbusch, of Wiesbaden, also highly recommends steam as a fire 

 extinguisher, and gives as an illustration of its efiiciency the case of a fac- 

 tory in which a fire had been raging unmanageably for two and one-half 

 hours, at which time steam was turned on, and in half an hour the fire was 

 extinguished, although there were no means of confining the steam to any 

 particular locality in the building. 



Carbonic acid gas has also been brought into service as an extinguisher 

 under similar circumstances, both on land and on shipboard, sometime mixed 

 with steam, as in "Phillip's Fire Annihilator," sometimes with nitrogen 

 and sometimes alone, but successfully in all cases where the surroundings 

 were favorable. A noted case is that of a coal mine in England, which had 

 been on fire for thirty years, but which was extinguished by the use of this 

 gas within one month after its first introduction. 



Sulphurous acid gas may also be rendered very useful in many such 

 cases, and is peculiarly adapted to them from its requiring no special ap- 

 paratus for its production or application. If a chimney is on fire, a half 

 pound of sulphur or brimstone burned in the fire-place or stove, all openings 

 in the chimney having first been made as tight as possible, will in two min- 

 utes extinguish every spark of the fire. If a fire breaks out it the hold of 

 a, sailing vessel, the use of steam is of course out of the question, and there 

 may be no means at hand for generating and applying carbonic gas ; but any 



