FIRE-PROOF BUILDING-ORIGIN OF FIRES, AND SUPPLY OF WATER AT FIRES. Sir, I observe in your last Number, that your talented correspondent, Mr. C. Davy, has promised to resume the subject of fire-proof building, a subject of the utmost importance to all classes of the community, and one that will most probably receive a more than ordinary share of attention at this time, when fires have become so unusually prevalent. Builders, in general, have hitherto, manifested a most surprising indifference towards this matter; except in a few particnlar instances (mostly public buildings), little has been done to arrest the progress of fire, beyond the imperfect compulsory measures enforced by legislative enact. ment. In Mr. Davy's last letter he states an opinion at which I am greatly surprised, "that the majority of fires are not accidental." This is an extraordinary mistake; all fires originate either in accident or design; the accident may arise from natural, unforeseen, and unavoidable causes, from carelessness or from igno rance; sometimes from a combination of all these causes. All persons who have had any opportunity of tracing the origin of metropolitan fires, must come to a conclusion the reverse of that held by Mr. Davy. I would refer Mr. Davy to the Reports on London fires published in your Magazine for the last two years, wherein the causes-so far as the most diligent examination could ascertain are particularised; even if the whole of the fires whose origin could not be ascertained, were added to the list of wilful, still it would not constitute a large majority. in the paragraph which you have copied from the Times of the 21st instant, alluding to the extraordinary increase of fires during the last few weeks, Mr. Braidwood is said to be of opinion," that the cause of the late great increase and rapid spread of fires is to be found in the extreme dryness of the season. "That the extreme heat and drought of the present season has greatly influenced the spread of fires, there can be no doubt; but, that the weather can have had any share in increasing the number of conflagrations, is absurd in the extreme, and I think the writer has taken no small liberty in fathering such an opinion upon Mr. Braidwood. Allusion is made by the same writer to the New River Company's imperfect supply of water at some of the late extensive fires. The New River Company have certainly been practising the most rigid economy in their water supply, doling out their streams in the most sparing manner, and at some of the late fires the supply was certainly very indifferent. There are, however, many circumstances which co-operate to render an ample supply of water at extensive conflagrations exceedingly precarious. In places where no mains are situated, water is not to be obtained until the attendance of the turn cock has been procured; and as it is every body's business to send for this functionary, nobody thinks of doing so till it is too late for him to be really useful. But supposing, as it does sometimes happen, that the turncock is on the spot on the breaking out of a fire, the water is turned on, and the plugs opened, but much of the water runs away to empty cisterns, &c., and but a scanty supply of water comes through the plug for some little time. Again, in many localities the plugs are too few in number, and too small in size, to meet the exigencies of large fires. The waterway is often under two inches; and there are many plugs on service-pipes that will scarcely keep two engines supplied. In the event of a tolerable supply of water being obtained at the beginning of a fire from one or two plugs, there is every chance of the fire being stopped, and the supply of water would be considered ample; but should the fire have attained so great a head as to require the united efforts of eight or ten engines for its suppression, the same supply of water which in the first case would have been considered plentiful, would now be complained of, and pronounced deficient. This circumstance may be illustrated by allusion to the fires in Cripplegate-buildings, and in Rupert-street, Haymarket, which occurred at the same time, and were both in the New River Company's district. In the first case, a small quantity of water skilfully applied stopped the flames, and the supply was said to be good. In the second instance, a much farger supply was said (and truly) to be deficient. To render the supply of water adequate to the requirements of extensive conflagrations, would require an alteration in the mode of supply. The plugs should be increased both in number and size; or, what would be infinitely better, the plugs should be entirely dispensed with, and replaced by fire-cocks with a waterway of two and a half, or three inches, on seven inch mains. These, in conjunction with some means of readily and conveniently collecting the water, to supersede the necessity of breaking up the paving-stones, would go far towards preventing a recurrence of scenes like those so lately witnessed. I remain, Sir, yours respectfully, London, August 29, 1835. Sir,-The annexed figures represent an improvement in the valve of the "Improved Single-valved Air-pump," p. 328, vol. xxii., Mechanics' Magazine. a a (fig. 1) represents the pump barrel; b, a solid piston, the top of which, c, is made to go close to the cap d, and the bottom, e, to go close to the barrel at f; d, the cap through which the piston rod, g, must slide air-tight by means of a stuffing-box h; i, a passage to the re ceiver, divided into two branches, so that when the piston touches the cap, the lower passage, k, may be close below the piston 7; the valve made of a slip of gold-beaters' skin tied over the hole m. Sir, The above sketch represents a very simple and efficacious drill, the invention of a workman, I am informed, at Mr. Hague's manufactory. The inconvenience attached to the use of a large drill, when holes are required to be made in a confined situation, such as flanges, iron railings, &c.-it being in such cases impossible to accomplish the requisite rotary motion-appears to have been the primary cause of this ingenious arrangement. The sketch needs but little explanation. Attached to the handle of the drill is a ratchet-wheel and strong spring; the revolution of the drill is performed by an alternating action of the handle. Numerous are the arrangements adopted by intelligent workmen for economising time and saving labour, and it is to be regretted, that many of these contrivances never emerge from the workshop or factory in which they originate. Publicity would, in all probability, be the means of raising from a subordinate situation, artificers whose practical talents do honour to themselves, and reflect credit on the natural ingenuity of the working classes of this country. I am, Sir, 3, Furnival's-inn, August 17, 1835. MR. OGLE AND COLONEL MACERONE. Sir,-From the quality of Colonel Macerone's compositions, more particularly his pamphlet, I feel averse to go much farther than my demonstration in your number of August 8, in which the drawings of a boiler constructed and finished in 1832 by me, at the factory at Millbrook, near Southampton, is placed side by side with the boiler claimed by Colonel Macerone as his invention. As the mechanic must see at a single glance that Colonel Macerone's, with the exception of the round pot and little pipes on the top, is the very same, nothing more need be said on the subject. His attempt to insinuate that the boiler was not constructed at the time specified by me, is beneath notice; nearly a hundred men could testify to that fact, which puts an end to the question. The boiler used by Colonel Macerone is in principle the very same, and before he constructed such a boiler, he was utterly unable to make the vehicle, which had been built by Mr. Gurney, go at all; so neither the vehicle nor the boiler are indebted to the great genius of the Colonel for existence. The Colonel's account of the great invention to which he lays claim, and which he has puffed and trumpeted in pamphlets, letters, &c. (while he abuses every other mechanic) amounts, from his own words, to this:-That having got a portion of a vehicle at Gurney's auction, he was utterly unable to make it answer, and that at last he commenced a boiler similar to that of Ogle and Summers, viz. an air-tube within a larger watertube, and an aggregation of such double tubes in united sections. The Colonel says he threw it away, as it was difficult and expensive even to imitate. I can readily believe him-then with wonderful talent, being unable to devise any efficient steam-generator, he actually, after much profound thought, determined on leaving out the inner air-tube, and putting together many tubes with a pot on the top of them, and little pipes running into it. Unfortunately such a boiler, without the pot and little tubes, had been completed, and stood ready for use in the factory at Millbrook. Then this great inventor, with machinery constructed by another and a boiler evidently copied from one admitted to be the best extant, positively breaks through a house, runs into ditches, lies sprawling in the Edgeware-road, and, at last, runs a few times about the hard flat roads near London !! Then claims the first rank in steam locomotion, writes a pamphlet, in which he has collected all the tittletattle of all the prating people who pre tend to information on the subject, and with the credulity of imbecility, and the envy of a man conscious of not having a shadow of claim to the rank he has assumed (with Gurney's machinery and a boiler which every body knows is merely Ogle and Summers' patent without the air-tubes), plays the part of the jack-daw in the fable, and expects that his empiricism and abuse are to be borne in silence. His manner of writing, his presumptions, assumptions, and the insinuations of a want of veracity in others, are weapons used in the rhetoric of empirics, but are inadmissible in the pages of manly scientific discussion. Colonel Macerone, in his usual presumptuous strain, assumes that I have used no other boiler than that patented by Summers and Ogle in 1830. It was with the boiler finished in 1832 that I travelled in an old vehicle to Tunbridge, thence to Maidstone, &c. and to London. It was with the patent boiler of Ogle and Summers that a very large vehicle started from Millbrook, two miles from Southampton, with twenty-six persons and much luggage, and reached Winchester (fourteen hilly miles) in one hour and seven minutes, blowing off steam the whole way, and proceeded to Oxford, where the axle broke. Let all the present aspirants in steam locomotion try those sixty miles, and they will find it very different to running about London, or even to Reading or Marlborough. Two vehicles now ready have boilers, neither in accordance with the patent of 1830, nor the experimental boiler of 1832. They are of my own construction, and will henceforth be used by me as being superior to both. I pass over the extract made by Colonel Macerons from a provincial journal, as the paragraph is evidently the compo sition of some good-natured, quizzing person not conversant with steam-carriages. The vehicle went with a party from Tunbridge to Maidstone, fourteen miles in three quarters of an hour. Colonel Macerone's pamphlet places him without the pale of that courtesy which I have ever used and wish to use in discussion; if, therefore, he smarts at being shown to the world as a mere copyist, boasting of his vast originality, he may thank himself and his disgraceful pamphlet for the exposure. The story of the old fumbling workman who was employed by me during the winter to rivet a few tubes, might be known as Colonel Macerone's, and only merits the same ridicule and contempt as his pamphlet and his insinuations. I have now done with this original inventor! unless he requires still severer retort, and I am, Sir, "New System of Registration adopted;" which new system is just as much in the shipwrecking interest as the old, the entire tendency of it being to take away all inducement from the ship-owner to study strength of construction by classi fying ships according to their age, without any regard to their strength." He goes on to assert, that "after a ship has lasted nine years, it is at once reduced to the second class, no matter what its strength may be." It would be difficult to conceive of a more gross misrepresentation of fact than the preceding extracts convey. The falsehood of the assertions will be instantly manifest on reference to the rules of the "New System," which recognise as a leading principle, that the classification of ships shall be determined by reference to the original construction and quality of the vessel, the materials employed, and the mode of construction." This is," indeed, a most ingeniously devised system of iniquity," just such as might be expected from the known probity and honour of the "parties who have had the concocting of it!" It is not my intention to attempt the defence of a body of men, who, for the purpose of accomplishing their atrocious designs, have also declared that the rules" may at all times be altered by the presiding committee, and especially to meet any acknowledged improvement which may be made in Naval Architecture, or in the materials used in ship-building." " Such a declaration, without at all entering into a further detail of the rules, is sufficient to convince every ingenious mind that the underwriters, ship-builders, ship-owners, and merchants, are not banded together to take "the most effectual measures to prevent safe vessels being built," and " to take away all inducement" to study strength of construction in the vessels which may hereafter be built for the merchant service. There is a party who have for some months past been labouring most assiduously to fix a much lower standard of quality than the worthies of Lloyd's" are disposed to admit as good risks. From certain expressions in the article now under notice, there are strong grounds for believing that the writer of it is more closely connected with that party than he would like to be known. It is unfortunate that your correspond |