 | Eli Perkins (at large) |  |
ELI ON FIRE-PROOF HOUSES.
It pains me to hear of so many people being burned
out on account of combustible elevators and defective
flues. It's dreadful how much damage fire is doing of
late years when it can just as well be managed if only
taken in hand.
This morning the superintendent of the New York
Fire Department came to my room and wanted me to
explain my theory of preventing fire.
“All right, Gen. Shaler, be seated,” I said. Then I
showed him the machine invented by Prof. Tyndall and
myself for abstracting heat from fire.
“Heat from fire, did you say, Mr. Perkins?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, turning a crank. “This is the way
we do it. Put your eye on the spout. Now, do you see
the cold flames coming out there while the boys are
wheeling off the heat in flour barrels to cook with?”
“Splendid!” exclaimed Gen. Shaler. “What other
inventions have you?”
“Dozens of them, sir,” I said, leading the General
into my laboratory.
Then I showed the General my famous machine for
concentrating water to be used by the engines in case
of drought. I showed the General my process of concentration,
which is to place the water in its dilute
state in large kettles and then boil it down till it is
Twelve barrels of water were evaporated down to a
gill, and this was sealed in a small phial, to be diluted
and used to put out fires in cases of extreme drouth.
“But, Mr. Perkins, how—”
“Never mind `how' General,” said I. “You see, in
some cases the water is to be evaporated and concentrated
till it becomes a fine, dry powder, and this can
be carried around in the vest pockets of the firemen,
and blown upon the fire through tin horns—that is, it
is to extinguish the fire, in a horn.”
“But, Mr. Perkins,—”
“Never mind your buts, General—just you look at
the powdered water,” I said.
Then he examined the powdered water with great
interest, took a horn—a horn of powdered water—in
his hands and blew out four tallow candles without
the use of water at all, while I proceeded to elucidate
my plan for constructing fire-proof flues. I told him
how the holes of the flues should be constructed of
solid cast iron or some other non-combustible material,
and then cold corrugated iron should be poured around
them.
“Wonderful!” exclaimed the superintendent. “Perfectly
wonderful! But where will you place the flues,
Mr. Perkins?”
“My idea,” I replied, drawing a diagram on the
wall-paper with a piece of charcoal, “is to have these
flues in every instance located in the adjoining house.”
“Magnificent! but how about the elevators?”
“Why, after putting 'em in the next house too,
and then let 'em freeze. Then I'd turn 'em bottom-side
up, and if they caught fire, the flames would only
draw down into the cellar.”
| Eli Perkins (at large) | |