or prairie-fire. The leaping of the flame from side to side, the capricious ignition far and near, and rapid race of the yellow darting flames, the roar of the fire in the woods, the kindling of great trees as if they were torches, and the flare-up of small ones, shrivelled, burnt, and gone in a minute, and the lowering smoke, which seems to make the wood a burning prison—all these are enough to make the stoutest heart stand still. But the prairie-fire is worse, from its overwhelming speed, which paralyses the imagination, and delays or precludes all rational attempts to escape. There are but two ways: to burn the grass in front soon enough to have it sufficiently cool to pass before the greater fire comes up; and to plunge into water sufficiently broad to admit of breathing amidst the smoke. The rush of animals of all kinds adds to the terror. The wildest are not likely to be mischievous at the moment; but the sudden crowd of beasts, birds, and reptiles, all in terror, and most making for the water, where there is any, is enough to give the sensation of the world coming to an end. When travellers die, in such a case, it is evidently from suffocation—a rapid death at least. When they are saved, it is by going through something very like suffocation, by keeping even their heads under water as much as possible till the smoke and heated air roll off.
In regard to such extensive fires as these, which menace life on a large scale, the natural question is, whether our advanced civilisation cannot cope with their forces. But for the importance and the urgency of this question we could hardly bear to dwell on the subject at all. The answer seems to be that our civilisation introduces new perils, while enabling us to deal with some old ones; and the conclusion is, that the loss of life by fire is still shockingly and shamefully large. Our gas, our explosive compounds, so much more in use than formerly, our lucifer-matches, which nothing can keep out of the hands of dunces and children, and our vast stores of inflammable goods, have increased our dangers from fire at least as much, we are told, as science and skill have lessened them by lightning-conductors, fire-proof buildings, fire-brigades, and water-works, and other devices. But it is comfortable to reflect that we are more likely to be guarded than imperilled by further scientific and practical development. We may surely learn to manage our gas and other explosives better. As popular education advances, there will surely be less folly in the management of dunces and children; and there is, I believe, a strong impression abroad that, though Phillips’ fire-annihilator has not yet proved anything like a match for the great conflagrations of our day, it intimates the true principle of antagonism to the evil. If we can learn to administer at pleasure any substance or action with which combustion cannot co-exist, we shall have the mastery presently. Men used to suppose that water was the true agent. Poor Laura Bridgman—the girl without eyes, ears, or sense of smell or taste—could not make out why people let a fire go so far as to cause the engines to rumble over the pavement. She asked why somebody did not blow it out, having understood that people blew out a candle. That blowing should put out a candle and make a house burn more fiercely puzzled her; and in like manner it was puzzling to people in possession of their five senses that water, which extinguishes a moderate fire, should aggravate a fierce one. As it does so, it directs us to search for substances or forces so antagonistic to combustion as that we have only to bring them into some practicable form for use on the breaking out of fire. To have Phillips’ fire-annihilator is better than to have no resource, and especially in places where no system for the repression of fire is in action; but the great use of the invention will, no doubt, prove to be as a suggestion of the right direction in which to work towards a remedy of one of the greatest calamities of human life.
After all, the greatest loss of life by fire is not in these conflagrations of cities, or even houses, but by accidents to individuals. These accidents are almost always owing to imprudence; but, as they are very frequent, and belong to particular customs and the use of particular implements, it is better to look to the customs and implements rather than scold the imprudence. As long as we have open fires in poor people’s homes there will be burnt children; as long as tipsy tramps carry lighted pipes into hay-lofts and stables there will be inquests on dead tramps and fires in outhouses; as long as women wear hanging or protuberant sleeves and balloon skirts there will be inquests on young ladies and housemaids. The fatal instrument, however, which destroys more life than the parlour or kitchen or nursery fire is the lighting apparatus—from the rude torch of barbarous times to the latest; or, perhaps, we may soon be enabled to say, the latest but one.
Those old torches must have been extremely dangerous,—as indeed they are now in the rural dwellings of Norway, where it is the business of one person in the room to light and renew the slips of resinous pine-wood, which burn out in a few minutes, dropping sparks whenever moved, and with every breath of air. Candles must have been dangerous in days when the floors were strewed with rushes, or sprays from the woods. By King Alfred’s lantern we know how the draughts in the ill-built houses of that age wasted the candles; and the same winds would blow the sparks about. Some Americans now attribute the frequency of fires in their country partly to the haste, and consequent imperfection of house-building, by which chimneys set fire to the whole dwelling, and yet more to the use of wood for fuel, and the consequent carrying about of wood-ashes, which are singularly treacherous in their concealment of fire. These causes were in operation when King Alfred put his candles into a lantern, to make them serve at once as a light and a clock; and those who did not so protect the flame, and preclude sparks, no doubt suffered much from fire.
Candles have, however, lasted from that day to this. Ours is probably the last generation which will be able to say as much; but at present it is true. In each age there have been other lights. There have been cressets in the streets, and courts, and inn-yards; and lanterns in the hands of people of all degrees. There has been a burning
