In some instances the combination of gas and water aided greatly to extinguish the fire, while in others the gas escaped into the air and served only to force the water in a stream. The successful inventors soon tried large tanks on two and four wheeled trucks, and to-day all sizes, from tin and glass hand grenades up to large double-tank four-wheeled engines, are in use.
The first chemical engine was put on the market by the New England Fire Extinguisher Company of Northampton, Mass. The Babcock Company of Chicago took this up, and by the aid of one of their engineers, Mr. Wellington Lee, who had previously done much work with steam fire engines, soon made it much more successful.
The Holloway, of Baltimore, the Babcock and Champion, made by the Fire Extinguisher Manufacturing Company of Chicago, and the Hutson and the Lindgren-Mahan, also of Chicago, are the engines in general use at the present day. The chemicals used in these different engines are more or less the same, and the engines themselves consist of one or two tanks placed either horizontally or vertically, and having one or two lines of small hose attached. In some cases small extension ladders are carried. Combination chemical engines and hose wagons or carriages were used in Canada as early as 1883. Springfield, Ohio, Lawrence, Mass., Chicago, and Milwaukee had them in 1886. They have recently been adopted in Boston. The wagon is made deep and narrow, and a chemical tank placed on each side. Combination ladder trucks and chemical engines are also made. The New York department, the largest in the world, has discarded the use of chemical engines, but they are considered necessary adjuncts to most of the other fire departments of the country. Five or ten gallon tank extinguishers, however, are carried on all hose wagons and ladder trucks in New York and elsewhere. The chemical engine can go into action more quickly than a steam fire engine, and will extinguish small blazes with very little water damage. In connection with chemical engines it might be stated that for fires in electrical stations sand is the best extinguisher known. It has been found by experience that the application of water simply complicates matters by crossing currents, increasing the sparking, and ruining the plant.
It has been remarked that the Button hand engines are still made. Country departments, when old city tubs can not be bought, must have new hand engines made for them. The Gleason & Bailey Manufacturing Company, of New York, are extensive builders of these.
Several inventors have tried their hands at producing an electric fire engine, either to have the boiler and fire box of a steamer replaced with storage batteries, or else to have a trolley
