FIRE-ENGINE. FIREFLY. being designed particularly to replace the small handworked lire engines used in village Chin:ic<il /nf iiu/iiiix iid eatmguishera range all the way from apparatus mounted mi wheels ami propelled by horses or men 1" small tanks carried mi a fireman's back, or small hand force- pumps. The aim of all such devices is to smother the lire by means of some Lias, such as carbonic- acid gas. The larger and more effective appara- tus include a generating lank or tanks, in which water and soda are placed, with an agitator to aid in dissolving tin' soda, an acid-feeding cham bcr, and the necessary hose. If the generating apparatus is in duplicate, with proper hose con- nections, continuous streams may lie thrown; otherwise the stream will cease while recharg- ing is in progress. The water serves as a medium to carry the gas, and the gas is the motive force for the water. Small quantities of water are required, as compared with fire-engines, thus permitting a relatively light apparatus and small and easily managed hose. For incipient fires, or some of those where water is inefficient, the chemical apparatus is very useful, and it may be employed to advantage in some cases where the cost of steam fire-engines is prohibitive. It is consideFed advantageous to combine the chemical engine with an ordinary hose-wagon, and thus cope with small fires in an effective and satisfactory manner. See Fire-Extinguisher. For further information on fire-engines, see Fire Protection, Municipal. FIRE-ESCAPES. A stationary or portable device to enable people to escape from burning buildings when ordinary means of egress to the ground are destroyed or cut off by flames. The standard fire-escape used in America, and re- quired by most city building laws, consists of balconies attached one above another to the oul side of the building, connected by iron ladders with each other, and opening onto each floor at a door or window. Such fire-escapes arc made entirely of iron, and one or more of them may be used according to the size of the building. Portable fire-escapes may lie operated from the interior of the building or from the outside, ac- cording to their character. Interior fire-escapes of this class vary in character from a simple knotted rope placed in each room, and down which the person seeking escape slides, to more elaborate devices, like canvas tubes, cables with slings, etc. The variety of such devices which have been patented and placed upon the market is enormous. Portable fire-escapes operated from the outside consist of ladders, telescopic tubes carrying slings, cables which may be thrown up into open windows, etc. One of the most prac- tical and effective of all of these devices is a simple ladder of sufficient length to reach from one story to the next, and provided with large hooks at one end which may be inserted over the window-sill. The first ladder is placed from the ground, the second from the top of the first, and so on until a line of ladders extends from the ground to the top floor, down which the occu- pants of the building may descend alone or be carried by the firemen. The efficiency of all these devices in saving life depends largely upon the coolness and self-possession of the endangered persons and those who are trying to aid them, and upon the device being maintained in working order, a matter that is often neglected. For I !■' e lea "ii I .11 ion - a ill I lie mi In-- i 1 1' ii hi" He Him ' .1 ml I." .1 to advocate t hat relia me on ii fetj from fire hou id bi placed on fire] i i .i; 1 1 in i ion ■< ided by t he u t ionary fire-i the first kind 6 i ibed. FIRE-EXTINGUISHER, o, i una- Ton. An apparatus by mean- of which lire may- be ext inguished, usua charged with son , incapable of rap porting combustion, especially carbi arid gas (q.v.).
extinguisher of this cbaractei
i igina lly brought inl - ful use in Lon- don in 1816, and :i patent was applii in the United Siat.-s f,,i- , i apparatus by William A. Graham in 1s:j7. Thi tinguishers an- of various forms and .shapes, and consist for the most part "I a convenient " ervoir of water, within which an- two -mall vessels, one containing on bonate, and the other a strong acid. When tin- apparatu i- to he used the contents of the smaller el art emptied into the water: the 'nil dioxide liber- ated from the carbonate by the acid i- then partly taken up by the water, and the pi i i eated in I hi confined ga Eorei ■ ■ it i ai solui ion in a strong jet when the vessel is opened. The Babcock extinguisher, which has been sively used in the United states, consists of a cylindrical vessel which maj be carried on the back, filled with a solution •.! sodium bicarbonate, over which is suspended a containing sulphuric acid, which is made to tilt over and discharge its contents into the solution when brought into use, thus liberating the carbon dioxide. Large cylinders containing chemical salts, as previously described, havi mounted on wheels, known as 'chemical lire en gines,' and are used in many of the larger cities. (See Fire-Engine.) For the extinguishing of fire on shipboard a scries of pipes have been ar- ranged on the upper deck that communicate with the various compartments of the vessel, as the coal-bunkers, the hold, the main deck, etc. Chem- ical agents are placed in the receptacle to which steam may be admitted, and in case of fire the steam mingles with the carbon dioxide and the two are conveyed to the p|ace of dan they replace the air, smother, and finally ex tinguish the fire Similar arrangements, some of which are automatic, being made to act when the temperature rises 1" the danger point, are in use in factories. Hand grenades, or bombs filled with i tinguishing solutions of chlorine or ammonium chloride, borax, carbonic-acid gas under "real pressure, mixtures of calcium "hi-. ride, magne- sium sulphate, sodium carbonate, sodium chloride, and sodium silicate, are in common use: but they are of value only in the first stages of a fire. See Fibe-Engin) FIREFLY. The name of many luminous beetles of the families T.ainpyrid.c ami Flatericbr, the former of which i- known as the fire- d in lightning-bug family, 'the Lampyridee atamerous beetles of small size ami Boff texture, with the head frequently hidden under the prothorax, bui sometimes prominent and with serrate antenna;; the elytra an- -"ft and yielding, are often abbreviated, and in some genera totally wanting in the females, which are wingless, and larva-like in other respects. These and the true larvae an- called glowworms, and are often more
