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[Book III,
CHAPTER VII.
Fire-engines : Probably used in Babylon and Tyre—Employed by ancient warriors—Other devicesoftheirs—Fire-engines referred to by Apollodorus —These probably equal in effect toours: Spiritalia ofHeron : Fire-engine described in it—Pumps used to promote confiagrations—Greek fire, a liquid pro-jected by pumps—Fires and wars commonly united—Generals , the greatest incendiaries—SayingofCrates respecting them—Fire pumps the forerunuers ofguns—Use of engines in Rome—Meutioned in aletter of Pliny to Trajan, and by Seneca, Hesychius and Isidore. Roman firemen—Frequency of firesnoticed by Juvenal—Detestable practice of Crassus —Portable engines in Roman liouses—Modern en-gines derived from the Spiritalia—Forgotten in the middle ages—Superstitions with regard to fires—Firesattributed to demons—Consecrated bells employed as substitutes for water and fire-engines—Extractsfrom the Paris Ritual, Wynken de Worde, Barnaby Googe and Peter Martyr respecting them—Einble-matic device of an old duke of Milan—Firemen’s apparatus from Agricola—Syriuges used in London toquench fires in the 17th Century—Still employed in Constantinople —Anecdote of the Capudan Paeha—Syringe eugine from Besson—German engines of the 16th Century—Pump engine from Decaus—Pumpengines in London—Extracts from the minutes of the London Common Council respecting engines andsquirts in 1667—Experiment of Maurice mentioned by Stow the historian—Extract from ‘ahistory of thefirst inventers.’
Op the machines described in the Ist and 2d books some are employedin raising water for the irrigation of land, and for mimerous purposes ofrural and domestic eeonomy ; others in various operations of engineeringand the arts, but with the exception of the centrifugal pumps, (Nos. 95, 6,and 7,) the liquid falls inertly from them all—», e. it is not forcibly ejectedas from a forcing pump or syringe : whether it be poured from a bücket,drawn from a gutter, escape from a noria, or from the orifice of a screw,or the spout of an atmospheric pump, it flows from each by the influenceof gravity and consequently descends as it flows—such machines are there-fore inapplicable forprojecting water on fires, because for this purpose theliquid is required to ascend after leaving the apertures of discharge and witha velocity sufficient to carry it high into the air; and also when conveyedto a distance through flexible or other tubes, to be delivered from them atelevations far above the machine itself. As these effects are produced bythe pumps described in the present division of the subject, most of themhave at different times been adopted as fire-engines; some account of theseimportant machines may therefore be inserted here.
Water is the grand agent that nature has provided for the extinguish-ment of Harnes, and contrivanees for applying it with effect have, in everycivilized country, been assiduously sought for. In the absence of moresuitable implements, buckets and other portable vessels of capacity, at hand,have always been seized to eonvey and throw water on fires; and whenused with celerity and presence of mind at the commencement of one haveoften been sufficient; but when a conflagration extends beyond their reach,the fate of the burning pile too often resembles that of the ships of Eneas :
Nor buckets poured, nor strength of human band
Can the victorious element withstand. Eneid . v. f
The necessity of some device by which a stream of water might be forcedfrom a distance on Harnes must have been early perceived, and if we wereto judge from the frequency and extent of ancient confiagrations, the pro-digious amount of property destroyed, and of human misery induced bythem, we should conclüde that ingenious men of former times were stimu-lated in an unusual degree to mvent machines for the purpose. That thiswas the case cannot well be questioned, although no account of their la-