3] 5

Chap. 7.] From Agricola.

and subsequent authors, nor is this surprising since they form a very smalland obscure part of the original engraving. We noticed the latter severaltimes before observing them, The syringe was made of brass ; it is de-

signated siplmnculus ori-chalceus, cujus usus est inincendiis. In these figureswe behold all that waspreserved through themiddle ages of ancientfiremen’s maohinery : theengine of Heron seems tohave been quite forgotten.Indeed the syringe itselfwas not generally used inEurope tili late, for it wasnot tili the close of the16th Century that “ handsquirts,” as they werenamed, were introducedinto London . Previous tothat time watchmen, buck-ets, hooks and ladders, on-No. 142. Firemen’s Apparatus from Agricola. ly were in Use. Cutting

away with axes and throwing water from buckets are mentioned (observesFosbroke) by Petronius and Grervase of Canterbury. The owners ofhouses or chimneys that took fire were fined; and men were appointed towatch for fires and give the alarm. In 1472 a night bellman was em-ployed in Exeter to alarm the inhabitants in case of fire, and in 1558,leathern buckets, ladders and crooks, were ordered to be provided forthe same city; no application of the pump seems to have been thenthought of.

Syringes continued to be used in London tili the latter part of the 17thCentury, when they were superseded by more perfect, machines. An ac-count of them and the mode of working them would make a modern fire-man smile. They were usually made of brass and held from two to fourquarts. The smaller ones were about two feet and a half long, and aninch and a half in diameter ; the bore of the nozzles being half an inch.Three men were required to work each, which they achieved in this man-ner : two, one on each side, grasped the cylinder with one hand and thenozzle with the other; while the third one worked the piston ! Thosewho held the instrument plunged the nozzle into a vessel of water, theoperator then drew back the piston and thus charged the cylinder, andwhen it was raised by the bearers and in the required position, he pushedin the piston and forced, or rather endeavoured to force, the contents onthe fire. We are told that some of these syringes are preserved in oneor two of the parish churches. It can excite no surprise that London should have been almost wholly destroyed in the great fire of 1666, whensuch were the machines upon which the inhabitants chiefly depended forprotecting their property and dwellings, If the diminutive size of theseinstruments be considered, the number of hands required to work each,beside others to carry water and vessels for them, the difficulty and oftenimpossibility of approaching sufficiently near so as to reach the flameswith the jet, the loss of part of the stream at the beginning and end ofeach stroke of the piston, and the trifling effect produced—the whole actof using them, appears rather as a farce, or the gambols of overgrown

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