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Chap. 7.]
feet in length— two brazen hanä squirts to each parish—four-and-twentypickax sledges—and forty shod shovels.
2. That each of the twelve Companies provide themselves with an en-gine —thirty buckets—three ladders—six pickax sledges—and two hanä,squirts ; to be ready upon all occasions. And the inferior Companies sucha number of small engines and buckets, as should be allotted them by theLord Mayor and co.urt of Aldermen.
3. That the Aldermen passed the office of Shrievalty, do provide theirseveral houses with four-and-twenty buckets, and one hanä squirt eacli;and those who have not served that office, twelve buckets and one hanäsquirt each.
4. And for the effectual supplying the engines and squirts with water,pumps were to be placed in all Wells ; and fire jriugs in the several mainpipes belonging to the New River and Thames Water-works.” Maitland.
The oldest account of English fire-engines that we have seen is in asmall old quarto in our possession, the title page of which is wanting.From two poeticäl addresses to the author, it appears that the initial let-ters of his name were I. B., and that the work was entitled “ A Treatiseon Art and Nature.” Two thirds of it are occupied with “ water-works,”and the rest with “fier-works,” except four or five pages “on voyces, cals,■cryes and sounds i. e. on making of whistles, &c. for sportsmen to Imi-tate the Voices of certain birds and other game. The date of publicationwas abo-ut 1634: this, we infer from page 51, where, speaking of “ Theengin near the north end of London bridge, [he observes] which engin Icircumspectly vieued as I accidentally passed by, immediätely after thelate fier that was upon the bridge. Anno 1633.” Shops and dwellinghouses were built on both sides of the bridge at that time.
After describing several rnodes of raising water by sucking, forcing andchain pumps, he continues:—“ Having sufficiently spoken concerningmils and engins for mounting water for meer conveyance, thence we mayderive divers squirts and petty engins to be drawn upon wheeles fromplace to place, for to quelich fier among buildings ; the use whereof hathbeen found very commodious and profitable in cities and great townes.”Hence engines were at this time not uncommon in England. No lessthan seven are figured by the author, and all are placed in cisterns or tubsmounted on wheels : neither air vessels nor hose pipes are described ormentioned. Five of the engines consist of single cylinders ; of these someare in a perpendicular position, others are laid horizontally, and one isinverted, and fed by a branch pipe covered by a valve. The last one figuredhas two horizontal cylinders, a Suggestion of the author’s, and the pistonrods are shown as worked alternately by pallets or arms on a verticalshaft, to which a reciprocating rotary movement was imparted by pushinga horizontal lever to and fro. One of these old fire-engines is a speciesof bellows pump, the construction of which we will endeavour to explain:Two brass vessels were connected at their open ends to a bag of lea-ther: they resemble, both in shape and size, two men’s hats, the liningsöf which being pulled out and seWed together form a cylindrical bagbetween them. A circular opening, six or seven inches in diameter, wasmade through a horizontal piece of plank fixed in the cistern of the engine,and over this opening one of the vessels, with its Crown upwards, wasplaced, and made fast by screws through the rim : the other vessel beingsuspended from it by the bag and hanging loosely in the water. Withinthe lower vessel (in the centre of its bottom) a valve opening upwards ad-mitted the water, and on the top or croWn of the upper vessel, anothervalve, also opening upwards, was placed. Over the last valve the base of
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