Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/891

 VILLAS IN VARIOUS STYLES. 867 ».he materials should be iron and tiles, or slates, or stones, or cement, or other earthy «:omposition. 1 792. Any Building miyht he rendered completely Jire-proof by avoiding the use of timber in every thing, except fittings up and finishing. The floors might be formed of flat tUes and cement, and covered with ornamental tiles ; or flooring may be made of composition, and polished in imitation of scagliola, or artificial marble. The roofs might be made flat, and covered in the manner already described, § 1789 ; and the outer walls of the building might be tied together in all directions by wrought-iron rods made fast to stone bond, as broad as the wall is thick, the stones cramped or dovetailed together, and carried completely round the walls, about the level of the centre of each floor. The netting or latticework of iron rods, connected with this chain of stone bond, being thickly embedded in cement, and cased with strata of flat tiles, would be kept from extremes of temperature throughout the year ; so that the difference in their contraction and expansion, during summer and winter, would be of no practical importance. Every floor of a house thus formed, would be, in effect, a single flag-stone, and, as the iron rods would be prevented from oxidising, it would probably last for ages. It is easy to conceive the skeleton of an entire house, thus constructed, the perpendicular supports being brick or stone piers, three, four, or six feet apart ; the horizontal bond on these supports, of flag-stone of the width of the intended thickness of the walls or partitions, and all the horizontal floors or vertical panels of iron rods and wires covered on one or on both sides with plain tiles coated with cement. Even the staircases miglit be so con- structed and covered. In the case of the floors of rooms, square or nearly so, there might be circles of thin flat cast iron, laid on the horizontal rods, and made fast to them, which would serve as struts ; and oblong rooms might have two or more cast-iron circles, or ovals with plates of cast iron in the direction of their short diameters, to serve the same purpose. The outer walls might have double panels of wrought-iron rods and wires with intervals between, so as to form hollow walls ; so that houses con- structed in this manner might be rendered equally impermeable by cold or heat as those with thick walls, or with hollow walls of masonry. There would be no objection to houses of this description, having all the doors and windows framed of timber, pro- vided the panels and astragals were filled in with iron. As the iron rods and wires need not be of great diameter ; perhaps, in ordinary cases, of half an inch for the rods, and one eighth of an inch for the wires, and half an inch in thickness, with three inches in breadth for the cast-iron circles ; the expense, even for the smallest houses, would not be an insu- perable objection. Were the attention of the legislature turned to this subject, with the view of protecting those who at present cannot protect themselves, we mean dwellers in town houses of the conmioner kinds ; the government would probably direct experi- ments to be made, so as to bring this mode of construction, or some similar mode, to a degree of perfection which would soon render it general. 1793. Protection against Fire. Next in importance to the buDdingof fire-proof houses, is the mode of arranging a general system of police for the extinction of fires, both in town and country. On this subject, a correspondent, J. Robison, Esq. Sec. R.S.E., whose letter, dated Feb. 8th, 1 833, we have received since we commenced these paragraphs, has the following observations. : — " I have long entertained the idea that the protection agamst fire is inadequate, though sometimes costly establishments are maintained, as has, until lately, been the case in Edinburgh and London. In Edinburgh, matters have been put on a better footing since the year 1825, and I believe there is now no city in Europe where property is so well protected, or at so small an expense. I have had some corre- spondence with the last and the present administrations, about a plan for extending a uni- form system of fire-engine establishments all over Britain, by forming a regular disciplined corps of firemen at Woolwich, and furnishing ofiicers and instructors from it to pro- vincial corps to be established by the municipal authorities on the spot. I have not suc- ceeded so far as I could wish, but I have made some impression ; and the first fruits of it are now developing themselves inj'our metropolis, where the Insurance Companies have begun to act in concert in getting up a regular corps on the model of the Edinburgh one, and have bribed away the superintendent from this place to put him at the head of it. 'I"he connection with the police will follow next, and, when experience shall have shown the truth of what I have urged, some person about the government oflSces wiU step for- ward with the whole of my plan, claiming it as his own, and will, perhaps, get public thanks for it. Provided the plan be adopted, I care but little who gets the credit of it." The most complete fire-police with which we are acquainted is that at St. Petersburgh. It is entirely under the management of the general police there, which, it is well known is a regularly organised body, such as our correspondent contemplates. We passed the winter of 1813 in that city, during which several large fires happened, and were very promptly extinguished. Among other apparatus, we recollect a system of ladders attached to a frame, which could be elevated to any particidar point by machinery worked on the