Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/492

478 1518, speak of "water syringes useful at fires," and from that time onward mention is made of fire engines in Denmark, Germany, Holland, France, and Great Britain. From the work above referred to it is stated that Decaus, in his Forcible Movements, published in 1615, describes a German engine of that period in the following quaint language:

"A rare and necessary engin, by which you may give a greate reliefe to houses that are on fire. This engin is much practiced in Germany, and it hath been seen what great and ready help it may bring: for although the fire be 40 foot high, the said engin shall there cast its water by help of four or five men lifting up and putting down a long handle, in form of a lever, where the handle of the-pump is fastened. The said pump is easily understood: there are two suckers (valves) within it, one below to open when the handle is lifted up, and to shut when it is put down, and another to open to let out the water; and at the end of the said engin there is a man which holds the copper pipe, turning it to and again to the place where the fire shall be."

In 1632 there was a patent granted in England to one Thomas Grant for a fire engine. Caspar Schott, of Nuremberg, manufactured one in 1657 that, when worked by twenty-eight men, would play a stream eighty feet in length. In 1663 John Van der Hayden, of Amsterdam, patented another, and to him is given the credit of bringing the machine to the modern form of hand engine. Several other early engines are mentioned in different works on the subject; among them the "pompe portative," patented in France by Duperrier in 1699. To this Perrault added the air chamber.

Although many different engines had been invented, buckets and syringes were in use in England and on the Continent until far into the seventeenth century. The largest of the hand syringes were of brass, and held no more than a gallon. Two men were required with each, one to hold the syringe and the other to direct the stream. In the sixteenth century larger ones were made and placed on wheels. These were capable of holding about a barrel of water and had no hose. The direction of the stream, or, more properly speaking, of the series of squirts, could be changed up and down, as the syringe rested on pivots. To