Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/629

Rh to be attached to a house and pulled by a crowd of men until the house collapsed. Probably a hook of this nature was never used. The firemen of to-day extinguish a fire instead of being content to stop it within certain boundaries, unless an extensive conflagration renders it necessary to raze buildings by dynamite. The hooks of to-day are used to cut through into a hidden fire, and for other purposes of like nature.

The pompier or scaling ladder is a most necessary article, and is used in connection with the distinct pompier service. Christ Hoell, of St. Louis, who had served in European pompier companies, believed that the system could be advantageously introduced into this country. In 1877 he formed a volunteer company in St. Louis, and drilled the men in the use of the apparatus connected with the system. The members of the city government were so pleased with the exhibition given by this volunteer company that the system was introduced into the fire department, under Chief Engineer Sexton, in December of the same year. Since then the pompier service has found its way into all large departments, and many cities support training schools that every fireman may be thoroughly drilled. The pompier ladder is made of one pole, from twelve to eighteen feet long, provided with cross-rungs. At one end an iron hook projects at right angles from two to three feet. By the aid of this ladder one man can scale the side of a building by putting the hook over a window-sill above, climbing the ladder, and repeating the operation. If flames are coming from the window directly above, the window at the side is used, and the fireman has to swing into position by the aid of his ladder. Two men with two ladders can climb together much more speedily, as they take turns in steadying each other's ladders. The pompier fireman wears a belt, in the front of which is a snap-hook. He also carries a hatchet and a coil of rope one hundred feet long. By fastening the rope to some convenient point, and taking two turns round the snap-hook, he can descend rapidly and safely. If carrying a person with him, another turn of rope is taken round the hook. A long canvas chute is sometimes carried, through which inmates of a burning building can slide to the ground.

The "grip-sack," or what is more generally called the life net,