Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/632

616 horses, was established. To-day there are several stations with nine wagons and a Silsby steam fire engine, which latter is used to pump out cellars. In Boston, as early as 1849, the insurance firm of Dobson & Jordan employed some men to carry bags holding oil covers. In 1858 these were carried on Ladder No. 1. In 1868 an old milk wagon was purchased by the insurance companies and filled with covers, brooms, shovels, etc. A regular protective department was established in 1870. The insurance companies in all large cities now support protective departments, and in some places an effort is now on foot to merge them into the regular fire departments.

All departments are equipped with supply wagons that resemble hose wagons in their construction and carry baskets of coal, extra hose, etc., to every fire. In 1879 the New York department built a wrecking truck. The Boston department built



a similar truck in 1893. So far as learned, these are the only distinct wrecking trucks in use. The truck is long and low and supplied with a variety of tools for making repairs on apparatus at a fire. An extra wheel, hose, nozzles, etc., are also carried. On one side of the truck is a vise, and on the other a chemical extinguisher.

In 1883 the New York City Department tried the experiment of building a five thousand gallon tank, mounting it on wheels and drawing it to some place between the water front and a fire, that the fire-boats might pump into it and the engines draw therefrom. The apparatus proved unsuccessful, however, and has been abandoned.

The wheels used on fire apparatus have to be of unusual strength to stand the heavy weights, great speed over rough pavements, slewing in car tracks, and other strains that would demolish ordinary wheels. In the Archibald wheel the tire, spokes, and hub are put together under heavy pressure. The