Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/697

* FIRE-CLAY. 635 FIRE-ENGINE. a high percentage of silica; pot-clay, a fire-clay burning dense at a low red heat, bul otherwise refractor}. used i t ■ the manufacture of glass pots; fire-mortur, a sandy fire-clay used for making mortar to set fire-bricks; retort-clay, a verj plastic refractory clay used in the manufacture of gas-retorts. Consult: Bischof, Dii few Thone (Leipzig, 1895); Ries, article on "Clay," in The Mineral huh/slri/, vol. ix. (New York, 1901). See Clay; Coal. FIRE-CREST. A British kinglet (Regului ignicapillus), more fully called 'fire - crested wren,' and also 'goldcrest.' See KINGLET. FIRE-DAMP. The miners' term applied to light en rim let ted hydrogen or coal-gas, when it issues from crevices in coal-mines. II is some- times improperly called 'sulphur.' When mixed with 5 1 /-; to 14 parts of air. it forms an explosive mixture whose ignition is the cause of many acci- dents in mines. The gas formed by this com bustion is known as 'after-damp.' See Mine Gas; Methane. FIRE DANCES. Dances performed around the fire, generally at night. Fire is almost uni- versally associated with the home and hence with the family, and in the course of religious evolu- tion the fire dance has gradually gained in im- portance. Whereas in Vedic India, for example, we find the rite as a fertility-charm performed at the solstice, among the American Indians it has developed into forms of war-dances, of which the most important is the scalp-dance. In Australia the Corroberee, performed in elaborate costumes, marks a further step toward the purely mimetic dance, and prepares the way for pantomimic drama, the earliest form of the art, as it is found among the aborigines of that continent. Rising higher in the art scale, the fire-danee becomes a simple recreation of more or less elaborate character, as is typified in dances around ordinary bonfires. A highly developed form of the fire-dance exists on the modern stage where the firelight is represented by calciums of different colors. See Fire W t orship; Skiet Dances. FIRE-EATING. A name usually given to a variety of feats performed by jugglers with flam- ing substances, melted lead, red-hot metal, etc. Many feats of this kind are undoubtedly mere trick's, or illusions, produced by sleight of hand; others are capable of scientific explanation. There is nothing more wonderful in stuffing blaz- ing tow into the mouth — a common form of mountebank fire-eating — than in eating flaming plum pudding, or in dipping the finger into spirits and letting it burn like a candle. It is also well known that the tongue or the hand, dipped in water, may be rubbed with impunity against a white-hot bar of iron ; the layer of vapor devel- oped between the hot metal and the skin prevents contact and produces coolness. Certain kinds of these performances are explained by the well- known power of the living body to maintain its normal temperature for a time, independently of the external temperature. FIRE-ENGINE. A machine employed for throwing a jet of water for the purpose of ex- tinguishing fire. Machines for the extinguishing of fires have been used from a very early date. They were employed by the Romans, and are re- ferred to by Pliny; but he gives no account of their construction. Apollodorus, architect to the Vol. VII. — 41. Emperor Trajan, speaks of leathern bags, with pipi in., bed, from h hich water wa proji by squeezing I lero "i le candi ia, in his Treati ■ on P (written probably aboul b.i . 150), propo ition '. di chine which he call thi i ed in confla grations.' It consists of two cylinders and | tons connect) 'I by a reciproi i m, which raise-- and lowei the pistons alternately, thus, wit h i he aid ol pening onlj i o ward the jet ii ,i urn it . I, hi doI in j conl inuou I rea m, a i hi at each altera! ion of ' ! A device with two pumps, worked by lever-, is said tu have been invented in Egypl in the "ml century B.C. Apparatus called 'instruments for tiro' and ■« ater -vii'i arc described in tin- building i tie- city of Augsburg, 1518. In 1657 Kaspar Schotl de Bcribed a fire-engine used in Nuremberg, appa rently similar to thai di cribed bj Hero. It had a water-cistern, was drawn by two horses, was worked by 28 men, and threw ;i < t Hi water an inch in diameter to a height of 80 feet. It was net until late in the seventeenth century thai the air-chamber and hose were added, the firsl being mentioned by Perrault in 1084, and the bose and suction pipe being invented by Van der lleiile in lfi"o. In England small brass hand squirts were used up to the close 'if tic sixteenth century. Paris bad tin- engines of some sort at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In England, in 1734, engines of various construc- tion were manufactured, flic mosl successful of which was that invented by Newsham. Two of his machines — the first invention of the kind ever used in this country — were introduced in N'ew York in 1731. It was more than fifty year- after this that the leather valves within the cylinders were superseded by metallic valves, placed in valve-chests apart from the cylinders and the air- chamber. Rotary and semi-rotary pumps were also introduced. Floating fire-engines worked by hand were used mi tie- Thames before ft"' ciose of the eighteenth century. In -nine cases the mechanism that worked the pumps was used to move the paddle-wheels. It was not until 1850 that floating fire-engines worked by steam came into use in England. So far as known, the first steam fire-engine was developed by Brathwaite in 1829 or 1830. John Ericsson (q.v.) worked on the problem a the same time, and is credited by one writer as having built such an engine with Brathwaite, in London, in 1830, and also with having built one in New York in 1840, very soon after he had come to America. In 1841 an engine was built in New York after plans by Hodge, probably as the result of a competition after the great tire of 1835. This engine was operated occasionally b for insurance companies, but neither it nor the earlier London engine was satisfactory. In ; A. B. Latta. in Cincinnati, produced the first machine which was practically useful. Cincin- nati was the first city in the United States to organize a steam fire department, bul other large cities and towns rapidly followed the ex- ample. In 1S72 self-propelled steam fire-engines were delivered to both New York and Boston; and in 1873 one was delivered to Detroit — all of the Amoskeag make. From 1872 to 18fl8 about twenty similar engines were bought by American cities. Recently a new impetus has