Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1873-02-15
The Chemistry of the Boston Fire.

IN November, must be interesting anC
instructive in its chemical aspects, ant
we design to briefly direct attention t.
some of these. The process of com
bustion, whether it involves immense
structures, or whether it is confined tc
the narrow limits of a candle or common
friction match, is strictly chemica
process. The burning of Boston was
chemical experiment on vast scale
and withal so costly that the spectators
hardly wish to see it repeated. To
burn substance is simply to change
its condition the matter involved is
not destroyed, > but from chemical action
1t is forced into new relationships, OF
into new forms of matter. There was
nothing whatever actually destroyed by
fire in this city ON the night of Novem-
Der 9, but an immense amount of ma
terial was changed from a valuable OF
marketable condition into one having
no value. The sugar, coffee, tea and
spices of the grocer the prints, fan
nels, laces and silks of the dry goods
dealer the opium, gums, oils and ex-
tracts of the druggist; the salts, acids,
alkaloids and reagents of the chemist,
consumed on that night were but COM
mon and valueless elements thrown
into complex combinations by nature
or art, so as to meet or supply human
wants. In the condition in which the
hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
the metals, etc., existed, of which these
diversified substances were composed,
they were needful to feed us, keep us
warm, or relieve us when i'll they
therefore, as related to our wants, had
value; we were willing to exchange
gold for them, a metal of such noble
characteristics and so sparsely dis
seminated upon our planet that we find
it to be a convenient representative of
value. We had toiled for months or
years to form these chemical substances
and fabrics, or we have sent our ships
to every point Of the globe to gather
them up, and we had stored them safe
ly, as we supposed, in our warehouses;
But the fire came, and in sixteen hours
the whole was resolved into carbonic
oxide, carbonic acid, water, and few
tons of ash ; products which we can
neither eat, wear, nor utilize in any
way to advantage. We do not need the
forms of matter which the fire left for
us, but we did need the same elements
in the other forms, as we had them be-
fore the confagration.
Combustion is a wonderful process.
Tt may go ON rapidly, as it did in No
vember, and lay waste a city in single
night, or it may proceed slowly, and
require centuries to effect the same
changes. Our immense stores of mer-
chandise, which were resolved so rapid
ly into visible forms, would have pass
ed through the same changes Cin short,
would have been burned) if no fire had
come nigh them. This result would
have been inevitable, if we had con-
sumed them as food, worn them as
clothing, or allowed them to waste from
neglect. The burning would have been
as actual as that of which we were eye
witnesses. The same amount of heat
would have been developed, and the re-
sultant products the same. All organ
lied bodies are constantly undergoing
a process of delay, which is slow COM
bustion, and although we do not see
the light Or feel the heat, it is accom-
panied by them The world of organ
lied matter is certainly destined to be
burned but we prefer the slow form to
the rapid, as we have had notable ex-
ample of the latter which will suffice
for a lifetime.
1t is quite easy to understand that
wood and other organized bodies can
burn but the combustion of buildings
constructed of brick, stone and iron
presents a problem not little puzzling
to many. A fire, sweeping through the
streets of a city, lays low whole blocks
of buildings, into which nothing COM
bustible enters, save the wooden parti-
tions, floors, aad staircases, and these,
while burning, afford combustible ma
terial enough to expand and topple over
our thin walls, and render the ruin
complete. Buildings considered fire.
proof, that is, those constructed without
wood, can be destroyed by fire, if igni-
tible material is burned with them.
The Palace of the Tuileries and the
Hotel de Vile, in Paris, burned by the
wretched Commune, were fire-proof
buildings, and without the aid of our
American kerosene oil, or some similar
infiammable material, they could not
have been burned as they were. 1t
nearly 300 barrels of kerosene
oil to destroy the Tuileries. The
miscreants hoisted a barrel or more
into each room, and knocking out the
heads, allowed it to flow over the build
ing, and when it was thoroughly satura-
ted they set it on fire. The metal and
stone used in the structure were rapidly
by the intense heat, the walls
were pushed outward, the roof fell in,
and the destruction was complete.
The Boston fire has demonstrated the
influence which extreme heat has upon
granite structures. They do not with
stand its influence so well as those
built of brick; and therefore are not as
safe buildings in time of large confla-
grations. Pearl street was lined with
granite buildings, and after the fire the
work of disintegration was so thorough
ly accomplished that fine granite sand
covered the pavement several inches
deep. Water we recognize as the an
tagonist of fire, and it was most hber-
ally supplied in our great confagration
1t seems a little paradoxical at first
view, the act of pouring an agent on to
a fire with the design of arresting it,
when we remember that fluid itself is
composed of two elements, oneof which
is highly combustible, and the other
the grand supporter of combustion. It
has been stated in several journals that
water thrown upon the fire in the form
Of spray was decomposed into its gas
eous condition, and therefore actually
led the flames. Now this is not cor
'ect. We doubt if single one of the
millions of gallons employed was thus
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