Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1897-01-23
I98TING FIRE In
4 SKY SCRAPER.
Chiefs Viii Permit 7lem 10 Go Up if Mortar En-
CINE Is Adopted,
NUN GREgADES FIRED 10 TOP OF TIE BUILDING.
ssed -ir the Bombs Can Be Sent Up at the Rate Of
Sixty Per Minute.

IN the office OF the fire chiefs were 10
De shown they would make a museum
OF FIRE preycnriyes.
One OF these. however. is of the ~
most practicability, and Will shortly he
tested. It IS Tie mortar engine OF
throwing bombs up to the top story uf
any building. Tho bombs are called
. greuades. and the h,e laddies ale fire
. sreuadiers. II is The invention of
Samuel LOwuadale, of Lawrencehu"s,
Ind.
The principle is one of hydraulics.
Steam and compressed air give the
motive power. There is a powerful en-
; CINE mounted on a wagon drawn by
horses and arranged very much like
the present fire engines.
s one side there rises large, round,
'cup-iike affair which is the mouth from
which the grenades are fired The
scheme is to load the mortar with
grenades and send them flying into the
air at the rate of one second.
The fire grenade is a thing JhHt is
now universally accepted. Every pUh-
lie place has its little rack Of hand
grenajes 10 be broken in case of es-
Gaping flames. These grenades act
upon the same principle. They are
sent into the air with rapid succession
and great force. Landing high in the
building they explode. and the fire
gradually subsidies. Meanwhile the
fire ladies are lighting it from below,
sending up streams as high as they can.
ALU.INIU1I GRENADES.
a glass grenade would be too light
for such use. The danger would be
thar OF explosion before the height was
reached. The very force Of the expul-
sion would break the glass. The
strength of the projectile would still
carry il well up i'm the air, though
broken, and it would fall upon the
heads of the crowds below, doing great
damage.
The trouble, which at first was an IN
surmountable one. has been done away
with by making the grenades Of aiumi-
mum. The shell is filled with the gren-
AIDE composition This is a patent
liquid warranted TO subdue flames. The
makers guard well the secret Of its
composition.
Caps are fitted to four sides Of the
-renade. These are not percussion
caps. but quite The contrary. They are
hard metal without a particle of eXplo
s.ve i'm their makeup. But they are
located over thin spots in the bomb, so
hat ON striking they are driven
through the aluminium, and thus they
.1eraJe the confined fluid.
tusillade as fierce as this bomb
throwing mortar is calculated by the
inspectors of the new machine 10 eX-
tingujsh q fire with twice the rapidity
of water. One mortar in operation
equals i'm velocity and fighting quality
two large streams of water.
The expense Of operating fire NOR
tar is src3t compared 20 the tiTe-engine
service. and naturally there is a fierce
opposition among the taxpayers to this
addition 10 their city rates. But this
has been overcome as minor point by
an agreement among the owners of all
buildings built as sNE-scraperS. 1t is
proposed. If the taxpayers vii not
adopt the mortar engine, 10 elpil. The
town with three Of these fire fighters,
90 be used in cCsa Of need. The owners
OF the sky-scrapers are TO pay all costs
Of keeping the apparatus. TaiS they
would be gial 90 do # assured that leg
islat.0n would not pat stop to their
bodybuilding plans.
HARMLESS APPARATUS.
The injury done 20 building Ly fire
apparatus as one IN winch The fire in
suT9nce companies arc specially inter-
ested. To them it is a matter of life
or death vhe-har fire apparatus de-
sJr0ys Office properly or leaves il UNI
damaged. The lire engines now in use
are so destructive that the insurance
companies have their 'proiectives"
that go from fire TO fire spreading their
tGrpaulins over furniture and rescuing