Construction of the Walls, Ceilings, Floors, Partitions, Air Shafts, &c., of Buildings for Preventing the Spread of Fire and Admitting Light and Air.
Year: 1883

page_text: Construction of the Walls, Ceilings, Floors, Partitions, Air
Shafts, &c., of Buildings for Preventing the Spread of Fire
and Admitting Light and Air.
"6
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Alexander Melville Clark at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 16th April 1883. Com-
municated to him from abroad by James McCarroll, of the City County and
State of New York, United States of America
ALEXANDER MELVILLE CLARK of the firm of A. M. and W. Clark of 53 Chancery
Lane in the County of Middlesex, Fellow of the Institute of Patent Agents,
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WALLS, CEILINGS, FLOORS,
PARTITIONS, AIR SHAFTS, AND OTHER PARTS OF BUILDINGS FOR PREVENTING THE
SPREAD OF FIRE AND ADMITTING LIGHT AND AIR." [Communicated to him from
abroad by Janes McCarroll, of the City County and State of New York, United
States of America]
According to this Invention the walls, ceilings, floors, partitions, air shafts or
compartments of buildings are composed of two or more thicknesses or layers of
wire gauze which are not rendered opaque by mortar, plaster or any such material,
or otherwise with a view to preventing the occurence or spread of fire and for the
admission of light and air through such walls or partitions hitherto impervious to
both.
Having found by experiment that three or four thicknesses of wire gauze or
netting of 140 meshes to the square inch (more or less) is impenetrable to even
the fiercest flame, I venture to believe that the internal walls, ceilings, and
partitions of any building may with great security to human life and property be
mainly constructed of it, while it may enter with advantage into the construction
of floors. The wire gauze is fastened in walls, partitions, compartments or ceilings
to uprights or cross-pieces of wood or of metal. If of wood, sinall perforated metal
cubes, half inch diameter, more or less, are placed at convenient distances from
each other between the gauze and the uprights or cross beams. Through the
gauze and these cubes a nail of suitable length and shape is driven into the wood,
keeping both firmly in place and preventing the gauze from touching the wood.

page_text: If the uprights or the cross pieces are metallic, the tubes are dispensed with and
the gauze fastened flat to the metal by means of nails and perforations or by any
other adequate device that is common property-a latitude which embraces the
mode of fastening the gauze to the wooden uprights and cross pieces also. In floors
the gauze is laid down on the boards after the manner of matting in close fitting
movable squares or convenient sections, or can be laid on the joists directly beneath
the boards when the floor is being constructed. Wire gauze in three or four
thicknesses never warps, no matter how fierce the fire to which it is subjected.
So numerous are its meshes and so tenuous its fibres that even when red hot it
radiates but little heat, and being totally impervious to flame, although pervious to
light and air, the most inflammable substances remain intact within a single yard
of it, if not a single foot. Its tendency is rather to char than to ignite wood,
hence as a fire preventive and flame prison it is supremely efficacious. It is through
the spread of flame, and through it only, that any building or structure can be
destroyed by fire. Confine or embarrass this terrible agent, obstruct its rapid
passage from one apartment or from one story to another, and neither property
nor human life can suffer to any disastrous extent.