Fire Engine
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Fire Engine. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a machine for throwing a stream of water on a fire. A steam fire engine is an essential part of a modern city equipment for extinguishing fires. It stands in the engine house, under head of steam, fires burning, ready for instant use. Fireman under pay are ready for service day and night. When the electric signal is turned in, though the hour be midnight, the gong sounds, the stall chains drop, trained horses spring to their places at the pole, harness suspended in readiness drops on their backs, and an attendant fastens collar and bellyband with a click. In the meantime the men have thrust their feet into jackboots, clapped on their fire helmets, and, putting on their rubber coats as they whirl down a slide, take their places,--driver, fireman, and engineer,--on the engine. The bar at the door rises, the horses are away at a gallop. Ere seconds have grown to a minute, the powerful, hissing engine, glowing like a fire-breathing dragon, is off and around the corner on its way to the fire. A hose cart, galloping with equal speed, lays hose from the nearest reservoir or hydrant to the scene of the fire. A stream of water is turned on with the utmost haste, for a minute's delay at the beginning of a fire may mean hours of work later and the destruction of a for tune. What with engines, hose carts, ladders, water towers, streams of water, leaping flames, and falling walls, the chief shouting hoarse commands through his trumpet, the line of obedient men, and the curious, anxious crowd of onlookers, a large city fire, with its attendant scenes, especially at night, is a sight well worth seeing. In its essential features, the fire engine is a huge syringe or force pump, worked by steam. The larger portable fire engines are expected to throw from 900 to 1,400 gallons of water per minute. The smallest of the high type engines is designed to discharge 400 gallons a minute. Though but recently brought to so high a degree of efficiency, the fire engine is not a modern invention. Hero of Syracuse, who flourished 150 B. C., described a force fire-pump operated, of course, by hand. Pliny, the Roman, wrote of the pumps used in that city to put out fires. Chemical fire extinguishers have been in vogue for centuries. The immediate predecessor of the steam fire engine is the hand engine or hand brake worked by two horizontal bars, after the manner of the hand car used by section men on a railroad. Many of the smaller towns still depend on a fire extinguisher of this kind, while in the large cities the automobile type is coming into favor. A recent invention designed for the protection of firemen is a silk hood supplied with air from a reservoir carried on the back. One fireman provided with this headgear is said to have worked for fifty minutes in sulphur fumes.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a machine employed for throwing a jet of water for the purpose of extinguishing fires. This name was formerly applied to the steam engine. Machines for the extinguishing of fires have been used from a very early date. They were employed by the Romans, and are referred to by Pliny; but he gives no account of their construction. Hero of Alexandria, in his treatise on pneumatics - written probably about 150 years before the Christian era-proposition 27, describes a machine which he calls "the siphons used in conflagrations." It consisted of two cylinders and pistons connected by a reciprocating beam, which raises and lowers the pistons alternately, and thus, with the aid of valves opening only toward the jet, projects the water from it, but not. FD.N.Y FIRE APPARATUS-ELECTRIC STORAGE BATTERY ENGINE in a continuous stream, as the pressure ceases at each alternation of the stroke. The first application of the steam fire engine was made when the Argyle Rooms in London were burned in 1830. Float- TILLERY; EXPLOSIVES; GUN POWDER; ing fire engines have been constructed and worked by steam. The steam fire engines have been greatly improved, and steam of more than 100 pounds pressure on the square inch can be raised in seven minutes after making the fire. Some of these engines throw a jet to a vertical height of about 200 feet, or can drive water horizontally through half a mile of pipe. Gasoline motor-driven engines now largely in use can be started instantly and make 35 miles an hour. The same engine drives and pumps the water. Those preferred are six cylinders of 70 h. p. pumping 700 gallons of water a minute. Chemical engines, motor driven, are within the means of the smallest towns and require only two men and a pilot to operate. FIRE ESCAPES are of two distinct kinds-one for affording aid from outside, and another for enabling those within the house to effect their own escape. Of the latter the simplest is a cord that should be firmly attached to the window sill of every sleeping apartment, and coiled either in a box on the floor, or under a dressing table, or other suitable place. A rope one-quarter or three-eighths of an inch thick, and knotted at intervals of about one foot, is well adapted for the purpose. A pulley fixed to the window sill, over which runs a rope with a chair or simple board to sit on, is a well-known contrivance. Fire escapes, to be used from without, consist either of simple ladders kept at convenient stations, or a series of ladders that can be joined together; or ropes with weights at one end that they may be thrown or shot into windows. Large buildings generally have permanent iron stairways attached to the outer walls for use in the case of fire.