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Mechanics' Magazine,

MUSEUM, REGISTER, JOURNAL, AND GAZETTE.

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FORD'S FIRE-ESCAPE.

FORD'S FIRE-ESCAPE.

Sir,-The uninformed and unthinking portion of mankind are continually railing against science, and accusing it of indifference to the claims of humanity; especially whenever any recent calamity is rife in the public mind.

The fact is, the life-boat-the safetylamp, and a thousand similar inventions might be cited, to prove that this charge is utterly groundless and most unjust; but, passing by these, and numberless other instances, in which humanity has been protected and preserved by the benignant hand of science, it will be suffi cient for my present purpose to name one subject alone, upon which minds of every calibre have for years past been actively employed. The question of escape from fire is certainly one that has engaged more attention, and occupied a greater diversity of talent than almost any other, and necessarily with varied success.

Many inventions, indeed, have been produced, very well calculated to effect the object in view, had not public apathy and indifference to the matter prevented their introduction. Nor is this the whole extent of the mischief; not only have new inventions-calculated greatly to facilitate escape from fire-been disregarded, but the very same feeling has led to the most culpable and fatal neglect of "all the appliances and means to boot" (such as they are), in many places already provided.

A somewhat better state of things, however, now appears to dawn upon us. In the south-western district of St. Pancras, a local fire-association has been formed, whose exertions have been attended with unprecedented success; an efficient fireengine has been provided, and several fire-escapes stationed in the most convenient situations, to afford every needful protection to that respectable and popu lous district. The noble example thus set, has been, and is now being followed by several of the principal metropolitan parishes, who appear to have taken up the subject with a degree of zeal and judgment, worthy of the cause in which it is engaged.

On the 22nd of March last, a Society was also formed for the protection of life from fire, the objects of which are:To organise and tain an effective body of men, who shall be so disposed, in

different parts of the metropolis, as to be promptly on the spot in all cases of fire, and whose sole object shall be the preservation of human life-To examine into, and ascertain the merits of, the different inventions which may be presented to the Society's notice, as calcu lated to facilitate escape from fire-To adopt for the Society's use, such escapes as shall be capable of being externally applied in the most ready and efficacious manner, and which shall be kept at convenient stations under the charge of the Society's men-To recommend to public notice such escapes as shall appear to be the best to be provided by individuals, and kept in dwelling-houses for use in the absence of external aid, and also to diffuse information in every way relative to the best methods of insuring the safety of persons in danger-Finally, to bestow rewards, at the discretion of the Society, on such persons as shall at any time distinguish themselves by their endeavours to save human life in case of fire.

When the St. Pancras Fire-association advertised for fire-escapes, upwards of fifty different contrivances were submitted for their inspection; the examination of which occupied a committee, appointed for the purpose, three days; at the conclusion of which, they decided upon adopting the improved portable fireladders of Mr. Merryweather, and also the spar-fire-escape of Mr. Ford. This invention of Mr. Ford's, which had been previously adopted with much success in Liverpool, is decidedly the best fireescape hitherto before the public; for although some of the parts, separately, have been before employed for the purpose, the whole in combination possesses advantages never before attained in so simple a machine. I would just observe, en passant, that any Society for protecting life from fire, could not do better than collect, with the utmost diligence, models or illustrated descriptions of every kind of fire-escape that has hitherto been proposed, that would-be-inventors with which this branch of humane science at least is completely overrun-might at once satisfy themselves of what has been done in this way by others in the course of the last balf century.

I have much pleasure in laying before your readers the following description of Mr. Ford's ingenious invention, that they

FORD'S FIRE-ESCAPE.

may become acquainted with the existence, and familiar with the use of this simple and effectual apparatus.

In the accompanying sketch (fig. 1), is a representation of Ford's escape raised and ready for action. It consists of a tough, well-seasoned spar, A, from thirtyfive to forty feet long, according to the average height of the buildings in the particular locality where it is to be stationed. At the upper part, the spar is capped with iron, from which two arms, bb, project, furnished with prongs, which give the spar a firm bearing upon the wall of the building against which it is raised; the lower end is shod with iron, terminating in a strong spike e, for ensuring perfect stability at the base. Just below the cap at the top of the spar, a grooved wheel or pulley d is mortised into the spar, and a corresponding pulley e is similarly placed near the bottom. Round these two pulleys runs an endless rope, to which a main rope g is attached at f; the opposite point of the endless rope is fastened to the semi-circular brace of a large grooved roller or traveller H, which traverses up and down the spar between the two pulleys d and e. This brace carries a hook on the under side of the spar, to which a convenient cradle is affixed for the reception of the party to be lowered. If the persons to be brought down are at the upper windows of a house, the cradle is mostly attached directly to the hook, but if relief is to be afforded at any of the lower windows, a chain is attached to the hook, and the cradle affixed at such a distance from the top, as to effect the desired communication. The chain employed for this purpose is one of Mr. Ford's invention, and is of very ingenious construction, and well calculated to ensure great strength and durability; it is a kind of double chain, and each of the links being exactly twelve inches long, greatly facilitates the adjustment of the cradle at a suitable distance from the top.

This escape being brought to the spot where it is required to be used, has first to be raised; this can very readily be done by either two or three men; the cradle (either with or without the chain, as the case may require,) having been attached to the hook, is raised by pulling the rope g (which for convenience is led through the pulley i), until the needful

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The cradle being

elevation is obtained. freighted, is lowered gently by gradually slacking the rope. There is a cleat on each side of the spar, as at k, for hitching the rope on, either for the purpose of keeping the cradle suspended at any required point, or to afford additional friction for checking the too rapid descent of heavy weights.

Fig. 2 is an enlarged sketch of the cradle, consisting of a seat 1, and footboard m, suspended from a cross-head a strong belt P surrounds the body of the cradle, and buckles in front to secure the persons seated within.

This escape, when complete, weighs about ninety pounds; two persons, therefore, can easily carry it from place to place; that number also being sufficient to raise the spar and work the cradle. By this machine assistance can always be sent up from below to the persons in danger, and three individuals can descend at once in perfect safety.

It will be observed, that the spar forms an inclined plane, or railroad, upon which the roller H runs, carrying part of the weight, the other portion being sustained by the pulley d; and in this respect, Ford's escape differs from, and surpasses all others in which poles were proposed to be employed. The descent being neces sarily in all cases diagonal-i. e. parallel to the spar-the moment the cradle be gins to descend, it recedes from the building, thereby clearing railings, areas, flames issuing from lower windows, &c.

This fire-escape is complete in itself; it requires no adventitious aid nor pre vious provision, but affords, under all circumstances, a perfectly safe and unobjectionable mode of deccent, and pos sesses, in a very high degree, those qualifications, which the most competent authorities have declared essential to constitute an efficient fire-escape.

The inventor proposes to use this ma chine for those purposes for which ladders are usually employed, and I doubt not there are many occasions where it would be found exceedingly useful and much more convenient than ladders.

I remain, Sir,
Yours respectfully,

London, May 17, 1936.

W. BADDELEY,

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NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS.

NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT METRO

POLITAN IMPROVEMENTS, &c. Sir,-At length the anxiously lookedfor approved design of Mr. Barry for the new Houses of Parliament has been submitted to the public by the appearance of authentic engravings of the plan and elevation in the last Number of the Athenæum; and to the majority, I am convinced, the "great design" will prove a great disappointment. However superior the elevation, as it now stands, may be to that which was originally submitted to the Committee, there will hardly be found many to consider its erection, even in its present state, as an "honour to the age"-if I may judge of what are likely to be the sentiments of the public in general from the sentiments of a private circle, which may be taken as a fair average of the public. The long, long line of almost unvaried uniformity which stretches along the river-if "Elizabethan" to the letter, certainly very un-Elizabethan in spirit — will scarcely present so pleasing an appearance as the picturesque variety of the old range of building, with its grotesque intermixture of trees and towers. But this is mere matter of taste, and as, according to the old adage, tastes are not to be disputed about, I will pass on to make a few remarks of a more tangible and less disputable nature.

The principal and most striking feature of Mr. Barry's design is, undoubtedly, the gigantic "Record Tower," 300 feet high, which it is proposed to erect over the King's Entrance. The principal object of this feature is to give architectural importance to the new buildings; and amidst so vast a range of edifices as will be formed by the new Houses of Parliament, in conjunction with the old Hall and Abbey, some considerable tower or spire is, undoubtedly, required to form a centre around which the other objects may group. But has Mr. Barry in this instance chosen the proper position for this keystone of his arch? Whoever has viewed the Abbey from any other posi tion than immediately in front of its western towers, must have been struck with the not only evident, but absolutely glaring want of a middle tower or spire; a want which Sir Christopher Wren had already began to supply more than a hundred years ago, when obliged to stop

short by the niggardliness of the age. The spire which he intended to erect was to have been similar to that of old St. Paul's, with which we are all familiar from the views of that ancient boast of London. Were Sir Christopher's proposals now carried into effect, the ancient and modern boast of Westminster would, for the first time, present an exterior appearance worthy of its fame-and, at the same time, the architectural centre demanded by Mr. Barry would be supplied. Seen from the point from which the view in the Athenæum is taken, the spire would rise almost exactly over the middle of the Parliamentary buildings. On the other hand, if the new 66 Record Tower" be built as at present proposed, the Abbey will not only remain in its present awkwardly incomplete state, but all hopes of its ever being completed will be taken away, for a spire and tower so excessively near each other would injure each other's effect. The new building would thus actually be prejudicial to the architectural ornament of its neighbourhood; although the sole purpose of its erection would be ornament, certainly not use. In fact, the proposal to erect a repository for the records at a distance from terra firma full five-sixths, as the Athenæum assures us, of the height of St. Paul's, docs almost seem intended for a covert satire on the usefulness of the documents for which this lumber-room of a hundred feet square is to be provided. Surely if they are intended to be consulted oftener than once in ten years, some little consideration for the comfort of the consulters would prevent this unconscionable demand upon their pedestrian powers and patience. It should not escape remark, too, that the spot selected for the erection of this lofty burthen of earth is absolutely one of the very lowest in London, so that a great deal of its height would go for nothing, in consequence of the unfavourable nature of the ground. The same objection might, indeed, be urged against the Abbey, or rather might have been urged at the time the Saxon kings began to build it; but, as it is, the Abbey is there, already raised to a considerable elevation, and capable of supporting the additional weight of the spire it was always intended to receive, though it has somehow arrived at the 19th century without receiving it.

NEW HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS.

I have nothing further to add on this subject, except that to me the preferability of the Abbey spire to the Parliamentary tower does not appear a matter of dispute, or a mere question of taste, but a point which every body must inevitably decide in the same way who, having eyes in his head, places himself at the Parlia inent end of Parliament-street and makes use of them.

With respect to the ground-plan of Mr. Barry's buildings, a single glance is sufficient to show that it is Gothic enough. The many-shaped and manifold little court-yards which it presents, distinguish it at once from every other building of the last two hundred years. In fact, one can hardly persuade oneself that an edi fice in which it has been thought so necessary to draw a careful distinction between an entrance for lay and an entrance for spiritual peers, can be the production of so unhallowed an era as our own. The two largest rooms in the whole of the immense pile of building appear to be, No. 18, "The Lords' Libraries," and No. 37, "The Commons' Libraries." How are they to be composed? If one contains works not to be found in the other, an occasion may arise in which, spite of the wall of separation between them, a commoner may consult a lord's edition of Shakspeare, or a lord a commoner's copy of Gibbon, and thus the evil of" promiscuous reading" be incurred. Or are they, to guard against this, to consist entirely of duplicates? Two extensive libraries on this plan under the same roof would be rather a novelty in the history of such establishments. One is really almost tempted to ask the question, whether any material injury would result to the State if these two libraries were thrown into one?

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This plan also shows us, that it is not intended that New Palace Yard shall, as was expected, be open to the river so as to command a view of the bridge. The old Star-chamber buildings, recently destroyed, are to be replaced by a new clocktower, a "Residence for the Serjeant-atArms," a Deputy Housekeeper's Residence," and what not, which will answer the purpose deemed, it appears, desirable by Mr. Barry, of preventing a view of Westminster Hall from the bridge. As the terrace to be constructed along the bank of the river is only to be open to the Speaker and the Members of

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both Houses, the public will thus be as completely shut out from the Thames as at Somerset House. Like Sir William Chambers, Mr. Barry seems to have no idea that any architectural use can possibly be made of a river 1,400 feet wide, flowing close to the walls of his building. Yet, surely, if there is one object in nature that combines more beautifully with an object of art than another, it is that of a majestic river seen through a lofty arch. This would be well exemplified if the solid middle of the river-front of Somerset House should ever be removed, and an open line of arches, like that of the entrance into the great court-yard from the Strand, put in its place. The passenger along the Strand would then enjoy a view of the river under the double line in more ma. jestic circumstances than it ever appears elsewhere. If, by a fortunate impulse of good taste, the Benchers of the Temple should, amid the numerous alterations and new buildings they are carrying on there, substitute a straight street leading from Fleet-street to their gardens, in place of the miserably narrow and crooked ways of access with which they are now content, and make the entrance as now under an arch of respectable dimensions, this would afford a scene of rival excellence. But in spite of all the talk about quays that we have heard of late years, the powers that be seem determined to go on considering the Thames as nothing but a great common river, to be kept out of sight as much as possible.

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Having thus satisfactorily erected myself into an arbiter of architectural taste and a censor-general of metropolitan improvements, I cannot in that capacity avoid saying a few words on some of the rather extensive alterations now going on in the City. Unluckily, extensive as they are, they are not quite extensive enough. There seems to be a fatal propensity among the leading men in that quarter to spoil the ship," as the proverb runs, "for a ha'porth of tar." There could not well be a more striking illus tration of this proverb in fact than has recently been afforded by the various circumstances connected with the erection of the Adelaide Hotel, at the foot of Lordon Bridge. The spot of ground on which it is built ought not to have been built upon at all. It was just about large enough to form an admirable quay,

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