Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1891 — Fire Quenching at Sea. [ARTICLE]

Fire Quenching at Sea.

Investigation into the causes of the recent fires on steamships have shown that the use of a very simple means of extinction, the injection of carbonic acid gas into the hold, is very often not resorted to when it would be of the Utmost service. It is a matter for surprise that tlris effective safeguard, which requires for its generation only a few barrels of marble dust and twenty to thirty gallons of hydrochloric acid, with hogsheads for the confinement of the gas and hose for its injection, is not universally employed for the preservation of life and property on the high seas, especially as in the hold of a vessel, which can be tightly closed, the principle of chemical extinction can be applied with almost certain suoeess. The adoption of such a system would result not only in the saving of property, but it might at any time prove the means of averting loss of life.