Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1895 — WOOD MADE FIREPROOF. [ARTICLE]

WOOD MADE FIREPROOF.

Successful Test With ■ Fire*Resist* ing Compound. A successful test was made recently in New York of a new electric fireproof compound which injected into wood it is claimed renders it fireresisting, and which has recently been adopted by order of the Secretary of the Navy in the construction of the war vessels of this government. The object of the experiments was to determined the value of the compound when applied to building work. The test was witnessed by Superintendent Stevenson Constable, of the New York Department of Buildings, who at its conclusion expressed himself guardedly as surprised at the ability of the materials so treated to resist a tremendous heat. The test was conducted under the supervision of Howard Constable, brother of the Building Supetintendent. Mr. Constable has caused to be erected in the open lot bounded by Broadway, Fifty-eighth and Fiftyninth streets two model wooden stairways, enclosed and winding in their course like those of the ordinary tenement. These stairways were built so that their wooden frames or houses were in close juxtaposition. The frames were ten feet high, by six broad and abdutsix feet in depth. The stairways were in all particulars exactly similar, each having strings, treads, risers, lathing underneath, wainscot, balusters and rail. Each frame was provided with a door, attached to the side with heavy

Iron binges. The stairs were covered with matting, and the handsome ash baJasters were highly polished. The only difference between the stairways was that one was treated with the electric fire resisting compound, whife the other was not. The test consisted in building fires under each, in much the same way as the recently detected U'firebugs’’ proceeded. The same quantity of shavings and kindling wood was placed under both stairways, and then the structure was saturated with kerosene oil. The untreated building blazed up in a minute into a solid column of flame. The wind, sitting as It did from the west, blew this flame over upon the adjoining structure which had been treated with the new compound. The bonfire under the stairway of the latte# blazed away cheerfully, but the wood did not ignite. In fifteen minutes the untreated was a mass of live coal, while the other was simply carbonized under the fierce heat to which it had been subjected in tho close contact with the roaring furnace at its side. The Secretary of the Navy, upon the recommendation of the Board of Naval Engineers and Constructors of the United States, ordered that all vessels built for the government in future should be constructed us to the wood used of materials which had been treated with this fireproof compound Existing war vessels are to bo remodelled, so as to conform to this regulation.