波士顿的防火木材测试。
8月5日以下的纽约人在party of building experts who witnessed tests of fireproofed wood at Boston: Ira H. Woolson, of Columbia university; Perez M. Stewart, superintendent building department; Rudolph P. Miller, chief engineer, and J. S. Jordan, assistant superintendent, of New York, same department: F. C. Schmitz; Charles H. Parsons, and J. H. Cook, of New York, and J. B. Peters, of Astoria, Queens, New York. The tests were made in a laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and were conducted by Professor Charles L. Norton, of the Institute, who began the demonstration by comparing over a Bunsen burner, giving a heat of approximately 5,500 degrees Fahr., small pieces of treated and untreated wood. The best of the samples of fireproofed wood lost all trace of flame in from one to ten seconds after being removed from the flame, while the untreated wood continued to Maze and afterwards to glow for some minutes. The next set of experiments was to determine the comparative length of time required to burn two sticks of fireproofed and unfireproofed wood. In general the treated wood lasted about a minute longer than the untreated. When subjected to heat in a furnace the fireproofed wood was reduced after a time to charcoal. The next tests were made on larger samples. Two square boxes without ends, one twenty-eight inches in length and the other about twenty-four, one of whitewood and one of pine, treated with different processes, were placed over fires and allowed to stand for five minutes. At the end of that time the fire underneath was removed. The box of pine was charred in the inside, hut the fire went out soon after the source was removed. The box of whitewood continued to glow, and in time the lower part was burned away and a hole was burned in the side. In an electric muffle, where heat of about 1,000 degrees C. (1,800 decrees Fahr.) was supplied on all sides, no sample of fireproofed wood resisted the flame. Some burned more quickly and with more flame than others, hut all were reduced t" charcoal. When dropped noon a red-hot plate of iron, however, the fireproofed woods only charred at the point of contact, while the untreated woods blazed. Two cob houses, one of fireproofed sticks: the other of non-treated woods were tested. In the former all kinds of woods treated by different processes were employed: in the latter all kinds of woods, and each house was subjected to fire for five minutes. At the end of that time only the first five of the eight tiers of the fireroofed wood had been attacked by the flame, and these were not burning readily. The upper tiers were untouched. The house of untreated wood broke into flame quickly, and when the fire was removed from underneath at the end of five minutes, the whole pile was in a blaze. The pile of untreated wood burned for a little less than five minutes before it fell, while the pile of fireproofed wood stood in place for ten minutes. After falling, the untreated wood burned for considerably longer than the fireproofed. Samples of wood treated to a fireproofing paint withstood the flame fully as well as the woods treated to a fireproofing solution which soaked through the entire stick. Incidentally it was noted that the fireproofed woods were much harder upon tools than plain woods, both because they are harder, and because the chemicals that are used cause tools to rust very quickly.
WOOD FIREPROOFED BY ELECTRICITY.
