GRANITE AND FIRE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 574, 18 April 1873, Page 3

GRANITE AND FIRE.

An important fact is b;ought t) light by the accounts of tho Boston fire, with respect, to the resistance which various kinds of stone can offer to flames We might imagine that the best of ail fireproof substances would be granite, which seems the very emblem of stahiiitv; yet the hard stuff lias proved as treacherous as match-wood The flames have eaten it aw ay. A few hours of roasting had reduced one of flic hardest of all materials to something like tho consistency of small shot. Marble, although much softer, had, on tho other hand s'ood the furnace heat galhmtl And brick was found to be a better shiddagainst the tl mes tin n any kind of stone. What may he the scientific explanation of the liability of granite to crumble is an interesting question w.iich scientific men will bo i vited t > answer ; but the fact itself cannot be explained away—and it is ot the highest importance, in these clays of attempts at fireproof building. They seem to have as vet disastrously failed in America, and we fear that wo must add in Eng'ai d alto ; but they have been more successful in Franco. The German shells set tiro to no part of Paris, nor did the petroleum of the Communists spread the flames far beyond tho spots to which it was applied. The secret of the safety is very simple, it comes, in the main, from solid raasonay. The houses of new Paris arc built Ike fortresses. Many of them seem fit to stand a siege. They are quite as strougas feudal CJStles in comparison with the rickety brick boxes which in London do tec work of houses. Tho material is Gaon atone at once easy to work and very durable. How well it can resist fire is scon at the Tuilcrics and the Hotel do Ville, tho flooisand tho walls were soaked with petroleum .until every atom of combustible stuff seemed fated to be consumed The buildings burned for days, and the heat would have made granite crumble to atoms, Yet the walls stand so firm that if they wore patched they might, perhaps hear the weight ot a new roof- We wish wo could believe that the Houses of Parliament would stand equally well such an ordeal. The builders of the old Norman castles knew how to make them fireproof, and modern architects could go to no better school than that which they would find in tho silent examples of feudal masonry.

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