As an instance of what peculiar inventions are sometimes brought out, I annex a description of McNeill’s Patent Safe, which seems to be a sort of floating strongroom for the preservation of mails, specie, and other valuables during transit on shipboard from shipwreck, fire, and theft; but it will be seen to be rather a curious contrivance, and hardly capable of general adaptation, to say the least. The object of the invention, it is stated, is to meet a want which has long been felt, viz., the safety of mails, specie, &c. on board vessels at sea. By the ordinary system of carrying these, the public have had to put up with the inconvenience of occasionally losing or receiving in a damaged state their letters and despatches, and underwriters have had to pay large sums on the total or partial losses occasioned by the wreck or burning of vessels containing large amounts of specie.
The safe is constructed of steel or iron plating, lined with wood, leaving a space, which is filled with fire-resisting composition, of a rectangular form and dimensions suited to the position in which it is placed—say between decks of a vessel—and is placed inside a steel or iron case attached to the main deck, and running up through the upper deck, forming a hatchway large enough to admit the safe to pass through, being held in position by guides fixed at vertical angles, forming slides.
The door of the safe is supposed to be both water-tight and fireproof. When the safe is placed within its case, the upper part of which forms a hatchway, it may be covered either with an ordinary hatch-cover or a deck-house corresponding with other houses on deck, and secured down with hook-bolts fixed to the sills of the hatch-cover or house, and engaging into eyes rivetted into the sides of the case or hatchway. The hook-bolts are connected by iron bars, and communicate with a strong cross-bar, to which is attached a powerful lever placed close to the top of the safe.
In the event of foundering, as soon as the water inside the vessel reaches the upper deck it will flow into the case through holes provided for that purpose; the safe will ascend the slides, forcing up the lever, which will disengage all the fastenings of the hatch-cover or house, and permit the safe to lift it off, and float away clear of the vessel as she sinks.
Strong ringbolts are provided on the top of the safe for lifting it in and out of the case; also for towing or lifting on board any vessel finding it adrift. The boats of the sunken vessel may be made fast to the floating safe, which will serve as a buoy, keeping them altogether with their heads to the sea, with a much better prospect of being seen and picked up by a passing vessel than if scattered over the ocean. The name of the vessel to which it belongs painted on the door of the safe would lead to its restoration to the proper quarter.
I am not aware that this peculiar invention has ever been carried out, but the idea which probably gave rise to it is one that has never been thoroughly solved. Ocean-going mail-steamers, as a rule, continue to carry enormous sums of bullion in such a way that if the vessel is wrecked (as is too often the case now-a-days) the money is scattered and lost. The plan of making a small so-called strong-room by partitioning off a part of the vessel, is open to many objections, and is far inferior to the practice of having strong iron safes, which can be recovered if the vessel should be lost in comparatively shallow water. When the terrible wreck of the ‘Royal Charter’ occurred there was a large quantity of specie on board, and all that had been deposited in a safe was recovered uninjured by the divers many weeks after, while the loose money was scattered.
CHAPTER VII.
FIREPROOF BUILDINGS.
I. General Construction.
When such buildings as the City Flour Mills and the Pantechnicon—types of many other and similar structures in London and the provinces—are burnt out, in spite of their supposed fireproof qualities, it becomes a question of lasting importance as to what is the cause of failure, and whether any so-called fireproof buildings are really so or not. The panic caused in many minds by the newspaper reports of such disasters lasts but a short time, and the true lessons are seldom learnt. With the object, therefore, of endeavouring to place certain facts and suggestions on permanent record, I have collected from many sources various particulars connected with this subject—so intimately connected with the manufacture of fire-proof receptacles.
Much that has been written on fireproof construction is of little value, because the practical bearings of the subject have been lost sight of, and theories of construction are broached that may be good in themselves but cannot be brought into use, because of expense and other inconveniences.