“What a curious thing that fire-alarm is! Do you understand how it works, Willie?” inquired Clinton.
“Yes, I’ve heard it all explained,” replied Whistler. “In the first place, the city is divided into seven fire districts. In each of these districts there are a number of little cast-iron boxes, fastened to the sides of buildings, such as I showed you on Faneuil Hall. These are the signal stations. When a fire breaks out near one of these stations, the watchman, or the man who keeps the key, goes to the box and turns the crank in it slowly six times. That sends the alarm along the wires to the central office, in Court Square, and the man there knows just where it came from, and he strikes the number of the district upon the bells. There are about forty of those signal boxes, and each has its wire running to the central office. Then there is another set of wires that lead from the office to the bells.”
“All the bells in the city strike at the same time, don’t they?” inquired Clinton.
“No, there is no need of ringing all the bells,” replied Whistler. “There are only seventeen bells, I believe, connected with the alarm, and these all strike together. The ringing is done by machinery, something like the striking part of a town clock. It has a weight, and an electro-magnet; and the power that sets it in motion comes from the great battery in the central office. If the fire is put out before all the engines get there, an engineer goes to the nearest signal box and telegraphs ‘all out,’ and the man in the central office gives the signal on the bells, and then the firemen go home.”
“It’s a complete arrangement, isn’t it? I should think the firemen would like it. It must save them a good many steps,” said Clinton.
“It does,” added Whistler. “Before we had this telegraph there used to be a great many more false alarms of fire than there are now. Besides, when there is a fire, it saves them a good many steps in finding it.”
Mr. Davenport now came in, and, after a few words with Ettie, who had not yet mastered the secret of the dissected map, he added, turning to the boys:
“Well, young gentlemen, have you seen all the sights, and got home at this time of day?”
“No, sir, we haven’t seen half of them; but we got pretty tired, and thought we’d been about enough for one day,” replied Clinton.
“And you looked at everything just as hard as you pleased, did you?” continued his uncle.