Why Not ?
A correspondent, signing himself Dr. Thomas J. Lewis, writing to the New York Herald, says:
“I send you for publication an infallible remedy against large fires: Arrange the fire engines so that the water as it passes through the engine will become impregnated with any one of the following chemical agents: Powdered alum, potash or tungstate of soda (the latter is the best) and the result will be that wherever the water touches it will not rekindle, and cannot be burned by excessive heat. If the Fire Commissioners wou’d adopt my plan it would save millions of money aud many lives. As a victim of the great Chicago fire I feel it my duty to give the above to your paper for general circulation.”
