Ebook Fire and Explosion Risks

Of late years great strides have been made in chemistry in connection with Fire Assurance, the prevention and extinction of fires, and the detection of the causes of accidental or premeditated outbreaks; in fact, chemistry has become an indispensable aid in the solution of these important problems.

Keeping pace with the development of our civilisation, we may expect that, in the future, the assistance of chemistry will be more and more relied on in the regulation of insurances, the promulgation of legal enactments against fire risk, the detection of incendiarism, and in cases of dispute before the courts. In such eventualities two ways are open, viz.: -

1. Calling in the aid of a chemist, a proceeding not always feasible, oftentimes expensive, and sometimes unsatisfactory, owing to the available chemist being imperfectly versed in the matter of fire prevention.

2. Consulting the literature. This resource also is not always available to the officials interested; and even when it is, the information respecting fire prevention is scattered over such a wide area, as to necessitate special study in order to separate the desired particulars from the enormous bulk of the literature itself. In fact, apart from a few special treatises, such as Professor Hapke's interesting work on "Spontaneous Ignition," Dr. M. Richter's book on "Benzine Fires," and Meunier's old work, there is at the present time no single book dealing so fully with fire risks and fire prevention, in the domain of chemical technology, as to be suitable for all cases, and for the laity.