ris paribus_, on
the cubic contents of the building which takes fire, and it appears to
me that the amount of loss would be very much reduced, if, instead of
building immense warehouses, which give the fire a fortified position,
warehouses were made of a moderate size, with access on two sides at
least, completely separated from each other by party-walls, and
protected by iron-doors and window-shutters. In the latter case, the
probability is, that not more than one warehouse would be lost at a
time, and perhaps that one would be only partially injured.

It is sincerely to be hoped that the clause in the last Metropolitan
Building Act, restricting the size of warehouses, may be more
successful than its predecessor, for it is not only property that is
at stake, but human life. In many of these "Manchester warehouses,"
there are fifty or one hundred and upwards of warehousemen and
servants sleeping in the upper floors, whose escape, in case of fire,
would be very doubtful, to say the least of it.[E]

Covering timber with sheet-iron is very often resorted to as a
protection against fire. I have never found it succeed; but Dr.
Faraday, Professor Brande, Dr. D. B. Reid, and Mr. W. Tite, M.P., are
of opinion that it may be useful against a sudden burst of flame, but
that it is worse than useless against a continued heat.

In wadding manufactories the drying-rooms were frequently lined with
iron-plates, and when a fire arose there, the part covered with iron
was generally found more damaged than the rest; the heat got through
the sheet-iron, and burnt the materials behind it, and there was no
means of touching them with water until the iron was torn down; sheet
iron should not, therefore, be used for protecting wood.

Even cast iron, one inch thick, laid on tiles and cement three inches
thick, has allowed fire to pass through both, to the boarding and
joisting below, merely from the fire in an open fire-place being taken
off and laid on the hearth. This arises from iron being so good a
conductor that, when heat is applied to it, it becomes in a very short
time nearly as hot on the one side as the other. If the smoke escapes
up a chimney, or in any other way, there may be a serious amount of
fire before it is noticed.

In a fire at the Bank of England, the hearth on which the stove was
placed was cast iron an inch thick, with two-and-a-half inches of
concrete underneath it; but the timber below that was fired.

With regar