d from its track
or been hindered on its course. This annihilation of space, with the
human skill, vigilance and fidelity incidental to it, are more
wonderful to me than any tales of magic, stranger than any fiction. I
believe because I see; nevertheless it is incredible. My second
amazement is that fire insurance companies should continue to live and
thrive against such apparently fearful odds, for I see whole villages
and cities composed of buildings that seem expressly designed to invite
speedy combustion, and at the same time to resist all attempts to
extinguish a fire once started in their complex interiors. Indeed, the
most effective modes of treatment yet discovered for a burning building
are drowning it with all its contents in a deluge of water or blowing
it up with gunpowder. It is an open question which of the two methods
is to be preferred.

[Illustration: A SECURE OUTLOOK.]

"Let me show you how a wooden house is built. The sills and joists of
the first floor are comparatively safe, because they are not boxed in
with dry boards, and even with furnace and ash-pits in the cellar there
would be little danger from a fire down below if it were not for the
careful provision made for carrying it into the upper part of the
structure. This provision, however, is most effectively made by means
of the upright studs and furrings that stand all around the outside of
the building and reach across it wherever a partition is needed.
Accordingly, every wooden house has from one hundred to one thousand
wooden flues of a highly inflammable character arranged expressly to
carry fire from the bottom to the top, valiantly consuming themselves
in the operation. Furthermore, they are frequently charged with
shavings and splinters of wood, which, becoming dry as tinder, will
respond at once to a spark from a crack in the chimney, an overheated
stove or furnace-pipe, or a match in the hands of an inquisitive
mouse. They are, likewise, so arranged that no water can be poured
inside them till they fall apart and the house collapses, for they
reach to the roof, whose sole duty is to keep out water, whether it
comes from the clouds or from a hose-pipe, but which, for economical
reasons, is made sufficiently open to allow the air to pass through it
freely, thus insuring a good draught when the fire begins to burn. To
complete the system and prevent the possibility of finding where the
fire began, the spaces between the joists of the up