54 Millri PREFACE 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 Häpke'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. Perhaps, also, no such work will ever be written, since any attempt to accomplish this task would have to deal with the most divergent local conditions and materials, the most complicated processes, the incalculable peculiarities of the materials: in short, to struggle unsuccessfully with unconquerable difficulties. The well-defined individuality of each separate article of insurance: the works and plant, the raw material, the intermediate products, waste products and finished article, to say nothing of the individuality of each case of fire, often due to a problematical cause and complicated inception, even under comparable circumstancesall these factors prevent generalisation, and militate against the compilation of a work that shall be applicable to all conditions. They also explain why the activity of the chemist in this connection -like that of the jurist in his branch-must be continuous and unremitting. If, in despite of all this, I have undertaken the compilation of a work directed to the solution of some of these important problems, the step in question is taken solely with the idea of facilitating the utilisation of the chemico-technical literature by officials of Fire Insurance Companies, Fire Brigades, the Judiciary, Law Officers of the State, the Police, &c., who have not had a chemical training, and to place in the hands of these officials a popular guide, which will give them information—so far as the chemical aspect of the matter is concerned-on the degree of fire risk, the possibility and means of prevention, incendiarism, and the causes of fires, as well as extend their general knowledge of the fire risk of chemico-technical substances and processes, without requiring any previous acquaintance with the subject. In all the contingencies here in question, a general acquaintance -up to a certain extent-with the risk of fire and explosions may be of great importance; but the attainment of this necessary knowledge is a difficult matter for those who have not had a chemical training; and however interesting chemistry may be to all classes of mankind, the professional investigation of chemical problems is often very difficult to non-chemists. Many complaints in this respect have reached the author in the course of a career extending over a quarter of century as works chemist, commercial chemist, and finally as factory inspector for the Grand Duchies of Coburg and Gotha, and for this reason he has decided to comply with the demand by issuing a practical handbook, to serve as a work of reference and a means of study. The work is not designed to form an introduction to the variable practices of Fire Insurance Companies, or a mere repetition of Trade Union regulations for the prevention of accidents; neither is it the author's intention to deal with all the separate branches of technology, since such a course would lead him too far away from the object in view, namely: To present non-chemists with a practical chemical tool, and to facilitate investigation of the, to them, foreign domain of chemical technology in questions of fire risk and fire prevention. With this idea in view I have decided to make use, in many instances, of older chemical conceptions, because I regard the same as more suitable to, and readily understandable by, non-chemists, and am of opinion that, for detecting, judging, and correctly settling cases of fire or combustion, it is more important that the non-chemist should treat and decide the matter in accordance with a standpoint he understands, rather than proceed according to new theories which he is incapable of assimilating, and which are, moreover, still subjects of scientific controversy. In answer to the objection that the book overestimates—to the advantage of Fire Insurance Companies - certain dangers of individual trades and substances (an objection that was also urged against Meunier's work in its day), I would urge that a work of this kind ought to bear in mind the possibilities of danger. Be these latter never so remote, they must not be left out of consideration if individual instances have demonstrated them to be within the bounds of possibility. The fire risk of a substance or process is not to be judged of by the extent or the number of fires to which it has given rise: nevertheless, it should be known to the officials connected with Fire Insurance Companies, the Judiciary, or the Fire Brigade, that, under certain conditions, an otherwise harmless material may become a very dangerous one, nor should one wait for the destruction of large factories, or the occurrence of numerous explosions, to prove its highly dangerous character. The author considers that with the reports of these possibilities of danger before them those officials should proceed in a rational manner, and not always class such instances on a par with direct dangers. In all places where risk or danger is mentioned in the text, it will be understood to refer solely to fire, spontaneous ignition, or explosion, hygienic dangers. being left out of consideration. I have avoided the description of typical cases of fire and explosion, it being always objectionable, in this domain particularly, to correlate occurrences that are mostly based on entirely different conditions. Temperatures are given throughout in degrees of the Centigrade thermometer, except where specially stated otherwise. May the work fulfil its purpose, as a reliable vude mecum and adviser for the non-chemist in the, to him, unfamiliar subject of Chemistry. CONSTANCE, September, 1901. DR. VON SCHWARTZ. |