vinces.

Mr. Braidwood at an early date adopted the ordinary military scaling
ladders to the purposes of his brigade, two being placed on each
engine, and at his recommendation ladders were also placed on a
two-wheeled carriage as a convenient fire-escape. He also induced the
Admiralty, in 1841, to adopt hose-reels in the various dockyards,
these implements having been previously in successful use in New York.
In 1848 he was induced, in consequence of the large number of small
fires to which his engines were called out, to adopt a small hand-pump
as an auxiliary to the fire-engine. This could be rapidly brought to
bear, and although worked by but one man, the value of a small
quantity of water thrown directly upon the seat of a small fire was
found to be greater than that of perhaps twenty times as much when
thrown about in the ordinary manner. It was of great importance also
in warehouses stored with valuable goods, to throw the least necessary
quantity of water upon a fire. These hand-pumps still form an
important part of the present apparatus of the brigade, and they have
been widely adopted elsewhere.

London, unlike Edinburgh, has a vast water-side property, always
exposed to danger from fire. Almost immediately, therefore, after
having taken the command of the London Brigade, Mr. Braidwood directed
his attention to the construction of improved floating fire-engines,
to be moored in the river, where they would be always available for
the protection of wharf property. Two were constructed, one being a
machine of great power, with pumps made to be worked by 120 men. These
machines proved of great value. In 1852, shortly after the memorable
fire at Humphrey's warehouses, he persuaded the Fire-engine Committee
to allow one of these engines to be altered so as to work by steam,
and in 1855 a large self-propelling floating steam fire-engine was
made upon a novel construction, and which, having already rendered
great service at fires on the river side, still ranks as the most
powerful machine in the service of the brigade. With locomotive
boilers and large double steam engines, this float can steam nine
miles an hour, and when in place at a fire it can throw four streams
of water, each from a jet-pipe of 1-1/2 inch in diameter, to a great
distance. In the great fire of 1861, this floating engine was worked
with but little intermission for upwards of a fortnight. In 1860 Mr.
Braidwood obtained the sanction of the Fire-en