Some of the early descriptions of proposals to make a self-acting, mechanical fire-alarm are straight out of Rube Goldberg: Description of a Fire-Alarm. By Mr. James Phoenix. [in Retrospect of Philosophical, Mechanical, Chemical and Agricultural Discoveries, London, 1809] begins: A long-necked retort, whose capacity including its neck is about three pints, is to be half filled with water, or in frosty weather with a mixture of equal parts of spirits and water, and then hung to the ceiling of a room with its bottom upward, so that the expansion of the air and contained fluid, by a slight increase of temperature, may cause the fluid to run out of the neck into a trough placed for that purpose, and having a small piece of loaf sugar at the other end, which retains a spring communicating with a bell. [The publication then observes that This method of giving alarm must be considered as rather fanciful.] books.google/books?id=BgE7AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA204&dq=%22fire+alarm%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cARkVJyhO87IsAT4wILIDw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22fire%20alarm%22&f=false
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 01:09:56 +0000
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