three to six times the necessary amount of material is habitually used in structural work, that the building codes are laxly enforced, that the fire loss in the United States is eight times as much per capita as in any country in Europe, and that the great fire waste in the United States is due, principally, to the predominance of frame buildings and to defective construction and equipment.
Contrast between the small losses by fire to government buildings and the immense losses reported from the country as a whole, led the geological survey to make an inquiry.
Not one person in a thousand knows that the United States Government owns buildings that cost more than $300,000,000, and is spending $20,000,000 a year for new buildings. It will be a surprize to every one, too, to learn that not one cent of insurance against loss by fire is carried on these valuable buildings. Insurance at the ordinary rate would cost more than half a million dollars a year, and the government avoids this great tax by constructing buildings that are securely fire-proof.
After a careful investigation, it has been determined that the total cost of fires in the United States in 1907, excluding that of forest fires and the marine losses (in themselves extensive), but including excess cost of fire protection due to bad construction and excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted to the enormous sum of $456,485,000, a tax on the American people exceeding the total value of all the gold, silver, copper and petroleum produced in the United States in that year.
The cost of building construction in 1907 in forty-nine leading cities of the United States, reporting a total population of less than 18,000,000, amounted to $661,076,286, and the cost of building construction for the entire country is conservatively estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half of the value of all the new buildings constructed within one year is destroyed by fire. The annual fire cost is greater than the value of the real property and improvements in either Maine, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana or Montana. In addition to this waste of wealth and natural resources, 1,499 persons were killed and many thousands were injured in fires in the United States in 1907.
The actual fire loss in the United States due to destruction of buildings and their contents amounted to $215,084,709 in 1907. This was $2.51 loss per capita. The per capita loss in the cities of the six leading European countries amounted to but 33 cents. Comparisons of the total cost of fires, which includes the items already stated, show that if buildings in the United States were as nearly fireproof as those in Europe, the annual fire cost would be $90,000,000 instead of $456,000,000. (Text.)—Pittsburg Leader.
(1103)
FIRE, HEAVENLY
It was the first engine on the new railroad
running through the wilderness. At night,
the puffing, snorting monster, belching forth
fire and smoke, came dashing out of a dark
forest with its one shining eye in front. As
it fairly leapt along the track like a thing of
life, green reptiles wriggled out of sight,
vultures fled to the tree-tops, and wild beasts
ran snarling into the jungle. The fire inside
of the engine was what did it.
When the fire of inspiration gets inside of a man, how much he is like a steam-engine. He moves straight ahead, keeps on the right track, has his eye single to the forward line and his whole soul is full of light and heat. The creatures of darkness flee before him as he emerges into the light that shall never fade. (Text.)
(1104)
Fire Peril—See Self-restraint.
First Aid—See Knowledge Applied.
FIRST FRUITS
Have you been watching the buds open
their eyes these spring days? They seem to
have come out just to see what is going on
in this wonderful world. Their number is
increasing daily, but if you had put your
ear close to the first and tiniest bud of
spring, it would have whispered: "I am a
hint of what all buds will be when waked
out of their wintry sleep." Will not the
children sing for joy when the daisies come?
Well, if you could somehow find the first
daisy that peeps through the sod, it would
say: "I am a sample of what the daisy harvest
will be when Mother Summer has drest
us all up in robes of gold." On the brow of
a certain hill, I once enjoyed more than a
passing acquaintance with a June apple-tree.
I used to watch for the coming of its fruit
as they that watch for the morning. Now,
there was a tradition that June apples were
not good until they fell of their own accord.
Sometimes, in spying out the land, I would
find only one apple upon the ground. Of
course, one apple to a growing boy is little
more than a delusion and a snare, and it re-
