Historical Inventions and Innovations
Before the modern fire hydrant, a primitive fire suppression system was to bury a wooden water pipe (often no more than a hollowed out log) along the streets.
In the event of a fire, teams would dig down to the buried wooden water main and auger a hole in the pipe, and out would come the water to fill buckets. Then a bucket brigade would be started to extinguish the fire. When the teams were finished, they would need to hammer a wooden plug into the log to stop the flow of water. Hence the origin of the term “fire plug.”
Read more about this topic: Fire Hydrant
Famous quotes containing the words historical, inventions and/or innovations:
“The proverbial notion of historical distance consists in our having lost ninety-five of every hundred original facts, so the remaining ones can be arranged however one likes.”
—Robert Musil (18801942)
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (18381918)
“By such innovations are languages enriched, when the words are adopted by the multitude, and naturalized by custom.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (15471616)