A FRENCH COTTAGE—HOTEL DE PEINTRE, A MEUDON.Larger image(230 kB)
A FRENCH COTTAGE—HOTEL DE PEINTRE, A MEUDON.
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The construction is very simple. The architect was, in fact, asked to use the strictest economy. The first floor, built over a cellar, consists simply of a vestibule, A, which opens into a dining room, C, a bed room, D, a kitchen, B, the water closets, E, and the stairway. The latter is constructed of wood and leads to the second story, which serves as both studio and drawing room. This room is lighted by the large window shown in our perspective view. The walls of the building are of stone—stone from Meudon, nicely colored—and Bourgogne bricks of different shades form the design of the frieze. The basement is of dressed stone; the pediments of the gables and the cornice are covered with a plaster of sand and mortar colored in imitation of stone. The tops of the pediments are decorated with Parvillee faience. The perron is of Bagneux stone and the mullions and supports of Euville stone.
The following is a detailed list of the expenses:Masonry$1,480Carpenter work265Plumbing, etc.166Joiner’s work462Locksmith’s work315Heater, etc.74Painting and glazing92$2,854Salaries200$3,054
According to latest estimates, we consume yearly, with our present population of sixty millions, not less than twenty billion cubic feet of wood. The amount is made up, in round figures, in the following manner:
2,500,000,000 feet for lumber market and wood manufactures;
360,000,000 feet for railroad construction;
250,000,000 feet for charcoal;
500,000,000 feet for fence material, etc.;
17,500,000,000 feet for fuel.
To this it will be safe to add, for wasteful practices and for the destruction by yearly conflagrations, at the least, twenty‐five per cent.
The average yearly growth of wood per acre in the well stocked and well cared for forests of Germany has been computed at fifty cubic feet. Applying this figure to our present requirements, we should have an area of not less than five hundred million acres in well stocked forest to give us a continual supply of all kinds for our present needs. Now, a careful canvass made four years ago developed the result that the existing forest area in the United States, excluding Alaska and Indian Territory, comprised almost five hundred million acres (489,280,000); but it is well known to everybody who is acquainted with our forests that they cannot compare in yield with the average European Continental forests under systematic management. Much of what is reported as forest is useless brush land or open woods, and depreciated in its capacity for wood production by annual fires, by which the physical structure of the leaf mould is destroyed, and thus, too, its capacity for storing the needful moisture, reducing wood production, and killing all young growth.
Without care, without management, and left to the kind but uneconomical work of nature, interfered with, in addition, by rude and ignorant action of man, it is doubtful whether, on the existing area, one half the amount of wood is produced yearly which we now require. We have, therefore; beyond doubt, reached—if not passed—the time when increased drain means squandering of capital, and when regard to husbanding, to careful management, to recuperation of our forests, and planting of new forests is required for the purpose of merely furnishing raw material; and it should not be forgotten that to reproduce the quick growing white pine of an acceptable quality and sufficient size requires not less than eighty to one hundred years, and for the long leaved pine two hundred years; that, altogether, wood crops are slow crops; that nothing of size can be grown under a quarter of a century at the best.
That this is a business requiring intelligent national consideration is apparent. Not less so if we appreciate the magnitude of the values resulting from it. The total value of forest products in the census year was placed at $700,000,000, or ten times the value of the gold and silver production, five times the value of all coal and mineral production, and exceeding every one of the agricultural crops, corn and wheat not excepted; and representing in value about thirty per cent. of the total agricultural production.
Of injuries wrought locally by the reckless clearing of hill sides and of deterioration of the soil due to inconsiderate action of man, I could entertain you by the hour. The country is full of examples. Any one who wishes to study the effect of such denuding of hill sides upon the soil, the water flow, and agricultural conditions, need not go to France, Spain, Italy, Greece, or Palestine. The Adirondack Mountains are within easier reach, where the thin cover of earth exposed to the washing rains is carried into the rivers, leaving behind a bare, forbidding rock and desolation, while at Albany the Hudson River is being made unnavigable by thedebrisand soil carried down the river. The government has spent more than ten million dollars, I believe, and spends every year a goodly sum, to open out a passage over the sand bar thus formed.
Go to the eastern Rocky Mountains, or to Southern California, and you can gain an insight into the significance of regulated water supply for the agriculture below, and also learn how imprudently we have acted and are acting upon the knowledge of this significance by allowing the destruction of mountain forests in the most reckless and unprofitable manner. Along the shores of Lake Michigan, and along the sea coast, we are creating shifting sands by the removal of the forest cover, to make work for the ingenuity of our children in devising methods for fixing these sands again. The vegetable mould with which the kind forest had covered the alluvial sands of the southern coast plain we are taking pains to burn off in order to replace it with expensive artificial fertilizers.
That the great flood of the Ohio, which cost the country more than twenty million dollars, was entirely due to deforestation, I will not assert; but it must have been considerably aggravated by the accumulation of minor local floods, due to the well known reckless clearing of the hill sides, which sent their waters down into the river in torrents. At the season when the winter snows are melting, watch the newspapers, and you will find an almost daily mention of the disastrous ravages of brooks and streams, many of which injuries could have been prevented by avoiding the creation of their distant and indirect cause. Thus we may multiply examples all over the country, showing harmful local influences upon agricultural conditions due to forest devastation.
That the vast stretches of land in the Northwest, from which the white pine has been cut and burned off, present the aspect of a desolation which sickens the heart, you may hear from every one who has seen these deserts unnecessarily wrought by man. Every traveler in this country, be it to the White Mountains, to the Adirondacks, along the Alleghany Mountains, be it through the Rockies or the redwoods of California, cannot but be startled by the desolate, sad aspect of many of these once beautifully clad mountain crests.
And we are a nation hardly a hundred years old, with over thirty acres per capita to spread ourselves upon. What will become of us when we must live upon five acres per head? We are far enough advanced in our recklessness of disregarding the indirect significance of forest areas to have learned a lesson at home, and to feel the necessity of being more careful in the utilization of the forest, so as not to lose its protection for our agricultural and general interests.
The means for its solution I may only briefly indicate. They are education, example, encouragement, legislation. Some of these are of slow effect. Others can be made to give results at once. Let the United States government, which still holds some seventy million acres of the people’s land in forests, mostly on the Western mountains, where its preservation is most urgently needed—let the government set aside these otherwise valueless lands, and manage them as a national forest domain, and then the first effective step, a feasible and not a forcible one, is made. Let the military reservations on the Western treeless plains, which are still in the hands of the general government, be planted to forests and managed as such. This would be no doubtful experiment, would interfere with nobody, would enhance the value of the surrounding country—and education, example, and encouragement are provided, as far as it is in the legitimate province of the general government. And such example, instead of costing anything to the country, can be made self‐sustaining—nay, productive—and would add appreciably to the people’s wealth.—B. E. Fernow.
Mortar containing sugar has been employed in building the new Natural History Museum in Berlin, and has proved far superior to common mortar. It sets almost with the firmness of a good cement, while mortar made with molasses became soft and brittle after a time. In Madras a mortar is used with which either sugar, butter or buttermilk, shellac and eggs are mixed. It holds well and takes a marble‐like polish.
The perspective and plans herewith presented are from the designs of Mr. S. W. Whittemore, architect, East Orange, N J. The general dimensions are: Front, 36 feet, exclusive of bay windows; side, 51 feet, exclusive of piazza and laundry. Height of stories: Cellar, 7 feet; first story, 10 feet; second story, 9 feet 6 in.; attic, 8 feet.
Materials.—Foundation, stone; first and second stories, clapboards; roof, shingles.
Cost.—$8,000.
Fireplaces are provided in the dining room, library, parlor, and hall. The attic is finished throughout. Cellar under the whole house except laundry.
A RESIDENCE FOR $8,000.Larger image(281 kB)
A RESIDENCE FOR $8,000.
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First Story Plan.Larger image(169 kB)
First Story Plan.
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Second Story Plan.
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Writing from China, a correspondent says that the Chinese have developed the culture of the bamboo tree very wonderfully. They can produce a perfectly black as well as a yellow bamboo. The Emperor of China has one officer whose duty is to look after his bamboo gardens. This valuable tree is found in all tropical and sub‐tropical regions, both in the eastern and western hemispheres. An attempt has been made in England, and with some success, to raise a dwarf species found at an altitude of 12,000 feet in the Himalaya mountains. The new world furnishes bamboo of the greatest diameter. The stems are usually very slender, but in the northwestern part of South America is found one species with a diameter of 16 inches. The Chinese put this plant to a greater variety of uses than any other people. Some kinds of it when it first shoots up from the ground are used as a vegetable as we useasparagus, or it can be pickled in vinegar or made into delicious sweetmeats. The plant has to be 30 years old to blossom, and then it bears a great profusion of seeds and dyes. These seeds may be used like rice, and a kind of beer may be made from them. In 1812 severe famine in portions of China was prevented by the sudden blossoming of a great number of bamboo trees. The stems of all the varieties are remarkably silicious. One kind found in Java is so hard that it strikes fire when the hatchet is applied to it. This has only a very slender stem, which is polished and used as stems for tobacco pipes. This Protean tree furnishes material for houses, boats, cordage, sails of boats, telescopes, aqueduct pipes, water‐proof thatching, clothing, water wheels, fences, chairs, tables, book cases, boxes, hats, umbrellas, shields, spears, and paper. The pith is used for lamp wicks, so there is no part of it that cannot be used for something. From some of it exquisite carvings inlaid with gold and silver are cut, that exceed in beauty the ivory carvings for which the Chinese are so famed. Recently it has been put to another use. Mr. Edison has found that the carbonized fibers of the bamboo furnish the best material for the incandescent electric lamp, and has made use of it in his system of lighting. In Burmah and Siam whole cities are built from bamboo. These houses are made in pieces, lashed together, and raised on posts several feet high.—The Lumber World.
An article recently published by us apropos of the Opera Comique catastrophe has brought us several interesting communications, and, among them, one from Mr. Hennebique, one of the designers of the 948 foot Belgian tower. Mr. Hennebique has established the fact that structures in which iron is used in the flooring do not arrest the ravages of fire, but fall even more quickly than those in which wood is employed.
In fact, the beams that support the ceiling joists, flooring, and laths, naturally combustible materials, are raised to a high temperature, and, becoming red hot, bend under their own weight, and at the same time shove the walls outwardly.
The flooring of Mr. Hennebique’s invention, which is composed of a cement made of coal ashes, plaster rubbish, and hydraulic lime, is refractory enough to resist the heat developed by combustion.
As may be seen from the figure, this flooring consists of tubular girders resting upon very simple metallic anchorages. These girders are of the composition above described, and thus constitute a sort of monolith upon which any sort of a floor can be laid—terra cotta, marble, wood, etc.
Aside from its being nearly completely incombustible, this sort of flooring presents a great advantage, from an economical standpoint, in consequence of the rational utilization of the materials employed. It is unnecessary to say that the metal is perfectly protected against oxidation.
Another advantage of this flooring is that it almost entirely prevents the propagation of sound.
HENNEBIQUE’S FIREPROOF FLOORING.
HENNEBIQUE’S FIREPROOF FLOORING.
As may be readily seen, this mode of construction is applicable to different uses and to every possible sort of decoration, such as cornices, compartment ceilings, girders of various styles, as well as pillars, pilasters, columns, and supports of every shape and every resistance.—Chronique Industrielle.
In a letter to theInsurance WorldMr. Thomas Boyd, architect, of Pittsburg, Pa., gives the following practical information:
I have had considerable experience in examining buildings burned by fire, having been associated with my father for eleven years, and during that time have examined hundreds of buildings destroyed by fire. I have traced more fires to the cause of defective flues than to any other source, and I could refer you to buildings, not only in this city but in others, where fires have occurred from this cause, and the insurance men and the public in general stated that the fire occurred from “unknown causes,” as it was first seen many feet away from the flues.
In seventy‐five cases in one hundred where fires occur from “unknown causes,” it can be traced to defective brickwork. Ordinarily, an architect specifies that the brickwork shall be well slushed, and that the flues shall be well pargeted or plastered on the inside. This is a great error, as no flues should be plastered on the inside, and no walls having flues in them should be slushed, as the term is generally understood.
The flues should in all cases be built smooth on the inside, and all the joints should be filled full of mortar, the vertical joints as well as the bed joints. The lining of the flue or the four inches surrounding the flue should always be kept in advance of the brickwork, and the brick adjoining the lining and the second and third brick, and so on, should be shoved in soft mortar up against each other. This will fill all the vertical joints from bottom to top as laid. The slushing that is ordinarily put in from the top only goes down into the joint about ½ inch, thus leaving an opening the entire length of the wall, and in some cases an opening which a mouse could crawl through. As it is only a question of time when all the plastering that can be put on the inside of a flue will fall off, it will leave these vertical joints between the bricks open into the flue, and as the joists cross through these joints in the brickwork, fire is liable to take place ten or twenty feet away from the flue. I have taken down many old buildings in which these joints were filled with carbon or soot.
If the flues are built as above described, any competent builder or architect can find out whether the mechanics doing the work are slighting it or not; but if the inside of the flue is plastered or lined with terra cotta or any other material, you cannot tell whether the wall is properly built or not until this plastering falls off, which it will in the course of a few years. Thus all buildings erected with plastered flues are liable to burn at any time.
I have made a practice for a number of years of building flues without lining them, and then when the house is built, or as each story is erected, I put a dense smoke in the flue and close the opening at the top. If there is a hole the size of an ordinary pin head, the smoke will find it and penetrate into the interior of the wall adjoining the flue.
The roadside planting of trees is carried out on a most extensive scale in Belgium, forming a marked feature in the landscape of that country. According to the report of M. J. Houba, State Head Bailiff or Ranger of Woods and Rivers in Belgium, recently published in theRevue Horticole, the total length of the highroads of Belgium in 1881 amounted to 4,227 miles, classified, as regards tree planting, in the following manner:
Miles.Roads already planted2,417„ still to be planted264„ which cannot be planted1,5464,227
From this it will appear that, at the date mentioned, more than half the entire length of the Belgian highroads had been planted, and that the proportion would soon reach two‐thirds.
The number of trees used in forming these plantations amounted to 871,685, representing in 1881 a money value of £415,986, the average cost of each tree when planted having been about 2s. 6d. The plantations had therefore at this date increased in value to nearly four times the amount of the capital originally expended upon them.
The trees principally employed in these roadside plantations (already made) are: Elms, 371,621; oaks, 130,828; poplars, 80,853; ash, 73,893; beech, 32,970; maples, 27,755; service trees, 24,630; Norway spruce, 43,767; larch, 41,699. It will be seen from this list that coniferous trees are largely used in Belgium for roadside planting. On the other hand, the report only gives 897 plane trees, 976 acacias, and 672 cherry trees, apple trees, and pear trees, showing that while the Belgian authorities fully recognize the great utility of these roadside plantations in other respects, they especially aim at the production of timber of good quality in a commercial point of view.—The Garden.
An Egyptian temple appears to have been one of the most imposing assemblages of buildings that can be well conceived. Avenues lined with hundreds of sphinxes on each side led the worshiper to the sacred precinct for the distance of thousands of feet, and thus the mind, even when remote from the vicinity of the temple, received an impression calculated to excite veneration. This avenue was terminated by a stupendous mass of pyramidal form, above 200 feet wide and about 80 feet high, whose enormous proportion was naught diminished by the vastness of the plain in which it stands, nor by contrast with the mountains that overhung it. In the center of this propyleum is a door, flanked in advance by an obelisk on each side, about 90 feet high, and beside which are figures of colossal dimensions, 45 feet high, sitting as guardians of the sacred portal. The effect of the whole is gigantic, and calculated to impress the coming worshiper with the fullest notions of his insignificance in the scale of material nature. The triumphal gateway being passed, a magnificent court meets the eyes of the beholder, having on each side a colonnade. And this court led to a densely columned hall or vestibule, under the shades of which the crowds of Egypt’s sons and daughters reposed to recover from the exhaustion and fatigue caused by their journey under a burning sun to the fane of their creature god. And here the mind also dwelt awhile on the first impressions produced by the contemplation of the overpowering majesty of the gorgeous mass. For the huge propylea, which inclosed either end of the court, and the hall, with its forest of clustered columns, which the eye could not number, and the playful variety and copiousness of channeled hieroglyphics which left not a space uncovered, and the brilliancy of the pigment which gave an endless variety to the shafts and capitals of the columns, to the beams, the walls and ceilings, bewildered the attention, and left not a moment of repose to the wondering stranger. A lofty central avenue of columns, above 60 feet high, forming, as it were, a triumphal way, leads under a third portal, of dimensions by no means inferior to the others just mentioned, and marked with what care and with what sanctity the priests guarded every approach to the inner parts of the temple. But this gateway passed, and a scene the most sublime burst upon the view. An ample peristyle much larger than the one already passed, presented itself to the eye, probably planted with trees, crowded with metaphoric statues.
On either hand a double avenue of columns, less for convenience than dignity of effect. In the center uprose the portico of the mass of building, that formed the temple itself—the columns in dimension more lofty, in decoration more rich, in proportion more graceful than those of the courts. The dynasties that had ruled over the country up to the period of the erection of this temple have their histories graven on the walls and on the columns. The same pyramidal form gives an appearance of endless durability to the mass, which is surmounted by an immense hollowed cavetto having the center occupied by the sculptured form of the agatho demon, or winged globe and serpents, with outstretched wings extending over the center intercolumniation of the facade, and seemingly a being of another world. Admitted beneath this porch, the minds of the worshipers are prepared for the gloomy inner penetralia, where every object was mysterious and emblematic. Numerous doorways closed by curtains succeeded each other, and led from vestibule to vestibule, which hindered the eye from penetrating with sacrilegious gaze into the inmost sanctuary, all access to it being forbidden to the multitude.
To these vestibules the light of day was denied, and the mind was subdued by the gloom of the spot, for the attention was absorbed by the contemplation of the sacred mysteries of the place and by the effects produced on the attention by the huge incongruous figures of granite—monstrous reflections of the gloomy minds of the religious inhabitants of the sacred precinct, who sought to deify matter and the animal instincts.—T. L. Donaldson.
“About twenty years ago, Prof. J. L. Budd, of Ames, Iowa, advised keeping the seeds of the ash through the winter in kegs or boxes, mixed with clean moist sand, taking care that they become neither too wet nor too dry. Freezing will do no harm. The ground should be marked and prepared as for corn, and planting at the intersections, placing four to six seeds in the hill. They should be carefully cultivated, and the next spring thinned to one plant in each hill, the vacancies being supplied. By planting thus thickly, the young trees get a straight growth. At the end of six years every alternate row north and south should be thinned out, and at the end of ten years every alternate tree in each row. When twelve years old, on good soil and proper culture the first four years the grove would have 12,000 trees on ten acres, averaging eight inches in diameter. By cutting the stumps close to the ground, and covering with a light furrow on each side, a second growth is obtained in eight or ten years, more valuable than the first.”
Prof. C. S. Sargent, in speaking of this timber, says: “To develop its best qualities, the white ash should be planted in a cool, deep, moist, but well drained soil, where it will make a rapid growth. That the plantation may be profitable as early as possible, the young trees should be inserted in rows three feet apart, the plants being two feet apart in the rows. This would give 7,260 plants to the acre, which should be gradually thinned until 108 trees are left standing, twenty feet apart each way. The first thinning, which might be made at the end of ten years, would give 4,000 hoop poles, which at present price would be worth $400.
“The remaining thinnings, made at different periods up to 25 or 30 years, would produce some three thousand trees more, worth at least three times as much as the first thinnings. Such cutting would pay all the expenses of planting, the care of plantation, and the interest on the capital invested, and would leave the land covered with trees capable of being turned into money at a moment’s notice, or whose value would increase for a hundred years, making no mean inheritance for the descendants of a Massachusetts farmer. The planting of the white ash as a shade and roadside tree is especially recommended, and for that purpose it ranks, among our native trees, next to the sugar maple.”
Prof. B. G. Northrop says in reference to this tree: “One of the most valuable of our native trees is the white ash, and, all things considered, it is one of the most profitable for planting. Combining lightness, strength, toughness, elasticity, and beauty of grain in a rare degree, it is in great and growing demand for farming tools, furniture, interior finishing of houses and railroad cars, the construction of carriages, for oars and pulley blocks, and many other purposes. The excellence of our ash is one secret of the preference given abroad to American agricultural implements. It is hardy, will bear the bleakest exposure, is a rapid grower and attains large size, but will not thrive on poor lands. It is every way superior to the European ash, much as that has been cultivated and lauded abroad. It is now found widely in the nurseries and young plantations attached to the forest schools of Europe. Director General Adolfo di Beranger, president of the Royal Instituto Forestale, at Vallombrosa, pointed me to his plantations ofFraxinus Americanawith a tone which implied that is the tree of which Americans may well be proud.
“The ash is a fine ornamental tree for private grounds, public parks, or for the wayside. When planted closely for timber they grow straight and free from low laterals, and early reach a size that makes the thinnings valuable for poles and fencing.
“The seeds of the white ash are abundant, ripening by the first of October. They may be easily gathered after the first frost. If sown in the fall, they should be covered with three inches of straw. If to be sown in the spring, the seed may be mixed with damp sand.”
Sawdust has been a source of worry and expense to mill men in various ways, though it is to be admitted that in utilizing it to some extent as fuel they have in part solved the problem of its economical disposition. Lately, there has sprung up a certain demand for it, and the problem of its cheap shipment is now one that presents itself. A Yankee inventor has tried baling it, and appears to have devised a scheme that accomplishes the purpose successfully. He makes the sawdust into bales, and has progressed so far as to be able to compress thirty‐two cubic feet, or a quarter of a cord, into a package three feet long by two feet on each of its sides. As this occupies only twelve cubic feet, the reduction is sixty‐two and one‐half per cent. of its original bulk. The machine used is nothing more than an ordinary hydraulic press, which is arranged in a manner similar to a hay or cotton press. The sawdust is pressed into bales and at the same time inclosed in a burlap covering, making a neat and easily handled package for shipment. Small pieces of wood, shavings, etc., may be baled with the sawdust or separately with equal facility. It appears a simple method of putting this bulky stuff in convenient shape for shipment, and it would seem might be employed to advantage wherever a market can be found for this species of mill refuse.—The Timberman.
ORNAMENTAL KEYSTONES.
ORNAMENTAL KEYSTONES.
ORNAMENTAL KEYSTONES.
ORNAMENTAL KEYSTONES.
We illustrate a few of the tasteful residences which have been erected at Glenridge, N. J., a charming suburb of New York City, situate on the line of the Delaware and Lackawanna Railway. Glenridge is 14 miles from New York, and the time required for the trip, including the ferry across the Hudson River at New York, is about 40 minutes. The dwellings we have chosen for illustration have been recently erected. They vary in cost from $4,000 to $6,500 or more. We can supply on application such further information as readers may desire.
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GLENRIDGE.
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GLENRIDGE.
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GLENRIDGE.
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GLENRIDGE.
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GLENRIDGE.
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Mr. W. Y. Dent, in a Cantor lecture at the Society of Arts, London, on building materials, gave an account of some of the chemical problems involved in the constituency of fire clay and fire bricks.
The plastic clays consist of silica and alumina chemically combined with water. They are hydrated silicates of alumina, the plasticity depending upon the water that enters into their composition. The water with which the clay is chemically combined can be expelled at a temperature a little above that of boiling, without detriment to its plasticity, but the whole of the water contained cannot be driven off without raising the temperature to dull redness. Silica, alumina, and lime are separately very infusible substances, and are capable of resisting exposure to very high temperatures without softening. It is on account of its extreme infusibility that lime is found to be the most suitable material for the cylinders upon which the oxyhydrogen flame is made to impinge to produce a brilliant light, the intensity of the light being due to the extremely high temperature to which the lime is raised. Lime, however, from its want of cohesion, could never be brought into general use for such purposes as fire clay is employed, and this is also the case as regards silica, which requires the addition of some substance of a basic character, with which it will unite, and so cause the particles to bind together. The nearest approach to the use of silica alone as a fire brick is in the case of the Welsh brick, made from the Dinas rock in the Vale of Neath.
This material, before being made into fire bricks, had long been used for repairing the furnaces at the copper works of South Wales, for which purpose its peculiar property of expanding when subjected to the influence of a high temperature, instead of contracting, as in the case of some other fire clays, renders it particularly suitable, the cementation of the bricks being facilitated by the increase of temperature. This Dinas rock occurs in various conditions, from that of a firm rock to that of disintegrated sand, and a mixture of about 1 per cent. of lime is, therefore, necessary in order to make it into bricks. Dinas bricks will stand very high temperatures, but are more friable than ordinary fire bricks, and will not resist to the same extent the action of basic substances, such as furnace slags, containing much oxide of iron. They are, besides, porous and readily absorb moisture, rendering it necessary for furnaces built of them to be gradually heated, as they are liable to crack if sufficient time is not allowed for driving off the moisture. The composition of the clay used for fire bricks is a question of great importance, inasmuch as its quality depends greatly upon its chemical constituents, although its power of resisting fusion, when exposed to intense heat, is effected by its mechanical condition.
The same materials, when mixed together in the form of a coarse powder, will require a higher temperature to fuse them than would be the case if they were reduced to a fine state of division. The qualities required in fire bricks are that they should bear exposure to intense heat for a long time without fusion, that they should be capable of being subjected to sudden changes of temperature without injury, and that they should be able to resist the action of melted copper or iron slag. The Dinas brick, which contains 98 per cent. of silica, will bear exposure to a higher temperature than most others, but it will run down sooner when in contact with melted iron slag. Ganister is the name given to a fine grit which occurs under certain coal beds in Yorkshire, Derby, and South Wales, and the black ganister from the neighborhood of Sheffield is especially adapted for lining cupola furnaces, owing to its capacity to stand high temperatures without shrinking, in consequence of the large quantity of silica it contains.
Fire bricks made of silicious clays from granitic deposits in various parts of Devonshire also contain a large proportion of silica, but their powers of supporting exposure to high temperatures are materially increased by the coarseness of the particles of disintegrated granite of which they are composed. The material employed for the Dinas bricks, as well as the others mentioned, differs considerably in its character from what is ordinarily understood by the term fire clay, as used in the manufacture of the celebrated fire bricks of Blaydon Burn, Stourbridge, or Glenboig; the quality of which, as regards their chemical composition, depends upon the relative portions of silica and alumina, and their freedom from iron oxide and alkaline salts, the presence of which tends to render the clay more fusible.
Clay is taken as dug from the pit, without being dried, and mixed with the usual proportion of lime, a portion of which is used as limestone, the remainder as freshly burnt lime. The burnt lime is first added in such proportion that the water in the clay exactly suffices to slake it, and the heat given out effects the necessary drying. The limestone is then added and the mixture ground in a mill to the usual degree of fineness, made into bricks, calcined, and the “clinker” reduced to a fine state of division as usual.
The following account of the transmittal of cases of typhoid fever by well water is sent us by Dr. Henry B. Baker, secretary of the Michigan State Board of Health. It is made to him by Dr. H. McColl, of Lapeer, Mich.
Dr. McColl reports: About September 1, 1887, Myron Gardner, railroad employe, came from the South sick with fever to his father’s house. He was supposed to be malarial. No care was exercised with stools in the way of disinfection, but they were thrown into privy vault in rear of house, and in close proximity to well. Wash water was thrown on the surface of the ground, which was very dry at the time. About September 7 or 8, a copious rain fell and soaked the sandy soil; and on September 14, Wm. Gardner and wife, father and mother of Myron, and E. D. Gardner, a brother (who was a student in my office), and who boarded at home, were attacked with fever. On this day I got home from Washington, and found four of them down with a severe type of typhoid fever; and in two weeks Myron’s wife and child were attacked; also a child across the street at Terry’s, who had used water from the Gardner well; about the same time three cases in the Clifford house, south of Gardner’s, who also used water from the Gardner well. None of the people from either of these houses were in the Gardner house. In the Walker house, still further south, one case has occurred, and I was at a loss to account for this case till a few days ago, when the young man said that at the mill where he was working they had used the Gardner water for a few days, owing to the disarrangement of the pump at the mill. Two others of the mill hands—Anderson and Lester—who used the same water were attacked about the same time. Lester is now convalescent. Anderson is dead, as also the child at Terry’s. When I took charge of the cases, I ordered the discontinuance of water from the Gardner well and the disinfection of the stools, and no new cases are now reported. People who assisted to take care of the Gardner and other families, and who use water from other sources, have not been attacked. Clearly, Myron Gardner brought the fever home, the well became infected after the first rain from slops and privy, and the other cases got their seed from the water.
Dr. Baker adds: The foregoing instructive account of the way typhoid fever was spread, in one instance, is produced in the hope that it may lead others to trace the spread of this important disease, and, what is of greater importance, act intelligently for the prevention and restriction of the disease, as Dr. McColl did in this instance.—Sanitary News.
About a month ago, Inspector of Buildings Griffin discovered that the wall on the southern side of the Warren Avenue Baptist Church, Boston, Mass., was bulging. He climbed to the roof, and was astonished to find that the scissors truss that supported the pitch of the roof was not bolted together, but was fastened only with railroad spikes.
The wall was out of plumb fully nine inches. A peremptory order was issued to vacate the church. Then a more careful examination was made, with startling results.
The truss was laid bare, and then it was discovered that the sole support for the roof of the great building consisted of three iron rods one and one half inches in diameter.
The cross rods were of no use, because the wood had shrunk away and the bolts could be rattled. The upper and lower chords of the truss were made of eight two‐inch planks, and where the cross rods had been put through and clinched the auger had cut off one plank and part of another, weakening the truss by one‐eighth.
The lower chord of the truss was cut completely through in two places. It is said that it will cost nearly $200,000 to repair the church, which is one of the largest in the city.
It would not be a bad idea for the trustees of other churches to have the trusses carefully examined.
To pave a city with cedar would seem to be a luxury, but it appears that in the city of Chicago, out of 277.71 miles of paved streets, there are 213.35 miles of cedar blocks, of which nearly forty miles was laid last year, and the ChicagoTribunesays it is the cheapest pavement laid in the city. Dead cedar brought from the vicinity of Green Bay, Wis., was first used, but it was found that it did not wear well, and live timber is now required. The cedar is a tree which does not taper rapidly, and one of good size should furnish a stick 30 ft. long. The logs are brought here by boats in lengths of about 6 ft., with the bark still on, peeled, and cut into blocks 5 in. long. The blocks range in diameter from 3 in. to 9 in., and cost 50 to 60 cents a yard, measurement being made after they are laid. The process of paving a street with cedar blocks is much the same as was used with the Nicholson pavement. A sand foundation is first provided, and on this are laid boards which serve as stringers. On the stringers planks are placed parallel with the curb, and the cedar blocks are stood on end on the planks. The interstices between the blocks are filled with gravel and coal tar.
For the last three years block pavement has cost in Chicago from $1.00 to $1.30 a yard. The life of cedar block pavement is three to seven years, and it is an excellent pavement when first laid. It is believed by many to be detrimental to health from the fact that it absorbs all liquids falling upon it, gives them back in the shape of vapor under the influence of the sun, and is itself constantly decaying. It is stated as a curious fact that this pavement wears out faster on streets where traffic is light than where it is heavy. Cedar blocks are used for paving all through the West, but more freely probably in Chicago than in any other city in the world. They are cheap, and that is a great point in their favor.
Respecting the merits of hemlock, theMinneapolis Lumbermanhas a good word in its last issue. It quotes from a correspondent at Williamsport, Pa., regarding the experience with the wood there as a foundation for paving blocks; and in regard to a stretch of Nicholson pavement there which had been down sixteen years, goes on to say:
“The blocks had been placed on two thicknesses of one inch hemlock, the boards coated both sides with coal tar. When the pavement was taken up, the boards were found to be in good condition—so perfectly sound that they were put back again for possibly another sixteen years. The correspondent says that out of a mile of sixty foot street, less than 10,000 feet of the old planking was condemned. There seems to be no question as to the superlative merit of hemlock for paving purposes.”
This is valuable testimony, and better evidence of the lasting qualities of hemlock under paving blocks than any Western experience has produced, for the reason that it has nowhere in the West been so long as that in use. It has been recognized, however, as a wood excellently suited to this purpose, and is employed almost exclusively wherever the cedar block pavement is freely used, which includes a good many of the large cities in the United States, and practically all Western towns in which any paving is done. It is apparent that lumbermen are beginning to take a strong interest in hemlock, and evidences of its growth in favor are becoming rather plentiful. It occasionally gets a setback from some local dealer, who has come off second best in an encounter with its slivers, but it is bound to come more and more in use in spite of the strong objection that is made to it by some users. Its light weight and great strength for many building purposes are factors that tell.—Timberman.
Mr. Alex. Black, writing to theBuilding News, says: The expansion of brick by fire heat may be estimated at rather above half that of wrought iron; and of mortar at about one‐fourth more than that of wrought iron. The mortar joints in the wall may occupy, say, one‐fifth to one‐sixth of the height of the wall. There is no accurate data as to the maximum heat developed at Whiteley’s fire. It, however, depends on the nature of the contents, etc., consumed and the accumulation of draught currents. If there is free lime, etc., in brick or mortar, there is added to the expansion more or less disintegration, which would become not the least potent cause of collapse.
We may assume that the interior surface of the brickwork exposed to the fire expanded, say, 1 in. in 8 ft. or 10 ft., vertically and horizontally, which would produce a distortion by buckling, or curving inward, dish‐like, of the inside half thickness of the wall, both vertically and horizontally, leaving for a time the outside half thickness (say, for convenience of description) not much disturbed; in the meanwhile, air gets in between these inside and outside half thicknesses, or slices, and it may become gradually expanded by heat and help to force them further apart until the whole wall collapses.
In setting iron girders, the usual practice appears to be to build the ends solidly in the wall to act as a tie; but by having cross flanges at ends the wall may be built close to these on inside toward interior of building, and space left for expansion on their outside; but this space is of no use without the ends of the girders are set upon rollers or rockers, as is done for bridge girders, because the rigidity of wall would not be sufficient to withstand undisturbed the expansive pushing out, or horizontal thrust, of loaded girder end if resting upon a rough bearing plate or block.
If building timber joists into walls, it is a safe method to bevel off the upper corner equal to the bearing of the end in the wall, which allows the projecting portion of joist, if broken accidentally, to drop down without disturbing the wall, by the leverage which it would exert if built in the wall in the usual way.
California can justly boast of a larger number of pretty places and picturesque localities in which to erect residences of moderate cost than can be found in any other State in the Union. The beautiful town of Alameda, covering, as it does, a large extent of ground, embracing several square miles, may be regarded as a paradise for those who wish a quiet retreat, away from the din and confusion of the city, and yet be in close connection with the great mart. Nearly every portion of the town is covered with a natural growth of oak trees. Nor does this growth stop at this point. For a long distance to the north the ground is covered by the beautiful trees from which the neighboring city of Oakland derives its name.
Extremes meet in architecture as well as other matters. Some æsthetic persons have sought to copy the humble abode of the laborer in the external view of a dwelling, while the internal arrangements and fittings rival those of Aladdin’s palace. Others seek to have the outside present to the eye a conglomeration of whimsical ideas, while they have not deigned to cover the floors with a carpet, nor have a door between any of the rooms or halls, excepting those connecting with the outer world.
Much benefit has been derived from these whimsical erections, and it is only by much study and close application to the fancies of their clients that architects have been enabled to prepare the beautiful bijou plans, a good representation of which is given in this issue. In justice to the architectural profession, we must say that no portion of their practice has been so usefully bestowed as that which has been bestowed upon the production of plans for such homes, a full plan of which accompanies this article.