444





RECORD  AND GUIDE





September 7,- 1912







PUBLIC  SCHOOL  73.   BRONX,  SHOWING NEW ADDITION.





much less expensive one is required than
is necessary with the natural draft now
in  use.                                           ,,            ,,

"In order to properly burn the smaller
sizes of coal, it is necessary to use grates
having apertures sufficiently small to pre¬
vent the coal from falling through. In
some of the buildings, an attempt has
been made to use the smaller coal, but.
without making proper provision for its
use, and therefore the engineers have
been compelled to carry a bed of ashes
and clinkers on the grates to hold the
fuel. This is obviously a direct loss of
efficiency, as well as a waste of time and
effort on the part of the men, and should,
therefore, be corrected.

"The proportionate amount of grate
surfaqe is too large and should be ma¬
terially reduced. A certain quantity of
coal must be burned per hour per square
foot of grate surface to produce the
highest furnace economy. In certain of
the school buildings under consideration,
a total of 30,497,600 pounds of coal was
burned per year upon a total grate sur¬
face of 3,635.66 square feet. This gives
approximately only 3 pounds of coal per
hour per square foot, whereas the ac¬
cepted economical flgures call for a con¬
sumption of from 17 to 22 pounds per
hour per square foot of grate surface."
Flre   Protection.

The investigator further reports that
our public schools are conspicuous for
the lack of fire-protection. Not one of
the buildings that were inspected is whol¬
ly flreproof. None of them conforms to
the fire rules and regulations. Here and
there an axe or a hook or a hand-ex¬
tinguisher may be found, but in no case
is there anything that the most kindly
criticism could dignify into a modern fire-
extinguishing system. To be sure, the
architect has in a number of buildings
devised a very ingenious system of en¬
closed stairways, which would doubtless
allow some children to escape in case of
a bad fire, but they are merely exits—not
fire  preventions   nor  extinguishers.

"Buildings that were constructed in a
fireproof manner are rendered entirely
unsafe," the report says, "because of the
vast quantities of wooden furniture which
they contain, and because of the wood
encased and badly-located pipes, traps,
etc., which abound in all directions. One
building is even equipped with, or, one
may more truly say, menaced by wooden
fire-escapes on the outside.

"Of what avail is it to build a fire-re¬
sisting structure and then fill it to re¬
pletion with inflammable materials, so
that it becomes in fact a furnace with a
flre ready laid? The answer is found in
the fate of the Collinswood school in
Ohio, or, to look nearer home, in the large
offlce building recently destroyed by fire.

"No school building should be allowed
to exist a day without absolute fire pro¬
tection for the children and teachers.
Therefore, all schools should be imme¬
diately provided with automatic sprink¬
lers, standpipes, flre pumps and auto¬
matic alarms, AU wooden stairways
should be replaced with steel and all pos¬
sible precautions should be taken against
loss of life and property by fire; sanitary
and fireproof furniture should be installed
in   place  of  the  present   unsanitary   and





easily destroyed wooden stfuctures and
filigree work school desks, in elaborate
and impracticable design, the sole result
of which is to catch dirt and prevent ad¬
equate cleaning,"

--------------*--------------

CONGRESS OF ENGINEERS.





Experts on Testing Materials Here From
Many Foreign Lands.

•The sixth congress of the International
Association for Testing Materials drew
to the Engineering Societies' Building in
this city this week civil engineers from
-all over the worid. Torday the sessions
.of the congress here .will come to a close,
and to-morrow (Sunday) the members will
leave New,York and make a tour through
the country,. visiting Washington, Pitts¬
burgh and'Niagara Falls.

The list of foreign delegates contains
the names of inany engineers prominent
in the affairs of their respective -coun¬
tries, as Dr. Unwin, president of the
British Institution of Civil Engineers ;\
Dr. Archibald Denny, of the famous
Scotch shipbuilding firm of Denny Bros.;
Alfred Deinlein, Chief Engineer of the
Austrian Ministry ! of Commerce; Emilie
T, Camerman, Chiff Chemist of the Bel¬
gian State Railway Administration; P.
Christophe, Chief Engineer of Bridges and
Rokds at Briissels;'.Louis Breda, Engineer
in Chief of the Belgian State Railways;
■'Lieut.'~E.' Riiiig, representing the Danish
Ministry of War; M. Le Chatellier, In¬
spector General of Mines for France;
Privy State Councillor Jaeger, of the
Prussian Ministry of Commerce and
Trade; First Councillor of Construction
Jahnke, of the Prussian Railway Admin¬
istration; J. Marx, President of the Hun¬
garian State Railways; A. Fodor, Chief
Engineer of the Hungarian Board of Pub¬
lic Works.

There was a large attendance of Ameri¬
can engineers, including many prominent
in New York City affairs, as Alfred No¬
ble, Calvin W. Rice and Rudolph P. Mil¬
ler, of New York; Robert Forsyth, E. M.
Hager, of Chicago; Prof. Denton, from
Stevens Institute; Major Speer, from
Pittsburgh; E. A. Sterling and Richard
L. Humphrey, from Philadelphia; Rus¬
sell Greenman, Albany; Prof. Danforth,
from the U. S. Naval Academy; E. E.
Wilson, Supervisor of Bridges for the
New York Central Railroad; N, L. Malm-
ros. President of the American Society of
Swedish Engineers; and W. C. Gushing,
chief engineer for maintenance of way
on the Pennsylvania railways.

Chief Engineer Wm. H. Bixby, of the
U. S. Army, greeted the congress in the
name of the President of the United
States, and Robert W. Hunt, president
of the American Society of Testing Mate¬
rials, welcomed the delegates in the names
of the various engineering societies of
America, Prof. H, M. Howe, acting presi¬
dent of the International Society, was the
presiding officer of the congress. Ad¬
dresses were also delivered at the open¬
ing session .by Governor John A. Dix, of
the State of New York, and by Comp¬
troller William A. Prendergast, who spoke
for the Mayor of New York  City.

For the second session, on Tuesday af¬
ternoon, twenty-eight papers were on the





program, distributed among three sec¬
tions, into which the congress was di¬
vided. In the evening there was a re¬
ception at the New York Public Library.
On Wednesday,. Thursday, and Friday
there were further section sessions in the
morning and early afternoon, and later
in the afternoon of each day there was
an excursion to some place of interest.
This Saturday afternoon the members
will visit the Museum of Natural His¬
tory, and in the evening the Museum of
Art.

Reports were made to the congress by
.American committees on the subject of
Paints for Metallic Structures; on the
Nomenclature of Iron and Steel, by
J. B. Howard, on Tests of Structures:
by P. H. Dudley and M. H. Wickhorst,
on Tests and Research Work Concern¬
ing Steel Rails; by J. J. Porter, on Typi¬
cal Uses of Cast Iron in American Prac¬
tice; by C. M. Chapman, on Tests of Con¬
crete; by J. Y. Jewett, on Tests of Con¬
struction Materials in the U. S. Reclam¬
ation Service; by F. P. McKibbon, on
the Design, Equipment and Operation ot
University Testing Laboratories; by Prof.
Ira H. Woolson and Supt. of Buildings
Rudolph P. Miller, on Investigations Made
on Fire Resisting Construction in the
United States. This last report contained
tabulated details of about eighty floor
tests. McGarvey Pine reported on In¬
vestigations of American Woods, with
Especial Reference to Mechanical Prop¬
erties. Many reports were also made by
the foreign delegates.

----------------♦----------------

TIDEWATER AN ADVANTAGE.





Views of a Hudson River Cement Manu¬
facturer—Barge Canal Will Help,

The views expressed in the Record and
Guide of August 24 by Albert Moyer, of
the Vulcanite Cement Company, upon
the probable effect on the cement trade
Of the opening of the State Barge Canal
appear to have represented the opinion
of the manufacturers in the Lehigh dis¬
trict, rather than of the Hudson River
manufacturers. The latter claim that
there is a real advantage in having tide¬
water as well as rail communication with
this  market.

Mr. Moyer remarked in an interview
that the Lehigh Valley manufacturers
had the advantage of shipping in car lots
into Jersey City, and either trucking
, from cars at Jersey City and Hoboken
across the ferry, or lightering in 250-bbl.
lots from the Jersey terminals to the
various docks in New York. Therefore,
he said, small units could be handled
economically from the Lehigh Valley,
whereas the larger units would have to
be handled froni the Hudson River,
plants.

Mr. William P. Corbett, secretary and
general manager of sales of Alsen's
American Portland Cement Works, with
sales offlces at 45 Broadway, and mills
at Alsen on the Hudson, seemed to take
issue with some of Mr. Moyer's argu¬
ments; wh^n interviewed this week. Mr.
Corbett thought he was qualified to speak
impartially, as his company once owned
a mill in the Lehigh Valley besides the
one on the Hudson River.

"Did you ever know of a large manu¬
facturing business which had in addition
to good rail facilities the best water fa¬
cilities and was not benefited thereby,
if only because of greater competition
bringing down the freight rate?" asked
Mr.  Corbett,  quizzically.

"In my opinion," he added, "the logical
place from whence to supply the New
York City market, is where the Hudson
River can be availed of as a medium
of transportation as well as rail facili¬
ties. Having published Mr. Meyer's
views, which favored the Lehigh Valley,
the Record and Guide should certainly
give due prominence to the fact that the
New York State companies have rail fa¬
cilities equal to those of the Lehigh Val¬
ley, and the great additional advantage
of the  Hudson River,

"The Norfolk (Va.) mill which Mr.
Moyer refers to was built by the Lehigh
Valley American Cement Company, and
when that company went into the hands
of a receiver its mills in the Lehigh Val¬
ley were in the same fix as the Norfolk
mills. The largest producing company in
the Lehigh Valley, and also the third
largest producing company of that re¬
gion, bought mills on the Hudson River
not long ago because they perceived,
other things being equal, the advantage
which that location would give them. In¬
ferior cement in either district has failed
of success (and will), but the highest
grade of New York cement must have
this advantage over the highest grade
Valley   cement,

"The principal reason why the Lehigh
Valley  mills   have  continued  to  ship  as