Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

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REAL ESTATE RECORD. faded have been picked out. In this age it wa^ employed in the construction of the harbor at pover and the breakwater in Brighton. Its great strength was recently shown by subject¬ ing a smaU piece, three feet in length, eleven inches deep, and four and a half inches thick, to a pressure of thirty-six hundred weight. The result w.as entirely satisfactory. It is not probable, however, that it wiU come into gene¬ ral use unless it can be shown to be far cheaper than bricks. To insure its success two points must be insured: the foundations must be properly secured, and equal care must be taken in mixing the material. The use of concrete for floors is considered desirable, but many authorities in the matter consider iibs utiUly for roofing questionable. It is right to state, how¬ ever, that one gentleman warrants that a con¬ crete roof, only two inches in thickness, wUl remain water-proof for ten years. A buUder may object to using this material, as it requires an addition of machinery to his plant, and also to some extent skUled labor. It is maintained, however, that very little experience wiU make an intelligent workman competent to prepare concrete properly, and that the machinery wiU more than repay its cost in cases where six or more houses are erected. The rough appear¬ ance of a concrete building wUl have to be con¬ cealed by ornamental tiles, or stucco work. BROOKLYN NEWS, The new steam pumping engine, which is about to be constructed at Ridgewood, is to be very highly ornamented, and will have a capa¬ city for raising ten miUion gallons of water in sixteen hours. Four bids were received in aU for the work, viz.: Messrs. Rogers & CarroU, New York, $185,000 Messrs. Woodruff & Beach. Hartford, 175,700 Proprietors of the AUaire Works, N. Y,, 147,500 Messrs.Hubbard & \Vhittaker,Brooklyn,129,750 There is a very wide difference in the bids. Messrs H. & W.'s being .$55,250 lower than the highest, and §27,750 below the next lowest bidder. Messrs. Hubbard & Whittaker will undoubtedly get the job, as they are in addition to being the lowest bidders, residents of Brook¬ lyn. They state that they have ample facili¬ ties for doing the work, and are ready to give all the necessary security for the fulfiUment of the contract. It wUl take about fifteen months to finish the work. The Common CouncU has directed the ComptroUer to seU at auction to the highest bidder, the property belonging to the city, com¬ prising over four full lots on Myrtle avenue, between Canton and Hampden streets. The city has had a clear title to it for the last thirty years. It has hitherto been occupied by squatters. The Assessment Committee of the Board of Aldermen have taken up the petition of Rosetta BedeU, a daughter of the late John Jackson, which represents that the petitioner is the owner of 71 lots of ground on the Jaclcson Farm, In the Seventeenth ward, and that the expenses attending upon the nonpayment for many years of city taxes and assessments upon the property are so enormous that she wUl not be able to pay them, unless the city wiU con¬ sent to receive the taxes only, without default or interest. The Committee agreed to report favorably on the application. NtcnoLAS WvrcKOPP, Esq. , President of the WU^amsburg City Bank has offered to cede to the ^ity the gore of land on Broadway, between Throop avenue and Gwinnett street, on the condition that no buUding should ever be creeled on it, but that it should be maintained as op open space at the continuance of the aboTO named streets. The Committee of the Aldejrmanic Board for opening streets have resolved to report in favor of the city accept¬ ing ;he cession. Ii r cansequence of the objection of the resi- denls on Brooklyn avenue, the route of the new railroad from WUUamsburg to Prospect Par':, has been changed so that on leaving Toe (pkins avenue it wiU continue on through Full on avenue to Hudaon avenue, thence along Hudson avenue to to East Warren street, and so on to the Park. Several extensive sales of property are recorded in our Brooklyn transfers of this week. Among the most important are one block of 46 lots, bounded by Washington, MUton, L sts. and E. River, purchased by Sir. Jno. Englis from W. Smith, price §91,000 ; a piece of property on Myrtle ave., 20.6 e. of Ryerson st, sold for $76,120, purchased by EUen Feam from V. G. HaU; on South 5th st., s. s., 35 ft w. of 5th st., the property belonging to Meth. Epis. Church, was sold to the Central Meth. Epis. Church for $20,000. DOMESTIC ITEMS. The winter has been very favorable for Minne¬ sota lumbermen. The cut of logs, this season, is estimated at 70,000,000 feet—38,000,000 on Rum River, and 32,000,000 on the llississippi. In the week ending March 14, the sales of real estate in Chicago footed up $757,098, probably the largest week's work on the city records. Lawrence, Mass., is said to be architectur¬ ally one of the most imposing cities in New England. Rents in LouisviUe have declined more thin twenty-five per cent, this spring, and yet there are many untenanted dwellings in the city. The Kankakee (lU.) Gazette says 500 new buUdings wiU be erected in that place the com¬ ing season. The real estate changes in LouisvUle last week amounted to $260,000. In New Albany (Ind.) they were $10,288. Illinois imported enough lumber last year to buUd a three board fence twice around the world and once around herself. Twenty-two thousand doUars have been subscribed toward the erection of a new Wes- leyan University at Bloomington, HL The buUding is to cose $50,000. The Albany papers complain that real estate in that city is declining in value. A house that was sold about a month ago for $5,025 was re¬ sold Friday for $4,500. In Troy the value of real estate is going up all the whUe. Some statistician has counted 42 btdldings in course of erection in New Albany, Ind. The Mutual Benefit BuUding Association, of HamUton, Ohio, filed its certificate of incorpor¬ ation on Friday. The object is to raise money to be loaned among the members for securing homesteads. The capital stock is $400,000, divided into shares of .$200 each. A quarry of fine building stone has been discovered on Bulger Creek, 26 mUes west of Des Moines, Iowa, on the Une of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific rqad. It is said to be equal to the best stone yet developed in the State, and of inexhaustible quantity. A new method of making white lead has been discovered. The metaUic lead is first granulated, and then placed in a barrel of beech or hornbeam wood (not oak) ^vith one- fourth its weight of pure water. The barrel is made to rotate about 30 or 40 times in a minute, a current of air passing through at the same time. After the lapse of several hours, the lead wUl all be oxidized, when a current of carbonic acid is to be substituted, and the rotation continued some hours longer. At the end of this time all the lead ■wiU be found con¬ nected ^vith the pure hydrated carbonate, the true white lead, and can easily be separated from any unoxydized metal and washed and dried. Th.\t valuable piece of property in South Carolina, known as the Kalmia MiUs, including 4,259 acres of land, was sold on Saturday, in Charleston, to the Messrs. Langley, of New York, for $140,000. The cost of the original capitol at Washing¬ ton City was $1,400,000. The additions, now nearly completed, will cost $12,000,000. During the ten months last past upwards of fifteen hundred persons in Yirginia have been declared bankrupts. The master buUders of Hartford, Connecti¬ cut, have repudiated the Bricklayers and Plas¬ terers' Union, and will not hire men belonging to it. The new Canadian public buildings at Ot¬ tawa, the capital of the domioion, it is reported, have already cost $2,745,013, and they are not yet completed. To finish them, $500,000 more, it is said, wUl be required. The bankrupt law has now been in operation, about nine months, and during that period there have been filed in New York 3,000 peti¬ tions ; in Massachusetts, 825 ; and in Pennqrl- vania, over 1,300, The dirty blue color so frequently seen on dead wood, has been found to depend npon a new coloring matter caUed xylindein, which is produced by a kind of fungus. The lumber season in Maine is reported to have been universaUy good. More logs were cut and hauled in February than in whole win¬ ters for many years past. In Cedar County, Mo., mines of copper and antimony have been discovered. Rich deposits are expected. The Minneapolis (Mum.) Trilnme says the lumber trade is opening briskly this spring. The home demand is large, and heavy orders are dauy received from points along the lines of the different raUroads. The aggregate buUding improvements in To¬ ledo for the past year are estimated at two mUUons, an increase over the previous year of one miUion. The aggregate number of build¬ ings erected during the year were 1,328, an in¬ crease over the previous year of 867. The city has a population of 31,651. FOREIGN ITEMS. The Paris Observatory.—The question of the expediency of removing this important establishment to some more eligible place is now engrossing the attention of the Academy of Sciences. The total quantity of gold exported from New Zealand from the year 1853 to 1866, in¬ clusive, was 3,059,451 oz.; chrome ore, 5,306 tons, 3 c\vt., 3 grs.; coals, 290 tons: copper ore, 3,374 tons, 8 cwt.; iron sand, 161 tons, 13 cwt.; plumbago, 7 tons. At a recent meeting of the Clyde Tmstees, held in Glasgow, it was resolved to ask for borrowing powers to the extent of £600,000 in the bUl for the formation of a new Graining Dock, which the trustees intend to bring before ParUament. A L.VRGE new cotton factory is about to be erected in the neighborhood of Qnebec, at a cost of $300,000, and giving employment to fuUy 3,000 workmen. A NEW line of telegraph is shortly to be laid from the Tyne to Denmark. A Railway Carriacje, mo\'ing \vith a fric¬ tion 61b. per ton, would, if set in motion at the top of a straight plane falling 100 feet, and connecting at the bottom with a straight level line, runs a little more than seven miles by its gravity alone. The Pivot Bridge .at the cros.sing of the Alexandria and Cairo Railway and the Nile is 100 feet long, giving two openings of 60 feet each. There arc two iron pivot bridges, one at Chicago and one at Galena, which are each 230 feet long, giving two openings of nearly 100 feet each. Although the roadw.ay of the new West¬ minster Bridge is of great -\\-idth, it is not, as has been stated, the widest of any bridge in the world. The Schloss Brucke, at Berlin, has a much greater width of roadway ; as has also the new bridge by which the Boulevard Sebaa- topol is carried across the Seine, in Paris. Authenticated facts justify the belief that marine steam-engines wUl yet be worked Avith an expenditure of lib of coal per horse-power per hour. In this case, a ves.sel like the Great East- em, working 12,000 effective horse-power, cotild run seventy days, or to Australia and back, mth 9,000 tons of coal, being at the rate of 128 tons a day. When iron, arsenic or antimony are exposed to the vapor |of bromine they enter upon com¬ bustion.