892 .KEPOllT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, iDO.'i. 



heat the hotel. Most of the great hotels in the United States have 

 their own power plants. 



In installing the plant it is of the greatest importance to protect the 

 hot pipes from the outside water. This may be accomplished ])y 

 proper drainage. 



It is also important, by the insertion of expansive joints of special 

 construction and tixed in a particular way at proper distances, to com- 

 pensate for the expansion of the pipes and to keep them in position. 

 In this case it is always advantageous to place the ])oilers deeper than 

 the building to be heated. Finally, the pipes should be isolated. This 

 is best accomplished by laying them in cemented conduits easily 

 inspected, and by wrapping them in asbestos paper, hair felt, and 

 linen, to prevent loss of heat so far as possible. The pipes then 

 remain serviceable from live to tifteen years, according to the temper- 

 ature to which they are subjected; furthermore, those protected by a 

 covering of incombustible mineral wool last still longer. This ques- 

 tion has been made the subject of an extended series of experiments. 

 Hot water has the worst effect on iron, whereas steam is harmless." 



What I have said is certainly far from exhausting the subject of 

 what New York has to show with reference to buildings for collections 

 and technical scientific contrivances, in their bearing upon museum 

 interests. Lack of time, however, has compelled me to limit my 

 observations, nor can I in making my report discuss everything that 

 I have seen. 



II.— ALBANY. 



[On the Hudson River, the capital of the State of New York, witli over lUO.UOO inhabitants.] 

 7. UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK. 



This university was founded in the year 1T84 l)y the State of New 

 York, by which it is maintained and governed. It is, however, not a 

 didactic university, but a kind of supervising administrative depart- 

 ment of instruction, unique of its kind, and traceable to the influenceof 

 the French philosophers of the eighteenth century.^ The institution, 



«I obtained the greater part of these remarks coiieerniiig heating from the report 

 of Water Inspector Hoech, 1898, at the Imperial embassy in Wasliington, which 

 was kindly placed at my disposal by the royal Prussian ministry of public works, 

 and which is also referred to in the Centralhlait fi'tr BtmrervaUuiig, XIX, pp. 69 

 to 70. I consulted, besides, the work of R. C. Carpenter, Heating and Ventilating 

 Buildings (New York, Wiley, 3d. revised ed., 1898, xiii,and 411 pp.), particularly 

 pp. 260-267, Transmission of Steam Long Distances, and pp. 197-200, Protection ot 

 main Pipe from Loss of Heat. Mr. Carpenter is professor of experimental engineer- 

 ing in Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. 



^See S. Sherwood: University of the State of New York: Origin, history, and 

 present organization, in Rcgcnis' BuUetin No. 11, January, 189.3 (Albany), pp. 201-:>(X), 

 as well as P>iilletiii No. :]8, June, 1897, Laws, Ordinances, and By-laws, pp. 401-504. 

 The secretary's rei)ort in liegenlsi' Bulletin No. 25, May, 1894, pp. .'i24, also gives nmch 

 interesting information concernins; the organization, adiiiinistnition, etc. Further, 

 Handbook No. 1, Outline, pp. 42 (1893). 



