SELLING LUMBER 323 



fire department in putting it out. We are already making some 

 advances in this country in this direction, for recently in Cleveland, 

 Ohio, an ordinance has been passed requiring the individual who 

 has a fire on his property to pay the expenses of the fire depart- 

 ment in fighting it. 



Aside from its use in building construction, brick is used 

 to quite an extent for street paving. Its principal disadvantages 

 for this use are that it is noisy, slippery, of low tractive efficiency, 

 and does not stand up well under heavy traffic. The wooden pave- Street Pave- 

 ment, on the other hand, is far superior as regards noise, durabil- ments 

 ity, tractive efficiency and wearing qualities. 



Steel has displaced wood for a great many purposes. Prob- 

 ably one of the most important is in the manufacture of steel cars, 

 both passenger and freight. This situation has been brought about 

 mainly by agitation and an effective publicity campaign, and not 

 through any advantageous merits of steel over wood. The 

 agitation has been fostered and aided by the "Safety First" cam- 

 paign, and the theory, not proven, that steel cars in train wrecks g tee j in 

 afford a greater protection to passengers than the wooden ones. Competition 

 The indications are that this is not so, for in recent wrecks on with Wood 

 trains in which there were both wooden and steel cars, the former 

 have, on the whole, experienced less damage than the latter. As 

 a matter of fact, railroads are not looking with as great favor on 

 steel cars at the present time as they did some years ago. Very 

 recently an inspection of the ends of some steel passenger cars in 

 Milwaukee, Wis., showed that they had completely rusted through 

 in eighteen months a condition which would never have been 

 found in a wooden car. This exceptionally fast rusting was doubt- 

 less due to the fact that steel instead of wrought iron was used, 

 and that the rusting was aided by the sulphurous smoke from the 

 engine. Temporarily, owing to the scarcity of steel in freight car 

 building, there has been a return to the wooden superframe, and 

 also in many instances, to , the wooden underf rame cars. It is First Wood, 

 questionable whether or not this condition would have obtained Then Back* 

 had there been no European war, for this is directly responsible to Wood 

 for the scarcity and high price of steel. No doubt in the United 

 States we will go through the same experience of a number of 

 European countries, who turned some years ago from the wooden 

 car to the heavy steel car, and then went back to the wooden car. 



Steel has also displaced wood to a very large extent in the 

 construction of factory buildings where it has taken the place of 



