30 TOWERS AND TANKS FOR WATER-WORKS. 



uncertain, but was supposed to approximate 60 feet. (Engineer- 

 ing News, May 15, 1902.) 



Normandy Heights, near Baltimore, Md. During the latter 

 part of December, 1901, a steel stand-pipe 25X60 feet, belong- 

 ing to the Roland Parl Co., partially failed. The structure was 

 erected upon a foundation of stone 7 feet high. The stand- 

 pipe was constructed in 5 -ft. rings, with thickness as follows: 

 First ring, J inch; 3 rings, 7/16; 4 rings, f; and 4 rings 5/16 

 inch. At a point 52 feet 6 inches above the foundations there 

 was a division in the tank, forming a high-service reservoir 7 

 feet 6 inches deep. The water main supplying the tower entered 

 at the foundation and extended through the lower section, dis- 

 charging into the high-service compartment. Beginning near 

 the bottom of this compartment, another pipe was carried to a 

 point near the top of the structure, providing an overflow into 

 the low-service compartment after the high-service tank had 

 been filled. There are few water consumers, and the tank was 

 not pumped into except at intervals of four or five days, thus 

 facilitating the process of freezing during suitable weather such 

 as had existed prior to the failure. Ice had formed to considerable 

 thickness over the surface of the water in both sections of the 

 tank. The inlet pipe was probably also frozen at some point 

 in its length, for when the water was turned on the attendant 

 found that the pipe seemed to be stopped up and proceeded 

 to open a man-hole at the bottom of the tank to draw off the 

 water, intending to build a fire in the lower section to thaw the 

 pipe. He states that a heavy mass of ice, formed at the partition, 

 fell, bending in the braces that supported that partition and 

 high- sendee compartment, and thus drew the plate in, bending 

 the sheet on one side down nearly to the middle of the stand-pipe. 

 It was suggested that the vacuum produced by drawing off the 

 water was the cause of the trouble, but this theory is hardly 

 tenable, and the attendant's idea as to the cause of the failure- 

 is more likely correct. Kenneth Allen, Engineer and Superin- 



