IV I A' TROD UCTIOX. 



"The custom has been, to a greater extent than in any other 

 engineering work of like importance, to buy a stand-pipe much as 

 a barrel of flour would be bought; the contract or agreement 

 would be for a stand-pipe so high and so wide, the material and 

 workmanship to be first class in every respect." 



Without previous experience, and unable to secure any degree 

 of exact information as to the best practice for stand-pipe design, 

 it would be amusing, if not so serious a matter, to compare the 

 emaciated paragraph, its stock phrases and blanket clauses, so 

 lax that any " rule-of-thumb " boiler- maker can safely provide 

 almost anything in the shape of a tank, provided it holds together 

 and does not leak too badly, with the plethoric clause, wasting 

 much good paper and printer's ink in padding the specifications 

 to give an important appearance to the technical description 

 dealing with requirements for "cast-iron pipe," which probably 

 gets its first inspection when the pressure is applied from the 

 p umping-engines. 



Observing this condition of affairs, and having experienced 

 personally the difficulties to be encountered in securing data for 

 work of this sort, during the year 1901 the writer published the 

 first edition of this volume. Its reception seemed to show a 

 reason for its appearance and a demand for a second edition. 

 Profiting by the criticisms of the first venture, eliminations have 

 been made, typographical and other errors have been corrected, 

 the work throughout has been largely revised and rewritten and 

 many new illustrations have been added. The new matter 

 includes a record of stand-pipe failures, continuing from the 

 time of Prof. Pence's monograph to the present; a comprehensive 

 chapter dealing with the stresses in a steel water-tower, originally 

 presented in the "Technograph," an-1 revised and rewritten by 

 its author for this work; also two chapters upon the subject of 

 Specifications for and the Architectural and Ornamental p<. 

 bility of Water-tower Design. 



Necessarily a great portion of such production as this must 



