114 



DISCOVERY 



sidcration of the cost of upkeep will result in soundness 

 of building, and the feeling of these days through which 

 we arc passing will surely tind expression in an austere 

 beauty. 



The richness of the East and the wealth of ornament 

 of the fourteenth century' may not be possible, while 

 the vagaries of the days of Watteau and Meissonier — 

 — to take an extreme example — would be out of place ; 

 but without these there can, and there will, be great 

 and noble building. 



Much of the coming building will be — as has been 

 stated — of a domestic character, and for this our tradi- 

 tions and training lit us well. Any weakness there was 

 in our pre-war small house design was a tendency to 

 fussiness, a tendency which is largely overcome by the 

 conditions prexiously stated. 



Important is the fact that the very vastness of 

 our housing problem has led us to see that it must be 

 tackled in a comprehensive manner. It has been 

 clearly seen that the task of building the new homes 

 and gradually getting rid of unhealthy dwellings neces- 

 sarily' raises the whole question of the right develop- 

 ment of towns and cities. Great slum areas must be 

 cleared as soon as sufficient new houses are ready, and 

 thought is being exercised as to the right use of the sites. 

 Traffic problems of increasing difficulty are being experi- 

 enced in our larger cities, and the only sound method 

 of tackling these and other difficulties is by means of 

 the Civic Survej' and the comprehensive town plan. 

 The town — in some cases the town with its surrounding 

 district, or in others a group of towns — is seen to be the 

 imit; and the dictates of economy compel adequate 

 investigation of existing conditions followed by sys- 

 tematic development, instead of the haphazard growth 

 of pre-war times. 



Thus in the case of housing it is clear that our 

 extremity is really our great opportunity. As yet the 

 new dwellings are coming all too slowly ; but from the 

 technical point of view the great scheme of putting 

 right the housing of the people has been conceived on 

 big and sound lines. Individually the houses wU be 

 more efficient than in the past, they will be pleasantly 

 simple externally, and interest will be given by their 

 disposition in short blocks on roads which have been 

 carefully designed to suit the contours of the sites. 

 And while the earlier sets of new houses are being 

 erected, the schemes for dealing with the towns they 

 adjoin are being matured. 



Not only must provision be made for ample recrea- 

 tion spaces and allotments, but suitable sites must be 

 reserved for a variety of public buildings which will 

 be required at a later date. Already there is a serious 

 shortage of schools, and leirge numbers will be required 

 if education is to develop on sound lines. In all prob- 

 ability the school buildings — and possibly the hospitals 



— of the near future will be on less permanent lines 

 than those of the past. This would be a sound step 

 from a practical point of view, and it need not be re- 

 gretted on esthetic grounds, as it may well lead to 

 interesting experiments with colour. 



Many new public buildings of permanent character 

 will, however, be required as the centres of p)opulation 

 change with the development of our towns, and these 

 buildings will give ample opportunities for the ex-service 

 students who are now filling our schools of architecture. 



There are difficulties ahead, but difficulties are more 

 often than not a help to the able architect— Wren 

 obviously revelled in the task of surmounting them — 

 and it is the belief of the writer that our young men 

 will rise to the occasion. 



BOOKS KECOMMENDED. 

 Lethaby, Architecture. (Williams & Norgate, 2s.) 

 Statham, A Short Critical History of Architecture. (Batsford. 



12S.) 



Anderson and Spiers, The Architecture of Greece atid Rome. 



(Batsford.) 

 F. Bond, Gothic Architecture in England. (Batsford, 34s.) 

 Anderson, Italian Renaissance Architecture. (Batsford, i6s.) 

 Ward, Architecture of the Renaissance in France. (Batsford, 



40s.) 

 Gotch, Early Renaissance Architecture in England. (Batsford, 



lis.) 

 Blomfield, A Short History of Renaissance Architecture. (Bell, 



7s. 6d.) 

 R. Unwin, Toiun Planning in Practice. (Fisher Unwin, 42s.) 



Wireless Waves 



By Lt.-Col. C. G. Crawley, M.I.E.E. 



In wireless signalling, energ\' is transferred from the 

 sending station to the receiving station without any 

 transference of matter, in an exactly similar manner 

 to that in which light, heat, or sound is transmitted 

 from one place to another. 



In each case the energy is transferred by wave 

 motions in the intervening medium. 



Now, light and heat are transmitted from the sun 

 to the earth not only through the atmosphere, but 

 also through millions of miles of empty or vacuous space, 

 so that the medium for the propagation of light and 

 heat, whatever it is, is not a sohd, a liquid, nor a gas, 

 but must be something which is present in a vacuum. 



This medium is called the Ether, and the laws of the 

 propagation of energy by light, radiant heat, and 

 wireless telegraphy can be proved if this ether is 

 assumed to be present everywhere and to have certain 

 definite properties. 



The existence of a medium with these properties is 

 therefore a fair assumption to make, unless, or until, 

 some observed phenomenon requires its modification. 



