316 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Jolt, 



The first cost for sahstitating the iron for the wood is, per 



mile 37Q00 „ 



First cost of reoewing the wooden sleepers . , . 322 00 „ 



Difference. . . . 5760 dollars 



Yon will thus perceive that in a period of twenty years, a saving of four 



hundred and seveniyBve dollars would be effecied, while the additional 



first cost is only tifty-sevrn dollars per mile. The cost of piittiug in the 



ties, both of iron and wood, is estimated from actual experiment. 



I have said ootliiu^ in the above estimate, of the saving wtuch would be 

 made in the labour of keeping the track in adjustment; this would not be 

 less than 10 <lullars per mile per annum, and would swell the difference in 

 favour of the iron ties to nearly 700 dollars per mile ia the period of twenty 

 years. 



SMELTING WITH ANTHRACITE COAL. 



The following particulars respecting the first discovery of the applica- 

 bility of anihracite coal for smelling iron are communicated to the Journal 

 of the Franklin Instilute, by Mr. S. W. Itoberts. He states the original 

 inventor of this important application of anthracite was Mr. Crane, wiio 

 superintended the Yniscedwin works, in Breconshire. When Mr. Crane 

 took charge of the works, and for a long time after, the smelting of the 

 iron ore found in the vicinity was carried on with coke made from bitu- 

 minous coal ; but, as an extensive field of anthracite coal existed in the 

 neighbourhood, which was considered useless for smelting purposes, his 

 attention was early turned to the importance of bringing that fuel inio use ; 

 and at different periods, during fourteen years, he had, at a large outlay, 

 tried a Tariety of plans to effect the object. 



Though repeatedly baffled he still persevered, and his efforts at length 

 were crowned with complete success. Finding that the use of this hard 

 and refractory fuel caused his furnace to chill, he resolved to try the effect 

 of heating the blast to a temperature sutticient to melt lead, upon the plan 

 80 successfully introduced by Mr. Nielson, for increasing the yield of fur- 

 naces worked with bituminous coal. — Having made the necessary prepa- 

 rations, he began the experiment with the hot blast on the 7ih of February 

 1837, in a furnace forty-one feet high and eleven feet in diameter at the 

 boshes. From that dale until the I2tli of March the furnace was worked 

 with roasted anthracite as the only fuel, and thenceforward exclusively 

 with raw anthracite as it came from the mine without any preliminary pre- 

 paration. In all respects Mr. Crane's success was complete ; his furnace 

 worked well, the yield was belter than w ith coke, and the iron was of supe- 

 rior quality. He felt that the problem to which so many experimenters had 

 turned their attention, both in Europe and America, and to which he had 

 devoted so much of his time, was triumphantly solved. He had accom- 

 plished the object on an extensive working scale, with continued and in- 

 creasing success ; and from this period dates the establishmeut of a new 

 and important manufacture, from which the iron trade, both of Great Bri- 

 tain and the United Sates, is now deriving great advantages. The writer 

 of this notice, who was at that lime sojourning among the iron works in 

 Wales, visited Mr. Crane's establishment in May, 1837, for the purpose of 

 seeing ihe process and of satisfying himself that the materials used were 

 similar to those which exist so abundantly in Pennsylvania. Finding that 

 the great object was accomplished, and ihat the results were highly grati- 

 fying, he communicated the fact to his friends in Philadelphia, by whom 

 it was shortly after made public through the newspapers. At that time 

 there was no blast furnace in Pennsylvania working with anthracite coal ; 

 their number in ihe Stale is now twenty-seven, and there are several iu 

 New Jersey. 



At the meeting of the British Association fortheAdvancement of Science, 

 held in Liverpool, in September, 1837, Mr. Crane attended and presented 

 a paper descriptive of his process, which is printed in the sixth volume of 

 the proceedings of that association. He had secured a patent in Gieat 

 Britain and had applied for one in the United States, the issue of which 

 was for some time delayed, owing to obstacles which grew out of the pre- 

 mature publication of his process. His patent was infringed, and he be- 

 came involved in a tedious and expensive litigation which some of his 

 friends feared might end in his ruin. At length, however, the question as 

 to the validity of his British patent was decided in his favour, and thence- 

 forward it became a source of much profit to him. He extended his works 

 at Yniscedwin by the erection of several additional furnaces, and his con- 

 cerns became highly prosperous. 



ORNAMENTAL FLOORS. 



At the Decorative Art Society, May 13, a paper " On Ornamental Floors," 

 »»« read by .Mr. Laugher. The suliject was treated principally with regard 

 to modern appliances, and more particularly to the use of parquetry (or inlaid 

 wood), in our principal apartments. Some observations, however, were made 

 respecting the pavements and floors of antiquity; of which several familiar 

 imitations were referred to in the painted floor-cloths of the present day. 



Subsequpntly to the introduction of Canadian timber into this country, itons 

 floors were said to have become nearly universal ; and also that, for upper 

 rooms, plaster was generally adopted. It was observed that bonrdcd floor* 

 (usually of oak) were considered a very distinctive appurtenance to the Eng- 

 lish mansion in the seventeenth century ; and that they received increased 

 attention to ornamental effect in the early part of the eighteenth, at which 

 period the parquet floor had obtained considerable favour, and was constructed 

 at grerit cost. Carpets of home manufacture then began to enter into com- 

 petition with them ; and the use of foreign deals (which, from their shrink- 

 ing, rendered carpeting more essential to comfort) tended to tlie disuse of 

 this superior kind of flooring. It was remarked that at present there was a 

 revival in the feeling towards parquetry; and explanations wire given of 

 several applications of steam and machinery (by Messrs. Steinitz and Co.) for 

 accelerating, not only the production of the geometric forms of the compo- 

 nent parts, but ulterior processes of framing and construction, whereby con- 

 siderable economy in time, labour, and cost resulted. Several observations 

 were made upon the relative cost of parquetry ; and it was saiil that its price, 

 when laid down marginally in dining-rooms, does not now exceed four timet 

 that of its imitation on painted cloths, and than for drawing-rooms it is not 

 more expensive than the richer kinds of carpet. The superior results arising 

 from having an inlaid margin of hard polished wood were enumerated. 



DAMPNESS IN BUILDINGS. 



ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES, AND THE MEANS Or PREVENTIN« IT. 



In our last number (page 187) we gave part of a translation from the 

 Magazin Pittoresque, of an abstract of a prize-essay, by M. Vandoyer, on 

 the preveniion and cure of damp. When we commenced this paper we 

 were not aware of Protessor Donaldson's intention of reading before the 

 Royal Institute of British Architects a translation of the original essay. 

 He has however since done this, and we gladly avail ourselves of a trans- 

 lation which, being prepared by one of the best French scholars in Eng- 

 land, would in all probability be far superior to our own. In order how- 

 ever to avoid repetiiion of part already published, we have ventured to 

 omit some portions of Mr. Donaldson's paper. 



According to physical laws, the damp of the soil tends to penetrate, in 

 one direction or another, Ihe hygrometric bodies with which it meets. It 

 hence lesults, that the walls of buildings will absorb from the soil a certain 

 dose of humidity at all the points immediately in contact with it. That is 

 to say, if there be an underground basement, the outside walls will absorb 

 by their footings, and by one of their faces, and the division walls by the 

 footings alone. If there be no underground basement, the division and 

 outer walls will be under precisely the same conditions, with respect to 

 those parts of them below the level of the exterior surface of the soil. But 

 are these the only causes of humidity ordinarily regarded iu lower parts of 

 buildings 1 Certainly not ; and it is easy to prove that, with regard to 

 external wall.s, there are other causes, which, although less constant, are 

 notwithstanding not less immediate; — we mean the rain-water, which the 

 wind drives upon the faces of walls, by which Ihe lower part is welled; 

 as well by that driven directly on the surface as by that which reboundt 

 from the ground, or by that which falls down Ihe face of the wall. In the 

 case of dripping eaves, without gutters, it may be easily imagined the 

 abundance of wet which the walls receive at the lower parts from ihe drip* 

 of water, and from slacks of rain-water pipes without shoes. 



If the lower floor of a building be covered, whether it be by any pave- 

 ment whatever, or by a planking, immediately upon the soil itself, it is 

 certain that the ground under the floor contains, first its own humidity, as 

 also the damp which traverses the foundations of the outer walls; so that 

 there will exist always a constant humidity throughout the whole extent of 

 the lowermost floor, susceptible of exercising its influence upon all bodies 

 immediately in contact with the surface of the soil. 



The paving the outer surface next the building, or its being unpaved, 

 materially affects the dryness of the inside; and the construction of nume- 

 rous and full-sized sewers and drains in large towns, also carries off a 

 great portion of the surface waters ; and again, an isolated building ia more 

 exposed than one contiguous to another ; and also when a house is on the 

 slope of a hill, with one part against a bank, through which the waters 

 may flow, it is necessary to adopt precautious to prevent their penetrating 

 the solid constructions. 



No reliance can be placed on the impenetrability by humidity, of any 

 material — wood, bricks, ordinary stones of every quality, marble, nay 

 granite itself, are more or less hygroineiric— that is to say, that plunged in 

 water or kept in a humid atmosphere, after having been previously weighed 

 in their dry state, there is nut one which will not have acquired some addi- 

 tion of weight. Thus, if the base of a column be immersed in water, it 

 will gradually rise up the shaft, and the damp never quits a body into 

 which it has once penetrated, unless it be absorbed by the air or heat. If 

 the upper part be dried by exposure, as soon as it ceases to be acted upon, 

 the humidity of the lower portion will again rise to the dry part. 



A wall, therefore, constructed of brick or stone of any quality whatever, 

 will he subject to the damp which exists in the soil, and which will enter 

 in all directions and in all parts, where the wall is in immediate contact 

 with the ground. The extent to which this damp will penetrate, caDoot 



