216 [Assembly 



NEW SYSTEM OF ARCHITECTURE. 



New-York, March 6, 1848. 



Dear Sir — Referring to a conversation with you this forenoon, and 

 to a copy attached thereto, of a report submitted to the American 

 Institute, " on a new system of Architecture," proposed by Mr. Wil- 

 liam Vose Pickett of London, the undersigned in compliance with 

 your wish, has prepared a statement of a few facts in connection with 

 the use of iron, and other metal in buildings and for other purposes. 



Previous to about forty years since, when the means of forming 

 cast iron in moulds to almost any shape, began to be generally bet- 

 ter understood than before that time; and the capacity of the metal 

 to assume such shapes was more fully ascertained, it does not appear 

 from the published works, that iron was used as a building materi- 

 al, except in wrought or forged bonds and ties; the fact that iron 

 cast in moulds, fully sprinkled with charcoal dust, before the metal 

 is run in, does not sensibly oxidize by the operation of the atmos- 

 phere, only came to be generally known about forty years since, and 

 has had a material influence in extending the use of iron. 



The knowledge ot the fact that wrought iron may be sensibly pro- 

 tected from rust or oxydation, by the galvanic effect of contact with 

 zinc, and some other metals is due to a later period; and at this time 

 a question is mooted, whether painting wrought iron with the ground 

 chromates of iron, may not be better than the galvanic effects of 

 zinc; and these, if approved, will give a variety of color, favorable 

 generally to the plans provided by Mr. Pickett, whether employed 

 on cast or wrought iron. 



About the year 1808, the late Henry Maudsley constructed a large 

 foundry in the southern suburbs of London, in a situation where 

 from the water lying in the soil, beneath a stratum of clay about ten 

 feet thick, he could not sink a founding pit deep enough for his 

 purposes; he therefore contrived an arrangement which was thought 

 new at the time, which was probably the foundation of a new sys- 

 tem of building. 



