ARTIFICIAL STONE AS A BUILDING MATERIAL. 423 
down by the failure of its iron supports, was taken up, stone by stone, and relaid. 
Many of the stones were placed in their original positions ; some few were fract- 
ured by the fall, and had to be replaced by fresh ones, but none were disin- 
tegrated or fractured by the fire, and all were utilized. The front stands to-day 
exactly as it did before the fire. 
The architect is often required to manage a sea wall or a cellar wall where 
the action of water is to be considered in connection with the safety of his super- 
structure. And here we claim the vast superiority of this material. In base- 
ments it will be found not only waterproof, but rat proof. The United States 
Government has recently employed it as the base of a lighthouse in the Chesa- 
peake, where heavy masonry had proved inadequate, and they would have done 
better if they had followed the example of the French Government in the construc- 
tion of the- lighthouse at Port Said, and constructed the whole building of the 
same material. As a sea wall, the jetties of the Mississippi are perhaps the best 
example we have in this country. When we consider that this great river is the out- 
let of twenty of our States and Territories, covering an area of 750,000,000 acres 
— the granary and the principal cotton producing region of the world — the im- 
portance of these jetties cannot be overestimated. And hand in hand with their 
far-reaching commercial value is the triumph they have so signally achieved for 
artificial stone ; for it must be conceded that without this element of success, the 
jetties would have been a failure. Indeed, they had already proved so, and in 
less energetic hands they might have been abandoned. The jetties themselves, 
primarily jets or projections of wicker work, anchored in place and secured in 
position by rubble and heavy stone, proved inadequate to resist the easterly 
storms that sometimes prevail, and it became evident that some further protection 
of the work was required. Heavier stones, some of them weighing three thou- 
sand pounds, were accordingly and with great difficulty anchored upon the jetties; 
but these proved also insufficient. Resort was now had to monolithic masses of 
artificial stone, and they have proved successful where nothing else could; some 
of the blocks being thirteen feet in width, five feet thick, and fifty-five feet long, 
and weighing more than two hundred and sixty tons. One mile of the east 
jetty and half a mile of the west were thus effectually protected, and so complete 
were the appliances employed upon the work that it required only the hands of 
two men to mould them and place them in position. 
The jetties at the mouth of the Suez Canal are of a cheaper quality of beton, 
and are not monolithic, the blocks weighing only about twenty tons; but they 
are sufficient for the purpose, eighteen thousand of them being employed in the 
work. 
From the description we have given, the far-reaching utility of this material 
is quite palpable. Its durability is established beyond cavil, and it has the ap- 
proval of the most eminent architects and engineers of both hemispheres. While 
other material is constantly undergoing disintegration and decay, this as constantly 
improves by age. In the air, in the water, in the fire, and in fact under all im- 
