348 
AMERICAN HOMES “AND GARDENS 
May, 1906 
3 marette 
Pri aid 
Make Each Room of Your 
Home More Attractive 
The walls make the room. They 
must be daintily finished or the room 
will lose its charm. 
Alabastine gives to the walls a daintiness of tone and a richness of effect that 
make the most charming background for the pictures and furnishings of your home, 
Alabastine 
ATTN 
4 The Sanitary Wall Coating 
: is the most economicalof all wallcoverings, as wellas the most hygienic and produces 
the most exquisite color combinations possible to obtain for interior decoration. It is 
a pure antiseptic mineral product, that hardens on the wall and becomes part of it. 
Alabastine completely exterminates the life in any germ that comes in contact 
with it. Alabastine has no paste nor glue to decay, no cloth nor paper behind 
which insects breed, and no paint nor oil to emit disagreeable odors. 
Ask Your Dealer to Show You the Portfolio of Alabastine Prize Designs 
These designs illustrate an almost endless variety of treatments for each room, in the actual 
Alabastine tints, and offer many pleasing suggestions for home furnishings. 
You can apply Alabastine yourself at very modest cost. Itis sold by dealers in paints, 
hardware, drugs and general merchandise. Buy only in properly labeled five pound packages. 
Accept no substitutes. 50c for the white and 55c for tints. 
Send 1c, coin or stamps, today for our beautiful book, ‘Dainty Wall Decorations,’ 
containing complete color designs and decorative sc hemes for yourhome, and prtenee 
how little it will cost to finish your walls in  Alabastine, the only absolutely 
sanitary and lasting wall coating. Sample tintsandfull information, free on request. 
The Alabastine Company, 
909 Cee NES See Rapids, Mich., or 169 Water St., New York City. 
THOTT 
~ 
et ——— 
FREE TO INTENDING BUILDERS 
The Book of 100 Houses 
Containing over 100 bao et aphic reproductions 
of handsome houses, in all parts of the country, 
designed by leading architects, and stained with 
Cabot’s Shingle Stains 
Small houses, large houses, cheap houses and ex- 
pensive houses, full of suggestions to those who 
contemplate building, and seek an artistic result. 
SAMUEL CABOT, 135 Milk St., Boston, Mass. 
Agents at all Central Points E. R. Austin, Arch’t, South Bend, Ind. 
NO MORE LATH AND PLASTER! 
BEAVER FINISHED” WAEE Boeoak > 
THE IDEAL WALL LINING FOR COUNTRY 
HOMES, CAMPS AND BUNGALOWS 
AS all the advantages and none of the disadvantages of Lath and Plaster. 
Cheaper, more sanitary, quicker applied, does not harbor moisture or 
dampness, takes any tint or color, and gives EXQUISITE ARTISTIC 
EFFECTS. Acts as sound deadener and insulator. Makes buildings warm 
in winter—cool in summer. Nails direct to the studding, completely re- 
placing lath. plaster and wall paper. CUTS WITH SAW. NAILED ON. 
NO TEDIOUS WAITING FOR PLASTER COATS TO DRY 
CRACKS OR SHRINKS. Sample of Beaver Wall Board 
Illustrated Book Free. 
Cor; 
NEVER 
and Beautiful 
THE BEAVER MFaG. 
CHle's\k 5) VB Or Aloe INE ae 
treatment, as will oak and redwood, or hem- 
lock or cypress. But the average architect 
copies the old specifications and relies on the 
painter to adapt them to the new conditions. 
That is not the way the Pennsylvania Rail- 
road, for example, specifies paint. The formula 
varies with every purpose for which the paint 
is to be used. Steel coal cars, wooden freight 
cars, steel bridges, locomotives, water tanks, 
signal towers and station buildings all require 
different treatment, and the paint varies ac- 
cordingly. 
The use of house paint along the line of the 
Pennsylvania is confined to such things as sta- 
tions, sheds, signal towers, fences, etc., and the 
variety is limited practically to two shades of 
drab. It is a significant fact that no specifica- 
tion has yet been issued for such paint, but that 
the paints used are largely prepared paints, 
bought, as the chief chemist of the road, Dr. 
C. B. Dudley, has stated, on the general repu- 
tation of the manufacturer. Moreover, Dr. 
Dudley has stated that when the specifications 
for paints of this class are finally issued they 
will be—pure lead and oil tinted to shade? 
By no means, but a formula on the lines of 
the better grades of ready prepared paints now 
on the market, with about one-third of the pig- 
ment an inert material like gypsum, barytes, 
silica, alumina, etc., will be used. 
The fact is that, outside of the technical 
chemists and testing engineers, the only class 
that has intelligently followed the changes in 
structural materials, the altered conditions of 
exposure due to the contamination of the air 
by the increased consumption of coal and gas, 
and the enormous increase and change in the 
technics of painting materials, are the paint 
manufacturers. The physical character of 
white lead has been diversified during the past 
fifty years so that its inventors would not rec- 
ognize it. There are at least five different 
kinds of lead on the market, differing as widely 
as if they were different chemical compounds, 
yet to the average painter they are all just 
“yure lead and oil.” If, through ignorance of 
their characteristics, he fails to get good re- 
sults from them, he can merely prove their 
purity and deplore the passing of “‘the good old 
lead we used to get.’’ And thus, through the 
conservatism of the architect and the painter, 
the modern householder misses all the advan- 
tage of the progress in paint making during 
the past half-century. 
Though not the most important part of the 
architect’s duties, the paint end of it is worth 
more than the casual thought usually given it. 
Paint can protect or fail to protect materials. 
It can remain permanently beautiful and pro- 
tective or it can quickly fail of either or both 
qualities. How shall the architect secure in 
paint, as in building materials, the improve- 
ments of the past fifty years? 
Without attempting directly to answer the 
question, let us revert once more to the prac- 
tice of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a consumer 
whose annual consumption of paint exceeds 
that of several States. When the technical 
authorities of the Pennsylvania Railroad, by 
means of test and experiment, have formulated 
a specification for any article of consumption 
they submit it for criticism to all the manu- 
facturers in that particular line from whom 
they are accustomed to make purchases, and 
after collating with their own observations the 
practical advice of these manufacturers, the 
formula is perfected and issued. Is there not 
in this practice a hint available to the archi- 
tect? Would it not be to the advantage of 
all concerned if he was to get in touch with 
the paint manufacturers of his vicinity and see 
what, if anything, new and available has been 
developed by paint manufacturing experience 
since the dark ages, when the current specifica- 
tions originated ? 
H. B. Grorce. 
