has been presented by Sir Henry Roscoe.
"The committee are convinced that the air of
the Palace of Westminster is subject to con-
tamination by sewer gas emanating from the
low level sewer of the main drainage of the
metropolis with which the system of drainage
of the palace is in direct connection. Un-
doubted evidence has been obtained that sewer
gas from this source passes into the drainage
system of the palace in times of fiood, and
under the circumstances, owing to the absence
of proper ventilation in the low level sewer
above referred to and to other causes, the com-
mittee arc convinced that a complete recon-
struction of the main drain under the Houses
of Parliament and an entire alteration of the
means of discharging the sewage from the
palace into the main low levd sewer are
urgently required for the safety of the mem-
bers of the Legislature and of the oflBcers re-
siding within the precincts of the palace. The
committee therefore beg to recommend to the
House that the Board of Works be instructed
at once to carry out certain remedial measures
which the committee are now prepared to sug-
gest, and which in their opinion will effect the
desired result."
A MEETING of tlie Committee of the National
Smoke Abatement Institution was held
at the Parkes Museum on the 6th inst, Mr.
Ernest Hart in the chair. A letter was read
from the Home Secretary saying that from cor-
respondence with the commissioners he is
satisfied that the police have taken proceedings
in all cases of smoke nuisance in which they
could properly do so, and exercise due super-
vision over the steamers on the river, adding
that the extension of the area to which the
Smoke Nuisance Acts apply is a matter for the
consideration of the Legislature. A sub-com-
mittee was appointed to correspond further
with the Home Secretaiy, and to urge upon the
Government the necessity for the extension of
the area embraced by the acts. The secretary
reported that the furnace of a steam launch on
the Thames at Hampton had been tested by the
engineer of the Institution, who in his report
stated that durine a run of thirteen miles no
smoke was visible at the top of the chimney
throughout the trip, an improvement of great
importance to all owners of launches. Several
descriptions of new appliances for smoke
abatement were reported and discussed, and it
was resolved to publish shortly a selection of
the numerous tests of apparatus made by the
Institution since the publication of the report
on the Smoke Abatement Exhibition in 1881-2.
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EKGINEERING NOTES.
^3
COMMBNTiKG on the proposals of the Metro- '
politan Board for dealing with the metro-
politan sewage, the London Ixtneet sars : ** As
to the disposal of the effluent, we quite agree
that it must be disinfected somehow before it i
goes into the river. At present the sewaee]
must be treated at the existing outfalls, for the
danger of the present system is urgent, and
some chemical disinfectant must, therefore, be
used. Whether permanganic acid is the best
we cannot say ; possibly it is. But, although
it is inapplicable at Barking and Crossness,
land irrigation is a better means of purifying
sewage effluent than any chemical disinfection ;
and, when the sewage goes down to Sea Reach,
as we trust it will before many years are past,
the final purification will probably be done by
the soil, and an almost perfectly pure effluent
thrown into the river. The committee are, in-
deed, so enamored of their permanganate dis-
infection that they have quite ^ven up theidelt
of moving from their present outfalls. Thev
say, on the authority of the chemists who ad-
vise them, that * the necessity for land filtra-
tion no longer exists, and thus the great objec-
tion to the treatment of the sewage and the
discharge of the effluent at the present outfalls
is overcome. To this we most strongly demur.
We are more than ever convinced that the sew-
age of all London ought not, even after chcmi-
tSl treatment* to be thrown into the river at
Barking and Crossness ; and we decline to re-
ceive on this point the assurance of certainty
from chemists who, three years ago, were
equally sure that no important injury was done
to the river by the raw sewaf^e. We are sorry
that the Board persists in this obstinate resist-
ance to the recommendations of the Royal
Commission. They have been forced into
their present action, after a hard fi£[ht, by the
pressure of scientific and public opinion, and
now, instead of giving in gracefully and obey-
ing the wish of the nation, they contest every
inch of ground in their retreat."
Otbuoturrs on Compressible Foundations-
O —The subsoil at Chicago, U. S., is wet
clay, and ^eldin^ to an extent which has
caused serious difficulties on many of the
heavier buildings by the unequal settlement.
One of the most prominent examples is that of
the United States Government building, which
was built upon a bed of concrete 3 ft. In thick-
ness ; the inequality of the pressure upon the
foundations has caused an uneven subsidence
and many undesirable consequences have taken
place. The concrete foundation has become
broken, and cracks in various portions of the
masonry, even to distortion of arches, and in
two instances stones are reported to have
dropped from the decorative work (on April 21)
to the jeopardy of persons on the sidewalks
around the building. As an example of what
can be accomplished by the exercise of engin-
eering skill under similar limiting conditions,
the Home Lisurance Company's Building, in
the same city, is a fire-proof structure of great
weight, being 160 ft. In height, and constructed
of masonry and iron. The foundation consists
of independent piers built of alternate courses
of dimension stone and rubble, and the area of
the bottom carefully proportioned to a surfaee
of a square foot to each two tons of load to be
supported by the pier. In this manner each
basement pier and each vertical line of columns
rested upon an independent foundation which
was loaded to a uniform intensity per square
foot. The beams and girders were very
securely anchored together at walls and at in-
tersections, and strips of band iron built into
the masonry over arches and other places
where reinforcement might be desirable. The
whole building has subsided 2^ in., but owing
to the care in placing loads of uniform inten-
sity of stress upon the foundation, the maxi-
mum inequality in settlement has been only |}
in. In our day and generation the wise men
are not limited to those who build their house
upon a rock, but must include those who make
the sand as stable in its resistance as a rock.
The original peninsula comprising the city of
Boston, U. H., has been distorted into some
other geographical form, and more than
doubled in area by the filling over the harbor
and estuaries by about 16 ft. of gravel over
clay and mud forming the bottom. The larpce
buildings constructed upon this ''made land'*
have received the benefit of skilled engineers
in re^rd to the distribution of the loads upon
the puinff which support Uie stone foundations,,
and bid Fair to remain permanent without any
distortion, but many of the elegant private
residences on the Back Bay district of the city,
being erected under the sole direction of archi-
tects who did not avail themselves of the work
of engineers familiar with that special branch,
have settled irregularly, and many fine build-
ings are marred by cracks in walls and ceilings.
This criticism does not apply in so great a
measure to many of the later buildings where
more judicious measures have been introduced
to provide for uniform settling. The architects
are not alone at fault here, for the abutment
piers of a highway bridge over a railway on
this district were moved laterally, foundations
and aU, some twelve years ago by the earth
pressure caused by the approaches.
IRON AND STEEL NOTES.
ApAPXB was read at the last meeting of the
Chemical Society, on •*The Influence of
Silicon on the Properties of Cast Iron," Part
III., by Mr. Thomas Turner. The paper con-
sidered in detail the Woolwich Report, **Ca8t
Iron Experiments, 1858." This report included
the chemical analyses and mechanical tests of
seventy specimens of British cast iron. The
author classifies these irons according to the
amount of phosphorus present. Some of the
more important results are as follows:— <1)
Only eight specimens were mentioned as bein?
** too hard to turn ; " seven of these contained
under 0.9 per cent, of silicon, while the eighth
was rich in phosphorus and sulphur, facts
strongly supporting the author's conclusion
that a softening effect is produced by a suitable
proportion of silicon. (2) The six best speci-
mens mentioned in the report contained on an
average 1.393 per cent, of silicon, while the
author,from his own experiments,recommended
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VAN NOSTBAJ^^D^S ENGDTEERINa MAGAZINE.
about 1.4 per cent. These and other results
support the view that a suitable proportion of
silicon is beneficial (8) When the specimens
are classified according to their proportion of
phosphorus and arranjged in tables in order of
silicon present, a gra<faal improyement is no-
ticed as the silicon increases until a certain
point is reached, beyond which point the metal
deteriorates in quali^. In the discussion on
the paper, Professor Unwin noticed the popular
prejudice tliat silicon is a very injurious con-
stituent of cast iron. This prejudice arose a
long time ago, apparently from the difficulty
experienced in smelting very rich iron ores
containing much silica. Thus, the Turkish
Government, in 1884, wished to utilize an ex-
ceedingly rich ore— magnetic ore containing 12
per cent, of silica — found at Samakoff, but
could not smelt it, and the difficulty was attrib-
uted to the silica. Again, about 18i53, attempts
were made to improve cast iron guns, and Mr.
Cochrane advised the use of Nova Scotia iron.
This was tried at Woolwich, but the Chemical
Department there refused to sanction its use on
the ground that it contained too much silicon,
notwithstanding that Fairbairn's mechanical
tests were in its favor.
N'
[ Bw Ibon Entsbprisb in South Russia.—
We learn from St. Petersburg that a
compan]^ has been formed, with a capital of
two millions sterling, to work the iron deposits
of the Krivoy Roe district, reputed to be the
richest in the world. Situated in the Ekaterin-
oslafl Gk)vernment, they first became thoroughly
known after a systematic survey conducted by
the Russian authorities a few years ago. The
Ekaterinen Railway was then constructed bv
the Government to connect the deposits with
the coal-fields of the Donetz valley, and since
the completion of the line, in 1883, upwards of
3,000 tons of ore have been sent regularly every
month to the works of Hughesovka alone, the
price, including placing on the railway truck,
being ^ copeckes a pood, or 2s. 8d. the ton.
Last year a fresh outlet was opened in Poland,
a quantity being sent from Krivoy Rog to sev-
eral of the iron and steel works in the Vistula
region. Yielding 68 per cent of splendid met-
al, the ore gave such satisfaction that an inter-
national company, favored by the Russian
Government, was formed to develop the mines
on a laree scale. The capital subscribed was
19,500,000 roubles, of which the Warsaw Steel
Works have furnished 2.500,000 roubles, Lil-
pop & Rau 1,500,000 roubles, and the remain-
ing 15,500,0(10 roubles has been made up by
foreign capitalists, including Cockerill & Co.,
the Grande Societe Franco-Ualienne des Houil-
les et Foches a Paris, the Reinischo Stahlwerke
of Ruhrort, the banker, Surmont, of Aix-la-
Chapelle, and Messrs. Ransome & Co , of Lon-
don. As an encouragement the Russian Gov-
ernment has agreed to give the company an
order for 70,000 tons of rails, 30,000 tons of
railway material, &c., amounting in value to
over a million sterling, of which a considerable
amount will be paid by the Government in ad-
vance A clause in the agreement also provides
for a bounty on steel rails manufactured on the
spot. For some time past agents of the syndi-
cate have been completing the arrangements at
Ekaterinoslaff for starting the concern, and it is
believed that it will be placed on a good working
footing by the winter. Another scheme, fa-
vored by Krupp, for establishing a gun foundry
for the Russian Government in the Krivoy Rog
district, has also been discussed during the
spring; but the terms asked by the German
syndicate were not favorable enough to please
the Minister of War. The project, however,
has not yet entirely fallen through, and even
should no foreign capitalists embark upon tlie
enterprise, it is believed that the Ministry of
War itself will establish an arsenal there for
supplying weapons for the use of the Black Sea
fleet. At present the guns mounted on the
coast batteries and men-of-war of the Euxine
are manufactured in the Ural Mountains or at
St. Petersburg, and the cost of the conveyance
over many hundred miles of railway is very
heavy. The saving effected by establishing an
arsenal in the Krivoy Ro^ district would thus
justify a considerable subsidy.
THB corrosion of steel is a matter of greater
importance than some of our experts
imagine. It is not only during the first six
months that the paint falls off the bottom of
steel vessels. I was informed the other day by
the principal of a well-known Tyneside anli-
fouling paint company, who manufacture both
Rahitens and the International paint, that he
has found steel vessels, when even two or three
years old, to be almost **bare** when docked;
whereas, iron vessels under the same circum-
stances have still a good ** body" of paint left
It is his opinion when two coats of paint are
sufficient for an iron vessel, three coats are re-
quired for a * * steel " one. The fact is * * Lloyd's "
surveyors cannot see the ** mill-scale " properly
removed by the painting of the vessel being
postponed as long as possible in the case of a
vessel being contracted to be delivered in six
months—not an unusual occurrence. In a few
months the mere action of the atmosphere does
little to remove the outer skin of steel, so closely
is it combined with the main body of the mate-
rial. I think in all cases the Government prac-
tice of dipping the plates and bars in dilut^
hydrochloric acid and scrubbing them with
steel brushes should be insisted upon.
CHANGES IN Iron dub to Magnetization. —
Mr. Shelford Bidwell has been making
further experiments on the changes produced
by magnetization in the length of iron wires'
under tension. His results, as recently com-
municated to the Royal Society, disclose the
following facts. An iron wire under tension
and subjected to a gradually increasing mag-
netizing force, is at first elongated, unless the
load be great, then it returns to its original
length, and finally it contracts. The maximum
elongation diminishes as the load increases,
according to a law which seems to vary with
different qualities of iron. If the ratio of the
weight to the sectional area of the wire exceeds
a certain limit, the maximum elongation, if
any, is so small that the instrument fails to de-
tect it. The retractation due to a given mag-
netizing force is greater with heavy than wiSi
light loads. Both maximum elongation and
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RAILWAY NOTES.
86
neutrality {i, e. absence of elongation and re-
traction) occur with smaller magnetizing cur-
rents when the load is heavy than when it is
light ; retraction, therefore begins at an earlier
stage. The phenomena, both of retraction and
elongation, are as might have been expected,
greater for thin than for thick wires, and for
soft than for hard iron.
RAILWAY NOTES.
THE EoLOHNA WoBKS. — Accordinff to a re-
cently published report, the Kolomna
Works in Middle Russia, which are under the
control of General 8truv6, the eminent bridge
builder, have constructed during the last two
years upwards of 140 locomotives for the vari-
ous Russian railways. A few weeks ago the
Minister of Ways of Communication, Gfeneral
Possiet, invited tenders for building sixty more.
On examining the applications, 27 were as-
signed to the Nevsky fron Works at St. Peters-
burg, belonging to the Russian Mechanical
Society ; the price arranged per each six-wheel
locomotive, of 32 tons, being £75 a ton, or
X2,400 apiece. For several years the Nevsky
Works have received no Government orders,
and hence put in a low tender. The Kolomna
Works wanted 800 roubles a ton, or £2,516
apiece for the remaining 83 locomotives, ^d
refused to make them at the same price as the
rival St. Petersburg firm; in consequence of
which their application was refused. As, how-
ever, the Government wants the whole of the
60 with as little delay as possible, and the
Nevsky Works cannot do them all in the ap-
pointed time, it is believed that the deadlock
will result in the Kolomna Works securing its
proposed terms. Of late a large number of
locomotives have been withdrawn from the
€k>veniment reserve (several hundred being
kept on hand in readiness for any war), in or-
der to equip the Transcaucasian and Transcas-
pian railways, and the Minister of War is
anxious that the complement should be made up
afresh this year. We called attention the other
day to the fact that the Russian Government,
which has been lagging railwav construction for
several years, has eone ahead again this year,
and the additional demand for locomotives this
will occasion has led to several firms in Russia
expressing their intention of manufacturing
them. It will some time, however, before they
will seriously compete with the Kolomna and
Nevsky establishments. — Engineering.
ABVMABKABLB instancc of the effect of com-
petition by sea and land which at present
exists has been brought to our notice within the
last few days. The Railway liewa says a con-
tract has just been entered into between the
agents of Italian railways for the delivery at
Venice of coal shipped at Cardiff and Swansea,
free of all charges, at 20s. per ton. This is ex-
actly the price at which the same coal is deUv-
ered to the Metropolitan Railway Company in
London, the competition between sea-going
ships being so severe that the freight is little
more than nominal. Another illustration of
the effect of competition by sea with our own
railways is afforded by the fact that the quan-
tity of coal brought by coasting vessels into
London from Welsh ports has increased to such
an extent as seriously to curtail the quantity
carried by the Great Western to London. For
the two months of the current year the decrease
in coal carried to London on the Great Western
'was over 20,000 tons as compared with 1884.
There is sea competition also with other ports
as well as with London. At the meeting of the
Great Western Company Sir Daniel Gooch
stated that coal was conveyed from Cardiff to
London at 4s per ton, or equal to a railway
fare of one farthing per ton per mile — a rate
with which the railway companies could not
profitably compete.
THB third main division of the report on the
railway accidents in the United Kingdom
in 1885 deals with accidents to servants, whether
of companies or contractors, caused by the
traveling of trains or other vehicles on railways.
Here we find 438 killed, and 2,036 injured,
while the causes of injury are too numerous to
be mentioned in detail. The most fatal risk to
which the servants are subjected is working on
the permanent way, sidings, &c.. whereby 107
were killed and 123 injured; while walking,
crossing, or standing on the line on duty caused
79 deams and 108 injuries. AltoeeUier, what
with passengers, others of the public, and ser-
vants, the total number of persons killed dur-
ing the year 1885 was 957, against 1,134 of the
year before, and of injured 8,467 persons,
against 4,100 in 1884. It is satisfactory to note
that not only the totals but almost all the items
have materially decreased from the year before.
ORDNANCE AND NAVAL
THB Russian Government are going to test
exhaustively the watertight compartments
of all their new vessAs. They began the other
day with a corvette cruiser which was finished
last autumn ; and although ample notice had
been given, so that any little defects might be
set right, when the compartments were filled
the water gushed out from many places which
had been overlooked. Finally, after a great
deal of door-adjusting and leak-stopping, the
large compartments were proved to be water-
tight in fact as well as in name. The Russian
Admiralty authorities seem determined to take
nothing for granted— an example which some
other Admiralty authorities nearer home would
do well to follow.
AT this year's meetings of the Institution of
Naval Architects a somewhat insignifl-
cant incident formed a notable feature of the
first day*8 proceedings. A paper had been
read descriptive of an instrument invented for
the purpose of indicating the strains to which
ships are subject at sea, and in the discussion
thereupon, Mr. Ramage, a Scotch shipbuilder,
bluntly advanced the notion that such subjects
were the business of Lloyd's Registry, and not
not of shipbuilders ; shipbuilders have to carry
out Lloyd's rules, and all their energies are re-
quired to make shipbuilding pay. Scientific
investigation under such circumstances is the
business of the framers of the rules, and not
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86
yjln i^ostrand's engineebing magazine.
of those who have merely to work them.
Shipbuilders present protested against this no-
tion, but only adduced the case of light-draught
steamers and other vessels built for exceptional
work as affording scope for original design as
regards structurS strength.
Two steamers for the Caspian have recently
been put out of hand by Messrs. Boolds,
Shever & Co., of Sunderland. Thev are named
respectively the Cebah and A. H. N. They
are fitted to bum crude petroleum, which is
carried in an athwartship tank a little less than
two feet in length, and thus occupying one
frame space and extending the whole breadth
and depth of the vessel. This tank is at the
fore-end of the boiler room, and beside it there
are two fore and aft tanks, one on each side of
the boiler-room. Both steamers are built of
Bteel ; the Cebah is of dimensions, length, 148
ft ; breadth, 27.1 ft ; depth, 12.2 ft. ; gross
tonnage, 473. The A. H. V.. length, 140 ft. ;
breadth, 24 ft ; depth, 11.8 ft. ; gross tonnage,
870. The steamers will bum coal on their
passage out
THE Stskl-Wibb Gun. — The new experi-
mental 9.2 inch steel-wire gun has Just
been tried at the Govemment proof butts,
Woolwich Arsenal, with satisfactory results.
The War Department have issued orders for
the construction of several more guns of the
same description. The Govemment pressure
test for the gun was 65 tons to the square inch.
The new weapon weighs 25 tons, and is 88 feet
long. The steel wire is coiled around the inner
tube at the breach, and nearly up to the trun-
nions, and consists of 78 layers. The wire is
niade in lengths of 2,400 yards. It is flat, and
is put on by a specially designed machine at a
pressure of about 40 tons to the square inch.
The lengths are Joined together by being
brazed and riveted togethA* over a length of 16
inches. After the iinre has been put on, a
steel jacket is shrunk on over it.
ARMORPLATS TRIALS AT Spezi A.— Important
armorplate trials have just taken place at
Spezla. A large chilled-steel plate, manufac-
tured by Gruson, of Buckau, Germany, the
greatest thickness of which is 1.75 meter (5 ft.
9 in.), had been fixed in a rock near Castagna
Bay, this position being the nearest approach
to that it will occupy in the finished turret for
wich it is intended. The Italian (Government
proposes to construct two such turrets for the
protection of Spezla harbor. The plate weight
100 tons, and is one of seventeen plates which
are to form the turret. Their total weidits
with the parapet armor, is 2,500 tons. The
turrets are to be armed with two breachloaders,
firing projectiles of 40 centimeters (15.6 inches)
diameter. They are to be proof against guns
of the heaviest calibers yet manufactured, with
which at present onlv the Italian navy is
armed, but which ma,y be introduced any day
in other navies. A 4S*centimeter (16.77 inches)
gun from the Italian ironclad Lepanto had been
placed on the pontoon moored 180 meters from