have to propose, for overcoming this difficulty, remains to be seen, but it will do no harm, meanwhile, for other ingenious persons to apply themselves to the question, and they may be sure that there will, sooner or later, be a use for satisfactory devices for meeting such requirements.
ANOTHER warning to architects is to be found in a story related in the Schweizeriche Bauzeitung. A school-house,
lately completed near Leipsic, was roofed with “ Falzziegeln,” or large tiles, having the edges turned alternately up and down, so as to lock over each other. Tiles of tills sort form a light, cheap and durable roof, and are very much used all over Europe, besides being exported by millions to South America. In this instance, the tile-roofing leaked in rainstorms, and, after vain efforts to keep it tight by puttying the lock-joints, with a sort of cement employed for the purpose, experts were employed by the town authorities to determine whose fault it was that the roof would not keep out the water, and who should be made to pay the damages. The experts decided that the contractor could not be made to pay, as the tiles were of good quality, and well put on, and that the responsibility must fall on the architect, who had designed his roof without sufficient pitch to carry the water away. It is true that the pitch of the roof was one-fifth to one-sixth of the span, and that the text-books say that a pitch of one-eighth to onetenth is permissible with such tiles, but the experts concluded that one-fifth pitch was not sufficient to keep water from penetrating such roofing, and that the architect ought to have known this, no matter what the text-books said.
THE French Ministry of Public Instruction has issued a circular, giving directions for making hectographs, which it
regards as the most useful of the duplicating devices in common use. According to the circular, 100 parts of ordinary glue should be mixed with 500 parts of glycerine, 25 parts sulphate of baryta, or kaolin, and 375 parts water. These are to be stirred together, with gentle heat, until the glue is dissolved, and the paste may be cast into a flat cake, or poured into a flat tin box, and allowed to solidify there, as is, perhaps, the most convenient practice. Nothing more is necessary but to prepare a suitable ink, which may be made with a concentrated solution of aniline purple. The drawing or writing, made with this ink on ordinary paper, is to be pressed, with the ink side down, on the surface of the cake, and left there for about two minutes. It is then to be taken off, and sheets of white paper placed successively on the cake, brought in contact with it by brushing over with the hand, or a roller, and then removed, when each will be found to be impressed with a duplicate of the original document. About fifty good copies may be taken in this way from a single transfer, to the cake. When all the copies desired have been made, the cake should be immediately washed off with water, to which a few drops of muriatic acid have been added, and the surface dried with blotting-paper. It will be remembered that Messrs. Burnham & Root, of Chicago, have found this process useful for multiplying working-drawings of their buildings. The plans are drawn, figured and tinted with aniline solutions of various colors, and then impressed on a large hectograph cake, from which additional copies are taken in any number desired. These copies are far superior to blue prints, as they are perfect to the smallest detail of color, as well as line, and they are taken in a fraction of the time, while no intermediate tracing process is necessary to prepare a drawing which can be blue-printed.
THE final step seems to have been taken in the adoption of a plan for the new Paris Metropolitan Railway, the Muni
cipal Council having decided, by a vote of sixty to nine, to accept a project prepared by a committee of its own members. A year or so ago, several plans were submitted to the Council by engineers, and it was then voted to adopt a plan prepared by M. Eiffel, which consisted, in brief, of a line partly elevated, and partly subterranean, passing under the Grand Boulevards to the Arc de l’Etoile, and then back, under the Rue de Rivoli, to the neighborhood of the Hotel de Ville, then crossing the Seine, to reach the Orleans railway station, and immediately back again to the Place de la Bastille, and thence to the starting-point in the Boulevards. M. Eiffel proposed to connect by branches with all the railway lines entering the city, and laid out also a second local circuit, confined to the district south of the Seine, and connecting with the first
circuit at the Orleans station. The southern circuit, however, was simply a suggestion, and was shown on his plan as a “ deferred line,” the portion to be built at present consisting only of the first circuit. The two systems together would supply Paris with very complete accommodations, but at a great expense, while the first system alone seemed, on further consideration, inadequate; and the adoption of the Eiffel plan was suspended until a committee could further investigate the matter. After about a year’s work, the committee reported, not long ago, in favor of a modified plan, by which the main system formed nearly a circle, in place of M. Eiffel s elongated loop, passing like his, near the Grand Boulevards, on the north, to the Arc de l’Etoile, but crossing the river near the Champ de Mars, instead of returning by the Rue de Rivoli, and continuing by the Montparnasse station to the Orleans station, there, like M. Eiffel’s route, to re-cross the river and rejoin the northern line. This circuit evidently accommodated the inhabitants of the region south of the Seine much better than M. Eiffel’s plan, which left them to be served by a “deferred line, but it did not give, like his, direct access to the very busy region about the Tuileries and the Louvre, so that the committee supplemented it by a transverse line, forming nearly a diameter of the circle, passing from north to south near the Palais Royal and crossing the river near the Louvre. This portion of the plan has now been modified, by making the transverse line, on the south side of the Seine , after passing through the Boulevard Saint-Michel, deviate far to the easf ward, so as to connect with the main circuit near the Jardin des Plantes, and then, crossing the river, pass west again, by tlm Hotel de Ville, to the Boulevard de Sebastopol, through which it runs in a straight line, nearly northward, to the Strasburg railway station; and, with this change, it is now finally adopted. Like M. Eiffel’s road, that of the Municipal Council is partly above ground and partly below, and, unlike his, it runs directly to every railway station in the city. What further steps will be needed, before the execution of the plan can be begun, we do not know, but it seems probable that the Government engineers will have to criticise it before the State will confirm its acceptance.
MR. BARTLETT, the well-known sculptor, writes us to Ox say that when the new building on Federal Street, in
Boston, now occupied by the Boston Terra-cotta Company, was erected, he modelled several portrait busts of the workmen employed there, which were burned, and placed in the building. It is possible there may be other similar cases ; if so, we should be glad to hear of them. It is not often that an accomplished professional sculptor, like Mr. Bartlett, has anything to do with a building, and what we wish to see encouraged is a disposition on the part of the ordinary stonecarvers to try their hand at portraits, or even caricatures, provided they have some life and spirit to them. We used to be told, by Mr. Ruskin and others, that the carving of Classical details destroyed the artistic capacity of those who did the work ; but the Classical details are, at least, in themselves beautiful, and the carving of them could not possibly have a worse effect on the mind than the execution of the limp, sprawling, spiky soi-disant “ Romanesque ” detail with which a good many of our modern buildings are supposed to be ornamented. It is true that some of these details are copied, more or less accurately, from Revoil, and are regarded as correct examples of the style, but the copying itself is objectionable. Certainly the real Romanesque work was not copied. Nothing in architecture, not even the best Gothic work, is so full of invention and variety as the Romanesque sculpture. The people who did it so despised copying and repetition that they hardly made two corbels in a cornice alike, still less two capitals, or two arch rings, and if we wish to emulate the Romanesque buildings, we must make the sculptured ornament as interesting as that of the Romanesque period, and by the same means, that of sending the carvers to study nature. With the foundation, in knowledge of what has been done! which we now possess, our architectural sculpture might be made very interesting and beautiful if the architects and the sculptors could cooperate with each other, and understand each other, better than they now do; and we hope that, before lon-r, some chance may bring a bright young architect, and a clever stone-carver, together, to see what they can do in concert to produce a building more beautiful than any yet erected in this country.
ANOTHER warning to architects is to be found in a story related in the Schweizeriche Bauzeitung. A school-house,
lately completed near Leipsic, was roofed with “ Falzziegeln,” or large tiles, having the edges turned alternately up and down, so as to lock over each other. Tiles of tills sort form a light, cheap and durable roof, and are very much used all over Europe, besides being exported by millions to South America. In this instance, the tile-roofing leaked in rainstorms, and, after vain efforts to keep it tight by puttying the lock-joints, with a sort of cement employed for the purpose, experts were employed by the town authorities to determine whose fault it was that the roof would not keep out the water, and who should be made to pay the damages. The experts decided that the contractor could not be made to pay, as the tiles were of good quality, and well put on, and that the responsibility must fall on the architect, who had designed his roof without sufficient pitch to carry the water away. It is true that the pitch of the roof was one-fifth to one-sixth of the span, and that the text-books say that a pitch of one-eighth to onetenth is permissible with such tiles, but the experts concluded that one-fifth pitch was not sufficient to keep water from penetrating such roofing, and that the architect ought to have known this, no matter what the text-books said.
THE French Ministry of Public Instruction has issued a circular, giving directions for making hectographs, which it
regards as the most useful of the duplicating devices in common use. According to the circular, 100 parts of ordinary glue should be mixed with 500 parts of glycerine, 25 parts sulphate of baryta, or kaolin, and 375 parts water. These are to be stirred together, with gentle heat, until the glue is dissolved, and the paste may be cast into a flat cake, or poured into a flat tin box, and allowed to solidify there, as is, perhaps, the most convenient practice. Nothing more is necessary but to prepare a suitable ink, which may be made with a concentrated solution of aniline purple. The drawing or writing, made with this ink on ordinary paper, is to be pressed, with the ink side down, on the surface of the cake, and left there for about two minutes. It is then to be taken off, and sheets of white paper placed successively on the cake, brought in contact with it by brushing over with the hand, or a roller, and then removed, when each will be found to be impressed with a duplicate of the original document. About fifty good copies may be taken in this way from a single transfer, to the cake. When all the copies desired have been made, the cake should be immediately washed off with water, to which a few drops of muriatic acid have been added, and the surface dried with blotting-paper. It will be remembered that Messrs. Burnham & Root, of Chicago, have found this process useful for multiplying working-drawings of their buildings. The plans are drawn, figured and tinted with aniline solutions of various colors, and then impressed on a large hectograph cake, from which additional copies are taken in any number desired. These copies are far superior to blue prints, as they are perfect to the smallest detail of color, as well as line, and they are taken in a fraction of the time, while no intermediate tracing process is necessary to prepare a drawing which can be blue-printed.
THE final step seems to have been taken in the adoption of a plan for the new Paris Metropolitan Railway, the Muni
cipal Council having decided, by a vote of sixty to nine, to accept a project prepared by a committee of its own members. A year or so ago, several plans were submitted to the Council by engineers, and it was then voted to adopt a plan prepared by M. Eiffel, which consisted, in brief, of a line partly elevated, and partly subterranean, passing under the Grand Boulevards to the Arc de l’Etoile, and then back, under the Rue de Rivoli, to the neighborhood of the Hotel de Ville, then crossing the Seine, to reach the Orleans railway station, and immediately back again to the Place de la Bastille, and thence to the starting-point in the Boulevards. M. Eiffel proposed to connect by branches with all the railway lines entering the city, and laid out also a second local circuit, confined to the district south of the Seine, and connecting with the first
circuit at the Orleans station. The southern circuit, however, was simply a suggestion, and was shown on his plan as a “ deferred line,” the portion to be built at present consisting only of the first circuit. The two systems together would supply Paris with very complete accommodations, but at a great expense, while the first system alone seemed, on further consideration, inadequate; and the adoption of the Eiffel plan was suspended until a committee could further investigate the matter. After about a year’s work, the committee reported, not long ago, in favor of a modified plan, by which the main system formed nearly a circle, in place of M. Eiffel s elongated loop, passing like his, near the Grand Boulevards, on the north, to the Arc de l’Etoile, but crossing the river near the Champ de Mars, instead of returning by the Rue de Rivoli, and continuing by the Montparnasse station to the Orleans station, there, like M. Eiffel’s route, to re-cross the river and rejoin the northern line. This circuit evidently accommodated the inhabitants of the region south of the Seine much better than M. Eiffel’s plan, which left them to be served by a “deferred line, but it did not give, like his, direct access to the very busy region about the Tuileries and the Louvre, so that the committee supplemented it by a transverse line, forming nearly a diameter of the circle, passing from north to south near the Palais Royal and crossing the river near the Louvre. This portion of the plan has now been modified, by making the transverse line, on the south side of the Seine , after passing through the Boulevard Saint-Michel, deviate far to the easf ward, so as to connect with the main circuit near the Jardin des Plantes, and then, crossing the river, pass west again, by tlm Hotel de Ville, to the Boulevard de Sebastopol, through which it runs in a straight line, nearly northward, to the Strasburg railway station; and, with this change, it is now finally adopted. Like M. Eiffel’s road, that of the Municipal Council is partly above ground and partly below, and, unlike his, it runs directly to every railway station in the city. What further steps will be needed, before the execution of the plan can be begun, we do not know, but it seems probable that the Government engineers will have to criticise it before the State will confirm its acceptance.
MR. BARTLETT, the well-known sculptor, writes us to Ox say that when the new building on Federal Street, in
Boston, now occupied by the Boston Terra-cotta Company, was erected, he modelled several portrait busts of the workmen employed there, which were burned, and placed in the building. It is possible there may be other similar cases ; if so, we should be glad to hear of them. It is not often that an accomplished professional sculptor, like Mr. Bartlett, has anything to do with a building, and what we wish to see encouraged is a disposition on the part of the ordinary stonecarvers to try their hand at portraits, or even caricatures, provided they have some life and spirit to them. We used to be told, by Mr. Ruskin and others, that the carving of Classical details destroyed the artistic capacity of those who did the work ; but the Classical details are, at least, in themselves beautiful, and the carving of them could not possibly have a worse effect on the mind than the execution of the limp, sprawling, spiky soi-disant “ Romanesque ” detail with which a good many of our modern buildings are supposed to be ornamented. It is true that some of these details are copied, more or less accurately, from Revoil, and are regarded as correct examples of the style, but the copying itself is objectionable. Certainly the real Romanesque work was not copied. Nothing in architecture, not even the best Gothic work, is so full of invention and variety as the Romanesque sculpture. The people who did it so despised copying and repetition that they hardly made two corbels in a cornice alike, still less two capitals, or two arch rings, and if we wish to emulate the Romanesque buildings, we must make the sculptured ornament as interesting as that of the Romanesque period, and by the same means, that of sending the carvers to study nature. With the foundation, in knowledge of what has been done! which we now possess, our architectural sculpture might be made very interesting and beautiful if the architects and the sculptors could cooperate with each other, and understand each other, better than they now do; and we hope that, before lon-r, some chance may bring a bright young architect, and a clever stone-carver, together, to see what they can do in concert to produce a building more beautiful than any yet erected in this country.