Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/786

 G38 The Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal. [April, the whole sixteen in twenty minutes. It also forms a very convenient mode of transporting articles from one section of the building to another, carrying clothing to and from the laundry, and gives a protected passage-way in going from the centre building to the engine- house, barn, and workshop. Provision against Fire. — As already mentioned, no fires are required, in the building, for warming it ; and gas is used for lighting. Wherever one wing comes in contact with another, or with the centre building, all the openings in the walls, which extend up through the slate roof, have iron doors, in addition to the ordinary wooden ones, which may be closed at pleasure. The floors of the kitchen and bake-room, in which alone fire is used, arc of flagstone laid on brick arches, and all the stairways in the wings are fire-proof. It is intended that there should always be about 20,000 gallons of water in the tanks im- mediate^' beneath the dome of the cen- tre building ; and 15,000 gallons per hour may be placed there by the pump- ing-engines. A standpipe, connected with this reservoir, passes into every story and into every ward, in all of which it is intended - to have a piece of hempen hose constantly attached, so that, by simply turning a stopcock, water may be put on a fire, almost as soon as discovered. A steam-pipe also passes up into the attic of each wing ; and, as one of the large boilers is con- stantly fired up, steam may, at any mo- ment, be let into the building, by simpl}- turning a valve in the cellar. Hose is also kept near the steam-pumps, so that it may be promptly attached, and water thrown on the barn, carpenter shop, engine-house, and contiguous parts of the hospital. A watchman is constantly passing through the house at night ; and by means of two Harris watch-clocks, as made by H. B. Ames, of New York, there is no difficulty in ascertaining, not onty how often each ward is visited, but almost the moment the visit was made, and, of course, the time taken in passing from one ward to another. Laundry Arrangements. — The cloth- ing, bedding, &c, collected in the differ- ent wards, after being sent to the cellar, are conveyed from that point, by the railroad, to the room in the engine- house, for assorting clothes, and thence into the large wash-room, in which, be- sides the usual washing, rinsing, and blue tubs and soap vat, are one of the valu- able Shaker washing-machines, in which six different kinds of clothes can be washed at the same time, and a centrifu- gal wringer, both of which are driven by one of the steam-engines. From the wringer the washed articles are taken to the drying-closet, in which, by means of the heat, derived from the exhaust steam of the engines, passing through a large amount of cast-iron pipe, and fresh air from the fan, they are, in a very few minutes, made ready for the mangle — also driven by steam-power — or folded and taken, by the railroad, to the ironing-room, near the centre build- ing, to which they are raised by the dumb-waiter, already referred to, or are sent directly to the principal clothes- room, from which they are distributed, b} r the same route, as they may be re- quired in the wards. All the divisions of the washing-machine, and the rinsino- and washing tubs, have hot and cold water and steam introduced directly into them ; and the water from them all is carried off, under the stone floor of the room, to one of the iron columns below, through which it passes into the culvert, on the outside of the building. Cost. — Without a statement, of the cost, no account of such a building, and such arrangements as have been de- scribed, would be at all complete, and especially not of one, like that under notice, which is entirely the offspring of the benevolence and liberality of a community, a i-esult of practical Chris- tianity, and a generous recognition of the paramount claims, which such afflic- tions of our fellow-men have, at all