Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/81

Rh houses, which secure an equal distribution of the population fixed, at the time of building, at one hundred thousand people, domiciled in twenty thousand houses, which are scattered over an area of four thousand acres. Crowded alleys in the immediate rear of streets lined with spacious dwellings are wholly avoided; neither are tall structures, over-shadowing the streets (a veritable shadow of death), anywhere permitted, four stories, aggregating sixty feet in height, being the limit with which all must comply. Every house has its foundations on solid arches of brick, through which air freely flows, and down whose slopes all currents of water are carried away—this arrangement preventing the entrance of ground-air into the house—an unavoidable mischief in the present style of architecture, the air of all our houses being more or less contaminated from this source. When the soil, naturally impure from the presence of carbonic-acid gas, is honeycombed, as in this city, with cesspools, and saturated with leakage from sewer-pipes, gas-pipes, and the soakings of filth-laden streets, the danger of contamination of houses from ground-air assumes considerable importance.

The liberal extent of territory occupied by our model city allows room for several broad boulevards, which constitute the chief thoroughfares, beneath each of which is a railway operated by electricity, where the heavy traffic of the city is carried on; while all the streets are so broad as to be always thoroughly ventilated, and at times flooded with sunlight. In the city of Hygeia, as described by its projector, the streets run from east to west and from north to south, as in this, our own favored town; but in the founding of Ethica, while keeping to the right-angled plan (though at a considerable sacrifice of artistic effect), I would choose the diagonals of these directions as tending to secure a more equal distribution of sunlight to both sides of the streets, and to all sides of the houses; since in at least one European city the death-rate has been found uniformly higher on the shady side than on the sunny side of the streets. All the open spaces in the rear of the houses are occupied as gardens, and all public buildings, including warehouses, stables, etc., are surrounded with gardens or open lawns, which add no less to the beauty than to the health of the city. The streets are paved, not exactly with gold, but with something equally impermeable to moisture, and far more agreeable to the eye, hence more conducive to comfort and health—a material comparatively noiseless and as susceptible of a clean sweep as Philadelphia at the last election. At present, concrete combines these qualities in a higher degree than any other material thus far employed, but even this leaves much to be desired, and there is room for invention in this direction. Surface-railways are not permitted in Hygeia, the underground roads being regarded as sufficient for all purposes; but in the proposed city of Ethica, underground roads will be used for merchandise only; passenger-railways will be elevated, thus reducing to a minimum the number of employés compelled to spend their working-hours