Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/324

 306 THE BUILDING NEWS. | Aprit 12, 1872. would take into work a stone containing 27 cubic feet, and would waste and sink the material till two-thirds of it had disappeared. At the close of the operation and complete development of the pyramid it would measure but 9ft., which might be termed the net or clean quantity, though,apart from the clause, it would be utterly unreasonable and unusual to com- pute it in that way. The employment of ambiguous terms is a common forerunner of contention. If the stipulation in question had no meaning, why was it inserted? Being there, the intention of the parties has to be determined.—Twenry-sEVEN FEET OR NINE. [2522.)—Measuring Stone. — Mr. Trickett is rightas regards London practice. I have no authority by me for reference which I can quote other than Hurst’s ‘Architectural Surveyors’ Handbook,” and Tarn’s “Student's Practical Guide to Measuring and Valuing.”"—H. [2525.]—Calculating Size of Storing Tank.— Hurst’s “‘ Architectural Suryeyors’ Handbook” says: “Provide for each man, woman, and child, 15 gallons per day. For each horse, 16 gallons, four of which is consumed with his food. For each four-wheeled carriage, 16 gallons ; and for each two-wheeled carriage, 9 gallons. If the source is rainfall, provide tankage for 120 days’ supply. Service tanks should be capable of holding three days’ supply. The available rainfall from roofs in England may be estimated at 18 inches per annum.” From actual experience of a hospital for 600 patients, we find that the consumption of water for all purposes is at the rate of 35 gallons per patient. This quantity includes that required for the oflicers—e.q.,600 patients + requisite number of officers consume 20,000 gallons per day. The washing is done on the premises by apparatus driven by a steam-engine. Your corre- spondent ‘Jack Sprat’’ may, we think, take 20 gallons per person as a fair allowance ; but in making his tank he should not waste money in making it so large that the rainfall over the area to be collected will never fill it—A. & C. H. ——— WATER SUPPLY AND SANITARY MATTERS. THE DRAINAGE OF WeymoutTH.—The Chief As- sistant of Sir John Coode, C.E., was in Weymouth last week taking the last necessary observations to complete the drainage scheme. The plans and speci- fications are nearly ready to be forwarded to the General Board in London for appaeval. Lonpon Warer.— The Medical Times an? Gazette states that the water companies remind on® of the persons sentenced to be executed in the reign of Louis XI., who were marched to the gallows between the executioners, Petit André and Trois Echelles—one jocose, one penitential—one charged with fun, the other singing psalms. On the one side we have Dr. Frankland reporting to the Registrar- General that “the daily supply to London is now about 107 millions of gallons. Of this twenty millions is ‘good wholesome water from wells and springs in the chalk,’ and eighty-seven millions is ‘more or less impure water derived from polluted rivers.’ The Cheiseaand Lambeth Companies draw their supplies from the Thames after it has received the polluted Mole and the sewage of 600,000 people, including the filth of Oxford, Reading, and Windsor. The West Middlesex, Southwark, and Grand Junc- tion Companies draw their water from the Thames above the junction with the Mole, but after it has received the sewage of the three above mentioned towns, as well as of smaller places.” There is no doubt that Dr. Frankland’s tone is caleulated to alarm the public mind, and to present the totals of impurity in figures of the most appalling magnitude. In Major Bolton (the Government Inspector of Fil- tration), Dr. A. 8. Taylor, and Dr. Whitmore, our drinking water has much more lenient judges. Dr. A. §. Taylor even rebukes Dr. Whitmore for his use of the word “impurity ”—“I object to the use of the word ‘impurity’ in Dr. Whitmore’s analysis, because it has a tendency to mislead the public. He obviously employs this term to represent the solid or mineral constituents of the water—j.e., he applies it to substances such as carbonate of lime, common salt, &c., which are found more or less in all terrestrial waters, which are natural to those waters, and quite inseparable from them when they have once come in contact with the earth.” “Living organisms” and “previous sewage contamination ” have no terrors in Dr. Taylor’s eye—so far, at least, as Dr. Frankland’s evidence of the latter is concerned. Nevertheless, a little severity of judgment is not misplaced when applied to the qualities of so all-important a thing as our water supply. —————_——__—. LAND AND BUILDING SOCIETIES. ConsErvATIvE Lanp Socrery.—At the seventy- eighth quarterly meeting, held at the offices in Norfolk-street, on the 9th inst., Viscount Ranelagh in the chair, the receipts for the quarter ending Lady-day last were declared to be £26,215 19s. 6d., and the grand totals to the same date £1,770,428 10s. 9d. The total withdrawals amounted to £466,803 6s. 10d. The number of the last share issued was 37,194. The reserve fund, exclusive of office premises, &c., amounts to £10,500. The rate of interest remains at 5 per cent. on shares and 4 per cent. on deposits. Among the noblemen and gentlemen present were Viscount Ranelagh, Col. B. Knox, the Hon. and Rey. W. Talbot, Col. Meyrick, Mr. Goodson, Mr. Holmes, Mr. N. W. J. Strode, Mr. N. Winstanley, Mr. C. L. Gruneisen (secretary), Mr. J. Ashdown, Mr. P. Edsall, Mr. W. Poole, Mr. G. PF. Talbot, Mr. J. Hugh Thomson, &e. BirMiIncHAM SECOND FREEHOLDERS’ BUILDING Society.—The nineteenth annual meeting of this society was held on Tuesday evening. The report stated that the income for the past year had been £10,387 14s. 1d., making the total receipts £221,071 4s, 2d. There had been a considerable accession of new members. Nearly £7,000 has been advanced on well-selected freehold or leasehold properties, and the balance due from mortgage members was £51,287 2s. 10d. The gross amount of profit, in- cluding the balance brought forward, was £4,426 13s. 10d. After payment of the interest to deposi- tors, discharging all management expenses, and placing to the credit of investing members’ accounts compound interest at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum, the balance of the reserve and deferred pre- mium fund amounted to £2,436 4s. 6d. ———~_ PARLIAMENTARY NOTES. DWELLINGS FOR THE Poor.—Lord J. Manners, on Tuesday, asked the hon. member for Truro whether the Metropolitan Board of Works had directed his attention to providing dwellings for the poorer classes in place of those cleared away to effect metropolitan improyements.—Colonel Hoge replied that the Board were considering this ques- tion. It had been referred to the Parliamentary Committee, and the solicitor had been instructed to draft a clause which he trusted would meet the requirements. METROPOLITAN STREET IMPROVEMENTS Bmu.— Mr. H. Palmer moved “ That all petitions presented against the Metropolitan Street Improvements Bill be referred to the Select Committee on the bill; and such of the petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their counsel, or agents, be heard upon their petitions, if they think fit, and counsel heard in favour of the bill against the said petitions; but the Committee are at liberty to require any of such petitioners to combine in their opposition so as to limit the number of separate appearances, and counsel for the petitioners.” ‘The hon. member con+ tended that this bill, though promoted as a private measure, was substantially a public bill, inasmuch as it proposed to raise £2,500,000 upon the taxable area of the metropolis ; andreminded the House that last session it made an exactly similar order in regard to a bill of a like character.—Mr. Ayrton op- posed themotion. The House had already distinctly decided that the Bills of the Metropolitan Board should be regarded as private lills, and that*being so, all the rules relating to private business must necessarily apply to those bills. The motion of the hon. gentleman would subyert the standing orders of the House.—Colonel Wilson-Patten also opposed the motion—Mr. Simon supported the motion, Lord J. Manners opposed the motion.—Mr. Locke contended that the Metropolitan Board of Works did not fairly represent the citizens of London, who, he asserted, were opposed to this bill, and would have no proper locus standi before the Committee.— Colonel Hoge hoped that the question would not be allowed to degenerate into a squabble between the City and the Metropolitan Board of Works. The House had been frightened with visions of a new national debt, but it must not be forgotten that the borrowing powers of the Board were limited to ten millions, and that it paid off one-sixtieth of its debt every year.—Mr. Crawford concurred with his hon and gallant friend in deprecating any squabble be- tween the Board and the City of London. But it was clear it was not merely a City squabble, or the House would not have heard such a speech as had just been delivered by his hon. and learned friend the member for Southwark. The objection of the City to the bill was that they had not been sufficiently represented in its preparation, and would be unre- presented on the Committee.—Mr. Dodson said that there was one thing more to be deprecated than a squabble between the Board of Works and the City, and that was a collison between either and the rules and orders of the House of Commons. The City, or such of its citizens as were interested, would have sufficient locus standi before an ordinary Select Committee.—Mr. M‘C. Torrens supported the motion. —Mr. Gladstone entered upon the discussion with some hesitation, especially as a high authority had expressed his opinion that the bill should come before the Committee in the ordinary way. The Metro- politan Board of Works could hardly be called a direct representation of so vast arange of communities as comprised what was generally called the metro- polis. Neither could any analogy be established between the Board and an incorporated company, seeing that the latter had a constitution granted by Parliament, and was bound by its constitution. It was urged that the Metropolitan Board of Works was a representative body, but it was repre- sentative in virtue of a double election. It was elected by persons who had already been elected by the ratepayers for an entirely different purpose. The effect of this double election was to destroy all direct connection between the elected body and the first electors—that was to say, between the rate- payers and the Metropolitan Board. He could not help feeling that the claim urged in this instance had much in equity to recommend it, and that these persons would be placed in a condition of hardship if they were not allowed to appear before the Oom- mittee.—Mr. Bonham-Carter was unable to come to the same conclusion as the Prime Minister upon this matter. He concurred with the view taken by the late Chairman of Ways and Means, and con- sidered that they were bound to stipport the rules and practice of the House.—Mr. Alderman Lawrence supported the motion on the ground that every facility ought to be afforded for the fair considera- tion of questions of metropolitan improvement The House divided: For the motion, 108; against Onr Oftce Table, —_@—_—_ AncurrecrurAL AssocrATron.—To-morrow (Sa- turday) the members of this Association will visit Croydon parish church (recently restored by Mr. G. G. Scott), and Archbishop Whitgift’s Almshouses and the remains of the old Palace. Particulars as to trains, &c., will be found in our advertising pages. Liverroon ArcurrecrurAL Socrery. —The ninth meeting of the present session of the Liver- pool Architectural and Archeological Society was held on Wednesday week at the Royal Institution, Colquitt-street, Mr. H. H. Vale presiding. Mr. Williams, engineer of the Vieille Montagne Com- pany, read a paper in reference to zine as a roofing material. Mr. H. H. Statham, jun., A.R.I.B.A., read a paper entitled, “‘ Notes on the characteristic treatment of material in design.” Retics or BerNARD PALLIssy.—An interesting discovery has been made in a field near Apremont, in France. The mouth of a cave was found within eighteen or twenty inches of the surface, and on ex- ploring there was found a mass of enamelled pottery, consisting of small figures, which are attributed to Bernard Pallissy. The Comte de Grandpré, to whom the property belongs, intends to continue the research. TASTE IN THE TEMPLE.—It is not generally known that the Masters of the Bench of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple have resolved to abolish the queer tazza-shaped basin in Fountain-court and return to the traditional pipe and reservoir as they existed in the time of Dr. Johnson and Oliver Gold- smith It was here that Richard Savage and the great lexicographer used to exchange ideas, and here it was that the latter acquired so much knowledge of the personal history of the former that he declared that the cruelties to which he had been subjected by his mother were so great and unmerited as to make every man his father. Some few years ago alearned committee of taste, having decided to disestablish the time-honoured pipe that had thrown its spray for two centuries over the court and had made it a green oasis amid a desert of dingy brick, repaired to the New-road and purchased a stucco fountain. This abominable object, according te the Globe, is to be transplanted to the centre of the court opposite the dining-hall, and is to be filled with mould from which flowers are to be raised for benchers’ button- holes. Sir Lawrence Peel, the ‘“‘ Master of the Garden,” is responsible for the perpetuation of this remarkably ugly monument of legal bad taste. Let us hope that the learned gentleman is amenable to advice, and that he will cause the ci-devant fountain to be removed to some less conspicuous place. Impartinc YeLLow Trxce tro Warre MARBrr. —A method of imparting a yellowish hue to white marble is sometimes wanted. Dr. R. Weber has made know the fact that alcoholic solutions of per- chloride of iron are not precipitated by carbonate of lime, and may therefore be applied in different degrees of concentration to impart a more or less deep yellow hue to white marble. The removal of yellow stains from white marble is still a desideratum. PiumsteAp Common.—The trustees of Queen’s College, Oxford, have named £18,000 as the sum at which they are willing to part with their rights over Plumstead Common, The architect of the District Board of Works thinks that the rights in question are not worth more than £4,000 or £5,000, as the College is prohibited by a recent judicial decision from building upon or inclosing a foot of the soil. A memorial on the subject has been presented to the Inclosure Commissioners. Destruction oF Marrero Towrrs.—On the 25th inst. two of those expensive and utterly useless Martello Towers which, during eve of our occasional panics, were built for the benetit of some Government contractor, are to be blown up. They are Nos. 3