Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/746

APARTMENT HOUSE. During the past few yenrs. Uut;e numhers of apartmeut houses of the highest grade have been built in all large American cities, and have become |)opular among the most wealthy and luxurious classes of the people. A description of a single one of these highly developed modern structures will give an idea of the whole class.

The following account of an apartment house built in 1899, on ui)pcr Broadway, Xew York, is based on a description contained in the Engineering Record for January 20, 1900: Apartments in this building rent at from .$2,500 to $.3000 annually. The building itself covers an entire block, and is fireproof in its construction. The main entrance leads into a vestibule, beyond which is a large hall and general reception-room where hall boys are in attendance. At the rear of the hall are the elevators which lead to general halls on each floor. Each apartment consists of a parlor, library, dining-room, kitchen, butler's pantry, servant's room, bathroom, servant's bathroom, and a number of bedrooms. Gas-ranges are used for cooking, so that neither coal nor ashes are encountered. The built-in refrigerators are kept at the proper degree of coldness by means of a refrigerating plant in the basement, thus exclud- ing ice, also, from tlie apartments. Hot as well as cold water is furnished. There is an arrange- ment in connection with the dining-room radia- tors for plate-warming, as the apartments are heated by steam. The house is furnished with both gas and electric-light fixtures. Electricity is generated in the building, and is furnished to the tenants free until midnight, after which they must depend for light upon gas at their own expense. Every apartment is provided with a telephone from a private branch exchange. Household provisions are distributed by a freight elevator, and there is a separate servants' stair- way. The mechanical plant which furnishes steam, hot water, electricity, and refrigeration to the huilding is situated in the basement. Con- nected with it is an apparatus for drying clothes. This consists of a series of clothes dryers, heat being derived from a number of steam coil- pipes and the air being circulated by an exhaust- fan. In this and other high-class apartment houses an elaborate ventilating system is pro- vided. In some of the most recent houses the sleeping-rooms for the servants are grouped together upon the top floor. Occasionally a bar- ber shop within the building is added to the list of conveniences accessible to its occupants.

It is interesting to compare such an American ' dwelling as the one just described with a French apartment house of the same grade. In Paris, the height of buildings is limited by law to five stories, so that it is impossible for a sin- gle structure to accommodate the same number of families as in America, and hence the central mechanical plant must be less elaborate or, pro rata, more expensive. As a matter of fact, Parisians are only beginning to avail themselves of conveniences which American city dwellers have long considered essential. Hot air instead of steam heat is uni%-ersal, a supply of hot water is seldom furnished, and only within a few years have adequate water-closets and other toilet facilities been enjoyed. The rooms of a Parisian apartment, however, are likely to be larger, and greater in number, than in an American apart- ment of the same grade. Prominent in the ar- rangement of every suite is the principal bed- room belonging to the mistress of the house, which is larger in couijiarison with the other rooms, and faces the street. Opening upon this bedroom is the boudoir or dressing-room. Beside the other bedrooms are the drawing-room or salon, the billiard-room, dining-room, and the Imtler's jiantry, which separates the dining-room from the kitchen. The kitchen in proportions and im])ortance ranks next to the principal bed- room. The contrast is striking between such a suite of rooms and an American apartment, for in the latter the bedrooms are relegated to the rear and, like the kitchen, are extremely small in comparison with the parlor, library, and dining-room. In Parisian apartments the ser- vants' rooms are on the top floor, a separate staircase is provided for them, and they are iitherwise isolated from the rest of the family, as ill many of the newest American apartments. In general the suites of a French apartment house are grouped around a central court; each suite is composed of a double row of rooms, the parlor and main chambers situated on the street and the dining-room and subordinate rooms upon the court, a hall separating the two groups of rooms. Recently a second hall or gallery has been intro- duced in many apartments which connects parlor, dining-room, and chambers, and is decorated with. pictures, sculpture, and other works of art. For legal restrictions regarding tlie various sanitary arrangements of apartment houses, see article Tenement Hottse Pkoblem. The litera- ture concerning apartment houses is confined to various articles in the technical magazines, some of which may be found in the following volumes: Volumes 40, 41, and 42 of the Engineering Record (New York) ; Volume 7 of the Architvc- tiiral Record (New Y'ork) : The Brick, Builder (Xew York), for .Tune. 1898. and an article on London and Paris flats in the British Architect (Lond.in). for February 3. 1889. APASTAMBA, u'pa-stumlia. An ancient Sanskrit author, noted in connection with Vedic literature because of the Srauta-, Grhya-, Dhurnia-, and 7v(i/po-iSt((ras, which bear his name. See . APATIN, o'po-tin. A town of the King- dom of Hungary, in the county of Bics-Bodrog, situated on the left bank of the Danube, about forty-five miles southwest of llaria-Thcrcsiopel (Map: Hungary, F 4). Its chief industry is the manufacture of rope made from the hemp raised in the vicinity. Population, in 1890, 13,000 (mostly riermans).  AP'ATITE (from Gk. aTrdTti, apate, deceit, as the mineral has often been mistaken for other minerals). A mineral consisting of phosphate with some chloride and fluoride of calcium, its composition being represented by the formula Ca3(P0,). + Ca(C'IF).. It occurs both in crystalline and amorphous form, and is largely used in the manufacture of fertilizers, for which it is v;iluable on account of the contained phosphoric acid. It occurs in both .stratified and crystalline "(metamorphic and igneous) rocks, especially in the latter. It is thus found in the older crystalline rocks in Canada, New York, Maine, and New Jersey; in Europe, it is known in England, France. Saxony, Tyrol. Bohemia, Spain, Norway, etc.: but the only deposits of economic importance are those of Canada, Norway, and Spain. :Most of the Canadian material that has been shipped contains eighty-five per cent, of the phosphate of lime. In recent years the enormous