Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — Weight of a Crowd. [ARTICLE]

Weight of a Crowd.

In a paper by Prof. Kernot, read before tho Victorian Institute, ho compared the various estimates as to the weight per square foot of a crowd. One estimate, quoted as French practice by Stoneyand Trautwine, gives ol pounds por squaro foot as tho weight of a crowd. Hatfield, in “Transverse Strains," givos 70 pounds; Mr. Pago, engineer to Chelsea Bridge, 84 pounds; Mr. Nash, architect to Buckingham Palace, quoted by Tredgold, 120 pounds; Mr. W. M. Kernot, at Working Mon’s College, Melbourne, givos tho weight at 120 pounds; Prof. W. C. Kernot. at Melbourne University, puts it at L 43.1 pounds; and Mr. Blinjon B. Stouoy, in his work on "Stresses," os 147.4 pounds per square foot. The Bpaco occupiod by soldiers, as taken by Hatfield in his estimate, is not tho sumo as a crowd. Soldiors are arranged' in Ikies at Adistanoo apart to allow booth' for "knapsacks and other accouterments;' but a crowd is forcod together into oloso contact, an average man in a crowd occupying a space of little, if any, more than one square foot. On the whole, Prof. Kernot inclines to favor Mr. Stoney’s estimate of a little more than one man por squaro foot, and givos it as provod that a derito crowd of wollgrown men weighs between 140 pounds and 150 pounds to the squaro foot.