Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1911 — Page 2

THE American Home

WILLIAM A. RADFORD Editor

Mr. Witttam A. Radford will anawer XfSSSttlilia and give advice FREE OF COOT on all subjects pertaining to the Mhjiul of buUdtnc. for the readers of this Raper. On account of his wide experience an ■ttter. Author and Manufacturer, he M, without doubt, the highest authority on an these subjects. Address ail inquiries to William A. Radford, No. 178 West Jackson boulevard, Chicago, HL. and only antiose two-coat stamp for reply. When pinned right down to action, an building owner wants a cheap job on Ida house. If cheap work la accepted by the owner, it la usually because he la Incompetent to judge. Interior workmanship and materials a Httie under the best grades look all right to him. and a poorly built job goes through; but inferiority is bound to show up later on. Moat architecta are loyally and energetically trying to get good work on every building they design, whether a 13,000 house or a >3,000,000 office building. Most contractors take pride ta building up a reputation for honesty and integrity, since their earnest, conscientious methods of doing business are as much in the interests ofarchitecture as in their own. Tnere Is no excuse for cheap work. Every inferior job is occupying space which would be better utilised by a budding of endwring construction. It endangers surrounding buildings, depreciates the entire architectural profession and contracting trade by conveying false ideas of cost to building owners, and hgrts reputations of architects, builders and owners. Even in real estate work, houses bunt to sell bring no profit in the long nm to owners through whose hands they pass, unless they are honestly bunt On the other hand, most reputable real estate operators have proved time and time again that well-built attractively designed houses yield larger profit although the first cost any be much greater than for houses fllmsily built. When it comes to frame houses, the beet is none too good, as a frame

structure Is under greater stress of wear and tear than any other by reaaon of the perishable quality of the Material. They should, therefore, be beflt substantially of the best structural material obtainable. It Is also Important for houses to be finished well Inside, if they are to prove a desirable investment. For Instance, hardwood doors and trim cost very little more than soft wood, yeTTncrease the value of the property many times. Also, the important rooms of the house need some central architectural feature to catch the eye

First Floor Plan

at the first glance—the key-note, as 11 were, to the room. From the earliest days of building, the fireplace with its accompanying mantel shelf has served as that feature in every country whose climate has made artificial warmth a necessary thing in winter. Even though we have provided for the actual warmtag of the house by means of hot- air furnace or steam heater, there is a uoatlment that makes the open flrethe center of the home circle. There is a sense of warmth in the eight of the fire that does not belong the steam radiator or the grated

hole in the wall or floor through which a stream of over-heated air is pouring. The fireplace must be planned tor in building the house, or it must be done without. It is almost impossible, at least It is very expensive, to put one in as an after-thought after the building is otherwise completed. The selection of the mantel is something deserving careful consideration. Wood mantels will naturally be chosen for the dwelling house of average

cost, because the trim of the windows and doors is made of wood, and the mantel made of the same material and finished in the same color will harmonise with the general decorative scheme of the room far better than one made of any other material. Most architects want mantels made from their own special designs and expressing their own individuality; but this will cost more than a mantel selected from the catalogue of some manufacturer who makes a specialty of mantels and who effects a consid-

erable saving on the cost of the individual mantel by making up each pattern in considerable quantities. Were it possible nowadays to obtain only those clumsy and ugly patterns which were found in the best catalogues a dozen years or so ago, there might be some necessity for having specially designed mantels in your house; but the same evidence of the progress of good faith is to be found in the present-day factory mantels that will be found in up-to-date furniture. Nobody thinks nowadays of going to a cabinet maker and having him make our tables chairs, bedsteads, or chiffoniers to order. Instead, we visit the furniture store, where we find in stock, or will be shown photographs of them in the catalogues, artistic and well-made furniture of every period style, as well as in the modem so-called “new art” or “craftsman" type. The design shown herewith has been selected as a worthy example of some of these points already brought out Although of comparatively small size, the plans and specifications for this design call for an exceptionally well-built structure. The design provides for a compact residence, and permits of nothing showy or elaborately ornate to become dilapidated or to get out of style. The interior of the house is arranged most extensively, with a good sized reception hall, large connecting living room and dining room, besides the kitchen and pantry on the first floor. The central decorative feature of the interior is a large open fireplace with beautiful mantel, in the living rooom. A sideboard of buffet could also very easily be built into the space left for it along the inner wall of the dining room. Altogether, the effect of the downstairs is light and cheerful and exceedingly homelike.

On the second floor are two large bedrooms with clothes closets. The bathroom is also on this floor, being directly over the kitchen. This house has been built complete for >2,500, using thorough construction and good grade of building materials. The total size is 11 feet wide by 35 feet long.

Second Floor Plan

MAN'S MASTERY OF THE AIR

THE navigation of the air! How the very idea of it thrills! To rise above the earth and flit from city to city and from continent to continent! To travel free and untrammeled as do the birds! This has been the dream of mankind for ages.

Impossible of accomplishmeht? Do not be too sure. Tremendous strides toward this splendid, this alluring goal have been made within the past three years. Already have daring men of the air pierced the blue vault of heaven to astonishing altitudes, already have they dashed from metropolis to metroimlis with a speed rivaling the fastest express train, already have they leapfed oyer mountain ranges and crossed bodies of wlater which separate nations. If the progress is to be as great during the next three years, then, indeed, will marvels have been accomplished beyond anything of which today we permit ourselves to dream. Much depends upon the attitude and activity of those daring and ingenious men who already have elevated the science of aviation from the purely experimental and speculative to something at least approaching the practical. If their talents and the talents of such scientific men as now are or hereafter may be attracted to the problem of aerial flight are devoted to the making of aviation more nearly safe and therefore more useful, rather than toward outdoing the marvelous records already made in altitude, distance, speed and duration, then will the world be the gainer and travel and commerce be helped through this new means of communication. Safety! That is now the thing to be aimed at. Not till a full measure of it is reached can the conquest of the air really be claimed or aviation be lifted from the spectacular to the utilitarian. - Considering what has already been accomplished in aerial navigation, is it too much to say that even greater discoveries will be made and applied in the near future? Where shall we place the limit upon an age which has produced a machine that talks and sings, which propels loaded cars up and down hill by means of an invisible fluid, which takes protographs through solid substances, which has instant communication by wire between the most widely separated continents, which has made conversation possible between New York and Chicago and which thinks nothing of sending wireles messages from land to vessels hundreds of miles away at sea? After all, is a certain and safe passenger and freight service through the air more improbable .to our near future than was the automoblld and the electric express train to the future of the man of the ox-cart and the pole propelled flatboat? / ' The Drifting Balloon. The balloon is the elder brothher of the aeroplane and its discovery was the cause of fully as great a sensation. Compared, however, with the later air craft, it is very simple and its possibilities are limited. To Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier belong the distinction of making the first balloon. They were papermakers of Annonay, France, and they experimented for years before they succeeded in causing a silk bag to rise to the ceiling of their workshop. The first men to make a balloon ascension were Pilatre des Rosiers and the Marquis d’Arlandes. They went up from Paris* on November 31, 1783 .and remained aloft 25 minutes. . The efforts to construct an airship subject to control has been a long and persistent one, but the necessarily enormous bulk of gas balloons has

been a discouraging obstacle. Such a tremendous surface presented to the wind more than offsets the power of the, rudder to control, except in a comparative calm, and the invariable disaster which has overtaken the most elaborate and expensive attempts—those of Count Zeppelin of Germany—presumably will discourage further effort along this line and concentrate inventive genius upon the aeroplane. The dirigible balloon, however, is by no means a complete failure. The ordinary balloon retains the pear-shape of the original, but the dirigible is elongated or cigar-shaped and braced along the sides to give it stability. The control is gained from a rudder extending from the suspended car, which contains an electric or gasoline motor. Walter Wellman’s fruitless attempt to reach the north pole and’ later to .cross the Atlantic were among the interesting but gigantic failures of the dirigible balloon. The Flying Machine. Genuine aerial navigation, or Independent flight as distinguished from aimless floating in the air, really had its birth when men abandoned the balloon idea and sought to mimic the birds. Otto Lllienthal In Germany, Hiram Maxim in England and Samuel P. Langley in the United States experimented and constructed machines with planes and wings and rudders, but their success was inconsiderable, for their machines were too heavy of too frail. Different inventors constructed winged machines, large and small, light and heavy, but the most they accomplished were short and uncertain flights or glides from elevated starting places. Finally in 1903 Octave Chanute began to attract attention with his long glides among the sand dunes in the vicinity of Chicago, but his machine had no motive power and was never anything more than a plaything. In Dayton, 0., two brothers named Wright, bicycle repairers, bad been experimenting with planes. Chanute turned over to them all his ideas and they helped much in solving the problem of equilibrium. In 1903 the Wrights took a machine to Kitty Hawk, N. C., and on December 17, after several trials and carrying Wilbur Wright, it left the rails on which tt gained its momentum and flew 852 feet in 59 seconds—the first actual flight by man in an aeroplane. Since then the Wrights have remained prominent in the work of air navigation and their names must always take front rank in any history of aerial flight. It would require many columns merely to mention the marvels performed by nearly 3,000 aviators who have flown during the past three years. Record after reoord has been broken, wonder has piled on wonder with bewildering swiftness, until today the people are not surprised at any feat which the birdmen may perform. During this brief period the progress has been truly staggering and the last 12 months have been richer in achievement than any preceding similar period. Such names as Santos-Dumont, Glenn H. Curtiss, Charles K. Hamilton, Louis Paulhan, James C. (Bud; Mars, Grahame-White, Walter Brookins, Hubert Latham, Louis Bleriot, Count Jacques de Lesseps, Stewart Rolls, John B Moissant, J. Armstrong Drexel, Eugene B. Ely, Alfred Le Blanc, Louis Delagrange, Henry Farnham, J. A. D. McCurdy, Eugene Lafebvre, Clifford Harmon, Ralph Johnstone. Archie Hoxsey, Lincoln Beachey, Harry A.-Atwood and a host of others are familiar to all. Distance to these birdmen is limited only by the amount of fuel they can cany.

GATEWAYS OF TRAFFIC

FIVE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT IN THE UNITED STATES. Volume of Business Transacted Through Each, It Is Asserted, Not ' Fap Behind That of New York Clearing House. Five great gateways of traffic are situated in different parts of the

are known as freight transfer stations, and have been established to facilitate the interchange of traffic between different lines. In a sense, these freight transfer stations resemble somewhat the great clearing houses of the associated banks in big cities like New York and Chicago, but instead of bills and coin, they handle daily thousands of loaded -freight cars. Instead of bank checks, such as the financial clearing houses sort out every morning when they balance their accounts, the freight transfer stations have hundreds of thousands of bigger and more unwieldy pieces of paper which are called way bills, which represent the tremendous volume of merchandise in the loaded cars. Also there are the bills of lading, which answer the same purpose, but in a different way. If the value of the costly freight passing through one of these great gateways eacii day could be computed, it would not fall far behind the day’s business of the New York clearing house itself. In addition to• these five transfer stations that handle only business that passes over two or more different lines of rails before reaching its destination each of the great railroad systems has many similar transfer stations for the interchange of freight traffic between the various roads of which it is composed. A big system like the New York Central lines, for example, is made up of twelve different railroads, each a distinct corporation. For the purposes of accounting, each of these lines is treated in the books as though it were a foreign company, though the rules for the interchange of freight traffic between the various roads of a system are somewhat modified from those which govern the same work between two separate systems Interchanging business at any of the four great gateways in the west. Yet the organization of domestic freight transfer stations, such as those on the New York CentraF lines, does not differ materially from that of the railroads which meet at Chicago, East St. Louis, East Hannibal or Council Bluffs. Each system has from ten to fifty of these freight transfer stations located at the various junction points of its allied lines. The New York Central, for example, has thirty-one. There is no better place for a young man to get a thorough practical knowledge of everything connected with the actual handling of freight traffic than a freight transfer station.

Woman Expert Railroader.

Georgia M. Martin, a native daughter of Minnesota, who began her railroad career at Missoula, Mont., four and a half years/ago, claims the distinction of being the only woman on the continent occupying the position of chief clerk in the office of a master mechanic of a transcontinental system. Miss Martin, who out of her teens, is connected in the foregoing capacity in the office of Thomas J. Cutler, master mechanic of the Northern Pacific railroad company in Spokane. She has full charge when Cutler is on the road. Officials of the Spokane office are proud of her work, saying it equals that of the most efficient clerk on the road. Miss Martin fully understands the mechanism of the several locomotives, “and,” as one of the machinists at the round house put it, “she could give directions to put a big mogul together in a ‘pinch.’ She’ll be boss of the job some of these fine days.”

Spine Specialist Speaks.

“Railroaders ought to be pensioned off early,” said a spine specialist, “for they peg out sooner than any other class of men.” A railroader —a brakeman or a fireman, say—improves in health the first year or so. His weight increases, he sleeps better, and his. appetite grows. But deterioration soon seta In. “Ten years’ work tires out most railroaders. At the end of 15 years they are serious sufferers, some from the eyes, some from the ears, and some from leg pains. Twenty years sees them really unfit for work. “ft’s all due .to the spine—to the effect of the train’s constant vibration on the spinal cord.”

Longest British Line.

By possessing 2,975 miles of railroad line, the Great Western railroad holds the record for Great Britain.

United States. Through these, generally speaking, freight moving east or west that passes from one line of railroad to another must go, says The Railway Men’s Magazine. They are Chicago, East St Louis, EEL; East Hannibal, Mo.; Council Bluffs, Mo., and Minnesota Transfer, Minnesota/ They

RESEMBLED COMET ON RAILS

Blazing Train Rushed to Stretch of Prairie to Avoid Firing Timber Land and Town. Blowing its / whistle frantically a Northern Pacific engine dashed through Bellingham, Wash., and out into the country, ahead of a tralnload of blazing cedar logs, narrowly missing a north-bound passenger at Anacortes. The wild ride occurred about 9 p. m., and the fiery cars leaping along the rails made a brilliant spectacle. Hundreds of persons ran into their homes frightened lest a comet was sweeping the horizon. The train was stopped ten miles south of town and the burning cars of logs left to destruction. When about four miles from Rogers' logging camp, where the cedar logs were loaded, one carload becameignited from a spark out of the engine. The fire quickly spread by the rush of the train, and the engineer, seeing the futility of stopping in the heavy timber and endangering other property, put on full speed. The heavy woods run almost to Bellingham’s northern edge and the danger was not passed until after the blazlng.train had traversed the forest and cleared the city when the stretch of prairie south of the city was reached. The engineer, although seeking to save the property of others from fire/ did not think of the caboose on the rear of the train, and while the cars were being pulled along at fifty miles an hour the occupants of the caboose were vainly trying to leap to safety on likely looking spots along the right of way. J. Cole, rear brakeman, landed on his head In a quagmire, but extricated himself. Conductor George Baxter sustained a broken leg in leaping from the car. The caboose was partly destroyed.—Minneapolis Journal.

STOP RAVAGES OF INSECTS

Telegraph Poles Along Brazilian Railroad Are Constructed of Old Iron Ralls. In building the Madeira-Mamore railroad in Brazil, it was found ,Impracticible to use wooden telegraph poles on account of the ravages of tropical insects. The difficulty was solved Uy utilizing old iron rails

Telegraph Poles of Old Iron Rails.

placed in pairs nieeting at the top, as shown in the illustration. The most destructive of the various wood-boring insects found in this part of South America is the “cuplm,”’ which builds a nest or a shaft of mud over the bark' of trees or wooden poles, and honeycombs them in a manner similar to the “teredo” or "shipworm” which is so destructive of submerged timberwork in tropical seas.— Popular Mechanics.

Regulating Size of Trunks.

Committees representing the railroads and commercial concerns interested in the proposed changes in the regulations affecting the size of trunks to be accepted by the roads as baggage met in Chicago on August 7 with a view to reaching an agreement in. the matter. Although nothing was decided at the conference it was decided at a subsequent meeting of the railways committee to postpone the date when the 40-inch limit will become effective to July 1, 1914, and to adopt a rule imposing a 45-inch limit, but not to put It into effect until July 1, 1912. While the commercial organizations and trunk manufacturers decided at a meeting on July 10 to ask that trunks the greatest dimensions of which is as much as 50 inches be accepted* free as baggage, and that the rule imposing this limit be not made effective until January 1, 1913, it is believed that they will agree to the concessions offered by the roads as outlined above. The extension of time will give interested shippers and trunk makers an opportunity to adjust themselves to the new rules.

Plan to Reduce Coal Consumption..

The Chicago Great Western has adopted an accurate coal weighing system by which a record will be kept of every pound of coal used throughout the system, and it is expected that the present cost of suel —$1,500,000 annually—can be reduced 10 per cent. New scales will be put in at each of the company’s twenty-three coaling stations, and reports will be made showing the average consumption of coal a locomotive mile and « ton mile. .''