Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1896 — Portable Buildings. [ARTICLE]

Portable Buildings.

A sort of portable construction which, although, as wo believe, it originated In this country, has nearly gone out of use here, while it is becoming popular abroad. Is thus described: This construction consists simply in suitable of iron pipes and connections, and has the great advantage that the pieces are light and portable, while the work is very readily put to feether with the simplest tools. France Is now extending so rapidly its colonial possessions that these portable barracks, warehouses, hospitals and dwellings are greatly In demand, and it seems to us that we, who can make iron pipe, and cast connections, at least as cheaply and skillfully as our friends across the Atlantic, might find such"buildings useful and the materials for them very salable. No architect needs to be told how to combine iron tubes and connections so -is to make a cheap and strong roof; but in the new French structures the system Is applied to the floors, which can easily be trussed to sufficient stiffness. With covering and sides, and perhaps floors, of corrugated metal, such buildings answer well for temporary purposes; and to substitute expanded metal, covered with plaster or cement, for the corrugated sheets, is to make them much more comfortable and permanent, at a small additional expense.