292 I R O N A N D STEEL ?

R O N AND STEEL 293

H o w were we to make a gun that would be strong enough to throw they produced the supple flashing swords of Toledo and Damascus and
with safety these heavy elongated projectiles? I well remember how, on the tough steel of Sheffield. The medieval smiths made steel from wrought
my lonely journey back to Paris that cold December night, I inwardly iron by what is known as the cementation process. They heated the
resolved, if possible, to complete the work so satisfactorily begun, by pro- wrought iron, packed in contact with powdered charcoal, to a cherry-red
ducing a superior description of cast-iron that would stand the heavv heat for about ten days or two weeks. They next rolled or hammered, re-
strains which the increased weight of the projectiles rendered necessary.” heated, and xpin rolled or hammered the metal to bring about the
In less than two years, Bessemer had invented and perfected his converter. absorption by the iron of a desired proportlonal content of carbon. Ob-
Similarlv in 1847, William Siemens had no immediate interest in the viously, highly skilled workers were required to make steel in this way,
production of steel for railroads when he invented his metallic respirator and they could make only small quantities. Such steel was available only
to conserve the heat in steam exhausted from a steam engine. The respi- for special purposes a t high cost.
rator was not successful, but William and his brother Frederick attempted . In addition to cementation, prior to Bessemer’s invention of his con-
to apply the principle of returning lost heat to various other processes. verter, there xvas one orher principal steel-manufacmring technique.
They invented the regenerative furnace in I 8j 6 and subsequently substi- Working near Sheffield, England, Benjamin Huntsman developed the
tuted preheated p for solid fuel. Although the first practical application crucible process about 1740; he kept it secret for a number of vears.
of the Siemens furnace was for melting steel in 18j7, its principal uses Using blister steel, produced by cementation and having a high percent-
during the ne.xt decade were in glass manufacture and the heating of air age of carbon on the surface and much less at the center, Huntsman
for blast furnaces. Yot until about I 56j was the regenerative furnace first melted his charge of about jj pounds in a covered crucible for several
used to produce steel. hours. The resulting steel, with a relatively high but evenlv distributed
Once Bessemer steel began to be available and reliable, the demands carbon content, was exceptionally hard. Because he cast it in molds,
of the railroads for steel rails to replace wrought iron caused a rapid Huntsman called it cast steel. Obviously it was even more restricted in
expansion of the new industry. The first Bessemer steel rails were rolled quantiw and higher in cost than cementation steel, one form of which
during either 1 8 j 7 or I 8 j S . -Although small Bessemer steel steamboats was the charge that went into the crucible. A few manufacturers still
were built in 18j8 and 18j9. shipbuilders did not use steel extensively make crucible steel for special purposes, but the charge todav usually
in ocean-going steamships until about I 880, despite Bessemer’s repeated consists of wrought iron and a carbonaceous material such as pellets of
urgings. The first Bessemer rolled beams were in the earliest of the sky- charcoal. Crucible steel is still expensive, selling sometimes for well over a
scrapers, Chicago’s Home Insurance Building of I 884. Although appar- dollar per pound.
ently the principal demands for steel were not the factors that led
Bessemer and Siemens to initiate their important developments, there can The Industry
be little doubt that these demands stimulated Thomas to work out his The prime significance of the Bessemer process was that it industrialized
basic, or alkali, process in the 1870s. steel production. The cementation and crucible processes require highly
Steel is a solid solution of iron and carbon containing up to 1.7 per skilled operators upon whose judgment rests the success of the processes.
cent carbon, in contrast to pig iron or cast iron with its 2.5 to 4 per cent As Henry Bessemer put it when he made his first ingot, “we had as much
carbon. Wrought iron has a carbon content of normally less than 0.1 per metal as could be produced by t w o puddlers and their two assistants,
cent, but it also contains I or 2 per cent of slag, which differentiates it working arduously for hours with an expenditure of much fuel. W e
from very soft steel. The ancients appear to have known of steel, as did had obtained a pure, homogeneous ro-in. ingot as the result of thirty
the. niedieval smiths who hammered, reheated, and hammered again until
-Henry Bessemer, An Autobiography, Offices of “Engineering,” London, 1905, PP,
minutes ‘blowing,’ wholly unaccompanied by skilled labour or the em-
ployment of fuel.” Using phosphorus-free Swedish pig iron that cost him
135-136.
2 Ibid., p 153.
 I R O N A N D STEEL 295
Bessemer’s process, however, was so rapid that it was not reliable for
producing steel except with a very low carbon content, the residual
amount left after the blow has ended. Such steel is very soft, and it was
difficult to leave just enough carbon in the charge to make a steel with
greater tensile suength. Moreover, too much air would cause a “burnt”
steel, overoxidized and brittle. Bessemer’s converter also could not remove
sucn impurities 3s rhe suifur 2nd phosphorus that are present in many ores.
In !ittie more than a month after Bessemer announced his new process,
in Au_pst. 18j6, Robert Forester Mushet (1811-1891), English metal-
lurgist and a competitor in steelmaking and invention, overcame the
difficulty of producing steeIs containing the right amount of carbon. H e
added a specific amount of spiegeleisen, a pig iron rich in manganese, to
Figure 10.1
the molten charge after the completion of the blow. The manganese re-
A simple Bessemer con-
verter (From E. W. Bym. moved the excess oxygen, and the carbon in the spiegeleisen recarburized
The Progress of Invention the steel to the desired percentage. Mushet produced high-carbon steel
in the Nineteenth Century, which could be hardened and was especially suitable for machine tools.
1900;courtesy Scientific Although William Siemens patented a process in 1868 for manufac-
Americm ) turing steel from iron ore and pig iron in his regenerative furnace (the
so-called Siemens process. which was never much used), the French
brothers Emile and Pierre Mamn patented in 1 8 6 j a more important ad-
vance by producing steel in a Siemens furnace from steel scrap and pig
only L 7 per ton, Bessemer produced cast steel equivalent to steeI cur- iron. This Siemens-XIamn process now produces about twenty times as
rently selling for ,(j o to A60 per ton, b? me!tin,o it and then blowing air much steel in the United States as does the Bessemer process. The essential
through the molten mass. feature of the Siemens-Jlartin procedure is William Siemens’s regenera-
Bessemer was not the first to produce steel bv blowing air through tive furnace patented in 18j6. This furnace consisted of nvo heating
molten pig iron. Apparently t - i n g to overcome the dificulties of a chambers made of brick grids through which, alternately, Siemens sent
shortage of charcoal a t his iron furnace near Eddyville, Kenxcky, Wil- hot uaste gases to raise the brick to a high temperature. He then pre-
liam Kelly (181 1-1888) first achieved success about 1847 in rehning pig heated the incoming air for the furnace by sending it through one of
iron into steel by blowing air through it nine years before Bessemer these chambers while the other was heating and so returned to the
made his announcement. Kevertheless, it was Bessemer who xeated the furnace large amounts of heat which otherwise would have been wasted.
machinery for effective production. His converter (Figure 10.1) con- As used bv the Martins, this additional heat further raised the temperature
sisted of a huge cylinder Iined with brick and having an open conical top. of the charge of pig iron, scrap steel, and limestone in the shallow con-
Its double bottom made possible the holes through which jets of air could tainer, or open hearth.
be forced into the molten pig iron to oxidize or bum and thus remove During the eight to nvelve hours required for the process, each furnace
most of the carbon. The converter was mounted on trunnions so that the could produce upward of a hundred tons of steel from known quantities
operators could tip it like a huge teakettle to pour the steel into molds. of materials; the operators could make steel having accurate predeter-
T h e resulting i n p t s could be rolled, forged, or pressed into any desired mined proportions of ingredients as indicated by samples taken from the
shape. During a=single “blow” the converter could produce some 2 0 furnace and analyzed from time to time, for, as is not the case with the
tons of steel from cast iron in as many minutes. Bessemer method. the reaction can be stopped at any point. However,
 296 IRON A N D STEEL IRON AND STEEL 297
neither the Bessemer process as improved by Mushet nor the original into the arches of the Eads bridge across the Mississippi a t St. Louis. A
Siemens-Martin process could remove the phosphates in pig iron manu- decade later, Marbeau introduced nickel steel.
factured from the highly phosphoric ores which are plentiful. At this time heat treatment of finished carbon steel was relatively
A London police-court clerk, Sidney Gilchrist Thomas ( I 85o-I 885), simple. If a hard steel was desired for a cutting edge, the m a n u f a m t r
developed a process to remove phosphorus from pig iron in the Bessemer heated the piece to a red heat and quenched it in a bath of water, oil or
converter; the Thomas process was later adapted to the Siemens-Marun some other material. However, this technique for producing a hard cut-
open-hearth furnace. While taking evening courses a t London’s Birkbeck ting edge also made the carbon steel brittle. If a more malleable product
College, Thomas heard one of the lecturers say that whoever should dis- was required, the operator annealed the piece by allowing it to cool
cover how to manufacture steel from a phosphoric pig iron would make a slowly after heating, and thereby he sacrificed hardness. Combined pro-
fortune. In his spare time, Thomas immediately began reading technical cedures could produce intermediate characteristics, but in general hard-
and chemical literature and experimenting in a cellar laboratory. During ness was achieved a t the expense of malleability and vice versa. In the
the years 1871 to 187j he devised the Thomas process which in its essen- twentieth century, metallurgists removed these limitations.
tials consists of a furnace lining of basic or alkaline matenah, chiefly &-IsSiemens was building his experimental plant in England at Bir-
dolomite. This material, a carbonate of lime and magnesium, absorbs mingham in 1865, Alexander Lvman Holley (1832-1882) was manufac-
phosphates from the charge. A flux is also added to form a slag which turing Bessemer steel in Troy, S e w York. and bv 1867 steel rails were
absorbs phosphates and other impurities and can be poured off. Thomas’s being rolled on commercial orders a t the Cambria xvorks in JohnstoTW
cousin, Percy Gilchrist, a chemist in an ironworks, tested the process. Pennsylvania. Abram S. Hen-itt attended the Paris Exposition that year
Thomas patented his method in I 878, but steelmakers took little notice of as United States Commissioner and saw the Martin open-hearth process.
it until in 1879 one of the Cleveland, England, ironworks using the Reco,&ing a t once i n significance. Hewin obtained the righs to use it
highly phosphoric ores of that district demonstrated the benefits of the in the United States and built the first American open-hearth furnace at
Thomas process. Trenton, S e w Jersey. Andrew Carnegie organized his company in 1870
A considerable amount of the steel manufactured in the Cnited States a t Pittsburgh. By 1873 the Bethlehem Iron Company \\as erecdng a
is alloy steel which owes its properties to the presence of one or more Bessemer steel plant with Holley as consulting engineer, lvho was urging
elements in addition to the iron and carbon. Of the manv alloys manufac- all steelmakers to employ chemical analyses as well as physical tests of
turers produce, nickel steel, chrome steel, and chrome-nickel steel make their products. Following the experiments of Thomas and Gilchrist in
up the largest total tonnage. Julius Baur, of Brooklt-n. S e w York. ob- i 877, the manufacture of basic steel spread rapidly, especially in Germany
tained his first patent for chrome steel in I 86j. A n abstract of his patent in \vhere ores containing phosphorus were plentiful. By 1887 the Krupp
b e Scientific AmeTican for September 2 , 186j, stated that he could com- steel works had become the largest in the world, even though Krupp was
bine iron,with metallic chromium. H e made his alloy either in crucibles unsuccessful in trying to evade Thomas’s patent.
or “by ;fie pneumatic process”; he could make “a triple compound of By 186j the insistent demand for a material stronger than wrought
iron, carbon and chromium.” Some have discounted Baur’s claim be- iron, yet somewhat elastic, had brought about the production of z z j,W
cause he gave too much credit to chromium and too little to carbon for tons of steel in Great Britain, 98,000 tons in Germany, 41,000 in France,
the excellence of the alloy. His work, however, had an important effect and 14,000 in the United States. Bessemer’s first steel a t per ton was
on the industry, for it attracted the attention 3 of the French manufac- hardly cheap steel, but he apparently could have made a profit at Lzo.
turer €3. A.Brusdein, who is usually credited with the development of Prices dropped fairly rapidly, and by I 88 I the British were selling rail-
chrome steel for engineering purposes. By 1874 chrome steel was going road rails for A;6/1o per ton. This price fell irregularly to a low of L ~ /5 I
3 H. A. h d e i n , “On Chrome Pig Iron and Steel,” J o u m l of the lion and Steel in I 89j. In this same year ‘Great Britain produced nearly 3 !4 million tom,
Ipninne, pt. 2, p. 770, 1886. Germany 4 million, France nearly I million, and the United States over
 2 98 IRON A N D STEEL
6 million. In the thmy years, production had been multiplied by more
than 37. This rapid rise of the steel industry was one of the most important
aspects of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century. Moreover,
without steel and its alloys the engineering advances described in subse-
quent chapters could not have occurred.

Bridges of Steel
Among the great ferrous bridges built with the spread of railroads during
the last half of the nineteenth century, three were outstanding. In con-
ception and design the three structures were distinct. James B. Eads chose
the arch for his bridge, opened in 1874, over the Jlississippi River a t St.
Louis. For their famous Brooklvn Bridge, which was opened in 1883,
John A. Roebling and his son Washington A . Roebling held to the
principle of suspension with which they had been successful a t Niagara. Figure 10.2 Eads’s St. Louis Bridge (From Philip Phillips, The Forth Bridge,
John Fowler and Benjamin Baker used cantilevers in their bridge of 1889)
1890 across the Firth of Forth in Scotland. All had experiences in com-
mon, especiallv with their underwater work, and all used steel. More-
of Illinois at the head of Lake llichigan and in touch there with the
over, all three bridges are still in use.
traffic of the Great Lakes, would be the center of a nenvork of railroads.
One of the first to appreciate this newest form of building material
These might readily bridge the llississippi above the hlissouri and b y p a
was James Buchanan Eads (181~-1887). born of .\lamland stock in
St. Louis into the West. One, in fact, had already done SO at Rock
Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and builder of iron-clad gunboats for the
Island in I 8 jj.
Union government during the Civil War. Eads had steel with chrome
T h e Mississippi had served St. Louis in the past and had brought
I I
.~ it
in it tested bv the British expert David Kirkaldv ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 897) even before
wealth from every quarter. The river must not now be allolved to block
Julius Baur had improved production methods. Eads \vas relentless with
the city’s progress. The Mississippi was a barrier when its surface froze
the manufacturers of the yeel for his bridge until thev delivered a prod-
too thicklv for riverboats and ferries yet remained too thin for wagons
uct that met his requirements. a salvager of sunken river craft before
to cross. The ice jams were fearful when the rising waters of the Ohio
the war, Eads had walked the bed of the Mississippi in a diving bell of
or the Missouri or both swept into the valley before it had cleared with
his own construction 6 j feet under floodwaters and had felt the surging
the spring thaw. The naturalist -\udubon and his partner Rozier had been
sands of the river about his knees. He had seen ice plunge beneath the
delayed more than a month opposite Cape Girardeau before they could
hard-packed surface and scour gorges to great depths. He u-as sure that
xvork their boat through the ice to Ste. Genevihe. The approach of the
to withstand undermining the bridge piers had to go all the u’av down to
railroads across the streams and prairies of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois,
bedrock.
therefore, could mean but one thing to the people of St. Louis. The rail-
The people of St. Louis were eager to build Eads’s bridge. They were
roads must come straight over the Mississippi into their city.
proud of their heritage from the fur-trading post of the French near the
It was nonetheless the river that dictated the terms upon which James
thoroughfares of the Missouri, upper Mississippi, and Ohio; jealous for the
B. Eads was permitted to c o n s a c t the bridge (Figure 10.2). The swirl-
future of St. Louis as the industrial city on the great river and the center
ing flood rose and fell with the seasons. Less usual conditions brought
of trade between Eastern states and the West as far as San Francisco.
torrents as much as 40 feet above normal low water, increasing the speed
They were spurred too by the certainty that Chicago, across the state
of flow from 3 to over g miles an hour and producing capricious currents
 300 I R O N A N D STEEL IRON A N D STEEL 30‘
in the channel that made a drawbridge inadvisable even if the river men
arches never had been built and therefore could not be built. H e deter-
had not opposed it. Spans would have to be long enough to give ample
mined to set the foundations upon bedrock at depths which never before
room for passing through without danger, and the clearance above high
had been attempted. The results were revolutionary in bridgebuilding.
water great enough for the stacks of the river boats. Eads in 1868 planned
Eads’s first intention had been to excavate within cofferdams. The
his arches to rise about j o feet above the flood level of 184.4, the highest
abutment on the western shore was so constructed, going down 3 0 feet
on record to that time. They were also to exceed in length of span any
through sunken boats, wreckage, and general debris to bedrock. How-
previous arched structure. For Eads was acquainted with the judgment
ever, as the plan for the east pier in the stream was taking shape, Eads
of Thomas Telford that a cast-iron arch of 600 feet could be thrown
suffered from a severe cough and had to leave on a voyage to rest. Whde
across the Thames and was counting upon the much greater strength
recuperating in France he thoroughly investigated the use of compressed
and toughness of steel to make secure his own spans of j o o feet. There
air to keep water out of closed caissons, a technique European engineers
are steel arches today with spans of more than 1,600 feet.
had been employing for some time. H e decided that their method,
Steamboat men could not be satisfied. They wanted no bridge a t all.
adapted to conditions in the hlississippi, would speed his work donn
It was bound to ruin the ferries and to create competition by rail with the
through the sands and would prove less expensive. He had to learn from
river trade. They appealed to the army engineers. There were boats on
experience what would happen to his men under increased pressures at
the river, said the steamboat men, with stacks exceeding 100 feet in
such great depths.
height; there might be need for even higher stacks. Moreover, Eads’s
The revised method was to float an iron-shod wooden caisson (Figure
arches were too long; his piers were so far apart that pilots could not use
10.3) of great strength into position behind icebreakers and protective
them as guides. Eads demonstrated that top sections of the stacks could be
piling and there to build the granite pier upon it while workmen within
lowered and that properly designed stacks not only offered less resistance
the caisson dug away the sand so that its edges cut down to bedrock.
to the wind than older types but obtained better draft. For the charge
Eads invented a high-pressure \vater pump to force the sand, gravel, and
that his piers were too far apart, he had only the amused contempt
small stones up to barges on the surface. H e placed his air locks at the
which it deserved. As the bridge was nearing completion in 1873, a board
bottom of the shaft to the caisson and within the air chamber, so that
of army engineers agreed with the steamboat men that it should come
those w-ho supplied the men within the chamber could get close to them
down But Secretary Belknap heard from higher up. President Grant had
without being themselves under increased air pressure. The caisson, or
lived in St. Louis. and he knew James B. Eads. The bridge was completed.
wooden box, provided for the construction of the east pier was in position
Anticipating the heaviest traffic for this bridge across the A4ississippi,
October I j , 1869, and bv Kovember I j it was on the sand. With crews
Eads designed a double-deck bridge to support as many people, he said,
working day and night, it had reached bedrock by February 2 8 , 1 ~ 2 %
as could “stand together upon the carriage-way and foot-paths from end
feet below the water level. a depth comparable t o the height of a 10-stoq-
to end of the Bridge, and a t the same time have each railu-av track below
building. Meanwhile, operations had begun on the west pier, and by April
covered from end to end with locomotives.”* Even then the bridge
I its caisson was down 86 feet to bedrock. But all had not gone well;
would not be taxed to one-sixth of its strength; it would be capable of
twelve men on the east pier and one on the west pier had lost their lives.
sustaining 2 8,972 tons uniformly distributed and of withstanding flood,
From previous experience with compressed air, the engineers had
ice, and tornado with a safety factor of 6. T o these ends, Eads made t w o
expected that too rapid release of the pressure would cause distress in the
decisions and clung to them against every discouragement, the obsmc-
ears, pain particularly in the joints, and sometimes death. They knew that
tions of envious rivals, ignorant or acquisitive associates, the assaults of
men
.. . working:” under compressed air felt the exhilaration of the additional
storm and river. He chose to build a bridge of three steel arches sprung
oxygen, sweat profusely, and grew tired sooner than under normal con-
from granite piers set more than joo feet apart. Authorities said that such
ditions. They knew that the gasoline lamps and candles they had to work
‘Calvin %I. Woodward, A Hinory of the St. Louir Bridge, G . I. Jones and Co., SI. hv burned fast under compressed air and that danger from fire was great,
-J - -
Louis, 1881, p. 48.
hut they were not prepared for the muscular paralysis which made work-
 I IRON AND STEEL 303
came badly paralyzed and even deprived of his speech for a while, but he
had learned much.
Decompression was slowed down so that the workmen could not
hurry through the air lock. Thev were compelled to rest thirty minutes
after coming out of the chamber. Their great loss of body heat with
subsiding pressure was counteracted in some degree by warm food and
covering, and alcohol was strictly forbidden. T h e working period was
reduced to one hour. Eads took further precautions when they came to
building the abutment on the eastern shore, descending more than i 35 feet
below high water. Every workman had to rest a full hour after leaving
the chamber. -At I O O feet under, two working periods of forry-five
minutes each were a day’s labor. There was but a single death on this
abutment. That man had forgotten his lunch and had rushed home to eat;
moreover, he had stopped on the way back for a drink of beer. Eads and
Figure ro.3
Dr. Jaminet had achieved a notable success in engineering. Compressed-
Cross-sectional view of a air safety lalvs of today have been drawn in large part from their conclu-
caisson, Eads’s SC.Louis sions. Their victory, however, was not complete enough at that time to
Bridge (From E. H. save Washington A. Roebling from similar difficulties and personal in-
Knight, American M e - jury in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
chanical Dictionary, vol. I,
As significant as his underwater work were Eads’s steel arches leaping
1874) the Jlississippi in three great spans, each more than joo feet. They were
built as continuous arches, without hinges, four abreast, and held trans-
verselv by wrought-iron braces. The ribs or arch members were made
of two 18-inch cylindrical tubes, one 1 2 feet above the other. Eads’s first
assumption that the stresses in a parabolic arch would prove easier to cal-
men stumble and stoop when the depth reached 6 j feet where the pres-
culate than those in the s e p e n t of a circular one did not survive the
sure had to be raised to nearly 30 pounds to the square inch. The men
checking of his German-born assistant engineer Charles Pfeifer, and his
resorted to galvanic arm and waist bands, rubbing oil externally, and
mathematical adviser William Chauvenet ( 182-1 870), Chancellor of
doubtless alcohol internally. Eads and his family physician Dr. Jaminet
Washington Universiw in St. Louis, but the difference in favor of the
were anxious.
circle was slight. T h e curves of the finished bridge are arcs of circles
T h e working hours had been reduced when a foreman became ill.
that vary from parabolas by not more than 6 inches a t any point. With
T h e shifts had been made 4 hours each with 8 hours of rest between. A t 6 j
Chaut-enet’s expert assistance, Eads and his associate engineers had also
feet the working time was further shortened to a six-hour day, three shifts
calculated in advance the amount of expansion to be expected in the
of two hours each, with rest periods of two hours. At the bedrock of the
arches with temperatures ranging from to0F below to 141O F above zero.
east pier, then under more than 90 feet of water where the pressure was
T h e crown of the center arch, j t o feet in length, would rise 8 inches.
44 pounds above atmospheric pressure, the hard work of concreting be-
T h e roadways of the Yiagara Suspension Bridge, a span of 821 feet,
gan. With it came severe cases of the bends, or caisson disease, and in
which John A. Roebling had built in 1851 to 18jj, had been found to
quick succession, three deaths. Dr. Jaminet went down into the chamber
rise and fall in cold and hot weather, 2 % feet a t the center of the span,
to investigate, fell iU, climbed the long flight of stairs in great pain, be-
with no injury whatever to the bridge.
 IRON A N D STEEL 305
double tubes of the arch ribs as they grew, section by section, fim the
upper and then the lower tube, simultaneously at each pier, for balance,
with the cross-tying completed as they rose from skewbacks, or inclined
surfaces of cast iron, set in the piers and abutments. The stays were held
by jacks which were raised or lowered with changing temperatures.
When complete the arches came under even stress and there was none
upon the couplings except that ot‘ direct compression. The building out
of the arches, though spectacular to watch from the shore, was relatively
simple as engineering problems go, but there was a tense moment when
the first arch rib arrived at the center. The last tubular section was jusr
too long for the last space. The engineer on the job telegraphed to Eads
for advice and strove meaname to solve the problem in his own way. He
packed the tubes with tons of ice and hoped that the weather god would
join his staff, but Eads’s reply solved the problem. H e had devised a last
section which could be screwed into place and lengthened to make the
Figure 10.4 iMethod of erection by cantilevers, St. Louis Bridge arches (From
Scientific American, Nov. IS, 1873) joinc tight. The news that the arch was closed, it is said, encouraged the
American banking house of Morgan in London to obtain more British
pounds sterling for investment in the St. Louis Bridge.
T o obtain his cylindrical tubes, Eads banded six chrome-steel staves in There was a tense moment when the first teamster crossed the road-
an envelope, like the staves of a barrel, I 8 inches in diameter and I z feet way, another when General Sherman drove the last railroad spike, a
long. There were 6,000 of these staves, carefully machined, each with third when 14 locomotives crossed two abreast and then in single line.
ulamate strength of 1zo,oo0 pounds to the square inch and elastic limit Finally came the Fourth of July, 1874, with President Grant to honor
of j o , m pounds. The tubes were fitted with wrought-iron couplings, Captain James B. Eads, who stood abashed before a high medallion of
tested to 40,000 pounds to the square inch. Both cast steel and “semisteel” himself, with his bald head and his beard, hearing acclaim as one of the
failed in the testing machines. Eads was so exacting that when his con- great engineers of all time.
tractor, Andrew Carnegie, came to write his autobiography, he remem- john A u p s t Roebling ( I 8 0 6 1 8 6 9 ) did not follow the reasoning which
bered the engineer as “an original genius minus scientific knowledge to uoverned James B. Eads. When Roebling and his son Washington A.
D

guide his erratic ideas of things mechanical.” The editor of Engineering Roebling (1837-1926) came to build the Brooklyn Bridge (Figure 10.5)
for October 10, 1873, had a different view. The alliance between the in I M y , they thought of using steel as Eads was doing, but they conceded
theorist and the practical man was complete, he said; James B. Eads had no superiority to the arch over the principle of suspension. John Roebling
used the “highest powers of modem analysis” to determine the stresses; had been reasonably successful with a suspension bridge for the road and
had taxed the resources of the manufacturer to the utmost in producing railroad across the gorge a t Niagara. H e was triumphing again with
material and perfection of workmanship and had used the ingenuity of the cabies of wrought iron imported from Britain, supporting a highway
builder to put the “unprecedented mass” into place. span of more than 1,000feet across the Ohio River at Cincinnati. His skill
Once the materials for the tubes and couplings were past the testing with the suspended, or catenary, structure was established. There was in
machines and in production, the arches went up easily. As falsework in his mind no reason why +ey could not do as well with a span half again
the river was out of the question, Eads used the system of temporary canti- as long, more than I , j 9 5 feet, from lower Manhattan to Long Island, high
levers (Figure 10.4) which Thomas Telford had thought of using Over above the a m of the sea. The suspended roadway could be made rigid
the iMenai Straits. Stays across towers on the piers and abutments held the and held steady under every kind of traffic; there would be a maximum
 I R O N A N D STEEL 307
the bridge. When fire in the Brooklyn caisson threatened the whole
structure, he stayed in the air chamber from ten at night to five in the
morning. Another experience with the bends in the New York caisson
forced him in 1872 to give up active work altogether. At the age of
tlurty-five he was confined to a chair in the window where he watched
the structure rise, unable to confer with his assistants but sending them
insmctions by his wife.
After the experience in the Brooklyn caisson, Washington Roebling
and his assistants made the wooden top of the New York caisson as fire-
resistant as possible with a sheathing of t h n boiler plate. Lighting was a
major problem. All open flames were especially dangerous in the com-
pressed air of the caisson. Gaslights raised the temperature in the chamber
unduly; the compressed air deadened the sense of smell and made the odor
of escaping gas hard to detect. Oil lamps were too smoky. Calcium lights
Figu7e 10.5 The Brooklyn, or East River, Bridge in 1883 (From Appleton’s gave fair general lighting but were expensive. Candies remained the best
Annual Cyclopaedia and Register, 1883) for close work. The sand hogs in the caissons of the 1870s had to do
without electric lamps, although arc lighting was to be ready for the
roadway when the bridge was finished in 1883. The caisson on the
clearance over the watenvay for the masts of the ships, coastwise and Brooklyn shore came to rest some ++feet below high water upon a con-
ocean-going vessels constantly passing or docking along the East River. glomerate of clay, sand, and boulders that resisted picks, crow bars, and
For Roebling, as for Eads, there was no difficult); xvith size except that of explosives, like solid rock. The caisson on Manhattan Island, however,
expense. encountered quicksands and had to go down more than 78 feet to the
The Roeblings paid little attention to Eads’s design for arches spanning underlying ledge where crags were leveled and crevices blocked with
the Mississippi where John Roebling had once proposed a suspension concrete so that the sands could not flow. Roebling had cautiously experi-
bridge, but Washington Roebling inspected Eads’s undern ater work lvith mented u-ith pistol shots and small explosions under the compressed air
caissons, since the problem of setting foundations in the East Rix-er \\as before venturing to use normal blasts.
similar. While the Roeblings did not have to take into account the turbu- The towers of the Brooklyn Bridge rise 271 % feet above mean high
lence of the Mississippi and its habit of plunging beneath its sands to water. They were built of limestone and granite brought from Kingston
bedrock, they did have to beware of tides that swept through from the on the Hudson, Lake Champlain, and Maine. A t 2 6 6 feet, four saddle
Narrows to Hell Gate. They had to go deep for the footing of the toxvers plates were set in each tower and upon these were placed wrought-iron
for so great a span. Their caissons and piers n-ere larger in every wav, rollers to support the grooved saddles which carried the cables over the
but the basic requirements of the construction varied little from those towers. Thus there was to be no wear upon the cables as they crossed the
a t St. Louis. towers and no lateral stress from the moving loads of the roadway trans-
John A. Roebling lost his life as the work began in 1869. H e was mitted through the cables to the saddles and so to the towers. Eyebars
standing at the edge of the dock sighting across the river to line up the carried through the towers below the saddle plates were to hold the
locations of the towers just as a ferryboat came in. It bumped the piling stays which reached downward and outward to the roadway, where they
where he stood and crushed his foot. Tetanus developed and he died two were attached at s u c c e v e intervals of 15 feet for a distance of 1 5 0 feet
weeks l a t e r m July 22. Washington Roebling took charge to complete his on either side of the towers. These counterstays, with the aid of the truss-
father’s greatest project. Within a year and a half he too fell victim to ing of the roadway, were expected to sustain the roadway which rose in a
 308 I R O N A N D STEEL IRON AND STEEL 309
slight arc. Together with these supports, the cabIes were to carry the bridge was replaced by a steel arch, not because the cables failed, but be-
weight of the bridge, the snow or ice load, and any traf€ic which might cause the bridge was not strong enough to carry the increasing loads of
cross it. Roebling’s design of his roadway trusses and supporting cables, heavier locomoaves and trains.
together with his massive masonry towers, prevented the excessive vibra- With a footbridge laid on special cables and stayed against air cur-
tions due to aerodynamic instability which developed in some later rents and storms and with cradles hung crosswise from the footbridge on
bridges. other wire ropes to regulate the cable laying, the long process went for-
Distinctive features of the anchorage which Roebling patented were its ward winter and summer in full view of ships and ferries beneath. No
wooden floors, anchor plates, eyebars, and the curves of the anchor chains. scaffolding blocked the watenvay. h traveling sheave or wheel, j feet in
T h e yellow pine floors were to be kept wet so that they would be resistant diameter, passed from Brooklyn to New York, rolling out a loop of wire
to decay. The elliptical anchor plates were cast iron, weighing 2 3 tons as another sheave returned empty to Brooklyn on the carrier. The first
each and measuring I 6 by I 7 % feet, with radiating arms 2 % feet from the running time of 1 3 minutes eventually declined to about 1 0 minutes. The
,
center. Cpon these rested the huge pile of masonry to offset any pull from 278 lengths composing a strand were actually one continuous wire looped
the cables. The wrought-iron eyebars of the anchorage inclined upward a t both anchorages to make fastening with the anchor bars easy. Men in
through the masonry toward the cable ends in a curve which was de- the cradles on stagings above the river and on the land spans brought each
signed so that the bars would bear downward upon the masonry and thus wire precisely into line with a guide wire which had been measured to the
divert some of the stress from the straight pull upon the anchor plates. length of the finished cable.
In each of the four cables of the Brooklyn Bridge there are j.296 As the wires were properly sagged they were clamped in a hand vise
wires,a total of 21,184 wires. They were made of crucible steel about and gathered with lashin9 a t 28-inch intervals into bundles of 278 wires
5$ inch in diameter, drawn at the Haigh works in Brooklyn according each. S e w wrappings every 10 inches made these bundles or strands more
to john Roebling’s specifications. Their tensile strength was to be I 60,000 compact, and then they were gathered into cables. There were 19 bundles,
pounds to the square inch, several times as great as the load which or strands, in each of the four main cables. -4s the lashings on the strands
Roebling expected ever to come upon the wire. The wires were laid or were removed and replaced by clamps, squeezers consolidated the more
spun straight and bound closely; they were not subject to torsion, shear, than five thousand wires, and xvrapping machines bound them tightll;
or any appreciable stress except tension. For splicing, the ends were xith galvanized steel wire. A coat of white lead and oil immediately
threaded right-hand and left-hand, with corresponding threads in a covered the completed cable; the individual wires had already been pro-
c o u p h g which drew the ends together. The joint, galvanized with melted tected as has been indicated. Twenn- feet a day was good progress with
zinc to prevent rusting in the threads, tested to better than 9 j per cent the wrapping machine operated by three men. On sunny days the work
of the tensile strength of the wire. was speeded as much as 1 0 feet more. Each cable of the Brooklyn Bridge
T o guard further against rust, three coats of oil mixed with resin measures I j inches in diameter. The combined ultimate strength of the
and lead oxide were applied to the xvire as it came from the factorv. Then four has been estimated a t 18 million pounds. In comparison, Chalev’s
it was oiIed again as it ran upon drums through a sheepskin held in a man’s four j%-inch cables in the bridge at Freiburg, built in 1834, had a
hand. The two coats of oil could probably have been omitted since they strength of I,joo,ooo pounds. The four 36-inch cables of the George
did not stick well to galvanized wires; most of it rubbed off before the Washington Bridge of 1931have a strength of 1 8 0 million pounds.
wires were finally compressed into the cables. The precaution, neverthe- Builders before the Roeblings had used cables of wire for suspension
less, was taken, and another coating of white lead and oil was applied to bridges, but none had succeeded so well in reducing vibration and sway.
the wrapping wire. Constant watch has been kept ever since, and a staff John Roebling feared the winds and the impact of unbalance in the driv-
of painters w o h continuously on the bridge. The Roebling engineers had ing wheels of locomotives and the ambling rhythm of marching men even
the satisfaction and reassurance of finding the wrought-iron wires of the more. His able contemporary Charles Ellet (1810-1862) had lost three
suspension bridge a t Niagara in fair condition after forty-two years. That bridges because they had been too free to sway. For additional stiffness,
 I R O N A N D STEEL 31’
The Roeblings had begun the Brooklyn Bridge during the rule of the
notorious Tweed Ring which managed the affairs of New York City with
a skill in graft that has seldom been excelled. The original plan was for
the cities of Brooklyn and New York to buy stock in the company dong
with private investors. T h e opportunity for misuse of funds seemed great.
Work was delayed for months as John Kelly, Comptroller of New York,
refused to pay its share, and trustees for the company had io take their
suit to the court of appeals. B)- special acr of the state legislature, June j,
187+ the two cities assumed full control of the corporation and the
bridge a t last progressed to completion.
On .\lay :+, 1883, President -1rthur and his cabiner xere present for
the f01~1-131 opening of the Brooklyn Bridge as were Grover Cleveland,
Governor of the State of S e w York. and other dignitaries. Warming to
the occasion, the orator, Abram S. Hewitt, declared that “the faith of the
saint and the courage of the hero have been combined in the conception,
the desin. and the execution of this \r-ork.” Hewitt took note also that
cities in the Jliddle -4,oes had “walled each other out”; now men were
“breaking down the barriers established by namre or created by man.” *
It could no longer be claimed that one traveled bv rail from Albanv TO
Yew J-ork in less time than it took during the winter to cross the ice-
filled East River from Brookh-n to Jlanhattan. and the bridge had a
Figure 10.6 Brooklyn Bridge, original walkway, tower, and cables (From
ven- lar,oe share in consolidating and expanding the nr-o cities into the
Scientific American, 1883)
metropolis of -America. W i t h its rail\vavs noxv replaced by lanes for motor
cars and buses but no trucks, the Brooklyn Bridge carries a tvpe of traffic
verv different from that planned for by John A. Roebling. H e had set
the Roeblings drew their cables laterally out of line. T h e inside cables of
the pattern for the huge suspension bridges of today.
the Brooklyn Bridge spread outward as they descend to the floor level.
Britain’s engineers lvere an-are of the success n-hich the Roeblings
T h e outer cables draw inward toward the center of the span from the
i t ere hax-ing in America M ith suspension bridges, because the communi-
towers, and there are diagonal braces underneath the roadway, diverging
cation of engineering advances had been vastly improved. T h e Scirnntific
from the towers to the sides of the roadway opposite those from which
Americm had carried British correspondence from the I 840s; Britain’s
they spring (Figure I 0.6). learned societies were recording addresses and papers oi members from
Injuries and deaths marred the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
other countries. The London journal Engineering, founded in 1866, had
Lines fouled, derricks fell, loose boards and falling objects accounted for
become a clearinghouse for the profession throughout the world. Its spe-
many accidents. Disregard of rules caused cases of bends which took the
cial articles were reappearing on the Continent and in the United States.
lives of three men. Many of the men would not obey the rules about
Reports from military and civilian imperialists overseas, on Chinese,
food, rest, and sleep, or report their illnesses, or avoid alcohol. The work-
Tibetan. Indian, and early Egyptian building, had long since been sup-
ing day under compressed air was maintained at eight hours since the plemented by news from America. It was well known that Finley, Pope,
depths were not as great as a t St. Louis and the men were never under
pressures more than 34 pounds above atmosphere. SAbram S. Hewitt, “The &leaning of Brooklyn Bridge,” in Selected Writingz of
Aham S. H m i t t , Columbia University Press, New York, 1937, p. 300.
 3’2 I R O N A N D STEEL
Wernwag, and others there, as well as the Red Indians in the British
Dominion of Canada, had ideas about suspension bridges and cantilever-
ing. Thomas Telford had profited from the work of engineers abroad,
and his successors kept informed.
Many engineers prefer cantilever to suspension cables for railway
bridges because of greater rigidity. None of the several railway sus-
pension bridges built had been altogether satisfactory. Teiford’s achieve-
ment at the Menai Straits in Wales had been overshadowed by the nearby
tubular smcture of Stephenson and Fairbairn. With all its shortcomings,
the Britannia Bridge of 1850 had demonstrated the superiority of rigid
structures in comparison with suspension bridges for railways. Prior to Figure ro.7 The Forth Bridge (From Philip Phillips, The Forth Bn’dge, 1889)
the construction of the Forth Bridge, one of the largest cantilever bridges ‘
was that which Charles Shaler Smith ( 1 8 3 6 1 8 8 6 ) had built over the deep of the trains which were to cross the bridge a t full speed and to cope with
gorge of the Kentucky River where John A. Roebling had raised towers the winds of the firth.
for a suspension bridge. Speaking before the Institution of Civil Engi- The Forth Bridge engineers designed approaches of traditional short
neers in 1878 on the subject of long-span iron railroad bridges, the Ameri- spans uniform in depth. There were I j of these, counting both sides of the
can engineer Thomas C. Clarke had declared that Smith‘s bridge was firth, appro.ximately 168 feet each in addition to masonry arches. Then
one of the most bold and original in the United States and had placed it came the innovation. The two great spans reached 1,710 feet on either
high among the engineering suuctures of the world. Smith had thrown side of the Isle of Inchgarvie and weighed some 16,000 tons apiece. The
three 375-foot spans across a canyon I , ~ O O feet wide and 27j feet deep. anchor spans at the shoreward ends were each 6 j j feet long. The canti-
H e had intended originally to build a continuous Whipple truss but had levers with their central girders or suspended spans, assembled as a whole.
altered his plan to the extent of insemng hinges in the outer spans. The consatuted a giant’s stride in engineering (Figure 10.8). The tow-ers of
result was a combination of balanced trusses, or cantilevers. the Forth Bridge, 330 feet high, were given a uniform lateral batter or
Following the tragic failure in 1879, during a December gale, of a inward slope so that they were 1 2 0 feet wide a t the bottom and only
large part of the iron railway uuss bridge across the Firth of T a y near 3 3 a t the top to provide the straddle with which Fowler expected to re-
Dundee in Scotland, the en,gineering firm of Fowler and Baker took over duce the stresses due to the wind upon the structure. The same batter
a site on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh where work on a suspension was carried into the bays as they were also narrowed laterally. The central
bridge had already begun. John Fowler ( I 8 I 7-1 898) had distrusted the spans, simple trusses with curved upper chords joining the cantilevers,
r-mile-long Tay Bridge of 8 j spans, then the longest bridge in the world, were 3 j o feet long and, like the rest of the bridge, wide enough to carry a
which had been opened for general traffic in 1878, and had forbidden his double-track railway. Benjamin Baker ( 1840-190j) operated upon the
family to go upon it. He remarked to James Nasmyth that the bridge assumption that stresses caused by the winds were greater dangers to
might have stood if the designer had used for its tall piers the k r a d d l e large bridges than the heaviest trains which could run on them. H e ex-
of Henry VIII” in Holbein’s portrait. Fowler and Baker determined in perimented with models to determine the action of wind upon flat sur-
their proposed bridge for the Firth of Forth to make use of such a faces, curved secdons, and cubes, and set gauges to take the record of the
straddle, together with the principle of cantilevering which they had winds in the Firth of Forth. These came for the most part from the
studied for severaI years (Figure 10.7). The adaptability of the principle southw-est and not from tfie North Sea as one might expect. The easterly
to railway bridges of long span became more apparent as Bessemer made gales scored from 1 5 to 20 pounds per square foot; the westerlies up to
cheaper steel available that had the rigid strength to carry the rolling loads more than 40 pounds, with the greatest pressures coming in gusts and
squalls. A maximum of 56 pounds was chosen for purposes of design.
 I R O N A N D STEEL 3‘5
and the cylindrical tubes in the Eads bridge of r87+ Baker, like Eads, had
realized the obvious fact that the hollow cylindrical form was the strong-
est, inch for inch and pound for pound. The steel was made by the
Siemens-iMartin, or open-hearth, process a t Glasgow and at Swansea near
Cardiff, Wales. Fowler and Baker expected the rolling load on the bridge
to be j per cent of che dead weight of each of the long spans, or some
800 tons. T o prevent tilting in case nvo trains happened upon one span
a t the same momenr: with no crams on the next span, they weighted the
fixed ends of the cantilevers nearer the shores with counterpoises equal
to the maximum train load plus one-half of the weight of the suspended
span.
The river bottom, consisting of whinstone or basaltic traprock and a
hard boulder clav just as stubborn, was excellent for the foundations of
the heavy structure. On the Fife shore, piers could be built within coffer-
Figure 10.8 The Forth Bridge under construction (From Philip Phillips, The dams offering few difEkulties that were new to engineers. On the Isle of
Forth Bridge, 1889)
Inchgarvie and the southern shore, the foundations had to go down so
far that pneumatic caissons were as necessary as a t St. Louis and Brooklyn.
Instead of the rectangular wooden boxes of Eads and Roebling, the Forth
The sun also had to be taken into account. At the sliding ends of the engineers used wrought-iron cylinders for their caissons. It was kept in
suspended spans an expansion of t feet was anticipated, and the ends mind that Washington Roebling had come near to disaster with fire in
of the cantilevers were certain to move a foot. The only breaks were to his caisson on the Brooklyn shore and that cylindrical caissons are more
be at these junctions of the cantilevers with the suspended spans, and so efficient under compression than any other shape.
the whole structure would expand and contract with the cantilevers. The Ofice divers had leveled off the bottom, the caissons went down with
engineers solved the problem with an ingenious combination of ball and few mishaps to their final locations, the deepest being 89 feet below high
socket in a rocking post. What to do about the complex distortions occur- water. Their double skins were filled with concrete to $jive greater weight
ring with direct sun on one side of the bridge and shade on the other to the cutting edge and resistance to the water pressure. The mud en-
was a different question. Fowler and Baker were confident that if they countered was diluted with water, forced down one pipe into the air
made. provision for a margin of safety (or ignorance) in the strength of chamber and blown out through another pipe by the compressed air.
the materials over and above the requirements then known, they would The caisson was entirely filled with concrete after it reached its final
have thFstrongest and stiffest as well as the biggest railway bridge in the location. The pressures in the air chambers were raised and lowered to
worId. Its margin of safety has been ample to this day. But an enormous balance the weight of the water as the tide rose and fell, but in no in-
number of unknown factors remain. Engineering still is in some respects stance were the men obliged to work under more than 3 j pounds to the .
empirical. square inch above atmosphere, There was temporary paralysis on occasion
All tension members in the Forth Bridge are of open-lamce construc- but no death from the bends as there had been at Eads’s St. Louis Bridge,
tion. But the great steel columns under compression were built of cylin- possibly because the depths were not so great. It is possible, too, that the
drical tubes, I inches thick and as much as I Z feet in diameter. Baker physicians in charge took better care of their men because of the ex-
had given much time to investigating their construction and seems to have periences of Eads and R6ebling. The workmen of the Forth had a great
ruled out the rectangular tubes of Stephenson and Fairbairn. H e had then advantage over the sand hogs under the Mississippi and the East River.
as precedents only the elliptical tubes in Brunel’s Saltash Bridge of 1859 Incandescent lamps were a “great and lasting boon” in the air chambers.
 3 16 I R O N AND STEEL IRON AND STEEL 3‘7
Even the divers were supplied with watertight lighting equipment, and so for itself.‘ This statement may not have been a satisfactory answer
there were arc lamps with as much as 1,500 to 2,000 candlepower in the to William Morris but it certainly was for the supporters of the new
shops. The construction company installed steam engines and generators movement for “morality in architecture.”
to supply its own electricity. In spite of the experience with the St. Louis and the Brooklyn Bridges,
Laborers came for the most part from neighboring Scottish villages the great bridge across the Firth of Forth marked in a way a transition in
and towns, though some were imported from Belgium and France. The engineering practice in the use of steel in place of iron, particularly for
problems of housing and transporting the workmen were much the same structural purposes. Twenty years after steel had become available in
as anywhere else. There were special trains and paddle steamers to take quantity, builders had clung to the use of wrought iron. The lag was due
them to and from their homes and so keep them out of nearby public in largest pa^, no doubt, to the fact that railways absorbed the increasing
houses. In all some 3,joo men were employed on the Forth Bridge, 900 supply of steel; iron rails were so inferior that steel quickly became a
working on the Isle of Inchgarvie a t one time. necessity. But even when sreel was cheaper and prevalent, man>- engineers
As the Forth Bridge came into operation in I 890 John Fowler extolled still preferred structural iron for its uniformity and proven capacity. By
the advances that had been made in comparison with the Britannia Bridge I 890. however, this conservatism had given wav; manufacturers were list-
of but forty years past. T h a n k s to the achievements of Bessemer, Siemens, ing steel shapes for bridges and buildings in their handbooks. to the
Thomas, and others, steel could now be produced a t less cost than iron. neglect of iron. Steel today is in general and virtually exclusive use for
If built of iron, said Fowler, the Forth Bridge would have both weighed rails, girders, beams, and every sort of structural form, although wrought
and cost twice as much. Plates in the Britannia Bridge measured I Z by z iron is preferred by some builders in such particular uses as pipes. For
feet; many in the Forth Bridge were as large as 3 0 by j feet. Fowler these, it is still thought by some to be the better material because it is
quoted the engmeer of the Menai tubular bridge as having calculated that less subject to corrosion than carbon steel.
with the iron of 18jo a bridge of the span of 1,710 feet “might be con- After Eads’s initial success with steel at St. Louis in 187+ his friend
structed” but “not an ounce of weight” must be put upon it or “a breath William Sooy Smith (183-1916) completed an all-steel railroad bridge
of air allowed to impinge against it.” Fowler added, “Each span of the for the Chicago & Alton across the Missouri River at Glasgow, Jlissouri.
Forth Bridge happens to be 1,710 feet. When tested by the Board of in I 879. It was notable for its five spans of Whipple trusses, each 3 I I
Trade inspectors, 1,830 tons were put on the 1 , 7 1 0 feet, but 4,000 tons feet lon,o, but although it remained in service for tn-enn--t\vo years until
might have been put on it without injuriously affecting the structure.” replaced by a heavier structure, it had started no trend toward steel
As for aesthetic qualities, the critic William- .Clorris, given to com- trusses in bridge construction. Charles Shaler Smith attracted more atten-
ments on the art of living, declared that the Forth Bridge was the “su- tion in 1877 with his wrought-iron cantilever spans 3 7 j feet long over the
premest specimen of all ugliness.” However, Morris also stated that every Kentucky River.
improvement in machinery was uglier than the last and that there never French engineers were to gain even wider notice v-ith their high
would be an architecture in iron. Benjamin Baker replied to William wrought-iron viaducts. One of these, built for the Paris and Orleans Rail-
Morris that beauty was relative to function; the duties of a structure way in the 1860s, was a single-track bridge extending over 1,000 feet in
should be considered when determining its place in art. In a lecture be- fire trussed spans which were set upon clusters of cast-iron columns rising
fore the Edinburgh Literary Institution on November 27, 1889, Baker more than 181 feet above the Cere River. The Garabit L‘iaduct, designed
explained why the underside of the Forth Bridge had not been made a by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) and completed in 1884, was
true arc instead of a series of chords. T o have done so, he said, would have still more impressive with its parabolic central span of latticed construc-
“materialized a falsehood.” The Forth Bridge was not an arch and it said tion, reaching j 4 1 feet. Preceding the work of Fowler and Baker on the
6 Thomas Mackay, The Life of Sir john Fowler, John Murray, London, IF, pp. Forth, it was spread laterally to 66 feet at the spring line though but zo
308-309. ‘Zbid., pp. 314-315.
 Figure 10.9 Eiffel’s Garabit Viaduct (Courtesy French Government Tourist
Ofice)

at the top to give greater resistance to winds of the valley. T h e Garabit

Viaduct soars x e r 400 feet above the Truvkre River (Figure 10.9).
Eiffel, noted also for the xvrought-iron skeleton of the Statue of Liberty
in S e w I-ork Harbor. xr-ent on to determine how hish metallic frames
could be raised with saktv. There had been serious talk of a 1,000-foot Figure 10.10

tower at the Centennial Exhibition of 15-6 in Philadelphia; Eiffel made EiEel Tower (From
Engineering News,
it a realin- a t Paris in I 889 ( Fi=wre 1 0 . 1 0 ) .-Although Fowler and Baker
Supplement, June 8, 1889)
uere building in Scotland u-ith steel, EifFel preferred to use iron despite
the fact t h a t more metal xvould be required. Like Baker. Eiffel calculated
the wind pressures t h a t v m d d come upon the tower a t all heishts and
made certain that its design uould be more than strong enough to lvith-
stand those pressures. The toner has J height of-98+ feet; \rich lightning scientific research, first in astronomy, more recently in radio and radar.
conductor it rises above 1.000 feet. Xeither of the two structures was planned to give economic return, but
The most distinctive feature of the Eitfel Tower is its careful design. the EiiTel Tower has paid for itself in sightseers’ fees.
The structural members numbered I 2.000; each required a special draw-
ins, and all lvere finished at the shop and delivered ready to place. Of
some 2 , joo,ooO rivets, 800.ooo Xvere set b>- hand. The work. including the High Buildings
foundations, was completed in tirenty-sis months with so much pre- hien have always yearned for the sky. Though varying their struc-
cision from design to construction that no corrections were necessary. tures in form from ziggurat and pyramid to cathedral and skyscraper,
The Scientific Americni of June I 5, I S89, applauded the achievement as they have expressed conanuing ambition. The t o w e m g hotel and office
“without error, without accident, and without delay.” buildinp had begun to take shape before Gustave Eiffel raised his iron
The contrasts with another famous edifice in Paris have passing in- column. T o achieve tall buildings there were combined two developments
terest. Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe, mimicking Roman tradition and the that were seemingly urndated to one another. Undl elevators were de-
architecture of the past, proclaims a warrior’s success. T h e Eiffel Tower, vised, the useful height of a structure was limited to the five stories or
heralding the buildings of the future, rises above the Champ de Mars; so that an average person could climb on stairs and still have breath left
the laboratory high in the lantern has from its origin been devoted to to speak of the business on which he had come. Also there was the very
3’8 3’9
 320 I R O N AND STEEL
practical Wculty of raising walls beyond a certain level without having
them fill the lower stories with inordinately thick masonry. A structural
steel framework, supporting walls as well as floors, eliminated the need for
bulky masonry walls.
There had been hoisting machines since the time of -4rchimedes or
before, but rhe Romans and their successors were not interested in im-
proving the mechanism for daily use. They felt no great need, although
the occupants of the Roman insulae, or apamnent houses, might have
enjoyed the service. It was not until railways hastened the congestion of
urban centers that engineers put their minds really a t work upon vemcal
lifts and made crowding in the cines worse. Freight elevators of a crude
type were running in some S e w York buildings by the 18jos. Their
power was quite generallv . hvdraulic,
. based on Pascal’s hvdraulic prin-
ciple. Capacities and speeds were low. James Bogardus (1800-1874),
enthusiast in the use of cast iron, proposed to build a 300-foot tower for
the S e w l-ork World’s Fair of 18j3 that would be firmer the higher it
rose and would have a steam elevator to take observers to the top. It
xvas his fellow townsman Elisha Graves Otis ( I 8 I 1-1 86 I ) who put into
operation the first passenger elevator. Otis demonstrated his safety ap-
pliance a t the l-ew Tork fair of 18j3 and in 18j7 installed his elevator
in a five-story store a t Broadw-ay and Broome Street. A n appliance to
check the fall of the car came into play if the rope broke or the mechanism
failed. Bt- Sol-ember, I 866. the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia had
taken note of an 11-story house in Paris that would have “a platform
ascending noiselessly eve? minute, and raised by hydraulic power.” Sig- Figure 10.11
fried Giedion states that the first passenger elevator in Paris was at the Thie Pulitzer (New
Exposition of 1867. Both quietness and speed seem to have appealed, in- x l r IYorld) BuiIding
dicating factors besides safety that were essential. .l-01rid \Vide Photos)

The first hvdraulic elevators were of the simple-plunger type. Water

pressure n-as applied bv a pump to a vertical cylinder from the top of
which extended through a stuffing box a vertical steel column or plunger
which raised the elevator. Releasing the pressure allowed the elevator to around the pulley. Gustave Eiffel’s hydraulic elevators of I 889, like his
descend. There was counterbalancing by means of cables or ropes so Tower, attracted the attention of the orld. They were of three designs;
that the water pressure n a s not required to raise the entire weight of the one by the American Otis; the others were French. Together they formed
elevator and its load. The plunger made necessary, however, a pit beneath a system that raised the sightseeing crowds to the top of the platform in
the building as deep as the building was tall. With increasing stories, a three stages. The whole ascent took seven minutes; some 2,3 j o passengers
different type was developed, the rope-geared hydraulic elevator which could be carried to the summit and returned to the ground in an hour.
had multiple-grooved pulleys; the motion of the car with respect to the Hydraulic elevators, while smooth-running and sure, are relatively slow.
piston was increased proportionally to the number of turns of the rope Close upon the invention of elevators came the idea that reversed the
 322 IRON A N D STEEL
practice of the builders of tall buildings and changed the primary function
of walls. From earliest times walls had supported the framework and
roofs of buildings, although medieval engineers had let the walls support
only themselves as they enclosed the cathedrals. Now the frame was to
carry the walls; builders of tall structures were to rest their walls inde-
pendently, a story at a time, upon a comprehensive framework, or skele-
ton, which was self-sustaining. The walls could be built story by story
from the top of the building downward if desired, for they no longer sup-
ported the structure, they merely enclosed it. This reversal in practice
was not instantaneous. In the 1880s many buildings equipped with ele-
vators were still carried’up far beyond five stories without a skeleton.
Among the most notable of these buildings s t i l l standing in 1955 is the a

Pulitzer (New York World) Building (Figure 10.1I), completed in

1890,with 14 stories. It represents the last of the type whose walls carry
their own weight. A t their base the exterior walls of the Pulitzer Building
are more than 9 feet thick.
In the 1850s James Bogardus of New York had come close to the
skeleton or comprehensive framework without, however, seeming to
realize it. His cast-iron frames, 70 feet high in some cases, had gained
publicity in the Illustrated London News of April I t , I 8jI (Figure I 0.I 2 ) .
before William Fairbairn had published his book on building with iron. Figure 10.12 .IBogardus cast-iron building, Centre and D u n e Streets, Xew
York (From lllrlstroted London S c l i ~ s ,Xpr. 1 2 , 1 8 j r )
Bogardus himself boasted that the greater part of his ironwork might
be removed or destroyed and still the frame would remain firm. Together
with his contemporary in Britain, Joseph Paxton, designer of the Crystal tices that mere alreadv familiar in bridgebuildins, both with n-oc~dand
Palace of 1851 (Figure 8.12), Bogardus is to be credited with an archi- with iron; his diagonal bracing su,a,aests th’- possibility. In any case the
tectural achievement in combining glass effectively with iron. His build- result was an iron skeleton lvhich carried d o u x ta the piers the whole
ing in 1854 for the publishers Harper & Brothers of New York had a weight of the structure. The walls of hollon- brick lvere no more than
fagade that was little but framed-glass windows. The glass was supported curtains. Though fully described in French journals, this ne\v procedure
independently at each story, but the walls continued to support only in building was apparentlv not knoivn in -America a t the time.,The pre-
themselves between cast-iron columns at each floor. Their weight was sumption has been that the disco!-eq- \vas independentlJ- made and applied
not carried down to the foundations by any skeleton. It cannot be said to high structures in the United States. XVilliam LeBaron Jenney ( 1 8 3 2 -
that Bogardus had changed the function of the wall from support to 1907) is entitled to most of the credit for producing the first modern
enclosure. skyscraper. which he designed and built for the Home Insurance Com-
The French builder Jules Saulnier took the further step of construct- pany in Chicago in 1883 to 188j (Figure 14.1).Carnegie. Phipps s( Com-
ing a skeleton frame building with curtain walls. The structure which he pany asked permission to supply Bessemer steel girders instead of iron
raised in 1871-1872 for the Menier chocolate works (Figure 1 0 . 1 3 ) at as the Home Insurance Fuilding reached its sixth floor. The steel girders
Noisiel-sur-Mame straddled the river on four stone piers to make use of subsequently used were the first delivery ever made of structural steel for
the waterpower. The site may also have influenced Saulnier to adopt prac- buildings, in the modern commercial sense of the term. The third essential
 I R O N AND STEEL 325

Until Saulnier constructed the chocolate works, the primary function

of the walls of large buildings, as has been said, had been to support the
building or at least themselves. For centuries, however, there had been
wooden-frame houses in which the frame supported the house and the
walls which were hung on the frame. Prior to George Washington Snow’s
( I 797-1 870) invention of the balloon frame for houses, the wooden frame
with i s heavy posts, girts, beams, and braces was held together with
mortise-and-tenon joints. Snow revolutionized frame consrmcdon by sub-
stituting for the heavy posts and beams with expensive and weakening
joints thin wooden plates, or boards and studs held together by nails. Snow
invented the balloon frame in Chicago, and the first building to have this
T p e of construction was Sc. M q ’ s Church put up in Chicago in 1833.
Figure I 0 .I 3 Balloon framing, used extensively in Chicago after 1833, spread rapidly
Jules Saulnier’s Menier throughout the Middle West and West. The successful development of
chocolate factory, earliesr the balloon frame depended on the mass production of machine-made
skeleton frame (From En-
cyclopidie d‘architecture,
nails and improvements in sawmill machinery. In turn the manufacture
of wire nails and cut nails of steel and iron depended on improvements
1877)
of iron and steel metallurgy.
The balloon frame industrialized house construction and made it pos-
sible for unskilled labor to replace the skilled carpenter. X balloon-frame
factor had come into the development of the skyscraper-steel. With the house costs only 60 per cent as much as a mortise-and-tenon frame. More-
elevator and the comprehensive framen-ork or skeleton, there was now over, because skilled labor was not required, many more houses could
available this relatively light, strong, and cheap building material. be put up. Writing in the N F York ~ Tribune of January I 8, I 8j j, Solon
A native of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, trained in Phillips *Academy and Robinson stated, “If it had not been for the knowledge of the balloon-
the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard, Jenney was graduated from frame. Chicago and San Francisco could never have arisen, as they did,
the &ole Centrale des Arts et Xlanufactures of Paris in I 8j 6 with high from little villages to great cities in a single year.” After the middle of
honors. In I 868 Jenney established himself in Chicago; there Louis Sulli- the century the balloon frame was widely known as “Chicago con-
van, later famed for his architecture and his personality, worked as a struction.”
young assistant in Jenney’s office and found him no architect, nor even In the 1890s, following Jenney’s construction of the Home Insurance
“really, in his heart, an engineer a t all,” but a “bon vizwnt, a gourmet,” Building, many skyscrapers with steel frames supporting them were built
who “knew his vintages, every one, and his sauces, every one.” * The in Chicago. In fact it was the “Chicago school” which perfected sky-
Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and other skyscrapers of scraper construction. By the end of the century, Chicago construction
today, whether in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, or Wichita, trace meant a steel-frame skyscraper and not a balloon-frame house. It is sig-
their ancestry to Jenney’s 10-story building of the Home Insurance nificant that this term should apply to two types of framing. It seems
Company of 1883-1885, if not to Saulnier’s Menier chocolate works of quite possible that the balloon frame had some effect on the development
I 871-1 872. of the steel frame.
a Louis H . Sullivan, An Autobiography of m Idea, American Institute of Architects, *Quoted in Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time und Architecture, Harvard University
N e w York, 1924, pp. z03-zoq. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1944. p. 273.
 326 IRON A N D STEEL

Bibliogfaphy
Allison, Archibald: T h e Outline of versity Press, Cambridge, Mass.,
Steel m d Iron, H . %. & G. With- 1954-
erby, Lrd., London. r936. leans, James S.: Steel: Its History,
Xshton, Thomas S.: iron and Steel in .Mmufacture, Properties and User,
the Industrial Recolution, The Uni- E. Sr F. _V. Spon, London, 1880. ELEVEN
versity Press. Manchester, 1924. Steinman, David B.: T h e Builders of
Burn, Duncan L.: T h e Economic the Bridge, Harcourt, Brace and
History of Steelmaking, 1867-1939,
T h e Cniversity Press, Cambridge,
Company, Inc., New York, 1945. Electrical Engineering
Swank, James %History I.: of the
1940. dManufucture of Iron in All Ages,
Burnham, Thomas H.. and G. 0.Hos- and Pmticularly in the United
kins: Iron and Steel in Britain, States f r o m Colonial Times to 1891,
187e1930, George Allen k Cnwin, rd ed., The American Iron and Steel Three developments in nineteenth-century engineering have changed
Ltd., London, 1943. -association, Philadelphia, I 892. the ways of human life and altered the evolution of history. The first was
Fairbairn, William: Iron, Its History, 'CVoodward, Calvin XI.: A History of
Properties, and Processes of .Manu- the expansion of the Industrial Revolution described in Chapters 7 to 10.
the St. Louis Bridge, G. I. Jones
facture, 3d ed., A. and C. Black, The second was the emergence of civilian engineering as a profession,
and Co.. St. Louis. 1881.
Edinburgh, 18%. Zucker, Paul: Die Bnrcke, E. Was- bringing realization of the importance of scientific and technical educa-
Giedion, Sigfried: S p x e , T i m e and muth A. G., Berlin, 1921. tion as a prerequisite for engineering practice. The third and most im-
Archirecture, 3d ed., Harvard Uni- portant development, correlated to the second, was the introduction of a
new method of approach to the achievement of engineering advances-
the method of applied science. The subject of this chapter, the inception
and growth of electrical engineering, is an outstanding example of this
new and revolutionary method.
Professional engineers, men who earned their living from the prac-
tice of engineering, had come into being in France during the seven-
teenth century. The French also established the earliest schools for in-
struction in engineering in the eighteenth century. The first civilian
engineering school was the celebrated Gcole des Ponts et Chausstes
(School of Bridges and Highways) of 1747. However, the French insti-
tutions largely employed the apprenticeship method of instruction, and
the teaching staff only occasionally gave general theoretical lectures.
These schools ceased to function at the start of the French Revolution.
The Ecole Polytechnique in 1794, and later other schools, notably the
rejuvenated gcole des Ponts et Chausstes, the Gcole des Mines, and the
Gcoles d'Arts et Nkiers, superseded them. These schools initiated in-
struction in such basic sciences as mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
In the early decades of the nineteenth century, Germany and one or two
other continental European countries established engineering schools
327
 378 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 32 9
modeled after the French. However, by 1840 in the United States there old, and of electronics, a more recent development, demonstrates dra-
were only two schools offering instruction in engineering, the Military matically how rapidly an engineering field evolves when based largely
Academy a t West Point and the Rensselaer School a t Troy. In the ten on science. The invention of the method of applied science in the last
years following the passage of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862, the half of the nineteenth century was one of the most important innovations
objective of which was to stimulate the establishment of new technological in the history of engineering.
schools by the granting of lands from the public domain, the number of
such American schools jumped from 6 to 70. In Seneral. American schools
up to 1900 adapted European educational techniques and “had little direct History of Electricity
share in the advancement of the art.” American schools did not begin to Since from its very beginnings electrical engineering has been based on
give formd instruction in electrical engineering until toward the end of the science of electricity, it will be necessary to review the early develop-
the nineteenth century-. ment of man’s knowledge of electricity. Electricity is one of the youngest
‘
The rapid rise of engineering science in the nineteenth century ex- branches of physics. The Greeks knew that rubbed amber would attract
tensively alrered the practice of engineering and lent considerable im- straw, but subsequently the electrostatic attraction of the rubbed amber
petus to the evolution of technical education. Engineering science may was confused for a time with the magnetic attraction of a lodestone. The
be described broadlv as abstract theories such as those of statics and Italian physician Geronimo Cardan ( Ijar-1 j76) differentiated these
dynamics together with the use of scientific methods to solve engineering nvo wpes of attraction. In 1600IVilliam Gilbert (ca. I j++-1603). a court
problems. Once again i t was the French in the eighteenth century who physician to Queen Elizabeth, published his De magnete in which he
rapidIy developed vm’ous aspects of engineering science. T h e rise of pointed out the difference benveen the attraction of amber and that of a
engineering science in the eighteenth century was typical of the Age of lodestone. Amber attracts only small light bodies, not including iron,
Reason, when scientific methods began to be used in the study of many whereas a lodestone attracts iron only. Gilbert found that other substances
questions, notably social probIems. When it became obvious in the earlv than amber, such as glass, various gems, sulfur, hard sealing w;ty, and hard
nineteenth century that, for instance, a structure or mechanical device resin also exhibit a similar attraction when rubbed. The Greek word for
scientifically designed to carry maximum contemplated loads or perform amber is elektron, and Gilbert used the Latin word elecmmm. Fcx c h e r
a specific function and no more was more economical than one designed substances which behaved like amber he coined the word ‘‘eleccrica.”
on the basis of “experience,” engineering science began to develop rapidlv. which is best translated “elecuics.” It xvas in 1646that Sir Thomas Browne
It was also clear that technical schools were far more competent for giv- (16oj-1681)first used the English word electricity.
ing instruction in the new science than was the age-old institution of In 1629 an Italian Jesuit, Siccoli Cabeo ( Ij8j-16j0), made an im-
apprenticeship. portant observation of electrical repulsion. Otto von Guericke of Alagde-
More important than the rise of professionalism and the use of scien- burg, Germanv, Xvho had invented the air pump, built the first electrical
tific techniques in engineering has been the application of ever-growing machine about 1660, although he seems not to have investigated the
scientific knowledge to engineering. As A. N. Whitehead has put it, “The phenomena produced in terms of electricity but rather as a manifestation
point is that professionalism has now been mated with progress. The of the ~-irtusconsematiz.‘a, the attractive property of the earth and matter
world is now faced with a self-evolving system, which it cannot stop.” in general. It was Francis Hauksbee (d. 1713) in England who used a
The phenomenal growth of electric power, which is hardly eighty years static electric machine with a spinning glass globe to conduct the first im-
1 WiUiam E. Wickenden, “A Comparative Scudy of Engineering Education in the portant electrical experiments. Hauksbee’s work stimulated the develop-
United States and in Europe,” Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, ment of electrical sciecce in the eighteenth century. Although von
Report of she Investigation of Engineering Education, r923-19~9,2 vols., Pittsburgh, Guericke had observed electrical conduction, he apparently did not
1930, VOl. I, p. 822.
2Alfred N.Whitehead, Science and the Modem World, The Macrnillan Company, recognize it as such. In 1731 and 1732 Stephen Gray (16961736)pub-
New York, 1931, pp. 294-295. lished papers in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society *
 330 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 33‘
which demonstrated that some substances were conductors of electricity reports were so inadequate that most of the scientists who read of them
and others were nonconductors, or insulators. were unable to repeat his experiment. The first discharge Musschenbroek
Charles Frangois de Cistemay du Fay (1698-1739) of Paris, superin- received from his “bottle” gave him such a powerful shock that he began
tendent of gardens for Louis X V , constructed the first theory of elec- his letter to RCaumur with the sentence, “I wish to tell you of a new but
trical phenomena. After reading Gray’s papers in 1733, du Fay immedi- terrible experiment which I advise you never to attempt yourself.”’
ately began to experiment with electrical conduction and found that an Volta later gave this device the name condenser, because electricity a t
“electric” on a glass stand and charged by a glass tube would repel other that time was regarded as an “imponderable fluid” which could there-
substances repelled bv the tube but would attract those also amacted by fore be “condensed.” It is now also called a capacitor.
a charged cylinder 0; “Gum Lack” (gum-lac). Having investigated this By the time the Leyden jar was only two years old, Benjamin Franklin
phenomenon further, he wrote, T h a n c e has thrown in my way another ( I 7 0 6 1790) had used it in experiments to demonstrate an important new
Principle, . . . which casts a new Light on the Subject of Electricity. theory of electrical phenomena. Franklin’s great contribution to electrical
This Principle is, that there are two distinct Electricities, very different science was his one-fluid theorv of electricity, which replaced du Fay‘s
from one another; one of which I call vitreous Electricity, and the other two-fluid theory and, with important modifications, was useful and pro-
resinous Elecm’city. The first is that of Glass, Rock-Cwstal, Precious ductive of new experiments for over a century. Franklin expressed his
Stones, Hair of Animals, Wool, and many other Bodies: -The second is new concept in 1747 when he wrote, “We had for some time been of
that of Amber, Copal, Gum-Lack, Silk, Thread, Paper. and a vast Num- opinion, that the electrical fire was not created by friction, but col-
ber of other Substances. The Characteristick of these nvo Electricities is, lected, being really an element diffused among, and attracted by other
that a Body of the vitreous Elecrricity, for Example, repels all such as are matter, pardcularly by water and metals.” When Franklin wrote this
of the same Elecmcicy; and on the contrary, attracts all those of the sentence he did not know about du Fay’s theory. Charles Augustin de
resinous Electn’city .” Coulomb ( I 7 3 6 1 806), French civil engineer and physicist, made the next
Du Fav assumed that a neutral substance has an equal amount of great advance when in 1 7 8 j he verified the inference made in 1766 by
vitreous and resinous electricicy and that it was a characteristic of any one Joseph Priestley, English philosopher and chemist, that the force of either
substance that it gives up only one kind of electricity when rubbed and attraction or repulsion between t w o small spheres charged with electricity
becomes charged with the other electricitv. Du Fav’s theory explained is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
many electrical phenomena and nas a useful concept. Its chief defect was Coulomb’s law was the first quantitative law in the history of electricity.
that it did not account for the fact t h a t the charge on any given body also Luigi Galvani (1737-1798). professor a t Bologna, found in 1786 that
depends on the substances used in rubbing. a dissected frog’s leg would twitch if touched with a scalpel while an
T w o men working independently arrived a t the principle of the electric machine in the same room was in operation-hence one of the
electrical condenser. T’hs is a device to hold a charge of static electricity meanings of our word galvanize. After investigating this strange phe-
by means of two conducting plates separated by a nonconducting material. nomenon further, he eventually found that a frog’s leg would convulse
Pieter van [Musschenbroek (1692-1 7 6 1 ) of Leyden discovered what is when he simultaneously touched a muscle and its connecting nerve with
now called the Leyden jar-a glass bottle or jar coated inside and out the ends of a metallic conductor, one-half of which was a rod of zinc
with metallic surfaces separated by the nonconducting glass. ,Musschen- and the other half a rod of copper. T h e frog’s leg would not convulse
broek reported his discovery in a letter to RCaumur in Paris, who read it when the metallic conductor consisted of only one metal. Galvani was
to the French Academy of Sciences in January of I 746- In October, I 745, confronted with two possible interpretations of these interesting observa-
Ewald Georg von Kleist ( I 700-1 748), Dean of the Cathedral of Kammin
in Pomerania, had also discovered the principle of the Leyden jar, but his 4 M h o i r e s pour l’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts, TrOvoux, p. 2078, October,
3 Charles du Fay, “A Letter . . . concerning Electricity,” Philosophical Transactions 1746.
5I. Bernard &hen (ed.), B e n j m k Franklin’s Experiments, Harvard University
of the Royal Society, vol. 38, pp. 263-264, January-March, 1734. Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1941,p. 174.
 33r ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 333
dons; either the two conductors of different metals were producing elec-
through it and that two such coils attract and repel each other just as do
tricity by contact and the frog’s leg was acting as an electrometer de-
magnets but without the presence of an iron magnet. H e must also be
tecting the charge, or the nerve and muscle of the frog’s leg were produc-
credited with having precisely defined electric potential or electric pres-
ing the electricity with the rods serving as conductors. Unfortunatelv
sure as distinguished from electric current, in a paper published in 1820.
Gdvani erroneously chose the second explanation and coined the term
By 1 8 2 2 Ampkre had firmly established by experiment and quantitaave
“animal electricity” when he published his paper in 1 7 9 1 .
analysis the science of electrodynamics, or what may be called elecmcity
The professor of physics a t Pavia, Italv, Alessandro Volta ( I;+S- in motion.
1 8 2 7 ) ~a t first accepted Galvani’s theory of animal elecuicitv. However.
Meanwhde Michael Faraday (1791-1867). an English chemist and
in a series of experiments similar to Galvani’s, Volta found that he could
physicist, had shown that a wire suspended with one end free to move
not explain all of his results on the basis of the animal-electricity theorv.
and dipping into a bowl of mercury would revolve continuously around
Suspecting that the source of the electricity might be the contact between
a permanent magnet supported in the mercury as long as the wire and
the two metals, he substituted for the dissected frog’s leg a sensitive
the mercury were connected to opposite poles of an electric battery. This
electroscope, a device he had invented in 1 7 8 2 to indicate the presence
discovery of electricity producing motion was the fundamental discovery
of a minute charge of static electricity. With his electroscope he was able
which eventuallv led to the invention of the electric motor, In 1826
to detect an elecuic charge when two different metals were brought into
Georg Simon Ohm (1787-1854). a German school teacher, announced
contact without any frog’s legs or other biological material being in-
the fundamental law which now bears his name. His discovery was as
volved. Pushing his investigations further, Volta discovered the principle
important as Amp4re’s distinction between electric potential and current
of his pile, now called a primary elecmc battery. which he announced in
and is equally indispensable in engineering. Ohm made many precise
1800. For the first time, with Volta’s introduction of the electric primary
experiments before he was able to state that the amount of current in 3
battery, a continuous flow of elecmc current was available. For electrical
circuit is directly proportional to the difference in potential or pressure
science and subsequently for electrical engineering, Volta’s discovery
and inversely proportional to the resistance.
of what we shall call current electricity as distin,ouished from static elec- Faraday u-as convinced that if electricity could produce magnetism,
triciw was of the utmost importance. The discoveries of electrical con-
as Oersted had found, then magnetism could produce electricity. He
duction, the condenser, or capacitor, and current electricity are the three
had been searching for electricity which could be produced by magnetism
most important eighteenth-century discoveries used in electrical engineer-
for a half dozen years before he came upon the principle of induction
ing today.
in 1831. It was in this year that he, for the first time, realized that a cur-
For some time before 1800 various investigators had attempted to dis-
rent was induced in a conductor while the intensity of a magnetic fieid
cover a relationship between electricity and magnetism. These investiga-
was either increasing or decreasing or while the conductor was being
tions were in vain because there is no connection between static electricity
moved in the magnetic field. Faraday also found that he could produce a
and magnetism but only between an electric current and magnetism. In
current in one of nvo coils by moving the coils toward or away from
1 8 2 0 a Copenhagen professor, Hans Christian Oersted (1777-18 j ~ )first ,
each other while a current was flowing in the second coil. H e then sub-
reported the existence of electromagnetism. Oersted found that an electric
stituted a magnet for the coil carrying the current and produced the same
current passing through a wire suspended over and parallel to a magnetic
effect. Using two coils wound on separate sections of a closed iron ring,
compass needle caused the needle to swing out from the parallel position
with one coil connected to a galvanometer and the other to a battery,
to a position almost a t right angles to the direction of the wire. Oersted’s
Faraday observed that when he completed the circuit to the second coil,
finding was a great stimulus to scientific activity. Within two weeks after
the galvanometer needle jfrked in one direction and then returned to zero.
it was announced to the French Academy, AndrC-Marie Ampere (1775-
When he broke the battery circuit, the galvanometer jumped about the
1836) observed that a coil of wire acts as a magnet when a current flows
same distance in the opposite direction and again returned to zero. In
 3 34 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 335
1 ~ 3 1 ,Faraday also demonstrated that by rotating a copper disk between propemes of the waves which Hertz discovered in 1887and the existence
magnetic poles he could generate direct current. It is on these discov- of which iMaxwell had predicted nearly two decades earlier.
eries that the mechanical production of electricity is based. Thus Michael While these advances were being made in the knowledge of electro-
Faraday had found not only the basic principle of the electric motor but magnetic waves, two other avenues of research were opening which were
also the basic principle of the generator and of the induction coil and to produce important information for subsequent application in radio or
transformer. wireless and television. One line of research was on cathode rays, rays pro-
However, Faraday must share the honors of discovery of induction jected from the cathode or negative terminal of a vacuum tube through
with the American physicist Joseph Henry ( 1797-1 878). Priority clearly which a current is flowing. Julius Plucker (1801-1868) of the University
belongs to Faraday who was first to publish his results, in April, 1832. of Bonn discovered cathode rays in I 8 j9. The other line of research was
Henry, working independently, had discovered induction before Faraday, on the so-called “Edison effect” discovered in 1883 by Thomas Xlva
but Henry did not publish his paper until later in 1832. The discovery of Edison ( I 847-193 I ) . Ten \*ears after Plucker’s discovery of czthode
induction completed the great findings which immediately followed ’ raw, his student Johann Wilhelm Hittorf ( 1824-1914) showed that these
Oersted’s detection of electromagnetism. The next important advance ravs were propagated in straight lines and that a magnetic field a t right
occurred in 186jwhen Scottish-born James Clerk Alaxwell ( I83 1-1879) angles to the line of discharge would deflect the rays. By 1879 William
published a paper entitled “A Dvnamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Crookes (1832-1919).English phvsicist and chemist. had shown that
Field.” In this work Maxwell presented his equations describing the cathode rays had momenrum and also definite ener,gy. In 1897the English
phenomena which relate the electric conductivity, the dielectric con- physicist Joseph John Thomson ( I 8j6-1940) demonstrated conclusively
stants, and the magnetic permeability of matter, all with electric and that cathode rays are nesadvely charged atomlike pamcles which he
magnetic fields and with mechanical force. One of Xla?nvell’s interesting called “corpuscles” and \vhich are now called electrons. Thomson’s dis-
conclusions drawn from his analyses was that an oscillatory or alternating covery of the electron was the first physical evidence that such pamcles
electromagnetic disturbance would produce electromagnetic waves hav- exist in nature, and together with the discovery by Xntoine Henri Bec-
ing the speed of light. querel (18j:-1908) of radioactkin- in the previous year, 1896,forms the
There was little experimental evidence for this remarkable prediction. stardng point for the remarkable development during the twentieth
but in 1887, Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (18j7-1894)~ young German centuq- of the science of atomic physics.
physicist, announced that he had been able to produce and detect waves Thomson’s discovery made it possible for him to explain what was
of “etheric force,” vibrating in an “all pervasive ether” and which had known as the Edison effect. Edison had found that a small current would
electromagnetic propemes. Hertz had emploved an “electrical oscillator” pass from the carbon filament of his then newly invented incandescent
consisting of two metal balls separated by an air gap and connected with light bulb from which air had been pumped to an electrode sealed into the
either terminal of an induction coil so that a spark would jump between bulb when the electrode was charged positivelv. No current would flow
the balls. His detector was a piece of wire about 7 feet long with a small when the electrode was charged negatively. TWO British investigators,
metal ball at each end. Hertz bent the wire into a ring and varied the William Henry Preece (1834-1913)in 188jand John Ambrose Fleming
distance between the balls. When he achieved the proper distance, a spark (1849-1945) in 1890and 1896,had studied the Edison effect in great detail.
would jump the gap in the detector when the oscillator sparked. H e m In 1903,Thomson proved that electrons were the carriers of the current
was able to show that these new waves (hertzian waves) are subject to observed in the Edison effect. Application of this knowledge has been of
reffection and bending or refraction, just as light and radiant heat waves great importance in the field of electronics. The radio tube or electric
are. Later Hertz calculated that the speed of his electromagnetic waves valve is an application of,this phenomenon fundamental to communica-
was the same as that of light and thus confirmed Maxwell’s prediction. tions engineering.
H e a i a n waves are now known as radio waves or wireless waves. Radio In the following sections of this chapter we shall discuss how knowl-
and television transmission are directly based on a knowledge of the edge of electricity has been used to establish electrical engineering, h-
 3 36 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
cluding communication and power production and utilization. The first
important practical application chronologically was the electromagnetic
telegraph.
Telecommunication
During the first thirty to forty centuries after man began to live in
villages, roughIy seven?-five centuries ago, he began to extend political
control over groups of villages and later cities and to carry on trade
throughout large areas. Ever since the extension of governmental con-
trols and commerce beyond the limits of the local village, he has had
need to communicate messages over considerable distances. Until the
‘
nineteenth century men transmitted messages by signal fires, smoke,
drums, runners, pigeons, ships, posmders, and by sentinels who relayed
shouted messages. Indeed, primitive tribes still use some of these tech- Figure I I .I
niques. Our word marathon derives from the Marathon Plain, 26 miles Chappe telegraph on the
outside the city of Athens. In 490 B.c., the Persians invaded the Greek Louvre, Paris (From
Peninsula, and the Athenians attacked and defeated them on the Marathon Chappe, Beschreibung,
1795 1
Plain. A young Athenian, Pheidippides, ran the 26 miles to Athens bring-
ing the news that the Athenians were victorious.
In the sixteenth century, Europeans literally explored the world. The
colonization which followed their explorations brought about an enor-
mous extension of known distances and greatly increased the volume of operated the first Chappe telegraph between Paris and Lille, a distance
of I++ miles. It was a success. and use of the system spread rapidly. The
commerce. These developments in turn produced more urgent require-
ments for the rapid communication of messages. British subsequently built several Chappe lines connecting London with
Several men proposed optical telegraphs in the seventeenth century; various channel ports where it was feared that Napoleon’s fleet might land.
Robert Hooke’s is perhaps the best known. Following the discovery of In 1800 Jonathan Grout built the first semaphoric telesraph line in the
electrical conduction in 1 7 3 2 came many recommendations for the use United States. This 6j-mile line connected Martha’s Vineyard with Bos-
of static electricity to communicate messages. None, however, was prac- ton and was built to transmit commercial news, especially of the arrival
ticable. In 1794, Claude Chappe (1763-1805) developed what he called an of ships. Although some of the Chappe telegraphs were still in operation
ocular, or semaphore, telegraph (Figure I I . I ), which was the first prac- a t the middle of the nineteenth century, the semaphore system was ex-
tical device. His system consisted of a line of towers 6 to ro miles apart. pensive to operate since it required men to be stationed at every tower
T h e operator at each tower, usually using a telescope, could see the tower and was dependent upon clear weather.
on either side of him in the line if visibility was good. On the top of each Volta’s invention of the electric battery in 1800 stimulated efforts to
tower was a semaphore consisting of a wooden beam pivoted midway so develop an electric telegraph. Following Oersted’s discovery of electro-
that it could be rotated in a vertical plane. In addition there were movable magnetism, William Sturgeon ( I 783-1 8jo), English physicist, constructed
arms at each end of the beam. It appears that the speed of transmission an electromagnet about 1 8 2 j , and the next year Ohm announced his law
could be fairly rapid. For instance, over the 47j-mile line with its 1 2 0 concerning the flow of a; electric current in a circuit. These discoveries
towers between Paris and Toulon, it is said that the operators were able to were essential for the development of practical electromagnetic teleg-
transmit a message in ten to twelve minutes. The French sovernment raphy. The demand for rapid communications was so insistent by 1830
 3 38 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 3 39
that there were literally dozens of men trying to produce an electrical for London. Someone who had seen him leave the house described him
telegraph. In 1820 Ampkre had suggested that by using a circuit for each to the telegraph operator who a t once wired the news to the Paddington
letter and a magnetic needle a t the terminal it would be possible to uans- Station, adding that the murderer was on the train which had just left
mit messages. One of the first practical electromagnetic telegraph systems Slough and that he was dressed like a “Kwaker”-there was no “Q” in
was based on Ampere’s idea. Ten years later William Ritchie demon- the Cooke and Wheatstone system a t that time. The Paddington operator
strated Ampere’s proposal on a small scale. In 1832 Paul von Schilling- nodfied a railroad detective, who spotted Tawell as he left the train and
Cannstadt (17861837). a native of Estonia, worked out a system also [railed him to his home. Early the next morning the police of Slough
based on Ampere’s suggestion, but he never produced a practical telegraph. arrived and Tawell was arrested. He was subsequently tried and hanged.
In I 836 a young Englishman, William Fothergill Cooke ( I 8 0 6 1 879), The Slough murder case proved an excellent advertisement for telegraphy.
saw some electromagnetic experiments in Heidelberg where he was study- While Cooke and Wheatstone were developing their telegraph system
ing anatomy. H e was immediately impressed with the possibilities of using which became standard in England. Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-
an electric current for the operation of a telegraph. Within three weeks he 1
r872), an American artist, was perfecting a different type of electromag-
had put together his first instrument; it was the magnetic-needle type and netic telegraph. Returning to the United States in 1832 after a three-year
similar to Schilling’s device. After Cooke’s return to England, Faradav stay in Europe, Morse discussed various problems of e1ecuomaFetisr-n
introduced him to Charles Wheatstone (1802-18j j) of King’s College, with a fellow passenger, Dr. C. T. Jackson of Boston, Massachusetts,
London, who had already done impartant work on an electric telegraph. who apparently told Morse about various experimental electric telegraphs
Later, in 1837,the two formed a partnership. Before they had signed the in Europe. Jackson later claimed to be the originator of the idea of the
partnership agreement, Cooke and Wheatstone had constructed in I 83j electromagnetic telegraph. This claim is of questionable validity, but
a telegraph line along the London and Birmingham Railway north from there can be little doubt that Jackson was a man with useful ideas. It was
Euston Sration, London, about a mile to Camden Town, and successfully he who more than ten years later suggested to Dr. W.T. G. Morton the
transmitted their first messages. The early instruments of Cooke and use of ether as an anesthetic and then claimed a share in that great dis-
Wheatstone required five or six wires for transmission and correspond- covery. He also claimed in 1844 that he had given Christian Friedrich
ingly five or six magnetic needles, each pivoted benreen the two sections Schonbein the idea he used in developing gun cotton.
of a double wire coil. The needles swung to right or left and indicated After Morse arrived in S e w York in the autumn of 183’. he immedi-
specific letters, depending on the sender’s setting of a dial. atel? set to work on a telesraph, but it was not until 1836 that he com-
By arrangement with the incompleted Great Western Railway, the pleted his first instrument. Shortly thereafter he learned from his colleague
partners established a telegraph line along the railway out of Paddingon Leonard D. Gale of the University of the City of New York about
Station and in 1839 extended it 7 % miles to Hanwell. By 1843 this line Joseph Henry’s improved electromagnets wound with many turns of
reached Slough, I 8 ‘/z miles from Paddington. Their telegraph system insulated wire. Morse found that the new magnet would greatly increase
received considerable publicity when the news of the birth of Queen the distance over which he could transmit a signal. Morse’s receiver at
Victoria’s second son was transmitted over it on -August 6, 1 8 ~ The . that time xvas a pen in constant contact with a strip of paper moved by a
device had created so much public interest that there was a charge of a clock mechanism. When the electromagnet was energized, it moved the
shilling for admission to the office to see it work. pen so that it traced a notch on the paper. Morse formulated messages by
However, the part the telegraph played in the capture of a murderer varying the time intervals between the notches or by inverting them by
brought the system its greatest publicity. On New Year’s Day, 18qj, a reversing the polarity or direction of flow of the sending current of the
Londoner named John Tawell took the train to Slough where he gave a signal. On September 4, 1837,the same year that Cooke and Wheatstone
woman a fatal dose of poison. Realizing she had been poisoned, the un- first operated their Eusthn Station to Camden Town telegraph, Morse
fortunate victim began to scream. This screaming aroused the neighbors, transmitted his first message through 1,700 feet of wire.
and Tawell, alarmed, rushed to the station and immediately boarded a train Shortly thereafter iMorse made two important improvements. First
 340 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 34‘
he developed a relay to increase the practicable distance of uansmission owing to the efforts of Cyrus West Field (181g-1892),after many tragic
of messages. In this device the signal activated an electromagnet which failures. The Atlantic Telegraph Company had been organized in 18j6,
closed a contact in a local battery circuit, thereby transmitting the signal and the first attempt to lay a cable between Ireland and Newfoundland
to the next relay by means of this second battery circuit. This process was made the following year. This cable broke after 33 j miles had been
could be repeated indefinitely. Curiously, Henry and Wheatstone were laid, owing to an accident in the paying-out machinery. X second attempt
developing similar relays a t the same time. Morse’s second improvement in June, 18j8, similarly failed, but later in the summer of that year the
was the widely used dot-and-dash code system and the sounder suggested company completed, on August j, the laying of a cable. The “first” com-
by h younger colleague Alfred Vail (1807-!8j9), which greatly facili- mercial message was sent on August 17 after a congratulatory message
tated the reading of messages. In this scheme, the operator completes the from Queen Victoria to President Buchanan. This cable remained in op-
circuit by closing the sounding key, and the sounding device attached eration only a short while for it gradually failed and by October 2 0 ceased
to an electromagnet moves with an audible click. This dot is a very short to function. One of the messages transmitted while the cable was snll in
signal of onlv a fraction of a second duration, and the dash is about three service was a communication from the British government to Canada,
times as long. peace having been concluded with China, countermanding an order for
.Morse was able to obtain some private financial support, but his the departure of two regiments of soldiers which were about to return to
efforts to get a grant from the C‘nited States Congress were unsuccessful England for service in India. If the cable had not been in operation a t that
until January, 1843, when Congress appropriated $30,000 for the con- time the regiments would have sailed and considerable unnecessary ex-
struction of a 38-mile tine along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between pense (estimated a t & j0,wo) would have been incurred.
Baltimore and Washington. On May 2% 18% the first message-“What During the neXt seven years a group of scientists and engineers
hath God wrought”--was transmitted from Washington to Baltimore worked for the Atlantic Telegraph Company to improve the insulation
over this line. and the Morse system of telegraphy was established. After and mechanical strength of the cable, the paying-out apparatus, the re-
this success, other lines were rapidly built. By 1846, telegraph lines ceiving mechanism, and the type of signals to be used. Sir William Thom-
stretched from Washington to Portland, Maine, and westward to Louis- son (Lord Kelvin, 1824-1907),professor of natural science a t Glasgow.
ville, Kentucky, and ~lil\~-aukee, Wisconsin. The development of duplex, was largely responsible for the ultimate success of the cable. The com-
quadruplex, and multiplex telegraphy many years later has greatly in- pany secured the Great Eastern for the next attempt, which began a t
creased the economy of transmission. The multiplex system enables oper- Valencia, Ireland, on July 23, 186j.-4fter 1,100 miles had been payed
ators to transmit messages simultaneously over the same set of wires, and out, the cable parted in 2,100 fathoms ( I 2,600 feet, 2 $4 miles) of water,
perforated tape devices permit far higher speeds than are possible with and the project was abandoned for that year. The Atlantic Company
manual key operation. failed and was succeeded by the Anglo-American Company, which con-
Short lengths of cable were laid under rivers as some of the earliest tinued the project. On July 13, 1866, the Great Eastern again steamed
telegraph lines were strung. One of the first cables was that under the west from Valencia with a new cable which was landed at Newfound-
harbor a t Kew York by Morse; it was insulated with gutta-percha, a land on July 27. The Grest Eastern then conducted a successful search
rubberlike substance discovered in I 834. The first submarine cable of con- for the cable which had parted the previous year. A new cable was spliced
siderable length, from Dover to Calais, was put down in I 850. The insula- to the recovered end, and the second landing was made at Newfoundland
tion on this cable proving inadequate, a greatly improved cable was on September 8. Cables have been in continuous service ever since; nine-
opened for service in November, I 85 I, and gave satisfactory service for teen cables now cross the Atlantic. In the summer of 19jj, H A I T S
many years. In the next few years a cable connected Denmark and Swe- Monarch was laying a new type of transatlantic cable, a coaxial cable
den, and cables were laid in the Mediterranean Sea. with a repeater employink three vacuum tubes every 40 miles, for trans-
The first successful Atlantic cable began operation in 1866,largely mitting telephone messages in one direction. After a second cable has
 342 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 343
gone down in 1956, the system will be able to carry 36 conversations laboratories. It remained for Philipp Reis (1834-1874) of Friedrichsdorf,
simultaneously. The aggregate length of submarine cables in use in 1955 Germany, to construct in 1860 an apparatus by means of which a melody
exceeds 3 0 0 , 0 0 0 nautical miles. produced in one place could be transmitted electrically and reproduced
The method of sending and receiving messages by submarine cables at a distance. Reis’s first apparatus consisted of a frustum of a cone inserted
differs from that of the standard telegraph because the electric capacity in the bunghole of a beer barrel. The small end was covered by an animal
of a long cable requires considerable time for charging and discharging membrane upon which a small platinum wire was fastened by means of
it. The current used is therefore relatively weak, because the weaker the seaIing wax. The platinum wire formed part of a battery circuir and
current the shorter is the time required to charge and discharge the cable touched a metal strip in such a manner that it could make and break contact
and so to transmit an individual signal. In other words, the weaker the as the diaphragm vibrated and interrupt a battery circuit with a frequency
current the more rapidly can a message be transmitted. A mirror galva- corresponding to the vibration of the diaphragm. The wires of the battery
nometer generally replaced the sounder to receive the signals. The mirror circuit led to a coil which was wound around a knitting needle. The rapid
reflects a beam of light from a lamp in such a way that a small deflection I
magnetization and demagnetization of t h s needle caused sound waves
of the coil on which the mirror is mounted gives a percepable motion to of the frequency of the note sounded into the diaphra,om. Reis success-
the spot of light. The mirror was replaced in 1870 by the siphon recorder fully demonstrated the transmission of musical notes in an improved appa-
developed by Sir William Thomson, consisting of a light coil of wire ratus based on these principles a t Frankfurt in I 861. He claimed in a letter
suspended between the poles of a powerful electromagnet. The motions to a colleague in 1863 that “. . . if you will come and see me here, I
of the coil are transmitted bv silk threads to a small glass tube, one end will show you that words also can be made out.” This claim has not been
dipping into an ink reservoir and the other recording on a paper tape. fully established, however. Be this as it may, Reis’s contribution was im-
Some idea of the part played by telegraphy in communications can portant in the history of the transmission of sound.
be gained from an analysis of 6j0,ooo telegrams which the British Post In 187j, m o men in the United States were working independently
Office transmitted during one week in 1934. Two-thirds of the messages and unknown to each other on telephonic transmission. They were Elisha
were commercial and one-third were social. There can be little doubt Gray (183j-1901), inventor and manufacturer of Chicago, and Alexander
that commercial demand for rapid transmission of messages was the prin- Graham Bell (1847-19”) of Boston. Gray developed an instrument verv
cipal incentive for the erection of the early telegraph lines in the 1840s. similar to Reis’s except that h e used a sinall iron rod attached a t one end
The telegraph business steadily increased during. the nineteenth century, to the diaphra,m with the other end immersed in a fluid of low conduc-
but it has declined during the twentieth. One of the principal causes for tivity that formed part of the batten- circuit. The vibrations of the
this decline has been the telephone. diaphragm, by moving the rod up and down, varied the resistance in the
The incentives for developing the telephone were different from those circuit, so that the resulting fluctuating current, depending on the varying
which produced the telegraph. By the time the first work on telephones resistance of the fluid, corresponded to the original sound vibrations im-
was being done, the telegraph had already satisfied much of man’s need pinging on the diaphragm. This fluctuating current was conducted to a
for speed in the transmission of intelligence. Because of the less impera- receiver consisting of the coil of an electromagnet and a diaphragm on
tive incentives for the invention of a practical telephone, there were fewer which was mounted a small piece of soft iron. The fluctuating current
men who worked on its invention, but they also were men of ability varied the magnetism and caused vibration of the iron on the diaphragm,
and imagination. which duplicated the vibration of the sending diaphragm and thus the
In I 837 an American physician, Charles Grafton Page ( I 8 I 2-1 868) of sound. On February 14, 1876, Gray filed in the Cnited States Patent
Salem, Massachusetts, discovered that when there are rapid changes in Office a caveat, or formal notice of his claim to the idea of his instrument.
magnetism of iron it gives out a musical note of a pitch depending on the H e filed this caveat to gndeavor to prevent others from patenting his
frequency in the changes in magnetization. He called these sounds “gal- 6Alfred R. von Urbanitzky, Electricity in the Service of iMan, Cassell & Co., London,
vanic music,” and many physicists studied this phenomenon in their 1886, p. 662.
I

344 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

idea within the period of a year. Bell applied for a patent for the same
type of insuument a few hours earlier on the same day. Bell was finally
awarded the patent rights and credit for the invention but only after
extended and bitter litigation.
Bell, Scottish-born and university-trained, had specialized in teaching
the deaf to speak clearly. He emigrated from London to Canada in 1870
and two years later moved to Boston. Following an attempt to devise an
instrument which he hoped would enable the deaf to see spoken words,
he began to work on a telephone in 1874. Discouraged by indifferent
results with his early telephone, Bell had the good fortune to meet Joseph
Henry in Washington. H e w encouraged the young man to continue his
work. Bell not only succeeded in producing a liquid-resistance type o f ,
transmitter, but he also perfected the magnetic tvpe, the iron diaphragm
of which, vibrating in a magnetic field, produced variations in the field,
thereby causing variations of current in the coil of wire around the mag-
net. These current variations, when transmitted to the receiving set, repro-
duced the vibrations of the sending diaphragm and so duplicated the
original sound. Figure I 1.2 Firsr central switchboard, S e w Haven, Connecacut. 1878 (Cour-

It was on March 10, 1876, that Bell spoke the first words clearly tesy Southern New England Telephone Co.)
heard over a telephone when he called to his assistant in his bedroom,
“Mr. Watson, come here, I want you!” Bell had spilled some acid on his sages over lands and across oceans, especially from ships a t sea. \i-ithout
clothes and wanted help, but he forgot the accident when Watson told wires or cables was an economic incentive. ll-hen the radio. o r \vireless,
him how plainly he had heard his summons. Later in I 876, Bell showed his was first contemplated. its inrentors thought of it o n i - in terms of point-
instruments at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where they to-point transmission, and ic n.as nor: until after the First li‘orld l i - a r that
created much interest. A commercial type of telephone was constructed radio’s many potentialities for broadcasting h e p to be re:ilized. Today
early in 1877, and by September there were 1,300 in use in the United general broadcasting is more imporrant to our society than point-to-point
States. The first community central station switchboard for intercon- message transmission.
necting subscribers’ instruments was placed in operanon with 2 2 sub- Hertz’s discovery u-as fundamental to the invention of the radio.
scribers in New Haven, Connecticut, on January 28, 1878 (Figure I 1 . 2 ) . Hertzian waves c a r n the radio signal. and without 3 knoxvledge of them
Numerous improvements were made in the years immediately following, i t would not be possible to have radio. Several ph!-sicists, includins the
and the use of telephones spread rapidly and continuously throughout English Oliver Joseph Lodge ( 1 S j i - 1 9 p ) . realized the possibilit\- of
the world. using hertzian waves for the transmission and reception of telegraphic
The stimuli for the invention of radio, like those for the telephone, messages. In 1 8 9 4 Lodge described a device which consisted of a receiver
were not as intense as the incentives for the invention of the electromag- tuned in proper resonance to collect waves, a detector. i.e.. a rela)- to
netic telegraph. By I 887, when Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves, amplify the signals and a printer for recording dots and dashes. Lodge’s
there were in operation extensive wire and cable lines transmitting tele- detector was called a coherer, which involved also a trembler, and was
graph and telephone messages. However, the possibility of sending mes- based on the phenomena ,discovered in 1879 by David Edward Hughes
7 Thomas A. Warson, Exploring Life, Appleton-Centv-CrofB, Inc., New York, (1831-1900). The coherer, which had been used two vears earlier for
1926, p. 7% other purposes, was a short glass tube containing loose nickel filings. With
 346 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 3 47
its terminals, it formed part of a local battery circuit. Heraian waves cap- alternating or oscillating charge on it would repel the electrons when
tured in this receiver decreased the resistance of the filings, which negative and reinforce the electron stream when positive, giving a much
“cohered” and allowed the current to flow from the battery through more effective control of the current than was possible with the diode.
them. After conductivity had been established in the coherer, the filings Because it has three elements, De Forest’s tube is called a triode. Both the
continued to be a good conductor and therefore indicated no further re- diode and triode were operated a t partial vacuums.
sponse to the waves. Lodge restored the resistance of the filings by knock- At the same time that rhe deveiopment of the vacuum tube was
ing them loose with the trembler, which tapped the tube. Lodge’s re- progressing, the evolution of connnuous-wave transmlssIon 3s opposed
ceiver worked, but as he was more interested in teaching and scientific to the make-and-break telegraphic spark was proceeding. Conunuous-
research than in practical application, he did not devote himself to im- wave transmission is, of course, necessary for voice transmission. Reginald
proving it for commercial purposes. Aubrey Fessenden ( I 8661932) in -America. realizing the need for a con-
In 189% the same year that Lodge demonstrated his receiver, tinuous wave, first produced one with an alternator in 1903.It ~ v a Fessen-
s
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), a young Italian inventor, read about ’ den who invented the heterodyne circuit for receivers util~~zing differences
Hem’s discovery. He immediately started to devise a practical method for in frequency benveen the sending and receiving circuits. In I 9 I .+ Edwin
wireless transmission. ,Marconi made an improved oscillator or transmitter Howard Armstrong ( 1890-19j4) of Columbia Universin- evolved the
using an aerial carried on a mast and also increased the effectiveness of feed-back circuit, which greatly increased the reception sensitivin; of a
the coherer. In 1896 he succeeded in transmimng and receiving code vacuum-tube receiver, and in 1918 the superheterodyne circuit. w h c h is
messages over a distance of nearly t miles. Believing that there were basic for modem radio and radar reception. By 1 9 1 9it was possible to
better opportunities to develop his wireless commerciallv in England, produce efficient transmitters and receivers for voice broadcasts using the
he went there later in 1896. Soon he was sending messages 8 miles. Be- inventions of the previous twenty years.
ginning in 1897, Marconi began experiments with long-distance trans- C‘nal 1919 radio had been developed principally for point-to-point
mission, which culminated on December 1 2 , 1901,when he heard on his communication. like the telegraph and telephone. Since the early 1920s,
receiver in Sewfoundland the three clicks of the Alorse code “S” which however, broadcasting has brought receiving sets into individual homes
were sent out from his station a t Poldhu in Cornwall. England. where they provide a varied and popular form of entertainment. Home
In the meantime, in 1898, Lodge had invented the selective tuner. The radios also bring news of all types, including commercial nelvs such as the
coherer as a detector was inadequate, and John Ambrose Fleming, who day’s market prices for the farmer. Radio often serves as a means of rapid
was then a consultant with Marconi, invented the two-element, or diode, communication to members of a community during local disasters. It is
vacuum tube using the principles of the Edison effect described above. used to attempt to mold public opinion, and in countries where broad-
The nvo terminals of this relay were an anode and an incandescent cathode casting is a monopoly of the government a considerable degree of con-
which emitted electrons continuously. Fleming placed the tube, or valve trol can be maintained over the public by propaganda. During the past
as he called it, in the aerial circuit of a receiver. The alternations of the three decades radio has become one of the most important channels for
incoming signals changed the anode from positive to negative, so that communications.
during the negative interval it repelled electrons emitted by the cathode The original broadcasting stations used amplitude modulation (-AM)
and no current flowed. During the positive period the anode attracted of the radio wave, whereby the frequency of the sound waves varies the
electrons from the cathode, and the resulting current operated a printer amplitude of the high-frequency radio waves which transmit the message
or telephone receiver. Although Fleming’s invention is basic for radio, for receipt and reconversion to sound. Defective electric motors and
his diode was not very satisfactory in operation. The American inventor other apparatus, electrical storms, and electric discharges may add their
Lee de Forest (1873- ) greatly improved the diode in 1906 by insert- own amplitude to the Gave, causing interference or what is known as
ing a grid in the vacuum tube between the cathode and anode. The grid, static. The most important development in radio since broadcasting be-
or metal screen, was attached electrically to the radio aerial, and the came common has been the introduction of frequency modulation (FXl),
 348 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 349
invented in 1933 by E. H. Armstrong of feed-back and superheterodyne ning, o r sweeping the electronic beams in the sending and receiving tubes
fame. FM has a higher fidelity than AM and is relatively free from inter- across the plate at the sending station and the screen at the receiving
ference. In the FM system the variation in the radio waves as produced station. The scanning is similar to the technique of reading a printed page,
from the sound waves is a variation in frequency rather than amplitude. line by line and word for word in each line. The electron beam in the
Since the signals are not dependent on the amplitude of the radio wave, receiving set must, of course, be perfectly synchronized in both vemcal
the outside interference referred to is not experienced in this system. It and horizontal mouon a t all times with the beam in the sending camera.
is the FM system which transmits the signals accompanving television An enormous amount of applied research was necessary to bring tele-
broadcasts in the United States. vision to its present status. In 1862 the Italian Abbe Giovanni Case&
Teievision, a word formed by the combination of Greek and Latin ( 1815-1891) used a crude mechanical scanning device in his partially
words meaning “sight a t a distance,” s i g d e s the broadcasting of live successful attempt to transmit images over a telegraph wire, and in 1884
scenes or moving pictures bv radio waves. Television is a direct develop- Paul Gottlieb Sipko\v (186+1940), a German engineer, further de-
ment from sound broadcasting and consists of convemng light into elec- , veloped mechanical scanning. His device consisted of ;1 disk perforated
uical impulses, transmitting these impulses and reconvemng them at the, with a series of holes in the form of a spiral, each hole being jusr a little
receiving station inro their original form, namely, light. The foundations nearer the center of the disk than the one preceding it. In 1907 Boris
on which electronic television rest are three-radio, the cathode tube Rosing of the St. Petersburg Technical Institute using an electronic re-
already described, and what is known as the photoelectric effect, which ceiver. 3 cathode-ray rube having an electron gun at one end and a
Heinrich Hem first discovered in 1887. fluorescent screen a t the other, endeavored to develop a mechanical
Fundamentally, television is a scanning process a t both the sending scanning transmitter consisting of mirrors on nvo drums revolving at
and receiving stations. At the sending station a beam of electrons from an right angles to one another. The verrical drum revolving a t Iugh speed
elecuon gun in a cathode-ray tube called an Iconoscope or Orthicon scanned horizontally and the horizontal drum, revolving much more
scans exceedingly rapidly a mosaic of photoelectric cells on a plate on sloulv. shifted the scanning line. Although Rosing’s system xvas capable
which a camera lens has focused an image. Each minute photoelectric of transmitting and reproducing poorly defined action images, it was far
cell has on it a positive eiectric charge proportional to the amount of from having an?- practical value, mainly because it did not have an ampii-
light falling on the cell. The electrons in the scanning beam discharge fier. Herbert E. Ives and Charles F. Jenkins in the United States and John
each of the more than 3 0 0 , 0 0 0 cells individually, and the resulting electric L. Baird in England developed mechanical scanning s\-stems in the late
impulse proportional to the amount of light falling on the cell is collected 1920s. Ives used 48 lines and Jenkins between 30 and 60. The Jenkins
from a conductive surface on the back of the mosaic and transmitted. Television Companv failed financially before it began broadcasting, and
T h e Orthicon thus converts the optical image into corresponding elec- although the British Broadcasting Company began limited television
trical impulses. The electron beam in the present black-and-white tele- programs in 1929 usins the Raird system, mechanical scanning has not
vision camera in the United States scans each one of jzj horizontal lines been a commercial success.
of photoeIecuic cells on the mosaic thirty times each second. Since each In a letter to the magazine h’dtzire, in 1908, -4. A. Campbell-Slvinton
of these lines in the devices now standard in the Cnited States has about (1863-1930) of London UniversiT suggested a television system using
600 photoelectric cells, 3 1 j,mo separate impulses are sent out in %n an electronic scanner as xvell as an electronic receiver. In I 9 I 7, Vladimir
second. Iiosma Zwoq-kin (1889- ), one of Rosing’s students, began to de-
At the receiving station another cathode tube called a Kinescope is so velop electronic television for the Russian Wireless Telegraph and Tele-
arranged that the electron beam, the size of a pinhead, impinges upon a phone Company. After the Russian revolution, Zworykin emigrated to
fluorescent screen, illuminating a spot in proportion to the energy in the the United States, where he subsequently invented the Iconoscope.
beam a t a given instant, and thus converting the electrical images back Zworykin also developed the Kinescope based on the principle which
into light. The transmission of the picture consists of synchronously scan- Rosing used in 1907. The first demonstration of Zworykin’s system was
 350 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 35’
at Rochester, New York, in 1929; the number of scanning lines was 120. An example of the interrelation between pure science and engineering
Following extensive improvements in the details of Zworykin’s electronic lies in radio astronomy. The astronomers of the seventeenth century were
system, television broadcasting began in the United States on Julv I , I 94 I . able to use the then recently developed technical knowledge of glass lens
The Second World War prevented the extension of television facilities, grinding and metallurgy for the construction of optical telescopes with
but beginning in 1946 they expanded rapidly. Commercial television was which they made important new discoveries. Similarly, astronomers in
in black and white until 1954 when color television, which could also be the 1940S, using the knowledge of radio engineering applied to astro-
received in black and white, began to be broadcast. nomical radio telescopes, have been able to “observe” astronomical phe-
In addition to broadcasting programs for purposes of education and nomena which could not be detected even with the most powerful optical
amusement. there are manv special uses of radio and television. Radio telescopes, by tuning in ultrashort radio waves emitted by various astro-
beams help pilots to find their airports. One of the applications of radio is nomical materials. The electron microscope is another example of the in-
known as radar (radio detection and range). First patented in Germany terrelationship benveen pure science and engineering. The application of
in 1904 and developed during the 19;os by the armed services in the electronics and radio ensineering \vas a t first based on purely scientific
L‘nited States, England, France. and Germany, radar initiallv found wide, development. Conversely, during the I 940s. microscopists and astronomers
use during the Second IVorld War. With this device it is possible to have been able to apply the developmenr of electronic and radio engi-
detect objects and to determine how far away and in Ivhat direction neering to construct the instruments with which they have made dramatic
they are from the observer. Csing very short radio waves, a radar set discoveries in pure science.
sends out a pulse which is reflected by objects. The set then picks up the
reflected rays, or echo, and the distance to the object is determined by
the elapsed time benveen the sending of the pulse and the reception of Electric PoGer: Generation and Utilization
the echo measured in hundredths of a microsecond, the speed of the waves An electric motor, unless supplied by an electric bane?, 1, not in the
being a known quantitv. The direction of the object is ascertained by a strictest sense of the term a prime mover because it must be supplied with
directional antenna. ener,gy from an artificial and not a natural source. Electricity, a form of
A radar device on board a ship may pick up any object, such as anothzr energy, is either converted mechanicall!- from natural e n e r g by means
vessel, an iceberg, or an exposed rock, even when visibilitv is zero, as in fog. of a prime mover driving a generator or is chemically produced in a
Many airports are equipped with radar to facilitate the control of air traffic battery. The principal prime movers now producing electricicy are water
and to assist in guiding planes safely into the airport during periods of wheels, steam turbines, and internal-combustion engines. Engineers are
low visibility. Meteorologists also employ it to detect and trace storms. A currently developing atomic energy as another source to replace fuel.
number of other specialized applications of radio waves have been de- The importance of electricity as a form of power is its economy and
veloped, pamcularly to assist in navigation of ships and aircraft. Some its flexibility. It is no longer necessa?, as it xvas a c e n t u v ago 2 locate
of the devices have been given names made up as acrostics similar to that a factory or an industrial c i v near a stream where water power is vail-
designating radar, such as loran (long-range navigation) and shorun able or on a harbor or river to obtain condensing water. High-volc
(short-range navigation). Some of the schemes make use of the known transmission lines can now carry power from a generating plant to a
speed of radio waves emitted from the shore or from a ship or aircraft to community hundreds of miles axvay. S o r is it any longer necessary to
shore stations. Others employ waves of differing frequencies broadcast allow many remote natural resources to remain undeveloped for want of
from shore stations and analyzed on the ship or plane. Soundings are power. Electric power is transmitted not only into isolated regions but
taken by a Fathometer, a device reflecting from the ocean bottom radio also from far-off water-power sites to centers of population. Moreover,
waves sent out by the ship, as sonar does with sound waves. Not the least electricity now supplies rhost homes, a t least in the United States, with
of radio aids to navigators is the dissemination of time signals, which per- power for a multitude of purposes-not only for heating, ventilation,
mit the navigator to check his chronometer accurately. refrigeration, washing, water pumping, cleaning, and illumination, but
 352 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
also for recreation and information in the form of moving pictures, radio,
television, and telephones.
The battery, originally developed by Volta in 1800, was the principal
source of electricity until the early 1870s. It supplied elecmciry for such
projects as the early telegraph, telephone, electroplating, and railroad
signals. Michael Faraday discovered the fundamental principle of the Figure 11.3
electric generator in I 8 3 I when he found that he could produce an electric Pacinotti's generator, 1863
(From Urbanitsky,
current by moving a conductor in a magnetic field. Unlike the direct cur-
Elecm'city in the Service
rent supplied from a disk, a rotating wire coil would produce only of Man, 1886)
alternating or fluctuating voltage a t its terminals as the wire was moved
within the magnetic field. -4s there seemed to be no wav to use alternating
current advantageously a t that time, scientists and inventors evolved a ,
generator which would produce direct current. In 1 8 3 2 , the year Fara-,
day published his discoven- of current produced in a copper disk rotat-
rotating armature. LIoses G. Farmer of Salem. Jlassachusetts, and the
ing in a magneric field. Hippolvte Pixii in Paris consuucted a machine for
Siemens brothers of Berlin, also built \elf-e\cltlng generators in 1566, as
generating an alternating current by rotating a permanent horseshoe
did Cromwell F. l-arley, of London. and Chnries 1C'heatstone. I t was now
magnet in the field of an electromagnet. The next year, a t the suggestion of
possible to produce a practical generator for commercial use.
Ampkre, he added a single commutator to change the current which
During the same decade that the generator was first being improved,
alternated in each revolution to direct current flowing always in one
electric motors were also being developed from Faraday's discoveries.
direction. The commutator was in contact with brushes which collected
In 1 8 i 1 Faraday had demonstrated that d:-namic, or current, elecrricity
the current generated bv the rotation of the coil in the magnetic field.
in a conductor in a magnetic field could produce continuous motion, but
In London, from 1833 to 183j, three men, William Ritchie, who had
it was not until 183j that Francis W'atkins of London produced in model
demonstrated in I 830 Ampere's suggestion for a telegraph, Joseph Sax-
form the first motor which xvould do uork, albeit xvith models. The
ton, and Edward Xi. Clarke, constructed generators which had commuta-
Watkins model motor consisted of stationar!. coils surrounding a shaft on
tion devices. X generation later, in 1863, a young Italian professor a t Pisa,
which a bar magnet was mounted. The shaft had a set of contact makers
Antonio Pacinotti (1841-1912), built a generator (Figure I 1.3) which
xvhich sent a battery current through successive coils, causing the magnet
possessed marked improvements over the machines of the r830s. His major
and shaft to spin. In 1837 Thomas Davenport ( 1802-18j1), originally a
contribution consisted in increasing the number of cornmutator sections
blacksmith, of Brandon, Vermont, made the first electric motors that
from t u o bars to many separate bars, each connected to a continuous
performed industrial xvork. Davenport's first motor had a permanent
a-inding which rotated m the magnetic field. Pacinotti's commutator made
magnet for the field, but he equipped his subsequent motors with elecuo-
it possible to increase the amount of current and therefore the power
magnets. Davenport used his motors for drilling iron and steel and for
u hich could be produced bv a generator. One feature which Pacinotti's
turning wood in his small shop. His first motors were rotary, but in
design had in common with earlier generators was the permanent magnet
1838 he began to evolve a reciprocating motor based on a design used
which produced the field. During the year 1866 no fewer than five
earlier by Joseph Henry. In 1839 a German-born physicist, hloritz-
different men replaced the permanent magnet by an electromagnet con-
Hermann de Jacobi ( I 801-1 87 j ) of St. Petersburg, Russia, built and
sisting of an iron core surrounded by coils through which electric current
tested an electric boat with a 1z8-cell battery having platinum and zinc
passed-a remarkable example of simultaneous invention. In England,
electrodes to supply pod%r for the motor. Jacobi's boat had paddle wheels
Henry Wilde, of Manchester, was apparently the first to invent field
devised by William Robert Grove (1811-1896) of London. In spite of
excitation, using electromagnets excited by the current generated in the
generous aid from the Russian czar, the tests made it apparent that power
 3 51 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 355
supplied from a battery was far too costly even for experiments, and
ualized the same principle of bright incandescence a t high temperatures
Jacobi discontinued them. Most of the men who built these early motors
in a gas flame. At the beginning of the twentieth century. gas was sdll
realized that the expense of operation was prohlbitive and that the amount
an important source of illumination, although the number of electric-
of power available from a battery was extremely limited. T h e great cost
lighting installations was rapidly increasing.
of electricity retarded the evolution of the electric motor. It was not
In 1801 Humphry D a y (1778-rS29), English chemist. had discovered
generally understood that motors and generators could be made inter-
that he could produce a brilliant spark or arc between m.0 slightly sepa-
changeable until Pacinotti in 1863 produced a machine that was equally
rated carbon rods in a battery circuit. Davy’s batterv, holvever, w a s not
effective for either purpose.
powerful enough to produce a srabie. continuous arc. It was not until
Man has always had need for illumination and has made use of manv 1863, subsequent to a trial installation of a n arc light in :he Dungeness
devices since he first tamed fire. In 1800 the principal sources of illumina-
lighthouse on the south coast of Kent, England. in 1862. rhat the first
tion were candles, generally of tallow, and oil-burning lamps, sometimes
practical application was made ot’ arc lights. \\-hen thev \\-ere put into
using petroleum but usually using animal or vegetable oils. William M u r - one of the nvo La Heve lighthouses near Le Havre, Frmce. Inefficient
dock produced the first illuminating gas in the r 790s by heating coal and aenerators of the Pixii type, which had been designed earlier bv Florise
3
drawing off its volatile components, which were combustible in air. In I‘ollet I ;94-1853), professor of physics a t Brussels. supplied the elec-
1798 he provided gasworks for lighting the Boulton & Watt en@ne-
tricin.. -Arc lighting Xvas not conimercially feasible until more than a
shop building a t Soh0 in Birmingham, England. In France, Philippe decade later when electric pou‘er far cheaper than that furnished by
Lebon ( r 767-1804) obtained a patent in I 799 on gaslighting, using the batteries or bv the earlv inefficient generators had become available.
voIatiIe gases from heated wood, but Lebon died before he had developed The Belgan-born Ztnobe Thkophile Gramme ( rS16-1901)did more
his invention beyond lighting his own house and grounds. Pall Mall in than any ocher man to develop the generator and the motor commercially.
London was illuminated bv gas in 1807 and Westminster Bridge in 1813. His first hand-driven experimental generator of I S - I was very similar to
Paris first had a few gaslights on its streets in 1820. In the United States Pacinods, although Gramme seems not to have lino\vn of the Italian
in 1812 David iClelville ( 1 7 7 3 - 1 8 j 6 ) lit his house in Newport, Rhode professor’s work. In 1873 Gramme installed his first machines for arc
Island, with coal gas which he manufactured on the premises, and he in- lighting to replace the older generators in the French lighthouses. A t the
stalled gas illumination in a cotton mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in same time he built several generators to replace batteries then being
1813. Baltimore was the first American city to have a gaslighting svstem;
used for electroplating nickel and silver. Gramn~e’sgenerators v e r e
a company organized in I 8 I 6 began to furnish gas a few years later. The driven by reciprocating steam engines and \\-ere superior to the few
first community to be lit with natural gas was Fredonia, Chautauqua other commercial generators of his day. In 1876 Gramme further im-
County, New York, where a I %-inch pipe was driven into the ground proved his design; he was now able to produce generators that ran a t
near a gas spring in 1 8 2 1 , and the gas obtained supplied t h i w street higher speeds, were lighter, and had much greater poxl-er capaciv. An
lights for a number of years. extensive line of Gramme motors and senerators, based largely on the
Thomas Drummond ( I 797-1 840) introduced incandescent gaslighting 1876 design, was still being xvidely sold in the late i8Sos.
in 1 8 2 j by placing a solid stick of lime in a gas flame. T h e idea had been While working a t the Paris facton. that turned out Gramme gen-
known for some time but was first applied practically by Drummond. erators, the Russian-born Paul Jablochkofi ( I S47-I 894) invented in I 876
T h e brilliant light produced by the white-hot lime became known as the Jablochkoff candle, a type of arc light. The “candle” consisted of
calcium light or limelight, a word which, because of the use of limelight two carbon rods side by side but insulated from each other by the white
to illuminate a star performer on the stage, has also come to mean a con- clay, kaolin, which vaporized as the rods burned down. Since one rod of
spicuous position in public. The widely used incandescent Welsbacb a carbon arc using direct current burns more rapidly than the other,
mantle, developed in 1885 by Carl Auer von Welsbach, an Austrian, Gramme designed an alternating-current generator to be used with the
 356 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Jablochkoff candle. The first of these new lights appeared in 1878 on
I
Paris streets. Compared with the existing gas lamps they were so brilliant
that the system was adopted by many European cities. SERIES CIRCLJIT
Charles Francis Brush (1849-1929) of Cleveland, Ohio, installed the
L.
first Brush arc street-lighting system in Cleveland in 1879 and another in $ 1
3
New York in 1880. Brush’s system was more satisfactory than Jabloch-
koffs because the Brush lamp would burn twice as long as Jablochkoff’s
G l w

PARALLEL CIRCUIT
before it was necessary to replace the carbon rods. Brush also designed
a generator wherein the voltage was variable and Tvas controlled by the
load while the current remained constant. T o regulate the arc in the lamp
as the carbons burned down, Brush invented an automatic clutch that kept
the burning ends of the rods a t a constant distance from each other. .\lanv .
large cities in the United States and Europe installed the Brush system in
the early 1880s. The arc light w3s popular in street lighting and for large
indoor areas until well into the twentieth century.
Thomas A h a Edison ( I 847-193 I ) b e p n work on an incandescent tem, where, with distribution a t 2 2 0 volts, each lamp uses only I 10, any
lamp in 1877. He was by no means the first to try to develop incandescent unbalanced current returning through a “neutral” uire.
lamps or even the first to produce one that would function. In fact, such The adoption of the higher voltage for rhe lamps presented new
a lamp had been made as earlv as 1820, and during the ensuing half problems in using metal filaments; Edison therefore began to try out
century scores of men, including, among others, Joseph Wilson Sxvan various other types of high-resistance filaments. In his first successful
(1828-191+) in England, had fashioned incandescent lamps of many de- high-resistance lamp he used a filament of carbonized thread in a vacuum,
signs. However, it was Edison Ivho first developed an incandescent lamp but it burned for only two days. After a wide search for a material
desi,m suitable for quantitv manufacture and use. 1Vhen Edison began his wluch, when carbonized in the absence of oxygen, u-ould provide a long-
work enough was known about arc lights to make it obvious t h a t they lasting filament, Edison finally chose split bamboo. In 1880 he arranged
were too brilliant for use in the home. Edison therefore tried to produce a public exhibition of joo of his lamps in and around his laboratories a t
a lamp that would give a softer, less intense light. His first lamps devised in illenlo Park, New Jersey. This demonstration attracted so much atten-
1878 had a platinum-wire filament in an evacuated glass bulb and oper- tion that the Pennsylvania Railroad had to run special trains to carry the
ated at 10 volts. These series-connected lamps did not prove to be as crowds of visitors to the laboratories. The first application of the Edison-
reliabIe as Edison had predicted. hloreover, he came to realize that ai- lamp sy-stem was in 1879 aboard the DeLong arctic-expedition steamer
though series operation was satisfactory for street lighting, parallel cir- Jeannette, which was equipped with a generator and electric lights that
cuits with each lamp controlled separately (Figure I 1.4) would be much served dependably for nvo years until the vessel was crushed in the ice.
more desirable for general use. In an electric series circuit the whole Edison furnished another steamship, the Colmbia, with electric lights in
current flows in sequence through each piece of apparatus, whether a 1880; each stateroom had a j-candlepotver lamp. Built a t Chester, Penn-
lamp, motor, or other device. In a parallel circuit the current divides, so sylvania. for the Oregon Railway and Savigation Company, the Columbia
that only part of it flows through each device. T o reduce transmission operated between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. Her 1880 power
losses he decided to use I I O volts rather than lower voltages-a decision plant was dismantled in 1895. By 1882 Edison had installed over 150
more far-reaching than he could have known. T o obtain still further the plants in individual rescdences, hotels, mills, offices, stores, and steamers.
advantages of higher voltages in distribution without increasing the volt- In the meantime the newly formed California Electric Light Company
ages impressed upon individual lamps, Edison developed a three-wire sys- had opened in September, 1879, a little experimental power plant consist-
 Figure I 1.y Generator room of Pearl Street Station, New York, first Edison
--( I
”..,~,,..-
. .row..
L
c p -
elecmc lighting central staaon (From Scientific Americm, Aug. 26. 1882) Figure 11.6 Boilers, engines, and generators in Pearl Street Station (From
Electrician, 1882)

ing of three Brush generators, to sell electricity for arc-lamp illumination

to customers in San Francisco. Within a year the increasing demand for peded the British development of electric illumination. Edison’s much-
electricity not only proved the value of this experimental plant but made publicized Pearl Street Station in S e w York went into operation on
necessary the construction of a larger plant. These nr-o plants were the September 1, 1882. I t had six “large” direct-current generators (Figure
first “central stations” for supplving electricitv commerciallv. T h e de- I 1.5) aggregating about 900 horsepower, enough power for 7 , m o lamps
velopment of central stations and suhsequentlv of interconnecting high- a t I 10 volts. Porter and ,411en reciprocating engines supplied with steam
voltage transmission nencorks are among the most significant aspects of bv Babcock and Wilcox boilers (Figure I I .6) drove the generators. When
electric power for modern society. Although an individual steam-driven opened, the Pearl Street Station served some sixty customers with nearly
generator in a store, office building, or residence was practicable, there 1.300 lamps through underground conduits distributing power at I 10

were obvious difficulties and limitations in operating a steam boiler and volts nominal pressure. T h e conductors were half-round copper bars
generator in the cellar. T h e central-station generation of electric power about 20 feet long and inserted into iron tubes from which they were
and its distribution by wires was much more satisfactory, as well as more separated by cardboard washers. T h e tubes were then filled with asphaltum
economical, and made electricity widely available. compound for insulation. T h e station proved to be a success, 2nd central
*4fter the San Francisco installations, the next central station of im- stations were soon installed in other sections of N e w York and in other
portance was built on Holbom Viaduct, London. This station began cities. T h e original Pearl Street Station burned on January t, 1S90.
operations o n January 1 2 , 1882, and furnished p o v e r for 3,000 incandes- Although direct-current central stations greatly increased the avail-
cent lamps from Edison Jumbo direct-current dynamos driven b y ability of electric power and although they had the advantage that storage
Armington and Sims steam engines. However, the British Electric Light- batteries could be used for stand-by emergency service, they had serious
ing Act of the same year, aimed a t preserving the gas-lighting monopoly, limitations because of the necessarily low distribution voltages. These
forbade the construction of large generator stations and seriously im- low voltages seriously limit the distance over which direct current can be
3 58 3 59
 360 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 361
economically transmitted. A volt is a measure of the electric pressure in a alternating-current system became a strong competitor of the Edison
conductor; it is analogous to the hydraulic pressure in a water pipe. T h e direct-current system, which already served manv localities.
current, measured in amperes, is the quantity of electricity flowing in the Recognizing that they had serious competition, the operators of direct-
conductor and is analogous to the quantity of water flowing in a pipe. current poxver systems, who had held a virtual monopoly, became much
EIectric power is measured in watts and is a product of volts times concerned. In the middle of 1888 they tried to discredit alternating-cw-
amperes. This statement is true in direct-current systems, but in the case rent po\ver projects by attacks which. among other things, purported to
of alternating-current systems it must be qualified, since the current and show that alternating current ~ v a s“a horrible menace to human life.”
voltage alternations mav not be entirely in step with each other, in which These atracks became verv bitter and for a time The two systems de-
case a factor must be emplo>-ed in calculating power to indicate how far veloped independently of one another. T h e direct-current system gen-
apart they are in the cycle. erally served urban districts, \\;here poxver demands Ivere concentrated
Losses in the transmission or distribution of power are in general in limited areas. and the alternating-current s>-stemsupplied ourlying ter-
proportional to the square of the number of amperes flowing. Other ‘ ritories. n-here transmission lines were necessarily more extended. Before
things being equal, if the transmission voltage is doubled and the current ven- long, holvever. The advantage of combining the tu.0 svstems to obtain
halved, the power is unchanged, but the transmission losses are reduced the advantages of each became evident. Direct-current systems then Lvere
to one-quarter. Similarly, all other things being equal, if the voltage is designed to utilize alternating current for transmission from the pon-er
increased tenfold with a corresponding decrease in current, the losses plants to outlying substations n.hich converted it t o direct cuirent for
are reduced to one one-hundredth in transmitting a given amount of local distribution.
energy. There are other important factors affecting losses, but it is ap- T h e earl\- JVestinghouse alternating-current installations produced
parent that the higher the voltage o r pressure, the greater the distance single-phase I 3 ~ 1 , i cvcles per second po‘.ver a t transmission voltages
over which electricity can be economically sent. In an alternating-current nominal]\- of either 1,000 or 2.000 volts. These early installations provided
system, transformers step up the voltages a t the p o n e r plant f o r long- electricin for illumination only, and it xvas not until a year and a half
distance transmission. Alternating current of ~ ~ o , o ovolts
o is common in after the first IVestinghouse installation at Butialo in 1S86 that a reliable
long-distance transmission today, and voltages of more than 300,000 are ajternating-current motor \\as invented. A number of individuals work-
occasionally used. Direct current is not adaptable for the production of ing independentlL- of each other in the United States and in Europe in the
c
widely diverse voltage requirements, but in alternating-current s\-steIns late I S8os developed pol!-phase-current senerators and motors. T h e
the transformer ma>- be designed to produce anv desired voltage. Croat-born S i k o l a Tesla (iS;6-1943) \\as one of these inventors. and it
Alternating-current si-stems xvere being developed in Europe in the \vas he \vho \{‘as alvarded patent rights, after much litigation, for his
1880s; one of the most successful lvas that of Lucien Gaulard and J. D. invention of the polyphase-current s!-stern to run an induction motor.
Gibbs of Paris, who first demonstrated their svstem in London in 1881. Polyphase, as distinguished from single-phase, alternatin,o current comes
In I 88 j George \Vestinghouse ( I 846-1 9 I 4) acquired the American patent from coils in the generator. wound to produce t1i-o or more separate
ri,oha of the Gaulard-Gibbs system and immediatelv directed his small circuits delivering current to the ternrinals in such a \v3?- that the output
electrical engineering staff to deveIop improvements in the generators of the machine is in txvo. three, or more circuits in which the alterna-
and particularly in the transformers. Appointed chief engineer of the tions are in sequence as the machine rotates. During the next few decades
Westinghouse Companv in I 88j, William Stanley ( I 8j8-1 91 6) devised there were innumerable improx-ements in motors and a tremecdous di-
an efficient alternating-current distribution system which he installed a t versification of designs to run almost anything from a toy train to a ship.
his own expense in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to serve about I jo However, because the early Westinghouse I 3 3 ’/&cycle alternators. as
incandescent lamps for lighting streets and stores. T h e Westinghouse an alternating-current ienerator is often called, produced power at a
Company installed a similar plant for commercial operation in Buffalo,
8“Gibbens Gets Frightened; Experiments on a Dog Prove That There’s Death
New York, in November, 1886. During the next year the Westinghouse
the Wires,” N e w Yolk Herald, July 3 1 , 1888, p. 10.
 362 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 363
frequency too high for efficient motor operation, 7 j- and 60-cycle alter- Just and Franz Hanaman of Vienna in 1902, was introduced for street
nators gradually became standard in the United States. A t 40 cycles the lighting in 1907; an improved tungsten street lamp with a drawn-wire
human eye does not detect flicker in an incandescent lamp, while at 2 j filament first appeared in I 9 I I . Both of these early tungsten lamps were
cycles a flicker is quite noticeable, especially in small lamps. So for a time vacuum bulbs. Large tungsten lamps filled with nitrogen were first pro-
60 cycles was used when lighting loads predominated. and 2 j cycles when duced in 1913, b u t it was not until after 1918 that gas-filled lamps became
power for motors was more important. In countries other than the United generally available for domestic use. T h e modern general-service lamp
States the standard lighting frequency became 50 cycles and power 16?4 filled with 8 j per cent argon and I j per cent nitrogen produces as many
cycles. T h e large Wesnnghouse alternators at the Columbian Exposition as Z L lumens per watt.
at Chicago in 1893 were 40-cycle machines. T h e voltages of alternating- During the twentieth c e n q - many new types of lamps, such as the
and direct-current were also becoming standardized in the I 890s, and by sodium arc and mercury arc, have been introduced for specialized uses.
the end of the century I I O volts was the common -American voltage for The fluorescent lamp was first available in G e m a n y in the early 1930s
lighting circuits. and in the United States in 1938. It consists of a glass tube, the inside of
After the development of dependable alternating-current transmission \vhich is coated with a fluorescent material. the light being emitted when
and motors, there remained the problem of convemng alternaang current this material is excited by the ultraviolet rays of an arc passing from the
to direct current for railroad service and for electroplating and other in- elecuode a t one end to that at the other. The fluorescent lamp is the
dustries which can use only direct current. About 1892 electrical engi- most important recent introduction and is another step forward in in-
neers invented the synchronous rotary converter consisting of a rotating creased efficiency; it produces 6 j lumens per watt, many ames the 1.68
unit receiving at one end alternating current and a t the other delivering lumens per watt of the earIy carbon filament lamps.
direct current. The rotam- converter was extremely useful in various
fields where the alternating-current transmission 2 t high voltages and
direct-current utilization were either desirable or necessan-. Subsequently, Power Plants
in 1902, the American Peter Cooper Henitt (1861-1911) originated the The water wheel and the steam turbine are now the two principal sta-
static rectifier consisting of an evacuated tank containing mercurv vapor, tionary prime movers that senerate electric power. In the United States
using the principle that current will flow in mercun- vapor from metal in I 9 j 4 hydroelectric production accounted for 2 3 per cent and steam for
anodes to a mercury cathode in the bottom of t h e tank but \vill not flow ;5 per cent of electrici? produced for general distribution. Internal-com-
in the opposite direction. It thus converts or rectifies alternating current bustion stationary engines generated but t per cent; the internal-combus-
to direct current by suppressing the flo\v of current in cne direction and tion engine, discussed in the next chapter, is achieving increasing im-
thus acts as a sort of check valve. portance for generating electricity in locomotives for transportation.
During the period when alternating-current motors and converters The Westinghouse Company installed the first hydroelectric power-
were being perfected, the carbon filament incandescent lamp was being transmission system in the Cnited States in 1891,six !-ears after the Great
steadily improved. This continuing improvement culminated in the in- Barrington project, to carry power generated a t Willamette Falls, Ore-
troduction of a metallized carbon filament lamp. the GEXI(General Elec- gon, 1 3 miles to Portland, where transformers stepped down the 3,300
tric Metallized) lamp in I 90j. The G EM lamp produced about 4.25 lumens transmission voltage to 1,100 volts for the city prima? distribution cir-
per w a t t compared with the 1.68 lumens per watt of the 1881 and 3.4 cuits. Local transformers converted the current to j o or 100 volts for
lumens per watt of the 190j carbon filament lamps. 4 lumen is a unit of lamps; lamp voltages were not standard a t that time. The most important
light flow, or flux, and is a measure of luminous output of a lamp related early long-distance alteFating-current transmission line was also con-
to a standard candle source. The GEbr lamps were manufactured until stmcted in 1891 from Lauffen to the Frankfurt Electro-Technical Exposi-
1918 when they were completely superseded by tungsten lamps. T h e tion in Germany. T h e loo-horsepower transmission at 30,000 volts for
tungsten filament lamp giving 8 lumens per watt, invented by Alexander 19 miles was a convincing demonstration. There had been an earlier ex-
 3 64 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

perimental transmission line between Miesbach and Munich in 1882, but

it had failed because of serious insulation difficulties.
Had it not been for the introduction of an alternating-current system,
the power of the Willamette Falls could not have been used to supply
Portland with electricity. Direct current could not economically have
been sent the 1 3 miles a t either j o or 100 volts. In fact it was the de-
velopment of alternating-current systems that made possible the exploita-
tion of sources of water power for the generation of electricity. T h e first
large hydroelectric installation in the United States mas in I 895 at Niagara
Falls, where three j,ooo-horsepower machines ith terminal voltages of
2,200 were set up. This plant produced a total of I j,mo horsepower,
'
which compares, for example. lvith upxvard of ;o.ooo mechanical horse-
power that the numerous water wheels a t Holyoke, >lassachusetts, de-
veloped. Unlike most generators. the Xiagara alternators had fields w h c h
rotated outside stationary armatures. The earlier Wesanghouse generators
had been of the revolving-armature n-pe, but European designers who
participated in the planning a t Siagara Fails favored the revolving-field
design. Subsequent to the Siagara Falls installation. the revolving-field ?
type became standard for alternators, but the field revolved within the
stationary armature instead of outside it. All that is necessar). is that the
magnetic field and the armature coils mor-e relatively to one another;
their respective positions are a matter of d e s i y and not of principle. Figure I I .T
The fields of the Siasara alternators rotated a t zjo revolutions per t3o.ooo-v0lt transmission
minute. Thev were mounted on vertical shafts and were directly con- lines (Counesv Public
nected with the water turbines. Since an alternator must rotate a t a con- Service Company of
Indiana, Inc.
stant speed to produce a given standard frequency, a governor keeps the
water turbine at the correct speed regardless of the head of water im-
pressed on i t or the load imposed. .\lost hvdroelectric plants have the
generator directly connected with the turbine. and much progress has
been made in desiping turbines to operate with maximum efficiency at many water-power sites. X given water-power plant may have little value
varying loads. by itself because of low water flow in times of drought. If, ho\vever, it
During the second decade of this centun-, several power companies, is feeding a system containing steam plants which act as stand-by capacity
striving to increase efficiencv and to extend their services, interconnected in umes of plentiful water flow, it may be of great value. With the es-
their isolated power plants by means of transmission lines. These intercon- ploitaaon of many such marginal Tvater-power sites, systems made up of
necting lines, now called a network, or grid, permit the operation of the hydroelectric and steam plants came into being in the 1920s in various
more efficient individual plants to supply the bulk of the load, and thus parts of the world. Modern networks interconnect the grids of individual
obtain maximum economy of the system as a whole, and also enable main- systems to obtain these benefits over a wide area.
taining service in the event of any plant failure. One immediate advantage The improvements in transmission and higher-capacity generators
deriving from these interconnections was the profitable utilization of necessitated larger transformers, and the capacity of transformers has in-
 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING 367
plants, including New York’s elevated railway power plant. These engines
operated at 7 j revolutions per minute with I 7 j pounds pressure. Today
the steam-turbine-driven generator makes practically all the electricity
produced from fuel, although internal-combustion engines and a few g a ~
turbines generate a very small percentage of the total electric power
xoduced.
W e have indicated in previous chapters that the principles of the
impulse-reaction-type steam turbines have been long known; Hero of
Alexandria described a model in which steam, in a metal sphere that couid
rotate, escaped tangentially from two nozzles a t the ends of rotating arms
(Figure 3. j). In 1629 Giovanni Branca wrote about a machine in which a
jet impinged upon blades projecting from a rotating wheel (Figure 6.10).
The first of these turbines Lvas a reaction turbine and the second an impulse
machine. Several inventors attempted to make steam turbines in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but did not achieve any more practical
success than Hero did with his toy. For instance, in 178+ Wolfgang von
Kempelen patented “a reaction machine set in motion by Fire, Air. Water
or any other Fluid.” Primarily intended to be driven by “boiling waters
or rather the vapour proceeding therefrom,” this steam turbine disturbed
Figwe 11.8 Large reciprocating steam engine and generator (Courtesy James Watt because it n-as a possible competitor of his engine. H e said
McGraw-Hill Book Company, hc.) little about what he called “Kempelen’s engine” on the theory that “lest
by talking about it lve put him on improvements; for it is capable of
creased steadily. Engineers also have improved the desisp of svitches and them.” Among others who worked on the steam turbine was Trevithick
circuit breakers to handle lar,oe amounts of power. From 1906 to 191I who built a “u hiding engine” in I S I j xvith a \iheel I j feet in diameter
transmission voltages mounted from I 3,000 to I jO,oO0. The first 2~0,000- revolving a t 300 revolutions per minute. In the United States, William
volt line went into operation in 19: I . and there are scores of these high- Avery patented a turbine in 1831, and abroad Binstall received a patent
voltage lines today (Figure I 1.7). with some transmissions higher than in 1838, Pilbrow in 1843, Wilson in 184j, and Hartham in 18j8. XI1 of
300,000 volts. The improvements in transmission made possible the great these patented turbines had one common feature; they would not produce
development of private as well as Federal hydroelectric power in the power efficiently. Nevertheless, as Charles A. Parsons once said, most
United States, which began in the 1920s. S o t only do government plants of the fundamental ideas of the steam turbine of today had been sug-
generate nearly j o per cent of the hvdroelectric power produced in the gested or extensively described in the hundred or more patents granted
United States, but they also are the largest. However, the Kitimat project prior to 1880.
in British Columbia, with its head of z,j80 feet and capacity of 1,6j0,000 In 1889 the Swedish engineer Carl Gustaf Patrik de Lava1 (184j-1913)
horsepower, is a private undertaking to produce power for the recovery built his first functional steam turbine. De Laval’s turbines were the
of aluminum from bauxite. Kitimat, when it is completed, will exceed in single-wheel, single-stage, impulse wpe with a jet of steam impinging
size the government-built Grand Coulee plant in the state of Washingon. directly on the wheel blades (Figure I 1.9); the largest wheel diameter
Until 1900 steam engines generating electricity were of the recipro- he used was 3 0 inches and the smallest was 3 inches. Since his turbines
cating type (Figure I I .8). T h e largest reciprocating engines driving gen- s Henry W. Dickinson, A Shorr Hinory of the Steam Engine, The University Press,
erators were the 7,po-horsepower engines in service in 1904in various Cambridge, 1939. p. 187.
 Figure I 1.9
De Laval steam turbine
(From E. \V. Bym, The Figure I z. I o Charles Parsons’ first mrbogenerator (Coutesy McGraw-Hill
Progress of Invention in ,
Book Company, Inc.)
the .Vineteenth Century,
1900;courresy Scientific
Americm )
the expansion of the steam takes place in the nozzles or stationary blades,
the action is mainly dn impulse one, but if the expansion takes place
within the moving blades, the motion is obtained b y reaction caused by
the steam as it leaves the blades. Jlodern turbine development has been
had only one wheel and one set of nozzles, in which the steam attained along these nvo general lines. Among the man]; who have been active in
high velocity before striking the blades, the speed of the blades a t the rim the evolution of the multiple-stage steam turbine, two engineers have
of the wheel \vas necessarilv exceedingly high. Some of his machines ran been most prominent; the first was Charles -Algemon Parsons ( 18j+-193 I )
u.
a t speeds as high as +o,ooo revolutions per minute, and to eliminate the of England and the second Charles Gordon Curtis (1860-1953) of the
dangers of “nobbling” at such extreme velocities, De Laval supported United States. Parsons built his first machine (Figure I I . I O ) in 1884..T h e
the wheels upon flexible shafts to ailon the wheel to seek its own center unit drove a generator lvhich produced 7 . j kilowatts (about 10 horse-
of rotation like a top. H e also invented an elaborate helical reducing gear power) a t loo volts. T h e steam consumption was r;o pounds per kilo-
for the operation of an electric generator which could not be run at such watt-hour as compared Xvith perhaps 8 pounds in a modem plant. De-
high speeds. These gears were often considerablv larser than the turbine. velopment of the Parsons turbine u a s steady in spite of patent contro-
D e Laval had constructed his first turbine in I ~ Z and, in 1888 he fash- versies. In 1888 a 3z-horsepou.er unit was installed at the U.S. Saval
ioned the flarins nozzles in which steam expands efficiently and attains Proving Grounds at Seivport, Rhode Island, and in 1901 a 2,000-horse-
high velocity before impinging on the blades. Bt- I 897 he was using steam power unit u a s put in operation a t Hartford, Connecticut. Curtis de-
a t the high pressure of about 3,000 pounds per square inch. nearly the veloped the multistage impulse turbine. H e took out his first patent in
criticak pressure { 3.226 pounds) at xvhich a pound of steam has the same England in I 89j and in the United States in I 896. After early discourage-
volume as a pound of water and the latent heat of evaporation is zero. ments, he built a machine in 1900 with a vertical shaft for the Schenectady,
Although the De Laval turbines xvere limited in capacity, a considerable S e w I-ork, plant of the General Electric Company, and in 1903 a 6,joo-
number were placed in commercial service. horsepower unit also with a vertical shaft, in Chicago. Subsequently the
T o obtain efficient operation with reasonably high steam pressures, vertical-shaft design was discontinued as capacities, and therefore weights,
engineers have modified turbines to permit the steam to expand in several increased.
stages, consisting of a number of rows of moving blades mounted on the &Ian). engineers have participated in the d e s i p of impulse-reaction
rotor and interspaced with stationary blades mounted on the stator. If turbines which employ the advantages of both principles. W i t h machines
368 369
 Figure 1 1 . 1 1 Turbogenerator, Kearny, New Jersey, plant of Public Service Figure t t . 1 ~ Modern boiler plant built in the open air. (Courtesy McGraw-
and Gas Company. Output I + j , O O o kilowatts (194000horsepower), zo,ooo Hill Book Company, Inc.)
volts. Steam pressure 2 , j j o pounds per square inch. (Courresy Public Service
Electric and Gas CO.)
feedwater in the boiler. T o handle such large amounts of steam, many a
being built to use ever-increasing steam pressures and superheat, the condenser has more than an acre of cooling surfaces.
horsepower ratings of turbines have skyrocketed. Within twenty-five -Although 70 per cent loss of the heat e n e r g - of fuel now common in
years after the installation of the last 7, joo-horsepower stationary recipro- steam plants is high, it is not nearly as high as the loss in the early plants.
cating engines, there were steam turbines operating a t qo,ooo horse- Edison's Pearl Street Station in 1 8 8 2 is said to have used as much as 8
power. Turbines are now being installed up to j;o.ooo horseponer. T h e pounds of coal to produce I horsepower-hour, or about 1 0 pounds per
development of generators has, of course, kept abreast with that of kiloe.att-hour. By 1900 about 7 pounds were required to generate a
turbines (Figure 1 1 . 1 1 ) . kilos-att-hour with the figure dropping to somewhat more than z pounds
T h e large modem turbine requires a great deal of steam at high pres- in 1 9 2 2 . During the following thirty years these needs x e r e cut to less
sure and high temperature. T h e improvements which have led to the than half, and now a kilowatt-hour can be generated for less than the
boiler of today have been as dramatic as the advances in turbines. Coal, equivalent of a pound of coal (Figure I 1 . 1 3). Oil and natural gas have
very finely pulverized, natural gas, and residual oil have replaced both become important fuels for steam plants. Of the fuels used in steam plants
raw coal and hand- or mechanical-stoker firing. By 1926 boilers were in 1922, oil and natural gas produced slightly more than I j per cent of
operating at 6 j o pounds pressures and at temperatures of 7 t j " F ; a t mid- the power generated, but in 19j3 this figure was jj per cent. T h e total
century, pressures of 2,000 pounds and temperatures of IOOOOF were not United States electrical production in I 9 j 3 was j I j billion kilowatt-hours,
uncommon. Modern boilers (Figure I I . I 2 ) convert immense amounts o r 690 billion horsepower-hours, more than j o times that produced fifty
of water into steam, and there are in operation single boilers which trans- years earlier (Figure I 1.r4). In 19j j the United States produced 31 per
form 1,250,000 pounds of water per hour into steam. After doing its work cent of the total world production and more than four times the amount
in the turbine, the steam is condensed b y passing it through large con- generated b y Russia, the ,world's second largest producer.10
10 Many of the data in this and other paragraphs have been taken from tk.e Statistical
densers using cooling water, and the resulting condensate is reused as
Bulletins of the Edison Electrical Institute.
370 37'
 90,000
gl
70,000
c
$ 60,000

Figure 11.13
British thermal units
required to produce I
kilowatt-hour in United
States (Based on data :

in National Electric ,
Light Association
Bulletin, 1931, and Yeor
Edison Electric Insti- Figure zi.24 Kilowart-hours of electric e n e r 9 produced by United States
mte Statistical Bulletin, utility companies (Based on data in Elecrticd LVorld, Supplement, Jan. 19,
0 I
7890 7900 1910 7920 7930 1940 ?950 7960
! 1946, and Edison Electric Institute Statistical Bulletin, r9*, 19j3)

Europeans who made the initial. fundamental scientific discoveries and

earlv applications on \vhich electrical engineering is based. This state-
There is room for improvement; maximum efficiencies of 3 0 or 40
ment is true for the telephone, radio. television, and for the generation
per cent in large steam plants provide opportunities for betterment. This
and transmission of poxver. As this chapter demonstrates. American genius
relativelv large waste of 50 to 70 per cent of the heat value of fuel is
has not been as active in fundamental research as in ensineering develop-
largely due to the roundabout methods now eniploved for converting the
ment, engineering production. and engineerins sen-ice. I t has been this
chemical e n e r p stored in the fuel millions of years ago into electrical
tvpe of American genius which has evolved the 11orld's greatest electrical
e n e r p . First the chemical e n e r g - is changed into heat, xvhich is converted
industry.
into mechanical energy, xvhich in turn is converted into electrical e n e r p .
I t seems inevitable that ultimately a short cut, bypassing this series of Bibliography
conversions, will be found practicable and that electric ener,gy will be
Cohen, I. Bernard (ed.) : Benj~vzin Alaclaurin, ii*illiam R.: Znzention
produced directlv from fuel. Recently, scientists have produced electric Franklin's Experiments . . . W i t h and 1nnoc.ition in the Rzdio Indrrs-
poxver directly from the sun's rays, generating about 100 watts per square a Critical and Historical Zntrodrrc- t r y , T h e .\lacmillan Company,
yard of surface of their "battery" exposed to the sun. This direct genera- tion, Harvard University Press, S e w Tork, 1949.
tion of electricin- may be the beginning of a revolutionary step in the Cambridge, Mass., 1941. Passer, Harold C.: The Electricd
electric-power field. O n the other hand, perhaps the most important new Howell, John W., and Henr). Manuf~cturers,r B 77-~900,Harvard
Schroeder: History of the Zncandes- University Press, Cambridge, Mass.,
development in stationary prime movers will be the adaptation of atomic cent Lmzp, The Maqua CO., Sche- 19j3.
energy to the production of electric power. nectady, N.Y., 1927. Thompson, Robert L.: Wiring a Con-
T h e h i s t o y of electrical engineering presented in this chapter has MacLaren, Malcolm: T h e 'Rise of the tinent, Princeton University Press,
emphasized the developments in the United States. Similar developments Electrical l n d w t r y during the Nine- Princeton, N.J., 1947.
have occurred simultaneously in Europe, but with few exceptions it was teenth Century, Princeton Univer-
sity Press, Princeton, N.J., 1943.
3 72 373
 i
SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 427
posal of human wastes to safeguard health. The triumphs of sanitary
engineering over epidemic intestinal diseases are among the remarkable
achievernenn in the field of public health.

Sun itary Engineering

THIRTEEN Early in their communal life men lewned that thev could not survive in
crowds unless they had systems of water supplv and sewage disposal. The
discoveries of the archaeologists a t Jlohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley
Sanitary and Hydraulic Engineering testify to this fact, as do the ruins of the Minoan civilization in Crete.
The records of Rome are filled with evidence of endeavor to provide
both of these facilities for the cities of the Empire. Realization of a neces-
sity, however, is not the same as effectiveness in action. It is not praise
Man cannot live without water, which is more essential to life than any
of Minoan or Roman sanitation to declare that the sanitary facilities of
other nutrient except oxygen. In addition to being a vital necessity for
those days were better than the outhouses, cesspools, and primitive wells
man, water provides society with increased amounts of plant and animal
which persist even in our own time.
foodstuffs through the irrigation and reclamation of lands. Water is
The idea that pure drinking water might be better than impure
essential for extinguishing fires; indeed, some earlv modem American
water for human beings appeared in the writings of the Greek physician
water-supply systems furnished water mainly for fire fighting.
Hippocrates, who lived in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. But pro-
Since the beginnings of civilization, bodies of water have served as
viding pure water has been an intricate and baffling problem as popula-
highways for transportation, and since the Middle Ages, water has been
tions have increased and crowded into relatively small areas. Diseases
one of the important sources of poner. As described in Chapter j, the
which experts in public health now trace to defective sanitarl; s?-stems
water wheel was one of the earlv devices that relieved men and draft
ravaged towns and cities in the XIiddle -Ages and more recent times;
animals of being the principal providers of power, and in the eighteenth
unfortunately, they still do in the world‘s underdeveloped areas. Xlunici-
century w-ater became of even greater importance in power production
pal authorities of our day, however, enjoy a better understanding of the
with its use in the steam engine. Midway in the twentieth century, water
task than was h e lot of their predecessors in London, Paris, Rome,
participates in producing electric p o x ~ e ras it turns water wheels and
Cnossus, and Alohenjo-daro. ,4nd for most of this increase in knowledge
steam turbines and cools internal-combustion engines. Industry also uses
the scientists and engineers of the past hundred years are responsible.
enormous amounts of water for other purposes than power production; Before Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) and Robert Koch (1843-1910) did
chemical, food, and textile plants, in particular, use water estensivelv. In-
their revolutionary work in bacteriolop, humanitarians and officials con-
deed, engineers developed some of the first water-purification techniques cerned with public health had decided that something more had to be
for industrial uses rather than for human consumption.
done about foul drinking water than to free it from the evil tastes, odors,
Nevertheless, it has been primarilv the demand for “pure” water for sediment, and crawling things which anyone could see for himself. The
human consumption in metropolitan areas that has brought about the
French observer Dr. Alexandre- Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchitelet ( I 790-
construction of eqtensive water-supply systems such as that of New York
1836) had remarked in 1836 that he did not know the amount of fore@
City. These systPms not only store and purify water but also transport
matter which water must contain to be dangerous. H e was certain that
it many &es; in- a sense, long aqueducts are important forms of trans-
the daily use of filthy and disgusting water had n a effect on animals; the
portation, carrying manv ton-miles each day. In addition to the provision
same might be true of the men in a woolen mill he had visited. Yet “somd
of pure water, sanitary engineers have devised techniques for the dis-
principles of infection which defy analysis” could nevertheless exist. He
426
 428 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 429
was right in both respects. Mere putrescence in water, however repukive, The population of Chicago, however, had leaped from some
has not been proved fatal if there are no disease-producing organisms thousand inhabitants in I 8 jo to more than three hundred thousand in
present. But in this endeavor to eliminate putrescence from drinking 1870. Pollution of the lake outran tunneling from the shore. Even at
water, health officers and engineers empirically came upon the principles + miles out the water was unsafe. It was obvious that the flow of sewage
of infection that hitherto had defied analysis. into Lake Michigan had to be checked. First the engineers tried pumping
Dr. John Snow (1813-18j8), a pioneer in anesthesia, sensed the truth some of it over the watershed behind the city into the Illinois and Michi-
and published in 1849an essay on the communication of cholera by con- gan Canal and the Illinois River. Then dredging, begun in 1892 and com-
taminated water. His experience in the famous Broad Street well epi- pleted in 1900, permanently reversed the flow of the Chicago River into
demic of 1854 in London led Dr. Snow to suggest to local authorities the Des Plaines River and gave the people of the back counuy the benefit
that they remove the handle from the Broad Street pump. This was done, of Chicago's waste. This was no treat to neighbors on the south although
and as soon as the use of the contaminated water was discontinued, the it was effective in safeguarding the drinking water of the ciry. The sani-
epidemic subsided. Revising his essay, Dr. Snow anticipated remarkablv tam experts could not be sure that the diluting and oxidizing which
the theory of the germ origin of infectious disease, but other leading men occurred on the journev downstream removed the harmfulness of Chi-
in public health did not agree. The dominant idea continued to be that cago's selvage before it reached the next urban center dependent upon
putrescence itself in water caused disease. Roused by the persistent in- the watershed. The state of .\lissouri sued the state of Illinois and asked
roads of cholera, the British Parliament passed the Metropolis Water Act for injunctions to prohibit Chicago from dumping sewage into the St.
in 1852, requiring that after three years all water supplied for household Louis water supply. The court dismissed the case when the evidence
use within the area of London must be filtered, except that pumped di- showed that the pollution had been so removed or diluted by the time
rectly from deep wells into covered reservoirs. Slow filtering through it reached St. Louis that i t was not a health menace. Severtheless, the
sand beds, in imitation of nature, had been practiced for some years to condition of the drainage canal and the upper Des Plaines River became
make water pleasanter to sight, taste, and smell. Soon after 18jz the so intolerable that Chicago \vas forced to install modem sewage-treat-
practice began to spread throughout Great Britain, since it seemed to ment plants to eliminate the nuisance.
check disease as well, a n d by about 1900 the public supplies for many Years earlier. in 186j.it had been in the search of means for providing
major cities were being filtered. the ciw of St. Louis Ivith clear and palatable water from the hlississippi
The work with purification in Britain attracted nvo Americans m River that Kirkwood u-as sent to Europe. The result was his report of
the study of European accomplishments for use a t home. They were i 869 on the filters xvhich he studied in England, Scotland. Ireland, France,
Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough ( I 8 I 3-1 886), citv engineer first for Boston Germany, and Italy. But theauthoriues of St. Louis decided not to under-
and then for Chicago, and James Pugh Kirku-ood (180j-i8j7), a native take to separate the water of the Xlississippi from its mud by means of
of Edinburgh, Scotland, who had come to America as a young man in the sand filters \vhich Kirkwood advocated. Poughkeepsie, New York,
I 83 2 to build railroads. Chesbrough's investigations and report of I 8j 8 engaged him to apply his principle in 1872 to the Hudson River, where
led to a municipal system which in the end properly related the sewage he constructed the first sand-filtration plant in the Cnited States. The
disposal of Chicago to its water supply. Meanwhile the city continued water of the Hudson was less turbid, though quite as harmful, since a
to empty its liquid wastes into the Chicago River and Lake iMichigan, in state hospital discharged raw sewage into the river only 2,000 feet above
hopes that submerging and diluting in the lake water would remove all the water intake and continued to do so for sixty- years. Typhoid deaths
noxious elernen& In 186 j Chesbrough ran a j-foot cast-iron brick-lined continued in Poughkeepsie a t an erratic rate, but owing to several im-
tunnel 2 miles out through blue clay 3 0 feet under the bed of the lake. provements in the purificapon plant and the treatment of the hospital
At the end of the tunnel was a crib, where water was taken in. A pump- sewage beginning in 1933, the deaths rapidly dropped to zero during
ing station on shore raised the water from the level of the lake into a the 1931 to 193j period.
I j+-foot tower, whence it flowed by gravity through the city's mains. A fundamentally important scientific advance was the theory of Louis
 430 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 431
Pasteur (1822-1895) that infectious disease is caused by germs or bac- filters are more economical in their use of land and materials. As the
teria. Pasteur announced his formative theory in 18j7, and by the 1880s standards of purity became increasingly exacting, preliminary sedimen-
Robert Koch (1843-1910) had firmly established the science of bac- tation with the addition of a coaplent like aluminum sulfate clarified
teriology. The application of Pasteur’s theonJ and a knowledge of bac- the water before filtering and thus lightened the burden upon the filters.
teriology to methods of supplying pure water have brought about some It has become common procedure in recent years to add a disinfectant,
of the greatest successes of sanitary engineering. Aware of the discoveries chlorine. to filtered water as a final precaution.
of Pasteur and Koch, biologists, chemists, and engineers on both sides As nineteenth-century cities grew in population, engineers were called
of the Atlantic experimented with the filtration of polluted waters to on to provide increased water supplies. Since Watt’s day some cities had
see if the microorganisms which caused diseases were water-borne and depended more and more on water pumped by steam from local rivers
could be removed. Karl Joseph Eberth (183j-1926)and Edwin Klebs which wert often, like the Thanes. grossly polluted. Many important
(183+-1913)had identified the typhoid bacillus in 1880. In Britain on cities, however, followed ancient Rome’s example and reached back into
April I 6, I 886,Percy Faraday Frankland ( I 8j8-I946) told the Institution distant highlands in order to tap sources that were relatively pure. At
of Civil Engineers that he had removed most of the bacteria from samples mid-century engineers began to realize. as perhaps the Romans had not,
of London’s water by filtering slowlv through sand. In Berlin, Germanv, the importance from a sanitary point of view of providing extensive
during the same year, Karl Piefke found that completely sterilized sand storage reservoirs close to the sources. Jloreover, in the last half of the
alone did not retain microbes; certain organisms with gelatinous cover- nineteenth century, as knowledge of sanitation began to catch up with
ings had to develop a “living slimv laver” which caught the bacteria and engineering abiliv, the techniques of modem water supply began to
. I

accomplished most of the purification. evolve on a healthful basis.

In America, Hiram Francis hfills (18361921)and his vounger asso- The Marseilles Aqueduct. built I 8 19 to I 8+7, draws i s water from the
ciates at the Lawrence Esperiment Station in .Llassachusem made proof Durance, an Alpine tributary of the Rhone, a t a point 28 air miles north
of this observation in dramatic fashion beginning in 1887. George W. of hlarseilles. Is course is a devious one; the jt-mile aqueduct, built in
Fuller, one of Xlills’s associates, returned from study under Piefke in general on a uniform slope, passes over many small bridges and through
Berlin in the early I 890s.Their joint investigations revealed t h a t filtering no fewer than fortv tunnels. At Roquefavour, j miles west of .%x, it
intermittently through sand lowered the count of the typhoid bacilli in crosses the steep little Arc River VaIlev on a three-tiered bridge
the polluted water of the Rferrimac River. The intake of the water supply (Figure I 3.1) similar to but even more striking than the Roman Pont du
for Lawrence was only 8 miles downstream from the outlets of the sewen Gard Aqueduct a t Nimes, 60 miles to the west. De Mont Richer’s im-
of Lowell. The work of the Lawrence Experiment Station attracted wide posing Roquefavour aqueduct bridge of cut stone is 1,300 feet long and
attention a t home and abroad. Its young men, Edmund B. Weston (18j0- towers nearly 3 0 0 feet above the river. Ths canal aqueduct is generally
1916), George W. Fuller (1868-1934),Allen Hazen (1869-1930).and 3 0 feet wide on top and 7 feet deep. It not only supplies Marseilles, but
George Chandler Whipple ( I 866-1924)went elsewhere in the United it also brings water by a series of branches for irrigation to the Crau,
States as engineers and consultants to carry on work in sanitan- engi- a vast arid basin to the west, toward Arles, the area which has been
neering. Their efforts brought prompt results. Between the vears r886 served by the Crapponne Canal since the sixteenth century. By I 8 j j,
and 1925,the death rate from typhoid in the urban centers of the United Glasgow, Scotland, had begun its aqueduct from Loch Katrine, 26 miles
States fell from 50 per IOO,OOO of population to less than j. away, and in 1869,Vienna, Austria, tapped the mountain springs 59 miles
Slow filtering through sand became general in the United States soon to the west in the Schneeberge. With these enlarged supplies of water
after 1900.But rapid filters, first devised to purify muddy water for came dams of greater height, forerunners of the huge structures of our
paper mills, presently displaced more than half of the older type, after day. The Furens Dam, buiit of granite in 1861to 1866 on a tributary
independent studies in the 1890s by Weston and Fuller had shown the of the Loire River near the mining city of St. Etienne, France, was then
possibilities of using rapid filtration for treating municipal supplies. Rapid the tallest in the world, 184feet. It curved slightly upstream as an arch
Figure 23.2 Bridge-aqueduct of Roquefavour (compare with Figure 4.2)
(From Minutes of Proceedings, htinrrion of Civil Engineen, 1 8j4-1855)
Figure 13.2 New York City’s first municipal supply reservoir, built 1829
(From T h e F m i l y Magazine, 1839)
against the pressure of the water. The largest dam in Britain was built
in 1881 to 1890 on the eastern slope of the Benvyn ,\fountains in Wales
of them not far from the Collect Pond, into elevated tanks or reservoirs
to supply Liverpool more than jo miles away; its aqueduct reaches
from which it flowed by gravity. The Collect Pond was an irregular-
68 miles.
shaped body of fresh water, several city blocks in area, lying east of
N e w York City Water Supply Great George Street (now lower Broadway) and a short distance north
The history of New York’s water system is an excellent illustration of of the present City Hall.
the engineering advances which made possible the many extensive meuo- During this time the city itself proceeded to build what may properly
politan water supplies of the twentieth century. For nearly two hundred be called its first public municipal system. In 1829 it established an ele-
vears after its founding New York City had no public water-supply vared cylindrical cast-iron tank reservoir with a diameter of 43 feet and
system. The inhabitants depended on private or public uells and pumps. height of 2054 feet, enclosed in an octagonal stone building (Figure I 3.2).
T h e Tea Water Pump, on the north side of the present Park Row, was This reservoir, holding 2 3 0 , 0 0 0 gallons, was “far uptown” on 13th Street
famous through the years for the apparent purity of the spring water west of Broadway, then called Bloomingdale Road, and just below Union
it furnished for tea making and cooking; it was even distributed through Square. The water surface was 104 feet above sea level. The well and
the town in carts by the “tea-water men,” somexvhat as a luxury. The a I 2-horsepower steam engine which pumped 2 I ,000 gallons daily were
first successful pipeline system was a private enterprise. The Manhattan some five blocks away at Jefferson Market, Sixth and Greenwich Avenues.
Company, incorporated in 1799 by Aaron Burr and his friends, pro- This project was for fire protection, and the mains were 12-inch cast
ceeded to sink wells, build tanks and reservoirs, and lay mains of bored iron. Up to this time the city had not been solely dependent on the
logs. The city’s population then was about sixty thousand. Within a Manhattan Company, for there were forty or more public cisterns from
generation the company laid 2 j miles of wooden mains which some- which the many fire comEanies pumped their own water. Even as the
times supplied daily as much as 700,000 gallons of not too pure or even Manhattan Company started, about the turn of the century, to lay its
too palatable water to about 2 , 0 0 0 homes. The water was pumped by mains, the Common Council was considering the recommendations of
two 18-horsepower steam engines from a number of large wells, some the English engineer William Weston that the city get its water from
432 43 3
 434 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
the Bronx River at “Lorillard’s sndF factory” some miles to the n o d in
Westchester County. The report was not acted on, but strangely enough
the Rye Ponds, sources of the Bronx River, were incorporated into the
Kensico Reservoir on the city’s Catskill Aqueduct system, some I 18
years later, in 1917.
About 1 8 3 0 there was renewed agitation as the city’s population con-
tinued to grow (2z0.000 in 1832) for a source of water supply outside
of rocky Manhattan Island. Manv sources were suggested, among them
the Housatonic River in Connecticut, the Passaic in New Jersey, and
even the Hudson. Opinion gradually crystallized in favor of the Croton
River, a tributary of the Hudson some 40 miles north of the City Hall.
The city voted a $t,joo,missue of LLwater stock,” and in 183q the New
York State legislature authorized the Croton Aqueduct project. Con- .
struction began in 1837. -Appointed chief engineer in 1836, John B.
Jervis, later an outstanding railroad engineer, directed and completed
the project. Figure 13.3 Yew York’s Murray Hill Reservoir, Fifth Avenue and 4zd
In 1842, with New York’s population a t 360,000, the Croton supply Street,I 842 (Counesy New York Public Library)

of 2 2 0 gallons daily per capita seemed adequate. The Old Croton Dam,
built in 1842, of granite ashlar masonry, was jo feet high with a very
wide spillway 166 feet above sea level. Croton water had been brought Aqueduct was completed late in 1842. New Yorkers were properly
4 j miles to the city in a horseshoe-shaped brick-and-stone aqueduct about rhrilled when they realized the generous supplv of “pure and whole-
7 feet wide and 8 feet high. In the main the devious course of this aque- some water” that had thus been brought to their very doors. Their con-
duct had followed the contour of the ground nearly parallel to the fidence, it \sas said, in “the abundance of the source relieves from all
Hudson River, so that, as in the old Roman aqueducts, the water took solicitude as to adequate supplies for the multitudinous population of
a generally uniform slope, ahich was about 1 3 inches to the mile. At hereafter.” Boston a t that time had only a most unsatisfactory supply,
the crossing of the Harlem River, the lofty monumental High Bridge of and Philadelphia’s water, pumped from the nearby Schuylkill, was not
I j semicircular arches was in appearance noc unlike certain late Roman too pure or inviting. In October of 1842 the Croton Aqueduct was
structures, such as Segovia and the Pont du Gard. It was, however, built finally put into use-not, however, without appropriate pomp and cir-
a few feet below the hvdraulic grade line, and so carried the water under cumstance. John Tyler, President of the United States, headed the list
some pressure in two 36-inch cast-iron pipes to which a 90-inch wrought- of notables who, unable to be present, \vrote congratulacory messages.
iron pipe was later added. High Bridge has been replaced by a steel-arch The October 14th parade \vas a gala affair, “the most numerous and im-
bridge. After reaching itlanhattan Island the aqueduct continued down posing procession ever seen in an American city.” Seven miles long, it
Tenth Avenue to a receiving reservoir south of West 86th Street in took more than two hours to pass the City Hall. Four thousand fire
w h a t later became Central Park, and from there down Fifth Avenue to fighters from ninety-two companies participated, firm in their belief
the final or distributing reservoir “at Murray Hill, a short drive from that hand-pumping engines were now outmoded. Temperance and total-
the city.’’ TGs reservoir was on the west side of Fifth Avenue between abstinence societies to the number of thirty also marched, convinced
40th and:42d Streets, where the New York Public Library now stands as they were that Croton xcater was to be the beverage of the future for
(Figure 13.3). The water surface was I I j feet above sea level, about all proper New Yorkers. Those who attended the official City Hall col-
8 feet above the roofs of the houses a t the bottom of the hill. The Croton lation which followed found that they could drink either Croton water
 436 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 437
or lemonade, but no wine or spirituous liquors. “It was a well arranged much smaller dam completed in 1842. This dam, with its total height
republican repast.” The ceremonies closed with “nine hearty cheers for of nearly 3 0 0 feet, flooded out the old dam, raised the water level 36
the City of New York and perpetuity to the Croton water.” “Mag- feet, and transformed Croton Lake into a reservoir 19 miles long, holding
nificent fountains in the [City Hall] Park and Union Square . . . formed about a third of the more than IOO bdlion gallons stored in the entire
the most novel . . . feature of the day.” Croton system. T h e new dam is a graceful structure of stone masonry,
Within a few years, following a succession of 9 seasons, the Croton and when completed in 190j. was the tallest dam in the world. Although
Lake storage supply was substantially augmented by more and more Fteley had prepared the original plans and directed the construction dur-
reservoirs, almost all of them on the Croton River or its many tributaries. ing the first seven years, he did not complete the dam; William R. Hill
Meantime the citv’s population increased steadily. Finally, during the succeeded him in 1900 and was in turn succeeded by J. Waldo Smith,
vears 1 8 8 j to 189; a new Croton Aqueduct, its horseshoe cross section who complefed the major construction.
of 160 square feet more than three times that of the old one, was built For some years what to many seemed an audacious, even foolhardy,
connecdng Croton Lake with the Central Park reservoir. Its form was plan had been under consideration for securing a greatly enlarged supply
the same as the old one, but instead of following a meandering route from several streams in the Caskill hlountain area, j o to 90 miles farther
and being laid close to the surface, it was generally straight and bored north and a few miles west of the Hudson. After extensive studies by
practicallv altogether as a tunnel on the hydraulic grade through rock. a board of distinguished engineers, including a comparison with severaI
There were 30 shafts. averaging 1 2 7 feet deep, the deepest nearly 400 other schemes. the undertaking gradually took shape; construction started
feet below the ground surface. The jo-mile tunnel was the longest in in 1907 and continued until 1937. During part of this time as many as
the world a t the time and for long afterward. The Harlem River l’alley I 7,000 workmen were daily engaged on the project. T h e cost has already
was crossed this time bv a pressure tunnel or inverted siphon, joo feet exceeded z j o million dollars. This Catskill water-supply system began
deep and nearly j miles long, car?-ing water a t a depth of 4 2 0 feet as a project to bring to S e w I-ork City the water from the relatively
below hvdraulic grade. This river crossing was an unprecedented pro- pure Esopus Creek, a tributary of the Hudson. Here, about 1 4 miles west
cedure. easilv the boldest underraking on the entire aqueduct; nothing of Kingston and 80 air-miles from New York, \vas erected the Olive
like it in magnitude had ever been attempted anywhere. It was made Bridge Dam, an epoch-making structure t j t feet tall, built largely of
possible and sure by an extensive svstem of diamond-drill borings down concrete with large boulders embedded, k n o u n as cyclopean masonry,
through the various underlying strata and well into hard limestone and and faced \vith concrete blocks. From the Xshokan Reservoir thus formed
gneiss. The entire tunnel escavation brought out a number of new fea- the Catskill .Aqueduct extends southerly in a somewhat Tvinding course
tures. Incandescent lamps were used as early as 1886; ventilation was through Clster and Orange Counties to a point midway between New-
provided mainly bv air discharged from the compressed-air drills. T h e burgh and West Point. Then i t snings east and a t Storm King Alountain
average progress of excavation in the tunnel headings was t j to 40 feet drops vertically to a point 1,joo feet below the hydraulic grade or
per week. At the time of the completion of the new Croton Aqueduct natural flow- line as it passes 1 , 1 0 0 feet below the Hudson in a 14-foot
in 1892 the population of the cin- had increased to nearly two millions cylindrical tunnel through bedrock. On the east bank it rises vertically,
and the daily per capita consumption to about roo gallons. The capacity and the natural gradient is resumed, except for a few inverted siphons,
of the new aqueduct was in excess of 340 million gallons daily, consid- until it reaches the Kensico Reservoir 3 miles north of White Plains.
erably greater than the anticipated yield of the entire Croton watershed. This reservoir will hold about a month’s supply for the city.
Just as the New Croton Aqueduct was being finished, work began Fifteen miles beyond the Kensico Reservoir is the Hill View Reservoir,
under the direction of Chief Engineer Alphonse Fteley on the h’ew east of Yonkers and just outside the New York City limits. In its 98
Croton, or Cornell, Dam several miles down the Croton River from the miles the average fall of the Catskill Aqueduct is about 2.2 feet to the
1 Charles King, A .Memoir of the Construction, Cost, and Capacity of the Croton mile. I t brings water into the Hill View Reservoir a t an elevation of t 9 j
Aqueduct, printed by the author, N e w York, 1843, passim feet above sea level as compared with the I I j feet elevation of the old
438 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
F _I-

, * ~ . . ..',
CATSKILL NEW CROTON
Figure 13.4
Cross sections of Roman
and N e w York Aqueducts
(From Johns Hopkins
Cniversity, School of
Engineering, Lectures on
Engineering Pr.wtice,
1921-1922; courtesy. Johns
Hopkins University Press)
._
AOUA CUUDIA OLD CAOTON

T h e ancient Roman aqueducts described in Chapter .+ were all of

simple rectangular cross section. T h e Catskill Aqueduct is in large part
horseshoe-shaped, \rith a very slightly concave invert, o r floor, and an
arched roof, all of concrete, mostly without steel reinforcement. This
economical cross section was used where the aqueduct followed a hv-
draulic (natural-flo\v) grade and lay either close to the surface of the
ground or in tunnel, for some 69 miles in all. S o n e of this aqueduct 1s
raised on loftv arches as xias the Old Croton at the Harlem River Vallev
crossing; the Catskill -Aqueduct used inverted siphons at almost all river
and stream crossings. Speaking broadly, where this aqueduct follows just
below the natural surface of the ground for perhaps jj miles, it is a
much glorified version of both Croton Aqueducts. lVhere it drops ver-
tically hundreds of feet below the surface, carrying the water under
pressure in deep pressure tunnels, or inverted siphons, the Catskill Aque-
duct is an enlarged version of the Harlem siphon, the boldest undertaking
on the New Croton Aqueduct. In cross section the Catskill Aqueduct
(Figure 13.4) is roughly half again as large as the N e w Croton and nearly
five times as large as the Old Croton. A tall man could walk erect through
the Old Croton, a small auto could be driven through the hTew Croton,
while a railroad train could fit into the Catskill. In carrying capacity the
4

4.40 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING

Old Croton could in its prime deliver some 90 million gallons daily; the
New Goton can deliver 340 million gallons, the Catskill somewhat more
than 600 million.
Above the Ashokan Reservoir the Catskill Aqueduct was in 1926 ex-
tended 34 miles northwest, to take water from a reservoir built on Scho-
harie Creek which flows north into the .Mohawk River. The main feature
of this extension is the 18-mile Shandaken Tunnel, most of it on the
hydraulic grade. Here is perhaps the first instance in history where water
is conveyed through a watershed between two streams flowing in op-
posite directions.
The first Catskill water reached the citv in 1917. The city’s rapid
growth soon made i t evident that an additional supply would be neces-
sary. Investigation led to the selection of several extensive and sparsely -
settled watersheds to the west of the two which were supplying the
Catskill Aqueduct, all of them on tributaries of the Delaware River. T h e
Delaware Aqueduct extends southeasterly from the Rondout Reservoir,
some 10 miles east of Liberty, New York, and, like the Ashokan, about
85 air miles from New York’s City Hall. From this reservoir the aque-
duct is straight, crossing first under the Catskill Aqueduct and then under
the Hudson River j miles above Newburgh to the West Branch Reservoir
on the upper reaches of the Croton watershed in Pumam County. From
here it extends southerly by way of the Kensico Reservoir to the Hill
View Reservoir. Throughout its entire length i t is in deep tunnel, roughly
from 300 to 1,000 feet below the ground surface. At its lowest point,
nearly under the Kensico Reservoir. it is 660 feet below sea level, or
1,joo feet below the surface of the Rondout Reservoir. In form it is
circular, varying in diameter from I 3 !/2 to 19% feet inside diameter, or
slightly larger than the pressure tunnels on the Catskill Aqueduct. The
shafts are 1.8 to 5 . 2 miles apart; the deepest is 1 , j j I feet deep. The rate
of excavation of the tunnel was r 3 j to 2 7 0 feet per week as compared
with 55 to 70 feet on the Catskill and z j to 40 feet on the New Croton.
This increased rate reflects sixty years’ progress in excavating machinery
and methods. The combined length of the Delaware Aqueduct and one
of the two city tunnels is 105 miles (Figure 13.j); it is the longest con-
tinuous tunnel ever built for any purpose anywhere.
Not all of New York City’s water is supplied by the Croton, Catskill,
and Delaware Aqueducts. A small fraction still comes from the sandy
Long Island area east of Brooklyn. Previous to its inclusion as a com- Figure 1 3 . j New York City’s several aqueducts, showing sources (Based on
munity in Greater New York in 1898, Brooklyn’s complicated water Board of Water Supply maps)
4.42 SANITARY AND H Y D R A U L I C ENGINEERING SANITARY AND H Y D R A U L I C E N G I N E E R I N G 443
supply came mainly from a great number of ponds and deepdriven wells sewers for storm water and for sewage as have single systems for both,
in this area. Some of it was furnished by private companies, and all of but experience has shown that complete separation is practically hope-
it required at least one pumping and considerable purification. The largest less. London had admitted sewage into its storm sewers in 1 8 1 5 ; Boston
system was the Ridgewood, which supplied nearly IOO million gallons did so in 1833, and Paris in 1880. But by that time people were beginning
daily, about a third of the total. Most of these systems still form p a n to suspect that rhe evil whch they thought they were banishing from
of New York’s municipal supply. their homes in sewer pipes was creeping back through wells and water
Increasing demands have tended to deplete the city’s reservoirs a t faucets.
times of long-continued drought. Provision has therefore been made for The custom of diverting sewage in open ditches and furrows upon
obtaining additional water during extreme emergencies from the Hudson arable land may be older than the records of civilization. Cerrainlv it
River in the viciniw of Chelses, a few miles south of Poughkeepsie and persists todav in many parts of the world, and its spread is strenuously
near a shaft of the Delaware Aqueduct. This emergency supply mav urged by some conservationists. There are sewage farms in England snd
amount to about 100 million gallons per day. Since the river water, while , America as well as in Chma and Japan, but sewage farming works well
not brackish a t t h s point, is essentially impure, it must be suitably onlv in and regions on cheap. large areas of sandy soil. The pracnce was
screened, superchlorinated, and otherwise treated before it is admitted first attempted in the L’nited States for the State Insane -1svfum a t
into the aqueduct. Augusta, Shine, in 1872. But the idea is as dangerous as i t is distasteful
to the -1merican public; no truck gardener who boasts of his cow manure
Sewage Disposal would care to advertise that he had raised his vegetables from soil equallv
Sewers had been originally designed to carry away storm waters; the enriched with human waste. And there is always the chance that the
famous Cloaca Ziiaxima in ancient Rome was mainly a storm-water sewer. microorganisms which cause disease have not been completely destroyed
Human wastes and other offensive matter had been either buried or re- by nature.
moved by public authority or private contractor. It was only with the Following the discoveries of the Lawrence Experiment Station, a
general installation of water closets, some years after Joseph Bramah’s chemical precipitation plant was built in 1 8 8 9 for the civ of IVorcester,
modem invention in 1778, t h a t noisome cesspools or the dilution and Sfassachusetts. It applied principles which for some years had been de-
discharge of sewage into nearby bodies of water became general pracnce veloping in Britain. Iron compounds such as ferric chloride formed a
and compelled municipal engineers to construct sanitary sewer systems. precipitation. leaving a fairlv clear and sterile liquid. The dn7ing of
Following a conflagration that destroyed much of the old city, Hamburg. sludge in open beds came in i891. and by 1894 trickling filters had been
Germany, built in 1843 a complete sewer system which had for one of introduced. These, with nozzles to spray liquid sewage into the atmos-
its features a thorough flushing each week with river water. Chesbrough phere, had proved successful in speeding up the bacteriological reaction
began a similar system for Chicago in I 8 j j.TWOyears later Julius Walker and the ovidization which are essential to rendering the wastes innocuous.
Adams (1811-1899) developed for Brooklyn, New York, a system t h a t The \vhole process of purifying sewage has become increasingly com-
discharged into tidewater. plicated in recent years. In most communities the sewage is a mixture of
Edwin Chadwick (1800-1 890) in England had proposed that txvo household and factory wastes. Standards of purity vary according to
sewer lines be laid in each street, one for storm water, the other for whether the effluent discharges into a lake, a stream, or tidewater.
sewage. John Phillips, surveyor for London, advocated such an improve- Methods of purification differ but the end is the same-to remove any
ment in 1847, and others stressed the need. But it was not until the 1880s foreign matter which is or may become noisome and to destroy micro-
that there mas real progress. The model town of Pullman, Illinois, near organisms which cause disease. By using extensive sewage-treatment proc-
Chicago, and the citv of Memphis, Tennessee, in 1880, appear to have esses it is possible to convkrt sewage effluent into water of high purity.
been the first American communities to have this double system. At About 1918 New York City built for Mount Kisco, New York, then
present in the United States, four times as many communities use separate a village of three thousand, a sewage-treatment plant designed to purify
 141 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING i SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 445
1
its sewage for discharge into a tributary of N e w York’s Croton River to navigate any river west of the Alleghenies. When in 181I , four years
water supply. The plant was an unusual one and no expense was spared after Fulton’s historic trip on the Hudson, Nicholas G. Roosevelt left
b y the city in its construction and operation. T h e sewage was put through Pittsburgh in his Fulton-designed craft and headed for N e w Orleans,
a septic tank, then filtered and disinfected with chlorine. C.-E. A. nearly 2,000 miles away, he took many chances. The voyage of several
Winslow, dean of American public health authorities, has estimated that weeks would test the power plant and machinery of a boat such as those
“the final effluent probably was one of the purest streams of water to that had made the relaavely short trip on the placid Hudson. Roosevelt’s
be found in New York State.” greatest problem was to find and keep within the meandering channel,
negotiating the several troublesome rocky rapids on the Ohio and swing-
Rivers and Canals ing safely around the innumerable hairpin or oxbow bends of the Jlis-
sissippi, each with its unpredictable bar, or crossing. Even if he succeeded
T h e renaissance of water power, beginning with the world’s first major in locating the channel and slipping over the bars, he had to dodge the
t hydroelectric installation a t Niagara Falls in 189j, has led to the con- terrifying snags, sawyers, or planters. These roots or limbs of trees that
struction of the world’s largest dams. Some of these huge dams not only ‘ the current had undermined might send his vessel to the bottom n i t h
supply hydroelectric power, but like the Hoover Dam described below, little warning. Until he came within sight of the crude levees that ex-
they also provide municipal water supplies, irrigation, navigation, and tended perhaps IOO miles above S e w Orleans, he saw no evidence of
flood control. Engineers increase the amount of arable land by supplying any attempts to improve or control the stream. . \ l a y of the levees, in
arid areas with additional water, by preventing other areas from being fact, had been built by individual planters merely to furnish some pro-
flooded, and by draining marshv or even submerged areas. Engineers thus tection against too frequent flooding of rich bottom lands. Some of them
make important contributions to increased food supplies. dated back nearly a century to French days when the authorities re-
What may be called the boat canals described in Chapter 8 were quired abumng landowners to build and maintain them. Such levees
important transportation routes which accompanied the Industrial Revo- could not, however, be considered as aids to navigation. X map of the
lution. After the middle of the nineteenth century railroads largely sup- new town, Souvelle Orleans, dated 17’8, shows along the water front
planted boat canals in the United States, although some boat canals are La Levee. short for la lev& de t e n e , raised land. Hen? .\I. Shreve made
still important avenues of commerce in Europe. While very few were a voyage in ISIS, with his 80-foot Enterprise, benreen Pittsburgh and
constructed after 18jo. a number of rivers have been improved for navi- S e w Orleans. In I 8 I 6 came his Washington, destined to be the proton-pe
gation since that time. The most important canals built since 1850 have in h u r l ; of .\lississippi steamboats for generations.
been ship canals. which provide an entirely different service from that Like other great rivers, the Alississippi discharges through an ex-
of the earlier boat, or barge, canals. Severtheless, engineering experience tensive delta which begins 100 miles below Xeu. Orleans and extends
gained in building boat canals was of value in the construction of ship I 1 to I j miles out into the Gulf of Xiexico. Here the river, through silt
canals. brought don-n and deposited in the delta, empaes bv six branching
Engineers have been improving rivers for navigation for many years, mouths, or passes, into the Gulf. .?it the Head of Passes, where the vide
but it has only been since the inception of the Industrial Revolution that and deep river begins to fan out and divide. a shoal has formed. X more
river improvement has converted streams into effective inland waterways shallow bar has marked the outlet of each pass. As far back as the early
for boats. The history of the improvement of the Ohio and Mississippi \-ears of the settlement of Louisiana, the problem of shoal water in the
Rivers, for instance, illustrates how engineers have developed and main- passes had been recognized. In the year 1 7 2 3 , when the French town
tained navigable rivers. Xouvelle Orleans was barely five years old, Adrien de Pauger, an en-
Chapter 9 relates the history of the New Orleans, the first steamboat gineer, using a canoe, made for the French colonial government an ex-
2 Charles-Edward A. Winslow, Man and Epidemics, Princeton University Press, amination of the lower reaches of the river and reported on a plan for
Princeton, N.J., 1952, p. 104. fortifying it and improving the South Pass. In his report he speaks of
 446 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 447
a bar over which there is only 9 or 10 feet of water. Then he suggests to navigation; Congress shortly appropriated some money for it. This
closing some of the other passes With sunken vessels and with trees difficult work proceeded slowly for several years u n d 1826, shady
brought down by the current and building rough jemes or cofferdams after the formation of the U.S.Army Engineer Corps, when Henry M.
which will not only serve as quays but would fix the current of the river. Shreve was appointed Superintendent of Western River Improvement.
“It is indubitable,” he adds, “that by this means the pass will gradually Shreve had, a few years earlier, designed and built a unique twin-hulled
-
enlarqe itself.” “This undertakinp;,” he concludes, “will not involve great
I
steamboat for pulling giant trees out of the channel by winches and
expenditure,” for good cyprus wood was easily accessible. De Pauger, disposing of the almost inextricable heaps of gnarled and nvisted tree
an optinlist, knew his river hvdraulics but was a century and a half ahead t trunks. This snagboat, the Heliopolis, the first of its kind, seems to have
of his time. represented the earliest application of steam engineering to the improve-
There was no extensive improvement of the delta until about 1874, ment of the Jlississippi and Ohio Rivers.
at the time James Buchanan Eads had finished his St. Louis Bridge, 1,250 The Ohio River, between its source a t Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and
miles upstream. The lower river, from Baton Rouge down, was a t least 4 Cairo, Illinois, where i t joins the ibissippi, very early presented serious
40 feet deep, except a t the passes where the depth a t some points was navigational problems, not only from snags and similar obstructions. but
barelv 16 or 18 feet. For the clipper ships of the 1 8 j o s this depth had also from rapids and bars. The problem presented by bars was the subject
usuallv been sufficient. Eads contracted with the Cnited States govern- of analysis in 1821 by a board of engineers which n a s appointed by
ment -to deepen the South Pass to 3 0 feet and maintain this depth for a Congress to make an examination of Western rivers. Based on the report
period of nventy years. The deepening was finished and the nventy-year of this board of engineers a congressional act in 182s provided for ex-
maintenance period began in I 879; the Eads heirs received their final pay- periments on certain bars to determine the practicability of a scheme
ment in 1900. Intermittent dredging is still necessary, however. to construct dikes to concentrate the flow of water within a limited
The Eads plan was quite simple and not too unlike a glorified version width where it would scour a channel. The first experimental wing dam
of de Pauger’s of 17’3. It consisted in dredging shoals a t the ends of was constructed at Henderson Island on the louer Ohio. The effect of
South Pass and building jetties along each bank, thereby coaxing the this dam was to increase the minimum low-water depth of the channel
narro\ved river gradually to scour out a deeper channel for itself. The from less than 20 inches to nearly 3 feet. A second experiment lvas
jetties, separated by 1,000 feet. were begun by sinking successive layers conducted bv Henry ill. Shreve a t Grand Chain. also on the lower Ohio.
of woven-willow brush mattresses framed with yellow pine timbers. in 1830, with indifferent success.
W h e n 3 sufficient number of these mattresses had been weighted down Not until many years later was a plan evolved for making the entire
into the soft bottom by riprap or loose stone until they offered a stable river navigable under all conditions. In the 1870s a pa“; of army engi-
foundation, the concrete jetties were started atop them and completed neers n-as sent abroad especially to study control methods used on French
a t some feet above sea level. The plan was in large part modeled after rivers. As a result, a series of movable dams on the French pattern \vas
that used earlier a t the Sulina Pass of the Danube. The combined length projected for the temperamental Ohio, that is, dams whose navigable pass
of the east and west jemes was a bit more than 3 miles. The Southwest could be opened up in time of high water. The first of these dams a t
Pass, somewhat wider than the South Pass, has been improved since 1900 Davis Island, about j miles below Pittsburgh, was Completed in 1 8 8 j .
in much the same manner and now constitutes the most widely used The Ohio has now been made navigable for the entire distance, 980 miles,
channel through the delta. between Pittsburgh and Cairo, for draft of 9 feet. There are j3 dams;
Congress, in 1820, authorized the first complete survey of the Missis- each with its lock, I 1 0 by 600 feet, and slack-water navigation of a t least
sippi and Ohio Rivers. As a result of this survey, army engineers rec- 9 feet is provided for throughout. The total fall of the river is 430 feet,
ommended that both rivers be cleared of snags and other obstructions and the pools vary in l e n c h from about 5 miles to about 5 5 , averaging
Charles E. A. Gayarre. Histoire de la Louisiane, 2 vols., hfagne & Weisse, New 1 8 . The mean difference in level between successive pools, the lift at a
Orleans, rQ6, vol. I , pp. 19j-196. lock, is less than 8 feet.
 448 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITARY A N D HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 449
T h e first use of the Mississippi for power purposes was in 1823. In T h e dams have a variety of controllable spillways, including roller gates,
that year, at the Falls of St. Anthonv above St. Paul, the United States a European development comparatively new in this country. The sub-
government built a t what later was called Fort Snelling a sawmill and mergible-type spillways have been installed a t many of the dams.
a mill for grinding wheat. T h flour mill was the beginning of the in- Dredging came in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. A crude
dustry that later would make Minneapolis widely known. Steamboat steam dredge had been used in England before the end of the eighteenth
navigation on the Mississippi had begun with the N e w Orleans, which century, but it appears not to hare been too successful in deepening the
left Pittsburgh in October, 181 I , and reached New Orleans in January, harbor o i Sunderland and was remodeled in 1804, using a more powerful
I 8 1t. The upper-river navigation began with the twenty-day voyage of
6-horsepower Boulton and W a t t engine. In this same year, Oliver Evans
the Virginia in 182; from St. Louis to St. Paul. A t that time, below the built for the Board of Health of Philadelphia his Orukter Xmphibolos,
St. Xnthonv Falls, there were a number of rapids, including those a t a double-acdng “machine for cleaning docks,” the first American dredge.
Rock Island and Keokuk; otherwise the slope of the river was relatively Early attempts a t deepening the channel of the llississippi were crude.
slight and quite uniform. -At Rock Island the river divides into two chan- local, and generally ineffectual. llost of them \vere actually harrowing,
nels which flow on either side of the island on which the United States scraping, or dragging operations. Followkg the establishment in I 8 - 9
Arsenal is located. In the natural condition of the river a fall of about of the .\lissisippi River Commission, dredging operations a t several poins
I j feet a t low water occurred here in a distance of t miles. T h e first Rock
were undertaken and have continued intermittently ever since. The
Island power development was undertaken in 1843, a low dam and water chain, or bucket, type of dredge, which was the earliest type and proved
wheels near the head of the island in the west channel. In 1846 a second so successful on the Suez Canal and on the Clyde and other European
power site was developed in the other channel. After a number of changes, rivers, was little used in the Cnited States. Some dredging was done on
three dams a t this point now supplv power of a few thousand kilowarts the Xlississippi, beginning late in the centuy, with the dipper T p e of
f o r the .\loline Water Power Company, the government arsenal, and the dredge. The dredge most lridelv used on the .LIississippi. however. has
operation of the locks. been the hvdraulic, or suction, type. In 18 7 7 Eads had the first one, the
The Keokuk, or Des lloines, Rapids, I Z O miles farther downstream, G. TV. R. Bayley, built a t Pittsburgh from his designs. Such dredges
were examined by young Lieutenant Robert E. Lee, in 1837. As a resuIt seem to have been first suggested by the French hydraulician Henri
the channel was deepened bv blasting and rock excavation several times Emile Bazin in 1867. General Q. A. Gillmore made the first -American
during the next few years. -After the Civil War, navigation around the use of such a dredge-a centrifugal drainage pump he called it-in 1 8 7 1
Des lloines Rapids a t Keokuk was subs:antially improved by means of for deepening the channel of the St. Johns River in Florida. Following
a lateral canal 7 miles long with three locks, each 80 by 3jo feet. This i s use on the South Pass maintenance dredging, many such dredges were
canal was opened to navigation in 1 8 7 7 . It was a noteworthy engineering built and used on the Alississippi River.
project of the times and provided minimum navigation depth of j feet. Another phase of navigation improvement has been the straightening
In 1913 the llississippi River Dam Company constructed the Keokuk and shortening of the river channel. T h e earliest attempt to shorten the
hydroelectric plant, a t that time the largest in the world. T h e concrete channel, made in Shreve’s da?- a t the mouth of the Red River and named
dam then installed there is 4.649 feet long and the normal head is 34% for him, Ivas not permanently successful. More recently, in the face of
feet. The powerhouse section of the dam provides ultimate housing for some opposition from the older river men, portions of the lower Missis-
thirty io,ooo-horsepower turbines. I j of which were installed initially. sippi have been straightened by cutoffs. Since 1929 the low-water channel
A lock, I 1 0 by 400 feet, was included for navigation, replacing the old between Baton Rouge and Memphis has been straightened by 1 6 cutoffs,
canal. Between St. Louis and St. Paul-Minneapolis there are now 2 6 low reducing the channel’s length by some 170 miles. T h e famous Greenville
darns. Hydroelectric power, as has been indicated, is developed only at Bends, where the river made five sharp t u r n , have been replaced by two
Keokuk and on a much smaller scale a t Rock Island. Each of the 2 6 dams sweeping curves. T h e advisabilitv of removing these and other bends
has its lock or locks, which provide for 9-foot navigation throughout. had been a much debated question-there were even many engineers who
I
! 450 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITAUY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 4j1
opposed. Since 1928 the extensive United States Waterways Experiment the Mediterranean and the Red Sea regions, even to far-off India and
Station at Vicksburg has been studying cutoffs and other related river- China. Napoieon’s engineer Lep&e, who reported in 1798 that the Red
control problems in much detail, using a series of model studies on a Sea was higher than the Mediterranean, only postponed the inevitable
scale never before attempted in engineering. Here, in a laboratory area attempt to pierce the isthmus of Suez and thus provide a more direct
of many acres, elaborate models of any pamcular section of a river that water route to the Orient. A generation later the advent of steamship
is being studied are carefully constructed to scale. From these studies, navigation made this project increasingly imperative. The British in the
supplemented by a mass of statistical material that has accumulated 1840surged a railroad across the Isthmus; the French insisted on a canal.
through the years, engineers can predict with some assurance the effect The Suez Canal owes its inceprion and successful completion in largest
that a proposed improvement will have on the river for miles above and part to a French diplomat and promoter, Ferdinand llarie de Lesseps
below it. Twentieth-century engineering has provided restraining reser- (~Soj-rSg+).It lvas envisioned by him in I 8 jl; construction began in
voirs on many of the Mississippi tributaries, and floodwavs on its lower 18j9, and the canal was completed in ten years. De Lesseps’ role was
reaches, to serve as additional channels into which, in time of flood, the I largely in the fields of international diplomacy and finance and his en-
river may disgorge its swollen waters. The time-honored system of levees thusiasm was contagious. The work itself involved no particular engi-
has, however, been aptlv called the backbone of flood control in the neering difficulnes; i t has been called “a magnificent ditch digger’s
lower hlississippi area. Along the 1,000miles of main stream from Cairo dream.” In its entire length of I O I miles there are no locks. The highest
to the Gulf there are now 1,600miles of levees, almost all of them built ground traversed is only jo feet above sea level and one-fifth of the
since 18jo.In addition, since 1880 there have been constructed several canal passes through shallow natural lakes. The alignment is quite direct,
hundred miles of substantial stone and concrete revetments, located at the northerlv half nearly straight. The \vork was b e p n with very crude
97 strategic points and serving to prevent scour and the resultant meander- and inadequate machinery and equipment. Earth was carried in many
ing, o r change of channel location. cases on the shoulden of poorly paid laborers. some of them women
In 1953 the US. Army Corps of Engineers eliminated the last great requisitioned from E p p t , but after a few years the c o d e , or forced
obstacle to navigation on the .Mississippi. The chain of rocks immediately labor, was abolished. Then modem machines including chain or bucket
north of St. Louis has alwavs seriously impeded river traffic. T h e 8.3-mile dredges ( F i u r e I 3.6) were introduced and proved profitable. In fact,
Chain of Rocks Canal has an average depth of 3 2 feet, is 300 feet wide the experience pined on the Suez contributed not a little to the devel-
a t bottom, and jjo feet wide on top. IS main lock is the largest in the opment of dredging and materials-handling equipment the world over.
Western Hemisphere. This lock, I 10 feet wide, can lift or lower a 1,200- The initial cost of the canal was nearly I jo million dollars. Verdi’s
foot-long train of barges. “Aida” was composed to celebrate its opening in 1869.
Ship canals serve t w o purposes. Some, such as the Sault Ste. Marie The original depth was 2 7 feet. The canal of 1869 would not have
Canals and the iManchester Ship Canal, provide ships with access to areas accommodated the Great Eastern comfortably for her draft was 26 feet.
which they could not otherwise reach, and others, like the Suez and The canal has been enlarged and deepened more than once and it now
Panama Canals, shorten the distance which ships have to travel between accommodates vessels drawing as much as 34 feet. Drifting sand has made
two points. The Suez Canal reduced the voyage between Liverpool and almost continual dredging necessary. Precise and extended leveling ob-
Bombay from 10,680 to 6,223 miles, an important saving in time and fuel servations have now established the fact that the mean level of the
in transit of ocean-going ships. W e have already referred to the earliest hlediterranean is higher than that of the Red Sea by only some 10 inches.
attempts to connect the lower Nile with the Red Sea. Later there were Quite recently the capacity and usefulness of the canal have been in-
several other attempts, some of them measurably successful, such as those creased by the simple expedient of adding an extensive bypass, so that
of Darius in the fifth century B.c., of Ptolemy Philadelphus two centuries for some miles there are now two independent canals, one each for north-
later, and of Trajan in the second century A.D. In Roman days there was bound and southbound traffic. The present surface width of the canal
considerable traffic, by way of the lower Nile, and this canal, between varies between 400 and 500 feet.
 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 453
bought in 1881 for more than 20 million dollars. The moving spirit in
the venture was the aging promoter Ferdinand de Lesseps, the congenital
optimist who had successfully completed the Suez Canal a few years
earlier. De Lesseps, then “the most decorated man in Europe,” was not
an engineer-he “didn’t like engineers”-and he had a genius for over-
looking or minimizing difficulties. However, with Gallic enthusiasm, the
French began their canal under the direction of their ablest contractors
and engmeers in 1882 and kept a t it desultorily and spasmodically in the
face of countless discouragements for twenty years. They spent more
than zoo million dollars on it. Only about a third of this amount, some
said, had gone into actual construction; another third had been practically
wasted, and the rest had been stolen by minor officials. Still the canal
was onlv about 40 per cent complete Lvhen the United States paid the
French company .+o million dollars in 1903 and took over canal and
railroad. The French plan was modified radicallv in some of its details,
~ ~-
Figu7e 13.6 Suez canal dredging (From J. E. Nourse, The Mm’time Canal and the canal was first put into use in 1914, although it was not com-
of swz, 1884) pleted until 1920. It cost the United States more than joo million dollars
up to 1920.James Bryce once described the Panama Canal as “the greatest
liberty man has ever taken with Nature.”
Fantastic dreams of a canal cutting through the p-mile-wide isthmus The French failed in their efforts to complete the canal partly be-
of Panama date from the sixteenth century. Concrete plans in great va- cause they had attempted an extravagantly expensive project that they
riety began to take shape in the American mind about 1 8 2 j , nearly a were not able to finance propedy. A second factor, equally important,
century before the canal became an actuality. The Jlexican W a r and the was that their workmen died off by the thousands from yellow fever
discovery of gold in California turned the attention of the people of the and malaria, much as the Egyptians had in the days of Seccho. The
United States to the importance of improvement of communications be- success of the American effort was due not only to adequate, even gen-
tween the coasts, something better than the long uek “the plains across” erous, financing, but also to nvo monumental medical discoveries, made
or the equally tedious sea voyage “the Horn around.” X company was in 1898 and 1900. The first was that the Anopheles mosquito transmits
formed in 1848, the year of the California gold rush, to build a railroad malaria from one person to another; the second was that the Stegomyia
across the isthmus a t its narrowest part. Two young contractors, George fusciata mosquito carries yellow fever. It was Colonel, later General,
M. Totten and John C. Trautwine, both afterward to become well-known ‘Lt’illiam C. Gorgas (18j4--r920) of the United States Army Jledical
engineers, made the necessary surveys and supervised the construction Corps who directed the effective eradication of these mosquitoes through-
of the Panama Railroad. Construction began in 18j0, and the line was out the area traversed by the canal and eliminated these two diseases of
finished five years later a t a cost of 8 million dollars and the lives of which the yellow fever was the more deadly.
1,200 employees, mostly Chinese, Negro, and Irish. The line crossed the The physical difficulties at Panama were enormous. The climate is
Culebra Divide at an elevation of 287 feet above sea level. T h e 48-mile deadly to most races, as the French had learned. However, President
road was a profitable venture from the start, especially during the years Theodore Roosevelt gave great impetus to the project. Operations began
preceding the opening of the transcontinental line in 1869. in 1904, and John F. Stevcns (1853-1943). a railroad civil engineer ap-
T h e French organized a company in 1876 to build a canal across the pointed chief engineer in 1905, directed the excavation. Stevens resigned
isthmus, following much the same route as the railroad, which they in 1907, and Colonel, later General, George W. Goethals (1858-1928)
 -- <z&-:
,rr
--..%A
Figure 13.8 Dredge picking up zo-ton boulder from botcom of Culebra Cut
on the Panama Canal (Courtesy Panama Canal Company)

this lake constitutes the middle half of the entire canal. Beyond the lake
the Culebra or Gaillard Cut was sliced through the ridge. S o t h i n g like
this escavation, carried to a total depth of '71 feet, had ever been at-
tempted anynhere. T h e material composing the ridge was of uncertain
and unpredictable composition, and countless slides tased the patient in-
genuity of engineers for years, even after the rest of the canal was com-
plete and in operation. Potential slides are still a source of jvorry in 195j .
T h e escavadon and transportation of this material presented problems
of a mapirude never before encountered. T h e construction of the canal
furthered the development of large-scale machiner). for excavating and
Figure 13.7 The Panama Canal (From N.J. Padelford, T h e Panama Canal
in Peace and W a r , 1942; courtesy N.J. Padelford and Harvard University) the handling of materials, much as the Suez project had done on a much
smaller scale nvo generations earlier (Figure I 3 . 8 ) .
T o attain the level of 8 j feet above the sea, three steps of twin con-
succeeded him. Goethals supervised the construction of the locks and crete locks with chambers I 10 b y 1,000 feet were built on the Atlantic
saw the canal through to completion. On the Atlantic side a tempera- side and three more on the Pacific side, giving a total of twelve lock
mental, .often tempestuous river, the Chagres (Figure 1 3 . 7 ) , had to be chambers in all, six in each direction. Gatun Lake furnished most of the
controlled. Next came the Continental Divide, a ridge 3 1 2 feet high water for lockage, but since it proved inadequate during prolonged
which must be sliced through before the canal could be dropped down drought periods, an additional supply was later provided by damming
to the Pacific. T h e engineers blocked off the Chagres River by a huge the Chagres River near its source and bringing the water of the upper
earth dam, forming the inland Gatun Lake with a shore line of 1,100 Chagres into Gatun Lake. T h e lock gates presented delicate and interest-
miles a t an elevation of 8 j feet above the sea. A devious channel through ing problems in the fabrication and machining of steel, which were a
454 455
 456 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 457
challenge to the designers of gate mechanisms. The first ship passed knows when the venture was abandoned permanently. The series of
through the canal in August, 1914,but shortly thereafter slides in the arches were photographed in 1888 when some of the arch centers of
Gaillard Cut closed it; regular traffic did not begin until 191 j. adobe were d standing. It is of interest that the structure is in an
About 65 per cent of the traffic through the Panama Canal is between earthquake region.
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of Central and S o r t h America. The dis- It was not until three centuries after the construction of the Zempoala
tance from New York to San Francisco through the canal is only 40 per Aqueduct that the first irrigation projects in the United States were under-
cent of the voyage via the klagellan Straits. Thmy per cent of the canal taken, I, joo miles to the north of Mexico City. Between I 860 and 18j o
traffic travels between Europe and the Pacific coasts, and the voyage from the .\/formons in Utah constructed 2 7 7 canals, totaling 1,043miles and
Liverpool to San Francisco is only fifty-eight per cent of that via Magellan. bringing water to I I j,ooo acres. Utah did not become a state unal 1896,
and cooperation with the United States dates from 1902.Where and how
the Mormons acquired their engineering skills is not certainly known,
Irrigation and Reclamation
perhaps on S e w York State canals or in Great Britain. It is not unlikely
Like man, domesticated plants cannot live without water nor can they that, beginning very gradually with the crudest of tools and equipment,
thrive with too much of it. Irrisation of land to make it arable probably the Mormons proceeded by trial and error, under gradually increasing
began about 6000 to 4000 B.C. in the S e a r East during the stages of the legislative grants provided by what was then the state of Deseret. During
great food-producing revolution. For perhaps six or seven thousand years, the first decades of the twentieth century a number of high dams were
engineers in some countries have increased food production by providing built in the Western United States to furnish water for irrigation. One
water to land normally too drv to support cultivated plants. Restraining of the most notable of these is the Arrowrock Dam, completed 191j, on
floodwaters so that they do not drown out cultivated lands is a more the Boise River in Idaho, and the Owyhee of 193z,on the OLwhee River
recent undertaking. The most dramatic reclamation project is in Holland. in Oregon. The latter was the first to exceed 400 feet in height.
This long-term Dutch project is not only one of flood control-it is re- The US. Bureau of Reclamation completed in 1936 what was then
clamation in the most literal sense of the word. the world’s most extensive river-control project, the damming of the
Perhaps the earliest Sorth American irrigation projects were those Colorado River \vhere it forms the boundary between southeastern
of the Spaniards in Jlesico during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Sevada and northwestern Arizona. The great Hoover Dam. the highest
Several Augustinian and Franciscan friar-engineers planned and con- in the world, is its central feature, holding back the waters of Lake
structed not only irrigation and land-reclamation projects but also more >lead, an artificial lake of unprecedented size. The project is one of flood
than one monumental and well-designed aqueduct, not unlike those of the and silt control, irrigation, municipal water supply, and hvdroelecmc
Roman type with which they had been familiar in Spain. One of the power; it includes also a national recreational park. The irrigation areas
most important of these Alesican aqueducts, built just after the middle lie more than too miles below the dam, both west and east of the river.
of the sixteenth century, was the Zempoala ,4queduct of Padre Francisco The municipalities using the Colorado River water are a group of 14
de Tembleque. It brought water, mainlv for household use. but doubt- cities in the Los Angeles area of California, more than zoo miles to the
less also for irrigation, 2 8 or more miles to the little convent town of southu est across a mountain range. Hydroelectric power is furnished to
Otumba between Mexico City and Vera Cruz. The open conduit fol- these same cities and to many other California, Nevada, and Arizona
lowed the contour of the ground, except for the crossing of three vallevs, communities.
where it was carried a t a height in some places exceeding roo feet bv The Hoover Dam was projected as early as 1919,at first as a river-
three series of narrow and bold masonry arches, respectively 13, 47, and control project. The Colorado, in its lower reaches, had for years been
67 in number. The water channel was very small-less than a square foot difficult, indeed almost impssible, to control, even with expensive levees;
in area. The aqueduct is said to have served for 1 2 3 years. The supply extremes of flood and drought followed each other all too frequently. At
was temporarily interrupted late in the seventeenth century, and no one the beginning of the twentieth century the river had been tapped for irri-
 458 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 459
gation by private interests at points close to the Mexican border, but the
engaged. Never in history, not even in Khufu’s day, had SO many skilled
farmers of California’s rich Imperial Valley to the west of the river
men been required on a single project-the number here reached a peak
clamored for a less temperamental stream. They were especiallv vocifer-
of 5,250. All were provided for in a model city built entirelv for the
ous after the river’s 190j to 1907 rampage. In 1904engineers had cut a
purpose, Boulder City, Nevada. Electric power was brought z2z miles
narrow channel through the western levee 4 miles to the south of the
across the desert, from San Bernardino, California, to serve the new city
border, confidently expecnng that enough river water would be diverted
and the contractors for every power purpose.
through it to scour the silt out of the almost dry parallel Imperial irriga-
Like a number of earlier and much smaller dams, the Hoover Dam is
tion canal. An untimely and unexpected series of floods enlarged the open-
curved in plan, convex upstream, a concrete arch wedged benveen
ing into a wide crevasse through which silt-laden Colorado water poured
canyon walls. Before it could be constructed the entire flow of the river
down to drown out the Imperial Vallev, the lowest point of which at
had to be drawn off by means of four diversion tunnels. nvo on each side
Salton Sea is nearly Zjo feet below sea level. In a short time the sea was
of the canyon, which in themselves were noteworthy projects, each 50
enlarged until it covered an area of 400 square miles, a t some points j o feet
feet in diameter and 34 mile long. The artificial cooling to facilitate the
deep. Nearly two years of costly, padent. and often discouraging efforts
proper setting of the enormous mass of concrete containing j million
to restore the river to its nanlral bed were successful only after a pair
barrels of cement was an unusual and almost unprecedented operation.
of railroad trestles of 90-foot piles were built across the crevasse and
The refrigerating system, with more than j;o miles of I-inch tubes
3 , 0 0 0 carloads of rock, followed bv small stones and gravel, had been
embedded in the entire concrete mass \\hen it xvas poured, accomplished
dropped into the current below, all within I j days, to form a dam. For
the curing of the more than 3 million cubic yards in about nvo years.
its boldness and ma,gnitude this procedure was unique in the annals of
This huge mass, with its carefully grouted contraction joints, has been
engineering. From that rime until the completion of the Hoover Dam
called “truly monolithic.”
in 1936 the complete control of the river was increasingly certain.
Lake Mead, formed by the Hoover Dam. IS the world’s largest arti-
The engineering studies made of the lower Colorado River basin dur-
ficial lake, I I j miles long. Below the Hoover Dam several others have
ing the decade following I 9 I 9 were epoch-making in their comprehensive
been built, most of them to provide \vater for irrigation. The largest is
thoroughness and were carried on in the face of almost insurmountable
the Parker Dam, 1 2 0 miles below the Hoover. Here a reservoir 4-70 feet
physical difficulties. Finall!- a dam site lvas chosen about 100 miles down-
above sea level furnishes water through the Colorado River -Aqueduct
stream from the lower end of the celebrated Grand Canvon and zoo miles
to the Aletropolitan Water District of Southern California. The Colorado
from the Mexican border. Here, the engineers decided, could be built a
River ,Aqueduct is not only the longest in the orid. it 1% as a t the time
dam high enough to provide a lake of capacity sufficient to impound the
it was built the onlv important aqueduct t h a t pierced a mountain range.
entire normal flow of the river for two years. The dam would fit neatly
The water it brings from the Colorado River flon-s by gravity for nearly
between the canyon walls but would have to be more than 700 feet high.
all of its length of 2 4 2 miles. However. a t five points on the eastern half
At that time the few high dams in the world were onlv slightlv more than
of the aqueduct, electrically driven pumps, po\vered from the Hoover
400 feet tall; one was in France, nx-o or three in the western United
Dam, raise the water a total of I ,6 i 7 feet.
States. Finally, in 1931,the labor contract for the construction of the
In addition to its great length and its equally unprecedented profile,
Hoover Dam was let to a combination of six large Western contracting
several features make the Colorado River Aqueduct unique. For its first
firms, but the United States government supplied the bulk of the materials
zoo miles it crosses an arid, almost rainless and practically barren, desert
for the project throughout. For the Bureau of Reclamation, the chief engi-
where more than I jo miles of modern surfaced roads had to be built
neer was Raymond F. Walter and the chief designing engineer, John L.
before construction could proceed. At points along the aqueduct 10
Savage. Situated as it was, Z j miles from a town or railroad, the first
wells of 16 inches diamete; were drilled and connected with pipelines that
problem of the contractors, after a branch railroad had been provided,
practically paralleled the aqueduct and supplied water necessav to the
was to create a community for the thousands of men who would be
construction. There are 144 inverted siphons, all of monolithic concrete
 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 461
below sea level. The greatest reclamation project of all times has required
the incessant labor of countless generations, at first using only crude im-
plements. T h e Frisian Dutch who inhabited the coastal marshes a few
centuries ago lived in almost constant peril from the sea and from the three
rivers of which Holland forms the deltas. In December of 1.87, fifty
thousand Frisians are said to have been drowned in a single night. The
idea of using windmills for pumping seems to have come from the Near
East, but they were not used on a large scale unul about 1600. Perhaps
the outstanding leader in the use of windmills for reclaiming land in Hol-
land was Jan -4driaensz Leegh\vater ( Ij7j-16j0), who called himself a
“mil1 constructor and engineer.” The professional work of Leeghwater
took him to the North Sea coastal areas of France, Germany, Denmark.
and Poland. One of his better-kn0n.n followers a.as Cornelius Vermuyden
(ca. I j90-16j6),who spent much of his life reclaiming the fen lands of
eastern and southeastern England in the days of Charles I and Cromwell.
About 1640 Leeghwater wrote the unique little book Het Hmrlem-
mer-Alee?-Boek, by which he is best known. In it he set forth his revolu-
tionary plan for pumping out the Haarlemmermeer, a shallow fresh-
Figure 13.9 An inverted siphon on the Colorado River Aqueduct (Courtesy water lake or “sea” some 7’ square miles in area which lay a few miles
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California) southwest of Amsterdam. He proposed installing I 60 windmills, each
with its pump. T h e plan was doubtless too ambitious 2ven for the per-
sistent Dutch; it w-as not undertaken in Leeghuater’s day, nor in fact
and totaling 29 miles in length (Figure 13.9).Three of these cross what until nearlv nvo hundred years after his death. In his book he had cau-
are known as active earthquake faults Lvhere the monolithic construction tioned against undue haste. Later he assures his countr!-men, “The drain-
was interrupted each 2 0 feet or so by special joints that could resist ing of lakes is one of the most necessary, most profitable and the most
shear but could not resist tension. One of these siphons at a valley holv works in Holland.” *
crossing is about j miles long. Except for the 63 miles of open, lined Xearly nvo centuries later than Leeghwater‘s day, about 1840, after
concrete canals, the cross section of the Colorado River Aqueduct is prac- the Haarlemmermeer had enlarged itself perilously close to Leiden and
tically the same as that of each of the New York City aqueducts, roughly Amsterdam as the result of hurricanes, the Dutch decided that the time
I j or 16 feet wide and high. It will eventually deliver to Lake iMatthews, had come to turn the ,\leer into a fertile polder. By this time steam-pump-
an artificial reservoir some 60 miles east of Los Angeles, about I billion ing engines of the type used in the Cornwall tin and copper mines were
gallons of water daily, which will double the present supply of southern available. Three were bought and set up around the edges of the lake.
California. New York City’s two principal aqueducts, whose combined They were of the compound vertical type, with one high-pressure cyl-
length is nearly equal to that of the Colorado River Aqueduct, are both inder inside the other. The three engines seem to have developed a total
gravity supplies and in general traverse the Hudson River Valley. T h e horsepower somewhat in excess of 1,000,and each engine operated a
total yield of hTew York’s sources is expected to be about I ‘/z billion number of pumps cleverly arransed in a circle around it. T h e lake was
gallons daily. pumped dry in less than four years, between 1848 and 18jz.T h e Haar-
In the course of many centuries Holland has wrested about a quarter lemmermeer water surface was about 14 feet below high water in the
of its land from the North Sea; some 3,000 square miles are therefore
4 John van Veen, Dredge, Lbain, Reclaim, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1948, p. 45.
 462 SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING I SANITARY AND HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 463
North Sea; the polder is about I feet lower still. The water was raised
into a canal and then up to the level of the North Sea, a few miles away. Bibliography
Pumping continued intermittently after 1852 merely to keep the land
arable, one of the pumps being in continuous service for 84 years. Modem Baker, Moses N.: The Quest for Pure Mack, Gerstle: The Land Divided,
Water, American Water Works Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York,
pumping engines have replaced the original engines, but the tower and one
Xssn., New York, 1948. ‘944.
original engine, the Croquius. have been preserved as a museum. Internaaonal Engineering Congress, Metropolitan Water Disnict of
Until the completion in 1 9 3 2 of a r7-mile dam which shut out most of San Francisco, 191j, Transactions, Southern California, The Great
the salt water, the Zuider Zee was thought of simply as a tidal gulf pro- 1 2 ~01s.in 13, vol. I, The Panama Aqueduct, Los Angela, 1941.
jecting southeasterlv from the North Sea into the heart of Holland. Canal, San Francisco, 1916. New York City, Board of Water
Kirkwood, James Pugh: Report on Supply, The Water SUQPiy of the
Geologists say, however, that it was not always salt, but that North Sea
the Filtration of River Waters, f o r City of N e w York, New York,
storms about the year 1300 gradually forced an opening into what had the Supply of Cities, as Practised in 1950.
been a large fresh-water lake. Plans for shutting out the North Sea be- Europe, D. Van Nostrand, New Siegfried, Andri: Suez and Panama,
gan to take shape as early as the 1840s at the time the Haarlemmermeer York, 1869. Harcoun, Brace and Company,
was reclaimed, but the project was much too vast for the mechanical Kunz, George F.: Catskill Aqueduct Inc., New York, 1940.
appliances available. It had to await the development of hydraulic dredg- Celebration Publications, The Veen, John van: Dredge, Drain, Re-
Mayor’s Cankill Aqueduct Cele- cLi7n, Martinus Nijhoff, The
ing, diesel engines, electric power, and bulldozers. Following the First Hague, 1948.
bration COITIIniKee, New York,
World War a plan finally crystallized and shortlv secured enthusiastic
1917-
popular support. The dam is 600 feet wide at the base with its crest t o to
2 2 feet above sea level and carries double lanes of highway and an electric
railway track. Secondary dikes which surround the four polders are
slightly lower. The area of the polders is more than two-thirds that of
Rhode Island.
The Zuider Zee reclamation project has been the most ambitious that
Holland, or indeed anv nation, has undertaken. When completed, half
of the area will be dried up and restored to cultivation, adding 900 square
miles to Holland’s arable land. The two dams that shut out the sea water
have already been completed. Both are of earth fill, generous in their
width, and faced with masonry. One is over 1 7 miles long, the other I )$
miles. The project involves surrounding four areas, or polders, with dikes
and pumping them dry. The northwest polder was pumped dry by
pumping units located near two of its comers. One station comprised
6-cylinder diesel engines of 400 horsepower each, direct-connected to
centrifugal pumps with horizontal axles; the other contained electric
motors operating on 3,000-volt current and direct-connected to centrifu-
gal pumps with vertical a;ules. This 77-square-mile polder, the smallest,
was producing crops by 1936. A considerably larger second polder had
been unwatered as the Second World War began. The cost of the entire
project may exceed 2 0 0 million dollars, almost half as much as that of
the Panama Canal.
 F O U R T E E N

Construction

Figuse 1-f.1
Modern skyscrapers, bridges, and tunnels are vuly daring accomplisli- Jenney's Home Insurance
ments of the construcaon engineer. Skyscrapers rise over 1,000 feet, Building, Chicago. I 884
bridges span 3,000 and 4000feet benveen piers, and tunnels bore through (Courtesy Yale School of
Fine h)
miles of rock. Like most other engineers the construction engineer must
be able to draw together many types of engineering knowledge and many
different engineering techniques. He must also use numerous materials
and above all he has to employ power in countless ways during construc-
don. Engineering began to be diversified into its various specialties in the percentage of time which people spend within them. In fact, when the
nineteenth century, just as did natural science and other areas of knowl- Home Insurance Company in Chicago gave the commission for the design
edge. By the middle of the nventieth century, however, the engineer v 3s of its new office building to William Le Baron Jenney in 1883, the com-
integrating the many specialties on large projects. The construction engi- pany specified that the building should be fireproof and should have a
neer is not the only engineer who effects such integration. For instance, maximum amount of natural light in each room (Figure '4.1). It was
the petroleum engineer, with whom we have not dealt in this book, has this demand for a safe and comfortable building that led to the construc-
t o bring together many types of engineering to plan and to build a large tion of the first skvscraper. W e have already noted in Chapter 1 0 the
oil refinerv. The integration of the engineering specialties to produce three main factors that made modern skyscrapers possible-the elevator,
specific works is one of the important engineering developments of the the skeleton framework. and relatively cheap steel. It is not too much to
twentieth century, and construction engineering illustrates this integration sav that the limitation on the height of buildings is a matter of economics
particularly well. rather than of engineering.
T h e hydraulic elevators described in Chapter 10 had served a number
Sky scrapers of the older type of notable tall structures like the Pulitzer Building in
T h e skyscraper in America has become of considerable economic im- S e w York Citv. They continued to be used in many tall buildings well
portance. With the great population migration from rural to municipal into the nventieth century, long after electric motors became common.
areas, there has come a significant change in living habits. Today the T h e first successful electric, elevators date from about 1889. In the earliest
majority of Americans spend more of their lives inside buildings than of these, worm gears were used to revolve the drums, and it was necessary
out of doors. Architects and engineers have therefore striven to make for the motor to rotate these gears if the elevators were to move. How-
buildings more attractive and livable because of the increasingly high ever, if power should fail and the motor did not rotate, the car would
464
 1

466 CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION 467

not fall because the drum could not work backward through the worm in Chicago, a rapid succession of skeleton buildings. The second Rand-
gears. A later safety development was the electromagnetic brake on McNally building, completed in 1890, was the first to be supported on
which the brake shoe, normally held away from the drum, sets auto- an all-steel frame. The Great Northern Hotel, 14 stories td, “a ma@-
matically in the event of a power failure or other abnormal condition. cent architectural achievement,” stood from 1891 to 1940. Finished in
There have been many changes in elevator mechanism within the last two 1892 just before the Columbian Exposition, the z~-story&lasonic Build-
generations, but in the main they have all been improvements alone estab-
-
lished principles rather than radical departures in construction. Escalators,
ing was the tallest building of the period; Chicagoans called it the finest
budding in the world-“a gorgeous edifice.”
or moving stairways, date from about 1900; they have much larger capaci- Spread footings to distribute loads go back many centuries. In the
ties than elevators for buildings of few stories. earliest Chicago tall buildings raft footings gradually replaced the tradi-
The first nine stories of the Home Insurance Building of Chicago were tional spread foundations. These footings often consisted of several layers
completed in 188j. Tlus ,building was the first in which an appreciable of railroad rails crossed a t right angles and used to reinforce a substantial
quantity of steel was used in the framework. More important, however, I
bed of concrete. In many of these buildings a number of inches of set-
a large portion of its exterior was only a curtain wall of masonry that did tlement was anticipated and the building was therefore started higher
not even support itself, but was entirely supported by the framework. At than necessarv. Wooden, later concrete, pile foundations going down in
least this was true for all except the lower stories of the LaSalle and rnanv cases jo or 7 j feet gradually superseded raft footings in Chicago.
A d a m Street fronts which together with the rear walls were of solid The first skeleton construction in S e w York City was the narrow
masonry. T h e columns were of two types: round cast-iron and built-up Tower Building in lower Broadway, only 129 feet tall and finished in
box sections of wrought iron, but on several of its upper stories some 1889. A tablet on its lobby wall called this building the “earliest example
Bessemer steel replaced wrought iron. This building, in spite of its mod- of skeleton construction.” Careful historians have vigorously denied this
erate height of 1 0 stories, was the world’s first skyscraper. While it was claim. S e w York City’s first building of skyscraper proportions was the
being demolished in 193 I a technical examination &owed that, although Slanhattan Life Insurance Building on Broadway opposite Trinity Church;
it did “not fulfill all the requirements of a skeleton type,” it was “a notable finished in 1894 and 347 feet tall, it is s d l standing. It was the first build-
example.” It was the first office building ever constructed that used, even ing for which engineen used compressed air to sink pneumatic caissons
in part, the principle of skeleton construction. in the foundation work. Fifteen caissons of various sizes and shapes were
Some four years later, 1889, two blocks north on LaSalle Street, a used, enabling excavations to be carried down through more than so feet
taller structure of much the same type, the Tacoma Building, was com- of mud and quicksand to bedrock. The caissons were then filled with con-
pleted. Chicago residents were properly proud of this building; a con- crete, topped with iron beams supporting brick piers. The Jlanhattan
temporary guide book, issued for visitors to the Columbian Exposition of Life Building was also the first to have extensive windbracing, added
1893, boasts of its “towering above its surroundings to the dizzy height metal members in the framework to guard against the collapse of tall
of twelve clear stories” (it actually had 14). The entire outer walls, structures in violent gales.
with large window areas, were curtains of brick and terra coma which In 1902, following the epoch-making hlanhattan Life Building, came
carried no load but served merely to keep out the elements and to let in the more famous Fuller, or Flatiron, Building, farther up Broadway. It
light. The walls of the Tacoma Building could be, and were, commenced had six vertical hydraulic elevators which are still in use. Among dozens
independently a t various floor levels, rather than starting from the ground; of other structures like the Singer Building and the Metropolitan Life
here was the first consistent use of such a method. The columns and lintels Insurance Tower in New York, the Equitable and Woolworth Buildings
in the building were all of cast iron. Both wrought iron and Bessemer of 1913 were the best known. For I j years the 760-foot Woolworth
steel were used in the skeleton, which was riveted rather than bolted. Building was the world’s l o f a a t structure except for the Eiffel Tower
Some have called the Tacoma Building the first skyscraper. It had five which tops it by more than LOO feet. New York now has more than thirty
hydraulic passenger elevators. Following the Tacoma Building came, also buildings exceeding 500 feet in height, Chicago has a t least nine, other
 468 CONSTRUCTION

United States cities have 1 0 in all. These buildings presented in varying

degrees certain engineering problems that had barely begun to arise late
in the nineteenth century. problems of foundations, of stability under
wind pressures, of elevators, of watersupply and sewerage, of heating and
ventilation, and o i distribution of electric polver. T h e earliest skyscrapers
contained little if anv concrete. .At the turn of the century, as more and
more -4merican portland cement became available. and in part influenced
bv European builders who used jess steel, -American architects and engi-
neers began to design manv-storied buildings or' reinforced concrete. Rein-
forced-concrete sk!-scrapers are n o n competing with steel-frame struc-
tures in buildings of moderate height.
Since ' 9 3 ' the Empire State Building (Figure 1 4 . 2 ) in Y e w York
Citv has been the tallest structure in the world-I.25o feet. It tops S e w
J-ork's ChrJder Building b v more than zoo feet; these nvo Ire the onlv
buildings tailer than the Eihel Tower. T h e Empire State Building is dis-
unctlv a milestone in tall-building construction. the culmination of 3 de-
velopment that began nearh- hair' a century earlier in the Home Insurance,
Tacoma. and Tower Buildings. Its unprecedented heisht posed a number
of problems concerning the stability of the structure itself. It \vas founded
on bedrock at a depth of about ;o feet beion. the street level. T h e area oi
the base is about 2 acres, roughlv . . . half t h a t of the Eidel Tower. Its total
lveight of j o ~ , j o otons, including 6;.ooo tons of steel, is divided amon3
more than one hundred rolled fabricated steel columns. the largest of
lvhich each carries 5.000 tons down to the base. These columns rest o n
broad and heavilv reinforced bases of concrete supported in turn on bed-
rock. The entire frame is. of course. elastic and has ample \vindbracing
throughout. The top has been observed to "Sive.' about 19; inches dur- Figurc 14.2

ing gales approaching 100 miles an hour. The steel columns are sub- The Empire State Building
(Courtesy Engineering
jected to a constant compressive stress b y the sheer xveight of the stnic- Xe-s-RtcorJ)
ture itself; the eighc!--fifth story is thus actuallv 6'4 inches lower than
its elevation would have been had there been no compressive stress.
T h e water-distribution s n t e n i in the building consists of a series of
xvater tanks at different levels; if the a-ater svstem \\-ere not thus divided.
a faucet on a lolver floor would be subjected to a pressure of about 600 floor when the pipes xvere hot. T h e building has 69 electric elevators of
pounds a square inch, too great for even modern plumbing. T h e building \vhich 63 carry passengers; their maximum speed is 1.000 feet per minute.
has its own water pumps; the Catskill gravity water would reach to only T h e Empire State Building was ready for occupancy Jiay I , 1931. 1 4
a fraction of the height. Steam pipes posed the problem of expansion from months after the first steel'was placed on the footings-a record speed for
heat. Radiators on the top floor, if rigidlv attached to vertical feed pipes construction. A t the peak of operations there were 3,400 workmen of j o
without provision for expansion, would rise more than a foot off the different trades employed on the 104 floors.
 470 CONSTRUCTION

Szlspension Bridges
In most bridges, as in skvscrapers, there is much structural steel. T h e
first steel bridges, described in Chapter 10, preceded the first skyscrapers.
Like the skvscrapers, the large bridges of the twentieth century x e not-
able engineering accomplishments, the design and construction of which
brought into play manv . mpes
. of engineering, scientific. and administra-
cive skills. T h e Brooklvn Bridge dates from 188;. _After seventy years'
service i t is carrying traffic of a tvpe of which the Roeblin,as never
dreamed. Its span of I . j 9 j !/z feet was exceeded bv the cantilever spans of
the Forth Bridge in Scotland in 1889, but not b\- . m k.- suspension bridge
until 1903 when the IVilliamsburg Bridge was built across the East
River, more than a mile northeast of the Brookh-n Bridge. m i t h a span
onlv a few feet longer than t h a t of the Brooklyn. Then in 1924 came the
somewhat longer but much lighter Bear Mountain Bridge, which crosses
the Hudson 40 miles to the north of N e w York Cin-.
During the next few years two suspension bridges, both in the United
States, of still longer spans were built. T h e Philadelphia-Camden Bridge F&ire 14.3 Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco (Courresy Redwood Empire
Asociaaon)
span is 170 feet longer than the Brooklyn, half again .IS wide, and con-
siderably heavier. This suspension bridge was the first to exceed the
spans of the Forth cantilever structure. T h e Ambassador Brid,me at Detroit later. The bridge has cost to date more than 55 million dollars and is
is still longer, 1,8jo feet span; when built in 1929 it had the longest span rnpidiJ- being paid for bv the motorists \vho use it.
of any bridge. A t this point suspension-bridge spans seemed to have -
-1bridge across the Golden Gate a t San Frmcisco \\-as first suggested
reached their economic limit. T h e cost of the Brooklyn Bridge had been in the earlv 1920s. T h e success of the George \\.'shington Bridge project
about I j million dollars, that of the slightly longer Philadelphia-Camden indicated hou-. hi- the formation of an Authorit\-. such bridge construc-
Bridge more than twice as much-36 million. Bv the early 1920s the in- tion could be pubiiclv financed. particularlJ- on a much-traveled arterial
crease in motor-vehicle traffic was taxing the capacity of the many IiighwaL- like t h a t extending north from San Francisco. Joseph B. Strauss
Hudson River ferries. T h e year 1921 marked the incorporation of the \\-as the chief engineer. T h e spot chosen for the Golden Gate Bridge
Port of S e w b-ork Xuthorin;, established b y the States of S e w l-ork (Figure 14.3) is a t the narrou'est part of the entrance to San Francisco
and X e w Jersey to finance, construct, and maintain tunnels, bridges, and Bay, ]\.here it is a mile wide. The configuration of the bottom determined
various facilities in the S e w l-ork City area. The problem of financing r h a t the span had to be slight1J- longer than 4,000 feet. The main part ot'
such construction, which would eventually be paid f o r b y tolls, now the channel is more than loo feet deep; however, for some distance from
proved easy to solve. T h e Authority soon planned the George Washing- the south (San Francisco) shore the depth increases only gradually, reach-
ton Bridge at I 79th Street, extending to the Palisades at Fort Lee, X e w ing 6 j to 80 feet at 1,100 feet out. T h e south pier was accordinglv located
I

Jersey, with a span of 3,joo feet. Designed by Othmar H. Ainmann, con- here, and the north pier on the Alarin County shore, 4,200 feet distant.
struction of the bridge began in 1927, and it was opened in 193 I . I t does The location of this bridge presented a combination of difficulties
n o t yet carry all of the traffic for which it was designed; a lower deck, that had not been encountered in previous structures. Earthquakes are not
f o r either rapid-transit railroad tracks, or motor vehicles, can be added uncommon in this entire region. T h e site is practically in the open sea, a
 472 CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION 47 3
storm-swept area subject to heavy ground swells and cross winds, with At jo-foot intervals double suspenders of wire rope support the 15-foot-
tidal currents reaching a maximum of nearly 7 or 8 miles an hour. The deep stiffening trusses which in tum carry the floor system. There is
bottom is hard smooth rock, basalt on one side, serpentine on the other. enough flexibility in the central floor system to allow for a lateral deflec-
One of the first problems was how, under such circumstances, to anchor tion of about 2 8 feet from winds of 60 miles an hour or for upward and
the south pier at such a depth. The north pier, on dry land, presented no downward deflections totaling some 16 feet. 4 unique protective device
unusual difficulties. For the south pier, the engineers built a steel trestle saved the lives of 19 workers during construction. It was a safety net
2 2 feet wide and 1,100 feet long out from the shore to the pier location,
of manila rope, woven with a 6-inch mesh, which extended under the
each vemcal tubular steel pile anchored into the solid rock floor. Around entire structure and 10 feet out on either side, The Golden Gate Bridge.
the pier site a boat-shaped wall of concrete about 1 7 0 by 3 I I feet was with approaches, was built in four years; the Brooklyn Bridge required
built, having been started from bedrock a t a depth of 100 feet below sea fourteen, the George Washington Bridge, four. The actual cost of con-
level. This wall was originally intended simply as a protective fender struction was slightly more than 2 7 million dollars. Its estimated capacit)
inside of which a pneumatic caisson was to be set up. However, since is 5,000 motor vehicles per hour.
heavy seas made the use of a caisson impossible, the concrete fender wall,.
3 0 feet thick at the base, was finally built up to serve also as a cofferdam.
The concrete in this wall was deposited under water through a tremie Steel Arch Bridges
(elongated hopper). The water inside the wall was pumped out, and the The Eads bridge at St. Louis, as has been noted, was erected benveen
pier was built in the open air. The concrete in the fender wall and pier I 869 and I 874. During the following quarter century some eleven iron or
was made from a newly developed high-silica cement, highly resistant steel arches longer than its central span of 5 2 0 feet were built. Three of
to sea water. Tests showed that it had the high compressive strength of these were completed during 1898, the Xiagara-Clifton Bridge across the
+ooo pounds per square inch 2 8 days after it had been poured. Niagara River between the United States and Canada, and two across the
The two towers, or pylons, are 700 feet tall. their tops 746 feet above Rhine, one a t Diisseldorf, the other a t Bonn, in Germany. The arch of rl-e
sea level. Each is made up of twin cellular shafts built up of riveted an,ole Niagara-Clifton Bridge was for years the longest in the world--840 feet.
irons and plates. The shafts are spaced 90 feet apart on centers and are the Bonn Bridge had the longest arch span in Europe-72 I feet. At the end
connected by transverse framing a t four points above the bridge floor. of still another decade Gustav Lindenthal (1850-193j) was completins
The towers were designed to resist stresses due not only to dead loads, the Hell Gate Arch Bridge across the East River a t New Tork (Figure
live loads, and wind, but also to earthquakes. They are considered espe- 14.1).It is an imposing and beautifully proportioned structure, carryins
cially notable not only on account of their size, but also because they were the four tracks of the A-ew J-ork Connecting Railroad across the East
designed to satisfy architectural as well as structural requirements. Silicon River, thus forming a rail connection between the S e w York, New
steel with a tensile strength of 80,000 to 9 j.000 pounds per square inch Haven and Hartford Railroad and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Its span
and carbon steel about two-thirds as strong were used in the towers. is 977% feet. Lindenthal designed it for moving loads heavier than those
The main supporting cables are 36% inches in diameter as compared carried by any steel arch in the world-3 tons per lineal foot on each of
with 16 inches on the Brooklyn Bridge and 36 inches on the George the four tracks. It was completed in 1917.
Washington Bridge. Each cable is composed of 61 strands of 452 wires Fifteen years later Australian and British engineers had completed
each. The cables do not slide or roll over the tops of the towers; instead across Sydney Harbor, New South Wales, Australia, an arch with a span
they are rigidly fastened to them and therefore pull them back and forth of 1,650 feet (Figure 14.5) of the same type as the Hell Gate. It carries,
longitudinally, with variations in temperature and loading. A tower may however, besides four electric railway tracks, a six-lane highway and side-
be deflected from the vertical as much as 18 inches toward the channel walks, making its total deck width 160 feet. No wider bridge has ever been
or 2 2 inches toward the shore from a combination of these two causes. built. The engineers designed it to carry a total live or moving load of
The cables hang like gigantic hammocks benveen the tops of the towers. more than 6 tons per lineal foot. The arch span of the Bayonne a l l van
 i

Figure 144 Hell Gate Bridge, New York (Courtesy Sew York, New Haven
and Harrford Railroad)

Kull Bridge at New York, which 0. H. Ammann had designed and Figure if. j Sydney Harbor Bridge (Courtesy Engineeiing News-Record)
which was built during the same period, was purposely made about t
feet longer, but it carries only highway traffic. There were no panicularly bridge is the principal supporting member, is divided internally into thr5e
puzzling foundation problems in the building of the Svdney Harbor sections. The upper and lower chords of the Eads bridge are, it will be re-
Bridge, for bedrock is only 30 feet down. In this respect the Eads bridge membered, 30-inch cylinders of chrome steel. The curve of the Sydney
and the Hell Gate Bridge tzxed the ingenuity of their engineers consider- Harbor arch, that is, the lower chord. is parabolic; the upper chord re-
ably more. The larger part of the structural steel a t Sydney Harbor was verses its curvature as it approaches the piers. The arch, as stated above,
rolled in Britain, more than I 2.000 miles away. London engineers prepared was built out from each pier as a cantilever, anchored by the 1 2 8 wire
plans and calculations for the structure as a whole. The steel was fabri- cables, until the ends came to within about 40 inches of meeting. Hy-
cated in extensive and well-equipped temporary shops built on the north draulic jacks then slackened off the cables until the ends met and the
shore of the harbor. opposite Sydney. Each half of the arch was erected kevs connected. The temperature range allowed for a t Sydney was only
as a cantilever and anchored back by 1 2 8 Tvire cables, each 2 % inches in 60"; a t the Eads bridge it was assumed as about 160'. The dead weight
diameter, over a concrete pier into curved tunnels cut into bedrock. As of the Sydney Harbor span is about 28% tons per lineal foot, that of the
the structure progressed, each steel member was Ioaded on a lighter and Hell Gate Bridge is just over 2 6 tons.
towed out until it was directly under the spot in the structure xvhere it
belonged; electrically operated traveler or creeper cranes of I t o tons
capacity, one on each cantilever, then hoisted the member into position.
Rei?2forced-c072crete Bridges
At the Eads bridge the material was floated on barges, and then men on Stone-masonry structures approached perfection late in the eighteenth
each cantilever laboriously hauled it up by hand. century with the bridges of Perronet. Until early in the twentieth century
The arch trusses of the Sydney Harbor Bridge are of silicon steel, the world's longest stone arch was that of the Cabin John Bridge span-
the lateral and deck members of carbon steel. All truss members are rec- ning Rock Creek on the Washington, D.C., Aqueduct completed in
tangular in cross section, made up of plates and angles riveted together. 1864. Its span is z z o feet. Comparatively few stone arches have been built
The heaviest portion of the truss, the lower chord, which in this type of since. The longest stone arch ever built was the Syra River Bridge, at
474 475
 476 CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION 47 7
Plauen (Saxony), Germany. Its span is 295 feet, and it was completed looked askance at combining iron or steel with a relatively unmed and
in 1903. unpredictable material such as concrete-at least in thin slabs. A zo-foot-
T h e use of concrete in modem engineering construction dates back a span reinforced-concrete arch built in a San Francisco park in 1889
little more than a century. For many years engineers were cautious about seems to have been the first in the United States, and in 1894 the
using it except in large masses. In the nineteenth century the French were first American reinforced-concrete highway bridge for heavy t r d c was
the chief pioneers in concrete construction. Poirel, in 1833, used massive built in Iowa; its span was 30 feet. European engineers had by this time
precast concrete blocks. Some I 6.000 concrete blocks, averaging 20 built many reinforced-concrete bridges; in Switzerland there were three
tons each, were used a generation later for the jemes a t the Port Said of the Monier type with spans of 118 feet. Rolled-steel rods gradually
entrance to the Suez Canal. Among the earliest large concrete bridges supplanted wire nemng.
were those of the Vanne Aqueduct which brought water to Paris After 1894 reinforced concrete came gradually into favor as archi-
through the Fontainebleau Forest in 1870. There were nearly 3 miles tects and engineers relied more and more confidently on the results of
of these aqueduct bridges, some of ~zs-footspan. The aqueduct pipes, , experimental research and experience. By 191I the Tiber at Rome for the
also of concrete, were 6 feet in diameter. first time in history had been crossed by a single arch, the Risorgimento
The idea of reinforcing concrete with iron or steel should be credited Bridge, a reinforced-concrete structure of 328 feet ( 1 0 0 meters) span and
chiefly to Joseph iMonier of Paris whose patent of 1867 covered the con- slightly less than ;3 feet (10 meters) rise. On completion, the bridge was
struction of basins or tubs of cement with embedded iron netting. Monier, subjected to unique strength and stiffness tests. Eleven hundred soldiers
the proprietor of a commercial gardening establishment, came gradually marched over it a t double-quick, and three I j-ton road rollers abreast
to realize that his idea could be extended to such structures as railway crossed it forward and back; the greatest deflections were of the order of
sleepers or ties, even to floors, footbridges, arches, and pipes. The several ‘I;,, inch, and the vibrations were negligible. The Risorgimento Bridge
Monier patents led to the Monier system of reinforced structures, with was the longest masonry arch in the world for some years. In the twenty
iron bars embedded in the concrete and crossing each other a t right angles. years following the completion of this bridge engineers learned much of
A few years later Monier built, in France, a resemoir, or tank, more than the possibilities of reinforced concrete. Continental European engineers,
50 feet in diameter. llonier was not the first in this field; another French- especially, learned how to produce, when necessan;, a dense concrete
man, Joseph L. Lambot, in 1849, and at least two Britishers, William B. \\-hose tensile strength was considerably greater than had previously been
Wilkinson, in 18jj. and William Fairbairn, in 186+ had preceded him. considered possible. Subjecting the steel reinforcement to preliminary
Monier, however, with no technical training or experience but only a keen stretching also has the effect. when the stretching force is released, of
native intuition, seems to have been the first to combine iron and concrete artificially precompressing the concrete and thus counteracting tensile
scientifically, so that they acted together as a unit, the metal taking stresses which may be due to shrinkage in semng and to temperature
nearly all of the tension and the concrete most of the compression. Other change as well as to loading.
patented systems that followed Monier’s were those of Hennebique The Plougastel, or Albert-Louppe, Bridge over the river Elorn,
(French), Melan and von Emperger (Austrian), Ransome, Thacher, and France, is one of the boldest concrete bridges thus far built (Figure I 4.6).
Turner (American). All of these techniques were developed in the clos- E. Freyssinet was the chief ensineer. This structure consists of three 612 -
ing years of the nineteenth century and found wide use in Europe and foot arches spanning the river where it flows into the harbor of Brest.
the United States. The underlying theory of reinforced-concrete design .At the time it was completed in 1930 its arch spans were the longest ever
developed only slowly, and the art advanced for some years in part by the built in concrete; only two exceed it today, one each in Spain and Sweden.
expensive method of trial and error. It carries a single-track railway and above it a roadway 26.2 feet wide
The earliest reinforced-concrete bridges in the United States were across a river in which the tidal range is 26 feet and the current is some-
light footbridges of modest spans in parks. American engineers at first times very strong. The river piers and the abutments rest on rock. The
 CONSTRUCTION 479
moved to the next span. Construction materials were handled by twin
cableways nearly half a mile long running across the river from bank to
bank, some 250 feet above low tide.
There are striking differences between the problem presented to the
engineer of this bridge and that which Eads had to meet sixty years earlier.
The Elorn, like the Mississippi, could not be entirely obstructed, for the
Brest harbor is often busy. ,Arch centers were provided at Plougastel,
one arch at a time. Eads could not have used centers; he was obliged
instead to build hls arches out from each pier bv the cantilever method,
hoisting the separate parts by derricks from barges, using only hand
power. The Plougastel arches were slightly longer than those of the
Mississippi bridge. The rise a t the center of the arches is about I 10 feet for
Plougastel. about +3 feet in the Eads bridge. The Plougastel traffic is the
Figure 14.6 Plougastel or Aberr-Louppe Bridge, Brest, France (Courtesy lighter, both on the bridge and under it. The French engineers had manv
Societe Technique pour 1’Utilisation de la Precontrainre) types of apparatus that Eads lacked-cableways, diesel engines, electric
power, concrete mixers. and telephones, to name only a few. The Plou-
gastel foundation problems were much simpler.
arches are cellular in construction. Between the lower and upper slabs The Swiss Robert Maillart (1872-1940) was the first to use reinforced-
(intrados and emrados) are four spandrels, or vertical walls, which bind concrete slabs as active-bearing structural elements. Maillart dispensed
the nvo slabs together. The outermost of these spandrels constitute the with suppomng beams and developed in 1900 a new structural principle.
arch faces. T h e arch is built of concrete with relatively tittle reinforcing Active-bearing concrete-slab floors are an appropriate type for buildings
steel to take care of secondary stresses such as those due to shrinkage of with nonbearing walls; the slabs can be cantilevered out to support cur-
the concrete in setting. tain walls, floor bv floor. Although C. A. P. Turner (1869- ) used
The piers were built in two sections, and the lower section or base slab construction in the Johnson-Bovey Building in Alinneapolis in 1906,
shaft presented no great difficulties. The pier tops, or umbrella cantilever and there are many applications of this type of construction especially
sections, about zz feet high, j Z feet wide, and very heavily reinforced, in roof design, American engineers were slow to adapt the principles in
were precast on shore and floated into position. where they were attached bridgebuilding, largelv perhaps because in the United States labor costs
to the piers a t low tide to form the bases of the individual arches. These are higher and material is more plentiful than in Europe.
pier tops are almost entirely of a curved V shape and are designed to
support the two arches on either side, forming indeed the first few feet
of each arch. Only one arch center or supporting frame for the concrete h i l r o a d Moimtain Tzinnels
form, constructed almost entirely of wood, the ends being tied together Modern tunnels may be classed in groups according to the purpose they
by cables to take the horizontal thrust, was used in turn for all three arches. serve and the methods employed in their construction. This section will
It was built close to shore and floated out on two large barges, one at each discuss in detail two of these groups: one mainly through solid rock, the
end, and was secured to the umbrella sections a t the pier tops. The con- other through pressure-exerting subaqueous material. France had taken
crete was poured in four successive stages, or layers. The intrados slab the initiative in canal-tunnel construction in the seventeenth century with
formed the first stage, two of the four vertical walls the second, the other a 500-foot tunnel bored thiough solid rock on the line of the Languedoc
two the third, and the extrados slab the fourth. A very few days after the Canal. Most canal tunnels, however, date from the latter half of the
concrete in the extrados slab was poured, the center was detached and eighteenth century and the first few years of the nineteenth, and the
480 CONSTRUCTION
greater number are in England where the aggregate length of 45 exceeds
40 miles. The use of hand drills and blasting powder together with im-
proved surveying instruments and methods gave contractors of this
period a decided advantage over the ancient Romans in the construction
of water tunnels. In a French tunnel of about 1800 were developed the
first systematic schemes for supporting by timbering any loose rock and
earth inside a tunnel more than a few feet wide. One of the two Ameri-
can canal tunnels, completed in I 8 28 on the line of the Union Canal near
Lebanon, Pennsylvania, is now preserved as a local monument to a by-
gone transportation era.
The first railroad m‘nel in the United States, like the Lebanon Canal
tunnel, is also in Pennsylvania, four miles east of Johnstown. It was bored
in 1831 to 1833 and was abandoned after 18j7 when the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company bought the line and straightened it, making the tunnel
unnecessary. Two early epoch-making railroad tunnels were the Hoosac
Tunnel, on what is now the Boston and Maine Railroad in northwestern
Massachusetts, and the Mont Cenis Tunnel piercing the Alps between Figure 14.7 Work at a Hoosac Tunnel heading (From Science Record, 1872)
France and Italy. The Hoosac had been suggested in 182j for a canal to
connect Boston with the Hudson Valley. It was begun in 18j4 and re-
quired twenty-two years to complete (1876), while the Mont Cenis, and is still much traveled. The pass is 6,772 feet above sea level and lies
nearly twice as long, was b e p n three years later ( I 8 j 7 ) but was finished on a quite direct line between Lyon and Turin. The Mont Cenis road
five years earlier (1871) than the Hoosac. Both of these tunnels served thus serves to link Savoy in France with Piedmont in Italy, both, until a
as laboratories in which many an experiment in excavation methods was century ago, part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Railroads across the Alps
tried out. While rock excavation in the Hoosac began with hand drills seem to have owed much of their inspiration to the success of Benjamin
(Figure 1+.7), these were shortly replaced by steam drills and a few Henry Lauobe in carrying the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad over the
years later by some drills operated by compressed air. Black powder Alleghenies from Cumberland, Marvland, to IVheeling, Virginia, in
served for the first few years in blasting a t the Hoosac until nitroglycerine 1842to 18j3. Carl von Ghega ( I ~ o z - I ~ ~who
o ) , had examined and written
replaced it. The Hoosac was probably the first tunnel in which blasts about the Baltimore and Ohio, built the first transalpine railroad. This line
were set off by electricity, a method t h a t had been used in only a few was the bold Semmeringbahn across the ruggedly picturesque Styrian
localities earlier. The following is a detailed description of the Mont Cenis Alps, the vital link in the 1-ienna-Trieste line; the tunnel was built in
Tunnel. 1848 to 1 8 j + The summit level on this ;+-mile road a t the Semmering
Some of the sixteen or more passes through the Alps, like the Brenner, Pass, some j o miles from Vienna, is 2,892 feet above sea level. The summit
may have been used by sturdy-wheeled conveyances since Roman days. tunnel was less than a mile long, but there were many short tunnels
Augustus Caesar’s engineers may have built a short-lived carriage road and viaducts. The maximum gradients were z % per cent and the sharpest
across the Little St. Bernard pass. Napoleon’s engineers, Polonceau and curve had a radius slightly over 600 feet. The second railroad across the
others, built several transalpine roads, of which the best known was the Alps went through the Brenner Pass, the lowest of the passes (4,497 feet)
Simplon. The road over the Mont Cenis Pass, some 40 miles east of through the principal Alpine range, some 2 0 0 miles to the west of the
Grenoble and an equal distance south of Mt. Blanc, was finished in I 8I o Semmering. This road furnishes the connection between Innsbruck in
the Austrian Tirol and Verona and Venice, Italy. It was built by Karl
 482 CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION 483
von Etztl (1812-1865) and was completed in 1867. There is no summit
and Grattoni, date from the 18jos. On August I j, 1 8j7, the Italian par-
tunnel; the maximum gradients were the same as those on the Semmering,
liament passed a bill authorizing the boring of the tunnel between Modane
but the curves were easier.
and Bardonecchia. Only two weeks later King Victor Emmanuel fired the
T h e third railroad across the Alps was called the Mont Cenis, because
first blast at the Italian end. S o t much was accomplished in I 8 j7, because
it follows in large part the line of Napoleon’s Mont Cenis Pass road. It
working seasons in the high ,Alps are short. In the spring of 18 j8, however,
was realized at least as early as 1 8 4 0 that there should be a connection be-
work on both ends of the tunnel began in earnest although the surveyors
tween the railroad systems of Savoy and Piedmont in order to expedite
had only barely started their triangulation and leveling. In the course of
travel from Lyons, Paris, and London down through central Italy. By 1863
the summer of 1 8 j8 the surveyors spread ;t geodetic nenvork of trianpla-
the Italians had ceded Savoy to the French, and the railroad on the French
tion over the Mont Frejus area above the tunnel site; this nenvork enabled
side had reached St. ,Michel in the valley of the River Arc and that on the
them to lav down its axis n i t h certainty and to calculate its length. T o
Italian side had progressed to Susa in the Dora River Valley. Between
this end thev established I I geodetic stations. or survey points or obser-
the two railheads there was a gap of 48 miles along the old Mont Cenis ,
vatories, on nearby heights, and u ith a hrgh-po\\ ered theodolite meas-
Pass road. However, some years earlier it had been pointed out that the
ured 86 angles, each of them ‘it least 1 0 times, some 60 times. to ensure
Arc River near Modane, Savoy, just above St. Michel, was only about 8
accuracy. They prolonged the axis on each end. thus giving ranging points
miles in a direct line through the mountain from Bardonecchia in the
to use as the boring progressed in order to make sure that the headings
Dora River Valley, Piedmont. I t was even then predicted that a tunnel
would meet. T h e engineers also carried a line of levels high over the
driven through the mountain some 14 or I j miles to the west of the Mont
summit of Mont Frejus. in itself no mean feat considering the difficult
Cenis Pass and under the Col de FrCjus would make the ideal connection
terrain and the prevalence of storms. They were thus able to establish the
between the two railroad systems.
tunnel grades from poKal to portal. -411 of the surveying was completed
The bold and revolutionary idea of boring an 8-mile tunnel without
by the fall of 18j8. Never before had tunnel contractors been prepared
intermediate shafts through an Alpine mountain seemed foolish and
to proceed with such confidence in the accuracy of the preliminary
frightening to many sensible people in the late 18jos. T h e summit tunnel
surveys.
on the Semmering railway in Austria, only 7/e mile long, had been com-
Afuch of the time during the first two or three years was necessarily
pleted several years earlier, using nine shafts. of which five had been left
taken up with the establishment of extensive machine shops, power plants,
permanently open for ventilation. No one was really certain that enough
and workmen’s living quarters, all necessarily in duplicate, for the only
air to prevent asphyxiation of workmen would penetrate horizontally into
connection benveen the Italian and French ends was over the mountain.
a tunnel like the Mont Cenis; what would happen if and when a steam
By the end of 1860, the tunnel excavation had proceeded about 14 mile
locomotive passed through was still another question. hTor did anyone
a; the north end and nearlv X mile a t the south end, all b>- hand drilling.
actually know what the temperature of the rock would be a mile below There were by this time many ho, while not exactly scoffing, predicted
the surface; geologists could only guess that it would be higher than a t the
rhat the tunnel could not be bored in less than t h i T years. Thus for
surface. T h e geologists could not even guarantee that after months of
several years work on the tunnel progressed slowly. The promoters were
blasting, the overlying strata might not weaken at a number of points
and cause the tunnel roof to collapse without warning and bury the work- -
not discouraged, but in 1863 they xvere glad to @ve John Barraclough
Fell, of England, permission to build one of his patent railways along the
men. There was even some apprehension that the reputedly bottomless
edge
Y
of the IMont Cenis road from St. Michel up and over the pass and
little lake high up in the Mont Cenis Pass might pour down into the tunnel
down to Susa, about 48 miles in all. This was a temporary permission, for
at such a rate as to flood out the works and drown the workmen.
everyone knew that if and when the tunnel should be completed the
T h e Mont Cenis Tunnel was an Italian project throughout. Preliminary
Fell road would forthwith become practically worthless. Fell began his
investigations, under the direction of three young, enthusiastic Italian
extraordinary railway in I 866, finishing it in two years a t a cost exceeding
engineers, Germain Sommeiller ( I 8 I 5-1 87 I ) and his colleagues Grandis
z million dollars. I t was in operation only three years instead of the ex-
 184 CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION 485
pected ten and was later sold to Brazilian interests for reinstalladon in sive used at Mont Cenis despite the fact that nitroglycerin dates back to
Brazil. T h e road had a ;-foot 7 %-inches, o r I . to-meters, gauge. It climbed 1847 and was used on the Hoosac Tunnel as early as 1866. Sforeover.
gradients as steep as 8 per cent, and some of its curves had radii as short Alfred Nobel had invented dynamite in 1867, four years before the last
as 13' feet. Instead of rack and pinion the track had a central third rail. blast at Alont Cenis.
laid on its side and ;!/. inches higher than the running raiIs. T w o smooth T h e difficulties to which pessimists had directed atrention before the
wheels on the locomotire. revolving horizontally, gripped this central w-orl; began were met and solved as they arose -b! the resourceful en+
rail between them to obtain sufficient traction, neers. \-entilation was a troublesome question throughout although 2s-
The boring of the tunnel had been begun in 1857, using hand drills haust 3ir from the drills freshened the air somen-hat. Dividing the runnel
only. Compressed-air drills, or boring machines of the Sommeilier tvpe, bv a slightl!- arched horizontal brattice, or temporary !ow roof, helped
were introduced in 1S61 on the Italian end and two \-ears later on the to induce a circulation of air. The temperature of the roc!; seldom es-
north o r French end. The total progress during 18j S bv hand drilling Ivas ceeded -5'. in part because of the welcome seepage o i cooling water. -1
1.j06 feet; during IS-o with machines it was 5.364 feet. Slachine drills '
few cases of weakened rock strata lvere prompt!:- and properlv dealt
thus proved to be ; i i tLimes as rapid as hand drilling. In both cases the . with. The ceiling arch v.as varied in form and thickness to xvichstand
rock was schist; in fact. except for a vein of quartz and one of limestone. vaq-ing pressures. Trouble from the "bottomiess" littie lake. xrhich hsb
the tunnel passed entirely through two kinds of schist. with the calcareous been feared. did not materialize; the lake is r + !ong miles from the tunnel.
type predominating. T h e boring machine consisted of a heavv carriage T h e headings met on Christmas Dav. r 8 y . T h e French side was 3 Sir
..
mounted on wheels. moi-able along a track. and carn-in,a a batten- of
. & -
higher chan the Italian-perhaps 1 feet; the error in aliznment ~ v a ssonic-
usually seven to nine drills or perforators, each of which could deliver \{-hat less. T h e tunnel proved to be about 4; feet longer than calcuiated.
zoo powerful strokes a minute against the rock at a spot selected. T h e T h e point of meeting 1%-asnot midn.a!- on the tunnel; the Italian en;
holes were laid out according to a pattern so that each blast xvould loosen had been excavated about 423 miles. the French end about ; I n miles. The
the greatest quantic- of rock in pieces that could be easily handled. Com- tunnel \vas finall!- completed during the slimmer or' 1 A - r ( Figure ri.8 ! :
pressed air operated the drills. France and ItalJ- shared the total cost of about r 5 million dollars.
T w o hvdraulically operated compressor plants, one near each portal. . from St. Jlichel, France, in the \-alley of the Arc. the Jlont
Scartino.
furnished compressed air for the drills. -At Bardonecchia. on the Italian Cenis Raillvav continues up the valleJ-, close to the oid .\Ion[ Cenis road.
side, a 2-mile canal was built to bring the u-ater power under a head of 1 0 miles to JIodane, passing through 14 short tunnels. Here it takes
S j feet to the compressors. T h e compressor system furnished air a t 6 hairpin turn and lvinds up the hill for 3 more mi!es. reaching the tunnel
atmospheres, 5 above normal. T h e compressor ~ v a sa form of hvdraiilic entrance, Fourneaus, after ha\-ing climbed 1,460 feet from St. Sfiche!. f r
ram (compressezcr 2 cozq de be'lier), very irasteful of energv.'At ,\lod-,ne then continues on a 2 . 1 per cent gradient into and halfn-a!- through the
L.

a similar system n-as set up at first. but using -Arc River xvater which IXO tunnel. which is straight for more than 7 miles. At the highest point the
water wheels, each working two pumps, raised to the ST-foot level. X more rails are 4.393 feet above sea level, and there is nearlJ- a mile of solid rock
direct and less wasteful system was finally installed a t Alodane. T h e corn- ox-er the tunnel roof up to the Col de Frkjus. From here the rest of the
pressed air throughout the tunnel was furnished to the machines tunnel is nearly- level to Bardonecchia. the southern portal. T h e railn-av
through 8-inch pipes laid along one of the walls of the tunnel. Another on the Italian side for the next 1 5 miles winds down the slope at a rather
pipe carried water to the drill points. T h e inau,wral blast t h a t King Victor steeper rate than on the French side. It passes over 8 viaducts and through
Emmanuel fired in I 8 j7 was the first of some three million blasts, extend- 26 tunnels, descending to just less than 1,600 feet above the sea at Bus-
ing over fourteen years. During this time nearly I milIion cubic yards of soleno, which is on the ?Id Mont Cenis road just below Susa, where it
rock were excavated and disposed of; the average haul for the broken connects with the Susa-Turin line. T h e Mont Cenis Tunnel led the way
rock approximated z miles. Ordinary black powder was the only explo- for other great Alpine tunnels even longer and of bolder design, the St.
Figcr? Jf.8 Placing :he 13st \tune :n rhe Bardonccchia port.11 arch of the
Mont Cenis Tunnel. Aug. 18. is-i (Frorn L'lllrr.!tr.~tio,~.
Sept. 9, r X - r \ Figure 14.9 Brunel's Thames Tunnel, completed IS+; (From Charles Knight
(ed.), London, VOI. j, I S j r )

Gotthard. the Sirnplon. the Imxschberg. and several others. T h e con-

struction of the 1 2 ! ;-mile Sirlipion .It the e d of the c c n t u n - involved matic drill. In England Thomas Bartlett patented n steam drill. much used
overcoming rechnicni ciificulriei iuch ;15 had not Ixxrl met earlier. in coal mines. that he insisted could operate cilso \\.it11 compressed air.
T h e .\Ion[ Cenis Rnilu.a\- and Tunnel \\-ere I)ein? built in the \-ears Sommeil!er iniprox-ed the Bartlett machine. \\.l.iich he began to use in i s 6 1
betu-een i S ; ; anti i 8 - 1. Durinc ne:irl\. h l f 01' this period the Civil 11':ir on the Italian end of the Jlont Cenis Tunnel.
\{-as being waged in the Cnited k i t e s . .\ ifcc:x!e h i o r e this 1 5 . w 1)eFin.
the countrT's first iniportmt 1-3!1\1 a\' tiinnel. the Hoo5.1~.h i been plnnned
on the Troy and Greenfield. Inter callcd the Fitc1ii)tlry. no\[- the Boston
and JIaine Railroad, in Ix-estern \lassachusetts. The Hoosac Tunnel. some- T h e Thames T u n n e l (Figure 1-t.9) a t London is . uscaliy
. considered to be
w h a t more than half as long JS the J I o n t Cenis. \\-as not. howei-er. actu- the first subaqueous tunnel. -ActuaIlv. hair-ever. i t had been preceded for
allv started until r 8 i + Lnlike the I l o n t Cenis. the Hoosac pierced a rela- man!- !-ears hv others of small bore in the coal mines of \vestern and
tivelv Ion- mountain. \vhich made it possible to dri1.e tn.0 vertical shafts northeastern England. T h e Thames T u n n e l is a nionuinent to the courage.
i n the 4j< miles, lvhich vastly simplified the n.orl;. -As a t l l o n t Cenis. resourceiulness, and perseverance of one man. the French-born British
hand-rock drills lvere a t first used on the Hoosac. T h e n came some not too engineer Alarc Isambard Brunel ( I 769- I 849). father of Isambard King-
successful experimentins lr-ith steam drills. These drills were originallv d o m Brunel. His 1,200-foot tunnel, begun in IS^ j. was built for highn-a?
an American invention, dating back to J. J. Couch in 1849, b u t thev traffic. I t is about 37 feet wide and ' 3 feet high outside with two arched
proved not to be well adapted to tunnel v.ork, largelv on account of the traffic lanes. T h e tunnel is lined with brick laid u p in w h a t was then cailed
difficulry of piping steam a considerable distance and taking care of the Roman cement.
exhaust. In the 1860s. Charles Burleigh impror-ed and perfected a pneu- Brunei designed f o r his tunnel what later came to be called a shield,
486 487
 488 CONSTRUCTION
a curious rectangular end of cast iron, faced with 3-inch planks and
weighing I 70 tons, for driving through the pressure-exerting clayey
material under the Thames. The shield fitted over the tunnel proper and
contained 36 compartments, or cells, each about 3 feet by 7, which could
be opened one by one to allow workmen to excavate a small amount of
the stiff blue clay of the bed of the river ahead of the shield. The entire
shield was divided vertically into I z sections called frames, some of which
could be forced forward a few inches a t a time by means of screw jacks.
The roof of the tunnel is in some places barely 1 3 feet below the river Figure I 4. I 0
The Tower Subway
bed. With such a crude device the river broke through five times and
(From G. W. Thornbury,
drowned seven workmen: After each such irruption, the tunnel had to be Old and Yeu London,
pumped out, and the overlying layer of soil strengthened by material vol. L, 1873)
dropped from boats. Once the work was suspended for seven long years.
Nevertheless, the tunnel was finally finished in 1843when Brunel was 74
years old and had suffered a paralytic stroke. Planned and used for high-
way traBc, it was not a financial success, and a railway later acquired
it. Now, as part of London’s underground system, it carries rapid-transit The tunnel was lined with heavy cast iron, built up in narrow cylindrical
traffic never contemplated by its builder. I t crosses under the Thames rings. each composed of a number of segments, bolted together as the
from Wapping Station, nearly I % miles east of London Bridge, to shield advanced. The shield was forced forward, as Brunel’s had been. by
Rotherhithe. screw jacks. The Tower Subway, r,3 j o feet long, was bored deeper than
The earliest American underwater tunnel, mentioned in Chapter I 3, Brunel’s tunnel, so that it passed through non-\vater-bearing clay. En-
was bored for 2 miles a t a depth of 30 feet below the bed of Lake tirely accomplished within the year 1869, it u.as for a rime equipped lvith
AIichigan in 1864 to 1867 to supply Chicago lvith water. Passing as it did tiny cable cars, each carrying I z passengers. The successful construction
through a dense blue clay, the tunnel was escavated without a shield. of the little Tov.er Subn-ay suggested the use of the Greathead shield
There was a circular vertical shaft a t each end w-hich kept the water out for a larger tunnel project, called at first the London and Southwark Sub-
and through u hich the excavated material was hoisted to the surface. The wav, later the Cin- and South London Railxvay. Greathead began work
tunnel was a cast-iron tube lined with brick and had an inside diameter on this tunnel in 1886, nearly a generation after the inauguration of the
of j feet. comparatively shallow London underground system which was operated
Brunel’s Thames Tunnel showed both the advantages and the disad- by steam locomotives. This railway started from a point near the Slonu-
vantages of his T p e of shield construction. It remained for a young ment and, piercing the bed of the Thames some\vhat obliquely, extended
British engineer of the next generation, the South African-born James more than 3 miles to Stockwell in South London. It was completed and
Henry Greathead ( I84.4-1896), to develop a circular, one-piece, close- in use late in 1890.
fitting shield originally suggested by Peter W. Barlow ( I 8-1 88j) and Almost at once it was dubbed the “tuppenny tube.” It was altogether
which became the prototype of those used all over the world ever since. different from the shallow underground. Modeled rather after the Tower
Greathead had been a pupil-assistant to Barlow and at his suggestion Subway, it was of twin cast-iron tubes, each just over 10feet in diameter.
used such a shield in tunneling under the Thames in 1869.This tunnel, Greathead used a larger version of the shield he had devised and used on
because it began close to the Tower of London, was called the Tower the Tower Subway nverity years earlier. Hydraulic jacks, pumped by
Subway (Figure 14.10).It was of much smaller cross section than Brunel’s hand power, advanced the shield. In addition, wherever he encountered
tunnel, indeed only 7 feet in diameter, and was used mainly by pedestrians. difficult water-bearing soils, which incidentally were not under the river,
 CONSTRUCTION 491
a river tunnel that would enable the several railroads terminating in Jersey
City and Hoboken to bring their lines together through it into a large
union-terminal station to be built in Washington Square, New York
City. The Hudson here is nearly a mile wide and in places about 60 feet
deep. The underlying soil is in general almost liquid silt. Haskin may
have known of Greathead's little Tower Subway. H e seems. however,
to have been serenely confident that compressed air would make a shield
unnecessary for boring his proposed tunnel.
Figure1 4 1 1 Elecuic locomotive and passenger cars on Ciry and South Lon- He started work on a shaft a t 15th Street, Jersey Ci?, in 1874, and
don Railway (From Scientific American, Nov. 2 9 , 1890) after several years' delay due to litigation, began in 1879 to excavate for
twin tunnels. They were of slightly elliptical form. about 16 feet wide
and 18 feet high inside, lined with 3-foot-thick brickwork inside a shell
he used compressed air to keep the water out. This method, patented in of "$-inch iron. In the summer of 1880 the compressed air failed to keep
I 830, had been used in bridge-foundation construction and had indeed
out the silt 3 t one spot close to the New Jersey shaft. and 20 men
been employed on a few short tunnel projects but with only varying rvere drotvned. LVork was resumed later, but ceased in 1882 when funds
success. Greathead was thus the first to use these two techniques in com- F v e out. Haskin had completed about 1,600 feet of the northerly tunnel
bination, and he set the pattern for most subaqueous tunneling down to and 600 feet of the southerlv, mostly from the S e w Jersey end. Seven
the present day. The maximum air pressure used bv Greathead on this years later (1889) a London firm, S. Pearson and Son, with much tunnel-
tunnel did not exceed I j pounds per square inch above atmosphere. ing and subway experience, took up the project and kept a t it for more
T h e motive power for the Citv and South London Railwav was elec- than two years. Their work was to reconstruct the porn-on of the tunnel
Vicity from the first, although the original plans contemplated cable cars. alreadv built and to extend it, using a cast-iron lining which by that rime
I t was the first underground raikvay anywhere to be operated b y elec- had become standard practice. This firm had learned how to use a shield
tricity (Fkgure 14.1I ). The little amculated three-car trains, which fitted in connection with compressed air. T h e engineers encountered one unprec-
tightly in the tubes, were draxvn by Siemens Brothers electric locomotives edented difficultl; in the form of ledges of bedrock close to the Xe'ew
that weighed onlv I 3 % gross tons. The cars had verv small windows. J-ork shore. and no one yet knew how to excavate such a tunnel partly in
T h e y seated 3 2 not too comfortable passengers, and the average speed was silt and partly in rock. In 1891 the British company's funds were ex-
I Z to 13 miles per hour. After about thirty years' service the tubes were
hausted and work stopped. This company had built 1,800 feet of tunnel,
rebuilt on a slightly more generous scale; traffic was kept running mean- all lined with cast iron.
while-a difficult feat. At about this time a 10-foot-diameter tunnel, lined with cast iron and
In the year 1879 two epoch-making attempts were made to apply 2, joo feet long, was being bored under the East River a t a depth of nearly
compressed air without a shield to tunneling. The first, a t Antwerp, was 1 2 j feet below low water. This was the East River Gas Company's tun-
for a short tunnel, + feet high and j feet wide, in connection with some nel which, passing under Welfare Island, connects 7 1st Street, Manhattan,
dock work at the river Scheldt, under engineer-contractor Hersent. T h e with what was then Ravenswood, Long Island. When the construction
project seems to have accomplished its purpose. The second attempt was contract was let it had been assumed that, deep as it was, the tunnel
on a vastly larger scale, namely, the tunneling of the Hudson River a t would pass almost entirely through rock, like a mining tunnel. No pro-
N e w York City. De Witt Clinton Haskin, an optimistic Californian of vision was therefore made for a shield, and there was little thought of
means, inspired perhaps by the success of Eads in 1869-1870 with com- compressed air. Before d a n y months the top of the tunnel had advanced
pressed air, or of William Sooy Smith on his Missouri River Bridge, came from each side into soft water-bearing material, which Compressed air at
t o New York in 1873 with a most ambitious scheme. H e hoped to bore safe pressures could not keep out. After prolonged effort and many dis-
 492 CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION 493
couragements, the contractor gave up in despair and the conduct of the perhaps carrying men and equipment to the surface. Clay was dumped
work was put into the hands of an English-born engineer, Charles M. from barges in an attempt to reinforce the scanty covering of silt above
Jacobs (1850-1919),who immediately provided shields a t each heading. the tunnel. The clay, as it filtered down, became almost fluid and failed
T h e tunnel headings soon passed entirely into soft mud, and the work to serve its purpose. It was, however, indurated, or hardened, by playing
advanced more steadily. At the end of a year, late in 1894, the tunnel against it from within the tunnel blowpipe flames fed by kerosene tanks
was completed and ready for its 36-inch gas main and narrow-gauge under compressed air. Ths hardened clay made a wall which protected
railway track. This pioneer tunnel had served as an experimental labora- the workmen 3nd made i t possible for them to drill and blast ahead of the
tory for subaqueous tunneling in the New York area. Shield and com- shield under an overhanging steel apron. Jacobs later remarked that never
pressed-air problems were here successfully applied to a variety of condi- before in history had man “made brick in the bottom of a river.” The first
tions, even to blasting of rock just ahead of a tunnel whose top was in of the northerly pair of tubes was completed in 1904, practicdly t h i y
soft mud. years after Haskin had started the project.
Shortly after Jacobs had completed the Ravenswood tunnel he was -4s the hlc-ldoo, or Hudson and hlanhattan, tunnels were approaching
asked to report on the feasibility and probable cost of completing the completion the Pennsylvania Railroad’s plan to tunnel the Hudson a t 3.d
two Hudson River tunnels which had lain embedded in the silt since Sueet began to take shape. The Pennsylvania tunnels are about I !/. miles
the Pearson firm had stopped work in 1892. After a few years’ delay an north of the northerly pair of the \IcAAdootunnels; they are of slightly
American company was incorporated in 1902, with William G. McAdoo larger bore than the Jlc-Adoo tunnels, and the cast-iron shell is reinforced
as president and Charles 11. Jacobs and J. Vipond Davies as engineers. by a concrete lining a t least 2 feet thick. T h e bed of the Hudson is not
T h e original plan was considerablv altered, and the result, in 1904 and essentiallv different here from what it is farther south, a deep layer of
1905,was the McAdoo Tunnel which forms part of the Hudson and Man- thin silt with bedrock underlying it a t a variable but considerable depth
hattan Railroad, a vastlv more estensive and complicated system than lower. h t one point the rock is 300 feet below high water. It was realized
Haskin had planned th& years previously. It was decided not to let the that tunnels in soft silt might not be stable under such loads as heatT
tunnel work to a contractor; in fact, contractors were properly hesitant locomotives and cars. though there had been no appreciable settlement
to attempt the completion of an undertakins which had already proved in the Hudson and Manhattan tunnels which, however, tarried relatively
so hazardous. Instead, Jacobs organized and directed the constructional light multiple-unit trains. I t was a t first thought that this objection could
force for the entire tunneling operations. By this time the project had be met by providing long piers or screw piles extending down to harder
expanded to include two pairs of twin river tunnels somewhat over a mile material or even to rock. The work was let out by contract in 190+ While
apart, with elaborate connections in Jersey City and Hoboken and more the ori@al drawings showed screw piles or pipe suppom, it was decided
than a mile of tunnel under Sixth Avenue, Manhattan, north to 33d Street. after elaborate tests that they were unnecessarj-. Instead, the roof and
Before the original twin river tunnels had been completed two unusual invert were strengthened by sreel rods and the concrete lining was made
situations presented themselves. I t was found that in the silt the aggregate somewhat thicker. T h e result was that the weight of each tunnel, foot bv
thrust of 2,500 tons which the I I hydraulic jacks could exert on a foot, including its masimum train load, was equal to that of the displaced
shield was often enough to force it forward without the necessity of ad- silt; the tunnel was thus practically a buoyant cylinder hung at the ends
mitting any of the material. Thereafter this blind driving, as it was called, and floating in the mud.
became an accepted procedure. In fact as much as 7 2 feet of progress At Tappan Zee, 2 2 miles north of the Pennsylvania tunnels, the bed
was made in twenty-four hours on one of the southerly tunnels, using of the Hudson is still a la)-er of silt, in places 300 feet deep. Here the
this method. A t one point on one of the northerly tunnels near the N e w New York State Thruway will cross the river on a bridge to be com-
York shore, ledge rock was encountered, and several blows had occurred. pleted in 195j, more than 3 miles long, whose main channel span of 2,400
A blow is an irruption or escape of the compressed air in the tunnel, re- feet is of candever truss design. The piers of this channel span are in
sulting in a huge bubble blowing up through the overlying silt and iarge part supported by eight enormous semibuoyant closed caissons, or
 494 CONSTRUCTION
boxes of reinforced concrete, resting on steel piles which were driven
down to bedrock. Pier foundations with such buoyant supports are a very
recent engineering technique in the United States.
W e have narrowed our discussion of the development of subaqueous
tunneling to the point of including only London and New York projects
and have omitted reference to the larger-bore highway tunnels more re-
centlv completed. If space permitted we might also have described such F I F T E E N
other early achievements as the long railway tunnels in England under the
Sevem and the IMersey, both completed in 1886, and the Sarnia tunnel
under the St. Clair River between Michigan and Canada. completed in
Reflections
I 890. Historically, the importance of subaqueous tunnels is that thev are
a modem development beginning in the nineteenth century, whereas
tunnels through rock have had a long technical evolution extending from
antiquity. Although this chapter is the last of Engineering in History, it certainly
does not bring to a conclusion the history of engineering. Indeed it would
Bibliography appear from the accelerated rate of engineering development during the
Bossom, Alfred C.: Building to the Sopwith, Thomas: “The Actual State past hundred years that, midway in the twentieth century, society is only
Skies, The Studio Publications, Inc., of the Works on the IMont Cenis in the initial stages of an engineering advance which is dramatically chang-
Yew York, 1934.. Tunnel, and Descripaon of the ing the ways of human life. S e w sources of mechanical power, new
Duluc, Albert: L e Mont Cenis, sa Machinery Employed,” Minutes of prime movers, and automatic controls alone will lead to many transforma-
route, son tunnel, Hermann & Cie., Proceedings of rhe Institution of tions in human activity.
Paris, 1952. Civil Engineers, 1-01.23, pp. 258-3 19,
Freyssinet, E.: “The 600-ft. Concrete I 863-1 864.
As previous chapters have shown, there is an orderly sequence in the
Arch Bridge at Brat, France,” Pro- Sopwith, Thomas: “The Mont Cenis histor;\- of technical progress, which Abbott Payson Csher has analyzed
ceedings, American Concrete Insti- Tunnel,” Minutes of Proceedings brilliantly.* However, rates of engineering advance have not been uniform.
tute, vol. 25, pp. 83-97, 1929. of the Institution of Civil Engineers, The most rapid pace has occurred since the wedding of engineering and
Jacobs, Charles M.: “The Hudson vol. 36, pp. 1-34, 1872-1873. science about the middle of the nineteenth century after a long flirtation.
River Tunnels of the Hudson and Starrett, William A: Skyscrapers and
Manhattan Railroad Company,” Of the many innovations discussed in the earlier chapters there can be no
the Men Who Build T h e m , Charles
Minutes of Proceedings of the In- Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1928. doubt that the development of sources of power other than man’s own
stitution of Civil Engineers, vol. Straus, Joseph B.: T h e Golden Gate strength had the most extensive impact on Western civilization and facili-
181,pt. 3, pp. 169-257, 19w-1910. Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and tated far-reaching advances in engineering.
Randall, Frank A.: History of the Highway District, San Francisco, The substitution of mechanical for muscular effort began during the
Development of Building Construc- ‘938. Jliddle Ages with the inventions of water wheels, windmills, the horse
tion in Chicago, University of Illi-
nois Press, Urbana, Ill., 1949. collar, and the principle of fore-and-aft rigs for ships. Ever since, mechani-
cal power has made it possible to increase the welfare of man by relieving
him of the drudgery of hard muscular effort such as pulling an oar, drag-
ging a plow, sledge, or cart, and lifting water. With the invention of the
Steam engine in the eighteenth century, and turbines, internal-combustion
1 Abbon P. Usher, A History of Mechanical Inventions, 2d ed., Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, mass., 1954, pp. 5 M 3 .
495
 15,000

l0,OOO
c
:
5000

I
0 ?9?0 7920 7930 7940 ?950
1940 1945 1950
Year Year
Figure I J . I Kilowatthours per indusmal worker per year in the United Figure i j . 2 Kilowatthours per family per year in the United States (Based
States (Based on data in Edison EIectric Institute, About the Electric Industry, on dara in Naaonal Electric Light .lssociauon Bulletin, 1931, and Edison
1952-1953. 1954-1955) Electric Insdrute Statirtical Bulletin, 19j+)

engines and electric generators and motors in the nineteenth century, new
applications of power to perform heavy tasks have recurred a t an ever- T h e switchboard operator of a large power plant may control by a twist
increasing rate. The average power which a man can exert b y muscular of his fingers over ~,ooo,ooohorsepoxver-more power than the entire
effort throughout the day has been estimated to be about 3 j watts ( !/30 population of the state of Connecticut could produce by muscular effort.
horsepower).? If he worked 240 eight-hour days in a year, this would T h e largest source of power available to most Americans is the
amount to 6 j kilowatthours per year. Edison Electric Institute statistics automobile engine producing upward of 100 horsepower. But the house-
indicate that the electrical energy used by each Ivorker in industry in the wife, especially in the United States, has control of electric-motor appli-
C‘nited States amounted in 1 9 j 4 to about 1 7 , j 14 kilo\vatthours per worker ances in her home, such as washing machines for dishes or clothes,
( F i p r e I j . 1 ) . Electricin- furnishes approximately 9 j per cent of power vacuum cleaners. refrigerators, misers, ventilating fans, and automatic
used b y industry. On this basis each individual engaged in manufacture furnaces, each of which does an amount of work equivalent to that of
had under his control an amount of energy equivalent to the muscular several human beings. Although it has been claimed that such electrical
effort of 2 s men! T h e average family in the United States used about conveniences have solved the problems of the shortage of domestic
z,j49 kilowatthours in 1 9 j 4 (Figure I j . 2 ) . On the same basis of calcula- labor, the authors have it on good authority that the solution is not
tion the family employed the equivalent of about thirty-three laborers entirely satisfactory. Sevenheless, as Philippe Le Corbeiller has stated:
each dav to help in the household duties! Each driver of a roo-horsepower “. . . mechanical power has changed the status of woman in our society.
automobile has under his control the equivalent in mechanical effort of I t has brought it about that the motor which one worker in a plant has
more than two thousand slaves to speed him on the road! to control is operated b y pushing a button or twisting a dial, and this
T h e locomotive engineer and the airplane pilot control impressive can be done b y a girl without expenditure of strength; she may well be
amounts of power. T h e locomotive engineer often has under his full con- more useful in that capacity than a big burly man with brawn and perhaps
trol an engine capable of exerting u p to j , O O o horsepower. A t cruising less brains. T h a t means economic independence, the possibility of get-
speed, the pilot of one of the newest British Comet passenger jet airplanes ting away from the family cell if she wants to and cares to. W e have
controls about 3 j,ooo horsepower- the equivalent of 700,000 humans. already said that easy qansportation brought about social fluidity; this
2 C. M. Ripley, “A Kilowanhour,” Edison Electric Institute Staristical Bulletin, vol. means for a woman the possibility of rebuilding in another town a life
7, p. 326, June, 1939. that for one reason or another has not been successful; it creates in her a
496 497
 498 REFLECTIONS
completely different psychology-one of self-reliance and independence.
W e could go on and on about the consequences of that!”
It would be diacult to overemphasize the social importance of
mechanical power as replacing muscular effort of human beings. Mechan-
ical power has become something far more than a substitute for human
effort. Obviously 700,000 people could not directly supply the power
to fly the equivalent of a jet airplane carrying only fifty persons at
over joo miles per hour. Western societies, having adapted themselves Figure ir.3
to mechanical power, have used it for many purposes other than as a x “fly” to keep main sails
substitute for human muscles. The extension of power utilization has truly in the wind
made the twentieth century the Golden Age of power.
The development of automatic controls in the twentieth century may 1

have as great an effect on human welfare as has mechanical power. An

automatic control is a device which performs automatic self-regulation ment opened the injection valve, admitting water to the cylinder to con-
by feeding back to an earlier stage information regarding the status of 3 dense the steam. Atmospheric pressure forced down the piston, and a rod
process at a later stage to alter the action of the process and thereby attached to the working beam first shut off the injection valve and then,
to control the output. One of the most familiar of automaac controls when the piston reached the bottom of its stroke, opened the steam
is the household thermostat. It shuts off the furnace when the tem- valve, thereby breaking the vacuum to allow the piston to rise to the
perature of the room rises above a given semng and restarts the furnace top of the cylinder.
when the temperature falls below that semng. The thermometer’s in- Later in the eighteenth century, several innovators added automatic
formation about the temperature of a room is fed back to the furnace, controls to windmills. In I 7 jo -4ndrew Meikle ( I 7 I ~ 8 I II ) invented the
which in turn controls the room temperature. The most important link fantail gear or fly. Meikle’s device was a small windmill mounted at
in this closed sequence is the feedback. The principle of control by right angles to the main sails and diametrically opposite them on the
feedback is the core of automatic controls, or servomechanisms as they turret (Figure I j . 3 ) . If the main sails were not correctly set, the wind
are often called when they have a power-amplifying system in addition drove the flv which rotated the turret until the main sails faced the
to feedback. wind, at which time the sails on the fly became stationary. Prior to 1787
Although automatic controls were not an important factor in social when Thomas &lead patented it, a centrifugal flyball device was in use
history until the twentieth century, they originated in the eighteenth. to readate the distance between the grinding stones of windmills. Follow-
One of the earliest automatic controls was on Sewcomen’s first steam ing the invention of the flyball regulator, various improvements in
engine of 1 7 1 2 . Since a full cylinder of steam produced a temporary louvered sails led to William Cubin patenting such a sail to control auto-
exhaustion of Kewcomen’s small boiler, he ingeniously constructed an matically the speed of the mill. As the force of the wind increased, the
automaac control which regulated operation so that the engine would louvers opened to spill some of it, thereby keeping the mill going at a
make one complete cycle only when a sufficient amount of steam was in fairly constant speed.
the boiler to effect the cycle. After the cylinder had been filled with These automatic controls, including Watt’s adaptation of the windmill
steam, thereby exhaustins the boiler, the engine stopped. When the flpballs for regulating a throttle valve to stabilize the speeds of h s
boiler had produced enough steam to refill the cylinder, a float arrange- engines, had a tendency to oscillate, or hunt, around a given setting. In
the nineteenth century, engineers invented damping devices to prevent
3Philippe Le Corbeitler, “Applications of Science and the Teaching of Science,” oscillation, or hunting, in the governor. During the same century, mathe-
General Education in Science, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1952, p. 136.
(Quoted with the kind permission of the Harvard University Press.) maticians and physicists, among them P. S . Laplace, J. Clerk Maxwell, Lord
 500 REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS 501
Kelvin, and Oliver Heaviside, worked out the theory of control and de- motor-fuel needs, we would have to build four or five times as much plant,
veloped differential equations representing oscillation and damping. It cracking and some other modem chemical processes would have to be
was not until the 1920s~ however, that engineers began to apply this theory eliminated, yields of motor fuel from crude petroleum would drop to a
in the construction of reliable and quick-acting servomechanisms. Further quarter of those at present, costs would skyrocket, and quality would
innovations during the past two decades have minimized the tendency plummet. Automobile engines would have to be radically redesigned to
to hunt and thus have increased the applicability of automatic controls. function with inferior fuel. And because of lower motor-fuel yields, we
The result has been a rapid growth of instrumentation in United States would need to produce crude petroleum several times more rapidly as we
industries; for instance, industry purchased nearly twice as many instru- produce it now. Technology in refining would be set back to the early
ments in 19j1as it did in 1946 to accomplish accurate control. 1920’s.’**
The social signhcance of the introduction of automatic controls is The conrrol of combustion in the boiler of a modem power plant is
analogous to that of the power revolution of the Middle Ages. Whereas another example of development in automatic control. The output of the
the development of mechanical power relieved men from being the , generators is signaled or fed back to the boiler room, and any increase
major source of power for the operation of various processes, the appli- in power demand sets in motion the automatic mechanism controlling the
cation of automatic controls has tended to remove men from such opera- feedwater pumps, the draft fans, and the fuel supply, so that no labor is
tions. There is no indication, however, that men will be removed entirely needed in the boiler room except to maintain proper records of the
from the productive system. However, as in the case of mechanical power, operation and to stand by in case of emergency.
automatic controls have become something f a r more than just laborsaving The history of automatic control reveals social implications which
devices. Many modem processes can operate only under automatic some view with alarm and others with equanimity. Automatic controls,
controls; human control would result in an expensive and inferior product. like mechanizations, may be a possible threat to society in that they may
Eugene Ayres has given a striking example from the petroleum industry, produce technological unemployment, a potential problem which has es-
illustrating this development. isted since the initial stages of the Industrial Revolution. The widespread
“Last year [ I 9 jI ] one of the countries of Asia employed a U.S. con- introduction of laborsaving steam power in the early nineteenth centuq-
tracting firm to design a modem oil refinery. The firm submitted a design led to rioting by workers who feared that the steam ensine would per-
for a Sjo million plant, and it included the usual array of control instru- manentlv put them out of work. Actually, the construction and operation
ments. After studying the plans, the officials of the country, which has of the new engines and machines created new jobs which demanded
an embarrassing surplus of manpower, asked the designers to eliminate greater skill and less drudgery. It is interesting to observe the reemploy-
all automatic controls from the plant. The country could provide any ment of stagecoach drivers and canal boatmen who had been displaced by
number of thousands of men to record measurements and to control proc- the introduction of railroads and to consider the numbers of those engaged
esses, and it was prepared to pay the price of lower efficiency and poorer- in transportation now in comparison with those employed a century and a
qualin products to create this opportunity for employment. The con- half ago. Severtheless, at mid-century, one of the assu
tracting firm gave sympathetic consideration to the request, but its engi- Karl M a n construc:ed his theory of capital’s esploi
neers finallv decided that under no circumstances could control instru- was that of inevitable technological unemployment. Although it cannot
ments be eliminated from the design. It was not just a question of be excluded as a possible event in a capitalistic economy, the history
operating costs or efficiency; without suitable control instruments a mod- of the past century and a half has thoroughly discredited filarx’s assump-
e m refinery simply could not operate a t all. tion of its inevitability. Moreover, the short history of automatic control
“If the 50,000 control devices in the oil refineries of the US.should indicates that it will not cause more than temporary technological un-
go ‘on strike,’ we would be faced with social disaster. The refineries would
4Eugene Ayres, “An Automatic Chemical Plant,’’ Scientific American, vol. 187,
become lifeless industrial monuments. If we undertook to replace them pp. 82-83, September, 1952. (Quoted with the kind permission of the Sciem’fic
with old-fashioned, manually operated refineries to supply our present American.)
 502 REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS 503
employment, at least in an industrial society like that of the United States, Certainly engineering has made major contributions to man's material
because for each unit produced in the over-all economy in recent years welfare. Few in Western societies would elect to revert to the physical
there has been a decrease in capital investment as well as manpower re- hardships of the early Middle Ages or even to those of the mid-nineteenth
quired. Automatic controls will further decrease capital investment for century, with its endemic intestinal diseases, its lack of widely available
each unit produced on account of a larger number of units being turned power, its seventy-hour working week, and its low average earned income.
out. If capital's contribution were to increase while manpower require- Improvement in prosperity and general health has been dramatic in recent
ments dropped, capital would receive an increasingly larger share of total decades. Power, machines. and automatic controls have made possible a
income, and there would be technological unemployment. T o date there reduction in the average number of hours worked per week. N o t long ago
is every indication that the reverse is the case. a sixty-hour week was standard for most workers, and many worked
There are some who feel that the mechanization of industry and twelve hours a day for siu or seven days a week. In the United States,
automatic control will lead to a stagnanon of human intelligence and the normal present work week is five eight-hour days. which gives two
enterprise by making it unnecessary for men even to think about pro5le:ns. , days of leisure each Lveek. T w o or three paid vacation weeks are not un-
Xctuallv, history shows that the significant advances in technolo&gyand common. The individual worker's increased output capacity made pos-
science have often accompanied improvements in justice and expressions sible by control of mechanical poLver has given him more hours of leisure
of beauty which are more apt to occur when men have leisure and mate- to say nothing of the remarkable improvement in his standard of living.
rial comfort and are not totally occupied with the business of keeping .Is for health, to cite but one example, deaths from typhoid fever in
alive. The history of automatic control shows that it not only can pro- large cities in the Cnited States dropped from 24.j per IOO,OOO in 1910
duce things of finer quality in abundance, but it also can perform tasks to 0.2 per 100.ooo in 194j-a 99 per cent reduction! .Moreover, 1945 was
that direct human control could not accomplish. In addition t o furthering before the discovery of a specific and effective curative treatment of the
a reduction of working hours, automatic control, like mechanical power, disease. In other words, this remarkable mortality reduction was due
has eliminated much drudgery. -4sa consequence many workers are now almost entirely to the advances in preventive methods consisting largely
being trained to be the masters of their machines. This raising of the of the purification of water described in Chapter I 3.
status of the worker contributes to the general welfare. But this improx-ement in health lvas not due to engineering alone.
Indeed, it is a typical illustration of the manner in \vhich ensneering must
T h e Impact of Engineering QII Society be integrated with other knowledge and human values to improve human
welfare-even material welfare. T w o important, nonengineering develop-
In relating the history of engineering we have endeavored to show how ments, one moral. the other scientific, were necessarl; before sanitarl;
human ingenuity and social circumstance have produced engineering engineering could be effective. The first lvas the general rise in the
progress. In turn, earlier chapters have also demonstrated the impact of humanitarian desire to improve well-being that began in the last half of
engineering innovations on human activity and consequently upon history. the eighteenth century. There is little incentive to prevent deaths if a high
It is the thesis of this book that engineering advance is vital as one of
the interdependent variables on which the evolution of history depends.
value is not placed on human life. Almost incredible proof of this state- -
ment is the reduction of child mortalitv in London and elsewhere, be-
William Fielding Ogburn has elucidated a part of this thesis by showing tween I 740 and I 800. About I 740 only one child out of every four born
how inventions influence history through affecting the size of popula- alive reached the age of five; children were not expected to live. By 1800
t i o n ~ However,
.~ the previous chapters have not analyzed the nature of this terrible death rate had been cut nearly in half owing almost entirely
the effect that engineering has had on human activity and values. to increased interest in children by the laity and the medical profession."
6 William Fielding Ogbum, "Inventions, Population and History,'' Studies in the
There was no new and effective treatment of disease; it was simply better
History of Culture, George Banta Publishing Company (The Collegiate Press), s h e s t Caulfield, The Infant Welfare Movement in the Eighteenth Century, Paul
Menasha, WE., 1942, pp. 232-245.
B. Hoeber, Inc., New York, 1931.
 504 REFLECTIONS
day-by-day care of well children that decreased the deaths. This higher
value placed on life contributed to the successes of sanitary engineering
in the nineteenth century.
The second factor was Pasteur’s theory of the germ origin of infectious
disease which has already been discussed in Chapter 1 3 . Without the
knowledge supplied by Pasteur’s theory, earlier water-supply systems Figure I j.4
had fortuitously been either healthful or disease-ridden. Long aqueducts, .Maillart’s Schwandbich
from Roman times, brought water by gravity to cities from distant Bridge, Swiaeriand. 1933
(From S. Giedion. Space,
sources, relatively free from pollution. However, the introduction of Time m d Arcbrtecnrre;
water-wheel pumps, and later steam pumps, made i t possible for a city courtesy Harvard
to obtain water from a nearby river. The installation of pumps saved the University Press)
expense of constructing aqueducts but at the same time brought death
to many of the inhabitants from grossly polluted river waters. Engineer-
ing technique, in this instance, was in advance of relative scientific knowll
edge. This example of the effect of water-supply engineering on health vation of social justice. Engineering has made possible manv beautiful
is characteristic of the impact of engineering on general welfare. Engi- buildings, bridges. and other structures, though an advance in construc-
neering by itself is not enough; it must be integrated with other knowl- tion does not in itself guarantee a beautiful structure. As but one example
edge and directed by ethical principles. On the other hand, the most ex- of manv, the introduction of the pointed arch. the unit-element bay, and
tensive knowledge combined with the highest human values would con- the flying buttress made possible Gothic cathedrals of great beauty. With-
tribute little to society as a whole without benefit of engineering appli- out these innovations it would not have been possible to express the
cations. aesthetic values in Gothic architecture, but it \\as necessary that engi-
Religion, even before the general benefits of engineering application neering be combined with a reverence for beauty, which unfortunately
were available, occupied a major place in human thought and action. But uas not always the case. Sevenheless, there are manv examples n.here
while engineering has played no direct part in the formulation of any the first application of an engineering advance has been combined with
religion, technology has greatly facilitated the communication of religious the highest aesthetic values. Robert Maillart’s Schn-andbach Bridge is not
teaching to many millions of people. The production of papyrus, paper, only the first reinforced-concrete bridge to have 3 roadmay platform with
and inks has been of importance to the spread of religious beliefs as curved alignment. but it is also a structure of great beaun- (Figure I j.4).
well as of general education. Likewise, the construction of churches Progress in transportation and communication engineering has greatly
has greatiy enhanced the religious life, xvhich would be difficult to extended the enjoyment of beauty and may well have contributed to the
imagine without them. The release of men from the burdensome task of recent heightening of reverence for beauty. A. X. Whitehead has written:
food producaon and constant, unrelenting drudgery has made possible- “Just u.hen the urbanisation of the western world was entering upon its
but, of course, was not the stimulation of-the appearance of great reli- state of rapid development. and when the most delicate, anxious con-
gious leaders and a more extensive opportunity for the great masses of sideration of aesthetic qualities of the new material environment was requi-
men to follow those leaders in faith and hope. I t would be utterly ridicu- site, the doctrine of the irrelevance of such ideas [of natural and artistic
lous to contend that religion depends on engineering; nevertheless, to a beauty] was at its height. In the most advanced industrial countries, art
degree not generally appreciated, engineering has enlarged religious ex- was treated as a frivolity. A striking example of this state of mind in the
perience. middle of the nineteentb century is to be seen in London where the
In -similarways engineering has contributed to the increased produc- marvellous beauty of the estuary of the Thames, as it curves through the
tion and enjoyment of beauty, the progress of knowledge, and the ele- city, is wantonly defaced by the Charing Cross railway bridge, con-
 506 REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS 507
structed apart from any reference to aesthetic values.” The ugliness of Unfortunately, it has also been true that criminals have taken advantage
many nineteenth-centiuy industrial cities is too painfully familiar to of technological advances and have misused them.
make it necessary to belabor Whitehead’s point. It is enough to say that Some of the values of social justice are improved over those of the
if engineering ability is not combined with aesthetic values, only ugliness eighteenth century, but there have been terrible regressions. Some modem
can result. governments have misused material power and machines for the lowering
T h e railroad, steamship, airplane, and automobile have enabled mil- of social justice and have immorally employed the telegraph, telephone,
lions to see the world‘s great works of art and natural beauty. Thousands and radio, to say nothing of gunpowder, dynamite, nitroglycerine, and
of Americans visit European cathedrals each year, whereas it is doubtful internal-combustion engines, for the centralization of political control
that most medieval Europeans ever had the opportunity to see more than whch, with a disregard for individual human libemes and values, has
the one in their immediate neighborhood. The radio, despite its abundance submitted some of their ciuzens to most evil indignities. These govern-
of low-quality programs, gives opportunities, which would not otherwise ments have clearly demonstrated that without a continuously evolving
be available for those interested, to hear great works of music. Engineer- , morality and a ready acceptance of new knowledge tempered with ideal-
ing has played a vital role also in the advance of knowledge and has ism the gains in social justice can be ruinously destroyed.
facilitated the diffusion of truth and learning. Earlier chapters have noted In addition to peacetime iniquities on the international scene, the so-
the scientist’s dependence on engineering advances in prosecuting new called civilized counmes have woefully misused mechanical power and
investigations of the natural world. Beyond supplying insmments to the machines for destruction in the two great wars of the twentieth century.
scientist, engineering has presented him with problems the solutions of For as long as world society is made up of antagonistic nations, the possi-
which have proved to be important scientific advances. bility of another moral collapse into annihilative war will continue to exist
Just as engineering accomplishments have contributed to faith, beauty, The disregard of human values during the Fascist, Nazi. and Soviet regimes
and truth, so have they added to the extension of social justice. The man- and the two World Wars, the development of fission and fusion bombs,
ner in which mechanical power as a substitute for human effort has per- plus the terror of a potential third war have led some to demand a mora-
mitted the increase of individual leisure, self-reliance, and independence torium on all engineering advances which may be made to work for evil
has been discussed. By itself, this improvement in the equality of man has ti well as for good. Such a moratorium would be foolish, even were it
been a powerful force in the growth of the \Vestern democracies. With possible to effect. The real problem is that other knowledge, particularly
the rise of equality there has been greater opportunitv for the benevolent in the social sciences, must advance more rapidly, and the forces for good
to be good. A t the same time malevolent superstitions and the darkness of must be strengthened.
ignorance have been diminished. Many engineering devices make it more However, societies have alwavs had power problems of one kind or
and more ditFcult for cruel and unjust men as well as criminals to remain another even before the invention of mechanical poxver. An early ex-
undetected. One major type of eighteenth-century malefaction, piracy, ample of misuse of power is the story of Pharaoh’s oppression of the
has been practically eliminated, largely because of improved communica- Israelites in the Book of Exodus. The long series of oppressive acts culmi-
tions facilitating international cooperation. Ever since the Slough murder nated in the Pharaoh’s deliberately vicious order to his foremen no longer
case mentioned on page 338, the telegraph, and subsequently the tele- to continue supplying the Israelite brickmakers with straw as theretofore.
phone and radio, have made it increasingly possible for the forces of law Nevertheless, the Israelites were required to produce the same quota of
and order to apprehend criminals. Street illumination combined with a bricks as previously. Having to gather straw in addition to making bricks,
mobile police force have prevented some crime and wanton immorality. the Israelites were unable to maintain their former quotas and were cruelly
chastised. The Nazi regime misused its power to persecute the same race
’Alfred N. Whitehead, Science and rhe Modem World, The hlacmillan Company, in the 1930s albeit for en$reIy different reasons.
N e w York, 1931, p. 281. (Quoted with the kind permission of The Macmillan Corn-
Pay.)
Or to quote again from Professor Whitehead, who was speaking in
 508 REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS 509
1925: “At the present moment a discussion is raging as to the future of been the subject of discussion. Alexis de Tocqueville analyzed it in 1840
civilisation in the novel circumstances of rapid scientific and technologicd when he first published the second volume of De la dkmocratie e n AmP-
advance. The evils of the future have been diagnosed in various ways, n‘que.9 Having conceded that “it must be acknowledged that in few of the
the loss of religious faith, the malignant use of material power, the deg- civilized nations of our time have the higher sciences made less progress
radation attending a differential birth rate favouring the lower types than in the United States,” Tocqueville disagreed wirh many Europeans
of humanity, the suppression of aesthetic creativeness. Without doubt, who thought that this lack of science was “a natural and inevitable result”
these are all evds, dangerous and threatening. But they are not new. of democracy. Tocqueville felt that the Americans’ “suictlv Puritanical
From the dawn of history, mankind has always been losing its religious origin. their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit.
faith, has always suffered from the malignant use of material power, has which seems to diven: their minds from the pursuit of science, literature.
always suffered from the infertility of its best intellectual types, has and the arts, the proximi? of Europe, which allows them to neglect
always witnessed the periodical decadence of art. In the reign of the these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes.
Egypdan king, Tutankhamen, there was raging a desperate religious of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have
struggle benveen Modernists and Fundamentalists; the cave pictures ex- singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purelv prac-
hibit a phase of delicate aesthetic achievement as superseded by a period tical objects.” However, he was convinced that “if the Americans had
of comparative vulgariry; the religious leaders, the great thinkers, the been alone in the world. with the freedom and the knowledge acquired
great poets and authors, the whole clerical caste in the Middle Ages, have by their forefathers and the passions w h c h are their own. thev would
been notably infertile; finally if we attend to what actually has happened not have been slow to discover that progress cannot long be made in the
in the past, and disregard romantic visions of democracies, aristocracies, application of the sciences without cultivating the theory of them.” =5,
kings, gewrals, armies, and merchants, material power has generally been century later there is evidence from the awards of Nobel Prizes to
wielded with bhdness, obstinacy and selfishness, often with brutal support Tocqueville’s conviction t h a t *Americans living in equalin- in a
malignancy. -And yet, mankind has progressed.” democracy could do important scientific work. -An analysis of percent-
ages of Sobel Prizes in science awarded to -Americans from 1901,the
vear of the first prizes, to ~ 9 j 3indicates t h a t scientific u.ork in the
American Engineering C‘nited States has produced increasin,olv important results. In the first
It is important for a nation of the world, as it is constituted today with ten-year period, Americans received 3 per cent, in the second. + per
its economic, political, and military rivalries, to know thoroughly its own cent, in the third, j per cent, but in the last two periods, the percentages
engineering potential for security and welfare. The United States has were 28 and 39, respectively.
made more extensive applications of engineering innovations than has any Because the United States has made such wide use of engineering.
other county. It is also widely realized, as pointed out in the first the impression apparentlv is general that Americans have been preemi-
chapter, t h a t the great majority of basic scientific advances upon which nent in engineering innoration and applied research as used bv ‘LV. R.
recent engineering developments were based had been made by Euro- Llaclaurin in classifying the five types of discovery and innovanon typi-
peans. This fact has influenced the United States government to direct its cal of modem engineering. These five are ( I ) fundamental research,
scientific policy toward stimulating training in the United States that ( 2 ) applied research, ( 3 ) engineering development, (4) production engi-
would produce scientists capable of making the fundamental advances neering, and ( j) service engineering.’O Such groups as the President’s
in scientific theory which heretofore have been made by Europeans. The Scientific Research Board and the Engineers’ Joint Council have made
National Science Foundation is an immediate result of the new policy.
The lack of interest of Americans in purely theoretical work has long 9 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New
York, 1946, vol. 2, pp. 35-47, Book I , Chaps. 9-10.
10 William R. Maclaurin, Invention and Innovation in the Radio industry, The iMac-
* Zbid., pp. 293-291. (Quoted with the kind permission of The Macmillan Company.)
millan Company, New York, 1949. p. nii.
 5'0 REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS 5"
statements giving the impression that many fundamental advances in basic Europeans made most of the primary inventions. T h e growth of Ameri-
applied research have been the work of Americans. can automotive engineering is even more outstanding. In this case Euro-
However, a review of the fundamental engineering innovations dis- peans made all of the basic inventions. iMoreover, in 1894 only two years
cussed in previous chapters covering the nineteenth and twentieth cen- after the first automobile was built in the United States and two years
turies shows that less than a third were made by Americans in the last before Henry Ford made his original car, the world's first automobile
hundred years, although Americans made more than half of the important road race was run between Paris and Rouen. Twenty-one cars. all Euro-
advances between I 800 and I 8 jo. Certainly during the latter half of the pean, pamcipated, and a t that time there were five automobile manufac-
nineteenth century men who were European-born and -trained made the turers in France and Germany, with none in the Cnited States. Sivty
principal original contributions in a large majority of the salient develop- vears later the United Scares had j 5 million motor vehicles-approxi-
ments. Such men originated commercial steel, reinforced concrete, radio, mately jj per cent of the world's automobiles. At the present time, no
electric generators and motors, the internal-combustion engine, steam other nation can come close in approximating the advances made by
turbines, and automobiles. The importance of twentieth-century develop- -American development, production, and service engineering.
ments is more difficult to evaluate. For instance, atomic energy is not an ' -American industries have excelled in mass production and in making
important source of power, although it may be in the future. However, the tools necessarv for it. Indeed, one type of engineering, industrial
of the twentieth-century fundamental innovations which have already engineering, or scientific management, originated in the United States.
proved to be basic, a t least two-thirds have been made by men trained .\lore than anv other one man, Frederick Winslow Taylor (18j6-191 j )
in Europe. was responsible for the introduction of scientific management. Taylor
The history of chemical and industrial engineering is not included did his most important earlv work in a steel plant at Philadelphia in the
in this book, and many phases of mechanical, mining, and metallurgical I 890s.
engineering history have either been touched on only lightly or altogether Taylor's contribution to scientific management included development
omitted. However, an examination of Samuel Lilley's tabulation of in- of tools and machines for manufacturing processes. H e also introduced
ventions in mechanical and mining and metallurgical engineering l1 re- time-and-motion studies in the investigation of industrial plants and of
inforces the observations regarding European contributions. Moreover, handling material, together with the determination, based on the analyses
since the chemical industn in the United States lagged far behind that of these studies, of methods u hich were most efficient and involved the
of Europe, parricularly Germany, until the First World War, it seems least lvasre. These studies u ere both psychological and mechanical, and
unlikely that the inclusion of advances in chemical engineering would he had to sell the idea to both emplovees and emplovers. H e introduced
materiallv alter the comparison. Even for the fields covered in this book, systems of incentive pav for labor that were more effective than the
this analysis of the relative contributions of Americans and Europeans is piecen-ork system w-hich had become discredited on account of the ex-
far from absolute. Another observation is that even when allowances ploitation practiced by certain tj-pes of industrialists.
have been made for the difficulties in evaluation, the basic innovations Taylor Xvas also active in the development of a tool steel u-hich would
of the twentieth century appear to be fewer than those in the last half cut metal a t a f a r higher speed than anything previously used and there-
of the nineteenth century. fore increased the productivity of both labor and capital. This steel allov
The great genius of American engineering has been in what Mac- containing chromium and tungsten had already been developed in Eng-
laurin terms engineering development, production engineering, and serv- land, but about 1895 Taylor introduced a technique for preparing the
ice engineering. American engineers have clearly displayed their creative steel a t what was then the exceedingly high temperature of 189o"F, just
power in electrical engineering and automotive engineering. T h e United under the melting point. This heat treatment produced a cutting tool
States generates over 40 per cent of the world's electric power, yet which became harder the faster it cut. Machine-tool practice was thus
"Samuel Lilley, Men, Machines and History, Cobbea Press, London, 1948, pp. revolutionized, and speeds were doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled.
214-220. It is significant that, while Taylor's contributions to industrial effi-
5’2 REFLECTIONS REFLECTIONS 5’3
ciency were at first unpopular in his native land, although he insisted twentieth century engineering is playing a predominant role in the greatest
that the advantages of increased efficiency ought to be shared equitably social evolution that the world has seen. Rapid developments in our ways
by capital and labor, they were seized upon enthusiastically in Europe. of life are unsettling and confusing, but only primitive societies stand
Early in the Soviet regime in Russia, Lenin wrote in Pravda on April 28, still and look backward to emulate the past. A civilization worthy of its
I 918, “We must introduce in Russia the study and teaching of the new name looks and moves forward. It may lag a t rimes, but it remains dy-
Taylor System.” namic. Associated with this dynamism is inevitably a degree of instability,
and the inherent human desire for tranquillity magnifies the instability of
the present. But this insrability should not be confused with a lack of
“The Past Is Prologue to the Future”
security. Some of the most productive periods in human history have
It is possible to discern many vital world problems that must be solved also been the most tremulous. Wirness Greece in the fifth and fourth
in the relatively near future. From past experience it would seem that centuries B.C. If knowledge of man and society can be increased and if
engineering will contribute to their solution, although it would be im- I
ethical principles and human values can be bettered, there is no need to
possible to predict precisely how. Of the major problems facing the view the uncertain future with dark pessimism, although constant vigi-
world in 19jj, those resulting from the almost completely novel and rapid lance will be necessary if progress is to be achieved.
increase in world population are among the foremost. The novelty of the
present situation is not merely the unprecedented speed of world increase
but also the increase in non-European populations. The conquests of pre-
ventive medicine have been largely among European peoples, but the
more recent triumphs of curative medicine over infectious disease seem
to be having a relatively greater effect on the size of non-European popula-
tions. It has been estimated that the increase in world population during
19jo to 1980 may be as much as the total world population in 1900.
As many observers, including Sir Harold Hartley in the first Fawley
Foundation Lecture (19j+),have pointed out, huge exertion will be
necessary to supply the new population not only with food but also with
fuel, power, and raw materials, if malhutrition and a world-wide lowering
of standards of living are to be avoided. Despite the fact that time is short
and that there are not obvious many new developments in the produc-
tion of foodstuffs, fuel, power, and uansportation, it seems probable that
engineering will assist in making it possible, if indeed it turns out to be
possible, for the world’s population of 1980to eat adequately and to im-
prove its living standards. Engineering has contributed in large part to
the solution of analogous problems accompanying the growth of great
cities. But such a historical analogy does not make possible the prediction
that engineering will inevitably be a prime element in such social transi-
tions of the future.
Nevertheless, an inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the story
of engineering in history is that engineering has become an increasingly
powerful factor in the development of civilization. iMidway in the