Garden cities in theory and practice; being an amplification of a paper of The potentialities of applied science in a garden city

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...Paris. When, however, our own Cleopatra's Needle was landed at the Thames side, thanks to the skilful engineering of Mr. John Dixon, M.I.C.E., four men only were required-to raise this enormous mass (something like 200 tons), because they had at their disposal four small Tangye hydraulic jacks. arrangement adopted of first building your derrick and then your house. As we journey through the streets of London we now commence to see with pleasure, rearing up from behind the hoardings of clearances, light triple timber towers. Upon a platform constructed upon these, in due course, a steam-crane makes its appearance, and the economy, to say nothing of the expedition of work, by this is surprising. Strange that one should have seen it already for so many years in Paris. Instead of hodsmen laboriously climbing vertical ladders with mere driblets of building material, we occasionally see whole cart-loads of bricks, timber, mortar, girders, and other material whirled swiftly up on high, dexterously gyrated, and deposited at the feet of the workmen. This, be it mentioned, is usually done by means of a steam-crane, a motor appliance, which adds its quota of smoke and steam and dirt to the already well-laden London atmosphere. The general reader may well ask, ' Why should not all this work be done by electricity, seeing that at length electric mains are to be found in all our principal thoroughfares?' The reply would lead us to a technical subject upon which we must not here enter, but nevertheless the reader is entitled to a reply. It is due to that failing of British manufacturers the want of standardization. Hence we find that the pressure of electricity in one street is quite different to that in the next, that one is a STANDARDIZATION 275 continuous or uni-direct...