point which relates to elevated cable lines, and that is the freedom from mud, dirt and grit, which in a conduit is a matter of importance. The amount of mud, dirt, water and grit that gets into a conduit, although the opening is only three-quarters of an inch, is considerable; and there is quite a degree of suction in the conduit whereby a great deal of dust is drawn into it, which gathers upon the bearings of the carrying pulleys; and I can see upon an elevated line that that objection would be very trifling, while the item of cleaning the conduit would be entirely dispensed with.

The President: We will now listen to the next report.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LOCATION AND CONSTRUCTION OF CAR-HOUSE AND STABLES.

Mr. C. Densmore Wyman, of New York, Chairman of the Committee, read the report as follows:

THE AMERICAN STREET-RAILWAY ASSOCIATION,

Mr. President and Gentlemen :-At the annual meeting of this Association, held in Chicago, in October, 1883, an able and exhaustive article upon the subject of Street Railroad Buildings, prepared by a committee of which Mr. Augustine W. Wright, C. E., was chairman, was read, and as the records of the Convention very correctly express it, was received with marked applause.

Made our permanent possession by incorporation in the published minutes of the proceedings of the Convention, and in a revised and enlarged form made a part of Mr. Wright's excellent manual, "American Street-Railways," the report has been a familiar hand book to all of us upon the subject of which it treats since the date of its issue. It urged with emphasis, supported by liberal and convincing quotations from eminent authorities, the primal necessity in all street car stables of abundant light, perfect ventilation and thorough drainage, reasoning rightly that the securing of these qualities in construction was dictated not only by humanity but demanded by economics.

The securing of the right of way and the getting of the tracks down in the streets is too often made the “pièce de résistance" of street-railroad construction. Once this done, a stable and depot, without much reference to location, is constructed possibly from some old warehouse or unoccupied shed, and horses provided a domicile with stalls, sometimes underground, with poor light, incomplete drainage and imperfect ventilation. The manager confesses that his buildings are not what he would like, but are the best the Company could afford. Surely such a policy is short sighted, for, in the respects above cited, nothing but the best should be good enough, viewed simply as a matter of investment for interest. We shall consider mainly the stables in what follows, since the construction of car-houses and shops follow such well-known and general rules that the discussion of this branch of our topic is comparatively unimportant.

LIGHT.

Assuming an unhesitating assent to the statement that in the building of new, or the remodeling of old street car stables, the three qualities before mentioned are fundamental in their importance, it may, however, be well to consider what amount of light may be called abundant, and what shall be provided in construction, that the stable may be perfectly ventilated and drained. Technically considered, the answer to this question would lie within the province of the architect and sanitary engineer, but some general suggestions for our own guidance in regard thereto will not be amiss. As the weakest link is the point of test in the strongest chain, so the darkest day is the one to be provided against in the matter of stable light, and thus large windows and abundant sky-lights with reflectors, if necessary, are conceded. Sunlight is remedial; it favors nutrition and nervous function; it sustains chemically or physically the healthy state of the blood. The blue glass craze that swept over the country a few years since demonstrated this. Undoubtedly many persons were benefited by the treatment, but that benefit accrued by reason of the necessary subjection of themselves to the sunlight, not from any virtue in the glass or the color. In the case of epidemic and contagious diseases, affections which are greatly nurtured by uncleanliness, sunlight may almost be regarded a specific, and therefore, in large cities, where the horses of the street-railroad companies have no open lot or corral, in which they can run, and both winter and summer are housed for twenty out of every twenty-four hours, the admission of an abundance of sunlight is an indispensable requisite of good stable construction. The ranging of horses in stall rows along a wall and admitting light to these stalls by small windows opening upon the head or above the head of the horse, is in our opinion unfortunate both as to light and ventilation; the light if admitted freely, is focussed in the face of the animal, or thrown beyond him without ample diffusion. A better plan, and one adopted in the principal street car companies, is to arrange that windows of ample size pierce the walls opposite the head of each row of horses and doors with sashes and fanlights open opposite the end of the aisles, between the horse rows. This arrangement in connection with roof lights, where the stable floor is wider than fifty feet, will ordinarily provide the light needed.

A safe rule to follow in this matter will be to provide in our horse homes for the admission of as much light as we arrange for in the living rooms of our own homes.

VENTILATION.

Now, as to ventilation, what we want principally in our stables is an upward moving current of air without draughts. The best authorities tell us that the amount of air necessary for the healthy respiration of a horse is from five to six thousand cubic feet per hour. Assuming that ordinary construction advises stalls nine feet by four and a half feet, with aisles between rows, eight feet wide, and a height of ceiling of fourteen feet, we see that the space thus allotted to a horse is about eight hundred cubic feet, and it is plain that to furnish the animal with proper respirable air, the air of this space must be entirely renewed each nine to ten minutes. The windows and doors which have been suggested in such quantity as to admit abundant light, particularly if supplemented with fresh air ducts

piercing the walls opposite the head of the stall rows, will be sufficient for the entering supply of air. What shall be the size of the exits or air shafts? Not to detail the mathematical calculations by which an answer to this question is found, suffice it to say that where the air shafts run through not more than two stories, and are properly arranged above the roof, they should be made in the proportion of eighteen inches square to each horse. They should have above the roof movable slat sides, that may be shut against the direction of a blowing wind and opened with its current, so that downward draughts are avoided, and. suction for the removal of the heated and impure air promoted. In winter a costless system for the introduction of fresh air into the stable and one that is simplicity itself, is of the following construction:

The lower sash of each window is raised from three to six inches, and in the space between the sill and sash a piece of wood is introduced to fill up the space. The lower sash at its upper part is thus brought a few inches above the lower part of the upper sash which it by so much overlaps. In this manner there is left in the middle between the two sashes an open space up which the air is constantly passing from the outside into the stable room, and thus at all times air is finding its way in, and, as the current is directed in an upward course, draft is not felt, even when the air is blowing in freely. Shaft ventilators with gas jets beneath, or air forced from a central fan through and out the pipes, extending along the ceiling, over the aisles between the horse rows are often used to increase and secure the proper ventilation.

MANURE PIT.

In this connection let it be said that more care than is usually observed should be given to the location and construction of the stable manure pit, or yard. This should be isolated and no passage for its gases, harmful chemically and disagreeable in odor, should be afforded to stable or car house. By carefully covering it and providing it with ample roof ventilation carried to a sufficient height above the roof of surrounding buildings, this secure isolation may be provided. At the stables of the Belt Line in New York City, with stall capacity for 1,600 horses, the manure pit is at the rear of the stable, a room upon the ground floor walled in on three sides with a driveway to the street. This room is 40x35 feet, having a height of ceiling of twenty feet. Light and air are admitted to it by two windows, opening upon an area, away from the building. Two large drains in its floor keep it dry, while a ventilating shaft 6 feet by 6 feet is carried twelve feet above the roof of the building, a total distance of fifty-six feet in beight. In this shaft upon each floor of the three floors above are sliding doors three feet square, through which the refuse is thrown to the room below. These doors are weighted to close except when in actual use. The sun and rain thus being shut off from the manure receptacle and good ventilation being given it, even when well filled, its contiguity is unnoticed in the adjoining buildings.

DRAINAGE.

As to drainage, let it be said at the outset that main soil or drainage pipes should never be constructed of tile or brick, for with numerous joints, leaks and settlings are almost sure to occur. Only the best heavy cast iron pipes should

be used. In a majority of the recently constructed street car and private stables, stall drainage is effected as follows: The stall floor is laid solid in asphalt and level to a length three feet from its head; from this point the solid floor pitches with an inclination of three inches at the foot of the stall. This inclined space is laid with racks three-quarters of an inch apart, each slat three inches wide (of spruce or maple generally), tapering on the floor side so that their upper surface corresponds with the head of the stall. This construction gives the horse a level surface to stand upon, while the spaces between the rack, having a three inch inclination toward their outlet, give drainage-way for fluids to a gutter running transversely to the foot of the stall. This gutter should be of cement where the stable floor is next the ground, but where horses are kept above stairs, this may be made of timbers scooped out to a pitch of at least one sixth of an inch to the foot towards the catch basin and drain pipe. This gutter is usually coated with pitch and covered either by iron plates perforated for stall drainings, or with a two inch oak plank notched on its under side opposite the spaces between the stall racks to admit their contents to gutter, and having rings on its ends to lift it from its place, that the gutter may be swept, flushed and disinfected daily. It is well to carry overflow pipes from water troughs, of which in passing we would recommend an abundance, into these gutters which well serve for flushing purposes. All sewer connections ought to be thoroughly trapped and ventilated to the roof of the buildings.

These few suggestions touching stable construction in reference to light, ventilation and drainage, are presented mainly as addenda to what has already been so fully stated by Mr. Wright in the report and his manual, to which we have heretofore alluded.

LOCATION OF STABLE.

In the matter of the location of stable buildings, we note that it is usually the custom of Street Car Companies to fix upon a place for their stables at or near one of the termini of their lines. In large cities where the route lies from a central point in the city outward to the suburbs, the selection of a location is often properly dictated by the lessened cost of outlying property, coupled with the fact that a location uncrowded with other buildings promises purer air and better light. One other consideration should be allowed weight in this selection, namely, from what point on the line can the horses be worked to the greatest advantage. Since the matter of light and air may be made to depend so much upon mechanical construction. in the last analysis, the determining of the best place for building comes to be a question of cost, affected on the one side by the first cost of property, and on the other by the subsequent and continual cost of the motive power to be used. A deal of thoughtful investigation has been given to the question as to the cause of the great loss by death and inefficiency of street car horses. Selected as they usually are with care, acclimated to their work by easy stages, and used but four or five hours at the most out of twenty-four, watched and carefully tended, care on the part of their drivers duly impressed by rule and discipline, it seems strange that the average life of the street car horse should so seldom rise above five years and so frequently fail below it. In our opinion the most fertile cause of this early disability of our horses is the jar

ring which they get upon the hard rock pavement in the cities while traversing a continuous route of twelve or fifteen miles at a rapid pace.

A distinguished medical authority has said with reference to such jarring of the human city dweller, that "Few realize that we, who were designed to tread upon soft mother earth, have become a race of dwellers upon rocks and stones. In walking, the jar of the fall of our 150 pounds comes entirely upon the heel, since it first strikes the ground, the ball of the foot and the instep serve only to raise us for another downfall, small it is true, but equal to the weight of our bodies falling through one-half to one inch in a little less than one second. The ill effect of these thousands of daily concussions accumulate, and after a time concur with other causes in producing that state of disability called nervous exhaustion."

If the jarring effect of the concussion between the heel of a man protected as it is by the rubber-like mass of cartilage there placed, and this again shielded by the boot heel, that is itself not entirely unelastic, be injurious, how harmful must this jarring be to the horse, who has no fulcrum or lever-like action in his foot, and who at the point of contact with the pavement is shielded by no more elastic a substance than an iron shoe. Nervous exhaustion means an invitation to all sorts of ailments which run riot in the weakened system of the animal and destroy him.

Now the location of the stable usually determines the length of time to which each horse shall be subjected to this harmful jar, and therefore we suggest that on this score, that location be selected which shall permit the strain of this pounding on the pavement to operate for two or three short periods rather than during one long one per day's work.

Again, in the majority of northern cities, during the summer months, it is necessary to establish horse relief stations upon most of the lines and frequent changes of horses. At these stations, if protected at all, the horses stand under an open-sided shed and are there sponged and watered; but a sudden shower drenches them, a change of temperature inducing founder and colic occurs before they can all be brought in the flies, harness and restless companionship, fret and bother them, and all together the relief station becomes but a choice of evils. If their trip could be shortened and they could be put into a stable about midway of a two to three hour journey, for example, the harness taken off and rest and quiet with proper water applications afforded them, it is probable that they would be able to resume their journey in safety after a short time, and be effective for a much longer one than they would have been without the depot change. By way of illustration: In the city of New York a street railroad line has two divisions running from the same depot; one is eight miles long, making sixteen miles for the round trip, called the Eastern Division; the other is five miles long, or ten miles to the round trip, called the Western Division. The horses selected for the Eastern or long service are the best in the stable, weighing from 1,075 to 1,150 lbs. They make but one trip per day, requiring, including rest at the terminus, only three hours, and, moreover, rest one day per week. The horses on the Western Division or short service are smaller and proportionately inferior in point of strength and physique. Resting one day per week as are those