Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1854-05-04
miscellaneous.
AN IMPORTANT INVENTION.

S>4s A"~- o1AA AM kAS A&NA AONs
The City Government of San Francisco, Cal
ifornia, year or two since passed an ordinance
directing the grade of many of the principal
streets to be raised from one to eight feet. 1t
accordingly became necessary to raise to like
extent the buildings abutting on these streets
Many of the buildings are large brick blocks
and warehouses, erected within comparatively
short period, and as yet are not consolidated
like those that have stood series Of years.
Hence great difficulty was experienced in raising
such buildings to the reqired elevation by ordi-
nary means. Aside from the vast power re-
quisite, and, for furnishing which, the old
machinery was entirely inadequate, the constant
liberality to jerks Or jars, which would crack
and weaken the walls rendered different and
more powerful apparatus desirable.
These difficulties have all been overcome by
the application of Hydronamic pressure The
idea originated with Mr.. Edward I. Steen, son
of Joseph Stecn, Esq, of this village, but for
the past four years resident in San Francisco,
q
Steen," proprietors of the Vulcan Iron Works
in that city. Mr.. Steen is the inventor and
manufacturer of the Hydrostatic machinery,
the following description of which, and of its
mode of operation, we copy from the Alta CAL
}ornia of january 18th;
"rhe difficulty of lifting brick building en-
masse will be appreciated when the immense
weight to be raised and the steadiness and equil-
ibrium to be maintained arc taken into account
The walls of the building have to be lifted at
once, and with precise equality. There must be
no jar Or vibration. The power must be equal
to overcome any contingent addition to its
weight from the fraction of adjoining brick
buildings, which are generally more Or less
matted in with hard set mortar to the walls
in process of being lifted. There must be a
centralizaton of power applied from one source
to every part of the building, with the same
amount of force used, or in the moment of ap-
plying it, would raise one portion of the wall
faster or slower, or sooner or later, than the
other portions, and would inevitably crack the
building.
All these dessderata, are achieved in Messrs.
George Gorden & Steen Hydrostatic machine.
The power is applied to the structure to be
raised by a number of massive presses, each
weighing 1000 lbs, distributed at short spaces
under the walls in holes cut in the brickwork
The presses are connected with each other, and
with central battery Of pumps, by copper
pipe of very small bore and great thickness.
With few buckets of water on the pump
we'll, the force of one man on the pump cranks
is equal to the raising of several hundred tons
of brickwork; and the power can be multiplied
to any extent, 80 as to raise an entire block of
buildings, by adding to the number of presses
and lengthening the pipes.
As the well-known property of water under
pressure is to work with elasticity, there is con-
sequently no jerk or jar. The piston of each
press is constructed to lift 80 tons, which it
does without motion perceptible to the eye or
the touch in fact, so smoothly that glass of
quicksilver exhibits no vibration if placed on
piston head while its enormous power is sus-
tainingand raising the weight placed upon it.
Tie machinery, which promises to be of great
service in raising buildings now below the
grade, was arranged, constructed, the soundness
of each part tested, and the whole set to work
without previous experient the estimates Of
strenth and power, and the distribution and
equalization of the hydraulic forces, having
been entirely ascertained by mathematical cal
culations based on the experiments (reduced to
practice) of Sir Robert Stephenson and other
eminent engineers"