The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-12-07

sisting &c the President of the United States,
the chief of engineers, the first vice president Of
the monument society, the architect of the Cap
itol and the supervising architect of the treas
ury. At the instance of the commission, the
President, in June, 1873, detailed Col Casey and
Capt. George w. Davis of the engineer corps as
engineer and assistant engineer. respectively,
of the monument. In a recent interview, Col.
Casey, the engineer in charge Of the work, gave
the following interesting facts:
"We never had any casualties here sand he,
explaining the elevator and hoisting machinery.
Il crowbar fell from the top a year ago, but hit
nothing but the wooden floor below. One of
these elevator sleeves fell, striking from one
brace of the elevator to another; one barely
missed a lady in a party waiting to come up.
We stretched q net around the top to catch any
of the workmen who might fail, and twice it has
saved life. Our men take all the chances up
there. five hundred feet above the ground, that
your brick mason would ten e tfrom the ground.
Admiral Rogers climbed up to the highestcourse
the other day and found a man walking along
the narrow edge of a stone as unconeerned as II
it were on the ground. The men seemed to
have no thought of the height-work, chat, joke,
and laugh as if they were on the ground. Some
times stonelaying goes on when the clouds and
fogs obscure the city below.
EVERY foot of this interior is familiar to US
who have worked here so long. You can easily
tell how high you are at any time by noticing
the numbers oil the iron beams of the elevator.
We are passing No. - and are 800 feet from the
ground. The beams are ten feet apart. The
masonry on the lower part of the monument was
o coarse rubble. Some of the stones are rIdzcu-
lousy small-not four inches thick or a foot long
sometimes. In order to make that wall look
decent we shall plaster it. This will keep the
moisture that collects from running into the
masonry, and so will protect the work. From
where began the whole interior wallis as nicely
faced as the exterior, and the same marble was
for the most part used. Some granite was used.
'NOns of the most in interesting things we have
done has been to keep accurate data every
uaNppIn0 and nfphf cInR0 Vp hnpan of anV dis
placement in the walls of the monument, we
suspended from various heights-l30, $40, 320
and 400 feet-eords with plumb weights at the
lower end. These weights hang in some slowly
resisting substance like molasses or glycerine.
With a straigntedge at night we note where the
cord is. and agaiu in the morning. Thus for SIX
years we have kept data, in books for the pur-
pose, Of the movement Of the monun ent. The
only cause of displacement is the expansion and
contraction Of the walls under the heat of the
sun. In the winter, for instance. the south wall
shows greater movement than the other sides
You can see that there has been
good stone-cutting throughout, from the
fine joints and perfectly mathematics fitting
of these interior stones. The bond" as the
masons call it. by which the inner and outer
face of the walls are held together, is what is
called in the books the Flemish bond-oue stone
lengthwis in the face of the wall and then one
stone running back through the wall, binding it
all together. This bond runs through the whole
monument, and the result is the strongest ma
sonry attainable."
1--WE mark every stone" said Captain Davis.
the assistant engineer, so we know just where
it is to go. For instance, the courses in the cap
are lettercd, and we are now laying Ii. The
c~apstone is. n. So we have l, h, L, and Nj yet
to lay. In II there are two stones on each side
of the square-eight in ALL This one is the sec
ond to be laid in that course. 1t is cut to fit the
corner, and is beveled, you see. There are forty
four stones more to lay. If we have good
weather and are ordinarily successful
we Law TOuT stones in n daY, think
that unless we have more difficulty chan L fore
see in laying the capstGne We shall lay every
stone in ten days. Everything is ready to put
the cap in place. We shall put a quadripod
with legs sixty feet long, of timbers ten inches
square, on the cap, each leg running down over
the face of one of the pYramidal sides. Meeting
at the top, they will form a very strong support,
with which we can hoist the cap into place. We
shall suspend tue capstone, lay all the courses
below, and then let the cap down into place to
bind the whole together. There will be slight
scaifolding around the cap, which we shall cut
away and take in through the windows below.
The only way TO. remove the heavy timbers we
havesused at the top of the monument is to saw
them up and take them down on the elevator"
Colonel Casey showed how he should finish
the windows; That doorway there for the
stones to pass out ON the scaffold will not be
there when we finish up. We shall set a stone
in there. These windows on each side will be
chiseled off smoothly, and put in the wall at the
side. | shall set a strong iron bar, swinging in
a SONkGL lkB btS OluldchlDtAGQ OIduGo II u
grandfathers' fre-places. At the outer end of
the iron bar will hang a marble slab, nicely fin
ished. to fit into. these windows. The slab will
swing around, and shut snugly in, and close the
window rain.tight. These windows are two feet
wide by eighteen inches high. The sides, you
see, are about five inches thick, SO you can
look out easily. 1t is not like reaching out
through a brick wall.
LET me show you how we make Joints, con
tinued the Colonel Here are two stones joining
on the perpendicular edges, with about an eighth
of an inch space between. Down the edges Of
each is a groove, an inch and a half deep and
three quarters of an inch wide. When the two
stones are put in place the grooves are exactly
opposite. and form one channel down into the
wall. Now we slip a tongue of p~hosphor bronze
down into this double groove, and then calk in
back of it with Portland cement. The bronze
will not corrode, turns water perfectly, and the
cement binds the stones together firmly. The
stones on the face of the monument are five
inches. thick at, the thinnest edge. At the
lower edge they are thicker, in order to be
bound INTO the wall. The horizontal edges
arc 'beveled and grooved so as to sit firmly'on
each other. They are laid in type metal, which.
as you know, is not affected by water
There is abundant room at the top of the mon
ument The shaft is thirty-fve feet square on
the outside and about thirty square on the in
side. Beginning thirty feet below the floor are
huge stone braces running up eighty feet and,
meeting in a key stone up in the pyramidal cap.
These braces arc eighteen inches thick and
Swing upWHTQ III q SFdCciul CuINc. Ab JLo W1OtSG
place in the brace tits six feet from the inner
face to the wall Of the monument There are
three braces on each side of the shaft, and ttose
next the corners form four snug little four-sided
rooms.
At one time there were 40 ma~rble4eutters
and laboreIs of all kinds at work on the m0nu-
meut. A year ago the payroll monthly for
labor on the monument was about $500. A
three story building adjoining the Windsor
building, used by the War Department, is used
bv the monument officers. Here are models Of
all sorts showing comparative heights of the
tallest structures in the world. Our monument
will be 500 feet high; Strasburg Cathedral is
4G8; Cologne Cathedral, oil, st Peters at
Rome, A8. The pyramids are 100 feet lower.
One Of the most remarkable things about the
monument is the fact that Colonel Casey putia
new foundation under the pile when it was IVA
feet high, before he would begin stonelayiug at
- A--aaaL-aEA L. I'D AI.a-alA-