The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1889-05-30
THE ALUMINIUM AGE.
Soon Houses, Bridges, Ships and Flying
Machines VIII Be Made of This Metal.

Soon Houses, Bridges, Ships and Flying
Machines VIII Be Made of This Metal.
The world has had its ages of stone
and bronze. We are now passing
through the iron age. Will this be
succeeded by an age of aluminuma
We believe that it will. It taxes ones
imagination a little, we confess, but
not ones credulity to see in the minds
eve the bright and beautiful alumi-
mum replacing the black and ugly
iron in most Of the latter's uses.
Fancy houses built of aluminium
instead of iron. The weight of the new
metal is only third as much as iron,
with equal or greater tensile strength.
The girders and the plates could be
cast and readily handled in sizes far
larger than those to which architec-
tural iron is now confined. Perhaps
whole fronts of modern sized houses
could be nodded in a single piece. This
would greatly facilitate building OPP
erations, which are now slow.
Aluminium is as freproof as iron.
The larger the plates of the metal
composing the side of the house the
less liable they are to be warped and
curled by intense heat. A building
with aluminium walls, sucks we have
described, would survive a great con-
hagration in which iron structures
of existing patterns would wither and
crumble to the ground. As aluminium
never rusts, a house constructed of it
would always exhibit a silvery, glis-
tening surface. 1t would require no
cleaning, except as smoke or dust
might gradually dim its native
beauty. A sponge and water would
bring all that back.
Whenever aluminium is cheap
will be made of it. This will be
revolution in ocean commerce. Hulls
of aluminium ships will weigh only
a third as much as iron ones of equal
tonnage. They will be as strong and
secure against damage from collision
as iron vessels now are. Their far
greater buoyancy will be to that ex-
tent an increase of safety.
Passenger cars made of aluminium
in light and graceful pattern-includ-
ing wheels of the same metal-need
weigh no more than wooden cars of
our day, and they would be incom-
bustible, and would not be readily
crumpled up or smashed into splinters
by collisions. The perils of railroad
travelling in the age of aluminium will
be much less than now.
The ductility of aluminium will rem
der it the best of all possible material
for bridges. The weight of the wire
ropes, as also of the bridge itself, for
given span, being but one-third that
of iron, engineers will perform feats
of bridge building now wholly be-
yond their powers. The age of alumni
mum will be the age of bridges. They
will probably be thrown over the East
and North rivers at intervals of every
few blocks.
With the sufficient cheapening of
aluminium may come the realization
of the flying machine, One great OBJ
stacle to the success of aerial naviga-
ton is the difficulty of supplying a
practical motor either to propel or to
steer the balloon. The want is still
more seriously felt if the design is to
dispense with gas and initiate merely
the movement of a birds wing or q
fsh's tail in cleaving the air.
The small weight of an aluminium
engine, driven by compressed air, gas
or electricity, compared with its iron
equivalent undoubtedly makes the
ultimate success of air ships more
probable than before.
The sources of supply are inexhaust-
ible. Iron, copper, silver, gold are
found only in localities geographically
small. But one OF the most universal
ly distributed materials of the earth
beneath cur feet is clay, the metallic
base of which is aluminium. Having
boundless faith in the ingenuity of
man 20 overcome difficulties, we conf
IDENTIFY expect him to wrest this now
stubborn metal from its superabund-
ant combinations, and enable the
world soon to enter on an age Of alu-
minum New York Journal of Com