Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-05-28

out three feet deep in the roadway the
pedestrian might drop through direct
on to the line, for only some eighteen
inches of earth covers the eighteen
inches of brickwork of which the tun-
mel consists, and separates the passer
above from the train below. The
shallowness of this tunnel has frequent
ly been n source of trouble, for when
the cable tram conduits were laid In
Colmore row II special form had to be
devised to meet the difficulty. Again a
large and imposing frontage In Cars
| lane Is. nothing but huge sham of
timber and plaster. especially devised
to present an imposing-very imposing
front without stability and without
weight The engineer to the Great
Western railway will not allow an
ounce of weight to rest upon his tunnel,
and nowadays the city surveyor will
not allow so iilmsy structure to be
erected as that referred to. This has
been the cause that for years has kept
opn that piece OF land near Cars
Lane chapel-at one time the resting
place of ghost shows and crcuses. The
price demanded for the land seemed
moderate enough, and deposits have
been paid and plans prepared. only to
be condemned alike by city surveyor
and railway engineer. Architects and
others Of recognized ability have
tackled the problem, only to give 1t up.
The difficulty has been that the whole
of the street frontage Is over the tun-
mel, and at an awkward angle. varying
from four feet TO twenty-five, but not
n partlcle Of weight would the company
allow to rest upon the tunnel, and
cross girders could not be used on
| account of the shallow depth.
What the landowner wanted TO do
was to erect a three-story building,
with very little indeed to rest upon, and
I'D hot ba txtfa ant xy-
feet of building over the tunnel would
have to be suspended-held out at arms
length. as II were In other words as
the proposed building was forty-fve
feet deep and from this had to be de-
Quoted twenty-five feet of tunnel, II
left hut nineteen feet of solid founda-
tion to carry an erection forty-five feet
wide and three stories high. To over
come the difficulty the architect who
had the work in hand devised an In
genious system TO huge cantilevers, six
In number, running to nine feet deep.
and estimated to carry weights varying
from 100 to 400 tons, and the building
will soon be completed. The a canti-
lever supports the greatest weight. es-
timated at 400 tons, and calculated to
support a strain of SIS tons. we may
perhaps render the matter more INTEL
ligible by taking as typical the canti-
lever known to the architect as Al,
which porjects over the tunnel twenty
five feet, and supports-or will support
Its due share 1915 tons) of the build
ing, while only nineteen feet Of II under
the building will rest upon solid foun-
dalton. To add to the safety, from this
hangs a huge mass of concrete some
sixteen feet across by fifteen feet high,
and weighing some 100 tons, suspended
by steel bars twenty-five feet long. The
whole matter resembles the Weighing OF
n leg of mutton on the butchers steel
yard-the cantllever acts as the steel
yard-the warehouses and shops are
supported at the long end. and the
gigantic weight of concrete bangles
from the short one, acting in some
manner as n counterpoise. while the
cantilever rests up on q bed of con-
crete. 1t has been suggested that n
vigorous sneeze In front portion Of
the premises, or the simultaneous en-
trance into the premises Of two or
three portly customers might "tip tho
whole thing up" But the drawings of
building constructed on such novel
lines have. naturally. been examined
with the utmost care both by Mr.. Eng
lis, the engineer of the Great Western.
and the city surveyor, and one or two
minor objections have been successfully
met, so that the building is now in
course of progress. When the girders
are covered in It will present no I'M
usual features to the eye, and will have
little to distinguish II from Its fellows.
All the same 1t will be a monument OF
architectural Ingenuity. - Burlington
Daily Mail.