The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1906-07-22

tends along fifteen feet of ground. and
If more than thirteen million teams
were strung out in line, the noses OF
the horses touching the tailboards OF
the wagons, the brick train would be
1886 miles long. Such a train OF
wagons would reach from vIadivostok
to Paris, along the trail of the Trans
Siberian Railroad to Moscow thence by
devious routes TO the French capital
and with 1000 miles of horses and wag-
ons overlooking into other corners OF
Europe. Such procession of wagons
would extend four times across the
North American continent. or from
Greenland to Cape Horn, yet they
would only be carrying the bricks that
Will go into the rebuilding operations
of San Francisco.
At the present time the only brick
works IN operation in this city have a
capacity Of 100000 bricks day, so
that If the rebuilders had to depend on
this single plant it would take 65.7eO
days to bake all the bricks needed, or
$50 years. Fortunately other sources OF
supply will arise to meet the demand
Then 1t will be possible to use a billion
or so of bricks that are now in the
ruins
To revert to interesting speculations
(and they should afford good illustra-
tions of Thea feat the rebuilders
will accompIish) a husky hod carrier
can tote about twenty bricks UP to the
bricklayer who has to do all the
work" Twenty bricks is rather the
maximum than the minimum, for II is
not the custom of the craft to romp un-
der such a burden. But taking the
limit of 20, something like $4,000. 600
hod carriers would be in demand If the
carrying was to be done all at one
time. This is about twice as many as
the adult male population of China.
Were these 32S,000,000 nod carriers
to march in single file, allowing a COM
Portable five feet to a man, the process
sion would extend more than fourteen
times around the globe, or once around
If the army marched 15 abreast
But in building with brick NOWADAYS
patent scaffolds are used, which relieve
the toll of both hod carriers and brick
layers. With these scaffolds it is pos
sible to erect a great brick building In
a minimum of time. BY using such a
scaffold a brick building can be raised
at the rate of story day, making 1t
possible to lay about 100000 bricks a
day in one building operation
When the permanent building is well
under way in San Francisco more than
million bricks will be laid a day. in
surfing the employment of great army
of bricklayers, though of course this
cannot be accepted as an average. for
rain and other delays must be taken
into consideration.
The bricks that will go into the
building operations that this city will
project and complete in the next five
years would make a wall five feet high
and six inches thick for a huge in
closure extending from San Francisco
TO Chicago, and 1T would build a Chin
ney that would pierce the sky a
thousand miles. Leaving bricks and
coming to concrete, it is estimated that
If concrete foundations were laid for
all the buildings to be erected in the
Greater San Francisco that more than
100000 cubic yards of the material
would be needed. A building 44x11O
feet requires a footing of about 900
yards Of concrete. and a yard of the
material weighs at least a ton and a
third. A team of horses could draw
about two yards of the crushed stone
with which concrete is made, SO that
100000 teams would be needed to
draw 100000 yards. The cost of
100000 yards of concrete is about
$30,000,0 900. But this is only consider
ing, foundation work. If-and the in
dications point all that way-there is
going to be a great deal Of reinforced
concrete construction a vast amount
of manufactured stone will be used:
so great an amount that no engineer
l could find in the city would even at
tempt to approximate it, though ex-
perts in reinforced concrete can com
pute with amazing expedition how
much material will go into the con-
struction of afhuge building.