St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1907-08-10
ON THE BIG DOME
STRUCTURE NOT A PLEASANT
PLACE IN A STORM.
Workmen Above Roof of Capitol In
Washington Have Their Own
Troubles When the Lightning
Plays About Them.

1t is worth while glancing I'D Cap
| itol Hill way just now at the big
dome on the roof of the legislative
gas works, for So human flies are
just winding up the job Of spreading
waterproof paint over its fancy-work
surface, says the Washington Star
1t has taken nine tons of paint and
nearly two months steady labor to do
the trick, and they're glad-every one
of them-that it's nearly quitting time.
For the job doesn't look easy and isn't
as easy as it looks
Just think of painting-with two
and three coats in places-about eight
city blocks! That's what this dome
covering proposition about amounts
to. for the immense iron structure
that looms SO large above the big pile
of the capitol has somewhere around
100000 square feet of surface.
This is the first time in five or six
years that the dome has been touched
up, and David Lynn, foreman of the
superintendent Office at the capitol,
who runs things around the gas house
while Superintendent Elliott Woods
is making sure that for about the first
time in history big piece of govern
ment work gets done on time,
decided that it would be done to the
queens taste. So the human flies
were first sent aloft without their
paint buckets and told to look for
rust and all its misunderstanding rela-
tives. They carried out instructions
and every time they noticed even a
thin spot in the old paint they scraped
clear down to the bright iron, bound
the suspicious spot in oil-soaked linen
and later slapped on a new elastic
paint over that. 1t doesn't pay to
take chances when there are 9,00O,-
600 pounds of iron roof of a building
that is crowded to the doors half
dozen months in the year with pa
triots chosen of the people.
1t is for more reasons than one that
the human flies are happy that their
work on the dome is nearly at an end.
One of the reasons-perhaps the great
est one-has to do with thunder.
storms. Now, those human flies are
sensible men, with more than the
average share of courage. Some of
them have no nerves at all about
ordinary things, and there isn't one
who wouldn't enjoy sitting on his
covered front porch during a thunder
storm and watching the lightning
knock bricks out of his neighbor's
chimney. But they are different peo-
pie when working on the dome, and
every time thunderstorm comes
along and catches them up there they
scatter for terra firma, shelter and
safety like bunch of Plymouth Rock
egg factories from in front of pur-
ring, honking automobile
When the human flies slipped down
their swaying ladders after recen1
big storm was over-not feeling much
like any more work that day, you
can wager-they sat around and
chinned about their experience, and
finally one of them told the story to
Elliott Woods, the wizard of the cap
itol. And after Mr.. Woods had pom
dered some, and scientific friends of
his had pondered some more, one of
the human flies climbed up on the
shoulders of the Goddess of Freedom
to examine the platinum tips of the
lightning arrestera And glance at
those tips explained things. They
were ripped, and torn, and frayed and
frazzled, but not melted or burned
even a little bit.
There's fine scientific way of tell