Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-05-14

l.
turned from a tour of Europe and
America which occupied about seven
months, and during which he investi-
gated municipal matters in the vari-
Gus larger cities, which he has de-
scribed in a report to the city council.
This report deals chiefly with collec-
ton and disposal of refuse, street paw
ing, dust laying, street sweeping and
watering. street lighting, parks and
Fairgrounds, public baths and wash
houses, sewage disposal, tramways
and smoke abatement, the first Of
these having been a matter Of partic-
uIar attention because it was the sub
ject which is at present most inter-
esting his city.
On the continent there are, he
states, about ten refuse destroyers,
but Paris has just begun an installa-
ton of thirty-six Medium units for
burning their refuse, a larger plant
than any now existing in any country.
He believes that the principal rea-
sons for the increasing popularity Of
destroyers are, first. the adoption of
forced draft with high temperature
furnaces, which has practically done
away with the nuisance existing in the
older furnaces of the low combustion
type with draft induced by chimney
only. Second, the discovery within re-
cent years that there was sufficient
calOrific value in ordinary city waste
to make it. in many cases, a source of
profit Third, the affiliations of the
residual clnker amounting to Is per
cent. or So per cent. Of the gross
weight of refuse burned) for many
purposes. The labor cost of turning
varies considerably from Is cents to
| 70 cents per ton, but the average cost
with a we'll managed modern de-
structor is about 25 cents per ton. He
inspected thirty-fOur plants in Great
Britain, which were classified as good
| bad and Indifferent. The best refuse
for burning he found in the coal coun-
! try in the north and the worst in the
south, particularly at some of the bet,
ter class residential suburbs. He be-
| Iieves that the human element enters
largely into the successful or unsuc-
cessful operation of a plant; that
where steel is combined with fire
| brick there is an unequal expansion
and contraction of these materials
with resulting damage from which he
! concluded that the less steel used in
! their construction the better. He also
/ believes that the drying hearth is de-
sirable only in cases where very wet
refuse is being dealt with, this includ-
| ing sIudge, the principal reason being
, that most of the offensive odors are
given off in the drying rather than in
the burning of the garbage. He also
| bellows that sO-called labor-saving APP
| pIiances are not always best. Mechan-
ically arranged trucks used for feed
! ing Instructors he found frequently
out of order, due to the rough hand
ling to which they are subjected. He
also found that clinker tracks for re-
moving cIinker from the furnaces had
been abandoned in many cases in ia
vOr of wheelbarrows, partly because
! it is not always desirable to carry the
clinker to the same point for deposit
or removal In general, he believes
that Instructors cannot be made too
! simple; for instance, an inclined road
way is always preferable to any kind
of mechanical lift. The American
plants he found very different from
those in Great Britain, and giving
/ him few points which he thought ad-
visable for adoption by his own city.
The plant at Buffalo he considered the
best and most businesslike American
plant visited, the heat being utilized
for pumping sewage. In Australia, as
well as in this country, the matter of
refuse receptacles has not been salts
faCtorily settled. Mr.. Calder recon-
mends that they obtain iron recep-
tacles of handy size provided with COW
ers, and that these be purchased in
| large quantities by the municipalities
and sold to the house-holders at cost
which should not exceed $1.75 each.
For paving suburban roads he found
used in England a material called
"tarmac," which is simply furnace
, Stag coated with tar, and which he re
ports as giving very satisfactory re
suits; also a tarmacadam. for which
he considers stone of porous nature,
such as limestone, to be much better
than granite or other impermeable
rock. The London streets he found
paved with granite blocks for heavy
traffic and with wood blocks and as
phaIt for the lighter. The asphalt is
mainly rock asphalt, about inches
thick and about inches of concrete;
but these he finds very slippery, es-
peciaIIy upon moist days, even when
cleaned with rubber squegees. He
makes no mention Of the use of sand
stone or any other than granite for
block pavements. For wood pavement
he finds that pine and other soft
woods are replacing the Australian
hard woods, because of the greater
slipperiness of the latter. and difficulty
in obtaining blocks of uniform hard
ness, the non-uniformity resulting in
holes in the pavement. In Edinburgh
he found a paving composed of a j.
inch layer of to l cement concrete
on rough stone foundation, the sur
face being dressed with cinders and
sand. In West Liverpool he saw
pavement which originated in Ger.
many, and which consists of granite
stones Of about 4 inches on a side
laid at random in such a manner that
the joints are not continuous, to more
thoroughly accomplish which the