The Cairo bulletin., 1911-06-04
RAPID FIRE GUNS
WILL BE USED IN ERECTING SKY.
ScRAPERS IN NEW YORK
CITY.
Mn Shoot Liquid Cement Into Place
by Air Pressure--Efforts to
Widen Streets.

New York, June 3.--While skyscrap-
is nave shot up here in the past to
such an extent that a sixteen-Story
building has been erected in forty
eight working days, they will instefd
Of shooting up be shot up in the
uture, If recent invention makes
God. This does not mean, however
hat wild west scenes will be enacted
n the tall buildings here but merely
chat new rapid-fire method of con.
1truction has appeared which may
smash all building records existing at
present So great Is the demand for
quick work that it is actually proposed
ire gun. The present cement mixer,
is claimed, is to give way to the
cement gun which will shoot liquid
cement into place by means OF COM
ressed air twenty-four times as rap
dly as Is possible under the present
system The gun itself consists Of a
ong tube of great strength. Into this
are admitted compressed air through
valve near the breech and water
trough another valve near the muz-
lie. At about the point of the vent
IN the ordinary breechloadng ramon,
tubelike connection Is established
With hopper Dry cement and sand
ire thrown into this hopper by two
hen, and here, aside from valve man
Yulation and directing the cement
tream, the human element ends. The
copper vibrateG, mixing its contents
efore it drops down through the tube
onnection. Once in the gun barrel
he mixture is sho, forward by the
oppressed air fed through the valve,
At the muzzle a stream of water IS
encountered that mixes with the sand
nd cement, the whole driving out the
gun with sufficient force to carry it to
the desired point AS a result of this
rapid-fire method OF construction
building records never before dreaf-
I'd of may soon be established here.
shooting Cement
Whether New York will eventually
be all streets or all buildings served
by subterranean thoroughfares is
daily becoming more momentous
question. The fact is plain, however,
that this city is shrinking visibly that
IS. so far as the area of its buildings
concerned and as a result 1t is prob.
bile that the city editices may eventu.
ally become merely long lines of fiat
urfaced structures unrelieved by any
hing resembling ornamental decora'
lions on the street level The build
ng shrinkage, however, is Offset by
The corresponding expansion of the
street area, for Father Knickerbocker
continually finds his thoroughfares
less and less adequate for the needs
Of the enormous traffic using them.
As a result, efforts are constantly in.
creasing to gain more street area 1T
the expense of the buildings. Just
now Broadway is the center of these
efforts and millions of dollars will
soon be spent for the purpose Of add
ing seemingly insignificant four feet
to its present width. To accomplish
this every portico, fight of steps, col
umn or similar piece Of architecture
which projects across the line Is to be
removed, in many cases at large cost
because of the wholesale remodeling
and rebuilding which will be neces-
sary. The hotels are the hardest hit
since their elaborate entrances will
have to go. In one case it is esti-
mated that the cost of the necessary
changes will amount to 100000 with
out making possible an additional
cent Of income. LonSacre Square will
suffer least, for the other hotels have
followed the plan Of the Aston in
building along such lines that when
these changes became necessary there
would be no inconvenience. Mean.
while the process Of squeezing the
buildings together to gain few more
eet for tn vehicle, cars and foot pas,
sengers goes merrily on In the war
which must eventually decide whether
pace necessary for city travel is to
surpasa the space necessary for bust.
ness and residence.