The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1912-07-17
Building the TaIleSt Sky
SCraper by Electricity.

reared to the skies by the hand of
man. This skyscraper will be
fifty-fve stories high, totaling $50
feet, and will he head and shoul.
ders above the Singer and Metro
politan towers.
To erect this wonderful build
ing powerful electric motors must
raise more than 100000 tons of
steel, brick, stone, etc.. some of it
to the roof. Without electricity
it would be difficult, if not impos-
sible, to build and maintain such a
mighty building. When compile
ted it will be a small city within
itself, fully connected with local
and express electric elevators,
telephones, electric lights and
dozen other things, from huge
ventilating fans to push buttons,
operated by electricity.
Electricity, the master mechanic,
is practically building this enor-
nous structure. To hoist the
steel and set it in place are six
derricks driven by eighty horse
power motors. Four of these fol
lowed the course of construction
to the twenty-sixth floor, the limit
of the building proper, after which
two proceed with the tower work
as far as the fortieth floor, from
which one of the derricks keeps
pace with the work. The hoist
ing engines and motors are seldom
moved. They remain sevaral floors
below the working level, the ca
bles, of course, running through
the structure from the drums to
the block and tackle on the lifting
apparatus itself. A telephone sys-
tenn supplemented by pull-bell, for
the motorman of the derrick acts
entirely on signal, just as the en-
gineer of an ocean liner drives his
ship entirely by the bells from the
bridge. Only, in the erection of
modern skyscraper the bridge is
seldom more than plank extend
ing over the edge of the floor,
while the lookout, instead of be-
ing in the crows nest at the mast.
head, rides through space on the
girder. The work of the hoist is
by no means completed with the
safe delivery of the steel at the
top floor; it must all be fitted to-
gether, and so skilled have the
workers become, and so expert are
they with their signals, that the
beams are guided into place with
little friction and loss of energy.
Although steel-hoisting is thrill
ling, and to a certain degree pict-
uresque, as it is watched daily by
thousands from the City Hall
Park and the Postofiice, it is far
from being the heaviest part of
the work. Seventeen million
brick, weighing 42,500 tons, and
$500 tons of terra-cotta are also
used, but they are carried to the
bricklayers in prosaic wheelbar-
rows. and on everyday bod hoists.
Six of the hoists are operated by
forty horse power motors and four
by fifty horse power motors.
Cement and concrete are mixed
in the basement, the machines,
four in number, being operated by
10 horse power motors, A plumb
ing system is necessary, and tenn
porary pipes lead to hydrants and
two Is horse power motors keep
ing the water in circulation. An
other motor of so horse power
pumps rain-water and leakage out
of the basement.
There are two compressor plants
on the work, one for the steam
riveters and drills and the other
for shooting cement. Seventy-fve
horse power are required for the
riveters, and all day long their
gatling-gun fusillade is heard. The
electrical installation amounts to
about twelve hundred horse power
in motors, two hundred arc lights,
and about two thousand incandes-