Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1917-12-23
at the present rate Of growth they will have
more than 100000 in 1920

of the factories. There are 12O in the city.
Some of the plants cover acres, and one has
10000 or $4,000 men on its pay roll. l
went through one factory which has as
much ground devoted to it as a 275-acre
farm, and walked through machine shops
which if spread out would more than cover
five fields of 10 acres each
The buildings of the factories are OF
four, five and six stories. They look like
enormous boxes of brick, iron and glass.
They are designed and built with the sole
view of efficiency, of handling the materials,
increasing output and with giving sanitary
conditions to the employees. | might write
pages about the details of saving | saw
everywhere The buildings are arranged
so that the raw materials come in at one end
Of the factory and the finished cars go out
at the other There is no waste of energy
and no reduplication of work. In one es-
Enlistment the buildings are in units
around craneways, which enable the freight
to be taken from the trucks on the railways
and dropped down Just where they are to
be used. In another the power house is SO
built that the coal is put in at the top of the
plant, and it falls by gravity into the fur
naces, which heat the boilers that in turn
move the great cylinders of the 6O0O
horsepower engines on the floor below.
That power plant develops $4,000 horse
power and its engines combination OF
gas-steam type. There are other engines
which increase the horsepower to $4,000,
and that force is used for the machinery OF
this one motor car establishment alone
I. -
chen It's floors are of mosaic white tile,
and it makes one think of the bathroom of
millionaire The electricity is generated
there, and there is great saving in coal by
use of gas producers The company con-
sumes more than 100000 cubic feet Of gas
per day, enough to light large city.
To give you some idea of these great
machine shops which are now being adapted
to the work of the war, will mention some
of the things that | saw in going through
one of the plants. 1t is the largest plant in
Detroit, and is typical of the work that many
of our automobile establishments are now
doing for ourselves and our allies The
buildings of this factory are 900 feet long
and 800 feet wide. They are four stories in
height and they cover many acres. Every
square foot of them is now hummng with
work, and the machines go on day and
night all the year through. Standing in
one building you can overlook single room
which has 100000 square feet of floor space.
1t actually covers more than 10 acres, and
this is filled with machinery of such ma
ture that it looks like dense forest of fast
moving belts and whrling wheels grinding
away. There are, in fact, SO miles of
leather betting i'll the room 1t contains
5000 different machines in actual operation
and these represent an outlay of S5,00O0O0.
The machines use $500 gallons of lubricating
oils every "a hours and they keep busy
thousands of men. The machinery reaches
as far you can see. AS you. stand in the
center of the room the walls are not visible
and you can hardly see the ceiling. There
is shrieking of the cutting steel upon steel,
a buZzing of wheels like the swarming of To-
Gusts and here and there at intervals are to
machines
The machinery of such factory is SO
arranged that it forms one continuous pro-
cess of construction. The raw material in
the shape OF rough forgings and rough
castings starts in at end of the depart
ment. and it passes through machinery aft
er machinery until it comes out ready to be
assembled into the car. AT the same time
t1,ar, rte al l., A.