most comfortable and effective activities of the company's employees. That the 125,000 barrels of cement, 14,000,000 bricks, 12,000 tons of steel and 6,000,000 feet of lumber used in construction were handled to the best advantage is evidenced by the views of the plant here shown and by a description of the buildings and their facilities.

Noteworthy Piping Features

It was written, when the contract was awarded, that a combination of KellySpringfield requirements and Diescher skill and thoroughness would result in a piping installation of the highest quality as to material, and insured service through good workmanship and well-proved engineering refinements. The entire installation of piping by Riggs, Destiller & Springer, of Baltimore, under the supervision of S. Diescher & Sons, consulting engineers, Pittsburgh-who also designed the piping features of the plant-all meeting completely the requirements of the Kelly-Springfield Tire Co., comply with a standard for this most important feature of power production that has not been excelled by modern engineering practice.

The six large buildings comprising the plant at present, are connected by underground passages for inter-department traffic; by conduits for carrying electric cables; and by tunnels for taking care of the various piping services. Outside of the fire-lines there is no piping buried in this installation. Tunnels and conduits along the ceilings and under the floors take care of all pipes and wires from the power house. to designated distributing points, and from these points on, all cables are underground until they reach the final sub-stations and rise to upper floors. No electrical machinery on the first floor or in the basement has any cables other than those under the basement floor. Conduits are designed so as to make cables and wires readily accessible for repairs, extensions, etc.

The order for the fabricated pipe, valves, fittings, etc., for the entire installation was placed with Crane Co., Chicago, and was handled in every detail by the Company's Engineering Department, from the drawings furnished by S. Diescher & Sons to the drilling of the last flange bolthole. When the supervising engineers report that in erecting these various piping requirements in the field they made "in all

cases a perfect fit," and "minimized the expense of field work to the lowest point possible and insured the best kind of joints," they simply emphasize what has become customary with fabrications of this sort entrusted to the Engineering Department of Crane Co. Years ago it ceased to be a novelty for the Engineering Department to find its work going together in the field with. as little trouble as when the various parts were tested for accuracy and alignment in the Crane Shops, before being shipped to the field of permanent installation.

There were many tons of Crane Valves, fittings and fabricated pipe furnished for this Kelly-Springfield installation, among them, for economy and to insure substantial construction, numerous special fittings with supporting legs to rest on concrete piers, where otherwise several fittings combined would have been necessary. These special fittings were made according to Diescher designs.

The piping in this plant comprises highpressure and low-pressure lines for steam, service water, water for protection against fire, hydraulic lines of 2,000 pounds and 500 pounds pressure, compressed air lines, and low-pressure heating lines. The maze of pipe and cable often found in basements of industrial plants is eliminated here by means of the tunnels and conduits referred to. All but a few of the smaller pipes are placed in the trenches running the full length of the main building and covered with floor plates. In this manner any leaking or break in the piping is drained through the trenches, and the floor plates give ready access to any part of the lines for repairs.

All hydraulic pressure, above that required for general service water, is controlled at strategic points by Crane hydraulic relief valves and shock absorbers.

The small building shown on the river bank is about 40 x 40 feet and contains the water-intake chambers with their moving screens. All water connections between the river and plant are through large concrete tunnels, no metal pipe whatever being used for this work.

The total connected pump capacity of the plant is about fifty million gallons a day,

or almost double the normal flow of the Potomac river at this point. The pump house is equipped with special fire pumps

held in reserve for this purpose alone, and distributing water through a complete system of underground fire lines with fire plugs in the yards and in the fireproof stair towers in the buildings.

The Paris Branch

From Entre Nous*

Our American friends may be interested to know that the Paris branch (Crane Export Corporation) is now in full operation and that its activity has been gradually increasing for the last six months.

To record its progress would repeat the story of any business that does everything to be well organized. It is not our role to praise it. We only wish to point out a few particulars connected with our progress.

The office torce amounts now to more than thirty collaborators, not including a bunch of workmen whose number will increase in short time, as soon as the workshop requires it. For the present. the force is distributed as follows: Avenue de l'Opéra, in the main office-at the workshop of the rue Lecourbe-on the road.

The main office, owing to its exceptional location in Paris, takes care of the callers and general correspondence. At the rue Lecourbe are the cashier, file, stock and orders departments. On the road, four "representants" have divided France into four territories: North, South, East, West; three or four others have divided Paris in the same way. A drafting, advertising, and general informations department complete the general organization that is already giving the best results and is beginning to make the CRANE name known all over France.

Our Director and Vice President, Mr. J. A. Murphy, makes it a point to bring together all the co-workers once a month so that a general view of business possibilities may be grasped by everyone at the same time, together with technical details which develop the knowledge of the staff. These meetings needless to say, maintain the feeling of perfect confidence and friendship so capital to any business built on a sound and loyal basis, a great help to those who wish to be interested in their work and do it not only with care but also with pleasure.-L. Reel.

N

II

IGHT was falling in the Valley of Carmel. Far up the sides of the sacred mountain the last rays of the setting sun touched with golden splendor the giant cedars which, centuries after, were to form foundations for the gilding of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.

On the sandy shore of the Mediterranean stood a group of Phoenician sailors, and a short distance off, at the mouth of the Belus, idly swung their ship at anchor. The sailors had lighted a fire over which to cook their supper, but they were confronted by a dilemma which served to whet their already keen appetites and caused more than one weather-beaten brow to wrinkle in perplexity.

Search where they might, they could not find a stone on which to rest the pole that was to hold their cooking pot over the flames. Then a bright idea struck one of the sailors. Hastening to the ship he presently returned with two large lumps of nitre, or soda. One of these was placed under each end of the pole, near the fire, and soon the evening meal was under discussion with all the zest and humor characteristic of men who had touched almost every part of the then-known world. With story, jest and song they watched the fire sink lower and lower till only a few embers flickered close to the fine sand.

Then the sailors prepared to turn in for the night. They lifted the lumps of soda to carry them back to the ship, and then they noticed a very strange thing. The soda had melted with the heat, had become fused with the sand and had produced a broad sheet of a brittle and semi-transparent substance wholly different from anything the sailors had seen in all their travels.

The fire, lighted to cook supper for those ancient mariners, had combined with the nitre and the sand to make the first known specimen of glass.

Antiquity of Glass Making

This story, as related by Pliny, has been denied, but with insufficient data to warrant us in calling it purely legendary. The fact

that Sidon, the chief city of the Phoenicians, was one of the earliest centers for the manufacture of glass may be taken as strong presumptive proof of the authenticity of Pliny's narrative.

From here, in all probability, knowledge of the discovery traveled to Egypt, and if so it would place the date of the discovery in the neighborhood of 1,500 years before Christ, or 3,421 years ago. Paintings of the reign of Osirtasen I. at Beni-Hassan, representing glass blowers making a very large vase, show that 3,500 years ago, or before the Hebrew exodus, the Egyptians were far advanced in the art of glass-working, and the fact that glazing was applied to many objects about the same time indicates great skill not only in combining the materials of glass, but in its manipulation.

The

An Egyptian glass bead of highly developed art, found at Thebes, bears an inscription. which indicates that it was made during the reign of Thothmes III. 1500 B.C. curious glass beads called aggry, which were valued in Ashantee as diamonds and are found deep in the ground in different parts of that country, are supposed to be of Egyptian origin. If this be so, the Egyptians surpassed the modern experts, in some respects, in working glass, for these aggry beads seem to belong to one of the lost arts. No modern glass-worker has been able to reproduce them. The surfaces of some of these beads are covered with flowers and regular patterns so very minute and the shades so delicately softened one. into another and into the ground of the bead, that nothing but the finest touch of the pencil could equal them. Yet they unquestionably were made by a people that seems to have left very few evidences of the softer lines and shades of art.

Highly Developed Art in Egypt

Under Roman rule the Egyptians excelled as glass-makers, and about the beginning of the present era this industry, or art, became a source of immense wealth to the descendants of Rameses, for the Romans ordered the products of Egyptian glass works in