ess. There is no doubt that the steel receives
a share of the load--in fact, too great a share. This is the secret of
the weakness of a concrete column containing slender rods. The concrete
shrinks, the steel is put under initial compression, the load comes more
heavily on the steel rods than on the concrete, and thus produces a most
absurd element of construction--a column of slender steel rods held
laterally by a weak material--concrete. This is the secret of nearly all
the great wrecks in reinforced concrete: A building in Philadelphia, a
reservoir in Madrid, a factory in Rochester, a hotel in California. All
these had columns with longitudinal rods; all were extensive
failures--probably the worst on record; not one of them could possibly
have failed as it did if the columns had been strong and tough. Why use
a microscope and search through carefully arranged averages of tests on
nursery columns, with exact central loading, to find some advantage in
columns of this class, when actual experience is publishing in bold type
the tremendously important fact that these columns are utterly
untrustworthy?

It is refreshing to note that not one of the writer's critics attempts
to defend the quoted ultimate strength of a reinforced concrete column.
Even Mr. Thompson acknowledges that it is not right. All of which, in
view of the high authority with whom it originated, and the wide use it
has been put to by the use of the scissors, would indicate that at last
there is some sign of movement toward sound engineering in reinforced
concrete.

In conclusion it might be pointed out that this discussion has brought
out strong commendation for each of the sixteen indictments. It has also
brought out vigorous defense of each of them. This fact alone would seem
to justify its title. A paper in a similar strain, made up of
indictments against common practices in structural steel design,
published in _Engineering News_ some years ago, did not bring out a
single response. While practice in structural steel may often be faulty,
methods of analysis are well understood, and are accepted with little
question.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote E: _Transactions_, Am. Soc. C. E., Vol. LXVI, p. 431.]

[Footnote F: _Loc. cit._, p. 448.]

[Footnote G: _Engineering News_, Dec. 3d, 1908.]

[Footnote H: _Journal_ of the Western Society of Engineers, 1905.]

[Footnote I: Tests made for C.A.P. Turner, by Mason D. Pratt, M. Am.
Soc. C. E.]

[Footnote J: _