maining portion being
absolutely tight. The amount of leakage, while insignificant, was, until
remedied, sufficient to spot the outside of the tower, making it
unsightly; and this, in the writer's opinion, is just what would have
happened had the tank been constructed in the ordinary manner, with
deformed bars, except that it would have extended over more or less of
the entire surface, instead of being localized, as was actually the
case, and would have required more instead of less plastering. It is
also doubtful whether the addition of hydrated lime would have produced
a tight tank, in the sense that this structure was required to be tight.

In the paper the writer endeavored to bring out the fact that this is
one of the few instances where the aesthetic design of a structure of
this sort is of prime importance, and cost a secondary consideration.
There is, therefore, no use in comparing its cost with that of a
structure in no way its equal in this respect and the use of which would
not have been permitted any more than the use of the ordinary type of
steel structure, even though the estimated cost were 75% less.

Mr. Mensch has been pleased to term this design amateurish, presumably
because of the conservative character of the stresses used and because
of its cost; at the same time, he sets up the design to which he makes
reference as a good one simply because of its cheapness. He will find
the "enormous discrepancy," to which he calls attention, accounted for
by the fact that the "good design" would not have been tolerated because
of its appearance and because of the fact that the excessively high
unit stresses, of which Mr. Mensch is an exponent, did not commend
themselves either to the designer, in common with most engineers, or to
Victorian taste; while the design used has proven eminently satisfactory
to a more than usually conservative and discriminating community.

Mr. Mensch's statement of unit costs, even though applied to a much
plainer structure, is not calculated to inspire confidence in the
soundness of his deductions in any one familiar with Victoria
conditions.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: Presented at the meeting of March 16th, 1910.]

[Footnote B: Now Assoc. M. Am. Soc. C. E.]

[Footnote C: "The Reinforced Concrete Pocket Book," p. 124.]

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Transactions of the American Society
of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXX, Dec. 1910, by A. Kempkey