Iron Beams In Place of Wood.
Speaking of the large apartment house in New York lately condemned for dry rot (see illustration last November number of this paper), the American Architect says: A few of the floors were of spruce, and these, as might be expected, had resisted the rot much better than the hemlock, and were still sound, but the construction ought certainly to be changed. In view of the dangers from this source which attend efforts to provide fire‐resisting floors of wood, it would seem that something might be done with light shapes of rolled iron beams. We have seen rolled floor beams used in Paris nearly as light as wooden ones of the same depth, and a tier of these, deafened with mortar on wire in the French manner, and wire‐lathed underneath, with a wooden floor over, would cost little more than a solid mass of wooden beams, and would be proof against rot as well as fire.