THE AQUEDUCT DEEP UNDER GROUND
A partially completed section showing the concrete work. Note the size of the tunnel.
Of course, the poured concrete furniture is made in just the same way as the houses except that it is a much simpler process. It is a very easy matter to set up a steel mould for a chair, a cabinet, a dresser, or a bedstead, whereas a house, with its tubs, conduits, stairways, hallways, doorways, window frames, plumbing system, etc., is a most complex matter, requiring a set of moulds that could be put together properly by only a man who combined the highest abilities of an architect, a builder, an engineer, and a mechanic. Although concrete has been used for many years in making garden furniture, Edison's plan for making finished indoor pieces with it is entirely new.
But to return to the houses; Edison says it is just as easy to make poured dwellings in decorative designs as in plain ones. It is only necessary to have the moulds cast in the desired shape. It is his idea to have all the poured houses pretty as well as perfectly sanitary and substantial. He intends that there shall be many different kinds of moulds, and also that each set of moulds shall be so cast that it can be joined in different ways, in order to give the houses a variety of appearance. Thus, in a small town where a large number of poured houses were set up, there would be no two exactly alike if the owners preferred to have them different.
According to the plans Edison now has on foot, the first complete poured houses will have on the main floor two rooms, the living room and dining room, while on the second floor there will be four rooms, a bathroom and hallway. Of course as the main idea is to give perfectly sanitary and comfortable houses, there will be plenty of windows, for lots of fresh air and sunlight. Edison figures that he can build a house of poured concrete for $1,200 that would cost $30,000 if built of cut stone. Furthermore, he figures that the rent ought to be about $10 per month, as he will only license reputable concerns to use his patents, and his licenses will stipulate the approximate rent that can be charged.
Thus, the high cost of living about which we all hear so much at the family dinner table as well as everywhere else is being attacked by science and invention through a new channel, and Edison's latest invention can be expected soon to give good homes at low rents to thousands of families now paying exorbitant prices for dark stuffy city flats.
It was significant that at the celebration of Edison's sixty-fifth birthday, February 10, 1912, the great American inventor should sit at the head of the table surrounded by his family and associates facing a perfect model of one of his poured cement houses. The chair in which he sat, to all appearances was beautiful mahogany, but in reality was cast in a mould of Edison concrete at the Edison plant. At the place of each guest was a bronze paperweight, appropriately engraved, with Edison's favourite motto:
"All things come to him who hustles while he waits."
HISTORY OF CONCRETE
Although concrete is in truth the newest building material in our time, it is the oldest known to civilization because it was the stuff with which the eternal buildings of ancient Rome were constructed. Even before the Romans used concrete it was used by the Eygptians, more than 4,000 years ago. Every boy will remember from his history classes that the Egyptians, so far as we can learn, were the first people in the history of the world to reach a high state of civilization. Every boy also will remember that the only way we know this is through the evidence of ruins of tombs and buildings. Many of these buildings were made of a material very much like concrete that must have been made in some such manner as concrete is made nowadays.