Another of his rules is that a cylindrical rod of well-seasoned clean-grown fir of an inch circumference drawn in length will bear at its extremity 400lbs. and a spar of fir 2in. in diameter will bear about 7 tons, but not more. A well-made and carefully-kept hemp rope of one inch in circumference, will bear 1000lbs. being at its extremity.

Mr. Barlow has formed the following table as a mean resulting from experiments on the strength of direct cohesion on a square inch of the following substances:

lbs.
Box20,000
Ash17,000
Teak15,000
Fir12,000
Beech11,500
Oak10,000
Pear9,800
Mahogany8,000

He also states as follows regarding the transverse strength of beams, &c. Mr. Weale thus quotes from Mr. Barlow’s essay: “The transverse strength of rectangular beams, or the resistance which they offer to fracture, is as the breadth and square of the depth; therefore, if two rectangular beams have the same depth, their strengths are to each other as their breadths, but if their breadths are the same, then their strengths are to each other as the square of their depths. The transverse strengths of square beams are as the cubes of the breadths or depths. Also in cylindrical beams the transverse strengths are as the cubes of the diameters. Thus, if a beam which is one foot broad and one foot deep support a given weight, then a beam of the same depth and two feet broad will support double the weight; but if a beam be one foot broad and two feet deep it will support four times as much as a beam one foot broad and one foot deep. If a beam one foot square support a given weight, then a beam two feet square will support eight times as much. Also a cylinder of two inches in diameter will support eight times as much as a cylinder one inch in diameter. The appended table gives data bearing on the subject.

Teak2·462Elm1·013
English oak1·672Pitch pine1·632
Canadian oak1·766Red pine1·341
Dantzic oak1·457New England fir1·102
Adriatic1·383Riga fir1·108
Ash2·026Mar Forest fir1·262
Beech1·556Larch1·127

INDEX.

A.