27

TRAP VENTING DENOUNCED.
THE plunger water closet was the cause of ventilat-
ing traps under all fixtures. When the plunger
closet was at its best, it took the place of the pan closet,
and was found to be much inferior to the
pan closet.
Very few soil pipes were carried through the roofs in
those days, and the result was the plunger closet, which
held about ten gallons of water, was discharged through
a four-inch opening and filled the soil pipe to its full
capacity, and would pull out the water from the basin
and bath traps, which were always connected to the
trap
of the closet; sometimes on the house side and some-
times on the sewer side.
Sewer-gas would enter the
house and kill the inmates. It was not an uncommon
thing to hear of from one to five hundred deaths
per day.
The sewer gas crank was authority on vital statistics
then. As a dead sure thing, a trap at the curb or lot
line was suggested, but this was only a job for a laborer
and would not give the sanitary fakir a chance to get his
fine work in.
By carrying the soil
pipe through the roof air would
follow the gush of water from the
plunger reservoir in-
stead of the water in the bath and basin
traps, but the
soil pipe would freeze at the roof and the basin and bath
traps would empty.
A new remedy was discoyered.
Ventilate the
trap also. Now a pipe is run from the
sewer side of the
traps above the roof. It is a two-inch
pipe. The four-inch pipe froze, but for some reason only
known to the sewer gas crank, the two-inch will not
freeze. However, they all freeze and sewer gas fills the
house. The old tenants die off and make room for new
ones, while graveyard space is at a premium, and the
plumber and sewer gas
crank are thinking of some new
schemes to work on the bed-ridden public.
I have it.
Ventilate the vent pipe and also
put in a local
vent,
so in case all pipes fail, the local vent will carry off the
most deadly germs
and microbes, while the gibles will
die of loneliness.
In a house which was fitted up with the latter named
improvement, a terrible smell was found. All the pipes
were cut off and plugged except the local vent. The
smell was just the same. The local vent was taken apart
and ten dead sparrows were found.
To make plumbing simple and substantial should be
the aim of all plumbers.
Trap venting on modern flushing closets is not only
unnecessary,
but idiotic. When the soil pipe is carried
through the roof and increased at the roof in cold cli-
mates, with a lj-inch flush pipe from a tank to a closet,
it will have no effect whatever on an adjoining closet or
other trap, and it will not have the slightest tendency to
syphon anything.
Place ten water closets side by side, all supplied with
a \\ inch flush pipe, as for example, in a plumber’s show
room. They all empty into a 4-inch horizontal pipe.
Discharge the ten closets all at the same instant, and the
water will not rise 1-| inches in the bottom of the soil
pipes.
More harm comes from trap venting than the benefit
that is intended. Should trap venting be insisted
upon,
do the venting from the lead bend under the floor or the
trap. Trap venting at the closet is dangerous and also
disfigures the earthenware.
At a sink in the Union League Club house the writer
discovered a trap vent filled with grease ; the pipe was
plugged with it higher than the
top of the sink. This
left the vent useless. The ice boxes on the same job
were connected to the soil pipe without even a trap.
This letter may bring out a criticism, but the critics
must talk from knowledge and
experience and not from
what others tell them. I will go to any job fitted up
with flushing closets, and cut off all the air pipes and
plug up
the openings, except the soil pipe at the roof,
and if
any man can syphon any trap on the job by ordi-
nary means I will give him a certified check for $l,OOO.
There is not a day passes
but vent blunders are ex-
posed, and there are thousands of cases of by-passes that
will never be heard of. A man with a patent check valve
to furnish air instead of running pipe uses a two hun-
dred gallon tank to show how a common trap can be
syphoned. Even then the
trap gives air and the water
rolls back and leaves a seal.
Trap venting is an imposition on the plumber and on
the
public.—John Kelly in Domestic
Evgineering.
CANNIBAL IRON WORKERS.
A
GENTLEMAN, for thirty years a missionary to the
Fan tribe of Africa, has presented to the University
of Pennsylvania one of the most important archa3ological
collections ever made. The Fans are the powerful race
of cannibals mentioned by DuChaillu as the
ruling peo-
ple of the equatorial region. The collection shows a
considerable degree of civilization and high mechanical
skill, especially in metal work. Native iron, it seems, is
plentiful, lies near the surface, and is smelted by simply
building a fire over the exposed ore. A
queer looking
bellows is used and is said to be effective. The iron
hammers weigh about twenty-five pounds, but the
anvils, strange to say, are made of stone.
The Fans are the only people in equatorial Africa who
have a
currency and they are strong monometalists.
The money is of iron, wrought into pieces resembling
rusty hairpins with flat heads. They are put up in bun-
dles of ten, and 100 bundles is the market price of a
wife.—
Exchange.
THE GREATEST INVENTION OF THE AGE IN WOOD-
WORKING MACHINERY.
THE self-cleaning mortise chisel is a patented chisel
and the sole
property of the Self-Cleaning Mortise
Chisel Company, Limited, of this city. This chisel
makes the mortise and takes out the chips at the same
time. The old style chisel now in use makes the mor-
tise, but instead of taking the chips out, packs them in
so tightly that it requires two men behind each chisel to
punch them
out, a steel punch and mallet being used for
that purpose.
This self-cleaning chisel, however, does away with the
work of two men. There are over 25,000 wood-workmg
manufactories in the United States which use not less
than
twenty chisels each every year. A fair estimate can
be formed of the value of this self-cleaning chisel when
its net saving in labor in two days is sufficient to repay
its value.
The cost to us of this chisel is a mere trifle, its value
being entirely in the patent, and the stock will soon be
worth from five to six times its
present value.
The machine is now in operation at No. 34 Magazine
street, and the public is invited to call and see the work.
The stock is $lOO per share. Parties wishing to sub-
scribe will please call in person or address for full
partic-
ulars,
Self-Cleaning Mortise Chisel Company, Limited, 34
Magazine street, New Orleans, La.—
N. 0. Picayune.
250 THE SOUTHERN ARCHITECT.