Part 28
Let us now consider the relative merits of lead and iron as material for water-pipes in places where exposure to frost is inevitable. Lead yields more than iron, and so far has an advantage; this, however is but limited. As lead is practically inelastic, every stretch remains, and every stretch diminishes the capacity for further stretching; the lead thus stretched at one frost is less able to stretch again, and has lost some of its original tenacity. Hence the superiority of new leaden pipes. Iron is elastic within certain limits, and thus the iron pipe may yield a little without permanent strain or “distress,” and if its power of elastic resistance is not exceeded, it regains its original size without becoming sensibly weaker. Add to this its great tenacity, its nonliability to be indented, or otherwise to vary in diameter, and we have a far superior material.
But this conclusion demands some qualification. There is iron and iron, cast-iron and wrought-iron, and very variable qualities of each of these. I need scarcely add that common brittle cast-iron is quite out of the question for such purposes, though there is a new kind of cast-iron or semi-steel coming forward that may possibly supersede all other kinds; but this opens too wide a subject for discussion in the present paper, the main object of which has been a popular exposition of the general physical laws which must be obeyed by the builder, or engineer, who desires to construct domestic or other buildings that will satisfy the wants of intelligent people.
The mischievous action of freezing water is not confined to the pipes that are constructed to receive or convey it. Wherever water may be, if that water freezes, it must expand in the degree and with the force already described. If it penetrates stone or brick, or mortar or stucco, and freezes therein, one of two things must occur—either the superfluous ice must exude at the surface or to neighboring cavities, or the saturated material must give way, and split or crumble according to the manner and degree of penetration. To understand this, the reader must remember what I stated about the little-understood _viscosity_ of ice, as well as its expansion at the moment of freezing.
Bricks are punished, but not so severely as might be anticipated, seeing how porous are some of the common qualities, especially those used in London. They are so amply porous that the water not only finds its way into them, but the pores are big enough and many enough for the ice to demonstrate its viscosity by squeezing out and displaying its crystalline structure in the form of snow-like efflorescence on the surface. This may have been observed by some of my readers during a severe frost. It is commonly confounded with the hoar-frost that whitens the roofs of houses, but which is very rarely deposited on perpendicular wall faces.
The mortar most liable to suffer is that which is porous and pulverulent within, but has been cleverly faced or pointed with a crust of more compact material. This outer film prevents the exuding of the expanding ice crystals, is thrust forth bodily, and retained by ice-cement during the frost, but it falls in scales when this temporary binding material thaws. Mortar that is compact throughout does not suffer to any appreciable extent. This is proved by the condition of the remains of Roman brickwork that still exist in Britain and other parts of Europe. Some of the old shingle walls at Brighton and other parts of the south coast, where the chalk for lime-burning was at the builder’s feet, and where his mortar is so thickly laid between the irregular masses of flint, also show the possible duration of good mortar. The jerry builder’s mortar, made of the riddlings of burnt clay ballast and dust-hole refuse just flavored with lime, crumbles immediately, because these materials do not combine with the lime as fine siliceous sand gradually does, to form an impermeable glassy silicate.
Stucco is punished by two distinct modes of action. The first is where the surface is porous, and the water permeates accordingly and freezes. This, of course, produces superficial crumbling, which should not occur at all upon good material protected by suitable paint. The other case, very deplorable in many instances, is where the water finds a space between the inner surface of the stucco and the outer surface of the material upon which it is laid. This water, when frozen, of course, expands, and wedges away the stucco bodily, causing it to come down in masses at the thaw. This, however, only occurs after severe frosts, as the ordinary mild frosts of our favored climate seldom endure long enough to penetrate to any notable depth of so bad a conductor as stone or stucco. It is worthy of note that water is a still worse conductor than stone.
Building stones are so various both in chemical composition and mechanical structure that the action of freezing water is necessarily as varied as the nature of the material. The highly siliceous granites (or, rather, porphyries that commonly bear the name of granite) are practically impermeable to water so long as they are free from any chemical decomposition of their feldspathic constituents; but when we come to sandstones and limestones, or intermediate material, very wide differences prevail.
The possible width of this difference is shown in the behavior of the unselected material in its natural home. Certain cliffs and mountains have stood for countless ages almost unchanged by the action of frost; others are breaking up with astonishing rapidity in spite of apparent solidity of structure. The Matterhorn, or Mont Cervin, one of the most gigantic of the giant Alps, 15,200 feet high, is rendered especially dangerous to ambitious climbers by the continual crashing down of fragments that are loosened when the summer sun melts the ice that first separated and then for a while held them in their original places. All the glaciers of the Alps are more or less streaked with “moraines,” which are fragments of the mountains that freezing water has detached.
Our stone buildings would suffer proportionally if some selection of material were not made. Generally speaking, this selection is based upon the experience of previous practical trials. Certain quarries are known to have supplied good material of a certain character, and this quarry has, therefore, a reputation which is usually of no small value to its fortunate owner. Other quarries are opened in the neighborhood wherever the rock resembles that of the tested quarry.
Sometimes, however, materials are open for selection that have not been so well tested, and a method of testing which is more expeditious and less expensive than constructing a building and watching the result, is very desirable. The subject of testing building materials in special reference to their resistance of frost was brought before the Academy of Science of Paris by M. Brard some years since.
In his preliminary experiments he used small cubes of the stone to be tested, soaked them in water, and then exposed them to the air in frosty weather, or subjected them to the action of freezing mixtures. Afterwards he found that by availing himself of the expansive force which certain saline solutions exert at the moment of crystallization, he could conveniently imitate the action of freezing without the aid of natural or artificial frost. Epsom salts, nitre, alum, sulphate of iron, Glauber’s salts, etc., were tried. The last named, Glauber’s salt (or sulphate of soda), which is very cheap, was found to be the best for the purpose.
His method of applying the test is as follows: Cut the specimens into two-inch cubes, with flat sides and sharp edges and corners, mark each specimen with a number, either by ink or scratching, and enter in a book all particulars concerning it. Make a saturated solution of the sulphate of soda in rain or distilled water, by adding the salt until no more will dissolve; perfect saturation being shown by finding, after repeated stirring, that a little of the salt remains at the bottom an hour or two after the solution was made. Heat this solution in a suitable vessel, and when it boils put in the marked specimens one by one, and keep them immersed in the boiling solution for half an hour. Take out the specimens separately and suspend them by threads, each over a separate vessel containing some of the liquid in which they were boiled, but which has been carefully strained to free it from any solid particles. In the course of a day or two, as the cubes dry, they will become covered with an efflorescence of snow-like crystals; wash these away by simply plunging the specimen into the vessel below, and repeat this two or three times daily for four or five days or longer. The most suitable vessel for the purpose is a glass “beaker,” sold by vendors of chemical apparatus.
In comparing competing samples, be careful to treat all alike, _i.e._, boil them together in the same solution, and dip them an equal number of times at equal intervals.
Having done this, the result is now to be examined. If the stone is completely resistant the cube will remain smooth on its surfaces and sharp at its edges and corners, and there will be no particles at the bottom of the vessel. Otherwise, the inability of the stone to resist the test will be shown by the disfigurement of the cube or the small particles wedged off and lying at the bottom of the liquid. Care must be taken not to confound these with crystals of the salt which may also be deposited. These crystals are easily removed by adding a little more water or warming the solution.
For strict comparison the fragments thus separated should be weighed in a delicate balance, such as is used in chemical analysis.
THE CORROSION OF BUILDING STONES.
About fifty years ago two eminent French chemists visited London, and rather “astonished the natives” by a curious feature of their dress. They wore on their hats large patches of colored paper. Coming, as they did, from Paris, many supposed that this was one of the latest Paris fashions, and the dandies of the period narrowly escaped the compulsion to follow it. They probably would have done so had the Frenchmen shown any attempt at decorative shaping of the paper. They neglected this because it was litmus paper, and their object in attaching it to their hats was to test the impurities of the London atmosphere.
Blue litmus paper, as everybody knows now-a-days, turns red when exposed to an acid. The French chemists found that their hat-decorations changed color, and indicated the presence of acid in the air of London; but when they left the metropolis and wandered in the open fields their blue litmus paper retained its original color. By using alkaline paper they contrived to collect enough of the acid to test its composition. They found it to be the acid which is formed by the burning of sulphur, and attributed its existence to the sulphur of our coal. At this time the domestic use of coal was scarcely known in Paris.
Subsequent experiments have proved that they were right; that the air of London contains a very practical quantity of sulphurous and sulphuric acids, which are due to the combustion of that yellow shining material more or less visible in most kinds of coal, and has been occasionally supposed to be gold. It is iron pyrites, a compound of iron and sulphur. When heated the sulphur is separated and burns, producing sulphurous acid, which, exposed to moist air, gradually takes up more oxygen and becomes sulphuric acid, which in concentrated solution is oil of vitriol. In the air it is very much diluted by diffusion, but is still strong enough to do mischief to some kinds of building materials.
In manufacturing towns, such as Birmingham and Sheffield, the quantity of this acid in the air is much greater than in London, and there its mischief is consequently more distinctly visible. The church of St. Philip, which stands nearly in the middle of Birmingham, and is surrounded by an old churchyard, was so corroded by this acid that the stone peeled away on all sides, and its condition was most deplorable. The tombstones were similarly disintegrated on their surfaces, and inscriptions quite obliterated. It became so bad that a few years ago restoration was necessary, and it was newly faced accordingly.
Some of the old tombstones that are preserved may still be seen against the church wall, and their peculiar structure is well worthy of study. They display a lamination or peeling away due to unequal corrosion, certain layers of the material of the stone having been evidently eaten away more rapidly than others. Anybody visiting Birmingham may easily examine these, as St. Philip’s churchyard is situated between the two railway stations of New Street and Snow Hill, and is but two minutes’ walk from either.
Other stone buildings in the town have suffered, but in very different degrees, and some have quite escaped, proving the necessity of careful selection of material wherever coal fires abound. In Birmingham the action of coal fires is assisted by other sources of acid vapor. The process of “pickling” brass castings, _i.e._, brightening their surface, by dipping first in common nitric acid (“pickle acky”) and then in water, is attended with considerable evolution of acid fumes. Besides this very widespread use of acid, there are several chemical manufactories that throw still more acid into the air immediately surrounding them.
As an example of the action of the atmospheric acids of London upon building stones, I have but to name the Houses of Parliament, which have only been rescued from superficial ruin by the patchwork replacing of certain blocks of stone, and various devices of siliceous and other washings that have been carried out at great cost to the nation. That such an unsuitable material should have been used is disgraceful to all concerned. The ruin commenced before the building was finished. At the time when its erection commenced there were abundant evidences of the ruinous action of London atmosphere on some kinds of stone and the capability of others to resist it, for while many modern buildings are peeling and crumbling, some of the oldest in the midst of the city show scarcely any signs of corrosion.
The Birmingham and Midland Institute was established and in practical operation a few years before the present noble building was erected. I was the first teacher there and conducted the Science classes in the temporary premises in Cannon street. Having observed with some interest the disintegration of St. Philip’s Church and other buildings, I was anxious for the safety of the new Institute buildings, and accordingly made some experiments upon the material proposed to be used by the architect. My method of testing was very simple, and as the practical result has verified my anticipations I think it might be adopted by others.
First, I immersed some lumps of the stone in moderately strong solutions of sulphuric and hydrochloric acids successively, and observed whether any visible action occurred after some days. There was none. I then roughly tested the crushing pressure of small samples in their natural state, and subjected similar sized pieces to the same test after they had been immersed in the acids. I found thus that there were no evidences of internal disintegration even after several days’ immersion, and therefore inferred that the stone would stand the acid vapors of the Birmingham atmosphere. This has been the case with that portion of the building that was built of the material I tested. As I know nothing of the stone which is used for the extension of the building under the present architect, Mr. Chamberlain, I am unable to make any forecast of its probable durability.
The experiments I made at the time named with this and other building materials justified the conclusion that the worst of all material for exposure to acid atmospheres is a sandstone, the particles of which are held together by limestone, or are otherwise surrounded by or intermingled with limestone; and that the best of _ordinary_ material is a pure sandstone quite free from lime. I do not here consider such luxurious material as granite or porphyries.
Compact limestone, such as good homogeneous marble, stands fairly well, although it is slowly corroded. The corrosion, however, in this case, is purely superficial and tolerably uniform. It is a very slow washing away of the surface, without any disintegration such as occurs where a small quantity of limestone acts as binding material to hold together a large quantity of siliceous or sandy material, and where the agglomeration is porous, and the stone is so laid that a downward infiltration of water can take place; for it must be remembered that although the acid originally exists as vapor in the air, it is taken up by the falling rain, and the mischief is directly done to the stone by the acidified water. This, of course, is very weak acid indeed. That which I used for testing the stone was many thousand times stronger, but then I exposed the stone for only a few days instead of many thousand days.
As above stated, my experiments were but rude, but I think it would be quite worth while to construct crushing apparatus capable of registering accurately the pressure used, and to operate with standard solutions of acid upon carefully squared blocks of standard size, and thus to make comparative tests of various samples of stone when competitions for building materials are offered. In the case of the Birmingham and Midland Institute building there was no such competition, the choice was left entirely to the architect, and my examination was unofficially conducted upon the material already chosen with the intent of protesting if it failed. As it stood the test I merely reported the results informally to the architect, the late Sir Edward Barry, no further action being demanded.
FIRE-CLAY AND ANTHRACITE.
For household fire-places, whether open or closed, these may be regarded as the material and the fuel of the future, and should be more generally and better understood than they are.
The merits of fire-clay were fully appreciated and described nearly a hundred years ago by that very remarkable man, Benjamin Thompson, Count of Rumford. Any sound scientific exposition of the relative value of fire-clay and iron as fire-place materials can be little more or less than a repetition of what he struggled to teach at the beginning of the present century.
It is impossible to fairly understand this subject unless we start with a firm grasp of first principles. The business before us is to get as much heat as possible from fuel burning in a certain fashion, and to do this with the smallest possible emission of smoke.
Substances that are hotter than their surroundings communicate their excess of temperature in three different ways; 1st, by _Conduction_; 2d, by _Convection_; 3d, by _Radiation_. All of these are operating in every form of fire-place, but in very different proportions according to certain variations of construction.
To demonstrate the conduction of heat, hold one end of a pin between the finger and thumb, and the other end in the flame of a candle. The experiment will terminate very speedily. Then take a piece of a lucifer match of the same length as the pin, and hold that in the candle. This may become red-hot and flaming without burning the fingers, as the pin did at a much lower temperature. It matters not whether the pin be held upwards, downwards, or sideways, the heat will travel throughout its substance, and this sort of traveling is called “conduction,” and the pin a “conductor” of heat. The conducting power of different substances varies greatly, as the above experiment shows. Metals generally are the best conductors, but they differ among themselves; silver is the best of all, copper the next. Calling (for comparison sake) the conductivity of silver 1000, that of copper is 736, gold 532, brass 236, iron 119, marble and other building stones 6 to 12, porcelain 5, ordinary brick earth only 4, and fire-brick earth less than this. Thus we may at once start upon our subject, with the practical fact that iron conducts heat thirty times more readily than does fire-brick.
_Convection_ is different from conduction, inasmuch as it is effected by the movements of the something which has been heated by contact with something else. Water is a very bad conductor of heat, much worse than fire-brick, and yet, as we all know, heat is freely transmitted by it, as when we boil water in a kettle. If, however, we placed the water in a fire-clay kettle, and applied the heat at the top we should have to wait for our tea until to-morrow or the next day. When the heat is applied below, the hot metal of the kettle heats the bottom film of water by _direct contact_; this film expands, and thus, being lighter, rises through the rest of the water, heating other portions by contact as it meets them, and so on throughout. The heat is thus conveyed, and the term “convection” is based on the view that each particle is a carrier of heat as it proceeds. Air conveys heat in the same manner; so may all gases and liquids, but no such convection is possible in solids. The common notion that “heat ascends” is based on the well-known facts of convection. It is the heated gas or liquid that really ascends. No such preference is given to an upward direction, when heat is conducted or radiated.
_Radiation_ is a flinging off of heat in all directions by the heated body. Radiation from solids is mainly superficial, and it depends on the nature of the heated surface. The rougher and the more porous the surface of a given substance the better it radiates. Bright metals are the worst radiators; lampblack the best, and fire-brick nearly equal to it. To show the effect of surface, take three tin canisters of equal size, one bright outside, the second scratched and roughened, the third painted over with a thin coat of lampblack. Fill each with hot water of the same temperature, and leave them equally exposed. Their rates of radiation will then be measurable by their rates of cooling. The black will cool the most rapidly, the rough canister next, and the bright one the slowest.
Radiant heat may be reflected like light from bright surfaces, the reflecting substance itself becoming heated in a proportion which diminishes just as its reflecting powers increase. Good reflectors are bad radiators and bad absorbers of heat, and the power of _absorbing_ heat, or becoming superficially hot when exposed to radiant heat, is exactly proportionate to radiating efficiency.
Fire-clay is a good absorber of radiant heat, _i.e._, it becomes readily heated when near to hot coals or flames, without requiring actual contact with them. It is an equally good radiator.
Let us now apply these facts to fire-clay in fireplaces, beginning with ordinary open grates used for the warming of apartments; first supposing that we have an ordinary old-fashioned grate all made of iron—front, sides, and back, as well as bars, and next that we have another of similar form and position, but all the fire-box and the back and cheeks of the grate made of fire-clay.
It is evident that the fire-clay not in actual contact with the coals, but near to them, will absorb more heat than the iron, and thus become hotter. Even at the same temperature it will radiate much more heat than iron, but being so much hotter this advantage will be proportionately increased. An open fireplace lined throughout with fire-clay thus throws into the room a considerable amount of its own radiation in addition to that thrown out from the coal.