VOL. LXIX.

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HE Annual Convention of the American Institute of Architects will be held this year later in the season than ever, as it will not be held until December, the precise date not yet being announced, and in Washington, according to the now established custom of holding the even-year conventions in that city. The object in deferring the date to a season when the days are nearing their shortest and out-door conditions are more than likely to be unfavorable to those excursions which have always been attractive features of these annual occasions is, that the meeting may be held at the time when the capital city is celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of its foundation. If the postponement were only for the sake of enabling visitors to see and enjoy what there is enjoyable in an American city en fête, the delay would seem to us needless and regrettable, but the Institute's convention committee hope that by holding the convention at this particular time, and when Congress, too, is in session, some effect may be had upon two or three very important matters that are likely to be under official consideration at that time, and largely occupying public and private attention. These matters are the remodelling of the White House, the adoption of a plan for the improving of the city, the proper grouping of Federal buildings, and the approach to the Potomac Memorial Bridge. With these special matters in view, the committee is preparing to be as helpful as possible by providing papers which deal with landscape architecture and the treatment of the urban plan, and will gather an exhibition of drawings which will have a bearing on these particular topics. Although it can hardly be hoped that Congress will adjourn and attend the Institute meetings en masse, it seems more than likely that members of the important committees can be induced to listen to the papers and discussion, and hearken patiently to the explanation of such drawings as may be shown, so that we are disposed to think the scheme an admirably

No. 1286.

'97 and '98 the annual consumption of water by the Fire Department was almost exactly thirty-five million gallons, and that, almost as exactly, twenty-five per cent of this amount was salt water drawn from the rivers, while in the year '99, although the water used amounted to nearly one hundred million gallons, more than fifty per cent of it was river water. These last figures show not only that a salt-water fire-service might wholly supersede the use of fresh water but that already the fire-boats are effecting a very appreciable economy in the present water-supply. Further than this, Mr. Moore states that the entire annual consumption of fresh and salt water by the Fire Department is less in amount than the domestic consumption by the citizens for one single day, a statement which shows clearly that instead of being a main factor in the argument the needs of the Fire Department are one of the least. Brief, direct and simple as Mr. Moore's letter is, we doubt, as he does, whether it will have much effect. The present Water-commissioner is committed to the Ramapo steal and it would be very easy for him to so manipulate the supply, shutting it off here and letting it waste there, as to produce what would seem, to those who have not time or interest to investigate and reason for themselves, like a short and failing supply under present conditions.

N the other hand, Mr. John R. Freeman, an hydraulic engineer employed as expert adviser by Comptroller Coler, of New York, who seems on the whole to be really opposed. to the Ramapo steal, develops some figures which are not altogether reassuring, and largely because of the large amount of what he calls "probable waste, curable and incurable." Deducting this and also the "metered flow" for manufacturing and commercial purposes, which flow amounts to twenty-four gallons a day per capita, he arrives at the conclusion that the present system provides for domestic consumption only twelve gallons daily for each inhabitant. Perceiving that these figures must be meaningless to most men, he shows that in Fall River, Mass., where seemingly all water is metered, the use of water amounts to eleven and two-tenths gallons daily for each of the seventy thousand inhabitants. And as this, too, is somewhat meaningless, he shows that the meters used in three hundred and thirty-nine apartment-houses in Boston indicate a daily consumption of over thirty-five gallons for each inhabitant thereof, while in buildings of a similar character in New York it reaches fifty-nine gallons. The main point of interest in his report - that relating to curable and incurable wasteis, unfortunately, vague, and the factor is so large a one that it affects all deductions. Based on observation of the flow from the Central Park reservoir between one and four o'clock in the morning, he reaches the conclusion that this probable waste is at least eighty gallons a day for each inhabitant; then, apparently scared by his own figures, he declares that, as there are no means of definitely determining this waste, it must, at any rate, be "upwards of fifty gallons per inhabitant per day." seems to us that an expert retained in favor of the Ramapo scheme could hardly have applied a factor-of-safety with more nonchalance.

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the social pleasures of out-door excursions for the sake of attempting to do a work of serious usefulness.

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HE exigencies of municipal politics or, what is more to the purpose, the personal requirements of party bosses are such that it is altogether likely that the great "Ramapo water steal" may yet be accomplished, and the citizens of New York City be needlessly robbed of a large part of the two hundred million dollars involved in the scheme. But if there is anything that can rouse the public to take an effective stand against this nefarious job it is such letters as that which Mr. Francis C. Moore, President of the Continental Insurance Company, and an American citizen of the highest type, has written to the New York Tribune. Turning his attention to the fact that the promoters of the job urge as one of the chief arguments in its support the allegation that more water must be had for the sake of securing an adequate supply for fire-protection, Mr. Moore shows, by figures drawn from the official reports of the Fire Department, the puerility of this particular argument. He shows that in the years '96,

of the last few weeks must have caused many a man to wonder why the race is so tolerant of a discomfort which human ingenuity should be able to palliate. Heat and light have been brought fairly under control and can now be distributed from central stations and consumed by enough customers to produce a satisfactory income for the owners of the plant, but the distribution of cool, fresh air from a central station, or what would to some degree have the same effect, the abstraction of heat-units at distant points through the operation of a central force, has, until now, eluded solution. The problem is one of the most difficult that can be laid before the man of science, since it contains not only physical but sanitary conditions of the gravest importance. The small electric-fan used as a cooling fan is a great boon to the few within the radius of its action, but as a sanitary agent it is very defective, and there is no great relief in being pelted hour after hour with a stream of the same foul and moisture-laden particles, and the larger power-fans are not much better, although they do help things somewhat, since they do make a real change in the atmosphere, while the small fans may simply stir about the same befouled medium. The few attempts to provide cooled