Towers and Tanks for Water-Works - The Theory and Practice of Their Design Construction #244323

The custom has been, to a greater extent than in any other engineering work of like importance, to buy a stand-pipe much as a barrel of flour would be bought; the contract or agreement would be for a stand-pipe so high and so wide, the material and workmanship to be first class in every respect. Without previous experience, and unable to secure any degree of exact information as to the best practice for stand-pipe design, it would be amusing, if not so serious a matter, to compare the emaciated paragraph, its stock phrases and blanket clauses, so lax that any rule-of-thumb boiler-maker can safely provide almost anything in the shape of a tank, provided it holds together and does not leak too badly, with the plethoric clause, wasting much good paper and printer's ink in padding the specifications to give an important appearance to the technical description dealing with requirements for cast — iron pipe, which probably gets its first inspection when the pressure is applied from the pumping-engines.