ages of 16 and 21. Rivalry between the companies was so intense as sometimes to impede the effective usefulness of the department.

The first steam fire engine used in Richmond was introduced in 1860. It was built in Richmond by Ettinger & Edmunds. Alarms of fire were sounded by a large centrally located bell, hung

in the old Bell Tower, which is still standing and is one of the old landmarks of historic interest in Capitol Square.

Directly after the Civil War, under the military official of reconstruction days, Captain Frank M. Mullen acted as Chief Engineer. The next Chief Engineer was William Charters, who lost his life in the disaster at the State Capitol, April 27, 1870. He was succeeded by George A. Ainslie, the father of Our present Mayor, George Ainslie. The Chief Engineers serving since that period

are G. Watt Taylor, Arthur L. Fuqua, William G. Puller, George C. Shaw and William H. Joynes.

In 1911 the first motor fire engine was installed in the Richmond Fire Department. Further installations were made in 1912 and subsequent years.

In 1914 the city of Richmond annexed

much new territory embracing the suburbs of Ginter Park, Barton Heights and Highland Park. Each of these suburban towns had its own fire department, and Richmond took these over and at once installed paid companies. Ginter Park had a fairly wellequipped house and a motor engine. The other two had practically nothing in buildings or apparatus, but all are now as well equipped as any in Richmond, and the buildings are the most modern bungalow type. In this year, for the first time, all members of the Department were full paid or

stationed.

the country. New modern engine-houses have been erected, replacing old and poorly located buildings, especially in the suburban sections; every horse has been displaced and every company is equipped with modern motor apparatus; and we now have ample reserve machines, a feature that was never known in Richmond before. The present department consists of seventeen engine companies, six hook and ladder truck companies, and one water-tower; also a well-equipped machine shop, wrecking and service trucks and officers' automobiles. In 1921 the Fire Department was placed

In 1919 the form of city government was changed and the Fire and Fire Alarm Departments were placed under the Director of Public Safety. When this change in government took place, on January 1, 1919, the Fire Department consisted of 208 officers and men, all working 24 hours per day with only one day off in every six. The annual pay-roll was $314,000. Only six companies were equipped with motor fire engines, and three hook and ladder truck companies were provided with motor tractors. The Fire Alarm Department was antiquated and occupied inadequate quarters.

During the last four years, the Department, under the present Director of Public Safety, has made more improvements than in the entire previous history of the city,

on a two-platoon system, and a substantial increase in the pay of the men was also obtained, thus making the living conditions of the firemen better than the men had ever hoped to realize. The present organization is composed of 322 officers and men, working 10 and 14 hours per day, shifts changing every seven days.

Another important improvement is the new fire-proof building for the Fire Alarm Department, now nearing completion in Monroe Park. On the first floor of the building there will be small offices and an apparatus room. In the basement will be found battery room, generator room, heating plant and shop. There is now in course of installation the most modern type of central office for fire alarm and police signaling and the necessary apparatus for the

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fic does not approach that of a big city, but we do average between two and three thousand vehicles a day.

Because of the scarcity of rock we have had to adapt our methods of construction to local materials. Many of our roads run on beach sand or through sand dunes. In order to build a stable road-bed on such a foundation, it was necessary to add a loam binder to this sand.

Method of Construction

First of all, we use road graders to bring the subgrade to the proper alignment. Then we spread a layer of clay over the road and work it in with disc harrows. It

considerable traffic, but the up-keep is heavy.

We find that by using Texaco No. 55 asphaltic road oil at the rate of about onethird gallon per square yard, followed by a light coat of sand, in about ten days we have a very good road. If possible, during the first year an additional application of one-third gallon is made early in the fall. Unless the winter is exceptionally severe, the roads stand up perfectly. Bear in mind that we keep the scrapers working these roads throughout the entire year.

Some sections of the island have more gravel than sand. This is due to the fact that we are on a terminal moraine of a

glacier. We have developed a type of construction in order to make use of this aggregate as found in nature. The community has not deemed it necessary to build a screening plant, so we haul direct from the gravel-pit to the road. In most instances there is enough clay mixed with the gravel to act as binder, but when necessary we add more and work it in similar to our sand-clay mixture. When thoroughly compacted, the asphalt road oil is applied with a distributor, and fine gravel or coarse sand is used for a covering. In case large stones happen to get on the road with this covering, they are removed when the road is dragged.

On other places we have a sandy loam. This contains too much loam to make a good wearing surface. We use either sand or gravel, depending upon whatever material is most convenient. The same grade of asphaltic road oil is used on this type of construction, and the results have been highly satisfactory.

Maintenance

Construction is the least trouble; but, unlike on hard surface roads, maintenance, while not so expensive, is the feature that has made our roads what they are to-day. Until the surface is thoroughly compacted, we have our patrol men drag the roads continuously with light hones and wooden drags. We never allow the crown of the road to get too high, merely keeping it high enough to shed water readily. In

D

case pot-holes develop-and they will, no. matter how carefully the road is patrolled -an application of the road oil and a covering of sand is all that is needed. If the holes are too deep, a mastic is made of oil and sand and the rut filled with this mixture.

It has come to my observation that in several instances, after five or six years of asphaltic oil treatment, under heavy traffic, the mat on the road-bed becomes wavy. Numerous methods have been tried to overcome this defect. The best is to scarify the road, harrow with disc and spring-tooth harrows until the material is finely broken, and allow traffic to compact it again. The patrol keeps all ruts filled, and in a short time our road is ready for an oil treatment. We have never used more than a third of a gallon to the square yard, and in many instances we use less. Because of the evaporation of the volatile matter, we have in less than two weeks a road that is a mixture of sand and asphalt. Thus we have built layer upon layer of sand asphalt road, and now we have many miles of these roads that look and wear like sheet asphalt. It has taken years to develop this high type of sand asphalt road, but many who drive over them state that they prefer this kind of road to any other. Since the cost of maintenance, counting both material and labor, averages only about $350 per mile per year, we actually save more than the interest on bonds we would have to issue to build a road of the hard-surface type.

YNAMITE is one of the latest agents to be employed extensively in the war against mosquitoes. It has been used repeatedly by experts of the United States Health Service, and also by many communities in the Southern States in their municipal mosquito-control activities. The explosive is used to blast ditches through mosquito-infested swamps and lowlands in order to drain out the breeding-places of the pests, and the control of the explosive at the present time is such that it is possible to blow a ditch of any desired depth or width. Engineers have found dynamite especially valuable for ditching under adverse conditions where there were trees, stumps, heavy bushes or other obstructions in the right of way. Un

der ordinary conditions, with hand labor or with dredges, the right of way would have to be cleared before the actual operation of ditchdigging began, but with dynamite all the obstructions are blown out together with the earth. In many places where there is a shortage of hand labor, or costs of labor are high, dynamite has proved to be not only the most efficient, but the most economical, agent, the costs of ditching in many cases having been reduced from 25 to 50 per cent.

From the reports now being made on the use of dynamite as an anti-mosquito agent, it seems entirely possible that proper drainage can be so widely carried on as to bring the pest ultimately under complete control.

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N designing ornamental street-lighting installations the most important consideration is to build substantially to obtain efficient illumination at low operating and maintenance costs. The cost of possessing a street-lighting installation is seldom greater than its cost of operation over a two-year period. Most installations last from ten to fifteen years, so it is plain that a little saved or a little more spent on the original installation becomes an insignificant consideration when compared with the importance of wise planning from the standpoint of maintenance and operation costs.

In past years the usual practise has been to confine street-lighting improvements to limited sections. Just as city planning has until recently been almost wholly confined to scattering about the city a few beautyspots such as civic centers, parks and playgrounds, so has street lighting been scattered through the agency of localized improvements carried out as private developments, or in the form of improvement districts, and nearly always aimed to boom a restricted area to commercial leadership through the establishment of White Ways. The work of so-called improvement districts