Brown and White Vol. 11 no. 43

              the meeting was promptly called to order at 8 o'clock by president bernstein in a well worded speech he introduced mr whitney 04 who took as his subject railroad construction the northampton and bath r r said he is a short railroad used by the cement companies of the surrounding counties to convey their products to market al though a small road he continued it furnishes a fine example of mod ern railroad construction engi neering problems seldom encoun tered by larger roads were solved in laying out the road with amazing accuracy the grade over the mountains is only 1.82 per cent while the maximum on the level is 8 eighty pound rails are used in its construction also 1 cinder ballast steam shovels were used in making cuts and fills which greatly facili tated the progress of the work and also proved themselves money sav ers whenever rock was encoun tered in making a cut the blast holes were made by compressed air the bridges are five in number and are of the plate girder type all abutt ments are of concrete made from the best portland cement in all the road is one of the best con structed in the country mr whit ney illustrated his remarks by nu merous photographs and drawings mr s lifer followed with an inter esting talk on ballasting fie opoke of the difficulties of ballast ing when cuts have to be made through shale the roadbed often sinks to such an appreciable extent that it has to be raised at least onci a month and mr s lifer clearly proved that if proper ballasting was used in such places the dangers of a sunken track would be elimi nated by sketches he then showed an other interesting point of ballast ing that of selecting the kinds of materials to be used each inspec tor is given two italian laborers who too often prove a detriment lather than a help they generally know little english and understand less and it is only by signs or ges tures that any work can be accom plished richard merriman then read a well prepared paper on the use of co-ordinates in rail continued on fourth page entertained by dr drown the regular meeting of the me chanical engineering society of the university was held last wednesday night in the 1 society's rooms in williams hall after the reading of the minutes of the last meeting by secy reno 04 president halter 04 intro duced the first speaker on the pro gram for the evening w f rob erts 04 who spoke on mechani cal stokers mr roberts is su perintendent of boilers at the beth lehem steel works and discussed his subject from personal exper ience comparative tests have been made at the steel works on hand firing and mechanical stoking it was found that the mechanical stok ers could not use rice coal and it vas found necessary to use buck wheat coal if the stokers were to be used as rice coal costs half as much as buckwheat the operating expenses are decidedly increased by iising buckwheat since rice coal can be advantageously used in firing as the result of these tests the bethle hem steel company will remove its mechanical stokers and return to hand firing w it lesser 06 followed with s paper on the machinery of a coal breaker he described in an interesting manner the process of coal haulage up the breaker the crushing and sorting of coal and the various machines used in this process particular attention was paid to the working apparatus of the jigs for sorting slate from coal the utilization of power from sea waves was discussed by f h browning 05 this was chiefly a theoretical talk on the explanation of the theory of the trochoidal wave experiments made along these lines last summer were explained and il lustrated at the conclusion of browning's paper lunch was served and the rest of the evening was spent in a social way — south bethlehem globe lacrosse game the first lacrosse game of the season will be played in south beth lehem on saturday with the cornell team as lehigh s opponents our team is in excellent condition and is confident of putting up a fine showing professor lambert was recently elected a member of the american philosophical society metallurgical society the metallurgical society held its tegular meeting last tuesday even ing in the metallurgical laboratory during the transaction of business a cut was selected for the 1905 epitome h r lee 06 presented a paper on continuous blast furnace tap ping he explained in detail the methods used in this country and in germany dr richards gave a short supplementary talk showing the advantages and disadvantages of the schemes as practiced in this country this was followed by an interest ing paper on telluride ores at cripple creek by vockrodt 06 the last paper of the evening was read by dr richards on working principles of open hearth fur naces he gave a short historical sketch showing the growth of the open-hearth process and described the methods used in its working after the meeting 1 , which was largely attended the usual refresh ments were served lehigh university south bethlehem pa friday april 15 1904 mustard and cheese m e meeting vol xl c e meeting no 43 the new coach since the easter holidays the members of the cast and chorus of the mustard and cheese have been rehearsing for their play under the direction of mr j harrison wolfe of philadelphia mr wolfe stands very high in his profession not only on the stage where he has played leading shakespearian roles but also in connection with his school of dramatic art in philadelphia at the suggestion of the coach several of the scenes have been entirely re arranged and numerous other smaller changes made thes changes have been made the means of introducing much bright up-to date comedy and parodies on a number of selections from the more recent comic operas the staging of the piece will be more elaborate than anything that has ever attempted at lehigh a number of pieces of scenery which it is necessary to have made espec ially for the play are now being prepared while some of the sett ings needed will be brought to south bethlehem from the lyric theatre of allentown the costuming will be histori cally correct to the smallest detail a costumer in washington is now at work on a special order for the more elaborate wardrobes that will be used by the members of the cast lehigh statistics from 1903-04 register the register of lehigh univer sity for the current year has just been issued from the press of the times publishing co of bethle hem the attendance at the uni versity as shown therein is 625 as against 581 of last year an in crease of nearly 8 per cent this is the largest registration in the his tory of the college by classes the students are di vided as follows ; graduate stu dents 7 seniors 91 juniors 115 sophomores 171 freshmen 220 special students 21 following is a tabular statement of the attend ance by courses : classical 25 ; lat in-scientific 14 civil engineer ing 192 mechanical engineerng 174 mining engineering 69 metallurgical engineering 10 ; electrometallurgy 11 ; electrical engineering 90 analytical chem istry 33 ; chemical engineering 7 there are representatives from massachusetts connecticut new york new jersey pennsylvania columbia virginia west virgin ia north carolina south carolina florida kentucky tennessee ala bama ohio illinois michigan minnesota kansas nebraska montana oregon canada mexico cuba porto rico jamaica peru sweden germany russia and south africa a comparison with previous registers shows that the reputation and influence of lehigh is rapidly extending in the list of students pennsyl vania naturally leads with 355 stu dents ; maryland follows with 56 principally from baltimore new york with 48 new jersey with 40 district of co'umbia with 38 and virginia with 18 an interesting feature of the re gister is a list of the 13 12 gradu ates from the foundation of the col lege together with their present occupations and addresses this list indicates that this institution is exerting a very marked influence on the industrial development of the united states and foreign countries there are 56 on the teaching stair of the university thirteen four-year courses of in struction are offered at the univer sity : the classical course the latin scientific course the courses in civil mechanical marine metal lurgical mining electrical and chemical engineering analytical chemistry geology physics and electrometallurgy continued on third page railroad night the regular meeting of the c e society was held at the home of dr drown last wednesday evening