The New University Heating Plant

The new central heating plant for the University will be a model in every particular. It will not only provide for heating all the buildings at present, on the campus, but for flve or six additional buildings, or about all that the campus will hold. Among the new buildings calculated on in the plan for the heating plant is an art gallery whlch shows that the regents expect there will be one in the future. The amount of space calculated to be heated in the art gallery is 500.000 feet or about two-thirds the size of the gymnasium, which shows that a good sized building is also looked forward to. The central plant will consist of 16 boilers. From the central plant the conduit will go north under the medical building nearly to the gymnasium. It will then turn and go west to the law building, then south under the main building to the walk just south of the museum and from there east along the walk to a point south of the central plant, and then turn and connect with the central plant. The entire length of the conduit, which it will be seen passes entirely around the inner portion of the campus, will be about half a mile. The conduit will be six and one-half feet high in the clear and five and onehalf feet wide ín its widest dimensión. It will be in the shape of a horseshoe or a geostatic arch. The walls of the conduit will be eight inches thick of brick laid in cement with one inch of cement on the outside. The Hoor of the conduit will be a four-inch thick sidewalk. A person will thus be able to walk around the campus on a good walk underground. The top of the conduit is to be three and one-half feet under ground and consequently the trench will be 10V2 feet deep. The steam pipes will be on one side and electric light wires on the other. The supply pipe will start from the central plant 12 inches in diameter in each direction, the diameter being gradually lessened as the buildings are passed until the two ends meet at the main building, where the pipe will be six inches in diameter. Calculations have been made for the establishment of an electric light plant in connection with the heating plant as soon as the money is in sight with which to build it. The two could be run very economically together as the exhaust steam from the engine driving the electrio light machinery could be used for heating purposes and would be nearly sufficient to heat the main building. The conduits also furnish a ready means for making the connections. It will be seen from this short description that the plant will be a fine one. It will not only furnish heating capacity for the new buildings, but will prove economical ás well as it will save an engineer's wages by having the entire plant in one place and by the improved methods used save considerably on coal bilis. About $50,000 will be spent on this work and it must be completed by Oct. 1. Under the contract Mr. Harvey is bound to forfeit $50 for each day after Oct. 1 that the plant remains uncompleted. Mr. Harvey will bring some men from Detroit who are used to such particular work as building the walls of the conduit, but he will also hire Ann Arbor laboring men so there is a prospect for considerable work for Ann Arbor laborers on this job. Onè of the many instructora here in attendance upon the teachers' session of the University of Michigan, and, by the way, the enly one from the south, and. too, the only one of color, is Mr. J. S. Hathaway, of Frankfort, Ky. He is a professor in the State Normal School located at Frankfort. Mr. Hathaway is making quite a favorable impression here. He is approachable and discusses the conditions in the south quite freely and holds that things are far from as desperate there as, in the north, they are often made to appear. Life and property are about as secure there. as here in the north. He has words of hearty praise for the people of Kentucky, but deprecates the lynchlngs which occur, and the "separate coach" law, as is shown by the evident embarrassment and reluctance with which he talks on these subjects when their operation is tnquired into. For educational purposes, Kentucky gives annually an equal per capita for white and colored children, and under the operation of her revised school law, there will be a general onward and