PART I.
HISTORY
Survey
The diagrams accompanying this paper naturally do not and need not show anything other than the merest skeleton of the construction as it exists, or as it is planned to be made, nor will the attempt be made to prove all the statements herein by means of statistics as dry as the very dust in the subway, nor bulwark the technical contentions with an array of unnecessary data, as to volumes, velocities, temperatures, etc., since, naturally, access has not been given to the figures which are possibly buried in the archives of the engineers who designed the subway. However, it is a fact that within a fortnight after the first subway was opened, on October 27th, 1904. the author made a special trip through it as it then existed from end to end with the sole purpose of studying the ventilation, or lack of it. having in mind the possibility of being able to make suggestions which might be of service. From that day to this further studies have been made and quite a large amount of data, clippings, etc.. in regard to the ventilation of the old subway and of other subways and tunnels, have been collected, therefore, when statements are made which may seem dogmatic it is to be noted that they are made after mature deliberation and exhaustive study into the question viewed from probably every possible angle. In like manner the attempt will not be made to go into the many technical sides of the broad subject of ventilation covering as it does a field which is growing wider every day owing to research by engineers, sanitarians and hygienists of eminence, who are attacking the question of what constitutes good and bad ventilation with the most modern weapons of science, and. curiously, are overturning many theories heretofore well accepted upon this subject. It should be enough for the purpose of this memorandum to assume it as taken for granted that, from the standpoint of hygiene, efficiency, safety, comfort and even the production of profits, it is not only a desirable thing to have the subways well ventilated, but it has at last come to be a compelling necessity. In defence of science and modern engineering, it may be said that in those circles at least there never has been any question that the subway was not ventilated, nor that it could not be ventilated, hence it is well worth most serious consideration to find why it is that the subways have not been properly ventilated, and why the proposed plans for those projected are so obviously inadequate.
Possibly this introduction may seem a trifle irrelevant but in view of the fact that now. after ten years of use and experiment, proper venti-
