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Forestry laws and the construction of roads evidently demand the serious attention of the Government.
In answer to the Chairman, Mr. Brunton said that from the various authorities which he had consulted he could not discover that the system of lightness and pliability in the construction of houses had been adopted in any country subject to earthquakes—except Japan. Certainly in South America and South Italy the buildings which were now erected ware of a most solid description—and those men who were authorities on the subject had, so far as his investigations had carried him, unanimously given a preference to strength as distinct from lightness or elasticity. In a building wanting in strength, its overthrow becomes certain when the velocity of the earthquake wave is such as to produce oscillation sufficient to destroy the equlibrium of its upright parts. But in buildings where the mass or inertia is great, and the connection of the different parts of the walls is proportionately good oscillation is checked, and it may be said that overthrow is impossible—except of course in cases of irregular upheaval or cracking of the earth’s surface, or when the foundations of a building are destroyed. In such buildings fractures may certainly be caused at weak places in the walls, but their great advantage is, that on account of their immunity from overthrow, they give their inmates time to escape. The great destruction of buildings in Lisbon Naples and elsewhere by earthquakes has been shewn to be entirely owing to the faulty character of the masonry—there having been instances in the vicinity of the latter place where the front half of a wall has come down leaving the back half standing, shewing that there was no band or connection whatever between the two. In regard to concrete he believed that no substance could be found more suitable for building in earthquake countries, and be founded this belief on the grounds that there was no joint whatever in a concrete wall, that the whole building was as one stone, and that the connection between its parts was equable and thorough throughout. He could not conceive that a well-built concrete house could possibly be overthrown so long as its foundations were left intact.
Mr. Syle observed concerning the supposed absence of any system of apprenticeship among Japanese workmen, that in China there was no such deficiency; but on the contrary, that every workman—especially every bricklayer—seemed to be provided with two apprentices. As to the supply of timber in China; it had become the custom in some districts, to cultivate hill-sides, and crop them annually strip after strip, for thirty successive years; at the end of which time, the first portion will have grown up again. For building purposes, large quantities of fine lumber, brought across the Pacific from Oregon, were disposed of at Shanghai. Also a good deal of magnificent hard wood brought up from the Straits, in the Singapore junks.
Prof. W. E. Ayrton remarked that he was not sure whether it had yet dawned on the Japanese that porosity was an