install a power plant at Wil

liston, from which electrically conveyed power could be transmitted to pumping barges. One of the barges was to be stationed at Williston and power would be conveyed to the other barge, twenty-eight miles distant, to irrigate the Buford-Trenton project. In order to solve the problem of anchorage, it was decided to fasten the barges to the bank by means of extensible overhead booms. These booms, swinging clear of the river, allowed the floating debris to pass beneath them. Ordinary floating booms would soon have caught an immense amount of debris, and would have wrecked the entire plant.

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of each barge were presented to the current. He built a floating dike-for there is no other description that will fit his device encasing iron pipes in boxes made of heavy planks. By filling or emptying these pipes with water, the sectional boom thus constructed could be kept at any height desired. By sinking it until the top was awash, the boom was converted into an impregnable defence. Trees and logs, which came down the stream like immense sea serpents, struck this improvised rampart, and were fended off by pikemen who were on guard night and day in times of flood.

In the matter of attaching pipes to the barges, another problem was presented. Stationary pipes were out of the question, owing to the shifting nature of the channel, so pipes with rubber joints were attached. These could be shortened or lengthened as the channel shifted its position.

Mr. Storrs realized that the question of floating debris would be a serious matter, even though no more than the prow

Generally when such an object in a stream strikes an obstacle, it dives like a huge fish. This would be disastrous to the pumping machinery on the barges, but, by sinking the protecting booms in the manner described, the engineer had put the center of gravity of the defence below the center of gravity of the attacking object. The big trees were veered off by the pikemen, and floated on down the Missouri, without having harmed the pumping barges.

The battle was far from being won after the barges had been made secure. A pretty problem had to be overcome in developing sufficient power at the generating plant. The coal, which was dug from adjacent beds located by Mr. Storrs, was more than 40 per cent. water. The utiliza

that it developed the required amount of horsepower is a feat which has interested all engineers who have inspected this unique plant. The coal used at the government plant is mined and delivered by gravity to the furnace at the power station. Sufficient horse-power is developed to run both pumping barges and to irrigate many times the acreage now under cultivation.

Missouri river water, being unlike the water of any other stream in the world, offered a considerable prob

lem in itself. At times, when the river is at its muddiest, there is twenty-five per cent. of solid matter in its composition-rich alluvial float that has made the whole Mississippi Valley an agricultural wonderland, but which is not exactly a comfort to the irrigation engineer. To pump such water into canals and laterals would mean the rapid filling of costly irrigation works with silt. A settling basin was constructed, close to

the muddy water of the Missouri was pumped. The silt was allowed to settle to the basin, and the clear water was run off into the system of canals which eventually will make this whole bench-land region look like an immense checkerboard of small but prosperous farms.

In disposing of the accumulation of silt in the reservoir, a unique suction arrangement was devised. A wastepipe, air-tight and capable of standing heavy pressure, was laid under the river bank of the reservoir. A nozzlelike arrangement, operated by a man on a floating platform, sucked up the loose silt on the bottom of the reservoir, and the mud was discharged through the pipe into the Missouri.

In constructing the canals, a problem confronted the the engineers at outset - the question of crossing the Great Northern

railroad tracks. Here a siphon was constructed, and the water dives under the tracks and reappears on the other side, to make fertile the bench lands near Williston.

Power plants and pumping barges would also seem to solve the problems of such hitherto unconquered streams as the Colorado and its tributaries, the Upper Yellowstone and Snake, and many other rivers that travel for miles at the bottom

T

HE problem of building good cheap homes for working men is one that has engaged most serious thought for many years and nobody yet appears to have hit upon the ideal plan. Thomas A. Edison is one of those who have been working on the problem and some time. ago he announced a plan for building cheap houses of solid concrete by pouring them in molds. As yet his plan has not reached the stage where any of the houses are being built or poured.

Now comes an Oklahoma man who believes he has gone a long way toward a solution of the housing problem and he has met with such success that the Department of Commerce and Labor has become interested in his efforts.

This man doesn't pretend he is an Edison, however. He is merely a practical builder. He doesn't profess to draw any conclusions, but simply submits the houses he has built as evidence and lets the results speak for themselves.

What this man is doing is to build a cosy, durable and artistic five-room dwelling of hollow tile and cement, strong enough to last a hundred years, on a lot 75 by 140 feet in area, costing

$500, with a chicken house, tool house, water supply and sewer system thrown in, and selling the whole outfit for $1,500 payable on installments. He pays high wages to his mechanics, uses the best of materials for which he is forced to pay high prices, operates on borrowed capital for which he pays a high rate of interest, and yet admits he is making a good profit. He is selling his houses as fast as he can build them and he can't build them fast enough to meet the demand.

When this builder first began his work he built a four-room house which he sold for $1,000, including the lot. He found that the greatest demand, however, was for a larger house, so he added another bedroom on the rear and made other changes in the plan which brought the cost up to $1,500. A still more artistic home one on the same plan-sells for $1,700. A bathroom added to either plan, including cost of tub, lavatory, etc., would increase the cost about $150.

"In any large city where sand, materials and labor are cheaper, the $1,700 house could be built for $1,500 and the $1,500 house for proportionately less," the builder says. This is rating the lot at $500.

A glance at the floor plan, which is same for both houses, will show that there

is no waste of space and that the rooms are of ample size. The walls and partitions are of hollow tile, plastered inside and outside with mixed lime and cement plaster, the exterior walls being given a rough finish. Hollow tile construction, as is well known, is warm in winter and cool in summer. Practically the only difference in the two houses is the roof. The roof of the $1,500 house is of the ordinary slant type, covered with metal Spanish tile. In the $1,700 house the roof is flat, surrounded by a three-foot railing, finished with stucco the same as the walls of the house. The roof may be used as a roof garden or as a sleep-. ing porch in summer. A stairway from the back. porch gives access to the roof. The roof is sup

ported by 2x8 rafters, covered with 1-inch boards, over which is first laid four thicknesses of tar-paper laid without nail holes. The paper is covered with a lapped layer of expanded metal lath over which is spread two inches of concrete covered with asphaltum. This makes a roof which, the builder says, should be weatherproof for a hundred years.

The houses are 35 by 20 feet, with these interior dimensions: living room, 12 by 16; dining room, 9 by 12; kitchen, 61⁄2 by 9; alcove bedroom, 61⁄2 by 122; rear bedroom, 91⁄2 by 12; clothes closet, 3 by 62; back porch, 7 by 10; front porch, 10 by 18; roof garden, 20 by 35. If a bathroom is desired this can be provided for by setting the kitchen more to the rear and placing the bath room. back of the closet, and cutting down the closet space

builder, ought to be able to build. himself a cozy, modern, and substantial dwelling for $2,000 or less, including the cost of his lot. It will be noted, also, that the style of construction is one that reduces the cost of repairs to almost nothing, since there is practically no

the house. In the living room there is a basket grate fitted to burn either coal or natural gas. Very little wood is used in the houses, even the floors being of cement, while the ceilings are of stamped metal. The house is screened at every opening.

Only expert labor is employed by the builder and he pays "top" wages: $6 a day for eight hours for brickmasons and plasterers and fifty cents an hour for carpenters. The tile and cement are of the best quality. The sand that is used is hauled one hundred miles by rail and then a considerable distance by wagon, which makes its

cost laid down on

the site about three

dollars a yard.

Under these conditions, the builder esti

mates that

the cost of

each house, where he now is at work building, is about $200 in excess of

painting and no woodwork to be damaged. The houses as built in Oklahoma have tinted walls which are cheaper and more sanitary than papered walls and permit of simple and yet elegant effects that cannot be obtained in cheap paper.

With reference to the problem of the increased cost of living, in combination with that of rearing a family, halfdecently at least, these cheap homes for working men being constructed by this Oklahoma builder, take on a significance entirely out of proportion to the modest

nature of the enterprise. The de

mands of persons of moderate means is neither for elegance nor show but for a stability and permanency of structure. What is wanted is something substantial, which is, at the same time, comfortable and cheerful. Screening in each of the houses at

what it would cost in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City or any Eastern city. The final cost, built in any city would, of course, depend on the lot. The house would fit very well on a lot as small as twenty-five feet and better, of

every opening may appear a small thing, but assuring as it does a safeguard against the annoyance and danger of flies and mosquitoes, it would indicate that other less obvious precautions were also provided for in these cheery little dwellings.