Show I OF GREAT INTEREST The Polytechnic Society Discusses I Timely Topics Utah Has a Greater Variety of Asphalt Than Any Other Country Foliage In the Street Preserved Tho smart set who see progress In decimating r deci-mating foliage in the business quarter can peruse with profit the proceedings of the Polytechnic society the highest scientific authority in the territory It Is also of great importance that this Distinguished set of Inquirers has brought to public notice that Utah has more varieties I varie-ties of asphalt than nny country in the world many of which are new to the books and unclassified and that there is I here in those mountains asphalt superior to that of the famous Sriss mines and equal if not bettor than tho celebrated Trinidad product The Polytechnic discussed many subjects sub-jects of great moment and with that thoroughness thor-oughness of research for which they are so well qualified Tne monthly mooting of the POlytecbnio society was held at the rooms Friday evening even-ing President Stevenson in tile chair The meeting was one of more than usual interest as was also the attendance a number of distinguished visitors being present As was expected tho topic of principal interest was the paper presented by Admiral Selwyn of the Royal navy on the Relations Between Solid Liquid and Fluid Fuels which excited a very full discussion among the qualified members and the visitors Admiral Selwyn has made practically a life study of these matters and from a practical standpoint shows bow to a very treat degree at least our smoke nuisance can bo eliminated with a great saving of feelS feel-S Professor Hirschinp Mr H L A Cul i uier and Captain Whittal also contributed I to the fund of information supplied by the admiral on this timely topic The matter which excited the most thorough attention was that of Utah building build-ing materials and their application in construction con-struction The magnificent specimens which were displayed on the societys tables of mar bie onyx the asphalts and building stones wero such as to bring out a more varied discussion of the utility of Utahs productions produc-tions than has ever before occurred before any scientific body The history of the discovery of the onyx at Pelican Point by Professor Cederstrom was extremely interesting in-teresting and the statements by the president presi-dent that none of the boots denned tile materials exhibited called out ti similar statement from other scientists present The great number unclassified asphalts which were presented showed that while there are no leas than forty different kinds of asphalts in this territory soms ten or twelve more are yet to be analyzed The discussion concerning these and other hydro carbons was extremely Interesting Inter-esting Captain Whittal of the Sixteenth Infantry U S A read a carefully prepared pre-pared and instructive paper bringing to notice no-tice not only his experience in regard to the asphalts and ozocerites of this territory terri-tory but also illustrated the same by a lot of new and unclassified specimens from the Book mountains ernphaaizirs the great variety and enormous extent of our territorial hydrocarbons The discussion brought out from Mr Parks of New York the great value of the Cosmos companys deposit of asphalt and also the utilization of the elaterltes which last are the only substances yet found that combine with India rubber to make the bast insulators known to the world i The question cano up in regard to the paving of our streets and Mr Harry Cul I mar who has evidently been studying of jaw all the matters appertaining to the asphalts and bitumers whether in sand or I lime gave a very clear elucidation of their constituency and further made the statement state-ment of his recent correspondence with Professor Vurtz as to the better methods of the treatment of the different qualities of asphalts forpavingpurposes and showed a complete analogy which exists between the Utah lime asphalts and those which come from Neuchatel and Syssel in Switzerland Switz-erland and which for fifty years have been I in use on the streets o Paris Berlin and London The next matter that was brought up was the better maintenance of street pavements pave-ments A short paper by Colonel Stevenson in which he demonstrated from measurements measure-ments made by Mr Hardesty a civil engineer en-gineer of this city that if our streets are to be laid with asphalt thero must be a broadening of the width of tires of all ve hides carrying excessively heavy loads and further and showed that the extreme width of our heaviest dray tires carrying from one to one and a half tons a wheel do not exceed 2J inches while the English rule for like welsht is 6 inches The broadening of our tires will of course have a tendency to preserve rather than destroy any kind of pavement In the discussion of this subject Admiral Selwyn gave some interesting data as the London custom The utility of foliage In our city streets was ably discussed by Lieut Salisbury of the weather bureau in connection with southern cities and by Captain Whittal from his own experience and by others showing how the beautiful cities of Hartford Hart-ford New Haven and Worcester kept up a magnificent foliage right in the business streets to the admiration of the whole world cities having much larger population popula-tion than Salt Lake The large interest by all present is convinced by the fact that the scientists conincd t scentist remained re-mained in session until a quarter to 12 oclock elevator barely catching the last trip by the |