OIL-MIXING HOUSES.

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R., and by Mr, P. H, Conradson, formerly chemist of the road. The buildings in use were notspecially built for the service, and are in some cases only frame sheds. The floors are of wood or ofsand. Some of the storage-tanks are in the building, and some of them are buried in the groundoutside. Some of the mixing-tanks are made of old tender-tanks with paddles in the back endsworked by a belt from the shop engines. Some of the tanks are old water-tanks and some oil-tanks. All crude oils arrive in tank-cars, and are pumped into the storage-tanks by a steam-pump.The kettles used for boiling are open wrought-iron, such as are commonly used by roofers for meltingtar, a wood fire being built under them in the usual way. The oil in the storage-tanks is kept warmin cold weather by means of steam-pipes. Power-pumps are used at most of the houses for handlingand transferring the oils. The oils mixed are lubricating-oils for cars and engines, cylinder-oil forlocomotives, lantern-oil, marine-engine and valve-oil for steamers. In the preparation of the car andengine-oils a so-called concentrated chemical solution is prepared only at the Norwood plant, whichsolution is distributed to the other houses, where it is mixed by agitation with a given amount of well-oil in the mixing-tanks. After this operation the mixed oil is pumped to storage-tanks, barrelled andshipped out on the road, as required. The plants have been in operation for several years.

Oil-mixing-house Design , Packerton , Pa ., Lehigh Valley Railroad. —The design for an oil-mixinghouse of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, shown in P’igs. 224 to 229, prepared by Mr. S. French Collins

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Fig. 227.—Cross-section of Tanks, Fig. 228.—Elevation of Tanks.

under the direction of Mr. John S. Lentz, Superintendent Car Department, L. V. R. R., was to havebeen carried out at Packerton, Pa. , but was subsequently abandoned, principally owing to the limitedspace available. The plans show a one-story brick structure, 80 ft. X 33 ft., roofed with galvanizedcorrugated iron, divided into two rooms on the ground-floor, with a basement at one end of the