BAUGHMAN—SHOP INSPECTION OF BRIDGES.                    63

as spent for bridges, we have but $1 900 000 as the amount spent in
road improvement proper.

The maximum amount of cash tax spent per square mile, or for
two linear miles of road, was a trifle less than $64, or $32 per mile of
road; while the minimum was only $13.12 per mile of road. The
average amount was $23.10 per mile of road.

The amount of road and bridge tax per square mile, as shown in
Table I, is strictly speaking more than the average amount spent on
the two miles of road. In the smaller cities and towns a certain
proportion of this tax is used on streets, thus making more than the
two miles of road to each square mile of land. If half of the cash
road and bridge tax is spent for bridges^which seems probable as shown
above, we shall have a very small magin left with which to improve
the roads.     It is no wonder that our roads are in poor condition!
 

SHOP INSPECTION OF BRIDGES.
 

By C. O. Baughman, '94, Civil Engineering Course.
 

The term inspector is generally applied to a person employed by
the engineer or the persons for whom the work is being constructed,
having power to reject all work that does not comply in every re¬
spect with the specifications. (Such persons may be termed shop
inspectors, but not in the sense that the term is used in this paper.)
A shop inspector is a person employed by the manufacturers his
position is in the shops and his duties are to see that all errors due to
workmanship are corrected before the material is taken into the field.
It is not only his duty to see that the work complies with the speci¬
fications, but that the painting is done properly, and that the material
is loaded for shipment in such a manner as to be unloaded in the
shortest possible time and at the least possible expense.

The method of inspecting the various parts of a structure will
be briefly mentioned. First consider the floor beams and stringers,
which are generally the first parts of a contract completed. See
that all the rivets are tight. This is accomplished by tapping them
lightly with a hammer, generally made for that purpose. If any
loose rivets are found, do not have them cut out until their position
in the piece has been carefully considered.    Notice the plates that