which is not recommended or used in the best designs.

The third point, in reference to the counterforts of retaining walls, is
certainly aimed at a very reprehensible practice which should not be
countenanced by any engineer.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth items bring out the fact that undoubtedly
there has been some confusion in the minds of designers and authors on
the subject of shear in the steel. The author is wholly justified in
criticising the use of the shearing stress in the steel ever being
brought into play in reinforced concrete. Referring to the report of the
Special Committee on Concrete and Reinforced Concrete, on this point, it
seems as if it might have made the intention of the Committee somewhat
clearer had the word, tensile, been inserted in connection with the
stress in the shear reinforcing rods. In considering a beam of
reinforced concrete in which the shearing stresses are really diagonal,
there is compression in one case and tension in another; and, assuming
that the metal must be inserted to resist the tensile portion of this
stress, it is not essential that it should necessarily be wholly
parallel to the tensile stress. Vertical tensile members can prevent the
cracking of the beam by diagonal tension, just as in a Howe truss all
the tensile stresses due to shear are taken in a vertical direction,
while the compressive stresses are carried in the diagonal direction by
the wooden struts. The author seems to overlook the fact, however, that
the reinforced concrete beam differs from the Howe truss in that the
concrete forms a multiple system of diagonal compression members. It is
not necessary that a stirrup at one point should carry all the vertical
tension, as this vertical tension is distributed by the concrete. There
is no doubt about the necessity of providing a suitable anchorage for
the vertical stirrups, and such is definitely required in the