recommendations of the Special Committee.

The cracks which the author refers to as being necessary before the
reinforcing material is brought into action, are just as likely to occur
in the case of the bent-up rods with anchors at the end, advocated by
him. While his method may be a safe one, there is also no question that
a suitable arrangement of vertical reinforcement may be all that is
necessary to make substantial construction.

With reference to the seventh point, namely, methods of calculating
moments, it might be said that it is not generally considered good
practice to reduce the positive moments at the center of a span to the
amount allowable in a beam fully fixed at the end, and if provision is
made for a negative moment over supports sufficient to develop the
stresses involved in complete continuity, there is usually a
considerable margin of safety, from the fact of the lack of possible
fixedness of the beams at the supports. The criticism is evidently aimed
at practice not to be recommended.

As to the eighth point, the necessary width of a beam in order to
transfer, by horizontal shear, the stress delivered to the concrete from
the rods, it might be well worth while for the author to take into
consideration the fact that while the bonding stress is developed to its
full extent near the ends of the beam, it very frequently happens that
only a portion of the total number of rods are left at the bottom, the
others having been bent upward. It may be that the width of a beam would
not be sufficient to carry the maximum bonding stress on the total
number of rods near its center, and yet it may have ample shearing
strength on the horizontal planes. The customary method of determining
the width of the beams so that the maximum horizontal shearing stress