Grow Your Own Buildings

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Start with a small saltwater aquarium, a flashlight's 1.5-volt "D" cell, some short lengths of insulated copper wire, an iron nail, and a few square inches of 1/8-inch ferrous hardware cloth. Solder the end of one wire to the mesh and the other tip to the flat, negative terminal of the battery. (Try to keep the wire from being directly exposed to the saltwater electrolyte . . . where it must be submerged, protect it with wax, tar, or epoxy.) Then solder another wire between the "plus" tip of the battery and the nail. Drape the wires over the side of the aquarium ... space the anode (nail) and the cathode (mesh) about six inches apart . . . fill the aquarium with salt water. . . and forget it.

In a few days, you'll begin to notice the accretion of minerals on the mesh, and—in a few weeks—the holes will be completely filled in.

To grow a full-size structure efficiently, you'll have to do a lot of experimenting, but Professor Hilbertz is willing to save you some time by sharing the useful data he's accumulated about distances between poles, thicknesses of cathode materials, water temperatures, electrical intensities, and so on.

All you have to do to get the information is send a check or money order for $5.00 . . . to cover the costs of copying and mailing the material. The address: Wolf Hilbertz, School of Architecture, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712.

In return—as your structures grow—Wolf will ask that you keep in touch with him. He'd like to add what you learn to his information store. That way—if a number of folks work together—we might be able to improve upon old-fashioned building methods ... using techniques that the corals have been employing for years!.

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