LECTURES. 171 



not with those of the House of Peers, continued the support they had 

 all alonj^- accorded, and, in 1855, when the whole works were com- 

 pleted, declared their satisfaction with the result. A committee of 

 the House of Commons also had previously reported their success. 

 Furtlier, in an arbitration, in 1853, when a new investigation took 

 place that lasted for thirty days, the arbiters sustained him in every 

 legal privilege and award connected with his case, of which, at the 

 new houses ot" Parliament, an attempt had been made to deprive him, 

 founded on the evidence of the architect, with whom he differed. 

 If any one should think that even with this brief statement he 

 had dwelt too much on this subject, he requested them to remember 

 that he could not say less witliout appearing to evade a case that had 

 led more to the study and progress of ventilation than any other with 

 which he was acquainted ; which had materially assisted in support- 

 ing the views he had previously expressed, and explained in his Illus- 

 trations of Ventilation, published by Messrs. Longman, of London, 

 as to the right method of proceeding with the study of architecture 

 and ventilation for the future, as well as to the mode of meeting the 

 difficulties attending a state of transition in making preparation for 

 systematic ventilation. 



The late houses of Parliament, the new houses, St. George's Hall, 

 and the new assize courts at Liverpool, a building in which there were 

 upwards of a hundred public and private compartments, and the ex- 

 perimental rooms and lecture room he had previously constructed at 

 Edinburgh, presented in their combined history the most extended 

 illustration of the applications of his views. The obstacles opposed 

 to them at one place, and their execution in another, under such a 

 variety of circumstances, exclusive of law pleas, arbitrations, parlia- 

 mentary, professional and other inquiries, called forth facts which 

 elucidated the progress of all the leading questions affectinp warming, 

 lighting, ventilating, drainage, and acoustics, in connexion with the 

 progress of modern architecture, and the difficulties they had to en- 

 counter. 



A diagram was then explained, illustrating the numerous rooms 

 subjected to the action of a single shaft at the late houses of Parlia- 

 ment^ and the manner in which it was applied in acting, at the same 

 time, on the chimney flues, on the drains in the vicini{y, and on vitia- 

 ted air when accumulated in the contiguous court-yards. Plans and 

 sections were also shown, illustrative of the works executed under his 

 direction at the new houses, which were incorporated with the princi- 

 pal portions, till he refused to be responsible, and ceased to act, except 

 under protest. The sections explained the portions of the Victoria 

 and the clock towers set apart for the supply of fresh air from a great 

 altitude, the central air chamber under the central hall, the leading 

 channels from it to the House of Peers, to the House of Commons, and 

 to other parts of the building, and the passage for vitiated air from 

 several hundred different places, and from all the smoke flues to the 

 central tower above the central hall, which had been introduced ex- 

 pressly at his suggestion, but subsequently so reduced and cut off from 

 important channels that it formed one of the principal causes of dis- 

 pute. 



