100 



REPORT — 1842. 



Contributions to Academical Statistics, continued from 1839. By the Rev. 

 Baden Powell, M.A., F.B.S., Savitian Professor of Geometry at Ox- 

 ford. 



The author in this paper continued the table communicated by him to the British 

 Association at the Birmingham Meeting in 1839, with the addition of a column con- 

 taining the number of candidates for the examination. 



University of Oxford. 



Obtained Decrees. 



The general results are very nearly the same as before. 



MECHANICS. 

 Abstract of a Lecture upon the Atmospheric Railway, prepared at the request 

 of the Council for the Twelfth Meeting of the British Association, and de- 

 livered in the Athenaeum of Manchester on theEvening of Monday, the 21th of 

 June, 1842. By Charles Vigxoles, Civil Engineer, F.R.A.S.,M.B.I.A., 

 M.Inst. C.E., and Professor of Engineering in University College, London. 

 The system of producing motion on railways by means of the pressure of the 

 atmosphere, had acquired the popular designation of the "Atmospheric Railway ; " 

 and it was the growing interest felt in the public mind for this new application of 

 one of the very simple powers of nature to the uses of man, which had led the 

 Council of the British Association to suggest the delivery of some public exposition 

 of the principles on which it was based, and which had induced and perhaps justi- 

 fied the Professor in coming forward to attempt an illustration of the very ingenious 

 contrivances which had brought these principles into practical effect. When the 

 enormous cost hitherto incurred in the construction of railways was considered, as 

 well as the heavy daily expenses in working these lines, it was not singular that 

 efforts should have been directed to some means of producing similar useful results 

 in a more economical manner. 



A brief history of the discovery and gradual improvements of the first invention 

 •was gone into, tracing back the original thought to the celebrated Papin; in suc- 

 cession, long afterwards, came Lewis, Vallance, Medhurst, Pinkus, and lastly Clegg-, 

 all well known as active inquirers into this subject. But it was shown to have been 

 Medhurst, who, about thirty years since, first gave to the world the right idea of 

 connecting the body in the pipe or tube, directly acted upon by the atmospheric 

 power, with a carriage moving along exteriorly ; and that to one (already well known 

 to science as the practical applier, economically and on a large scale, of Gas for the 

 illumination of large buildings and towns), viz.' to Clegg, was due the merit of having 



