110 REPORT — 1842. 



habits and poverty of the people, united with deficient ventilation. There were at 

 one time fifty-seven persons ill at one time with fever in this house, and five had 

 been seen ill in one room. At the end of 1832 a system of ventilation had been 

 established, and since then fever has all but disappeared from the house, although, 

 during five of the years which have elapsed since 1832, there were above fifty-live 

 thousand cases in Glasgow. The plan here adopted is extremely simple, and might 

 be easily introduced in any place where there is a furnace or active flue not far off. A 

 small tube is led from an upper corner of each room containing a family. It joins a 

 main tube in the adjacent gallery. The main tubes of the various floors, four in 

 number, join in one vertical tube descending along the gable of the house, which 

 enters by a channel of brick-work the flue of the mill. Thus a constant draught is 

 kept up in every room of the house, fresh air being liberally enough supplied by 

 chinks in the doors and windows. 



A description, illustrated by drawings, was then given of the application of the 

 same plan to the Princess Royal, a steamer recently launched on the Clyde. In this 

 case, each berth in the vessel has a tube for drawing off the used air. These tubes 

 join main ones, which unite in one which supplies a stove upon deck. The exchange 

 of air thus produced in the necessarily small sleeping rooms of the vessel has been 

 productive of a degree of comfort which is felt by every passenger. 



The paper also described a washing apparatus for infected clothes, and an hospital 

 bed for fever patients, in both of which cases bystanders are secured from the volatile 

 matter of infection by the drawing off of that matter through tubes towards a fire-place 

 or °rate. Finally, there were illustrated descriptions of an application of the plan 

 to the Glasgow Fever Hospital. 



Abstract of a Description of a Self-acting Waste Weir and Scouring Sluice. 

 By J. F. Bateman. 



The mode of construction here suggested is one for obviating the injurious effects 

 and inconveniences of fixed weirs in rivers, arising principally from the operations of 

 floods in filling or silting up the channels of navigable or other rivers, and in iuun- 

 datino- the adjacent country where it is elevated but little above the surface of the 

 water. 



The plan proposed is to hang two gates vertically across the stream, one above 

 the other, so adjusted upon horizontal axes that in an ordinary state of the river the 

 pressure of the water will be sufficient to maintain the gates in their vertical position ; 

 but that as the water rises in a flood, the pressure will so act upon the unequal por- 

 tions or leaves of the gates, as to open them, by pressing outwards the upper part or 

 leaf of the upper gate, and the lower leaf of the lower gate, thus opening, in addition 

 to the top, two passages for the escape of the water, a space between the gates and 

 an opening at the very bottom of the weir, which will act as a scouring sluice, and 

 allow all deposit of silt or other matter to be carried away. 



For example, suppose a waste weir twenty feet in length and five feet deep, con- 

 sisting of two gates, the upper one three feet, and the lower one two feet in depth. 



If These gates are so hung that in an ordinary state of a river the pressure upon the 

 lower leaf of the upper gate and the upper leaf of the lower gate exceed the weight 

 upon the other two leaves 300 lbs., that will be the closing force exerted in keep- 

 ing the gates in their vertical position. In this arrangement the area of the leaves 

 against which the closing force is exerted will be only about one-half of the area of 

 the opening leaves, so that in a rise of water above the top of the weir, two lbs. are 

 added to the opening force for one to the closing force. A foot of rise would add 

 a pressure upon the whole weir of 1250 lbs., say 1200 lbs., 800 of which would be 

 exerted as an opening and 400 as a closing pressure, being a difference of 400 lbs. in 

 favour of the opening force. As this is 100 lbs. more than the original closing press- 

 ure of 300 lbs., the gates would open with less than a flood of one foot in height. 



By making half the top of the gate rise higher than the level of ordinary water, a 

 flood of under six inches would open the gates, and if so constructed, a partial open- 

 ing, by which the top of the weir should be depressed only about four inches, the 

 surface in a flood would be but two inches higher than the ordinary level, while the 

 quantity of water discharged over the top and by the openings below, would be equal 

 to a flood over a fixed weir of the same length of upwards of three feet in depth. 



