1869.] Engineering — Civil and Mechanical. 287 



Society of Engineers. — The most important papers brought 

 before this Society during the present session have been one on 

 " Modern Gasworks at Home and Abroad," by Mr. Henry Gore ; and 

 another " On the Apphcation of Steam to the Cultivation of the Soil," 

 by ]\[r. Baldwin Latham. Both of these papers contain matters 

 of vast importance at the present time, especially the latter one; 

 but the subjects dealt with are of such a character that it would be 

 impossible to do them justice in the few lines which could be given 

 to them here, 



Institntion of Engineers in Scotland. — Professor Sir William 

 Thomson has recently introduced before this Institution a new 

 Centrifugal Governor, the principle of which is to employ the 

 increase of centrifugal force produced by increase of speed, by 

 making it the normal pressure for a frictional arrangement directly 

 and simply resisting the rotary motion. A simple modification of 

 Sir W. Thomson's governor allows a plan invented by Professor 

 Fleeming Jenkin to be apphed, by which it would be converted 

 into a powerful steam-governor. 



Literature. 



There are so few works which entirely devote themselves to the 

 subject of Irrigation, that every fresh one must be considered as an 

 important addition to our Engineering literature. Few, if any, of 

 note exist beyond what have resulted from the pens of ofiicers of 

 the Indian Government, and now we have to notice another work 

 emanating from a similar source, entitled ' Irrigation in Southern 

 Europe,'* by Lieutenant C. 0. Scott MoncriefF, K.E. This volume 

 was compiled by Lieutenant Scott Moncriefi" after a visit to the 

 principal Irrigation works in Southern France, Spain, and Italy, 

 and it will be found to contain much valuable information regarding 

 them which is not to be met with elsewhere. The account of the 

 works in Italy is not so complete as of those in France and Spain, 

 as the author has wisely abstained from going too minutely over 

 the ground so admirably described by the late Captain Baird Smith 

 in his work on ' Italian Irrigation.' In the book now before us, 

 many of the most important headworks, sluices, &c., are illustrated 

 by woodcuts, and the subject of the administration of waters in 

 the different countries is fairly described. In an appendix there is 

 given a translation of the celebrated Spanish Law of Waters, of 

 3rd Augu.^t, 1866, under which concessions are granted for the 

 construction of works of irrigation in Spain. A chapter on the 

 Meadow Irrigation of the Mosel Valley is especially interesting, 

 as it gives an account of a system of irrigation not previously 

 described, so far as we are aware, in any work on a similar subject. 



' The Eailways of India,' t by Captain Edward Davidson, 



* E. & F. N. Spon : Loudon, 1868. f Ibid. 



