184° Notices respecting New Books. 
don under three different aspects :—as the largest trading port of 
England; as the chief focus of the industry in the mechanical 
arts; lastly, as the centre of the operations of the navy. After 
having described the extensive bed of the Thames covered with 
innumerable ships, which searcely leave room for sailing; after 
having described those numerous and magnifivent’ basins for 
trade, newly constructed and distinguished by the name of docks,— 
the author enters into some interesting particulars about systems 
of construction which essentially differ from ours, the internal 
sections and external figure of their wharfs, as well as of their 
large sluice-gates, their cast-iron swing bridges ; also respecting 
the use of the iron rail-roads for all sorts of conveyances by means 
of hand or horse-carts. He describes the process of dredging, ’ 
which is advantageously employed in cleansing docks and deepen- 
ing rivers. It consists in boats or vessels equipped with buckets 
put in motion by the machine generally used in Great Britain, 
and become in that country, for the mechanical arts, what the 
plough is for husbandry—the steam-engine. 
Another not less ingenious and remarkable process is that of 
the diving-bell, which enables the workmen to work as on dry: 
land at a great depth under water. This apparatus, in which 
nothing conducive to the safety and accommodation of the work- 
man has been omitted, is used with the utmost success by the 
engineer who superintends the most part 6f the maritime works 
in England, and the building of the finest bridges in London, 
Mr. Rennie, whose name isso often mentioned in these Memoirs. 
From him, as well as Mr. Telford*, the author has particularly 
received much valuable information, and the most kind recep- 
tion. 
After describing a great and curious shed 1300 feet long, en- 
tirely of iron, from the pillars that prop it, to the very roof, and 
built by the same gentleman, the author shows us several en- 
gines not Jess eminent for ingenuity than for their extensive ap-- 
plication. One feels a satisfaction mixed with regret in re- 
marking, in a foreign country, as the inventor of many ingenious 
machines, the name of a Frenchman, M. Brunel. 
As appendages to London, looked upon as the centre of the 
great operations of the navy, one may consider the fine docks 
and establishments of Deptford, Greenwich, Woolwich, which 
the traveller describes, in going down the river to Sheerness ; 
a port created anew, the works of which give occasion to ~ 
some most interesting remarks, One of them deserves a parti- 
* M. Dupin in his Memoirs pays every where with the greatest pleasure 
his debt of gratitude for the benevolence and liberality of these two gentle- 
men, as well as of their friends and brother-engincers MM. Nimmo, Jardine, 
&e. &c. 
cular 
