1839.] 



THE Civil/ ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



Ill 



a periodical devoted to them under the title of the " Art- Union," the first 

 number of which has been transmitted to us. 



We have had placed in our hands the correspondence between Mr. Hyde 

 Clarke and the West Cumberland Uailway Committee, but it is too lonj? for 

 our pages, although we think that Mr. Clarke has not been treated with 

 proper attention. 



PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



INSTITUTE OF CIVIL ENGINEKKS. 



ADDRESS or JAMES WALKER, ESQ., Tllli IMIESIDENT, 



To the Amiual General Mcethtij, Jamiary I.'), 18.'?0. 



I thank you very sincerely for the manner in wliieh you have exprrssod 

 yourselves cif my ondoavotirs during the past year. It is truly pratifyiiiR to 

 liie if, tlirouj;!! your partiality, I have been at all the instruun'ut of fur- 

 ■vvardiuf; lliis iiisl'itutiou, and the object of the excellent man (Telford) whose 

 ])icture is now bclijnd me.* * * 



There is really so much doing in tliis country alone, that without drawing 

 largely >ipon genius, it would be suffii-ient to register but a proportion of 

 the new works in progress to keep us fully employed; aiul surely the most 

 timid associate or graduate need not be afraid of assisting in this. By the 

 original by-laws a candidate for admission was required to present a 

 drawing or paper; this has been waived, but still I consider the claim 

 remains as almost a debt of honoiu-, and the discharge of it would be foimd 

 agreeable, if set abcjut ; agreeable not only in the execution, but in the an- 

 ticipation of reward ; and I would have gentlemen only reflect upon the 

 subjects fin- which premiums have been adjudged, to see that the distini'tion 

 requires no particular skill, but only resolution and moderate application; 

 where there is the will. I am sure there is in this case an easy way. I am 

 aware of the dilhculty that frequently arises from indeiision ai\d in choos- 

 ing a subject; a difficulty often felt and confessed by our most distinguished 

 Knglish essayist. To remove this, the council have gi\en subjects for 

 papers; and it has occurred to me that it might even be desirable to charge 

 individuals with particular subjects— thus not only imposing more specially 

 a duty upon the individual, but confining his attention to the particular subject 

 (and even to limit the time)— both of which, I have fmuid, from long ex- 

 perience, the best preventives to wandering and proeraslmation. 



Let us remember also, that as the importance of our profession is increas- 

 ing, and is being felt, it behoves us to exert ourselves to maintain our 

 relative station. Classes, with professorships, for the education of the civil 

 engineer, are established at our colleges; and there is now upon the table 

 a prospci-tus for the establishment, on a large scale, of a college for civil 

 engineering. 



We have every reason to be grateful for our success heretofore, but our 

 motto must be " Forward," and we must keep up to it. There is an ample 

 harvest to reap from the new works which arc going on throughout tliis 

 country, from the Land's End to the northern extremity of Scotland, and in 

 Irelancl ; and as the powers of human invention and discovery increase, the 

 range fi>r it becomes nmre ample— -the higher we rise, the more enlarged is 

 the sphere that bouiuls our prospect. There is reason to believe, from 

 analogy, that we know as yet but a small jiortion of the powers and capa- 

 bilities ipf matter, and which require but the application of mind to bring 

 them to light. Much, I admit, has been done witlun the last century; but 

 as our deepest pits are, when compared with the radius of the earth, b\it 

 scratches on the surface, such, I believe, would our stock of knowledge, 

 much as we think of it, appear to a mind that could comprehend all the 

 properties and beauties of »ature, even of that province with Mliich the 

 civil engineer has to deal; andtliis would appear the case to the last of a sue. 

 cession of Newtons, or Watts, or Huddarts, siipposing each to add to the 

 stock of his predecessor, even more strongly than it docs to us. How nmch 

 then ought we to admire that beautiful adaptation, which is fitted to ni.an 

 in every stage of his mental improvement! I sometimes doubt whether, 

 when mechanical and other scientific improvements are made, we are disposed 

 suflieiently to refer to nature, and then to rise to the author of Nature, in 

 admiration of" the treasures wliich have been opened, and are still in store for 

 mankind. Thus, in admiring the genius of a Ncwtim, and others, we arc 

 not so disposed as we ought to be to carry our admiration back to the natural 

 substances which lia\c produced the glass, without which tlie principal 

 phcnonicna of light would still be unknown; and to reflect, that these sub- 

 stances have existed from the beginning, although their ci>mbinations are of 

 human disco\ery of no very ancient date. Again, when we admire the 

 stvipendous fix<'d or the active locomotive engine, or the fine machinery of 

 Huddart, for drawings of which you have seen two premiums awarded, and 

 reverence the minds which have brought these to their present statelet us not 

 forget how small are these compared with the materials for steam and for 

 manufacturing the steam-engine,— the water, the coal, ami the iron; li.iw 

 insignificant these minds compared with the mind which ga\e to them the 

 properties they have,— to steam its elasticity and wondrous velocity,— and 

 impressed upon matter those beautiful and uniform laws which govern it, 

 and enabled a Huddart to calculate with certainty the strength of his 

 materials, and what would be the result of his complex combination of 

 wheels and pinions! What the poet said of tin' uiidevout astronomer, that 

 "111' is mad," may apjily with ecpial truth to the undevout mei'hanic or 

 engineer; and it would be well if those delightful feelings were cuUivated, 

 and invariably associated with the stuciy and practice of the engineer, so 

 tJwt Jui! jjiiiul Jiiijiht ill cvfry piusuit dwvU upon tlic wvudrvu.'j adajitutious of 



nature to the wants and pleasures of the community, and botli in its lowest 

 and most improved stale be led to the contemplation of the power which 

 formed, and the goodness which so admirably fitted the whole for the use of 

 his creatures. 



I have been led without premeditation info this train of reflection. I 

 gratcfnlly acknowledge the attention you have jiaid to me on the present 

 .ind on every occasion, and now leave the chair with a repetition ol my 

 thanks for all your kindnesses. 



Jan. 8. — The President in the chair. 

 The discussion on this occasion was on the use of peat in the manu- 

 facture of iron. It had been remarked at a previous meeting that the iron 

 made with peat fuel was more malleable than Swedish, and that the tooln 

 were of a superior quality. It was doubted whether peat fuel had been 

 recently employed, or, indeed, v\hether it could be used at all in the 

 puddling furnace, though it might in tlie refining or smelting furnace, but 

 with a diminished produce. The working of iron by peat fuel was known 

 to improve its quality in some respects, and the welds especially thus made 

 were superior to those made with coal. Tlic Dartmoor peat was frequently 

 used for this purpose, and found exceedingly good. The improvement of 

 iron by tlie use of a particular fuel seemed a very diflicult question. The 

 weld made with* ligneous carbon, owing to the absence of sulphur and 

 pyrites, must be better than that made with a fuel containing these 

 impurities. The analysis of peats is very various. They all contain 5 per 

 cent., and some 20 per cent., of earthy matter. Some kinds of peats were 

 stated to produce three times as much gas as coal. Peat was said to con- 

 tain no sulphur, but the experience of several gas-works, in which peat 

 was employed, proved that some peats contain large quantifies of sulphur, 

 as the purifiers become rapidly filled with sulphuretted hydrogen. All 

 coal, however pure t.) the eye, contains pyrites and sulphur, so that 

 sulphur must be considered as one of the elements of coal. Much if to be 

 attributed to long practice in the use id' fuels; the smiths of Cornwall can 

 use peat, and the smiths of Pembrokeshire anthracite, for all purposes of 

 working iron ; both would, however, use pit coal could it be conveniently 

 procured. 



Jan. '29.— Bryan Doniun, V.P., in the chair. 



On framhiy Lock Gates withont Iron-tfork, by S. Ballard, A. Inst. C.E. 



The horizontal pieces in gates thus framed are held to the back by dove- 

 tailed tenons and wedges; the use of iron T pieces being thus wholly dis- 

 pensed with, the premature decay which invariably takes place where 

 wood is in contact with iron is entirely avoided. The mortices nito which 

 the pieces arc inserted arc previously filled with tar, or white lead, and on 

 the wedge being driven in, every part is rendered perfectly water-tight. 

 This method has been adopted in gates on the Herefordshire and 

 Gloucestershire Canal, and, after eight years' experience, found completely 

 successful. 

 On Tubinrj the Boikrs of Locomotive Engines, by G. Buck, M. Inst. C.E. 



The author's object has been to delerminc the diameter of the tubes of 

 a locomotive boiler, so that the greatest quantity of steam may be produced 

 by a given quantity of fuel, on the condition that the evaporating efiect ot 

 the hot air, in passing through the tubes, is in proportion to the extent of 

 surfivce in contact with the hot air and the time of contact conjointly ._ 

 The resiUt of this investigation is, that the distance betwixt the diametiT of 

 two adjacent tubes should be equal to four times the illtcr^•al between their 

 internal surfaces. On comparing the aggregate surface of a locomotive 

 boiler tube, in this proportion, with those generally employed, the former 

 is superior by from '23 to '20 per cent, to the latter. 

 On the state of the Suspension Bridr/e at Montrose, after the late 



Hurricane, xeith remarks on Suspension Briciyes, by Colonel Pasley, 



Hon. M. Inst. C.E. 



The hurricane of the lltli of October carried away a third part of the 

 roadwav of the suspension bridge at Montrose, and broke or bent very 

 much all the rods on the west side. Froin the effect here produced, and 

 his experience of the motions of suspension bridges, the author is of opinion 

 that the dangerous undulations are longiludiual ; that the mIioIc roadway 

 is brought, by the action of the wind or pressure of the air beneath, into a 

 state of waves, by which the roadway is ultimately broken up ; that this 

 can only be obviated by adopting a strong longitinlinal trussing, as has 

 been done by Mr. Tierney Clark in the Hammersmith Bridge, in which no 

 motions of this nature are experienced, even in the most violent gales. 

 This opinion of the action of the wind on the under side of the roadway, is 

 confirmed by what Crdoncl Pasley once wilucssi'd at Chatham Dockyard. 

 One side of the roof of a large .shiii-building shed rose up and down 

 repeatedly, flapping like the leaf of a book, until a portion, of about the 

 extent of' 10 feet by lit, was floated up like a sheet of paper, and carried to 

 a distance of 60 yards. 



^>ft. ,5. — The President in the chair. 



The following gentlemen were elected:— Alfred Biirges, John Taylor, as 

 Members; Joseph Baxendale, J. M. Parsons, J. Bennett, as Associates; 

 and Charles Wood, M.P., as an Honorary Member. 



.Mr. C. W. Williams presented siieciineiis of Peat, from the first state, 

 as taken from the bog, tii the last, avIicu compressed and converted into a. 

 hard coke ; and of his new lit sin Fuel, or artilirial coal, which is composed 

 of resin and turf coke. This resin fuel is louiid of the greatest use in long 

 voyages, when used with a proper proportion of coal, as it enables the firc- 

 juau lo HiauitaiiUUc icquisilciuvssmv'ul'ijtcivni with great rcguluiiiy, and alsq 



