76 



FAR M E MS ' R E G 5 S T E R. 



[No. 2' 



the Delta of Egypt. It, has been calculated that 

 the Mississippi carries into the sea 8,000,000 cubic 

 feet ol" solid matter every hour, and it. has been 

 clearly established that at least 700.000 tons of 

 animal and veii;etai)le manure finds i!s way yearly 

 into the Thames, through the sewers of London. 



From tlie London Mechanics' Magazine. 



CAOUTCHOUC ROOFS. 



Sir — As yours is a repository (or many crude 

 (as well as perlected) inventions, which may af- 

 terwards be the groundwork lor others of the 

 greatest value and importance to the public, I beg 

 to request you will lay before your readers the fol- 

 lowing suggestions tor a new application of cao- 

 utchouc or India-rubber. 



1 have thought, that if the tops of house could 

 be flat, and have reservoirs of water upon them, 

 that water might be made available as a supply 

 for domestic purposes to every room in the house, 

 and also that screw-hose might be fi.xed thereto 

 for the purposes of extinguishing any fire in the 

 room where it originates on its first discovery. 

 Hitherto, lead has appeared the most suitable ma- 

 terial lor roofs; but weight, price, and contraction 

 by the heat of the sun, have been great objections. 

 May not India-rubber be advantageously substi- 

 tuted 7 If prepared m large sheets, one-eighth or 

 lihree-sixleenths of an inch in thickness, they 

 might be laid on, and afterwards the joinings made 

 perlectly secure by the solution of caoutchouc; and 

 in case of damage from any cause, it might easily 

 be repaired by the same means. Some of your 

 more scientific readers can give the necessary 

 strength of wall and timber for bearing the vari- 

 ous depths of water which might be required, I 

 apprehend that, in large buildings, such as the 

 new houses of parliament, it would not only be 

 advantageous as a preventive of fire, but "also 

 more economical. Yours, 



A CoKSTAKT Reader. 



NOVEL AND GRAND SCHEMES. BRIDGE OR 

 TUNKEL EROM DOVER TO CALAIS. 



Mr. Coppett, an Eaglish engineer, is now on 

 his road to Paris to lay before the French govern- 

 ment a project for constructing a passage to cross 

 dryshod from Calais to Dover. He at Havre ex- 

 plained his plan to the public. Mr. Coppett asks 

 of France only one milliard, and as much from 

 England. With this trifling sum. he will make 

 cones like those employed at Cherbourg, between 

 fifty and sixty years ago. W the government 

 does not approve of this system, he has in his 

 pocket three or four other?. For instance, he will 

 make a tunnel under the sea from Dover to Calais 

 introducing from one end to the other cast-iron 

 pipes eighteen feet in diameter. This last mode 

 of communication, according to Mr. Coppett, 

 would cost only one milliard, to be paid in equal 

 portions by both countries. — English Paper. 



From the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. 

 EMBANKMENTS FROBI THE SEA. 



There seems to be no operation connected with 

 agriculture which promises more immediate and 

 important results than the reclaiming of sub- 



merged lands in the estuaries of our large rivers. 

 Till within these thirty years, the sole object con- 

 templated in embanking submerged grounds,, 

 seems to have been the exclusion of water from 

 the surface of soil Avhich required only to.be pro- 

 tected li-om its occasional invasions, and kept dry 

 merely to make it eminently fit for most produc- 

 tive cultivation. Within the last twenty years, a 

 system hns been entered on, and is now, in the 

 Forth and I'ay in particular, being carried out to 

 the most a.slonishing extent, not only of bringing 

 into a cultivable state lands already, but for the 

 periodical submergence, fit for cultivation, but of' 

 causing rivers to precipitate their mud in conve- 

 nient localities, and so of creating fields where 

 nothing before existed but a gravglly river bed, 

 covered by from eight to twelve feet of water eve- 

 ry tide, of the most unprecedented and unlooked- 

 I'or productiveness. 



In the Forth, 350 acres of this sort of land have 

 been, in the last twelve years, reclaimed by Lady 

 Keith, at a cost of about £21.000, and affording 

 an annual return of about £1400, or nearly seven 

 per cent. In the Tay, seventy acres have been 

 recovered, opposite to the shores of Pitfour, 150 

 on those of Errol, ami twenty around Mugdrum 

 Island, making in all 240 acres, at about an out- 

 lay of £7200. yielding an annual rent of about 

 £1680, or upwards of twenty-three per cent! On 

 the Errol estate alone, 400 acres are just about to 

 be embanked, in addition to the above 150, all of 

 which may probably be in cultivation before 1847. 

 Off the shores of Seaside, a wall just now being 

 built, 800 yards in length, will effect the recovery 

 of not less than 150 acres; and on Murie proper- 

 ty, 50 acres might be taken in by seed-time 1838. 

 The operations of the embanker, which began 

 otf Pitfour in 1826, will thus probably have 

 brought into cultivation before 1846, on a shore of 

 not more than seven miles in length, no less than 

 810 acres of land, renting at i'rom £6 to £7 per 

 acre, or of a gross annual value of £5670, and a 

 gross total value, at twenty-five years' purchase, 

 of £ 141,750. This is a clear creation of £ 117,- 

 450 of new agricultural capital, taking the reclaim- 

 ing cost at £80 an acre. The junction of Mug- 

 drum Island to the north shore, would probably 

 afibrd 1000 acres at a single operation, vvhile 

 thrice that surface might be obtained betwixt Er- 

 rol and Invergowrie. 



The capabilities of the Forth, over and above 

 what has already been effected above and below 

 Kincardine, are not much, if at all, behind those 

 o( the Tay, though no sufficient inquiry has been 

 made to permit details to be gone into. 



The basin of Montrose affords a surface of near- 

 ly 3000 acres, all capable of embankment, and 

 which, by being relieved of the salt water of the 

 ocean, with which every tide at present overflows 

 them, and keeps ihem submerged for twelve hours 

 out olevery twenty-four, and irrigated by the fertil- 

 i:zing current of the Esk, which, for at least forty 

 days every season, bears along with it not less 

 than ^-Jnth part of its weight of the richest mud, 

 might speedily be made not less productive than 

 those of the Forth or Tay. 



It is probable that between North Berwick and 

 Montrose are to be found the most favorable locali- 

 ties for embanking on the east coast of Scotland, 

 if not indeed the only ones which could be made 

 available with a sure prospect of profit. It would 



