1848.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL 



59 



rather strongly with the evident disposition to touch as gently as 

 possible upon the delinquencies of many other architects Thouf;h 

 the general estimate of the abilities and taste of 'Wilkins may lie 

 acquiesced in, it seems to have been dictated by the determination 

 not to spare him. Tliat he was more of the scholar and archaeo- 

 logist than the architect — far more of the " bookisli student" tlian 

 tlie artist — is not to he denied. As to Wilkins' pedantry, that 

 charge against him is, no doubt, founded mainly upon his having 

 written and pul)lislied so much as he did ; whereas, had he never 

 taken up the pen at all, lie might have been equally pedantic in 

 practice, without incurring the reproach of pedantry. Downing 

 and Haileybury colleges may be abandoned to censure, as equally 

 frigid and tasteless in jioint of design; but an exception irom the 

 general sweeping condemnation ought assuredly to have been made 

 in favour of the London University College, which exhibits lioth 

 classical and artistic cliaracter, and very efl'ective play of outline. 

 Undeniable it is that it has, even in its present imperfect state, 

 obtained the meed of almost unqualified — not to say exaggerated 

 — admiration from AVightwick and other professional men. K\en 

 Mr. Elmes himself did not always entertain so mean an opinion of 

 that work of Wilkins as at present ; or if he did, he thought pro- 

 per to keep it to himself, for speaking of it about the time it was 

 erected, he says: "The council obtained designs from several ar- 

 cliitects, and after due deliberation, finally adopted that of Wil- 

 liam ^\'ilkins, Esq. K.A., a selection in which their own judgment 

 coincided with that of almost every proprietor who inspected the 

 drnwings." This goes far to prove that, at all events, the choice 

 was not a hastily, inconsiderate one, or managed with suspicious 

 secrecy. Neither is there a single remark of the writer's expres- 

 sive of dissatisfaction with it. Yet he now speaks not a little con- 

 temptuously of the building, without condescending to specify 

 other objections than what is meant to he so overwhelming a one 

 as to outweigh all beauties and merits, namely, that "the portico 

 is, from its situation, but of little use" — nay, " a useless applica- 

 tion, stuck up for the admiration of gazing cabmen and hackney- 

 coachmen, whilst loitering on their stand." AVith what sort of 

 reason is the loggia at the south-west angle of the Bank so highly 

 extolled immediately after Wilkins' portico being decried ? it being 

 nothing more than a ])iece of decoration which does not even carry 

 with it any senililance of usefulness. 



Of M'ilkins' style it is said that it was "the very mummy of the 

 art ;" yet, if it was, he unbandaged it when he designed the build- 

 ing in Gower-street, for even in its present imperfect state it 

 displays no ordinary merit in regard to grouping and the fine 

 focus produced by the central mass. As an example of a decastyle, 

 the portico is unique among those in the metropolis, — a circum- 

 stance which an impartial and unprejudiced critic would at least 

 have noticed ; — and it acquires additional expression and stateli- 

 ness from being elevated on a substructure that forms flights of 

 steps leading up to it, which are very picturesquely disposed. In 

 this latter respect, too, the composition may be said to be unique — 

 certainly is very striking and artistic. As to the dome, it is of 

 most elegant contour and design; and if it be objected to tliat 

 it is a feature unknown to pure Greek architecture, the objection 

 is a proof that those who make such futile objection are still more 

 straitlaced and pedantic in their notions than Wilkins himself. 

 The value of it in the composition is such that were it removed the 

 whole would become comparati\el)' tame and spiritless. The por- 

 tico in the east fro)it of St. George's Hospital afi'ords another proof 

 that the "mummy" was occasionally unbandaged. That square- 

 pillared tetrastyle partakes more of architectural heresy than 

 pedantry. Still the heresy, if such it be, is a welcome one, and it 

 has been welcomed by being adopted in the facade of the new Law 

 Courts at Liverpool, wliere the columniation is carried on, on each 

 side of tlie central portico, in square pillars ; therefore producing 

 contrast and variety, at the same time that continuity of design is 

 kept up. 



It begins to be time to bring to a close this long letter, where- 

 fore I will be somewhat brief in regartl to what is said of Soane. 

 As criticism, it is far more indulgent than discriminating, or in some 

 respects even intelligible. At any rate, it is somewhat puzzling to 

 make out what is meant by his buildings at Chelsea Hospital, and 

 the National Delit-olfice, exhibiting " a wild exuberance of no- 

 velty," since so far from any thing like exuberance, they exhibit 

 only very unequal and fitful attempts at it. His building at the 

 Treasury, the Royal entrance to the House of Lords, and " some 

 others o{ hia earlier works" — though the two just mentioned were 

 almost his very latest — are said to show " exuberance of fancy"— a 

 mere complimentary phrase, for his fancy was in reality exceed- 

 ingly limited It exercised itself only on one or two piecemeal 

 ideas, which he dragged into all his designs, without making any 



thing more of them at last than he had done at first. Soane ha'' 

 no consistency of style, — did not even attend to keeping, but often 

 jumbled together the most finical ornaments and the plainest 

 features. In his building at the Treasury, the windows were as 

 ordinary, bare, and frigid in design, as the order was rich. There 

 was not a single touch of Corinthianism in them. 



In speaking of the Lothbury Court at the Bank, Mr. Elmes 

 again falls into inaccurac)-, describing it not as it is, but as it was 

 intended, for instead of their being two loggias there is only one, 

 what was meant for the west one being left unfinished — a mere 

 open screen of columns, if that can be called a screen which ex- 

 poses to ^iew most unsightly naked brick walls and mean, ugly 

 windows. Even the opposite finished side of the court is very un- 

 satisfactory, the interior of the loggia, though pretty enough in 

 itself, by no means corresponding to the sober richness'and dignity 

 of the order. As to the Rotunda, it is most vilely disfigured by 

 the equally barbarous and nonsensical wavy lines around the arches 

 of the recesses, which seem to have been made by a stick upon some 

 soft material while it was moist. It is admitted that the centre of 

 the south front of the Bank "is by no means the happiest ofSoane's 

 designs," and that is treating it tar more tenderly than it deserves, 

 for it is such a decided failure and abortion that it ought to be 

 subjected to the same process of rifacciamento as his Treasury 

 building has been. 



Zero. 



DISSERTATION ON TORRENTS.— By Guolielmini. 



Translated bi/ E. Ckesy, Esq., in his Evidence before the Metropo- 

 litan Sanitary Coiiiniissioners. 



I come now to the projiositions of Guglielmini, in which he pre- 

 tends that a body descending an inclined plane, will not ac(iuire a 

 velocity greater than it would have acquired by descending per- 

 pendicularly the height of the inclined plane. 



This is most true as respects sftlids. The elements of a solid 

 being bound and tied together, form a heavy mass, the (larts of 

 which press each other, reciprocally, and the pressure on the plane 

 on which they rest is likewise single, as also is the direction ; one 

 velocity, one energy, and one action being common to all the parts. 

 On the other hand, a fluid is a mass composed of lesser solid ele- 

 ments, but free, and not bound together by any ties, each of which 

 can, so to speak, move in diflFerent directions and with varying 

 velocities, press upon each 'other and oscillate freely. AVhence the 

 highest ])arts press upon the lower, oscillate, and are easily dis- 

 placed wlien there is no impediment. When solids descend by a 

 plane, tlieir individual gravity alone operates ; which being less 

 than their absolute gravity, generates, at each instant, a degree of 

 velocity less than that which their absolute gra\'ity would have 

 generated, wherefiire solids require a longer time to descend by the 

 inclined plane than by the perpendicular, the length of time mul- 

 tiplies the action of the individual gravity, and compensates for 

 the defect of tlie velocity. Wherefore a solid descending by an 

 inclined plane, has a velocity equal to what it would have, falling 

 the same height directly. Hence the product of tlie action of 

 the individual gravity, by the time of the descent by the inclined 

 plane, being e(|ual to the product of the absolute gravity, by the 

 time of the fall along a perpendicular, their velocities must neces- 

 sarily be equal. But in fluids the case is difl'erent. Besides the 

 properties wliicli they possess in common with solids, they have 

 another, to wit, the pressure exercised by the upper on the lower 

 part of the fluid, the which being added to the impact, increases 

 the motion also, and hence generates a greater eff'ect than a solid 

 would. Neither is it absurd to suppose that the gravity of a fluid 

 generates a greater \'elocity on a plane, than when acting perpen- 

 dicularly, since this generates in greater time, and with a portion 

 of gravity which in a solid which falls remains, so to sjieak, idle, 

 but, in the case of a fluid, becomes active. John BernouilH, in his 

 works, gives a prolilem to find the velocity generated l>y a body 

 sliding on the hvpothenuse of a triangle, whose base is sustained 

 by a smootli horizontal plane, free from any sensible friction, and 

 moving in the direction of the base. He decomposed the force 

 pressing tlie hypothenuse, or inclined plane, into two jiarts, one of 

 which is employed in gi^'ing motion to the triangle, and sliding it 

 forward ; whilst the body descends on the plane, advances the tri- 

 angle, and communicates thereto a certain rate of velocity ; the 

 descending body thus requires a velocity equal to that which it 

 would have in fiilling jierpendicularly, and the triangle lias another 

 force generated by that which presses it, whence it results that the 



