1848.1 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



»2r 



N.B. — Some time ago, a vessel was tried on tlie Thames (no notice of 

 which has been taken in the Engineer's Journal),* called the Albion, with 

 a new system of propellers, patented by a Mr. Simpson, which was very 

 favourably spoken of as being adapted for the purposes referred to by me. 

 — Could you stale any particulars connected with it? 



Trusting you may not consider my suggestions as out of place, and 

 that any notice you give in your Journal of such improvements, will be 

 very interesting, and give much information to many of you readers, 



I remain, &c., 



A.B. 



[* We were not present at the eiperiment, and not having much faith in newspaper 

 reports, is the reason we have not noticed them. — Ed.] 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



An hydraulic telegraph is now being exhibited in the arcade at Exeter 

 Change. It is on a very small scale, but works well. 



On the Monmouth and Hereford line, a wooden bridge over the Wye is 

 to be erected, at a height of 50 feet al)0ve high-water mark. The embank- 

 ments are now in a forward state, and the frame-work is being prepared at 

 Bristol. 



Mr. John FairfuU Smith, secretary of the leading Glasgow railways, has 

 addressed a letter to the Lord Provost, in reference to the late riots, and 

 urges the necessity of aid, by a government loan being given to the railways. 

 He says that 10,000 men, who are now supported by the public, might be 

 employed on the railways in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, which are 

 stopped by the state of the money market. The same views are spreading 

 among the railway interest, and the mischief is felt of the repressive mea- 

 sures which were connived at by the established companies, thinking they 

 should not feel the pressure. We always deprecated the government 

 tampering, and the propriety of the cause we have advocated is fully jus- 

 tified by events. We do say the great question is, whether so many hundred 

 thousand powerful and uneducated men should be left in a state of idleness, 

 or whether they shall be employed on public works ? They are already 

 maintained by their own savings, by the contributions of their friends, by 

 credit given by the small shop-keepers, or by theft, or in jail, or in the work- 

 houses. The question is not one of finding mere food, but of giving work 

 which shall do good to the common stock, and put the men iu a happier 

 condition. We hope the legislation will immediately be amended, the 

 power of sueing for calls be withdrawn, and the power be given of allowing 

 interest on calls, likewise a further power of raising money on debenture, or 

 on loan notes. As the government have by their measures brought railway 

 works to a stand, or dead lock, temporary and exceptional measures might 

 be allowed, in order to set the machinery of investment again in action. 

 We would even countenance the issue of railway notes, which should be a 

 legal tender for all railway payments and calls, or the advance by govern- 

 ment of exchequer bill loans ; though on all ordinary occasions, we have 

 always been opposed to their interference in any shape. The abolition of 

 the Railway Board, founded on wrong principles of legislation, and calcu- 

 lated to preserve their memory, we consider an essential preliminary to a 

 healthy course of action on the part of the government to the railways. 



The electric telegraph is now taken up by the publicans. A dial is used 

 in a smoking-room, marked with the various articles wanted, and correspond- 

 ing with a similar dial in the bar. 



A Royal Institution of Engineers has been founded at the Hague, which 

 has two hundred members. 



On Annealing Glass Tubes. — M. Bontemps read a paper at the Industrial 

 Society of Mulhausen, on the causes of the breaking of glass tubes and cy- 

 linders. In order that a glass tube be in good condition, it is necessary that 

 the interior particles should give way at the same time as the exterior. 

 For this purpose, the tubes — such, for instance, as thermometer, baro- 

 meter, and pressnre-gauge tubes — are placed in a baking or annealing 

 furnace, called the baking furnace, a brick casing of 6 inches diameter, and 

 the length the tubes may require. This furnace is heated at one end to a 

 dull red heat, at which the glass is nearly malleable, but not put out of 

 shape ; they are then (being in sheet-iron carriages, on wheels) drawn gra- 

 dually to the cool end of the furnace, but so slowly, as only to traverse the 

 distance in from 15 to 24 hours, according to the nature of the glass thus 

 drawn gradually through a diminishing temperature to that of the at- 

 mosphere. There is a vast difference between glass baked and that un- 

 baked — the latter is not so homogeneous, and polarises the light in passing 

 through it. By applying, therefore, a fragment of a tube to a polarising 

 apparatus, it can be ascertained if the tube has been baked. 



A Rare Shot. — Commander Mackinnon in his " Steam Warfare on the 

 Parana," mentions the following almost incredible instance of a shot passing 

 through both of the paddle-wheels of his vessel, without touching any part 

 of either : — " It struck the paddle-box on the enemy's side, 3 feet or 4 feet 

 above the shaft, went clean through the wheel without touching any part 

 of it, and then passed across the deck and through the other paddle-box, 

 not above 18 inches from the shaft, still not touching a single blade, or any 

 portion of the paddles. At the rate the wheels were revolving (about 17 

 times a minute), it appeared quite impossible to fire a pistol-ball through 



without striking some part of them ; and yet this 18 lb. shot had gone 

 through both wheels, leaving no mark but the hole at entering on one side 

 and departing on the other. 



Curious Phenomena of Fire. — At the Royal Institution, on the 1 7th of Feb- 

 ruary last, a furnace was erected for the purpose of making some experi- 

 ments on glass manufacture by Mr. Pellatt. In consequence of some accident, 

 the lecture-room was nearly set on fire, but by timely aid the flames were ex- 

 tinguished. After a lecture at the Institution on the following Friday, Prof. 

 Faraday called the attention of the members to two circumstances of philo- 

 sophical interest which had happened during the momentary apprehension 

 of fire. — 1. At three different times the water poured on the cinders of the 

 temporary furnace, when, on the fire being drawn, they fell on the hearth, 

 became decomposed by the ignited carbon; and the hydrogen, driven by the 

 sudden expansion of steam, &c., having penetrated the hot and porous 

 hearth-stone, found its way to the heated beams and space which weie im- 

 mediately beneath. — 2. This gas, though not in the state of flame as it 

 passed through the hearth-stone and pugging, was after being mixed with 

 the air below sufficiently hot to enter into combustion, — producing three 

 gushes of flame downwards from beneath the hearth : — and it was experi- 

 mentally shown that a temperature so low as barely to scorch paper, and in 

 which the hand may be held for some seconds without inconvenience, is yet 

 able to ignite a jet of coal or hydrogen gas in air. 



Liverpool JVaterwor/is. — The two Companies which supplied the town 

 with water, and the Corporation of Liverpool who were empowered by Act 

 of Parliament to purchase the existing interests for the purpose of taking 

 the whole supply into their own hands, appointed Mr. Robert Stephenson as 

 sole arbitrator to determine the amount of compensation to be paid to each 

 Company. After a patient hearing of all parties, and a minute inquiry inte 

 the works, he has made his award, by which the Harrington Water Company 

 are to receive £330,719 and the Bootle Water Company £354,000. The 

 former claimed £570,000 and the latter £354,000. 



Carlton Cluh Designs. — A correspondent informs us that in a former 

 number of the Journal, we were in error in attributing to Mr. Sidney Smirke 

 the " sole designing" of the Carlton Club, now erecting in Pall Mall, as well 

 as " the adaptation of Sansovino" in the exterior. He also states that the 

 designs were entirely completed and sent in under the arrangement of the 

 late^Mr. Basevi and Mr. Sidney Smirke, during the lifetime of the former, — 

 and that though Mr. S. Smirke may possibly make some deviations from 

 their joint arrangement, yet the designs are, in the main, to be executed as 

 agreed on between them. 



Prevention of Accidents in Coal Mines. — The Staffordshire Mercury de- 

 scribes an invention by Mr. Edward N. Fourdrinier, of Cheddleton Mill, a 

 very simple and ingenious, but important contrivance, for preventing the acci- 

 dents which are constantly resulting from the breakage of the chain or 

 ropes, and drawing the skip over the pulley, or the whirl, or run. The ap- 

 paratus is now in daily use at one of Mr. Sneyd's pits, at the Sneyd-green 

 Colliery, between Hanley and Burslem. In one instance the merit of the 

 invention was fully tested by the chain being unintentionally drawn over the 

 pulley ; no disastrous consequences, however, resulted, the skip or rather 

 cage being detached from the chain, and remaining safe on the guides. A 

 heavy load was subsequently lowered about 40 yards down the pit, and the 

 chain cut at about 20 vards' above the surface, by which means no less than 

 60 yards of chain fcUdown the shaft. A man having been let down by a 

 rope to ascertain the result, found the machine perfectly secured, and the 

 chain safely coiled on the top of the cage in which the man ascends and 

 descends. The man immediately attached the rope to the chain, which 

 having been drawn up and repaired, was again let down and fastened to the 

 apparatus. The whole was then safely drawn up, with the man in the skip, 

 the experiment having occupied no more than 20 minutes, and no injury 

 whatever having been sustained either by the machine or the guides. There 

 can be but one opinion as to the great advantages to be derived from the 

 general adoption of this invaluable invention, and it is to be sincerely hoped 

 that no time will be lost in making this arrangement for the more effectual 

 preservation of human life. 



On the Electro-Bronzing of Metals.— MM. Brunei, Bessin, and Gaugin 

 presented to the Academie des Sciences, at Paris, specimens of metals 

 bronzed by electro-chemical means. M. de Ruolz, in 1841, communicated 

 to the academv a process for bronzing metals, by depositing upon them, by 

 the aid of the galvanic battery, layers, more or less thick, of brass or of 

 bronze. This process, which required the employment of the double alka- 

 line cyanides of copper and zinc, or of copper and tin, was not adopted m 

 practice, on account of the great expense of the cyanides, and for other 

 reasons. MM. Brunei, Bessin, and Gaugin, have substituted for the cyanides, 

 a solution in water, of 500 parts of carbonate of potash ; 23 chloride of 

 copper; 40 sulphate of zinc; and 250 nitrate of ammonia. To produce 

 bronze, a salt of tin is substituted for the sulphate of zinc. By means of 

 these solutions of brass or of bronze, a coating can b; given to cast or 

 wrought-iron, steel, lead, zinc, tin, and alloys of these metals, with one 

 another, or with bismuth and antimony, after a previous cleaning according 

 to the nature of the metal. The operation is conducted with a cold solution. 

 The metal to be coated is placed in connection with the negative pole of a 

 Bunsen battery, a plate of brass or of bronze being employed at the po^'tive 

 pole. When the objects have been covered with a coating of the metal oe- 

 sired, and have received their proper colour, they will be found to rival the 

 finest bronzes. 



