18i8.J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



287 



made is very simple. A committee is appointed, not of members 

 of tlie Council, but of the professors of the faculty in question, 

 who draw up a report, stating the education of the candidate, the 

 honours lie has taken, the appointments he has held, the works he 

 has published and the character of them, and the unpublished mss., 

 illustrative of his studies and researches, which be has submitted 

 to them. Thus all the materials for coming to an impartial deci- 

 sion as to the merits of the candidates are laid before the Council, 

 and their appointment is made in accordance with the report. 

 There can, therefore, by tliis system, be no canvassing and no 

 jobbery. 



Tiie Trustees of Gresham College have not adopted any such 

 course, and they have not even the poor and usual plea of favour- 

 ing a member of tlieir own College, because their College has no 

 atumiti. 



The appointment resolves itself into the gross breach of a public 

 tmst, and it is necessary that measures should be taken to prevent 

 its recurrence. The University of London has no legal jurisdic- 

 tion in this case, but it has a moral interest in seeing justice done; 

 and we recommend that a memorial should be addressed to the 

 senate, and another to the Committee of Council on Education, 

 praying that they will take measures to obtain relief. These 

 memorials should be signed numerously by literary, scientific, and 

 professional men, and by citizens of London, and they may result 

 in some better system for the future. It will be easy for tlie Uni- 

 versity of London to provide for the examination of future candi- 

 dates, leaving the appointments to the Trustees, who will thus be 

 put under a moral and public responsibility, to which they are not 

 now subjected. 



If Gresham College were properly administered, how useful 

 might it be to the younger professional men and mechanics of the 

 metropolis. The Chair of Geometry, once held by Briggs and 

 Wren, ought not to be without a competent successor ; and by 

 giving an evening course of proper lectures, great benefits would 

 be conferred, and the very serious want of mathematical instruc- 

 tion in some degree be supplied. Those who know the good that 

 has been done by Lord Brougham's Evening Classes for School- 

 masters, at University College, would earnestly wish the system of 

 cheap evening instruction to be extended. As a recent example of 

 the way in which these classes work, we may mention that a school 

 has been opened in the Mechanic's Institution, under the direction 

 of one of these graduates, and in which the children of members 

 we taught at fourpence per week. 



Those who advocate literary institutions for the working-classes 

 have been seriously impressed by the evident consequences of 

 giving desultory instruction, which prevails in such places, and 

 which has the tendency of unsettling rather than of strengthening 

 the minds of young men ; but no measures have been taken to 

 establish colleges or institutions in which, for a guinea a-year, one 

 or two lectures shall be given, in regular courses, on the higher 

 branches of education in the faculties usually known as wits and 

 philosophy. This can be done and ought to be done. 



NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



The Ordnance Maps are now undergoing the process of being electrotyped ; 

 they are to be sold at the low price of 2s. per slipet, or Cd. per quarter- 

 sheet, and are to be issued as they are electrotyped, quarterly. The first 

 series has just been published, and comprises part of Middlesex, Kent 

 Surrey, Sussex, Lancashire, and Cheshire. 



The Metrofolilan Sewers Act has passed the Honse of Commons, and is 

 now in the Lords. The purport of the Act is to embrace into one Commis- 

 sion all the Commissions in Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, excepting the 

 City and the Eegent's-park Commission ; — why the latter is to be omitted, 

 we are at a loss to conceive. The measure, which we long ago advocated, 

 will be incomplete if that division be not included, as tlie d. strict runs 

 right through and bisects the Westminster division. It has a sewer of 

 ample capacity and depth to drain all the upper division of the old 

 Westminster Commission. It commences near Primrose-hill, passes 

 through the vicinity of Regeut's-park, Portland-place, Kegent street, 

 and Charing-cross, and discharges its contents in the Thames near White- 

 hall and Scotland-yard. If transverse .sewers be formed in the New- 

 road, Oxford-street, and Piccadilly, nearly the whole of the Borough of 

 Marylebone and Westminster may be drained into it, without any great 

 expense being incurred. We trust it is not too late to introduce that Com- 

 inisjion into the Act. The district of the new Commission is to extend 

 to the distance of 12 miles in a straight line from St. Paul's Cathedral. 

 We dj not like the idea of the Commission being empowered to make 

 (heir own bye-laws as to penalties— this is very objectionable, to say the 

 least of it. 



Payne's Process for rendering WMd Fireproof. — On Wednesday, 

 August 2, an experiment was exhibited at Whitehall-wharf, M'estmiuster, 

 for testing Mr. Payne's patent process for rendering wood fireproof, and 

 for showing that his wood-preserving process is as eO'eclual for the 

 preservation of wood from destruction by fire as from the ravages of 

 insects, dry-rot, &c. Two small houses were constructed, one of ordinary 

 deals well dried, and the other of deals prepared by Mr. Payne's process', 

 and each filled with fire-wood and shavings. Both were kindled at the 

 same time. The house composed of the unprotected wood caught fire 

 very soon, and in about half an hour was completely consumed ; while the 

 Payneized house remained standing nearly as perfect as ever, — the fire in 

 it having gone out of itself, and left only some slight marks of charring 

 on the inside of the boards. The liquid employed by Mr. Payne (by 

 preference) is sulphuret of barium or calcium. 



The Conrersion of Diamond into Coke. — Professor Faraday lately gave a 

 lecture on this subject at the Uoyal Institution, in consequence of M. 

 Jacquelain having, in the course of last year, succeeded in converting 

 diamond into a substance possessing the appearance, physical cha- 

 racter, and electrical properties of coke by the following process ; — 

 Having attached a piece of hard gas-retort carbon to the positive wire of 

 Bunsen's battery of 100 elements, he placed on it a small piece of 

 diamond. He then armed the negative wire with a cone of the same car- 

 bon, and, by dexterous manipulation, enveloped the diamond with electric 

 flame. After a short interval, the diamond underwent a sort of ebullition, 

 became disintegrated, softened, and was actual coke. {Comptes Rendiis, 

 June 14,1847; An. de Chimie, torn, xx., p. 459). — On this experiment 

 Prof. Faraday made the following observations. I. As to Ihe properly 

 possessed by certain substances to assume totally different forms without 

 undergoing any chemical change. The Professor adverted to the case 

 of sulphur, which becomes brittle when suddenly cooled from its first 

 state of fusion, but is soft and pliable when similarly cooled from its 

 second state of fusion. — 2. As to the source of Iteut employed. Professoi 

 Faraday dwelt on the beauty and power of the voltaic arc as a furnace, 

 showing by experiment that diamond could be burned into carbonic acid 

 gas by means of a current of oxygen gas directed on it when highly 

 heated. The Professor stated that neither this heat nor any short of that of 

 the voltaic battery, except that of the solar lens, was sufficient to convert 

 diamond into coke. The fusion of rock crystal by a current of oxygen 

 sent through an ether flame was noticed ; and it was shown that this 

 powerful heat was inferior in intensity to that of the battery. — 3. The 

 condition of the diamond when thus converted into coke. It becomes ab- 

 solutely lighter. The spec. gr. of ordinary diamond is 3 3G8 ; — when 

 changed into coke its spec. gr. is 2-679. It loses its insulating power. 

 Professor Faraday here alluded to some experiments by M. Karsten 

 Archives des Sciences, 1847), proving that certain compound bodies were 

 conductors or not according to their preparation. He slated that this was 

 the only case analogous to carbon. — 4. As to the philosophy of the change 

 of the diamond's structure. Referring to M. Gassiot's demonstration tliat 

 the heat is greatest at the positive pole of the battery. Professor Faraday 

 suggested the possibility that the particles of diamond might, under the 

 influence of the intense heat, tend to form vapour having a sensible and 

 assisting expansive force, and that in their axial position as regarded the 

 enveloping discharge they might assume a slate having relation to a dia- 

 magnelic condition. He requested to be understood, however, as ofl"eriug 

 this idea merely as a philosophical conjecture. Finally, he referred to 

 Graham's supposition, that the ditference between diamond and coke 



might depend on their known diflerence of specific heat. In reference 



to Ihe above experiments of M. Jacquelain, ou the conversion of diamond 

 into coke, Mr. Nasmyth states, in a communication to the Mining Journal, 

 that he " had long since discovered that coke was diamond, in as far as 

 that coke is possessed of one of the most useful and remarkable properties 

 of diamond in respect to its power of cutting glass— owing, doubt- 

 less, to the extreme hardness of its ultimate particles, or minute 

 crystals of which a mass of coke is formed, M'e are apt to consider 

 coke as a soft substance, because we can crush it, and pulverise it 

 with facility ; but if we examine into the actual hardness of the minute, 

 plate-formed crystals, which compose a mass of that substance, we 

 shall find that they are possessed of a most remarkable degree of hard- 

 ness, and can cut glass with that clean-looking cut which is so peculiar to 

 the diamond." He feels certain, that when the extreme diamond-like 

 hardness of coke is made known, that the fact will be laid hold of, and 

 turned to good account as a most cheap material for all grinding purposes, 

 such as required for many processes in the arts — to say nothing of its 

 useful application to the sharpening of a razor, as a very superior strop 

 powder; for which purpose, however, the coke must be reduced by 

 ev'gation to the most minute and impalpable powder. 



Dover Refuge Harbour. — This great national work is progressing with 

 much spirit, and begins to show what it will be. The first portion, yOO 

 feet of a massive sea-wall, has been contracted for by Messrs. Lee of Lon- 

 don ; and the works are carried on under the superintendence of their 

 agent, Mr, Scott. The plan is that of Mr. James AValker, the eminent 

 engineer; and the execution of the engineering department also devolves 

 on him and his partner, Mr. Burgess. Tlie works now extend 130 feet 

 into the sea, and the curve to the eastward has been commenced. One 

 diving-bell was lately put into requisition in the process of levelling the rocks 

 for the foundation, and another will be speedily brought into use. Of the 

 immease quantity of stone (8,S00 tons) which has b:eu landed here witbia 



