1840.J 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



33 



form such delicate adjustments as require tlie individual attention of tlie 

 operative : in conjunction witli this department h a class of men called erec- 

 tors, tliat is, men wlio put together tlie framc-work, and larger parts of most 

 machines, so that the two last departments, as it were, hring together and 

 give the last touches to the ohjects produced by all the others. A machine 

 having passed through these departments, is now ready for a coat of iiainf, 

 which having received, it is taken to pieces (after all the parts are marked, 

 so as to enable its being i>ut together when it arrives at its destination), the 

 bright parts are smeared with tallow, and, if lequired, placed in jiacking cases, 

 which are then handed over to the foreman of tlie labonrers, who, by means 

 of the crane or railroad, place them in the canal boat or railway waggon. 



With a view to secure the greatest amount of convenience for the removal 

 of heavy machinery from one department to another, the entire estahhslmient 

 had been laid out with this object in view; and in order to attain it, what 

 may be called the straight line system has been adopted, that is, the various 

 workshop* ai'e all in a line, and so jilaced, that the greater part of the work, 

 as it passes from one end of the foundry to the other, receives, in succession, 

 each operation which ought to follow the preceding one, so that little carry- 

 ing backward and forward, or lifting up and down, is required. In the case 

 of heavy jiarts of machinery, this arrangement is found exceedingly useful. 

 By means of a railroad, laid through, as well as all round the shops,* any 

 casting, however ponderous or massy, may be removed with the greatest care, 

 rapidity, and security. Thus nearly all risk of those frightful accidents, 

 which sometimes occur to the men, is rcmovcil. The railroad system is now 

 beginning to be as much attended to, ami its advantages felt in concerns of 

 this nature, as it is in the transit of goods and passengers. 



Nearly one uniform width is preserved throughout all the workshops of 

 this extensive concern, namely, 70 feet ; and tli« height of each is twenty-one 

 feet to the beam. The total length of shops on the ground floor, already 

 bnilt, amounts, in one line, to nearly 400 feet. There are, besides, four flats 

 of the front building, each twelve feet high, 100 feet long, and 60 feet wide. 

 Into these rooms a perfect flood of light is admitted by very large windows 

 on the side walls, as well as through sky-llglits in the roof. 



The Foundry occupies one portion of this building, namely, 130 feet by 70 

 feet, in which great apartment or hall there is not a single dark corner: a 

 point of vast impoiiance where the oj>crations are conducted with a black 

 material, namely, the moulding sand. The iron is melted in one or more of 

 four cupolas, according to the weight of the casting. The cupolas vary from 

 three to six feet in diameter, and when all are in active operation, melt thirty- 

 six tons of iron. The great cauldron, or pot, in which the metal is contained, 

 ' is idaced, during its transit from the furnace, on a carriage, which moves 

 along a railroad in front of the four cupolas ; and thus any i)ortioii of melted 

 metal can be received and conveyed, with the most surprising rapidity and 

 ease, to any point of the surface of this great hall. These great pnts contain, 

 at limes, each six or seven tons of melted iron, and, by means of a crane, 

 whose arms sweep every part of the foundry, arc banded iVom place to jilace 

 as if wlndly devoid of weight. The crane posts are two great cast-iron columns, 

 around which the crane arm swings. The columns ssrve at the same time as 

 supports to the roof, and by proper ties, the strain of such great weights is 

 diffused over the whole building, and each brick made to share the load. The 

 blast of air for the furnaces is supplied by a fanner, five feet in diameter, 

 made to revolve at the rate of 1,000 revolutions per minute, the air or blast 

 being conveyed under ground in a brick tunnel, from which it is distributed 

 to each furnace by sheet-iron pipes, varying from three to nine inches, accord- 

 ing to the si/.e of the furnace at work at the time. 



There are at present fifty-six turning lathes, of all sizes, at work in this 

 establishment, several of which are what is called self-acting, t — that is, the 

 work has only to be placed in the lathe, and the tool set, and the maehine 

 does the remainder of the work with unerring accuracy and ease. 



Planing machines arc extensively used here. The immense power of one of 



* Abbreviation of " work-shops." 



T " Wu may here with propriety say a word on the subject of self-acting- 

 tools, the more so because it is by means of these admirable adaptions ut 

 human skill and intelligence that we are giving to the present age its peculiar 

 and wonderful characteristic, namely, the triumph of mind over matter. 



•' Hy whom or when the slkh principle was first introduced we need not now 

 enquire; suffice it to say that, by means of this prii ciiile, a most wonderful 

 substitute has been found for tlie human hand in the fabrication of almost all 

 parts of mechanism, whether the substance to be operated upon weighs tons 

 or grains. The slide principle is that which enables a child, or the marhhie 

 itself, to operate on masses of metal, and to cut shavings oil' iron, as if* it was 

 deprived of all hardness, and so mathematically correct that even Kuclid 

 himself might be the workman! It is by the slide principle that we are en- 

 abled to tix a steel cutter into an iron hand, and constrain or cause it to 

 move or slide along the surface of a piece of metal in any required direction, 

 and with the utmost precision. By means of this priiKriple all the practical 

 iliftieuUies hitherto encountered in the extending and improving of machinery 

 generally, were, at one blow, cleared away, lly its means the formation of 

 every geometrical figure became a matter of the greatest ease, and a princi- 

 plo of absolute ;md unerring exactness took the j.lace of manual dexteiity. 



"The impulse given by the slide princi|ile, to the manufactures of this 

 country, in the construclion of machines for forming other machines, can 

 scarcely be imaginetl. On the application of an unerring principle to ma- 

 chine-ma/dug machinery — whicli totls may be defmeil to be — the mechanical 

 energy of Great Britain, sprang forward at unce to that supreme station 

 which she now maintains, and which, if her artisans keep pace with the 

 limes, she will ever retain." — Note l)i/ a Pruclieal Engineer, 



these macbines may he imagined, when it is considered that the amount of 

 resistance against the c<lge of the knife which planes the iron is, in a large 

 machine, as much as thirty tons. This fact leads to the consideration of the 

 hardness of the instrument which has to encounter, for perhaps a day together 

 without becoming inoperative, this immense resistance. By means of this 

 admirable machine every variety of geonietrical figure can be jirodnced with 

 the most absolute accuracy — such as the plane, the cylinder, the cone, and 

 the sphere. And as all possible varieties of machinery consist merely of these 

 figures in combination, there is now every facility for producing whatever 

 may be required. 



Besides the manufacture of every description of engineers' tools, another 

 branch of business for which this establishment has been erected, is that of 

 locomotive engines, a branch of business which is rapidly acquiring great 

 importance, and which will have few rivals as to magnitude. Lancashire 

 appears to be completely taking the lead in this manufacture, which, frotn 

 its very nature, can he carried on only on a large scale. 



The room occui>ied by the steam, in a locomotive boiler, is ordinarily 

 equivalent to ten cubic feet. Ten cubic feet of water will proiUice in steam, 

 when expanded to the density of the atmosphere, as much as would occupy 

 18,000 feet of space. The steam is confined in the boiler by a pressure ihree 

 times that of the atmosphere, so that, escaping from its confinement, it eX' 

 pands to three times the space it there occupied. 



ArcMectttra Domestica, von Alexis des Chateauneuf. Lirgj t 

 London : Ackermanii and Co. 



Recent circmnstances have given thii volume atJditional interest 

 and recommendation, its author Itaving obtained the second |)reinium 

 in the cofnpetition for the Royal Exchange, owing to which liis name 

 is no lofiger a stranger to English ears ; and it may, perhaps, be wortli 

 while to remark tliat it had actually appeared prior to that event, 

 consequently it was not the distinction he had so obtained whiclt in- 

 duced M. de Chateauneuf to bring it out in this country. \Vh;ttever 

 may have been Ifis motive for publishing it here, we hope he will 

 have no reason to rejient having done so, although we dare not flatter 

 him by saying that he could not Itave selected a better market ; be- 

 cause, if tife truth may be spoken, there is far less encouragement 

 given to works of this class here in England than on the Continent. 

 However, we liope that M. de C. will find that there are exceptions to 

 the rule, and that his own case is one of them. Still, one inconveni- 

 ence we suspect has been occasioned by the work havifig been got up 

 here, namely, that the author has in consequence been obliged to 

 trust too much to others ; and although as far as correctness and in- 

 telligence of fortn go, he could not, perhaps, have employed a more 

 able engraver than Mr. T. T. Bury, we must say that delicacy of out- 

 line has been carried by him somewhat to excess. The breadth and 

 depth, or rather the fineness of the lities, is so uniform as to produce 

 a general faintness of effect ; whereas, variety of line would hava 

 given not only greater vigour but distinctness, also to tnatiy of tlies 

 plates. Mr. Bury would have done well to have looked at some of 

 the architectural subjects in Penier's work on decoration; which, 

 independently of thfeir intrinsic ititerest, captivate the eye at the first 

 glance, by the ufiiou of firmness and delicacy, wliich gives adequate 

 relief to every object. This tameiiess in the execution of the plates cer- 

 tainly does not att'ect the designs thetuselvcs, otherwise than it exhibits 

 them somewhat to disadvantage, atid sometimes is attetided with a 

 degree of insipidity that may unluckily chance to be attributed to the 

 subject, instead of the engraver's treatment of it. These retnarks, 

 we think, are called for, even in justice to M. de Chateauneuf, for there 

 are one or two designs, which, had they been better expressed, would 

 have been considered of more importance than they are now likely 

 to be. 



To come now to matter of the plates, we scruple not to say that 

 although the designs display great inequality, on account of the very 

 great difference of their subjects, some of the designs being for very 

 small and unpretending buildings, while others afforded more than 

 usual scope for invention — they give evidence of real talent and 

 originality. Yet, being nearly all those of buildings executed for pri- 

 vate individuals, the author lias, in all probability, been more or less 

 checked or thwarted, if not directly by his employers, by circum- 

 stances he was obliged to keep in view, and which prevented him 

 from giving free scope to his own taste and imagination. What is 

 most important is, that many excellent ideas and suggestions may be 

 obtained from them. One of the happiest is that shown in plate 5 — 

 namely, a perspective interior of a Holstein barn converted into a gar- 

 den or rustic saloon, and retaining just enough of the original charac- 

 ter to show what has been the arcliitect's motive. It might, perhaps, 

 be pursued still farther, and thereby be found to lead to very much 

 more ; especially as regards the form of the ceiling, which tiiight 

 either througliout or in the centre compartment of such a room, 

 be carried up higher than the walls, in two inclined planes, following 



