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THE CIVIL ENCJINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[April, 



maidens !— where then do all the cross ngly wives come from .'"—and 

 which is not wholly inapplicable to architecture, since it is no less un- 

 accoinitable where' all the ugly, tasteless, paltry buildings and designs 

 we behold, come from, when we read of the host of talent there has 

 been and continues to be in the profession; — of the taste of such a man 

 as James Wvatt, of the classical genius of Sir , of the ima- 

 gination of John Nash ;— or of the transcendent charms of any of those 

 orthodox styles, which in our extreme allectiou for them we not only 

 adopt, but cenerally take care to make our own by the patriotic pro- 

 cess of CocKnevizing them into the bargain. 



V. It is odd 'that though there are Doctors of Music, there should 

 be no Doctors of Architecture. Perhaps it is because architecture is 

 supposed to be in so sound and liealthy a state as to require no doc- 

 toring. And yet, neither Mr. Joseph "Gwilt, nor Mr. Welby Pugin 

 seems to be of such opinion : on the contrary, both of them are for ad- 

 miuislering to it pretty strong cathartics. Surely tliey are entitleil to 

 tidd A.D., (/. t'. not Anno Domini, but Architectura: Doctor) to their 

 names. There is also a certain scapegrace Candidus, who some will 

 say, might be similarly distingnished, yet others may think he has far 

 Uiore of the Surgeon "than the Doctor in his com|)ositicni. — After all, 

 perhaps it will be said that if Architecture has no Doctors, it has a 

 tolerable number of Quacks. 



VI. Vorherr, a living tiermau architect, has a singular crotchet in 

 regard to what he nanu^s Soniienbau, which is that all sitting and sleep- 

 ing rooms should invariably be made to face due South, having only 

 staircases, passages, store-rooms and such places behind them. The 

 reasons he adduces for it are satisfactory enough, and the chief objec- 

 tion to his scheme is that it is utterly impracticable, at least in towns : 

 for supposing all the streets were matle to run from East to West, and 

 to be of such width that the shadow from the houses on the South side 

 would never fall upon the opposite ones, it would be only these latter 

 that would have tlieir fronts, or at least their dwelling rooms facing 

 the street, for the rest would have such rooms looking towards the 

 garden or courts behind them — that is behind, as regards the street. 

 This liowever I myself should consider no objection — rather a recom- 

 jnendation, because I could never understand wdiat pleasure there is 

 in standing at a window to stare or be stared at by your opposite 

 neighbour. Indeed I should say that those houses would have the ad- 

 vantage whose sitting rooms were turned from the street, because they 

 would not be exposed to the noise from carriages, &c. But then, 

 unless the backs of those houses were made to correspond witli the 

 fronts of the opposite ones, the streets themselves would make a very 

 strange appearance, presenting a row of fronts on one side, and irre- 

 gular exteriors on the other. Besides which, much greater extent of 

 frontage towards the street would be required for each house, as the 

 houses nuist be long and shallow, in plan, instead of being as at pre- 

 sent, narrow and deep. Tliere is yet another difficulty standing in the 

 way of such scheme, wdiich is that were all the streets of a town nrade 

 tu run from East to West, there must be lines of communication be- 

 twecu them from North to South, which according to such plan would 

 be entirely between dead walls — that is, the ends of the houses in the 

 streets, and the walls enclosing the gardens and courts, or whatever 

 the intermediate space might be between the parallel rows of houses. 

 I may therefore venture to say that Soniieiibaa will, notwithstanding 

 all its advantages, never come into fashion in London, even if it should 

 anywhere else. 



THE PATENT CONCRETE. 



Sir — I have read an article in your Journal for the mouth of January 

 last, describing the works in progress in her Majesty's Dock-yard at 

 Woolwich, wherein it is said that the " }^nlciU C'uncrcte of Mr. Ranger 

 was/iJiiiid insiijllcieiit to keep down Ihe Land Springs." 



Although the assertion may be correct as far as relates to the work 

 in (piestion, viz., the dock wdnch was constructed of that material, at 

 Woolwich; yet, as such an assertion appears to question the ellicieucy 

 of the patent concrete, I beg to state to you my decided o|uniou that 

 the failure arose from a deliciency in quantity, and not from any defect 

 in quality ; from an improper manner of applying it — in fact, from a 

 misdirected ec'onomy — the excavation being only lined as it were with 

 concrete to form the bottom and the altars, instead of ttie earth being 

 taken out of such dimensions as to admit of the concrete forndng a 

 soliil spandril luider the altars, (the back line of whicli should be per- 

 pendicular from the o\itside edge of the dock coping), and of having 

 at least 7 feet in depth under the bottom of the dock. This will be 

 better understood by the following figures. 



These are not given as correct sections of the dock in question, but 

 as diagrams sufficiently accurate to illustrate the accompanying obser- 

 vations. 



Fig. 1. 





'$■ 





Fig. 2. 



Figure 1 is a section ol the dock as executed, wdiere a a, &c. repre- 

 sent the altars, and b b the coping, the concrete at the bottom of the 

 dock being about 2 feet G inches in thickness. By this figure it will 

 be seen that unless the ground under the altars is of a very firm kind, 

 such as good gravel, the weight of the concrete in the altars (being of 

 equal specific gravity with I'ortland stone,) must cause a settlement, 

 as they are in effect all overhanging, anil the wdiole of the work, sup- 

 posing each side to settle, (which nray well be expected in sucli soil 

 as that of Woolwich Dock-yard), would open somewhat similar to a 

 book ; and it is quite plain that any settlement of the altars would 

 have an injurious effect upon the bottom, unless it was made of a depth 

 much more considerable than it was in the present case, where the 

 thickness was not more than one-third wdiat it ought to have been. 



Figure 2 shows the dock as I conceive it should have been con- 

 structed. Here it will be seen that the mass of concrete is about three 

 times the sectional area of that in fig. 1, and I feel convinced that if 

 this section had been adopted, no failure could possibly liave taken 

 place. 



It may be here remarked, that in the construction of docks built of 

 stone, the backing necessarily must form such a spandril as I have 

 mentioned, and this is generally composed of bricks and cement; and 

 why this solidity of form shoidd have been departed from in the sec- 

 tion of the dock in question, appears to be altogether inexplicable — 

 and the more so when it is considered that Woolwich Yard is perhaps 

 one of the very worst places in which so rash a step could have been 

 hazarded. 



With respect to land s|)rings — I apprehend they may be expected 

 generally to be troublesome in the progress of works in a Dock-yard, 

 where the local pressure from high-water in tidal rivers, or from the 

 sea, is calculated to increase the difiiculty, so much so that the greatest 

 ingenuity will sometimes be required to beat the enemy, even though 

 granite and brickwork in cement be used. 



I have lately seen a paper describing the method of treating springs 

 as pursued by Mr. Ranger, at Chatham, where I find that gentleman 

 ingeniously collected them by means of cast-iron chambers into pipes, 

 and conveyed them into an adjacent culvert, by which they find their 

 way into the Weir of the Dock-yard engine. 



I have been led into these observations from an ajjprehension that 

 the unqualified assertion, "the patent concrete was found insufficient 

 to keep down the land springs," might be so conclusive to many per- 

 sons who are not acquainted with its excellent qualities, as to prevent 

 further impiiry upon the subject, and carry a conviction of its unfitness 

 as a building material; wdiile, on the other hand, I think that an ex- 

 amination of the subject will prove its peculiar applicability to the 

 purposes of dock building, or any other massive work where the 

 locality affords good gravel and lime. 



At a future period I may return to this subject, and show the great 

 economy of this material, as compared with granite and brickwork in 

 cenmnt; and I think it will not be ditficult to show that two docks may 

 be built of concrete, for one of granite and brickwork, and each of 

 them equal in usefulness and stability, wdiich must be considereil a 

 matter of no small moment in dock-yard economy at this period, when 

 it appears so diflicult to obtain from the rigid hands of our legislators, 

 any adequate amount to be expended in those most important places. 

 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



B. T. 



Dubihi, nth March, 1840. 



