334 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



rOcTOBKR, 



IV. Perlv.i])? John Britton may fall foul upon the writer too, for John | 

 lias told us in his ' Modern Athens,' that at Edinhurgh, " public and I 

 private edifices of the most splendid description crowd on our notice" ! ' 

 althougii there is nothing whatever in his hook to confirm — or even 

 give decent colouring to that piece of puff. lie assures us, indeed, 

 that that most horribly dowdy building the new Edinburgh Academy, 

 is "a handsome structure, !7/«s/ra/irf by a beautiful poTt'ico siipporltd 

 by Grecian Doric columns." But such handsome structures and such 

 "beautiful porticos," are almost enough to make us sicken at the very 

 name of arcliitecture. At beholding them, one is tempted to pray 

 that an earthquake may swallow them up. — And yet after jiraising 

 that balderdash, Britton actually snu\)bed the poor Queen on the sub- 

 ject cf Buckingham Falace, — though he had previously spoken of it 

 as something prodigiously grand ! 



V. By very far the greater part of Edinburgh architecture, as re- 

 gards modern buildings, is even when not censurable for* positive 

 faults, of that mawkishly insipid, bald, coW, tame sort, a« to be utterly 

 valueless in regard to assthetic quality. When you have said that the 

 builders employ stone instead of brick and cement, you liavegone to the 

 utmost extent of the eulogium they merit. As to architecture pr<iperly 

 so called, the Scottish capital is a perfect desert : and should the gude 

 folk of Auld Reikie take this character of it in dudgeon, they ought 

 at least to keep some of their anger for themselves; for if they have 

 not thought it worth while at the time to produce something really 

 deserving praise, they ought not now to be scandalized at finding them- 

 selves reproached with want of taste. At all events they may feast 

 upon the flowery flummery with which a certain Doctor has dosed 

 them, — to wit, Dibdin, describing Edinburgh as "a city of palaces, the 

 Genoa of ihc J\'oiih." Surely there, the Doctor drew most largely 

 upon his imagination ; or else must have mistaken some architectural 

 mirage, for a reality, and the plain homespim buildings around him for 

 so many palaces, after the same f.ishion that Don Quixote mistook the 

 frowsy Moritornes for a lovely princess.— Happy mortals those who 

 like the Don and the Doctor can conjure up princesses and palaces as 

 they please ! 



VI. "I do not understand what you mean by Feeling: what has 

 feeling to do with architecture V This was once said to me by one 

 who was by no means the greatest dunce in his profession ; whereupon 

 I was tempted almost to reply: "if you rap that thick head of yours 

 against the wall, you will perhaps understand what feeling is — 1 mean 

 the only kind of it you are capable of comprehending." 



VII. 'Effect' is another word that seems banished from the archi- 

 tect's vocabulary: or if the term be occasionally employed, that which 

 it expresses is very rarely considered or aimed at. Instead of being 

 studied and purposely introduced, it appears rather to be shunned. 

 Not but that I have seen effects and singularly striking and beautiful 

 ones too. No thanks for them, however, to the architect ; for I have 

 almost invariably found that the most beautiful effects of all, have been 

 entirely the result of sheer accident; and never contemp'ated before- 

 hand in the design; and further, that where any originalitv of plan has 

 been adopted — any deviation from the wearisome monotony and in- 

 sipidity which prevail in the forms and arrangement of rooms, it has 

 in almost every instance been occasioned by some peculiar and iiii/o- 

 W!icc( circumstance in the building that has compelled the architect to 

 fling away his secundum aiitm recipes and prescriptions, and resort to 

 some expedient and contrivance — not of the ready "cut arwl dried" 

 school, therefore, I suppose, ilkgitnnaie — and to be more or less 

 original in spite of himself. — It was a marvellous mercy for Sir 

 Jetfry Wyatville that, instead of being ordered to raze Windsor Castle 

 to the ground, and prepare an entirely new plan, he was left to contend 

 with the dirticu ties imposed by the old one. The consequence is that 

 there are now many piquant parts in the interior, and much variety iu 

 the plan, that would else, in all probability, not have occurred. 



Vm. It would not be amiss, if, instead of proposing as architectural 

 prize-subjects to students such high flown things as palaces, and senate 

 houses, which are not wanted, the Academy were to require of them 

 ideas, for that which none of our palace-builders have been able to 

 design — to wit, a sentry-box. Those at Windsor Castle and Buck- 

 ingham Palace, are most beggarly things, literally wooden boxes, not 

 only homely in material, but barbarous in taste. Surely if it were 

 worth wdiile to erect a marble arch before the palace in St. James' 

 Park, it would also have been worth while to erect sentry-boxes that 

 should accord w ith it ; whether they were detached from the arch 

 itself, or made to form part of its design. The perversitv of taste 

 displayed in such matters is all the more unaccountable, because one 

 seldom finds simdar contrast ; of shabbiness and finery iu any others. 

 One does not see common e,.i thouware and plate on the same table, or 

 rteal chairs and rosewood tables in the same room. — I shouhl certainly 

 like to be informed, wherefore, if there must be senlry-boxes at all in 

 front of a palace, they must invariably be shabby eyesores. Vet, I 



believe, I might inquire for some time before any one could give me a 

 satisfactory reason. It might possibly be alleged that it would be quite 

 infra dig for any architect to attempt to design aught of the kind. 

 Nevertheless I apprehend that a Greek architect would not have 

 scrupled to do so, or iiave thought it derogatory either to his talent or 

 Ills art to invent even a sentry-box — if there was occasion for one, 

 with elegance of form. Nav, do we not find among the structures of 

 Athens itself, one that affords a very strr ng hint — almost a direct mo- 

 del, for such purpose? Would not thai example be more consistently 

 adopted by being so transferred than after the manner in which we 

 now behold it copied, without any modification to adapt it for the 

 modern application of it ? Scarcely shall 1 be asked what is the ex- 

 ample I allude to, for no doubt, every one will now instant'y discover 

 it. As for those who cannot, it matters little to them whether I say 

 what it is now, or a month hence. I am therefore determined not to 

 satisfy their curiosity this time. 



ON THE METHOD.? OF COMPUTING THE QUANTITIES 

 OF EARTHWORK IN CUTTINGS AND E.MBANKMENTS. 



By S. Hughes, C.E. 



At.THOt'GH the prismoidal formula of Dr. Hutton, by means of which 

 are found the contents of the figures composing cuttings and embank- 

 ments, is now well understood, and although great facilities for com- 

 puting these contents are given by Mr. Macneil's tables, and by a 

 tabular sheet more lately published by Mr. Bidder, yet it seems that 

 a ready method of calculating separately the slopes, and the middle 

 part of the excavation or embankment is still wanting. 



Mr. Macneil has one table in his book giving areas for a base of 1, 

 and aslope of 1 to 1, from which by simple multiplication the contents 

 for any slope and for any base may be found. Mr. Bidder's table also 

 gives the contents for slopes of 1 to 1, and base of 1, but for lengths of 

 one chain or 22 yards. These tables are useful only for cdcul.iting 

 sections where the scale is very small, and where the heights cannot 

 be taken otherwise than in feet, because the tables are only computed 

 for whole numbers. In the process of calculating from working sec- 

 tions however, where the scale is sufficiently large to show the heiglits 

 in feet, and decimals of a foot, the tables will be of no use, and the 

 following simple formula derived from that of Dr. Hutton, mentioned 

 above, are intended to supply the deficiency of more extensive tables, 

 and it is believed they may be used with so much ease as entirely to 

 supersede the use of any tables. 



Fig. I. 



Let a 6 c rf be the longitudinal section of a cutting, from whichjt is 

 required to find the contents down to the line A B. 



The surface line should first be divided into straight portions, and 

 vertical lines drawn from each poi it of division to the line A B. Then 

 the contents of all the spaces into which these lines divide the section 

 being added into one sum, will be the content of the wdiole cutting. It 

 is required therefore, independently of tables, to adopt a ready method 

 of ascertaining the cubical capacity of a portion of the cutting whose 

 vertical area is represented by one of the before mentioned spaces, as 

 b b' c c'. 



For this purpose let the two deptlis of the cutting at the greater 

 and smaller ends, or /) V, cc', be respectively = D and d; let the 

 breadth be = b, the ratio of slopes = r, and th' distance between the 

 two ends := /. 



The area of this piece of cutting at the greater end will hi 



Fig. 2. 



And at the sinaller end 



Fig. 3. 



