92 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[March, 



works, all their expenses and salary being defrayed by me during above six 

 months up to the opening of the theatre, and for about eight months after- 

 ward the expenses of mvself and two assistants. I can confidently appeal 

 to Mr. Ilosking, who, in his official capacity as official referee, inspected 

 most minutely all my designs, and in his evidence declared that he saw the 

 whole of the works and foundations, and that, to the best of his judgment, 

 they were executed in an admirable manner, and displayed great ability 

 without extravagance, and that he should not have allowed the theatre to 

 have been opened unless it had been properly done. I could also appeal to 

 the evidence of Mr. Allison, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Godwin, Mr. C. H. 

 Gregory, Mr. W. Laxton, and Sir John Rennie, who had often visited the 

 works during their progress, and unanimously declared it to he a very cre- 

 ditable work ; and considering its great intricacy and the short time allowed, 

 it was executed in a scientific, workmanlike, and economical manner, ai.d 

 as a work of art carried on with great skill and success ; and they all spoke 

 verv particularlv as to mv indefati^ability and the fairness of the amount of 

 my' charges for a work unequalled for the great sacrifice and exertion it 

 demanded, and which had been admired by all impartial judges, to whom, 

 as well as for the favourable unanimous opinion expressed by the public 

 press, I owe a deep debt of gratitude. 



I consider myself in duty called upon, on public as well as on private 

 grounds, to appeal to the judgment of my profession, either as engineers or 

 architects, to the members of which I look with confidence, satisfied that 

 their high character and honourable feelings will induce them to form a right 

 estimate of these proceedings, and will not allow my professional rights to 

 be trampled on with impunity. I contend that Mr. Augell had neither right 

 nor pretext whatever to take copies of ray designs; his duty in the office to 

 which he was appointed was to determine on the remuneration, which, in 

 equity, I was entitled to upon my claim, without having any further duty to 

 perform ; and certainly nothing which could render it necessary or proper 

 for him to retain copies of my drawings ; and I leave it to the profession 

 and to the public to form their opinion, both as to his conduct and the 

 motive which may have influenced him on this occasion to copy my papeis, 

 which he still retains in his possession — conduct which I contend is wholly 

 unprofessional and indefensible ; and I refer it to the profession and to the 

 public, on whose well-known love of impartial justice and hatred of oppres- 

 sion I can confidently rely. I am. Sir, &c., 



B. Albano. 



Office, 22, King William-street, Strand, Feb. 1849. 



PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS. 



Feb. 5. — A. PoYNTER, Esq., in the Chair, 



Mr. ScoLES read a paper " On the Topography and Antiquities of the 

 City of Jerusalem.'' 



In the course of it, the writer alluded to Mr. Fergusson's published theory 

 as to the Mosque of Omar and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and that 

 gentleman being present, an interesting discussion ensued. .Mr. David 

 Huberts, R.\. (some of whose capital sketches were amongst the illustra- 

 tions of the paper), joined in questioning Mr. Fergusson, who stood 

 gallantly and good-naturedly a cross fire of objections. 



Mr. Fergusson's views, as we gathered, may be briefly stated thus : 

 namely, that the liuilding known as the Mosque of Omar is, in truth, the 

 Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and that what is called the Church of the 

 Holy Sepulchre, and was. burnt in 1808, was a building not earlier than the 

 J 2th century. His principal reasons for the first part of this belief the 

 that the so-called Mosque of Omar is unquestionably a circular Christian 

 building of the time of Constantine, and is built over a rock standing up 

 15 feet from the floor, with a cave in it; further, that it could not have 

 been a mosque, its shape and arrangements being contrary to the require- 

 ments of the religion. In reply to the question, at what period was the 

 truth lost sight of and the title of Church of the Holy Sepulchre given to 

 the edifice which now bears it, Mr. Fergusson said about 150 years before 

 the Crusades. Mr. Scoles did not believe that the (so-called) Mosque of 

 Omar was of the age of Constantine ; the main arches were sliglitly pointed. 

 He had never seen a pointed arch as old as Constantine. He considered 

 that the columns used were from a more ancient building, but the structure 

 itself was of a comparatively recent period. Mr. Fergusson contended tliat 

 the arches being pointed, in no way weakened his opinion ; he had else- 

 where shown that the pointed arch, from 800 years B.C., had been the arch 

 of that country — that is, the horizontal arch bracketted inward to a point. 



Mr. Henry Garling, Fellow, presented a valuable donation, of 20 folio vo- 

 lumes, consisting of an early edition of Palladio (1570); Ilauiillon's Vases; 

 Original Designs, by Lewis ; Chambers' Civil Architecture, 3rd edition, with 

 autograph of the author; W. Adams's designs (of Edinburgh); Gibb's 

 works ; an d Rondelet's Traite' The'urique et Pratique de I'Art de Bdlir. 



SOCIETY OF ARTS, LONDON. 

 Jan. 17.— W. TooKE, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. 



The first part of a paper " On Improvements in Electric Telegraphs, and 

 newplans for Printing by Electricity," was read by E. Highton, Esq., C.E. 



Perfect as telegraphs at first sight appeared (observed the author) when 

 Professor Wheatstone applied the discovery of Oirsted to telegraphic pur- 

 poses, and used the attractive power of soft iron (discuvered by Arago), for 

 releasing or guiding the mechanical operations requisite for the purpose of 

 either pointing to or printing letters, still imperfections were found to exist, 

 and those to a very serious extent — so much so indeed, as to render in prac- 

 tice many of the proposed plans useless. 



Previous to pointing out tlie imperfections alluded to, Mr. Highton made 

 a few remarks relative to the action of electricity and magnetism generally. 



He then proceeded with the object of the paper, and considered the sub- 

 ject under the following heads: — 1st, the Instruments; 2nd, the Batteries; 

 3rd, the Conducting Wires; and 4th, the action of Atmospheric Electricity, 

 Lightning, the Aurora Borealis, and Electrical Fogs. 



The first Instrument Mr. Highton noticed was the Bell. The ringing of a 

 hell at a distant point, under the latest improvement of Messrs. Wheatstone 

 and Cooke, is etfected by means of the attractive power developed in masses 

 of soft iron. The improvement consists in removing a detent from the 

 wheels of a piece of clockwork, by the momentum obtained from a falling 

 weight, the weiglit falling by the force of gravity on the catch of the wheel- 

 work of the bell when the detent is withdrawn, by the attractive power of 

 magnetism developed in an electro-magnet of soft iron. 



The method employed liy the .Messrs. Highton ditt'ers from the foregoing, 

 as regards the mechanism, in the same manner that a watch differs from a 

 clock — a watch being capable of continuing its action in any position. The 

 plan consists in making a spring act by a connecting-rod on the circumfer- 

 ence of a wheel; atta'ihed to this wheel is the catch detained by the electro- 

 magnet armature. 



The removal of the armature detent is effected by electro-magnetism, de- 

 veloped in the metal nickel. The alarum may also be rung by magneto, 

 electricity, by merely removing the armature from a magnet. — Messrs. High- 

 ton propose using the metal nickel as an electro-magnet in all step-by-stcp 

 motions, owing to this metal producing little or no residual magnetism. 



Having thus alluded to the bell, the author next described the first and 

 most simple form of telegraphs; and as an instance of the class, described 

 the needle instrument of Messrs. Wheatstone and Cooke. The signals with 

 this instrument are given by the deflection of one or more magnetic needles. 

 In the arrangement of the coil and needle of Wheatstone and Cooke, the 

 wire of the coil passes in every convolution twice over the middle or dead 

 part of the magnet. In Messrs. Highton's plan, a horse-shoe magnet is used 

 instead of a needle, and the wire is placed near the poles only. By this ar- 

 rangement, the resistance oifered to the current of electricity in having to 

 pass over the dead part of the magnet is entirely got rid of, and the centre 

 of oscillation and percussion brought much nearer to the centres of gravity 

 and motion ; hence less electric power is required, and the oscillation of the 

 needle at the same time removed. 



The next class of instruments alluded to was that in which a step-by-step 

 motion is employed. The coil attendant on the use of these forms of tele- 

 graph is, that when one error is made in the transmission of a sentence, sub- 

 sequent errors are entailed throughout the message, until by preconcerted 

 signals the instruments are re-set by all the operators in the circuit. Messrs. 

 Highton's improvements consist in tlie application of an additional electro- 

 magnet, by means of which the step-by-step movement may at any instant 

 be thrown out of gear, and the hand, pointer, or disc progress at one bound 

 to zero or starting point. 



This arrangement doubles the speed of transmitting information, and also 

 enables any number of words or sentences to be ad<led to the end of the 

 alphabet without increasing the time lequisite for sending a message by let- 

 ters only ; and at the same time i,ivej absolute security to the working of 

 this class of instruments, and prevents any error in the transmission entading 

 subsequent errors in the message. 



The third class of telegraphs alluded to were those which instantly expose 

 to view any desired letter when a corresponding key is touched. Previous 

 plans require twenty-six wires to etl'ect this : in Messrs. Highton's plan three 

 wires only are requisite. The letters are shown by the single or combined 

 motion of tifiee screens*, no weights or wheels, or similar description of me- 

 chanism, is employed, but each screen can, by motion to right or left, be 

 made to assume any one of three positions : and thus, by the combination 

 of three screens, any one of twenty-seven positions can be produced. 



Mr. Highton then proceeded to describe the application of this property 

 to printing telegraphs, and showed how, with three wires only, any one of 

 twenty-six letters could be printed instantly at distant stations, and that as 

 rapidly as the corresponding keys could be played on. The arrangement of 

 the mechanism in these printing telegraphs is such, that no error or inaction 

 of any of the parts of the instruments can entail subsequent errors in the 

 message. — Mr. Highton described six ditferent kinds of printing telegraph«, 

 suited respectively to one, two, or three line wires, and combining several of 

 the above improvements. 



Feb. 7. — Mr. E. Highton read the second portion of his paper on the 

 above suliject. After a brief recapitulation of the various instruments du- 



