1849.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL, 



15-) 



painters, who do but spend the sweat of wall nuts (to wit, oyle), 

 the carpenters that of their browes." 



"As for coverings of buildings, lead is best for churches, for 

 who would rob them but Goths and Vandals? Blue slates are most 

 comely for a nobleman's palace," "a roof covered with them is of an 

 equal color, when as red tiled roofs the least breaking of them 

 makes great chargeable work for the tiler, who often removes ten 

 tiles to lay two new ones in their place, and renders the nobleman's 

 roof like a beggar's coat." 



Our author then proceeds to some remarks on the making of 

 bricks, and recommends the clerk of works to look well to the 

 working of the clay, which, if not well wrought, will never make 

 good bricks. He says, that it is usual to pay 5s. per thousand for 

 making and burning bricks, the clay-digging therein comprehended. 

 He then goes into some details as to the relative expense of mak- 

 ing bricks, and purchasing them made; whereby it appears that 

 only 6s. Hd. is saved in 20,00 bricks, by making them. He says, 

 that of clam-burnt bricks, 500 out of 20,000 are unfit for work. 



Various other d> tails are entered into respecting thi' making and 

 use of bricks. Men dig clay, he says, for 6d. the thousand; lime 

 is burnt at 4s. per load, and cost 40s. a load. Touching the use of 

 chalk in building walls, he says, that "those that mend the making 

 use of chalk in their walls must be contented (if the ground hath 

 springs) with the green mold which breaks thro' the whitened 

 walls within doors. Walls about a parke or court may be filed 

 with chalk, which may be digged for 18s. per load, and brought for 

 2s. 6rf. the load." "Good country bricklayers do work at 27s. the 

 rod, the bricks not being rubbed. Good London bricklayers will 

 work the rod for 40s. with rubbed bricks; the inside for 33s., 

 arches comprized." 



Then follow some remarks about lime burning, describing the 

 mode of burning it "in China and otlier parts of the Indies," 

 wholly with wood and not in kilns. 



Our author now proceeds to a new division of his work, which 

 he heads, "As for Choice of Master Workmen." "King Henry the 

 Eighth," he says, "showed a good precedent when the Serjeant 

 plummer, calling his workmen to caste, in his presence, a leaden 

 medal which was given him:" the king told him, "he would have 

 no walking master-workmen." Those, therefore, which are fit to 

 be employed are working masters, and not those who walk from 

 one building to another; "nor will any master-workman deny to 

 have had as much more done and well, by bestirring theii hands 

 and tools in their workmen's presence than otherwise." I cannot 

 refrain here from calling your attention to the singular social 

 change that has taken place since King Henry inflicted his repri- 

 mand on the walking instead of the working master. Fertile as he 

 is said to have been in oaths, certainly no usual oath would have 

 sufficed to express the royal indignation had he lived in these 

 times, to have seen the master-workmen not walk, but drive up to 

 his works in as fair an equipage as that of any of his most favoured 

 courtiers. 



We have next a division of the work entitled "As for the 

 Builder and Proprietor." He advises the builder (by wliich term 

 he always means the employer) to buy his own materials, and to 

 have in reserve such a stock of his own as he can well spare, and 

 also, he adds, "against the mistakes of workmen, a stock of pa- 

 tience;" nor to begin building walls before March, nor after the 

 middle of September. 



The next twenty-eight pages contain a variety of miscellaneous 

 and not very well assorted notes respecting the prices of materials 

 and workmanship. 



Touching the paving of courts, to prevent the overgrowing of 

 grass and the charge of too often weeding, he says, "it would not 

 be amiss to lay dialk or lime under the paving, and to do the same 

 in gardens under gravel walks" — a piece of advice which is well 

 worthy of notice. 



With respect to street paving with pebble stones, he alludes to a 

 Mons. Le Coeur having recently introduced great improvements in 

 paving works done under the commissioners. This French under- 

 taker appears to have formed a company for carrying out a new 

 invention in paving, "whereby they are not only able to make a 

 most substantial good pavement, but are likewise capable by that 

 same new invention to maintain it durable for twenty-one years." 

 Our author (who, as must have been observed, is remarkable for 

 the want of order and method in his remarks), brings his book to 

 a close with some, what he calls necessary notes. "What contri- 

 butes more to the fatal end of many a good mother's son is ill- 

 building: paper-like walls: cobweb-like windows: doors made fast 

 as witli packthread, purposely made to tempt men who, througli 

 extreme want, are become weary of a languishing life, and to 

 whose fatal end ill-builders are in a manner accessory." He says 



that the scarcity of thieves vaunted -jf by the Hollanders, German 

 and other northern nations, is to be attributed to the defence they 

 are wont to make againt thieves : he then describes very particu- 

 larly the Hollanders' mode of making outside window-shutters so 

 secure by fitting them very closely to the reveals, and by a careful 

 arrangement of the bolts and hinges, — precautions which, however 

 necessary, certainly do not lead us to entertain any exalted idea of 

 Dutch honesty in the seventeenth century. 



The entrance to a hall, he says, is not so proper in the middle as 

 at the end, or at all events, set as much as possible near the end. 

 He urges, that the principal floor of a building should not be level 

 with the ground; he then introduces "his story of one in authority, 

 who, passing by a town wherein the people generally did not outlive 

 their thirtieth year, caused all the backs of their houses to be 

 made the front; and the windows which were forward to be made 

 up, to free them from that infectious aire that did shorten their 

 lives, which had its eff'ect accordingly, and it is therefore I do so 

 much insist on the point of placing a building where good aire is, 

 and that neither chimnies nor doors may be so (ilaced as to serve 

 for the attraction of infectious aire, which kills more than the 

 sword, or the sea overturnes ships." A truth, which, althougli 

 uttered in 1663, we seem now, in 1849, only just beginning to per- 

 ceive the importance of. The book closes with some desultory 

 remarks of no great importance as to the choice of clerks of 

 works and surveyors, from which I need only quote the following 

 portion: — 



" Let all owners [of houses, he means] be prepared to repent, 

 whether they build or not, for it is like the fate of many who 

 marry, or marry not. Let both the one and the other lay, as in a 

 scale, their several charges, vexations, cares, labours, and plea- 

 sures, they will find this to be true — viz., if they build they must 

 be at great present disbursements, vext with as many oversights, 

 and to be over-reach'd in bargains concerning their materials. If 

 they build 710/, they are subject to the inconvenience of houses 

 built according to the fancies of [other] owners ; and when they 

 shall cast up the summs of money spent in tlie rent, besides many 

 chargeable alterations, they shall finde that they might have built 

 a better and more fit habitation for them and tlieir posterity." 



LAMBERT'S HYDRANT, 



This hydrant, on account of its simplicity and economy, is the 

 best that we have seen ; it has been adopted by Mr. Laxton at the 

 Falmouth Waterworks, under a pressure of ITO feet, with success. 

 It is formed in three parts : A, elbow-pipe to be attached to the 

 main; B, one of Lambert's 2-inch diaphragm cocks, made of cast- 

 iron, with a screw -nozzle to receive the swivel of the hose; and 

 C, a cast-iron box, with cover. The top is fixed flush with the 

 pavement. The cost of the hydrant is, for a 2-inch cock, 22.s\ ; 

 box and cover, 6s; flange, elbow, and bolt, 3s. 6rf. : making in the 

 whole 11. Ms. 6d. 



21* 



