IS+Q.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



273 



Bourne is founded, as to the capabilities of the Indian rivers; and 

 they will be perused with interest, as showing the labour he has 

 taken in the investigation of his subject. A postscript likewise 

 proposes an English colony in Cashmere; an undertaking which 

 will not be carried out by the government — but why not ? 



Mr. Bourne's plan is thus stated : — 



" Since my return to England I have proceeded to mature the conception 

 which suggested itself to me upon the spot ; ami I find, that whereas the most 

 suitable of the present Ganges boats carry only a cargo of about 60 tons 

 upon a draft of about 3 feet of water, and realise a speed of only 6 or 7 

 miles an hour, while they are unable to surmount or get off banks in the 

 river by any prompt or effectual process, it is practicable to construct a ves- 

 sel under other arrangements which shall carry 230 tons of cargo upon 12 

 inches draft of water, with a speed of 15 miles an hour, and which at 

 the same time shall be capable of running over the shoals on appropriate 

 wheels provided for that purpose. Messrs. Boulton and Watt's letter, offer- 

 ing to construct a vessel upon this plan which shall realise all my anticipa- 

 tions, is appended hereto." 



Upon this we may observe, that Mr. Bourne has not explained 

 his boats and engines; and we have nothing on which to judge of 

 their capabilities, but his simple assertion and the letter of Messrs. 

 Boulton and Watt, which does not enable us to form an opinion: 

 but this does not affect the gist of the pamphlet, which is the 

 practicability of steam navigation on the Indian rivers, — about 

 which there can be no doubt. 



As to the company for working the plan, in case the government 

 does not take it up — which it is to be hoped they will not, as they 

 will spoil it — Mr. Bourne says, — 



" There would not be much difiiculty, I imagine, in the successful institution 

 of an efficient Company for carrying forward inland Steam Navigation in 

 India, provided the government granted it a charter for the exclusive use of 

 the improved vessels in India for a specified term, and agreed to surrender 

 to it, at a valuation, the government steamers upon the Ganges, with the 

 business attaching thereto." 



We consider this claiming rather too much, for we cannot con- 

 ceive what specific right Mr. Bourne's company could have to get 

 the business of the government steamers. There are two compa- 

 nies on the Ganges, which have done much good, and who would 

 have the natural title to a pre-emption of the government busi- 

 ness. Mr. Bourne has omitted, too, that these companies have 

 called on the government to give up all interference in the com- 

 merce of the Ganges, as it virtually promised to do on the intro- 

 duction of steam navigation on that river. Nothing could be more 

 unfair than to perpetuate the government competition, which 

 would be the effect of Mr. Bourne's proposition. Indeed, from 

 the way in which he has mentioned it, and from the general tenour 

 of the pamphlet, which, although it alludes to, does not describe 

 the steamboat enterprise of the Ganges, the English public might 

 think there was no commercial steam navigation on the Ganges, 

 and that a new company can start without rivalry. A little care 

 in the future editions will set this matter straight. 



Illustrations of the New Palace of Westminster. First Series, 4to. 

 Loudon: Warrington and Son. 1819. 



After some stoppage, this work is now brought to a close at its 

 Sixth Part, and as much of it as has appeared may be bound up as 

 the First Series, — which '■first" is almost of assured certainty the 

 "last" also, there being barely enough to form a volume, and very 

 little indeed of Mr. Barry's edifice has as yet been illustrated. 

 That the work has failed as a speculation there can be no doubt, 

 for, contrary to what was reasonably enough to he expected, it 

 has excited no interest. Its ill-success may be attributed partly 

 to its not being placed in the hands of a regular publisher, and 

 partly to injudicious management as regards the work itself, which 

 seems to have been undertaken without any sort of foresight or 

 forethought. System in it there is none whatever, nor is so much 

 as any one portion of the building shown so as to he suflSciently 

 intelligible; while, owing to a singularly perverse choice of sub- 

 jects, very much less is shown than might have been in the same 

 number of plates, for no fewer than five out of the seventeen, or 

 nearly one-third of them, are devoted to one and the same subject 

 — namely, the Victoria Porch, of which we have, first, an external 

 elevation on its west side, then an interior view, which lets us see 

 little more than a repetition of what was previously seen through 

 the open arch of the exterior; then, again, a second interior of 

 the north side of the porch, which is very little more than a repe- 

 tition of the other, they being perfectly alike as to general com- 

 position and design, and without other difference than what arises 



from the carriage entrance into the Royal Court in the one, and 

 the door forming the Royal Entrance in the other. At all events, 

 by taking the view in a somewhat diagonal direction, both sides 

 might have been shown in the same plate just as well, or even 

 better, inasmuch as the combination would have been more picto- 

 rial. Besides having two plates where one would have sufficed, 

 there are two others inflicted upon the purchasers that might very 

 well have been spared, for although they reckon as subjects, they 

 are in a manner merely duplicate ones, since they represent no 

 more than some of the figures in the niches over the afore-men- 

 tioned entrances, — therefore afford no further information with 

 regard to the structure itself, as might have been done by giving 

 two plates of architectural details of the Royal Porch. Had those 

 figures any particular merit, there would have been something like 

 reason for occupying two plates by exhibiting them separately; 

 but either they are greatly libelled by incorrect drawing and very 

 insipid engraving, or they are in themselves exceedingly so-so 

 performances, — such, perhaps, ;'.s may pass well enough as mere 

 architectural embellishment and fiUing-up, hut utterly unworthy 

 as works of art. Poor St. George seems to have been modelled 

 from a coalheaver, dressed-up for the occasion, and who felt him- 

 self particularly awkward in his unwonted toggery. 



Great promise-makers are generally great promise-breakers ; 

 and such is the case here, for performance has fallen very far 

 short indeed of what was at first promised. The Introduction 

 said — and what is an awkward circumstance, still says — "It is pro- 

 posed not only to give copious illustrations and embellishments, 

 but to omit no descripticm, historical or architectural, which may 

 be interesting or useful." Nevertheless, in flat contradiction to 

 such declaration, illustration is so far from being copious, as to be, 

 on the contrary, exceedingly scanty and defective. First, as re- 

 gards the plan of the edifice, no information whatever is afforded 

 — not even so much as by verbal description — relative to any other 

 floor than the principal one; whereas, in a work professing to ex- 

 plain fully (or copiously) so very complicated a structure, there 

 ought most assuredly to have been a plan of each floor; and not 

 only that, but also one or two special detailed ])lans, on a larger 

 scale, of some of the more important parts of the principal floor 

 itself, — such, for instance, as the Peers' Lobby and the House of 

 Peers, and its side corridors, — of the Royal Entrance, Staircase, 

 and Gallery, — and so on. 



In the next place, notwithstanding the promise of "copious il- 

 lustration," there is not a single section through any part of the 

 building, although a dozen drawings of the kind would have been 

 barely sufficient. Shall we then say that they have been omitted as 

 coming under the category of neither "useful" nor "interesting"? 

 — or are they reserved as delicacies that are kept back for tlie next 

 course or Series — what we have already got being intended merely 

 as a sort of "stay-stomach" and whet to our appetites? A sfay- 

 stomach it ought to be, for we shall have to stay a good while 

 before the next Series is served up. 



The old proverb about the devil and cooks holds good here, and 

 is here fully exemplified, for the meat furnished by Mi'. Barry — 

 that is, the New Palace of Westminster — has been awfully badly 

 cooked, and served-up very slovenly; no doubt to his great morti- 

 fication, unless he be gifted with more philosophy than we our- 

 selves could exercise in a similar case. A publication of tho 

 kind, it may very naturally be presumed, is not intended exclu- 

 sively for home consumption; yet what must foreign architects 

 think of Mr. Barry's edifice as it is here shown? It must surely 

 strike them that it shows very little in proportion to its enormous 

 cost. The publishers seem to have set about the work very in- 

 considerately — without the least sort of properly-devised scheme 

 for it. ^Vhether it was to be divided into separate series or not, 

 and whether the Illustrations were to he copious or otherwise, 

 methodical arrangement and sequence ought to have been observed 

 for them. The edifice should first have been described structurally 

 by plans, elevations, and sections, so as to convey, if not exactly a 

 complete, a tolerably clear conception of it as a whole; then, moi e 

 in detail, by drawings of some of the principal features, and ar- 

 chitectural and sculptural ornaments on a larger scale. Sucli 

 indispensable technical illustration being gone through, that might 

 properly enough have been made to form a distinct series; leaving 

 pictorial illustration, or perspective views of different parts of tho 

 exterior and interior, for another series : or even did no such se- 

 cond one ever appear, what had been given would still have been 

 complete and satisfactory in itself. Now, on the contrary, even 

 supposing it should be carried on any further, the %vork will always 

 be a confused jumble of subjects. One reason for our fancying that 

 it is stopped altogether is, that had not such been the case, the 

 publishers would have cautioned their subscribers not to bind up 



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