.844.] 



The civil engineer and architect's journal. 



123 



" Speaking of the river Nairn, Sir T. D. Lauder relates, in a detailed 

 account of this flood that a fragment of sandstone rock, fourteen feet 

 long, three feet wide, and one foot thick, and which could not have 

 weighed less than three tons, was carried down the river a distance 

 of two hinidred yards. 



"A bridge over the Dee having five arches, and a vi'aterway of two 

 hundred and sixty feet, which was built of granite, and had stood un- 

 injured for twenty years, was carried away by the flood, and the whole 

 mass disappeared from the bed of the river. 



" ' The river Don,' says Mr. Farquharson, describing the effects of 

 the same flood, 'has, upon my premises, forced a mass of four or five 

 hundred tons of stones, many of them weighing as much as two or 

 three cwt., up an inclined plane, rising sis feet in eight or ten yards, 

 and left them in a rectangular heap, about three feet deep on flat 

 ground.' 



"The gradual wearing away of solid rocks, by the action of water 

 passing over them, is another cause constantly tending to destroy ex- 

 isting inequalities of the surface, and deposit the materials in beds at 

 the bottom of the sea. In one instance on record, a torrent of hard 

 blue lava, ejected from one of the craters near the summit of Mount 

 Etna, had crossed the channel of the Simeto, the largest of the Sicilian 

 rivers, and had not only occupied the channel, but crossing to the 

 opposite side of the valley, had accumulated there in a rocky mass. 

 The date of this eruption is supposed to be 1603 ; and, at any rate, it 

 is one of the most modern of those of Mount Etna ; but now, after the 

 lapse of little more than two centuries, the river has cut a passage for 

 itself through the lava from fifty to one hundred feet wide, and in 

 some parts from forty to fifty feet deep. 



" But the power of marine currents, and the ceaseless dash of the 

 waves of the ocean, are much more striking in their effects than the 

 quiet action of a river. As instances of this, the condition of the 

 various promontories of chalk, on the south coast of England, and the 

 opposite coast of Normandy, is too well known to require more than a 

 passing allusion ; but on the northern and more exposed shores, both 

 of the main land and the western Islands of Scotland, this power is 

 exhibited on an extremely grand scale. In what is called the Grind 

 of the Navir, in the Shetland Isles, the sea is constantly widening a 

 passage it has cut for itself, through cliff's of the hardest porphyry, 

 tearing down huge fragments of rock, and depositing them at a consi- 

 derable distance. In this way, from time to time, islands have been 

 separated from the main land, and the islands themselves split, as it 

 were, into shreds ; until at last even these bare bones, the skeleton of 

 what was one land, have also been swept away, the last victims to the 

 restless violence of moving water. 



" The ordinary force of marine currents is also, under some circum- 

 stances, very remarkably shown. During the erection of the well- 

 known Bell Rock lighthouse, at the mouth of the Tay, six large blocks 

 of granite, which had been landed on the reef of the Bell Rock at low 

 water, were, on one occasion, removed by the force of the sea as the 

 tide rose, and thrown over a ledge to the distance of twelve or fifteen 

 paces ; an anchor weighing about twenty-two hundred weight being, 

 on the same occasion, thrown upon the rock. 



"Along the whole of the eastern coast of England the waves are 

 ceaselessly occupied in washing away the different projecting head- 

 lands that stretch into the sea. In various places in Yorkshire, Nor- 

 folk, and Suffolk, houses, churches, and even whole villages, are, from 

 time to time, swallowed up, and the advance of the sea is sometimes 

 extremely rapid. At Sheiringham, in Norfolk, a house was built in 

 1805 at the distance of fifty yards from the cliff, which, however, has 

 receded so rapidly, that in the year 1829, after the lapse of less than 

 a quarter of a century, there remained only a very small garden be- 

 tween the house and the sea, as much as seventeen yards of cliff having 

 been swept away in the course of the five last years only. In the 

 harbour of the same port (Sherringham) there is now at one point a 

 depth of twenty feet of water, where, less than fifty years ago, there 

 stood a cliff fifty feet high ; and a little further to the south, where 

 the cliff's are composed of alternating strata of clay, gravel, loam, and 

 sand, large tracts of land are not unfrequently swallowed up by the 

 sea, being undermined by the waves, or by springs of water rising and 

 penetrating between the beds. Many other extensive landslips have 

 occurred, from time to time, on the south coast of England, and also 

 on the western coast, where the county of Cheshire has suffered a loss 

 of many acres of land between the Mersey and the Dee, by the gradual 

 advance of the sea upon the abrupt low cliffs of red clay and sand." 



Illustrations of Baptismal Fonts. London: Van Voorst. Parts 

 II., HI., and IV. 



We were pleased with the first number of this work, but we are 



still more gratified with its progress. Now that ecclesiastical archi- 

 tecture is carried out in its details, that it is considered not enough to 

 design the sIr-U of a church, but it is required that its parts and its 

 fittings should be in some degree appropriate, great convenience 

 will be felt in having accessible manuals for study and reference. Mr. 

 Weale has done much good in publishing so many examples of stained 

 glass, brasses have been taken up by the Camden Society, and fonts 

 by the present publisher. Pulpits, moreover, will be found not un- 

 worthy of notice ; abroad, especially in Holland and in Belgium, many 

 beautiful specimens of carved pulpits exist, which may be advan- 

 tageously studied here. Indeed a record of the many admirable spe- 

 cimens of carving in wood and in metal would be highly valuable, as 

 for instance, Grinling Gibbons' works, which, we believe, have never 

 yet been published, though recognized on all hands as masterpieces 

 of art. In London, especially, we have many admirable specimens of 

 this artist, which, with the growing taste for ornament, might be ad- 

 vantageously studied. 



Of course in a work on baptismal fonts, the delineations are the 

 grand thing, description amounts but to little, and we are consequently 

 restricted in our notice of the work. We can but describe its general 

 character, which seems to be that of careful and accurate delineation, 

 at the same time that a highly artistical effect is produced, and the 

 result is a work valuable for reference, and ornamental in the library. 

 We are glad to see that it is in contemplation to give a classed index 

 at the end of the work, so that the several specimens of Norman, 

 Early English, and Decorated may be bound together, and more con- 

 veniently referred to. The publisher has also very prudently given a 

 list of those gentlemen who have communicated drawings, which is 

 very long, and we regret to see includes the names of only four archi- 

 tects. The metropolis has only contributed one architect, and we 

 think this, to some extent, a reflection on the profession, for it is to be 

 supposed that in the course of their studies they must necessarily have 

 examined the many admirable works of antiquity in their several 

 neighbourhoods, and have formed drawings of them. This argues but 

 little for the love of art, and zeal for diff'using knowledge, existing 

 among the great body of architects. The amateurs far out-number the 

 architects, and the clergy are upwards of thirty in number, showing a 

 laudable zeal for the promotion of art, and for the honour of the edi- 

 fices in which they respectively officiate. In fact, the number of ladies 

 who have contributed drawings seems to be about as large as that 

 of architects, while the drawings communicated by the ladies are 

 much more numerous. This is not creditable to the architects, and 

 we hope it will be remedied. Indeed if any charge can be rightly laid 

 to the door of the architects we fear it is that of a want of public 

 spirit. They are never forthcoming on any great occasion, they give 

 nothing to the public they can avoid, and publish little of any value. 

 The greatest jealousy exists as to communicating accounts of their 

 works and designs, and notorious examples frequently occur of public 

 servants setting the public voice at defiance, and refusing to submit 

 their designs for important edifices to open and candid scrutiny. The 

 publishers complain that the architects, though a richer body, do not 

 sabscribe adequately to professional works, but that they are beaten 

 hollow by the engineers, in the proportion of three to one. It is also 

 to be observed that at the Royal Institute of British Architects the 

 greatest deficiency of original papers is evident, and the managers 

 are obliged to get up papers on antiquities, and on books pub- 

 lished bv other people. The most valuable papers in their "Tran- 

 sactions" are by Professor Willis, and other laymen. Yet, under 

 such circumstances, a morbid jealousy of the acquirements and inter- 

 ference of amateurs, and of the criticism of the press, exists on the 

 part of many members of the architectural profession, when it is evi- 

 dent that there are small grounds for the assumption of professional 

 su|)eriority, and that it is of the greatest importance that the public 

 voice should be brought to bear as an excitement to exertion. It may, 

 too, be safely pronounced that the majority of works treating of archi- 

 tectural antiquities have emanated from laymen. In what other pro- 

 fession can such a state of aff'airs be found ? Surely not in engineer- 

 ing, in medicine, at the bar, but all going unequivocally to prove a 

 want of disposition on the part of architects to comply with their 

 responsibilities as members of a noble and enlightened profession. We 

 say this with no desire of offence, but because we feel the facts strongly, 

 and are desirous of seeing a remedy applied to such a state of aff'airs 

 by the vigorous exertions of the profession. The architectural pro- 

 fession is in a serious position, the public voice has virtually pro- 

 claimed it inefficient in the performance of its public duties, and has 

 required a greater originality of design, and a more intellectual treat- 

 ment of details. A spirit is abroad among the clergy, and among the 

 educated and intelligent of the community, which exacts much more 

 intellectual labour than architects have been accustomed to aff'ord, and 

 it becomes them to comply with the reasonable demands of the public 



