130 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



WESTMINSTER BRIDGE CONTROVERSY. 



Mb. Babhv has brought forward a new design for a Westminster Bridge. 

 The stnirinre proposed is to be of iron, and of five arches, tlie old bridge 

 having thirteen arches. The design is made to harmonise in style with the 

 Palace of Westminster, and has a very light appearance. Mr. Barry proposes 

 to improve the navigation, to give greater waterway, and greater roadway, 

 while the expense is estimated at ^185, 000, and it is supposed the cost of 

 repairing the old bridge will be double the sum, and the property of the 

 Bridge Commissioners is considered to be ample for securing the outlay, 

 thus making no demand on the public purse. The span of the proposed 

 arches is, centre arch 160ft., two second arches 157ft. each, and two end 

 arches 133 ft. each. The roadway is much lower and much broader. The 

 breadth of the river will be considerably curtailed by the embankment, a 

 space equal to two arches of the old bridge being taken in at each end. The 

 plan of a temporary timber bridge to carry the traffic during the removal of 

 the old bridge and erection of the new is shown. 



MARINE BOILERS. 



Sir — As a subscriber and careful reader of your highly respectable 

 and well conducted Journal from its coinmencemenl, I have, in con- 

 junction with many others, derived much pleasure and considerable 

 advantage from the manner in which many subjects of science and 

 art have been treated ; but nothing has pleased me more than tlie 

 plan you have adopted in the number for this present month, (viz., 

 page 90 and plate III,) of giving working drawings and particulars 

 of marine engines and boilers, and I sincerely trust nothing will inter- 

 vene to hinder your carrying out a plan so important to every one 

 connected with practical mechanics and commerce. 



The specimen of boiler you have given is certainly a good one 

 and will, I have no doubt, if generally adopted, be found very su- 

 perior to those of ordinary construction ; but with all due deference 

 to your judgment and sources of information, there are several bad 

 parts, or rather some that might, in my estimation, be improved. In 

 the first place, I do not approve of the straight sides wliicli you have 

 adopted, because they are in practice found to be very weak, and 

 hence must be heavily stayed, to prevent the change of form and 

 liability to leakage from the fluctuation of pressure to which they 

 are subjected. To remedy this defect I would make the shell slightly 

 curved in all directions, which could be made to occupy a mere frac- 

 tion of more space, and would, from their improved or arched form, 

 prevent that vibration that I complain of. The next point I would 

 call your attention to, is the uptake from the furnace at the back end 

 of the boilers, where the water is permitted to go direct up between 

 the outer and uptake shells without any external lire doors, and in the 

 event of bursting one or more of the iron tubes, which is often the 

 case, (at least in railway locomotives, the tubes being only soldered, 

 except for a short distance behind their insertion plate, where they 

 are welded,) how could you stop the leak at the back end without 

 extinguishing your fires? Now had you introduced a fire or tube 

 door at the back end, same as front, you could with ease plug the 

 burst tube or tubes up at once, and hence the only difference in the 

 working of the boilers would be the loss of the heating surface of 

 the said tube or tubes. There are other minor points that might, in 

 my estimation, be improved, such as the curving the furnace tops and 

 bottoms, &c. ; but I must not trespass further upon your notice, as 

 all these, and perhaps more, will readily occur tu the practical niiui : 

 yet however valueless these remarks may be in themselves, if every 

 one who was capable of correcting the mistakes that occur in me- 

 chanical works would condescend to do so, they would lead to that 

 interchange of thought which by rubbing against each other produces 

 the sparks of excellence. 



I am. Sir, 

 Vour most obedient servant, 



J. H. S. C. 

 Nemcastle-on-Tyne, March \lth, 1844. 



[Our correspondent is evidently a locomotive engineer, accustomed 

 to steam of very high-pressures, and consequently spherical and 

 cylindrical boilers. It is not intended that steam of a higher density 

 than 101b. per square inch should be used in the boilers delineated 

 in our last number, which pressure would not affect their form if they 

 were stayed in any tolerably efficient way, and which would not be so 

 heavy as the additional plate, water and space, which would be ne- 

 cessary if shaped in accordance with the suggestions of J. H. S. C. 

 The '•fraction of additional space," required by curvilinear shelled 

 boilers, is not so small as bethinks; we could illustrate this, but it 



would be too lengthy for a note. We do not understand what he 

 means by the " vibration " of rectangular boilers. Doors in the back 

 uptake, for the removal of defective tubes would not be safe for 

 marine boilers, the heat would be so intense as to seriously affect the 

 safety of the vessel, and the most effective surface would be decreased. 

 Nor do we see the necessity of it, for we are not acquainted with the 

 failure of a single tube in any marine boilers of this description. 

 The tops of the furnaces are made elliptical, the bottoms nearly 

 square, to admit as large a portion of atmospheric air to the grates 

 as possible, for it is not always convenient to raise the gates to get 

 the required area. In courtesy we answer the questions put to us, 

 although the remarks of our correspondent will sound strange in the 

 ears of marine engineers. — Editor.] 



VULCANIAN ARCHITECTURE. 



(From the Athenaum ) 



A paper on the restoration of St. Stephen's Spire, Vienna, read at the 

 Institution of British Architects, (see the Journal for January last), has 

 even a more than architectural interest ; it serves to illustrate the progress of 

 human knowledge, and to show how compatible is a vast deal of movement 

 with very little advancement. There may be progressions in various pro- 

 vinces, but retrogressions in perhaps as many others; and the sura of the 

 former, minus the amount of the latter, would exhibit zero for the surplus 

 oftcner than most people imagine. Human knowledge, if thus considered, 

 will appear to expand somewhat like a gridiron pendulum, whose alternate 

 bars contract while their companions lengthen, so that the whole remains, a 

 prodigious time, of the selfsame dimensions. Human intellect, again, if it 

 does march, marches at about the pace of my Uncle Toby, putting one loot 

 before the other without advancing an inch. Contrary to Swift's maxim, 

 we hold that a specimen brick mni/, by times, tell no little of the structure 

 from which it was taken ; and we think the one above, taken from the Temple 

 of Architecture, tells a lamentable tale respecting its present condition. It 

 reveals rather more than a Babylonian tile does of Bolus's Toiver, and in far 

 less cryptic characters. The imperial architects, it would appear, have raised 

 St. Stephen's dilapidated spire to its ancient stupendous height, not by means 

 ofj lawful masons' work, but blacksmiths' — they have rtstored the pyra- 

 midal part (above one-third of the whole altitude) not with stone, but iron I 

 Exquisite and appropriate finish—just as Samoyeds might tip the imperial 

 sceptre, if they got hold of it, with a fish bone ! Barbarians— so our super- 

 civilized contemporaries call them— built up that epitome of the sublime 

 and beautiful — to which Cleopatra's Needle was a needle — than whose top- 

 most stone no loftier above earth's surface did mortal hand ever lay (except 

 what said barbarians posited also) ; yet modern "progressives," either through 

 want of genius, pure artistic taste, masonic pov('er, or — the fatalest amonp; all 

 defalcations — want of inspiring will, tremble at a like attempt, and instead of 

 a [iroper apex, put upon the stone frustrum of the tower an enormous iron 

 fool's cap — fit'emblem of their deserts who ordained it ! This forging a steeple 

 implies, we allow, some progress in the arts, but a retrogression too, far 

 greater, because in a nobler province. The sun of mental enlightenment, we 

 suspect, about which flatterers of themselves along with their age, hold such 

 stentorian discourses, gets almost as many new spots, year by year, as it 

 gets rid of: it shone, perhaps, throughout the " Dark Ages " pretty much as 

 it does at present, save that our metaphorical Dan Sol " tricks his beams " a 

 little better. Spirits of the Old Free Masons, hear this— a foundry for 

 Gothic Architecture ! Spires to be cast like lamp-posts : pinnacles, canopies, 

 crockets, finials^all the delicate and decorative details of your exquisite 

 style to be made per pattern, and moulded per gross, like cheap stoves, irons, 

 fenders, snuffer-dishes, inkstands, metal buttons, and brads! Ready made 

 cathedrals will no doubt soon be ordered from the mine's mouth for European 

 cities, like palaces for Timbuctoo! Vulcan, the god of blacksmiths, will 

 become the god of architects : England, above all other lands, bids fair to 

 make his anvil her chief altar, and, as the Lipari Isle of yore, to resound his 

 name and his hammer throughout her subterranean dominions — 



Vulcani domus, et Vulcania Domine tellus. 

 Hue tunc IgDipoteos cxio descendet ab altol 



We do not, by these remarks, mean any impeachment against the merits 

 of iron applied to common domestic, or even public structures, nor, indeed, 

 to divers tincommon, where the more heterogeneous the materials the more 

 suitable they would be: but we would denounce with the force of an inter- 

 dict, if possible, the adoption of this illegitimate substance in superior edi- 

 fices, as radically subversive of true architecture — professionally and nation- 

 ally disgraceful. Let us, therefore, enter our humble caveat against [the 

 Vulcanian School being commended for imitation among our countrymen. 

 Some connoisseurs might deem an iron or a leaden, or a wooden, yea, a lea- 



