1844.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



387 



vantages of the kind, and had to depend solely upon our own resources. 

 Academies were instituted in France, at whieh every branch waS cheaply 

 taught. Our School of Design has only been in existence the last few years. 

 Still with all these difficulties and drawbacks we have kept on amazingly, 

 and improvements from lime to time have been effected, particularly among 

 the minor branches of the art, which were formerly in a very low and 

 wretched state. 



It is right that the example of those who have erected their temple of fame 

 almost upon the ruins of ours, should cause a spirit of enquiry into the means 

 to be employed in attaining our lost position. It is not for me as an liumble 

 individual to point out .iny project by which this great desideratum is to be 

 accomplished ; but I am certain from the increasing facilities which were and 

 are every year receiving, and the attention that seems devoted to the Fine 

 Arts at the present day, should also be an inducement to draw some import- 

 ant attention to the systems of improving paper-hangings in England. 



Ifwe cast our eyes towards the French as our principal competitors, we 

 find that the methods in practice here are precisely the same as they have in 

 use, that in the mechanical branches we are snperioi', and the colours we em- 

 ploy are far more durable ; that at one time we equalled their productions of 

 the present day ; and the only diflference that exists is our want of proper 

 artists, and of course the want of proper instruction to educate those men for 

 the profession, while they employ, as did our former manufacturers, men 

 who understood the principles of design and the harmony of colouring, and 

 who make it their aim to unite every beauty with taste and cultivated judg- 

 ment. 



We throw all this important branch upon persons who to gain a scanty 

 living, require to unite the two professions of design and dealers in block cut- 

 ting, and it is not to be expected but that those men will throw off" a number 

 of patterns of most inferior quality. They cannot be supposed to pay that 

 attention that is required to produce a good article, nor have they ever had 

 the means to educate themselves sufficiently to enable them to equal work, 

 wliich is the result of careful, indefatigable study and practice. This .shows 

 a great want of encouragement on the part of English manufacturers, that 

 we must hope to see remedied. The designer in England is not deemed the 

 man of talent — the man of genius who is looked up to as possessing great 

 and superior abilities — whose refinement of mind ensures him respect and 

 honour wherever he goes: no! lie on whom the manufacturer depends for 

 his success in trade — he on whom devolves the important task ot creating 

 from his practised mind beautiful forms and elegant combinations, it is a 

 melancholy fact, is paid less for liis labour than the mechanic that is em- 

 ployed to print the pattern after it is prepared to his hand — who has no diffi- 

 culty to overcome— no necessity for thought, nothing but what is the com- 

 mon power of animal strength to exert. 



ON A NEW SYSTEM OF FLOOD-GATES FOR WATER COURSES 

 BY M. THENARD. 

 fWith an Engraving, Plate X1'I.)\ 

 [This paper, whicli was read at the last meeting of the British Association 

 at York, by Mr. Oliver Byrne, was kindly presented to Mr. T. Berming- 

 ham, from Ireland, on his late visit to Paris, Ijy the inventor, M. Thenard 

 who is about publishing a more detailed report of his experience on the 

 various rivers in France upon which he has been engaged ; the models, which 

 are most ingeniously constructed by M. Thenard, are deposited in the School 

 of the Bridges and Highways, and were shown to Mr. Bermingham. It is 

 most higlily creditable to M. Thenard and to his brother Baron Tlienard 

 that they permitted Mr. Bermingham to bring these inventions to this country 

 unencumbered with patent rights. From the enormous sums which he 

 knows have been spent, and are in course of expenditure upon the river 

 Shannon, he is most happy to lay these invaluable inventions before the 

 public, as in his mind they will tend to lessen the expences on works of the 

 same nature in future.] 



Report made to the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry,^ hi/ 

 M. VANViLLiEns, in the name of the Committee of Mechanical Arts, on a 

 System of Flood-gates, for Water-courses, loith !\foveable Jf'iers. Invented by 

 M. Thenard, Principal Engineer of Bridges and Highways ; and crecnted on 

 the river Isle, Department of the Durdogne and the Gironde, for which the 

 Society on the Cth September, 1843, awarded M. Then.ard its Gold Medal. 

 [Throughout the Report aie retained the French technical terms Barrage- 



•mobile (a moveable wier) and Hausse (Hoodgate or sluice.)] 

 Navigation, irrigation and industry require that in almost every situation 



the running waters should be raised up, in the beds that hold them, at 



3.5Society for the Encouragement of National Industry, founded in 1802, recognised as 

 an establisliment of public ulility bv a Koyal ordonnance of 21st April, 1824, 42, Hue du 

 Bac, Paris. 



those times when they are least abundant. In seasons of superabundance 

 it is also of paramount importance, that waters should be promptly and freely 

 permitted to flow on in their natural courses. For small water courses, these 

 conditions have been amply fulfilled by the construction of sluices, flood- 

 gates and wiers, the varied compositions and effects of which are well- 

 known. In the case of great rivers, the problem is more difficult to solve, 

 in consequence of ice and broken pieces of floating bodies being drawn in by 

 the current, they require that all obstacles opposed to the free passage of the 

 waters should be instantly removed ; to this purpose has the ingenuity of 

 man been directed for the purpose of applying them for the uses of naviga- 

 tion, irrigation, &:c. 



M. Thenard, engineer in chief, since 1828, of the canal operations on 

 the river Isle, which stood greatly in need of carrying out the foregoing con- 

 ditions, has been occupied unceasingly in the search of, and experimentingupon 

 the means of arriving at this result. 



He has so far succeeded in combining and executing such dispositions, that 

 he can sustain the waters of the river Isle at 7 feet 4 inches above the level 

 of the bed, procure a convenient draught of water to get boats up during dry 

 weather, maintain them at this level sufficiently long so that tlie free flowing 

 of the river is incapable of drawing them away, and having arrived at this 

 point, restore the waters to their natural course, in order not to expose the 

 vallies to submersions prejudicial to establishments which have for their ob- 

 jects the keeping back of water and navigation. 



The first report addressed to the Administration of Bridges and Highways, 

 on the trials made by M. Thenard, is dated in 1831 ; it announced the good 

 opinion formed of them by the Inspector of the Division. In 1839, so as to 

 verify it, another commission composed of inspectors general and divi- 

 sional of bridges and highways was appointed by the government. M. Thenard, 

 having prefected with skill and success, a happy idea of a provisional flood- 

 gate, suggested to him by the divisional inspector, M. Mesnager, during the 

 inspection of the navigation of the Isle, was enabled to render his system of 

 Barrage more complete and applicable to many other rivers. The commis- 

 sion concluded at one visit, that experiment should be made and executed 

 by the commission assisted by M. Thenard, the inspector of the 

 division, and many engineers from the neighbouring localities. On the 

 ■Ith of July, ISll, the commission concluded their experiments, and reported 

 thereon. 



Up to this time M. Thenard had not had occasion to apply his system, 

 except to fixed existing barrages, and to elevate the water of 2 feet 6 inches 

 or more above the crest. The central government manifested a desire that 

 he should elevate the water from 3 feet to 4 feet. 



Confiding in the certainty ot his system, M. Thenard obtained authority to 

 make a trial, the important results of which are the object of his communi- 

 cation to the society and of the present report, and in which the retained 

 body of water above the lower level was raised to a height of nearly 9 feet. 



The convictions to which these trials and observations have successively 

 led M. Thenard, are as follow. 



The trap doors or sluices that M. Thenard calls hausses, ate attached to 

 hinges on the upper horizontal surface of the stationary portion or apron 

 of the barrage, and in number sufficient to equal Its length, the sluices are 

 in length horizontally about 4 feet, and in height 5 feet 6 inches. On the 

 lower face there appears an iron prop similar to the props which are adapted 

 to certain dressing glasses and reading desks, and which abuts against a 

 stop fixed in the apron in the dock. 



When the hansses are raised and propped up they form a partition or bar- 

 rage, which stops the water and raises it up the river, even to exceed its 

 natural level ; if the hausses are let down, the water flows and resumes once 

 again its natural course. 



To produce this eflect, there is placed, along the entire length of the bar- 

 rage, and above the apron a flat iron bar which runs across the river and 

 along the foot of the props. This bar has at one of its extremities a rack 

 whieli works in a pinion fixed at the bottom of a vertical axis that can be 

 made to turn fromabove by a capstan. This rack is made to move backwards or 

 forwards as many inches as it has /iaH.wes that require manoeuvering. The 

 bar has on its lower edge a tooth or cleet on the side of each prop, and which 

 are subdivided in such'a manner Ih.at by the removal of the bar the foot 

 of each prop, the hinge of which permits a slight circular motion, is succes- 

 sively drawn away from its bed or berth wlien the /(mM.ses are left without 

 support, to turn on their hinges, and lower themselves one by one at pleasure 

 from up the river to its downward fall, on the apron of (he barrage ; the 

 props at the same time stretching themselves down the stream. 



When the overflow of water lias stopped, and that it is required to raise up 

 the hausses, the current is opposed to bringing them hack ag?in from the 

 lower to the upper part of the river. To accomplish it, use is made of a sys- 

 tem of contre hausses of the same length as the hausses, but of a height less 

 by 7 inches, and being capable also of being turned down towards the up 

 stream ; during all the time that the hausses are either raised up or lowered 

 down, the contre hausses remain lying on the apron when a spring latch 

 retains each of them against the action of the current which has a tendency 



