184fi.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



SI 



ACHROMATIC TELESCOPES. 



Sm, — Some time since we liad in your valuable Journal, a detailed 

 account of the means used by Lord Rosse in tlie construction of liis 

 six feet reflector, and the way in which he surmounted every difficully 

 must have afTorcled no sm.ill interest to all wlio follow scientific pur- 

 suits. Difficnlties of a dilTerent kind, and even greater tli m those met 

 with by the uoble lord, have to be contended against in the construc- 

 tion of achromatic refractors of large sizes ; the workshops of our best 

 opticians fail when required to produce lenses of a greater diameter 

 than 7 or 8 inches; we have been out-done at Munich in this respect, 

 I understand that one has lately been completed there by Merz and 

 Ertel of the vast size of 10 inches. 



Now, following up the description already given of the method of 

 constructing reflectors, a paper by some of your competent corre- 

 spondents on the manufacture of refractors could not fail to be of great 

 interest to your readers, and assuredly a journal like yours forms 

 the best channel for the communication of such information. The 

 description might be continued still further, to the telescope itself, by 

 way of making the paper more generally interesting, describing tlie 

 principles both of refractors and reflectors, including the Gregorian, 

 the Cassigranian and Herschel's teleseojies, their comparative and 

 actual magnifying powers, as well as the expected results from an in- 

 crease of si^e. I understand from very good authority that could a 

 refracting object glass be made equal in diameter to lierschel's large 

 telescope, the habitations in the moon would be distinctly brought to 

 view. I know of no work where such information may be sought or 

 satisfactorily obtained, and therefore submit the subject for the con- 

 sideration of yourself or any of your correspondents. 



MlZAR. 



Liverpool, Jan, 22nd, IS 15. 



BROWN'S ORNAMENTAL TILING. 



Sm, — At page 429 of your Journal, for November, is an article en- 

 titled " Brown's Ornamental Tiling," setting forth also his grooved 

 ridge tile, the invention of that ingenious and persevering individual. 

 It then goes on to state that Mr. Kendal was the first architect who 

 introduced them ; almost simultaneously must have been their intro- 

 duction by Mr. Watson, whose name however does not appear at all 

 in the article as connected with the ornamental tiling. Being in Mr. 

 Watson's office in Manchester Street, as I was also in 1840, when he 

 designed and executed the Ornamental Building in St. James's Park 

 for the Ornithological Society of London, also a villa on the banks of 

 the Thames, it occurs to me that it ought to have been named that he 

 there used and designed the ornaments Nos. 4 and 5, not deeming 

 those shown on No. 18 of a sufficiently defined character. He subse- 

 quently designed Nos. 6 and 7 for his own residence, Surbiton Gardens, 

 Kingston, Surrey, built in 1S42. Nos. 8 and 9 show the front, end, 

 and side of an eaves tile altogether new, originating with, and designed 

 by Mr. Watson, which has a peculiarly rich effect in the execution, 

 and which is capable of endless variety. No. 10 is also Mr. Watson's 

 original idea, and designed as a terminal ornament over a gable, which 

 he found so much the want of, the first time he introduced .Mr. Brown's 

 grooved ridge tiles. The plain tiles Nos. 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, and 13, are 

 also in part designed, and in part greatly improved in their propor- 

 tions by Mr. Watson. Thus the thirteen first diagrams emanated 

 from him, the full size drawings being in our office, and I am quite 

 sure you will feel a satisfaction in having the subject correctly stated. 

 It is rather a singular circumstance that from the number of archi- 

 tects practising, Mr. Brown has not introduced any other designs, 

 although the whole of the thirteen have been in general use for a 

 period averaging more than three years. 

 1 am, Sir, 



Your obedient servant, 

 Woodlandi, RoBJiKT IIanulton. 



Norwood, Surrey, 

 Dec. 13, 1844. 



Au-LA-CuAPELLF..— The restoration of the celcbratml church of Nntre 

 Dams, uriKinilly erected by Cliarlemaiine, is proceeding ivilk jreat aclivity. The thirty- 

 two mignilicant culunitis.Bome of uiarble, others of granite, which had been carried oil by 

 the French to Paris, have been entirely repolisbed. and are ready for being put up us before 

 within the central octagon. They came originally from lloma aud Ravenna, and were 

 01 dercd by tbc royal fouua«c to be employtvl for tbii eai&cc, in the year TH, 



ON THE PROPOSED NATIONAL EXPOSITION; 



Or Yearly Exhibihon of Works of Art, MANUfACTUR£, and 



Trade. 



No. II. 



Some fatality attends men of genius in England, above those of any 

 nation on the earth, and simpiv, I believe, for want of such an esta- 

 blishment, both as a nurserv of worth, a storehons.> of merit, and a 

 refuge for the destitute. This may appear a startling sound to per- 

 sons not initiated in the secret memoirs of the brightest minds and 

 best of men ; but, to him who has seen, as I have, the struggling worth 

 of Dodd wanting daily bread, Dnndonald sleeping upon'straw, and 

 Accum withotit fire in a garret in Islington, it will excite no surp'rise ; 

 more especially when it is remembered that, in this kingdom, few' 

 Boards exist which do not merit the- appellation of blocks ; where the 

 abuse of patronage reigns paramount; one where, during thirty years, I 

 have known only one public secretary whose letters were either intell'i- 

 gible on the one hand, or bore on the other any reference to the sub- 

 ject in (juestion, so that, in less than twenty years, no evidence what- 

 ever exists to which any rational being would refer; where, I sav the 

 higher patronage is so grossly abused that qualification is the last 'pos- 

 sible consideration in the appointment made, albeit thousands of lives 

 and millions of money rest on the hazard of the official die ; and where, 

 in addition to all this, the monstrous applications of etiquette so ob- 

 viously defeat every effort of worth, that even a confessed blunder 

 must not be enquired into by any future Board ; although its notoriety 

 becomes published in Gath and proclaimed through the streets of 

 Ascalon by the common experience and consent of all society; and 

 where too, as I have before asserted, no one institution exists em- 

 bracing, in the most distant degree, its views, its powers, or its worth 

 unto man. 



It will be said, perhaps, we have the "Society for the Encourage- 

 ment of Art, Manufactures, and Commerce." Let us see the fact, 



it issues a yearly list of premiums and trinket prizes for subjects oddly 

 chosen and strangely measured; for I remember, some thirty years 

 ago, it offered a gold medal, or one hundred guineas, for refining 

 whale oil, when Dundonald, Dinsdale or Nicholson, then engaged over 

 it, could have commanded five or six thousand guineas easily — but 

 gas was then rising above the horizon of oil — and a hundred more such 

 absurdities; and to obtain these prizes all ideas of patent, profit, or 

 further benefit must be repudiated, so that he, who must live, tells his 

 knowledge to the world, in ninety cases out of the hundred, idlv with 

 valuable things, while silly ones readilij receive the so-called reward, 

 a case of which I remember quite in point— a premium was refused (at 

 the instance of Hume the druggist), for the best permanent white ever 

 yet made for water painting, and a premium given to Blackman for 

 some trash called oil colours in cakes, so permanent that no man ever 

 yet could use them at all, these cakes being real brickbats! 



The late Dr. Charles T.iylor, its then secretary, was my personal 

 friend. I have carefully watched its career, and unhesitatingly and 

 fearlessly I proclaim its total incompetence to produce its founders* 

 wished-for end. 



I have lost, in the current of time, all recollection of the actual pre- 

 mium received, many years ago, by Mr. H. Trengrouse when he com- 

 municated to this society the means of assisting vessels in distress by 

 rockets — it might have been a silver Isis medal — but 1 do know that it 

 lay a dead letter, and certainly no profit to Trengrouse, until Dennett, 

 by way of trade, copied it a quarter of a century afterwards, when 

 Carte, the Ordnance storekeeper, cofiied him in his turn, and society 

 has reaped some long deferred benefits, and ninety-nine educated men 

 in every hundred remain ignorant of the facts to this day. 



Something very similar occured with the non-capsizable and non- 

 swampable life boat — though a common boat sent to sea in the William 

 Darley, Hamburgh steamer, from Kingston-on-Hull, ten years ago, as 

 mentioned in my last pa|ier,and that by an individual who would have 

 smiled inefl'ably to have seen his boat placed, with pour Christopher 

 Wilson's, in the Society's archives, until time permitted some Ship- 

 wreck Society bird to copy it: and, I ask, could such things be with a 

 National Exposition of Works of Art, bearing the real inventor's 

 name. Here, Sir, Mr. Trengrouse's name would have been written in 

 letters of gold, here the laurel wreath given by ancient Rome to all 

 who " served the state" would have been entwined for his brows, here, 

 he had found fortune as well as fame, and that had been rendered unto 

 CcEsar which of right belongid unto Ca;sar; here no Seppiugs could 

 have lined his nest with the moss and feathers appertaining to ^>keene; 

 here the poor starving German of whom Sir William Congreve bought, 

 for a few shillings, the subject of two patent rights, would have re- 

 ceived that protection and reward which no silver roed ds or gi t gin- 

 gerbread could give, in the nature of things, while, with the Society, 

 tlie light v?as bidden bsaeatU a bushel, 



