1847.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEEERAND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



61 



starting from the mouths of dragons, which will soon be, if the new archi- 

 tect does not rectify it, planted across the arch of the opening of the chapel ; 

 this piece of wood will serve as support to some twenty bad little statues, 

 which will be disposed like a calvary, such as still exists in certain rural 

 churches, particularly in Britanny. I simply announce these facts : they 

 speak sufficiently for themselves, without their having need of a commen- 

 tary." 



In the choir to the south of the nave some ancient wood-work was pressed 

 into service, of which — 



"Two bassi-relievi were missing; to replace them, they have modelled 

 twice over in papier-macho, a Preaching of St. John Baptist, which is thus 

 found thrice repeated. All the little statues which were destroyed, have 

 been also restored in papier-mach^. This wood-work, of which the execu- 

 tion is admirable, is now found so glued over with oil-paint (giiare varnish ?) 

 that one can no longer appreciate the delicateness of the tool : the figures 

 and the misereres nf the stalls have had the same fate. Some panels of the 

 woodwork offered no subject; they have caused marquetry work to be 

 imitated there by the pencil — every where and always the intention to de- 

 ceive the eye." " They have had the barbarity to use up, to cut, to pare 

 doors, which came from Gaillon, which passed for a chef-d' i£uvre. They 

 have employed the pieces to make a frame for the painting over the principal 

 altar, benches for the choir-boys, and desks for the cantors. " In a sculp- 

 ture of the Nativity in this choir, they forgot, while restoring it, to place 



Our Lord in the cradle." "In this same choir are now found the 



monuments of some abbats of St. Denis ; they are the only ones which the 

 revolution has not destroyed. But before they found here the right of 

 asylum, they have been compelled to suffer rude outrage." — "They afso de- 

 vised the fabrication of a Suger, by means of a grotesque face of pure fancy, 

 taken from a boss of the ancient cloister, a bloated and trivial face, recently 



illuminated with a drunkard's red." " From four or five Apostles of 



the Sainte Chapelle which had been carried to St. Denis, they have drawn 

 out the twelve by moulding them one upon another. Tliese twelve figures, 

 executed in plaister, are placed against the pillars of the winter choir.". . . . 

 " A glazed enclosure guarantees the canons from every current of air, it is a 

 real frame of glass, set in plaister foliage, and papier-mache mouldings. The 

 poor royal church is cruelly expiating its passed magnificence." 



" We have not to talk either of the high altar, nor of the stalls of the 

 great choir, nor of the mosaic pavement of the sanctuary ; they have none 

 of them any archsological pretensions ; let us leave them in peace. The 

 choir is paved in black and white squares, just like the vestibule of a SoKr- 

 geois house, or a dining room. At the extremity of the apse, two marble 

 columns annulated like those of the twelfth century, and crowned with capi- 

 tals of the thirteenth, carry a wooden platform, on which repose, in shrines 

 of gilt bronze, the relics of the three martyrs, and which serves at the same 

 time as canopy to the seat of the first dignitary of the chapter. They have 

 also cut up by slices some precious wood-work of the chapel of Gaillon to 

 compose with it a niche for the armed chair of the primicier, which has re- 

 mained empty since 1S30." 



" Chapels of the Apse. — If we run over the chapels ranged round the apse, 

 we again find there all the faults which abound in those of the nave.". . . . 



"Plaister displays all its magnificence in the whole circuit of the sanctuary." 

 ...... "As the height of luxury they have spread with full hands on the 



borders of the tables of the altars, nasty pieces of glass picked up in the 

 stalls of the Boulevards." " In the chapels of St. Benedict, St. Genevieve, 

 and St. Eugenius, under the tables of the altars, great tombs of stone, which 

 appear to contain bodies of the saints, are each fairly composed of a huge 



block, of which the exterior alone has the form of a sepulchre In the 



chapel of St. John Baptist, a cross of the fifteenth century, a curious monu- 

 ment extracted from the ancient cemetery of the Innocents, is now planted 

 on a balustrade. This cross finds itself exalted on a column channeled in 

 chevrons, in the style of the twelfth century; it is sustained by a bar of 

 iron, without the aid of which it would immediately fall upon the pavement. 

 The Virgin and St. John the Evangelist ordinarily accompany, as is known, 

 the representation of Christ upon the Cross; — they thought of placing here 

 the statues of these two personages. It was not very difficult to procure a 

 St. John ; but there was a want of a suitable Virgin. What was to be done 

 in this penury ? The restoration of St. Denis is fertile in expedients. A very 

 innocent Apostle was condemned to the punishment of decapitation, and on 

 his masculine shoulders they adjusted the head of a woman with tearful 

 eyes. On the facade, they had travestied the Virgin into a man ; they wished 

 to give her her revenge. But unhappily in spite of the feminine head and 

 Teil, we travellers by the old roads recognise the poor Apostle, by the book 

 ■which he carries, and the bareness of his feet. 



"We trust the reader will pardon us such minute details. We have re- 

 served the strongest for the last. They had in their bands the front of a 

 sarcophagus, which may well date from the eighth century. What a windfall 

 for people who have seen Rome, and know a little of their catacombs. The 

 front of the tomb, in spite of its purely funereal inscription, lias becmie the 

 front of an altar. If we complain of it, they answer us that it is seen at 

 Rome in all the basilics. On the marble has been placed a reredos of a new 

 make, with Monogram, Fish, and Dove; one might really fancy one's-self at 

 the end of the grottoes of St. Sebastian. In order to render the illusion 

 more entire, and the parody less imperfect, they conceived the idea of ex- 

 pressing in a lively manner, the defeat of paganism, and this is the way they 



set about it. At the sale of a defunct antiquary, of I do not know what il- 

 lustrious society, they purchased a little marble vase perfectly intact, sculp- 

 tured with an eagle, and decked with an epitaph. This sufficiently impure 

 vase was destined to become a reliquary. A primitive Christian could not 

 have seen without horror upon an altar, the eagle of the persecutor, and the 

 names of the Dii Manes ; two strokes of the chisel therefore dealt justice to 

 these pagan emblems, and on the debris of the eagle, thty traced a cross, 

 which they took care to make as awkward as possible, in order to make it 

 pass for the work of a primitive Christian, fanatic and maledroit. It is thus 

 that at St. Denis they make a joke of the Christianity of the catacombs." 



PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



SOCIETY OF ARTS, LONDON. 

 Jan. 14. — Joseph Payne, Esq., in the Chair. 



The first communication read was " On a new Condensing Rotary Steam 

 Engine." by Messrs. Cordes and Locke. Models and drawings of the 

 iavention were exhibited. 



This is an invention belonging to the numerous class of rotary steam 

 engines, but differs from them in two respects. 1st. That whereas they 

 have extensive rubbing surfaces, which require great accuracy and careful 

 packing, and are attended with much friction and loss of power, the newly 

 invented engine has no packing and scarcely any friction, being merely a 

 wheel or vanes revolving within a case, and receives impact from the steam 

 as it passes from the cylinder to the condenser. 2nd. That whereas the 

 common engine, revolving at high velocities, has to encounter great resist- 

 ance from the air, this wheel revolves in vacuum, by means of a condenser 

 worked by a triple pump, separated from the machinery of the engine. 

 The proof which the patentees ofter of the excellency of the engine, con- 

 sists in the results of certain experiments, made on a large scale, iu pump- 

 ing water, and in direct competition with engines of the common form ; in 

 which experiments, it was made to appear that the same general useful 

 effect was obtained from the new as from the old engine, but with a much 

 simpler and cheaper apparatus. The paper concluded with an account of 

 a large experiment, in which the rotary engine was used as an auxiliary 

 to a common engine, with a gain of one-third more power. 



Mr. CoRDEs gave an interesting account of the working of the engine, 

 and the results of the various experiments that had been made ; after 

 which a lengthened discussion took place, in which Blr. Newton, Mr. 

 Kotch, and other scientific gentlemen and engineers, bore testimony to the 

 ingenuity of the invention. The cost of constructing au engine on Messrs. 

 Cordes and Locke's principle is stated to be from £15 to i,'20 per dynome- 

 tric horse-power, exclusive of boilers, the weight of engine per horse- 

 power not exceeding 4 cwt. 



ROYAL SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF ARTS. 



Dec. 14, 1846.— David Maclagan, M.D., F.R.S.E., President, in the 



Chair. 

 The following communications were made : — 



1. " Oh </ie means of Preventing Accidents to Railway Trains." By J. 

 Stewart Hepbcrn, Esq. Two expedients are proposed — for preventing 

 collisions, and for rendering them less fatal wheu ihey do happen. To 

 prevent collisions, he proposes a break of a much more effectual kind — 

 not rubbing on the tyre of the wheels, but pressing down upon the rail, 

 and at the same time lifting two of the wheels off the rail altogether. 

 This he proposes to be worked from the last carriage in the train, and gra- 

 dually to be taken up by the next break in front, and so on to the locomo- 

 tive. In this way there would be no danger of the carriages iu the after 

 part of the train running into those in front when the breaks are applied.^ 

 To render collisions less fatal, if they should happen, he proposes to have 

 one of the luggage vans, both in front aud iu the rear of the train, fitted up 

 as buffer wagons, with a set of very strong springs at both ends of the 

 wagon, to deaden the stroke, still continuing the usual buHers in all the 

 other carriages. 



2. Description and drawing of an " improved Railway Indicator and 

 Alarum." By Mr. Andrew Carrick. He proposes that a lever be at- 

 tached to the locomotive (with a rule joint to prevent its action on revers- 

 ing the engine), which shall come in contact with a short inclined plane, 

 at a certain distance from each station, when the engine should he slowed. 

 The lever is pushed upwards by tlie incline, and strikes a bell, which gives 

 notice to the engineer, especially in foggy weather, immediately to take 

 the steam off, as he is approaching a station. 



3. Description of an '• It(k to he used in M'riting to the Blind, icith 

 some remarks on n-hetlur the Roman Ali'hab'jt shoidd be used, or one of 

 easier formatiim by the Pen." By Robert Fortis, Esq. The iuk is of a 

 peculiar kind, composed of common ink, acetate of lead, and gum arable, 

 by w^riting with which on common paper, tiie letters, which must be of a 

 tolerably large size, are easily felt and read by the blind. This was proved 

 by his making a blind boy read several sentences which he had not pre- 

 viously done. Mr. Foulis also goes into the question, whether it would 

 not be better, in writing to the blind, to have au arbitrary character of 

 easier formation with the pen than the Roman alphabet. 



