16 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[January, 



once. The best that can be said in excuse for him in that matter, is h 

 so far he practised no deception, for the most ignorant set of men must 

 have been able to see whether a drawing was coloured or not, and if they 

 choose to violate the pledge implied in their own instructions to the com- 

 petitors, the dishonesty rests with them. At any rate they have no cause 

 to upbraid Mr. Bartholomew with having acted unfairly. But there was 

 one little licence of another kind taken by Mr. Bartholomew, by which they 

 were probably imposed upon. I here allude to the singular discrepancy 

 between the geometrical elevations and the perspective view, in which last, 

 several alterations were made, in order to improve the effect. Improvement 

 there was, hut it was also direct falsification. It was tantamount to saying, 

 " execute the building from this set of designs, and such will be its ap- 

 pearance." And if that does not amount to one of the tricks practised in 

 competition, I know not what does. By no means do I pretend to say that 

 Mr. Bartholomew is indebted for the decision in his favour, mainly to that 

 artifice. He would probably have been equally successful, had he taken the 

 liberty of evading the condition which required perspective drawings. I 

 merely mean to say that such artifice was actually practised ; and by whom ? 

 — by no other than the immaculate and conscientious Mr. Bartholomew, 

 the violent and ultra anti-competitionist, who, in another edition of his book — 

 should it ever reach one — may now bring forward some examples of the 

 ruauceuvres practised in the competition for the Kentish Town Church. 



■Without any additions, however, there is enough and more than enough 

 in his book at present, to convict the author of the " Specifications " of the 

 most flagrant inconsistency. Or are we to suppose that he purposely left 

 himself a loophole to creep out of, in the remark, that " what every res- 

 pectable architect who has any real professional business to attend to, thinks 

 of competition, may be gathered from the well-known fact, that none such 

 is found to send in a competition design, unless he possess, or fancy that he 

 possess, direct influence for obtaining the prize!" After this, we are com- 

 pelled to suppose that Mr. Bartholomew would not have entered into the 

 competition in question at all, had he not good reason to imagine before- 

 hand that the prize would be secured to him by influence behind the curtain. 

 It seems, therefore, after all, that violent as he is against competitions in 

 general, he has no objection whatever to enter into one, provided he knows 

 that it is a mere mockery as far as others are concerned, and that however 

 superior may be the merit of other designs, the preference will be awarded 

 to his own ! He has now put beyond all doubt that he had but one in- 

 ducement, and that founded upon what is most corrupt in the whole system 

 of competition ; upon that which really brings it into disgrace, and renders 

 it nothing better than a system of dishonesty and intriguing — where one is to 

 be favoured, and all the rest are to be duped — being invited to throw away their 

 time in making drawings for what is arranged and all but finally settled be- 

 forehand. In the Kentish Town affair, however, there is something to con- 

 sole those who have been duped and disappointed ; for not only is it a con- 

 solation, but even a triumph to find that Mr. Bartholomew's anti-competi- 

 tion rigour has thawed and melted away — probably owing to the late very 

 hot summer ; and that he has to all intents and purposes publicly recanted 

 the furious invectives he has uttered against competition in his book. There- 

 fore, those last now stand for nothing — except as so many proofs of his 

 singular sincerity and consistency. 



I remain, &c., 



Not A. B. but B duped. 



THE INVENTOR OF THE DREDGING MACHINE. 



Sib — I observe, with some surprise, from a review in your Journal of last 

 month, that you still consider the claim of the inventor of dredging by steam 

 power to be amongst the number of those which are not yet satisfactorily 

 established. You refer to a paper in the Civil Engineer and Architect's 

 Journal, for January, 1839, wherein the invention is unreservedly ascribed 

 to my grandfather, John Hughes, and during the four years which have 

 elapsed since the publication of that paper, no syllable has ever been ad- 

 vanced in opposition to this claim — a fact which carries with it peculiar 

 ■weight to the minds of those who, like myself, are fully aware of the very' 

 large circulation which your Journal commands. An individual, however, 

 has at last thought proper to assert— I am willing to believe without the 

 sanction of Messrs. Rennie— that the dredging machine is the invention of 

 the late Mr. Rennie, their father, who first used it at the Hull Docks. In 

 commenting upon this assertion, you observe truly, that a very important 

 fact is not mentioned, namely, the year in which Mr. Rennie first introduced 



it at the Hull Docks. I shall, therefore, supply this omission in order that 

 you, Sir, and the readers of the Journal, may estimate the value of the asser. 

 tion thus rashly hazarded by a self-constituted champion of Mr. Rennie. It 

 will be found that the first steam dredging engine employed at Hull was that 

 used for cleansing out the Humber Dock, which was not opened till the 30th 

 of June, 1809; and the following passage from Mr. Timperley's account of 

 this dock will fix the time at which the engine was first used. 



" This dock was not cleansed for three years and a half after it was 

 opened, the dredging machine and mud boats not being completed until then." 1 

 Hence it appears that the dredging machine could not have been employed 

 at Hull before the end of 1812 or the beginning of 1813. 



While this is the fact with respect to Mr. Rennie's claim, I am in posses- 

 sion of a report by my grandfather, dated in 1820, where he describes 

 minutely every particular of his invention of the engine, and first employ- 

 ment of her at Woolwich, as far back as the year 1804; and not until it 

 can be shown that the engine was invented before this last date will the 

 claim of my ancestor be at all invalidated. I believe that Messrs. Rennie 

 have far too high a respect for honour and truth to dispute for one moment 

 a fact with which their respected father must have been so perfectly well ac- 

 quainted, as that of the invention of the machine, and her first employment 

 by my grandfather at Woolwich, in the year 1804. At the same time, it is 

 possible that a person less intimately acquainted than they must be with the 

 history of an invention of this nature, might be misled by the fact that 

 dredging machines, on the old bag and spoon principle, were employed at 

 Hull 50 or 60 years ago. It is even admitted, that a bucket engine worked 

 by horses, was used at Hull from about the year 1782. This engine was 

 probably the work of Mr. Rennie. That it bore no resemblance however 

 to the modern steam dredging engine is abundantly proved by the fact, that 

 many years after the horse machine was erected at Hull, the application of 

 steam power to the dredging engine was unsuccessfully attempted by Tre- 

 vethick and many other able engineers. Had Mr. Rennie's machine of 

 1782, been anything like the steam dredging engine, the simple application 

 of steam could scarely have baffled the exertions of so great a man as 

 Richard Trevethick, with others of his contemporaries. 



With respect to your observation " that the late Mr. Rennie, together 

 with his talented sons, have brought the machine to that great perfection it 

 has now attained," I would simply remark, that the engine built by Messrs. 

 Donkin for William Hughes of Inverness, and used by him on the Caledo- 

 nian Canal, was the most perfect ever constructed. See accounts of this 

 engine in Baron Dupin's work on the resources of Great Britain, in your 

 Journal for January 1839, and in a paper read before the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers during the last session. 

 I am, Sir, 



Your obedient servant, 



8, Duke Street, Westminster, Samuel Hughes. 



December loth, 1S42. 



AMERICAN MARINE STEAM ENGINES. 



Sir — A late number of your Journal contained some remarks concerning 

 American Marine Steam Engines, which were in a spirit very unlike the 

 usual tone of the English press in descanting upon " Brother Jonathan's " 

 available genius in such matters. Candid, fair, impartial criticism, no 

 matter how close it may chance to " cut," will do much towards removing 

 those mutual prejudices which unhappily exist to such an extent, that the 

 mere imprint of "American" or "English," is oftentimes of itself suffi- 

 cient to place the merits of any work without the pale of respectful con- 

 troversy. 



This should not be ; there is not the least of necessity or of policy in 

 being thus deprived of the benefits of each other's experience ; as advan- 

 tages in some shape or other, most undoubtedly belong to each, and only 

 require to be known in order to be secured. As an illustration, might be 

 adduced the acquaintance already formed through the establishment of your 

 Trans-atlantic Steam Navigation Companies. One or two iustauces will 

 suffice. In the English marine engine we see a connecting rod 15 feet long, 

 and 10j inches diameter, subjected to the same direct stress with the con- 

 necting rod of the American engine, and which is 24 feet long and C inches 

 diameter; two thirds less in area, and one third greater in length, and yet 

 performing equally well the same labour ! By this, we are taught, that 



1 See Mr. Timperley's account of the Harbour and Docks at Kingston- 

 upon-Hull. Transactions of the Institution of Civil Engineers, vol. 1, p. 22. 



