1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



101 



+_M_ but tlle strain of any we j„i lt at the point P, as is 

 MP X MP' 

 proved in all works on mechanics, is expressed by the product of this 



, , , . MP X M'P 

 weight, and the fraction Mp + M -p ' 



and consequently in this case 



by W X MN ; that is the momentum of the external weight, a con- 

 stant quantity, but since the strength of the beam at any point is pro- 

 portional to the breadth multiplied by the square of the depth, the 

 breadth being the same, it ensues that the beam should be rectangular. 

 If the weight of the beam was taken iuto consideration, it would appear 

 that the depth of the beam should slightly increase from the centre to 

 the supports ; and it is because this weight acts with greater effect at 

 the centre that, in the experiments alluded to above, the beam broke 

 near the supports. In practice, therefore, the beam should be made 

 rectangular, unless its weight be considerable, in which case its depth 

 should slightly increase from the centre to the supports, according to 

 a law easily deduced by introducing the action of its weight at any 

 point in the above equations. 



The strain at any point between the supports is W. MN, and at any 

 oint outside the supports, W multiplied by the distance of the point 

 pom the extremity. The strain is therefore less externally than 

 f r ternally. 



You would greatly oblige me by inserting this letter in your next 

 number. 



I remain, Sir, 



Your obedient, 



T. F N. 



PROCEEDINGS OP SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. 



Annual Meeting, Jan. 17, 1843. 



Annual Report. 



This report contains a reference to the proceedings and principal papers 

 read before the Institution last session, and which have been reported in the 

 Journal of last year ; likewise the receipts and expenditure of the past year, 

 and the following obituary : — 



We have to regret the decease of the Right Honourable Lord Congleton, 

 Mr. Samuel Seaward, Mr. Benjamin Hick, Mr. Charles Collinge, Mr. \V. D. 

 Anderson, Mr. John Smeaton, and Captain Foster, Bombay Engineers. 



Lord Congleton. — Sir Henry Parnell was born in the year 1776. After 

 the usual routine of university education he entered early upon a parlia- 

 mentary career as member for Queen's County, and became distinguished for 

 his steady industry and application to business ; his speeches abounded with 

 facts and calculations, and in many political as well as financial questions he 

 took a prominent part. In 1828 he was appointed chairman of the Finance 

 Committee ; subsequently he became Secretary-at-War and a member of the 

 Privy Council; in 1835 he succeeded Lord Lowther in the office of Treasurer 

 of the Navy, with which were consolidated the duties of Paymaster-General 

 of the Forces and Treasurer of the Ordnance, which combined otfice he held 

 until his elevation to the peerage in 1841 as Lord Congleton of Congleton, in 

 Cheshire. These public duties did not prevent him from filling numerous 

 private offices, among which must be principally noticed that of chairman of 

 the Commissioners of the Holyhead Road. This post naturally created an 

 intimacy between him and our first president (Mr. Telford), which was only 

 interrupted by the death of the latter. The active mind of Lord Congleton 

 being thus directed to engineering pursuits, he cultivated the society of other 

 civil engineers, and became an honorary member of this Institution in 1833 ; 

 his Treatise on the Construction of Roads, and his plan (adopted by the 

 Post-office) for improving the construction of mad coaches, show that his 

 acquirements in the practical details of professional subjects were not super- 

 ficial. He published also several works on finance, banking, aud the cur- 

 rency, besides pamphlets on Catholic Emancipation and other political 

 subjects. The decease of his Lordship took place in the sixty-sixth year of 

 his age, respected as a public character for his attainments, his general con- 

 sistency, and his great industry, and regretted by a large circle of private 

 friends. 



Mr. Samuel Seaward, F. R. S., Sue., was born at Lambeth in the year 

 1800, and at the age of fourteen years he entered the service of the East 

 India Company as a midshipman : after his second voyage to Bombay aud 

 China he relinquished a naval career, and was placed by his brother as an 

 apprentice with the late Mr. Henry Maudslay, in whose establishment he 

 had the best opportunities of acquiring a practical knowledge of mechanics 

 and engineering ; of these opportunities he carefully availed himself, and 

 always cherished a grateful recollection of his instructor. After passing 

 about five years with Mr. Maudslay, he entered the service of Messrs. Taylor 

 and Martineau, whence he proceeded to Cornwall, aud assisted, under the di- 



rection of Mr. Arthur Woolf, in the erection of several large pumping engines ; 

 he then underto iti ndence of part of the works of Mr. Harvey, 



at the Hayle Foundry, where he had the advantage of the instructions of 

 Mr. Richard Trevithiek. In the year 1825 he returned from Cornwall and 

 joined his brother, Mr. John Seaward, in the Canal Iron-works, Limehouse, 

 as manufacturers of marine and other steam engines, as well as of general 

 machinery. The attention devoted by Mr. Seaward to the construction of 

 marine engines particularly, and the successful adaptation of the " direct 

 action" engines 1 (which were, it is believed, first introduced by Mr. Gutzmer, 

 of Leith, on board the Tourist steamer), are well known in the profession. 

 His ingenuity and mechanical talents are manifested in all the works under- 

 taken by the firm to which he belonged, and by several scientific pamphlets 

 which he published. He joined the Institution in the year 1828, aud became 

 subsequently an active and useful member of council, and our Transactions 

 are indebted to him for a memoir "On the application cf Auxiliary Steam 

 Power to sailing vessels on long Voyages." Snatched from among us at 

 the early age of forty-two years, the profession has lost an intelligent and 

 zealous member, and his private friends a worthy and estimable man. 



Mr. Benjamin Hick was born at Leeds in the year 1790, and was 

 brought up as a practical engineer in the establishment of Messrs. Fenion 

 and Murray, by whom at an early age he was intrusted with the superin- 

 tendence and erection of several large engines, &c, and he was eventually 

 offered a partnership in their works; this he declined, and in 1810 engaged 

 with Mr. Rothwell in the Union Foundry at Bolton, of which he was the 

 managing partner; and in 1833 he established the Soho Foundry, now 

 carried on by his sons in that town. His attention was directed to almost 

 all branches of mechanics, and the ingenuity displayed in his inventions and 

 improvements is generally acknowledged : some of his improvements have 

 become public property without being claimed by him, or its being known 

 from what source they emanated. He became a member of the Institution 

 in the year 1824, and although the distance of his residence precluded his 

 frequent attendance at the meetings, he was a liberal contributor to the col- 

 lection of models, &c. His good taste, his integrity of character, the en- 

 couragement which he extended to talent of all kinds, and the assistance 

 given by him to all public improvements, obtained for him considerable in- 

 fluence in the town of Bolton, where his loss will be much felt. 



Mr Charles Collingr. was born in the year 1792, and being engaged 

 from an early age in mechanical pursuits, he eagerly embraced the proposi- 

 tion of your vice-president, Mr. Henry Robinson Palmer, to unite with him 

 and a few more young men 2 in forming a society for mutual improvement, 

 by discussing scientific subjects ; from this commencement, in the year 1818, 

 has arisen the Institution of Civil Engineers, which now numbers five hun- 

 dred and twenty-five members of all classes. Mr. Collinge continued, through 

 all the stages of its progress, an useful aud active member; he took his share 

 of the duties as a member of councU, and filled the other offices of the Insti- 

 tution with readiness, aud his attendance at the meetings was very constant. 



Mr. \Y. D. Anderson was a pupil of our first president, Mr. Telford, after 

 wbose decease he travelled in Italy, whence he sent to the Institution a 

 series of drawings of the Ponte Santa Trinita at Florence. On his return he 

 was engaged under Mr. W. Anderson (his father), the engineer of the Grand 

 Junction Water-works, on several surveys and other works. He then gave 

 plans for, and was appointed engineer to, the Exeter Water-works, which 

 situation he resigned in 1837, in order to become engineer to the corporation 

 of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he constructed some important works. Ill 

 health obliged him to resign this latter appointment in the year 1841, and 

 lus decease took place during the last summer. 



Mr. John Smeaton and Captain R. Foster, Bombay Engineers, had 

 only been elected during the past session, and owing to the sudden decease 

 of the former, and the shattered health of the latter, consequent on a length- 

 ened residence in the East Indies, they had scarcely ever been able to attend 

 the meetings of the Institution. 



address of the president. 



Before I resign this chair I have to perform the pleasing duty of thanking 

 you for your attention to the Institution, which has enabled your Council to 

 present to you the satisfactorv Report that has just been read, and has ren- 

 dered the discharge of my duty so agreeable. I take advantage of the op- 

 portunity thus afforded me, to refer to some points which may not be 

 considered strictlv within the scope of the Report of the Council. 



Honorary Members.— The Report has informed you of a considerable 

 addition to the list of Honorary Members, by the electiou of several distin- 

 guished individuals.— The following is a list of the Honorary Members re- 

 ferred to :— Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington ; the Duke of Buccleuch 

 and Queeusberrv; the Marquis of Northampton, President of the Royal 

 Society : the Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst ; Lord Brougham and Vaux ; Sir 

 Robert Peel, Bart., First Lord of the Treasury; Charles Shaw Lefevre, 

 Speaker of the House of Commons ; Professor Airy ; the Rev. Dr. Buckland ; 

 and the Rev. Dr. Robinson, of Armagh. These have been elected, not on 

 accouut of their rank alone, but because with rank, they hold, or have held, 

 high stations, or have been placed in situations in which they have shown 



1 The engines of the Gorgon, the first of a numerous class of Government 

 steamers fitted with that kind of engine, were built at the Canal Iron-works. 



2 Messrs. H. R. Palmer, J, Field, W. Maudslay, J. Jones, C. Collinge, and 

 J. Ashwcll. 



