1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



3So 



on tlic nature of Uic latitude under which they are disposed. As in the Red 

 Sea, in the absence of rain, we find them for ever desolate ; so in the Pacific 

 and Southern oceans, wdiere the rains are frequent, the surface soil of the 

 islands soon acquires aptitude and power to produce vegetables, and to sus- 

 tain animal life, the acrid salts and other organical compounds being washed 

 into the waters or into the bowels of the earth, where they have united with 

 the free alkalies : thus the island no sooner tops the wave, than the cocoa 

 nut and other tropical plants cover its surface. In and throughout the 

 whole, the coral formations originate from similar causes in action, the lower 

 depths of the ocean fill up with sands, fuci, and naked polyps, upon this 

 basis the calcareous polyp builds, assisted in its labours by numerous species 

 of mollnsca, and furnished with material by the myriads of creatures living 

 and in death decomposing in the medium in which they are placed. Upon 

 the ruins of preceding existencics conchifera and mollusca dispose themselves 

 in groups and families, or are heterogenously united with the general body, 

 adding during the whole period of their existence and by their death to the 

 soil, and similating to the general body their elementary constituents, con- 

 tributing to form the one great whole, or general sum of earthy matter. 

 Donati speaks of the bed of the Mediterranean being filled up to the depth 

 of 800 feet with the calcareous bodies of the dead : what then must be the 

 depths of these deposits in tropical seas where species are infinitely more 

 numerous and diversified, and where lime-secreting polyps build from depths 

 unfathomable, filling up a geographical range many times larger than the 

 Mediterranean Sea. 



Nor is it to the coral polyps alone that we are indebted for the formation 

 of islands and continents of the earth. Many localities of the deep are 

 overspread in vast patches with fuci, which as they generate, contribute to 

 fill up the void of waters by administering to the wants of numerous finny 

 tribes resorting to these submarine meadows, and by contributing to the di- 

 gestive process of those fishes, and, also in decomposition of their parts ad- 

 ding thereto. Again, the fecundity of many species is most amazingly great, 

 and were it not for the eternal warfare waged against each other, and the 

 numerous accidents to which they are subject, the whole ocean would speedily 

 become corrupt with the living of the dead: thus we are told that in 

 the ovula of a flounder of 2 oz. weight have been counted 133,407 eggs ; in 

 one of 24 oz. 1,357,400 ; herrings weighing from 4 to 5oz. from 21,285 to 

 36,960; lobsters from 14 to 36 oz. 21.699 ; mackerel of 20 oz. 454,967 ; stur- 

 geon of 160 lb. nearly 1,500,000; cod fish are supposed to spawn annually 

 9.000,000, and ling 19.248,625. Leuhenhoeck also tells us that a globular 

 body of one inch diameter of oyster liquor may contain 1,728,000 embryo 

 oysters, besides animalculae, 500 times less than the spawn. The Crustacea 

 are all exceedingly prolific, and advance rapidly to maturity, and in warm 

 tranquil seas the several varieties of shell fish are strikingly abundant ; 

 while throughout the aqueous medium fishes, animalculae. medusa?, and other 

 locomotive animals abound, and in their abundance contribute to fill up the 

 valleys of the deep, and to raise the submarine hills and mountains to the 

 surface of that element to which their operations are confined. Other causes 

 in action contribute to the ultimate result, the waters slowly disappear, and 

 the virgin soil which, from its base to its summit, as composed of the reliqua? 

 of the dead, becomes exposed to new influences, whereby its future character 

 is determined. 



The number and variety of living species inhabiting the ocean, and by the 

 functional operations of life contributing to increase the consolidated matter 

 termed earth, is far beyond the imagination of man, and every species 

 from monas to the monster mammalia, derive their elementary constituents 

 from the medium in which they move, abstracting matter from the atmosphere 

 and from the waters, and maintaining form and characteristic properties 

 through the agency of light, heat, and electricity, becoming wholly or 

 partly in death a portion of the soil, and of those peculiar compounds gene- 

 rally disseminated through the waters. Of the food received within the 

 living system nothing is lost, one portion adds by secretion to the rising 

 strength and maturity of the body, and to the propagation of kind, and from 

 thence to decay, the remainder passing out by excretion or respiration ; 

 and as the nature of the aqueous medium and the elementary influences ex- 

 ercised therein determines the nature of the organic body, so does the nature 

 of the body determine the nature of the organic compound generated by living 

 action, and the sum of existence of species uniform in their parts and qualities 

 determines the nature of the formation produced by their combined opera- 

 tions. The consolidated atomic quantities, or the entire animal frame may 

 lose a portion of their elementary constituents, which volatilize and return 

 to the primary slate, or are disseminated through the waters ; but every or- 

 ganic body performs in its degrees the general operation of converting the 

 elements constituting air and water into consolidated matter, or into definite 

 results, in which their previous combinations are dissolved and new creations 

 arc formed belonging to the class of undecompounded bodies. 



Oceanic species arc governed by the same laws of distribution as terrestrial 

 species, habitude being absolutely and indispensably necessary for the exis- 

 tence of particular orders, and for the full organical development and acce- 

 lerated growth of others, Coral formations like tropical forests flourish in 



analogous latitudes, and if removed from those latitudes, they quickly diverge 

 into species by losing some of their characteristic properties, and if the 

 change be in the extreme the order becomes extinct : thus the pearl oyster 

 and other peculiar species of shell fish degenerate as they approach tempe- 

 rate regions, and many of the lime secreting polyps become divested of their 

 calcareous clothing when removed from the direct influence of light and 

 heat. All orders affect particular latitude, dip and inclination, and although 

 many, from their peculiar formation, are enabled to resist and overcome the 

 destroying influences of change, by adaptation of parts to that change, 

 others, and perhaps the more numerous, are of necessity confined to parti- 

 cular latitudes. As living beings all are subject to the like vicissitudes, the 

 one species, or the comminuted or consolidated parts of the many, being the 

 accident of production of other species, the one contending with and de- 

 vouring others, the tenure of existence being perpetual warfare, species 

 against species, life against life ; in death all unite in one vast social compact, 

 the devourer and the devoured contributing unconsciously to accomplish the 

 one vast magnificent end, the ultimate perfection and maturity of this planetary 

 body: living, they produce by their chemical and mechanical action, animal 

 and vegetable matters, earths, acids, gaseous and etherial fluids, all of which 

 by the unceasing generation of living beings as continually increase ; i 

 death nothing is lost, groups and families uniting to themselves countless 

 myriads, become the architects of beds, hills, and mountain chains, the finer 

 particles of bodies contribute with the reliqure of fishes to fill up the troughs 

 and valleys with marl, the sands are formed into sand banks, the fuci accu- 

 mulate in vast heaps, and uniting with calcareous matters pass into the 

 mineral kingdom as schistose rock or peculiar clay, and every organic body 

 contributes by its death to the formation of some one particular earth. 



PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS. 

 May 16. — The President in the Chair. 



" Description of an improved form of the Journals of the Axles for Rail- 

 ways." By Captain Elias Robison llandcock. 



The paper commences by enumerating the principal disadvantages of the 

 common railway axles, noticing particularly, the great consumption of oil ; 

 the wear and tear, not only of the axles, but also of the boxes and the 

 brasses ; the oscillation occasioned by the wearing away in length of the 

 latter, producing destructive effects alike to the engine, carriages and rails, 

 as well as being disagreeable to the passengers. It then describes the new 

 form of axle, which it is contended is calculated to remove these evils. The 

 chief peculiarities of its form, consist in substituting for the abrupt shoulder 

 at either end of the journal, two cones ; the outer one, which is loose on 

 the axle, is capable of being forced forward by a screw on the extremity ; it 

 is prevented from revolving on the journal by means of a tongue, and is se- 

 cured by a screw nut, and key. The two anti-friction collars of hard brass, 

 which take the places of the ordinary journal brasses, are about three-eighths 

 of an inch iu thickness, and are fitted on the journal sufficiently loose to en- 

 able them to turn freely in the bored cast-iron boxes which support them ; 

 these collars extend over both the cones and along the journal till their ends 

 meet within about a quarter of an inch in the centre, and acting as an inde- 

 pendent moveable power between the journal and the cast-iron box into 

 which they are fitted, they reduce the amount of friction when it becomes 

 greatest. Among the advantages derived from this new form, are the uni- 

 form smooth and steady motion, consequently reducing the wear and tear ; 

 allowing the collars to be at all times tightened, avoiding the lateral action, 

 which is detrimental to the carriages, and to the line of rails; the smaller 

 consumption of oil ; one pound of oil being found sufficient to lubricate a 

 six-wheeled engine and four-wheeled tender, while running a distance of 

 nearly 1000 miles, and the absence of any tendency to heat. The paper 

 concludes, by expatiating on the benefits already found by experience to 

 result from their use. 



Remarks. — Captain llandcock exhibited the journal of a common railway 

 axle, with its box and brasses, which had been in use, and pointed out that 

 the principal abrasion had taken place at the ends, that a new brass for the 

 same journal would require to be nearly an inch longer, and therefore, that 

 the oscillation of the carriage must necessarily be great, whenever the 

 brasses began to wear. He explained that it was usual, in order to save the 

 expense of new brasses, to weld an iron ring upon the journal against the 

 collar, and showed one, which had worn such a cavity in the end of the 

 brass, as to bury itself completely within it. it appeared also that there 

 was much wear both on the journal and in the box, and that unless an axle 

 possessed the means of having its brasses tightened up endways, oscillation 

 and abrasion were inevitable. A journal and its cones of the improved form, 

 which had run over 21,000 miles on the Southwestern Railway, exhibited 



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