1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



421 



CONDUCT OF EUROPEAN NATIONS TO THEIR 

 MEN OF SCIENCE. 



Project for an European Temple of Science. 



Shortly before the present Prime Minister of England assumed the 

 reins of Government, lie delivered an address at Tamworth, highly 

 eulogistic of the various "Mechanic." and other Institutions for im- 

 proving the working classes. That address excited much attention at 

 the time it was published, and on the exaltation of its author to power, 

 it was naturally expected that the opinions of the Premier would take 

 some practical shape. Such, however, has not yet been the case. 

 Nevertheless, when it is considered what vast commercial and other 

 measures have occupied the attention of Government, — what diffi- 

 culties Sir Robert Peel has had to grapple with in China, in India, in 

 Scotland, in Ireland, & in Wales, — what a variety of complicated and 

 conflicting interests he has had to encounter, or to conciliate, it will 

 argue no Want of zeal in the cause of science and public improvement 

 because he has not hitherto taken up the subject. Moreover, it is 

 but seldom that governments do take up matters that are not forced 

 upon their notice from without. Men of science must begin the work 

 themselves, which if they do with energy and unanimity, we are per- 

 suaded they will have no unwilling listener in Sir Robert Peel. 



The Premier has expressed in terms his delight with, and his de- 

 sire to support, Institutions for the promulgation of Science. Let it 

 be our task to point out to this great statesman and to the world, what 

 it is that would most benefit science, what it is that science most 

 requires — what it is that would foster and furnish an impetus to the 

 progress of valuable invention and popular improvement, beyond any- 

 thing ever yet established or proposed. In a word, let us put Sir 

 Robert Peel in the best practical way of carrying out his own professed 

 opinions. 



The late Mr. Rothschild called England "The workshop of the 

 World." Now to the extent that England has deserved this compli- 

 ment she has been mainly indebted to her coal, her iron, her capital 

 the industry of her workmen, and most of all to the inventions and im- 

 provements of our men of science. Without such men as Arkwright, 

 James Watt, Richard frevithick, Henry Bell, Dr. Cartwright, Charles 

 Tenant, and a few others what would her manufactures or her com- 

 merce have been? The first multiplied to an immeasurable extent 

 the products of the cotton factory ; the second formed that grandest 

 of all modern discoveries, the improvement of the steam engine: the 

 third (his apprentice) successfully applied the great motive power of 

 steam to navigation. Without these three men and their inventions, 

 without the Steam Engine, without the spinning jenny, without the 

 steam ship, where would have been our superiority in manufactures, 

 in commerce, or navigation? To those three men we owe more of 

 our national wealth, and our national renown, than to all other men 

 and all other circumstances that shine in the pages of our history. 

 Yet how was one of those three men rewarded, and what inducement 

 is there for others to "go and do likewise?" 



Henry Bell was declared in the report of a select committee of the 

 House of Commons appointed to take evidence upon steam navi- 

 gation to have been the first successfully to apply steam to navigation. 

 He had conquered vast obstacles by vast perseverance. He proposed 

 Ins plan of applying steam to navigation upon a largesc.de to the 

 Lords of the Admiralty. It was with great difficulty their Lordships 

 could be induced to listen to the proposition, and when they did so, 

 they laughed at it. With the exception of a Scotch member of the 

 board, who from a kindred nationality took a slight interest in the 

 success of his countryman, there was an unanimous feeling that steam 

 could not be applied successfully to navigation. The author of the 

 project, nothing daunted, thought otherwise and went on upon his own 

 resources. After a long ordeal, and a great expenditure of time and 

 money, the "Comet" was built and sent through the Clyde to the 

 " lochs," and the mountains of the highlands. The simple inhabitants 

 were ama/.ed, but not so men of science and capital. Henry Bell had 

 not taken out a patent. He had discovered and invented, but he had 

 no exclusive right to the discovery and invention. What was the 

 result? Companies were formed to adopt and carry out his inven- 

 tion. Those companies had capital which he had not. They com- 

 peted with his boat and defeated it, simply by making their boats more 

 elegant and convenient, and what eared the traveller for the claims 

 of the first inventor? Henry Bell had built carriages in which others 

 already began to ride. 



While the struggle was going on, Henry Bell, in his ardour for im- 

 provement, occasioned a boiler to burst, which made him a cripple 

 for life. Nevertheless, he invented a plan for deepening the Clyde, 



and the magistrates of Glasgow awarded him £50 per annum for life, 

 for the valuable impovement to the navigation of their city. Fifty 

 pounds per annum, however, did little for a man who dedicated year 

 by year a much larger amount to the promotion of his grand plan of 

 steam navigation. He saw it succeed, but from it derived no benefit. 

 At 6S years of age he found himself occupying the Heleashey Baths, 

 involved in debt, with a prison or a workhouse in prospect. Yes, he, 

 the conqueror of the winds and the tides, the creator of the wealth of 

 millions, the greatest benefactor to commerce that ever lived in this 

 kingdom — he, aged, crippled, and destitute, applied to the British 

 Government for relief, and his memorial was signed by -15 members of 

 Parliament, provosts, and chief magistrates of maratime districts. 

 The late Right Honorable George Canning was then the Prime Mi- 

 nister, but that distinguished statesmen h.ul not made a Tainworth 

 speech in favour of science. Henry Bell danced attendance upon him 

 for three months; he occupied apartments at No. "22, Downing Street. 

 Poor man, his hopes were fed but. to be blasted — he was ultimately 

 told that he was too imtirm fur a country Post Office, and that he 

 could not be placed on the Scotch Pension list, seeing, no doubt, that 

 his services were not of that" parliamentary" nature which were ge- 

 nerally so rewarded. He went home and died of a broken heart ! 



Another striking case is that of Richard Trevithick— a man of tran- 

 scendant talents, gorgeous conceptions, and gigantic energies. Origi- 

 ally a miner in Cornwall, he invented, or was the first to carry into 

 practical operation, the high pressure engine, was exalted to the rank 

 of a Marquis and Grandee of Spain — almost worshipped as a demi- 

 god in the Indies; his inventions "annihilating space in the old world, 

 controlling the current of the great Mississippi, and displaying the 

 mountain riches of the Cordilleras* in the new, he returned to his 

 own country to find support and found none — to seek for sympathy 

 where there was nothing but apathy — possessed of princely property 

 which he could not make available; his countrymen wondering and 

 admiring, but none aiding or assisting — and returning many thousands 

 of miles, " far away from children, wife, and sacred home," to perish 

 poor, unfriended, comparatively unknown! 



Now had an European Temple for Science, existed, could it be 

 believed that such men as Richard Trevithick and Henry Bell would 

 have been permitted to pine and linger out their latter days in help- 

 less indigence ? Is it right? — is it wise? — is it politic, that the great 

 creators of national wealth should be so treated? All the common 

 and ordinary trades and avocations of life have their asylums and in- 

 stitutions — why not science? Those who till lately were deemed " va- 

 gabonds" by the law, the actors of our theatres, have, nevertheless, 

 "funds" patronised by princes and supported by millionaires — none 

 for science! The very chimney-sweepers are not allowed to be 

 swept from the earth by the besom of destruction, without a society 

 to aid and protect — none for science, Sir Robert Peel — "None for 

 Science '." 



Well, indeed, has it been said by a great poet: — 

 " In the land of the North there are insects that prey 



On the brain of the elk till its very last sigh; 

 Oh Genius, thy patrons, more cruel than they, 



First feed on thy brains and then leave thee to die '. " 



* See Civil Engineer, vol. 11, page 93, for a lengthened and interesting 

 memoir of Trevithick. 



( To be continued.) 



Bridge or Notre Dame, Paris. — At the Academie <les Sciences a com- 

 munication was read from M. Fourneyron explaining the application of 

 lloodgates to one c.i the bridges of Paris. A committee of the municipal 

 council of Paris, of which M. Arago was president, was formed some time 

 since for discussing the practicability of closing the arches of the Pont Neuf, 

 or the bridge of Notre Uaine, with gates, by which the current of the river 

 could be regulated at will, and which, by raising the level at a certain purt. 

 would give a fall of I rifficierj't force to work powerful turbines for the supply 

 of Water lo all parts of Paris. In 1841 M. Fourneyron submitted a pi n ol 

 gates of' such construction that they could he worked with ease by one Maui; 

 but as it was impossible to pronounce fairly on the merits of his inve 

 without absolote experiments, the Academy and the committee ol - 

 of Paris resolved to suspend d of opinion uiuil experiments 



could be tried. M. Fourneyron I10«l announces that for more than t»o 

 months past one of his gales has been in use at Uisors, and that it has 

 prove I successful. 



