58 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[FEBRrART, 



the premises, proceeded to sliow some of the advantages which he ob- 

 tains by subslituling a prepared skin of paint for the ordinary common 

 painting. These advaiitaR'S are very apparent in tlie decoration of ceil- 

 ings, or in the t-xecution of any kind of flat ornamental »vork, wlielbcr it 

 be iniitaliousof \vood.<, marbles, lettering in gold or colours, on nails or 

 wood-work, as it is only necessary that the dimensions of the parts to 

 be ornamented should be previously taken, and the work can be com- 

 pleted at ihe arti.'ts' shop or study. He neit proceeded to describe the 

 process of manufacture, remarking, that the skins at present made are 

 12 feet by 3 feet, that being found the most convenient size, but ihey can 

 be made of any dimensions. A shectof elephant, or any stout paper, rather 

 larger than the skin required, is taken, and the surface on one side only 

 is prepared with a mixture of gum arabic, treacle, and v.iiler, upon 

 which when dry a coat of paint made with boiled oil and white lead in 

 the ordinary way is put upon it ; when that is dry, the operniion is re- 

 peated till the skin is of tlie required Ihickuess, but two coats are found 

 to be sufiicieut for general use. To separate the skin from the jiaper it is 

 laid on a clean board, with the painted side dovrnward ; the paper is then 

 wetted at Ihe back v. iih clean water, and after it has stood a lew minutes, 

 the paint may be rcnioved without any difliculty or the least fear of its 

 tearing. Tlie same paper may be painted on thirty or forty times, but 

 must always be prepared as described above. The paint where removed 

 is carefully wiped with a sponge and then dried with a wash leather lo 

 remove any portion of the preparation which adheres to it. The skin is 

 then folded and. put away till such time as it may be required for use. 

 The mode of fixii^g the skin is to rub down the surface lo which it is to be 

 attached, and, when tlioroui;hly clean, it is gone over with boiled oil and 

 gold size ; a smear is sunkieut. The skin is then laid on with a soft 

 cloth, as in the ordinary paper-hanging. Several beautiiul specimens 

 were exhibited. 



INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS. 

 January 12. — II. E. Kendall, Esq,, V.P., ia the Chair. 



A paper was read by John Kritton, 'Esq., descrip/ive of lioilt/n Chapel, 

 near Edinburcjh. This edifice was commenced in 144G, and his widow and 

 successors continued the works, which had been left unfinished at the death 

 of the founder, in 1479. Mr. Britton observed, that his attention had been 

 directed by Mr. David Roberts to the aisle at the east end, which is wider 

 than ths other ; and it would appear that the plan had been changed after 

 the stoiie-work for the vaulting was prepared, and in order to make it avail- 

 able, the architect had resorted to the expedient of carrying the arches upon 

 large projecting corliels, — a remarkable feature in the construction, which it 

 would be difiicult otherwise to explain. — Mr. Burn observed, that the pic- 

 turesque tradition (so well handled by Sir Walter Scott) of the interment of 

 the Sinclairs, shrouded in the armour and uncofiined, in a vault beneath the 

 chapel, is destitute offoundaiion. There is a crypt, not under, but bcyondthe 

 chapel, to the eastward, nhic!\ Mr. Burn believes, on a care.''ul examination 

 never to have been used as a sepulchre ; and there is only one other small 

 vault, where some of the family have been deposited in oaken coffins. — Mr. 

 Fowler observed, that the nave of the building was vaulted on the uncom- 

 mon, though not singular principle of a solid roof, the extrados of the arch 

 forming the external covering. The vaulting of tlie east end aisle is remark- 

 able for its excessive flatness, and appears to have been retained in its place 

 by iron ties grooved into the stones — a singularity in the construction of the 

 Middle Ages. 



Mr. Donaldson read a letter from Mr. Knowles, from Athens, describing 

 some late discoveries made in further disencumbering the Acropolis of its 

 rubbish. One result has been to ascertain, that the interior of the Parthenon 

 was supported by columns of the Doric order, 3 ft. 7^ in. in diameter, of 

 which the fluted contours remain traced on the pavement. Mr. Donrddson 

 made some remarks on the model of the Parthenon by Mr. Lucas, exhibited 

 at the British Mnseuni, in which the lower range of interior coluiuns is re- 

 presented as of the Ionic order, and promised some further remarks on this 

 subject at a future opportunity. 



Steam Engine. — At the Academie des Sciences, Paris, Dec. 29,M. A. 

 Seguier read a notice of a new steam engine, the invention of Messrs. Isoard 

 and Mercier. After describing the construction of this engine, M. Se- 

 guier says : — " It ddfers fiom all that has hitherto been invented, not only 

 in its construction, but also by the special manner in wliich the steam is 

 employed. Instead of being conveyed from the generator to the motive 

 apjiuraius, and undergoing on the way, or at the moment when its action 

 is required, all the losses due to the diminution of volume by the causes 

 of the cooling process, the steam is maintained at a very elevated tempe- 

 rature in the generating tube, and the relations of the heated surfaces and 

 of hot water injected are calculated in such a way that the heat does not 

 escape by the orifice until it has acquired an increase of temperature 

 which permits it to act at once as steam and as dilated gas. 



A VIEW TAKEN OF A REVIEWER; 



In a Letter to the Editor of the Ciril Engineer and Architect's Journal. 



[W» are compelled by an unfortunate misprint at p. 13 of this journal, 

 and from an anxiety to avoid all appearance of injustice, to give insertion 

 to the following letter. It is rather of a philological than architectural 

 character, and this, togellier with a fuU apprecia'ion of the writer's merits 

 as an architectural critic, renders it wholly unneces^-ary for the Reviewer 

 to enter upon a detailed i-eply. We have taken the liberty of omitting 

 one or two passages in which the writer's f. elings have betrayed him into 

 personality. The misprint of the word " fagade " was marked ou the 

 proof-sheets, but the correction was neglected by the compositor.] 



Sir — To crave as a particular favour, or favour at all, what I can de- 

 mand as an act of justice, would be no particular compliment to yourself 

 personally. It would imply that I thou;;ht so meanly of you as to sup- 

 pose that you would not feel jourself sullicieully bound by your own sense 

 of honour'and honesty to atibrd rae, as mere matter of course, the oppor- 

 tunity of exposing in your own Journal the not only very unfair but actu- 

 ally falsifying remarks which the " Review of the Companion to the Al- 

 manac" has rendered it the vehicle of. I need not adopt the submissive 

 tone of a petitioner, nor do you require to be tickled by dainty phrases 

 into doing what your own feelings must prompt you to at once, or if nut 

 your feelings, mere regard to your own interest and to the character of 

 your publication. 



Your very clever Reviewer has blundered in the oddest manner 

 throughout, and has committed both himself and your Journal. If not 

 a downright blunder, it was surely a piece of great indiscretion on the 

 part of the " Civil Kngiueer" to assail, or suffer to be assailed all at 

 once, in its own columns, and that, with rancorous spite, and undis- 

 guised hostility, that very portion of the Companion which the Journal 

 itself has hitherto especially and almost exclusively noticed, aud has 

 recommended to its own readers, as containing much interesting archi- 

 tectural description, remark and information. I do not say that be- 

 cause the Companion had all along been spoken of favourably— at least 

 civiiy by the " Civil Engineer," the latter ought for mere cousisleucy's 

 sake, to have contitiued to speak of the Companion in the same tone as 

 formerly. In the course of time, publications of the kind are apt to alter 

 — and alter greatly for the worse. They quite lose their original spirit and 

 character, and merely live on upon the reputaiion which they have acquired 

 during their season of vigour. Such unfortunate change may have come 

 over the '• Companion :" its architectural writer may be in the condition 

 of the poor archbishop of Grenada, and your Reviewer has kindly under- 

 taken 10 be its honest, and disagreeable <in(7i-tclling Gil Bias. A change 

 has of late come over even jour own Journal, altliongh it has not numbered 

 quite so many years as the Companion, consequently lias not become 

 superantiualed. That change, however, is of couiae one decidedly for the 

 better. Still, it has in some respects been rather a too sudden and startling 

 one. Most of your readers must have been not a liilie astouiahed by tlje 

 " Review" in question. If the Companion — by which is to bo understood 

 the architectural part of it— has altogether degenerated, and is no lunger 

 of any interest and value, it might have been coolly dismissed or have been 

 passed over without any notice at all. 



Between not speaking favourably of a publication, and speaking of it 

 abusively, there is a wide dilierence, — a wide ditfereuce between not 

 praising, and coursely reviling. Wide as it is, your " Reviewer'' has dis- 

 played his agilit} by leaping over it at a single bound. In performing 

 which notable feat he has, unluckily, jumped pUimp into a quagmire. Let 

 ushope, Mr. Edilor, that he has not dragged your Journal into it at the 

 same time. — In his hurry to fire his blundcrOms at ilic Coni]ianion,he over- 

 loaded it so incautiously that it has recoiled, aud laid him sprawling. 



Intended to be severe, his remarks show chiefiy impotent savageness ; 

 and if he does not actually foam at the mouth, be has discharged a great 

 deal of nonsensical froth from his pen. As to severity. 1 can be severe 

 myself; perhaps, Mr. Editor, you think me so now ; it would, therefore, 

 as ill become me to exclaim against that " Qudifcittion,-' — or what looks 

 like it — in your Reviewer's observations, as it has done him to protest so 

 lustily against every — even the most innocent species of artifice, sham 

 and deception, at the very time that he was imposiug upon the readers of 

 your Journal his own distortions and niangliugs of words and meanings, 

 as remarks actually made in the Companion. 



Such being the case, I might very well pass them over as too contempti- 

 ble for notice. Undoubtedly, I might do so— most others, perhaps would 

 do, because that ssiine " too contemptible for notice," is a very cheap and 

 convenient mode of showing one's philosophy. I also should perhaps have 

 adopted it, had not the Reviewer among his other fabrications, hammered 

 out and sharpened weapons to be turned against himself. There are in 

 the world those who cau very heroically submit to bear any amount of 

 contempt so long as it is not expressed publicly. It is not the mere con- 

 tempt Itself, but the publicity of it, which at all touches them. Besides all 

 which, however contemptible the matter may be in itself, the opportunity 

 of turning a Reviewer completely inside out is by far too templing. It is 

 not every day that a similar one presents itself, and perhaps it is better bo 

 than otherwise. 



As I have already said the Reviewer's perversions and raisrepreseata- 



