THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



123 



RESEARCHES IN HYDRAULICS. 



Sir— In Weale's " Quarterly Papers on Engineering" for Michaelmas 

 last, there is an article, " Researches in Hydraulics," by a Mr. Peacocke, 

 in which he attempts to prove the several formulae of Genieys, Dubuat' 

 Piony, Eytelwein, Dr. Young, and Smeaton, for calculating the discharge 

 of water from pipes, are incorrect, and joins his faith to that of ivfi-. 

 Provis, whose formula, he thinks, might be carried out for a length of pipe 

 of 1,500 feet (!) at least, without any considerable inaccuracy. Ignorant 

 he must be that mains are sometimes three or four miles long, and even 

 more than that. It would be doing Mr. Peacocke and the profession a 

 service, were you to review this in your usual clever style and expose its 

 absurdity. 



In Smeaton's Reports, vol. 1, page 231, you will see that by measure- 

 ment, one of the mains of the Edinburgh M'^ater Works is 4'.5in. diameter, 

 and delivered 21 97 cubic feet per minute. By calculation with Ey tell 

 wein's formula he gives 4-4!) in. for diameter and 12 feet discharge ; and 

 again, vol 3, page 231 (1st edition), the actual velocity from a main of the 

 same Water Works was 1,815 feet per second, whilst the calculated ve- 

 locity was 1,810 feet per second. I remain &c. 



Macclesfield, March 14th 184G. ' $. o. S. 



[A review of Mr. Peacocke's paper has already appeared in our janu • 

 ary number.] 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM FACADE. 



Sir— The " Idea" shown in the last Number of your Joarnal would 

 effect so decided an improvement in the facade of our national museum, 

 that it is a thousand pities it did not originate with the architect himself 

 its adoption being nosv altogether out of the question, unless it could be' 

 made compulsory. Such an important public edifice is a very legitimate 

 subject for public interference; it ought, therefore to be made a matter of 

 consideration whether something; of the kind at least ought not to be now 

 done. 15e such the course or not, it is highly to the credit of your .Tournal 

 Jo have shown what might be done to redeem the Museum facade. 



I remain. Sir, 



London, March 11th, 1840. A Constant Reader. 



PROCEEDINGS OP SCIEJNTZPIC SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL INSTITUTE OF BRITISH ARCHITECTS. 



Feftruary 23.— The successful competitors for the Prize Medals of the 

 institute, for the year 1845, were announced as follows :— 



To Mr. T. Worthington, of Manchester, the Medal of the Institute for 

 the best Essay on the History and Manufacture of Bricks 



To Mr. S. J. NichoU, the Medal of Merit, for his Essay on the same 

 subject. 



To Mr. J. F. M^admore, of Upper Clapton, the Medal of Merit, for a 

 Design for a Royal Chapel. 



March 9.— J. B. Papworth, Esa., V.P. in the Chair. 



Mr. E. Woodthorpe was elected a Fellow. Amongst the donations an- 

 nounced, was a Medal struck by the Society for the Encouragement of the 

 Industrial Arts in Prussia, in honour of their President, the Chevalier 

 Beuth, presented by the Chevalier Hebeler, who likewise exhibited Herr 

 iernite s work, " On the Frescoes at Herculaneum and Pompeii " 



A portion of the Prize Essay, "On the History and Manufacture of 

 Bricks by Mr. Worthington, was read, and comprised chiefly an 

 account of the earliest recorded instances of the application of brick, 

 both in a crude and burnt slate, in the walls and structures of Baby- 

 Lon, Nineveh Lcbataua, and other cities of Assyria, in China, Egypt 

 Greece and Italy, involving frequent allusions to the Sacred Writings, and 

 lengthened quotations from Herodotus, Pliny, and other well-known an- 

 cient authors, as well as modern travellers. 



JV/arcA23.— W. Tite, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



Mr. Poynter, the Honorary Secretary, read a highly interesting and 

 valuable paper on the Stained Glass in Sainte Chapelle, at Paris. We 

 must defer this paper until next month, when we propose to give it fully, 

 illustrated with several engravings. 



A paper, by Dr. W. Bromet, (accompanied by a drawiag,) descriptive 

 «fsome moulded bricks o( various forms, found in the walls of a church, at 

 Sanson-sur-Rdle, in Normandy, taken down a few years ago, was read. 

 From the circumstance of these bricks being of ornamental form, and from 

 their being found imbedded as materiel in the walls of a building which 

 IS mentioned in a book of the year 1210, they are believed to have been 

 portions of the abbey founded at Sanson, in the siith century, by King 

 Childebert, but destroyed during one of the incursions of the Northmen 

 m the ninth century. From the pyramidal form of most of these bricks 

 and the similanty in shape of some to the stones in the Tour-Magne, at 

 Nismes, it is thought probable that they were made after Roman models, 



if not in Roman times. On the church walls of Ainay, at Lyons, at Tour- 

 ness, on the Saone, and of Notre Dame du Port, at Clermont,-aIl nearly 

 of Car ovingian times,-there still exist moulded biicks, geometrically ar- 

 ranged as ornaments; and Dr. Bromet thought .t probable, that durin- 

 Saxon times many of our buildings were adorned with moulded bricks, 



Tr,f Vr^- r™'"^ ? ''*"'', "" ""^ "'^^^'' "f Sompting Church, in Sussex 

 and which Rickman deemed to be Saxon, because never seeu by him in 

 Normandy or elsewhere. " In conclusion," says Dr. Bromet, " I vvill ven- 

 ture to express an opmion, that, in no part of the Romanized world could 

 so useful an art as brick-making ever have been lost ; although Eginhard 



ffl T,l. n, T r ''' '"l'^ '\V''' "■"^'^^' Cl>arlemagne, re-introduced it 

 from Italy into his French aud German dominions 



The Chairman drew attention to the expected arrival in England from 

 Boodroom of a valuable addition to the treasures of ancient sculpture which 



nntHT'\ '' 7 ■ r''"''''- "^^^ """'^^'^ •-'"'"''^d '» a'-" generally sup- 

 posed to have formed a part of the tomb erected by Queen Artemisia to 

 the memory of her husband, Mausolus, though the fact is quesEiooed by 

 r , , 1 i^ '';,^",'' \''°^ occasion to express his satisfaction at the sue- 

 cess which had attended the efforts of the architects of England, in 1841. 

 to merest the Government in the preservation of these valuable relics, at 

 which lime a representation was made by the Institute, to Lord Palmer- 

 ston, of the importance of rescuing these antiquities from the degradatiou 

 and destruction to which they were exposed. The suggestion had been 

 tor resuu" '""''^^°°^^^ ^""^ '"^'^'^ "P"" '° * way to eliect this satisfac 



ROYAL SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF ARTS. 

 February 23, 1846.— Sir George S. Mackenzie, Bart., r.R.S.E., President, 

 in the Chair. 

 The following communications were made : 



1. Notice of an Improvement in his Model of a Self acting method of 

 Throwing the Shuttle in the Common Hand Loom, &c. By Mr James 

 Miller, Watchmaker, Perth. In this model an improvement is introduced, 

 calculated, in Mr. Miller's opinion, to prevent the recoil of the shuttle, viz., 

 by interposing a driver, as in the common loom. He has also made simple 

 arrangements by which the strength of the driving springs may be tempered 

 or increased at pleasure. = .> r 



2. On the applicability of the Electro-Magnetic Bell to the trial of ex- 

 periments on the Conduction of Sound, especially by Gases. By George 

 Wilson, M.D., F.R.S.E. The apparatus was exhibited. The object of this 

 paper, and his illustrative experiments, was to show that the Electro. 

 Magnetic Bell is a better and cheaper means of ascertaining the capabilities 

 of diflTerent gases to conduct sound than the method of a bell struck by clock- 

 work, as hitherto commonly used. The Electro-Magnetic Bell is much more 

 under command, and we are not troubled with the clock-work running down, 

 and being obliged to remove the receiver of the air-pump to wind it up 

 again. It was exhibited to the Society, by means of the Electro-Magnetic 

 Bell ; the difference in the conduction of sound betwixt atmospheric air and 

 hydrogen gas, showing that the latter has greatly less capabiUty to transmit 

 sound. He experimented by placing the bell within the glass receiver of a 

 common air-pump, full of common air, and making the hammer strike the 

 bell by connecting the wire of the temporary magnet with the battery, when 

 the sound of the bell was distinctly heard ; and then by exhausting the air 

 from the receiver, and introducing hydrogen gas, and again making the ham- 

 mer strike the bell, when the sound produced was so weak as to be scarcely 

 audible. ' 



3. Description and Drawings of an Improved Crank Planing-Mac/tine, and 

 of lis advantages over the Common Crank Planing-Machine. Manufactured 

 by Messrs. Thomas Shanks & Co., Engineers, Johnston, Renfrewshire. 

 This IS a very beautiful application of the ellipse to produce alternate quick 

 and slow motion. Two elliptic wheels are made to work into each other, 

 the driver working round the one focus, and the follower working round the 

 opposite focus of the ellipses, by which means the two ellipses roll upon each 

 other, and always keep in contact. When the driver has its shorter lever 

 turned towards the longer lever of the follower (to which the crank is fixed), 

 a slow motion is produced, suitable for taking the cut : but when the driver 

 13 turned round, and its longer lever becomes opposed to the shorter lever of 

 the follower, a quick motion is produced, thus sending back the planing 

 table very rapidly, so that little time is lost betwixt that and the next cut of 

 the tool. 



4. Description of a Modification and Improvement of the Voltaic or Elec- 

 tro Chemical Telegraph. Invented by Mr. R. B. Smith, Lecturer on Che- 

 mistry, Blackford. This is an improvement of the Electro-Chemical Tele- 

 graph formerly communicated by Mr. Smith. In this telegraph a ribband 

 of cotton or paper, which has been made to pass through a trough filled with 

 a solution of ferro-cyanide of potass, to which has been added a few drops 

 of nitric acid,— is drawn by clock- work, or otherwise over a cylinder of lead, 

 which is in communication with the negative wire of the battery; while 

 there is in communication with the positive wire an impress iron wire, rest- 

 ing immediately on the cotton or paper ribband as it passes over the leaden 

 cylinder. When the circuit is completed by pressing down a key with the 

 finger, the electricity passes along to the impress wire, and a blue coloured 

 mark is printed on the paper, or cloth, caused by the action of the electric 

 fluid decomposing the ferro-cyanide of potass, and forming ferro-cyanide of 



