THF CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[Januart, 



the best remedy, and one wliirh w;is found effectual, the pannels of the 

 centering were covered with slieet iron, pierced with holes so as still 

 further to break the violence of the shock. 



As l:owever the cast iron centering was in some degree an impedi- 

 ment to the works, whenever the state of the weather permitted it, a 

 wooden shield was used also moveable, so that keeping fi feet and a 

 half of iron centering outside, about 50 feet of wood centering was 

 «sed behind it. In this way 50 or tiO feet in length was got through 

 in a day. To get over the difficulties and expense of transporting the 

 materials to sucli a narrow space, small lighters, fiat bottomed boats, 

 and floating platforms were used, which were found to act well, al- 

 though some inconvenience was felt in rough weather. 



ON THE CONSTRLXTION OF A PIER IN THE RIVER 

 AGLY. 



( Translaled/rom the French of M. Fauvtllc/or the C. E. A-. A. Journal.) 



M. Fauveli.e describes a process which is extensively used in Rous- 

 sillon for constructing wells, and has also been applied by Mr. Brunei 

 on a large scale in making the descending shafts of the Thames Tun- 

 nel. In most parts of Roussillon, and particularly on the shores of the 

 sea, and near ponds, at a yard or two below the surface, a layer of 

 quicksand is met with, which cannot be dug twenty inches deep with- 

 out the sand falling and filling up the excavation. This consequently 

 prevents tlie usual course of digging a well and building the brick- 

 Avork afterwards, as it would cost more in timbering and framework 

 than the whole well was worth. A stout circular oaken curb is there- 

 fore placed on the ground, the walls of the well are built several yards 

 liigh upon it, and then from the inside the shifting Soil is excavating 

 so that the well is carried down to the required depth. M. Fauvelle 

 had to build the pier of a bridge in the bed of the river Agly on a bed, 

 which although it seemed quite dry, yet filtered a great quantity of 

 water through pebbles and sand for yards thick, these again resting on 

 a bed of clay. Being prevented from want of funds from using the 

 ordinary means of getting rid of the water, M. Fauvelle availed him- 

 self of the Roussillonese plan. On the bank he placed an oaken frame 

 or curb, and on this he built a well or circular tower of brick, IC inches 

 thick, 70 feet in circumference, and 13 feet high. This well was se- 

 cured internally so as to resist the external and vertical pressure. 

 Excavations were then begun in tlie interior of the well, but some in- 

 jury was done to the walls at first by the workmen digging under the 

 curb, and so causing an unequal descent and cracking of the bricks. 

 The works were then limited to the interior of the well, and it gra- 

 dually descended until it became necessary to use the dredge, by means 

 of which, in about a fortnight, it was got down into the clay bed with- 

 out any accident or injury to the walls. Nothing then remained but 

 to fill up the interior so as to make a solid mass, w hich w as done, with- 

 out taking out the water, by throwing in concrete and stones, this work 

 being secured to the walls by their being rougheij vvith a chisel worked 

 by a long iron bar; the whole was then well rammed down by two 

 men so as to make a solid mass. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XXII. 



'* I must have liberty 

 Willi.il. as large a charier as the ulnils, 

 To b!o>v on whom I please." 



I. "AiiCiiiTt.ci'iKt," says a writer in the last number of the 

 Monthly Review, "is under a certain degree of restraint in every state 

 of society. The nature of his materials, and the necessity of clipping 

 tlown his conceptions to the views and wants of his employer, have 

 accustomed the architect to act with apparent freedom, under circum- 

 stances which would wholly repress the ardour of the sculptor or the 

 painter." This is rather oddly expressed, it being not very much 

 unlike a contradiction in terms to attributeyje£(!?o»!, or apparent free- 

 dom, on the part of architects, to the reitraint imposed upon their art. 

 The writer does not seem to have taken the trouble of reading over 

 what he had put down upon paper; but his meaning probably is, that 

 the necessity of clipping down Lis conceptions, &c., has accustomed 

 the architect to act with a servile compliance — a blind deference, to 



the wishes of his employers, and to do just as he is dictated to do, as 

 if it were perfect matter of indifference to him ; whereas a sculptor 

 or painter is not quite so docile, but less patient of impertinent inter- 

 ference, and is apt to prove restive on such occasions, or else gets 

 sulky, and pretends that he can do nothing if not allowed to have his 

 own way. This, I conceive, would be much nearer the truth; for I 

 do not understand how the architect can be said to act with apparent 

 freedom, when, however willingly he may do so, making a virtue of 

 necessity, he is evidently acting under control, and obliged to forego 

 his own ideas, and maim his design by adopting those ofother peopfe. 



II. There is, I suspect, no small share of hypocrisy, and not a little 

 cowardice, also, with some addition of affectation into the bargain, in 

 the praises heaped upon Palladio, because I have never yet either 

 met with books, or been able to gather from any one in conversation, 

 in which of his works the merits so liberally ascribed to him really 

 consist. In speaking of him, every one seems to think it the safest 

 policy to confine himself to general eulogy, without venturing at all 

 into particulars. Nay, I have met with tliose who, after surrendering 

 up to criticism, one by one, every production of his mentioned, have 

 not had courage enough to confess that they were advocating a losing 

 cause, but give themselves the airs of having the better of tlie argu- 

 ment, because, forsooth, Palladio had always been considered a very 

 genius in architecture. 



III. It is not without reason that Klenze has lately animadverted 

 upon the plodding, barren, "machine-like," manner in which modern 

 architects have applied themselves to Grecian architecture, without 

 getting a step beyond two or three very obvious and stale ideas, which 

 have now been hackneyed ad nauseam ; as if its elements could not, 

 by any possibility, be made to furnish fresh combinations or farther 

 modifications as to detail, but every thing must be most according to 

 precedent, at least, as fur as columns alone are concerned, since, in 

 regard to all the rest, a most convenient degree of latitude is con- 

 sidered quite allowable. It must not, however, be supposed that 

 such "machine-like " system, one so utterly at variance with every 

 principle of art, would be upheld in the manner it has been and 

 continues to be, without some motive, although it is one which it 

 would not do to let all the world know. The excessive reverence 

 affected to be entertained by the plodders for antique examples, evi- 

 dently does not proceed from an intelligent admiration of them ; for 

 it is plainly to be perceived that they have no influence whatever on 

 their taste, and that if such admirers have studied them at all, it has 

 been no otherwise than mechanically, without imbibing any of their 

 spirit, without extracting from them any of their delicious flavour, 

 after the fashion of that most praiseworthy little plagiarist, the bee, 

 who steals their sweetness from flowers, but mauufactures it into the 

 still more luscious sweetness of honey. The dunces in the profession 

 — and if any one chooses to include himself among the number, it 

 is no fault of mine — the dunces, I say, are well aware that it is good 

 policy in them to decry any modification of the antique, any thing 

 like originality in the treatment of it, as most dangerous and mis- 

 chievous innovation. Mischievous, indeed! no doubt — because were 

 any sort of freedom in that respect to be allowed, were the system 

 of copying and nothing but copying, to be exploded, as not exactly in 

 character with what, justlj' or not, assumes to be something more than 

 a mechanical science, even one of the fine arts, — the incompetence of 

 many %vould at once become apparent, they being, as Wightwick has 

 wickedly observed, "impotent to generate" even a single modi- 

 fication of what they now so clasucally follow as patterns; much 

 more, then, to generate an idea of their own. 



IV. It is by no means uncommon to hear people complain how 

 exceedingly difficult it is to hit upon any new subject ; nevertheless, 

 there are both a good many hackneyed ones, which would admit of 

 being treated with some degree of novelty, by blowing away the 

 learned dust which now almost covers them, and freshening them up 

 anew; and also a few others that have as yet not been touched upon 

 at all, notwithstanding that they would furnish matter almost inex- 

 haustible, and the opening of them would be like opening a virgin 

 mine of unexplored wealth. It is odd that, until the other day, no 

 one should have thought of treating the subject of porticoes as is done 

 in the article in the Penny Cyclopa;dia, which, although unsatisfactory, 

 because little more than a brief outline of it, is most valuable as a 

 hint, and as pointing out what preceding writers had overlooked. I, 

 myself, have at least half a dozen architectural subjects in petto, any 

 one of which would sujiply matter for a volume, and some one of 

 which I have long been expecting to see pounced upon and taken up 

 by some less indolent or more enterprizing mortal. Nevertheless, 

 they still all remain untouched, as safe and as snug as if they were 

 buried within the innermost bowels of the earth, though really exposed 

 where any one who has eyes to see with may behold them. There is 

 plenty of fresh game to start, had but people noses to catch scent of 



