1841.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



.53 



Mr. Larmer's improvement of Mr. Bintley's Line. 



Although the gradients are in a slight degree more favourable according to 

 the line as altered by Mr. Larraer, yet the cost of the earthwork will be rather 

 greater, aud Mr. Larmer will require a more expensive bridge for the crossing 

 of the Lune, for its length will be about GOO yards, and its height 60 feet ; 

 whereas the bridge proposed by Mr. Bintley would uot be above one-fourth 

 of the length and one-half of the height of Mr. Larmer's. 



However, this difference will be much more than compensated by the sav- 

 ing of the tunnel under the town of Leicester, aud by the shortening of the 

 line. 



The deviations from Mr. Bintley's line, proposed by Mr. Larmer, are not 

 of sufficient importance to require to be particularly mentioned here. 



The direction of the line recommended is shown on the accompanying 

 plan, by which it will be seen that it is intended to pass along the face of 

 the high ground about a mile eastward of Kendal. 



Mr. Larmer's junction line commences at a hamlet to the north of Kendal, 

 called Scalthwaiterigg .Stocks, whence it takes a north-easterly course, twice 

 crossing the turnpike-road to the northward of Docker Garths and Mosedale 

 Hall ; it then proceeds nearly in an easterly course to the farm at Shaw-end. 

 This point is the summit of the junction portion of the line, and is 562 feet 

 above the level of the sea at low water at Lancaster, or 446 feet above the 

 point of connection with the Preston and Lancaster Railway, the distance 

 being 26J miles. Here a cutting will be requisite of two miles in length, in 

 gravel and rock, and of the extreme depth of 52 feet, and of the mean depth 

 of 35. This is the heaviest piece of work on the junction line. 



From Shaw End the line tends more to the northward, and curving round 

 the foot of some high ground, approaches the bank of the Lune near Dillicar 

 Park, and converges towards Mr. Larmer's original line, which nins almost 

 parallel to the river, up to Low Borrow Bridge. 



Althouth the direction of Mr. Larmer's original and improved lines is nearly 

 the same, yet such are the abrupt and precipitous forms of the hills that a 

 considerable difference exists in the levels and gradients. 



We subjoin a table of distances and gradients of the entire Grayrig line, 

 and we have only further to remark, that, after an examination of the ground, 

 we have thought it proper to suggest to Mr. Larmer the expediency of occa- 

 sional breaks in his long gradients, for the purpose of easing the engine on 

 the ascending planes, and of diminishing the earthwork in construction. 



We do not consider it necessary to give minute details of the proposed 

 line, as in the annexed copy of Mr. Larmer's report all the most important 

 features of this project are fairly shown. 



The heaviest work on the whole Une is the Orton tunnel, which Mr. Lar- 

 mer proposes to make of the length of one mile and 22 chains ; but accord- 

 ing to the section, in the accuracy of which we have full confidence, it 

 appears that tl»ere will be heavy cuttings at both ends of the tunnel, the 

 greatest depth being at one end 95, and at the other 98 feet.* 



Now as we doubt the expediency of making a cutting in this instance of 

 above 70 feet in depth, we are of opinion that it would be proper to extend 

 the length of the tunnel to a mile and a half. 



* The Ime of the tunnel in Mr. Larmer's original project was very accu- 

 rately surveyed by Lieut. H. D. Fanshaue, of the 12th Foot, who reported 

 hat the ground was fairly delineated in Mr. Larmer's section. 



Mr. Larmer acquaints us that, on a careful examination of the Orton Hill, 

 he has every reason to believe that the tunnel would pass entirely through 

 sandstone; and as it would only be 340 feet below the summit of the hill, 

 we have no doubt that this work might easily be completed iu three years 

 from the time of its coraraeucemeut, under the supposition that Mr. Larmer 

 has rightly infonned us as to the nature of the rock through which the tun- 

 nel is to be formed. 



We have the honour to be, Sir, 



Your most obedient servants, 



Frederic Smith, Lieut.-Col. R.E. 

 Peter Barlow, F.R.S. 

 Henry Amsinok, Lieut. R.IS'., Sec. 

 Robert Gordon, Esq., M.P., &c. Ac. &c. 



MEMOIRS OF SCIENTIFIC MEN. 



The two following Memoirs are from the Address of the President delivefed 

 at tlie last Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society. 



James Prinsep, whose brilliant career of research and discoverv has 

 been closed by a premature death in the flower of his age, was Principal 

 Assay Master, first of the Jlint at Benares, and secondly of that of Calcutta, 

 where he succeeded Prof. Wilson in 1833; he was a young man of great 

 energy of character, of the most indefatigable industry, and of very extra- 

 ordinary accomphshments ; he was an excellent assayist and analytical 

 chemist, and well acquainted with almost every department of physical 

 science ; a draughtsman, an engraver, an architect, and an engineer ; a good 

 oriental scholar, and one of the most profound and learned oriental medal- 

 lists of his age. In 1828 he communicated to the Royal Society a paper 

 "On the Measurement of High Temperatures," in which he described, 

 amongst other ingenious contrivances for ascertaining the order, though not 

 the degree, of high temperatures, an air thermometer applicable for this pur- 

 pose, and determined by means of it, probably much more accurately than 

 heretofore, the temperature at which silver enters into fusion. His activity 

 whilst resident at Benares has more the air of romance than reality. He 

 designed and built a mint, and other edifices ; he repaired the minarets of 

 the great mosque of Aurengzelie, which threatened destruction to the neigli- 

 bouring houses; he drained the city, and made a statistical survey of it, and 

 illustrated by his own beautiful drawings and lithographs, the most remark- 

 able objects which the city and its neighbourhood contains ; he made a series 

 of experimental researches on the depression of the wet-bulb hygrometer ; 

 he determined, from his own experiments, the values of the principal coins 

 of the East, and formed tables of Indian metrology and numismatics, aud of 

 the chronology of the Indian systems, and of the genealogies of Indian dy- 

 nasties, which possess the highest authority and value. When transferred to 

 Calcutta, he became the projector and editor of the " Journal of the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal," a very voluminous pubhcation, to which he contributed 

 more than one hundred articles on a vast variety of subjects, but more par- 

 ticularly on Indian coins and Indian paleography. He first succeeded in 

 deciphering the legends which appear on the reverses of the Greek Bactrian 



