162 



THE Cn^IL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



:may, 



since if they fail, if they squander the public money, its only the public 

 who sutler, and nobody feels it. 



It may be asked what is the practical evil of all this ? Some of the 

 evils which I have obser\'ed are, that the director of works puts him- 

 self under obligations to the more experienced builder for the inform- 

 ation which lie lacks; deplorably ignorant himself, he draws from him 

 Lis ideas, and gets into the habit of depending upon tlie very man whom 

 Le should be in a position to dinct. One result of this is,' that money 

 is wasted in useless strength, or in the adoption of expensive methods 

 and expensive materials. The self-styled engineer feeling no confi- 

 dence in his own knowledge, and desirous above all things to avoid 

 the onus of a failure from want of strength, is induced to lavish ex- 

 penditure in the attainment of security beyond all necessity, and even 

 beyond all decency. And so our government works instead of deriv- 

 ing all the benefit of the experience of private undertakings, are 

 usually conducted in a manner altogether in arrear of the knowledge 

 ©f the times. 



Instead of employing persons competent to design public works, and 

 ■well acquainted with the most advantageous mode of getting them 

 executed. If any matter demanding superior skill be required, such 

 for instance as a swivel bridge (as was recently the case in the Ply- 

 mouth Dockyard), a manufacturer is invited to submit his design and 

 tender, and the work costs 4U per cent, more than it would if compe- 

 tition tenders had been called for upon a specific design. But who is to 

 make that design? how is it to be had if the persons employed in the 

 engineering department, whether chief or subordinates, are incompe- 

 tent to its production? and if incompetent to such a work, how fit are 

 they for the olBce which they hold ? 



How does it happen that these things are so? That the most com- 

 petent man that can be found as the Surveyor of the Navy, whose oflice 

 it is to construct ships, and to make drawings, and enter upon all the 

 elaborate calculations required in such an important work, is not a 

 profound mathematician, who having great mechanical skill, and hav- 

 ing directed his entire education to that pursuit, is well informed upon 

 all its manifold mysteries — not a practical ship buildep who, having a 

 scientific mind, and gifted with intelligence beyond his fellows, has 

 attained tlie theoretical and mathematical knowledge which forms the 

 necessary qualifications of an accomplished naval architect — not either 

 of these, but a Captain in the Nary, a man who knows as well how to 

 build a ship, as a prince does a palace, or an archbishop a cathedral. 

 Many gentlemen who have always lived in good houses, and noted 

 their conveniences or defects, fancy themselves very skilful in ar- 

 ranging the apartments of a mansion, and sufficiently knowing for all 

 the measure of taste that they think necessary for its embellishment; 

 they build after their own designs, and under their own management, 

 and whether they find it out or cot, all their friends discover that their 

 deep solicitude for some darling "bijouterie" has spoiled their house, 

 that they have sacrificed their comfort and their purse to their con- 

 ceited notions: and yet the Captain in the navy has lived in a ship 

 from his boyhood, has noted all its good or bad points, and is not he 

 the man to build a ship ? he may build and he may alter, and he may 

 be very successful in attaining some one point of excellence, but at 

 what cost? let the naval expenditure tell, and it could tell some very 

 deplorable tales upon this subject; it could tell at what cost the coun- 

 try has progressed with the education of our Captain-Surveyor, what 

 has been paid for his experience, and how dearly we ought to prize 

 it. This, Sir, is jiart of a system which is overrunning all the depart- 

 ments of the public service, we are becoming a military-ridden people 

 in matters essentially civil. Naval and military men hold together 

 and assist each other to the degradation of all the" branches of the civil 

 service. Their rank is a passjiort every where, and gives them a 

 position which is not readily yielded to civilians, of whatever merit: 

 existing upon patronage, they nurse it and cherish it as their best 

 friend, and whatever of it they have to disperse, they take good care 

 that it shall How into the jirescribed channel of their'own order. 

 _ I do not expect that writing upon this subject will be of much prac- 

 tical utility, and I hate agitation, but it is high time that some notice 

 of so wide-spreading an evil against the profession which your Journal 

 so ably upholds, should find a place in its columns. It is the more im- 

 portant that it should do so now, that we are told by the President of 

 the Institution of Civil Engineers, that too many young men are crowd- 

 ing into the profession, which is overstocked with professors, while 

 the field of their employment is diminishing. It may well indeed 

 diminish, while the government departments overlooking the claims of 

 men whose professional education has costtlum seldom less than lOOOl. 

 are put aside by military pretenders, who after a few months dabbling 

 in drawing, under the masters of the Royal College, are turned out 

 finished, and fit for the best of every thing. 



Verily I wish there were a tribunal at which these belted aspirants 

 could take a tilt with tcorking men. I would have them set alone, not 



even should the despised clerk of works lend his wonted and bashful 

 glance— he should not only sign the design, but he should make it, 

 and a very pretty business he would make of it. 



Having brought my military professors into this predicament I am 

 quite content to leave them there, and subscribe myself, 



A Civilian. 



RIVER SEVERN. 



Report oil the Proposed Improvement of the River Severn, between Gloucester 



ami Stourport. 



By William Cobitt, Civil Engineer. 



The object of this report is to set forth the projmsed plan and probable 

 cost of the intended improvement in the navigation of the river Severn, from 

 Gloucester to Stourport, agreeably to jilans and sections lodged with the 

 respective Clerks of the Peace, preparatory to au application to Parliament 

 in the ensuing session for that purpose. 



In its present state the river Severn abounds with shoals, which very much 

 impede the navigation, so as to render it impossible for the vessels which 

 narigate it to proceed with full cargoes, or in a long continued drought to 

 proceed along the river at all. to the manifest disadvantage of all that por- 

 tion of the public which has any interest in or dependence upon the navi- 

 gation of the river Severn. 



The object of the proposed plan is to obviate these difficulties, and to ob- 

 tain a minimum depth at any time of not less than six feet of water in all 

 parts of the iia\-igation between the entrance lock of the Gloucester and 

 Berkeley Canal, at Gloucester, to the entrance lock of the StatTbrdsliire and 

 Worcestershire Canal, at Stourport, and upon such principle as will in uo 

 wise interfere with the due and projjcr drainage of the a(!joining lands, or 

 the dischai'ge of the flood \vater of the river as at present, except insomuch 

 as both may be improved and facilitated by the measiu-e. 



The means by which this inijirovenieut is to be carried into effect, is by 

 what are technically termed weirs and locks, of which there will be five of 

 each between Gloucester and Stourport. 



The effect of the weirs or dams in the river is to divide the whole fall of 

 the low summer water between Stourport and Gloucester, into five steps or 

 falls, and by a side cut or short canal (with a lock therein) round or past the 

 jide of the weir, the navigation is carried on in the same manner as in an 

 artificial canal, whilst the river passes off over the weir at a depth or thick- 

 ness jiroportioned to the quantity of water coming down, and the weir is so 

 contrived as to height, length, and position, that whilst it will never let out 

 the water of the river below the fixed navigable depth in time of short water, 

 it will nevertheless afford a gieater capacity for the escape of flood water than 

 at present obtained in the same place ; and as all the shoals in the river be- 

 tween the weirs are to be dredged out to make a uniform navigable channel, 

 it must be evident that the capacity of the river for the discharge of floods 

 must be increased and improved, whilst through the same means the. low 

 summer water will he prevented from running off below its present level at 

 the foot of each weir ; and from the low water channel being deepened at 

 the shoals, the exit of the drainage water will be improved also, whilst the 

 navigation will be at all times available whether it be drought or flood. 



The total fall of the river at suicmer water, from Stourport to the entrance 

 of the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, is thirty-two feet in a total distance 

 of forty-two miles, of which the lower portion from Gloucester to Upton 

 Ham, (the site of the first weir), being a distance of eighteen and a half 

 miles, the fall is only four feet, a quantity but httle more than suflicient to 

 carry off the water in the ordinary state of the river, the whole of wliich dis- 

 tance being subject to the influence of the tides, no weir or locks will be re- 

 quired within these limits, (that is, from the Upton weir downwards), and no 

 other operations than dredging and regulating the breadth of the low water 

 channel, to obtain the requisite navigable depth, will be necessarj' ; and it 

 may be further observed, that no dredging or deepening of the channel will 

 be done on the Gloucester branch of the river below the entrance of the 

 Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, or on the JIaisemore branch lower down 

 than the entrance lock to the Herefordshire Canal, and to no greater depth 

 than the sill of that lock, and of suflicient breadth to admit the boats which 

 navigate it to pass to and from that canal and the river at the Upper Parting 

 respectively ; by which means, and leaving untouched the remaining portion 

 of both branches below the entrance to the Berkeley and the Hereford 

 Canals respectively, it must be evident that no alteration will be made in the 

 height or level of the surface water of the river up to the first weir in a 

 distance of eighteen and a half miles above Gloucester ; nor is it intended or 

 required by the present proposition for obtaining a sLx feet navigation to 

 erect any weirs or locks, or to do any works that may affect the height or 

 level of the river below the weir at Upton Ham, or in any way to affect, alter, 

 or interfere with the adjoining lands in relation to the river as at present 

 existing. 



Proceeding upwards, the next weir and lock are at M'orcester, just below 

 the entrance lock at the Birmingham and \A'orcester Canal, at Dighs, a point 

 tweut)--nine miles up the river from Gloucester; the thurd weir and lock will 

 be Bevere Islands, four miles above \Vorcester, at a place where the river has 

 two channels, in one of which will be placed the weir, and in the other the 

 lock, bv which the necessitvfor an artificial canal or side cut will be avoided. 



