18S0."| 



THE CIVIL ENCilNEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



347 



ORDNANCE SURVEY OF SCOTLAND. 



Oiu attention has been called to the present state of the Ord- 

 nance Survey of Scotland, by a very able article in our Edinburffh 

 contemporary, the Scotsman, and it induces us to claim the public 

 consideratiiiii on a matter of very considerable professional inte- 

 rest. In London we have been interfered witli by the military sur- 

 veyors, and, it is now known, to the public ])rcjudice. Those who 

 objected to it at that time were considered factious, and [lerhaps 

 we may be so called for referring to it now, but tliere are too 

 many commissioners and jobbers at large not to make us wary; 

 and we think it necessary to warn the public, from the experience 

 of the past and the example of the present, a^cainst trusting any- 

 thing more than they can lielp to the direction of the govern- 

 ment and its boards. Edinburgh and Scotland are not better off 

 than London— the Ordnance Surveyors are behind time; and if the 

 present course is to be followed up, there is no telling when the 

 Survey may be completed. The British Association in its meetings 

 in Scotland has had some influence in urging the Ordnance to the 

 work. Every meeting is marked by impatience at the non-com- 

 pletion of the Survey. In 1834., sixteen years ago, when the Asso- 

 ciation formerly met'in Edinburgh, they urged this question on the 

 attention of the go\ernment; and we must own it marks a degree 

 of apathy to the wants and interests of the country, that in 1850 

 a meeting should have again to move on the same question. In 

 the " Synopsis of Recommendations" handed to members on the 

 last day of the Association, was the following notice: — 



" That a committee, consisting of the President, the Duke of 

 Argyll, Sir R. I. Murchison, Professor J. Forbes, and Lord Breadal- 

 hane, he appointed for the purpose of urging on her .Majesty's 

 government the completion of the Geographical Survey of Scot- 

 land, as recommended by the British Association at their former 

 meeting in Edinburgh in 1834.." 



Those who know what government boards are, » ill not expect 

 too much from this strong hint; and the Si-otsinu)i particularly 

 remarks this, and urges the necessity of public bodies and private 

 individuals following up the demand. It says: 



"Notwithstanding the well-known energy and influence of the 

 members of the above committee, the last line of tlie resolution 

 does not permit us to hope that it will eff'ect much good, unless 

 followed up by similar and more continuous effurts on the ]iart of 

 other individuals and public bodies. Had the sixteen years that 

 have elapsed since the former recommendation been rightly em- 

 ployed, this resolution would not have needed to appear in the 

 proceedings of the Association." 



No one will be surprised to learn that in sixteen years nothing 

 has been done. A great part of the map niiglit have been com- 

 pleted, and tlie remainder so far advanced as to give us some hopes 

 of living to see its termination. Instead of this, only a few sheets 

 of one county have been finished; and at the present rate of pro- 

 gress, it is com|)uted half a century will be required before a com- 

 plete map of Scotland is produced. The Ordnance Survey of Scot- 

 land and the British .Museum Catalogtie may perhaps be finished 

 at the same time; and if not out of date in their earlier portions, 

 be of use to our great-grandchildren. 



M'e are informed, that all the great system of triangulation is 

 conii)leted, and that the work which now remains to be done is 

 merely the filling-in of the subordinate details. Every body knows 

 men cajiahle of performing this work can be procured in any num- 

 ber, and for very moderate pay — as the Ordnance Surveyors of the 

 metrupolis, the corporals and privates, can give evidence. 



The way in which this system of management works is most 

 sickening: it not only does not the good it professes to do, but 

 hinders others from doing good. Our contemporary gives flagrant 

 proof of tills. He says, the Government Survey is the great bar- 

 rier to any attempt at the improveinent even of the local maps. No 

 publisher dare venture on the expense of a new survey, or even on 

 a thorough collation of the existing materials for correcting the 

 map, with the fear of a government map before his eyes. We 

 agree with him, that private enterprise would long ago have pro- 

 duced a more perfect map, and that the speculation would have 

 been successful, had not the public survey stood in the way — like 

 the dog in the manger, neither eating itself nor allowing others to 

 do so. \\ ere it fully understood the Scotch are to have no 

 government map for the next twenty years, even yet private enter- 

 prise would undertake it; but no publisher is safe in surveying 

 even a single county or correcting a single sheet of a map. In 

 example of this is quoted the case of the survey of Edinburgh, 

 by the Messrs. Johnston — which was no sooner completed on the 



government scale, and the first sheet published, than the official 

 surveyors were brought down from the extreme south of the king- 

 dom, and the whole work begun anew at the public expense. 



THE SHIPBUILDING TRADE OF LIVERPOOL. 



Liverpool is forced to be great, not only by her own progress, 

 but by the rivalry of Birkenhead; and the public can never be sur- 

 prised to hear of any gigantic enterprise in which she has engaged. 

 Her docks and warehouses are among the wonders of England; 

 but she contemplates new works, on which the Liverpool Timfn 

 speaks at lentftli: — "No one can read," says our contemporary, 

 "the evidence taken before the Committee on Shipbuilding with- 

 out perceiving, that in obtaining the indispensable object of a 

 sufficient supply of dock accommodation, we have sacrificed the 

 highly-desirable' object of a sufficient supply of accommodation 

 for shipbuilding. The only manner in which these two objects 

 could have been combined vvithout forming a great number of new- 

 docks, and setting aside new land for the shipbuilders, would have 

 been by adding to the real amount of dock accommodation, by 

 building wareliouses round the already existing docks, and by 

 introducing other means of economising dock space, connected 

 with that gVand improvement, and altogether impracticable without 

 it. Had this been done when it was proposed by Mr. Eyre Evans, 

 not only niiirbt Calcutta ships have been discharged in three or four 

 days, instead of three or four weeks (as .Mr. J. A. Tobin says they 

 now are), but all other ships might have been discharged at the 

 same rapid rate. Thus, very few new docks would have been ne- 

 cessary; and .Mr. A\'ilson, aiul the other shipbuilders, might have 

 retained tlieir building yards, for another generation at least. 

 Unfortunately for the town, that projiosal was defeated by per- 

 sonal interests, combined with party spirit; and having been de- 

 feated, thei-e remained no other means of providing for the rapidly 

 increasing commerce of the jiort, than by forming a great number 

 of new docks. This could not be done without expelling the pre- 

 vious occupants of the land on which they had to be formed. 

 Thus the refusal to build warehouses round the docks rendered the 

 forming of new docks necessary; and the taking of ground for 

 them has pretty nearly annihilated the shipbuilding and engineer- 

 ing of the port, and has diminished to^ an enormous extent the 

 amount expended in the town in wages." 



This affords a very clear view of the difficulty in which Liver- 

 pool is now placed; but it seems by a remarkable instance of retri- 

 butive justice, the opponents of dock warehouses have been 

 amongst the principal sufferers from the course of proceedings 

 which they rendered necessary. The closing of the ship-yards, 

 and the diminution of the amount of employment in the foundries, 

 have had the eff'ect of emptying thousands of houses, and of 

 adding frightfully to the pressure of poor-rates, both on ware- 

 houses and houses. 



The tonnage of the port has nevertheless increased from 

 1,'223,318 tons in 1836, to 3,309,746, in 1849. There were only 

 two ways of meeting this increase; the one to make the existing 

 docks do double or treble duty by improved modes of working; 

 the other, to form a multitude of new docks. The former course 

 being rejected, nothing remained but to adojit the latter. 



It is well observed, that what renders Birkenhead formidable to 

 Liverpool, is the admirable arrangements made for landing goods, 

 and forwarding them into the interior. There the warehouses are 

 so built that goods can be craned up from the holds of the vessels 

 which import them, on one side, and lowered into river boats, 

 or railway trucks, on the other. iVt Birkenliead there will be no 

 cost of cartage on goods sent at once into the interior; no danger 

 of pilferage; no unnecessary loss of interest on ship or cargo, and 

 no loss of a favourable market or of a handsome freight. 



With regard to the plan proposed by the Shipbuilding C(un- 

 mittee, and explained in the Town Council by -Mr. J. Aspinall 

 Tobin, we understand it to be, that the present building yards 

 should be made as convenient as possible, and that fourteen new- 

 building yards, each containing about 1U,0U0 square yards of land, 

 should be f(n-med north of the Sandon Dock. These are to be 

 furnished with private graving-docks, at the cost of the Corpora- 

 tion, the tenants paying five "per cent, interest on the cost of the 

 graving-docks, and 8(/. a-yard rent for the land ; and being secured 

 in the possession of the land by leases long enough to induce them 

 to erect first-rate machinery for shipbuilding, and the necessary 

 buildings. 



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