no 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[March, 



Gveat 'Western Railways were then examineJ, and much valuable information 

 was "iven on the various contrivances made use of by these companies, and 

 he concluded by appointing the class to meet on the Croydon and Brighton 

 Railways the next morninj, to proceed to the great slip near New Cross. 



"THE slip" on the CROYDON RAILWAY. 



Lecture IX. Jan. U. 1842.— According to appointment, this Lecture was 

 delivered at the great slip near New Cross, on the Croydon and Brighton 

 Railways. The motive of this visit was to explain to the class the reason of, 

 and to "point out the means which might have been taken to have prevented, 

 the great slip which occurred there recently. On leaving the train, the Pro- 

 fessor led the way to the spot, which is situated about half a mile from New 

 Cross. The length of the slip is very considerable, the depth of the cutting 

 very great, and the mass of earth thnt has slipped down from the top of the 

 bank Is of an imposing appearance. The appearance of the slip is as usual- 

 perpendicular at the top for some depth, and then bulging out near the 

 centre ; a sreat number of labourers are employed in shifting the immense 

 quantity of earth to be removed, in consequence of the slip, which is estimated 

 at many thousands of yards. In the meantime, a convenient covered walk 

 has been made for the passengers to pass from one train to another. On 

 both sides of this cutting, for some distance along the line, slips have taken 

 place, but on the left-hand side going from London, they are of but httle 

 importance, compared with the one that was to be particularly inspected by 

 the class. The sell consists of the plastic clay, with numerous strata of sand 

 and gravel, the clay itself lieing very binding, but being, from the recurrence 

 of these strata of sand and gravel, very lialjle to the infiltration of water; 

 and, consequently, to slip, when the up-drainage is not particularly attended 

 to, and the most constant attention paid to every symptom of a slip being 

 about to take place. The Professor then pointed out what he considered to 

 have been the occasion of all the mischief. Nearly all along the slip the 

 earth had given way at the side of a top drain, parallel with the railway, and 

 in some places it was so apparent, that the declivity looked as if made pur- 

 posely ; this had invariably occurred where there were cross drains from the 

 neighbouring ground (which is considerably elevated), leading into the main 

 dram along the top of the cutting, and wliich. not being puddled, or made 

 watertight, had allowed the waier gradually, and during many months, to 

 insinuate itself into the veins in the clay, and had at length forced the mass 

 out as it appeared. He then stated, as his firm opinion, that the slip ought 

 never to have taken place : the earth having stood for three years, was a 

 sufficient proof that the slope was correctly laid out ; and, finally, it could 

 only have been by subsequent natural causes that the accident occurred, 

 while, if the precaution of preventing the drainage from the upper fields 

 getting into the body of the slope had been attended to in time, it might 

 have prevented the slip, and it was obvious that the great evil— water— had 

 beengradually insinuating itself into the bank a long time before. In another 

 part of the cutting, he pointed out a place where a slip was expected to take 

 place in the slope ; but he disapproved of what liad been done hy way of pre- 

 caution, and explained that any operation of making cuts or vertical holes in 

 the slopes, which would admit water, ought to be avoided by all means in the 

 engineer's power, instead of Ijeiug encouraged. The apertures should be 

 driven in horizontally, and brushwood drains introduced, or a kind of hurdle 

 01 fascines, which would act as a drain, and be extremely efficacious ; on this 

 principle he strongly oljjected to the cutting of slight surface drains on the 

 slopes, as he thought them worse than useless, lieing more likely to admit the 

 water than to drain it olV. He alluded to a curious circumstance which had 

 occurred a little higher up the line, where the railroad was made in what used 

 to be the bed of the canal. It appeared that there was a spring, and the 

 water, instead of finding its way out of the slopes, actually raised up the 

 rails. .Several other points of interest were then examined. 



Lecture X.—\A'edncsday. the 19th Jan., Professor Vignoles delivered his 

 tenth lecture "On Civil Engineering.'' on the West London Railway, at 

 AVormwQod Scrubbs. This was rather a practical illustration, by way of experi- 

 ment, than a lecture— it Ijeing a practical exemplification of the working of the 

 system of locomotion by means of atmospheric pressure, elVected by the peculiar 

 valve invented by Messrs. Clcgg and Samuda. In addition to the ordinary 

 class, which was fully attended, there was a large assemblage of scientific 

 men, including several of the engineers of the Belgian railways, and officers 

 of the corps of Royal Engineers ; Mr. James Pim, and many of the principal 

 proprietors of the Dublin and Kingstown Railway ; Col. Jones, Col. Alderson, 

 .Major Matson, Mr. Woodhouse, Capt. W. Moorsom, and several other 

 engineers. 



SECOND COt;RSE. 



On 'Wednesday, the 9th Feb., Professor 'Vignoles delivered his Introductory 

 Lecture to the second course of lectures. He stated that, having in his first 

 course of lectures touched upon several of what he might call the cardinal 

 points of civil engineering. lie was then about to enter the second course, for 

 which (according to previously concerted arrangements) one only of the nu- 

 merous branches of this profession had been selected as the theme, with a 



view of en'erin" considerably into its details, rather than to discuss in a more 

 -eneral manner a varietv of subjects, which, though perhaps equally import- 

 ant, equally interesting and useful, and equally necessary for the student, 

 could not be thoroughly investigated in the course of a single session. In 

 this introductory lecture he would, however, touch concisely on the wide 

 topic of the internal communications of civilized countries, as falling within 

 the scope of the theories and practice of a civil engineer, treating them here 

 as on a general theme ; but the subsequent discourses to the class would con- 

 sist of the details of that more modern branch of internal communication, of 

 so much interest in the present day-the Railway system. It had been well 

 and truly remarked by an enlightened observer, that the great characteristic 

 feature of the present age « as the appreciation of the value of time. In an 

 eloquent introduction to a pamphlet on one branch ot mlernal communica- 

 tion the author expressed himself in terms which he was tempted to quote, 

 as an appropriate preliminary to his own remarks :-" In that career of im- 

 provement which has distinguished the last thirty years beyond, perhaps, 

 any previous history of the world, and in which the sum of the vast ameho- 

 rationseflected in all that relates to the condition of man. is not less striking 

 than the rapidity «ilh which their details have followed upon ench other ; 

 one important lesson seems to have been in an especial degree impressed upon 

 those engaged in the pursuits of industry, and upon the commercial and ma- 

 nufacturing classes in particular-they have been eftectually taught to appre- 

 ciate the value of time, and to apply to its use a degree ot rigid and judicious 

 economy, of which the past afibrds no example ; a lesson which is daily 

 illustrated by the vast expenditure, in this country, upon works affording 

 facilities in accelerating intercourse, since it is universally felt that distances 

 are virtually shortened in the precise ratio in which the time occupied in 

 travelling them is abridged." And it is the practical application of this 

 axiom, which it is almost peculiarly the lot of the civil engineer to be called 

 on by the statesman and the capitalist to realise. In looking back through 

 the vista of centuries, and endeavouring to pierce the mist of tradition, we 

 are led to conclude that the formation of roads must have been amongst the 

 earliest rudiments of civilization ; but until science, or. at least, until system, 

 was applied to their construction, it is evident (from the traces of the simple 

 paths of comparatively modern times, and of no remote countries) that tlie 

 merest tracks sufficed to satisfy our ancestors, who had not yet learned the 

 " yalue of time.' ' Little more was then required than a path upon naturally 

 firm earth-all marshy grounds were avoided-the fords of the rivers were 

 alone resorted to-and the irregularities of surface, or inclination of the road, 

 or its circuitous course, were of little consequence to the pedestrian, or even 

 to the mounted traveller, wlien man had learned to subdue the horse to his 

 wants and wishes. The path generally traced from one distant wig-wam to 

 another became the track from village to village, and at length served as the 

 road from town to to»n, or even to the capital. The line once traced out, 

 indolence and habit seem to have prevented any great exertion to improve or 

 repair, beyond what was indispensably necessary, even after the invention of 

 wheeled carriages : and the system of following the ancient course ot roads 

 seems to have been pertinaciously adhered to in all countries until the 

 advance of civilizition, and the wants of the community, produced improve- 

 ment and gave rise to the calling of the road-maker, and ultimately to the 

 profession of the engineer. The first exercise of his art-for it did not reach 

 the dignity of a science until within very modern times— was, probably, in 

 the formation of raised roads, or causeways, to strong holds, dwellings, or 

 cities, accidentally or artificially made liable to inundations ; and of this kind 

 were the approaches to the passage of the River of Babylon, which the fables 

 of antiquity magnified into a bridge, as long, and consisting of as many 

 arches, as that in the celebrated vision of the Arabian sage. The first step 

 towards internal communications being roads, it may be well defined as the 

 first step in true civilization, and the Abbe Reynal has justly remarked— 

 " Let us travel over all the countries of the earth, and wherever we shall find 

 no facility of trading from a city to a town, and from a village to a hamlet, 

 we may pronounce the people to be barbarians, and we shall only be deceived 

 respecting the degree of barbarism." 



By this test we should probably be induced to judge of the Chinese, if their 

 water communications did not. to a ceriain extent, supply the absolute want 

 of anything like a ro:id capable of passing a loaded wheeled carriage, even at 

 the gates of Pekin. Of all the people in the world, perhaps the Romans took 

 the most pains in forming their roads, and vast was the labour and expense 

 bestowed to make them spacious, firm, solid, and smooth— roads, in fact. 

 from two to even ten or twelve feet thick, formed of what we call in these 

 days " concrete ;" but, as le^ards the system of laying out, in the modern 

 engineering sense, they do not^appear to have had the slightest idea. Straight- 

 ness of direclion seems to have been their only charac;er, and. with a lofty 

 disdain of the effects of gravity, their grand military routes, excepting near 

 Rome itself, were carried direct over hill and dale. Thirty roids, of an 

 aggregate length of 50,000 miles, radiated from their magmficent capital, in 

 Raly, to the furthest extremity of their almost boundless empire ; they only 

 served as internal communications, for keeping down, by their legions, the 

 rebellious spirits of the Briton, the Hun, the Greek, or the Persian, who had. 



