174 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[May, 



PATENT VALVE CLOSETS. 



Sm-I bee to solicit your attention to an improvement in the ^Ive (oi 

 Bramah's) Water Closet; patented by W. Beetson. Its decided advantage 

 will be clearly seen from the following engravings. 



A 



The Valve Closet is allovfed by all scientific men to be the best m use : but 

 from the fact of the valve of the common (or Bramah s closet) l>i"g »»"- 

 .onTally, unless the handle is puUed up all the distance, it only ope"^ ^ aktlv 

 and when opened the whole distance, the valve and axle are exposed to the 

 pajer&e. catching upon it. By this invention the faults of the present 



^'Thl^^SarS^Tement consists in the valve at the bottom of the 

 haJin bei^g placed in a sloping position, which position allows the valve to 

 open quite out of the way, and prevents paper, &c. catching upon it. ^ 



A Shows Beetson's Closet in section, with the 



valve closed. 

 B Shows how far the improved valve opens 



when the handle is raised. 

 C Shows the common (or Bramah's) valve 



open. 



The improved 

 valve. 



Bramah's 

 valve. 



The dotted line shows the valve partly open, which is its position when the 



'fh;i;^fo'fThe^"m'proved closet cannot be opened as shown by the 

 dotted ine of figure C. as the slightest movement of the handle opens it 

 J^rrendicular, o' as far as theKornmon closet, n-hen as Handle ,s pulled 



"^tZer improvement consists of a valve being placed in the waste arm 

 (or overflow pipe) ; the use of this valve ,s »» P'^«^/»' "/" f™"" "'''"S' 

 should the part trapped be dried up, which is often the case. 



I am, 

 Yours obediently, 



.« c. J F- Roe. 



70, Strand. 



ON ARCHITECTURAL CRITICISM. 

 Addressed to J. L. 

 An apologv is certainly dne from me to J. L., inasmuch as 1 addressed 

 J L when Ditto, it seems, was the mystical person to whom, a reply being 

 necessav, I should have replied. My hope of pardon from J. L rests upon 

 UgenUeman's perceiving that the word Ditto, com ng '-mediately after 

 his initials, was the cause of my being led into the mistake alluded to bpon 

 the general manner of my writing, which J. L. condemns for « ant of sim- 

 pliciW, I feel compeUcd to be silent-readers being generally better able than 

 writer^ are to determine such a question-though of course it cannot be 

 supposed that I could, in reason, by bowing to the opinion of J. L., a name- 

 ess writer, confess to a fault by no means small For althougli 1 would 

 allow it to be very possible, that the revelation of my ideas upon c itic sm, 

 may not have be™ sufticiently clear to every reader yet ;voud submit to 

 the intellectual critic, whether the necessity of fitting though s, often re- 

 qu ring a wide field fo^ their display, into the columns of a periodical, would 

 So account for occasional obscurity. It would be unreasonable for a person 

 Uke mvself, freely animadverting on others, to hope to escape a;™advcrsion 

 imself, but if there are, amongst the intelligent correspondents of this 

 Journal any who have tried their skill on similar themes in a periodi al, 

 fe dc rtain of their indulgence. Leaving this matter to the d.scernment of 

 ust people, it only becomes me to notice the paragraph complained of, with 

 the view of proving that the paragraph is not obscure and unmeaning, d- 

 houTj. L.^may not perceive its force. I would remark that, "ncoiicerned 

 asJ L was in the remark which led to that paragraph, and innocent as he 

 was ne^e^sarly of the feeling, or affectation of the f;eeling of contempt for 

 me whTch feeling, or its aflfectation. Ditto displayed in his remark, I was 

 ^roCk d to iiotic;, he could not feel the edge of a reply which cut on y as 

 itTmmuated what it was I despised. This manner of answering, ,f obscure, 

 has be 1 a favourite method of'reply amongst orators and poets of every age, 

 and fo his simple reason, that it allows a speaker or writer to represent hi 

 own feelings, at the same time as he ridicules or expresses contempt for 



those of others. 



, , iBio Frederick East. 



April, 1S4.J. 



MR. S. SEAWARD'S MEMOIR ON AUXILIARY STEAM POWER. 



SiR-In your review of Mr. Seaward's memoir on Auxiliary Steam Power, 

 you quote affrom the 5th Part of Vol. III. of the Transactions of the In ti- 

 ution of Civil Engineers, the foUowing passage, "the employment of a 

 uadruple amount of steam power would not double the speed, although m 

 theon this rassumed to be the fact." I have read the article over very 

 cSuv and cannot find such a passage; the only one resembling it is at 

 Taee 386 "The immediate consequence of this disproportionate increase 

 of weiEhtisagreater immersed section of the vessel, and a necessary in- 

 crelse of resittlnce offered to her motion, so that the force required to pro- 

 neirerhroulh the water must always increase with the power employed 

 Tnd not evenaibing the steam power --.">-J.P™''--'-", ^•^'°«"='- 

 It would be onlv just to make this correction in your nex. number. 



M. Inst. C. t. 



fThe only answer we have to give to the above communication is to re- 

 cmest anv of our readers who may be desirous to examine for themselves, to 

 ' n at our ffice and inspect the copy of the Transactions -o»r possession 

 and there they will find the passage as quoted by us, word for word , at the 

 same time we^are bound to say that we have seen another copy of the So- 

 ctu's Transactions, since the appearance of our review and in that copy the 

 paragraph i^transmogrified into the one last quoted by our correspondent 

 above. — Editor.] 



ON THE MEASUREMENT OF STONE BRIDGES. 



SiR-In your last number a correspondent asks the best way of finding 

 the contents of a stone bridge. No general formula can be found but he 

 following remarks-equally applicable to brick-wiU. I think, be found 



^' Blgifby'tbe piers, abutments, &c. It is best to keep the footings separate 

 The following formula; are useful for the contents of the arch :— 



For a semicircle, W. D. (R. ■"■) 



180 



For a segment, W. D. (R. t.) — 



where W = width of arch; D = the thickness i'-^^^-'i'l^^.^Z-kr oi 

 radius)- R = internal radius + half the thickness: t==3141j, «-"o. oi 

 Wrees'in arc. The backing and walls resting on arch have a curved out- 

 trZ thU a straight line'may be -''f ''"''«'. ''''''"5-- to equal.e the 

 portions left out with those added; or they -^av be suppo ed to be carr'ed 

 down to the springing line, and from the contents t\7,, """'I'/'^Jj^Jl^t 

 irrluvav fcalculated as above) must be deducted. Man>, and particularly 

 rl Iwav bridgerare svmmetrical about 2 axes ; it is i^a this case the easiest 

 w y t takelu; the cubic contents in one 1»arter, and niu tip y by 4 r the 



r 7^:. r::^4i::^'^t ^Aiir=iS-swid "^ 



ena'ra^e and the title pu?on the side, as it facilitates revision ; and besides, 

 r^anfparts being repeated, saves the trouble of repeating the calculations. 

 ■^ ' I am. Sir, 



Yours, &c. 

 Jpril l\,\U2. A. H. P. 



STEAM NAVIGATION. 



THE WEST INDIA MAIL STEAM PACKET COMPANY. 

 It pains us much to be unable to say anything calculated to repress the 

 growing conviction that this is a most perilous enterprise-not that ti,e>e 

 anything inherent in the nature of the scheme to render it necessarily disas- 

 trous, but that the management is so supremely inj.i.liemus as «ould b at 

 to any project, even the most promising. It is true, that this evil ad ut 

 a simple and obvious remedy, but the constitution of the hun an n nd ,s 

 such, Ihat men prefer to attribute calamities to any cause '^'^^P' 'l'^'^ ^^ 

 ignorance or indiscretion; and a fault once committed, ,s "f enei def nded 

 than acknowledged. On this account, although the ™-- o' -"^'^ ; ';; 

 are attainable, our hopes of spontaneous amendinent "^l^"' ^;^'^,,' ^"'^-^ ^e 

 tain it is, that the accomphshment of such a thorough reformation as the 



