290 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[Sbptember, 



Symington's contrivance. When the vessel was tried after having been 

 lengthened, she was not found to be as fast as was anticipated, and the 

 fault was thrown upon Symington's pipes for obstructing the passage 

 of the ship tlirough the water. These pipes were therefore taken 

 off, but the vessel did not go any faster in consequence, and the pipes 

 would perhaps have been applied again, had not the event of the 

 vessel being nearly as slow as ever so discouraged the owners, that 

 they deemed it inexpedient to go to any farther expense. Even had 

 Symington's plan been re-applied, she would have still been inefficient 

 for their purposes ; she was therefore laid aside, and is now broken up. 

 It is a natural objection to Symington's plan, that the pipes on the 

 outside of the ship are peculiarly liable to injury. In this belief we 

 ourselves participated, but experience has proved the objection to be 

 unfounded. The City of Londundtrry encountered several severe 

 storms in the Bay of Biscay, without the pipes sustaining the slightest 

 damage ; and in the other cases in which they have been applied — 

 as in the Dispatch, where the plan has now been in operation for some 

 years — no injury to the pipes has ever been found to occur. Indeed, 

 after having given much inquiry and consideration to the subject, it 

 is our decided belief that Symington's plan is not only the best for keep- 

 ing boilers supplied with fresh water at sea, but that it is unattended 

 with any evils or inconveniences unknown to the common method of 

 condensation. The expense, too, is not great; the direct advantage is 

 not inconsiderable ; and the indirect advantage of such magnitude as 

 to have induced us to give this mode of condensation so conspicuous 

 a place in this dissertation. 



Expansion is the most effectual known agency for economizing fuel ; 

 high pressure steam is indispensable for efficient expansion ; and 

 locomotive boilers are necessary to the use of high pressure steam in 

 steam vessels with safety. The use of locomotive boilers involves 

 the necessity of feeding the boilers with fresh water, and this is best 

 to be accomplished by Symington's plan of condensation. It is also 

 expedient (hat the locomotive boilers used in steam vessels should be 

 provided with some species of self-acting feed, as the quantity of 

 water in such boilers being small, the water level, without some such 

 expedient, will be liable to great and sudden fluctuation. But upon 

 this topic we are now unable to enlarge, and must reserve its con- 

 sideration for our next number. 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XL. 



■• I must have liberty 

 Withal, as large a charter as the umds, 

 To blow on whom I I'lease."' 



I. George Robins most assuredly did not consult Welby Pugin, 

 when, in his late advertisement of the sale of Weddington Castle, he 

 spoke of Lugar as " an artist possessing a perfect knowledge of 

 Gothic architecture." No doubt he would say just the same of any 

 one else who had built a castellated pigstye, which vias to be knocked 

 down by his hammer. George is privileged to puff — no matter how 

 impudently — for it is his vocation. But it is lamentable to see the 

 same sort of nauseous puffery indulged in where there ought to be 

 something like reasonable opinion assigned for the praise that is 

 bestowed. It is a pity that, instead of an Income-tax, a tax was not 

 levied on superfluous and nonsensical epithets. " Splendid" and 

 " Elegant" have been so bandied about of late as to have lost all their 

 value, and almost their meaning, too. In some cases — and those not 

 a few — they might be supposed to have changed their meaning alto- 

 gether, and to have become synonymous with "paltry" and "trum- 

 pery." With advertisement and paragraph writers everything is, in 

 fact a trump card : they have nothing but trumps dealt to them, and 

 they themselves deal in nothing but trumpetting. Even the Times 

 has lately got hold of a penny-trumpet — that, perhaps, of some 

 penny-a-liner — with which it has been squeaking out the praises of 



one or tvvo publications, which formerly, supposing them to have then 

 appeared, it would not have condescended to notice at all. 



II. Mr. Moxhay seems to resemble Lord Byron, inasmuch as, on 

 waking a few weeks ago, in the morning, he found himself suddenly 

 become famous. Within the last month, his name has appeared and 

 his building has been spoken of in almost every newspaper, and that 

 in a manner more flattering to both, than to some of the "Dons" in the 

 profession and their handyworks. Not a few have been the peregri- 

 nations made to Threadneedle Street, by artists and people of taste, 

 for the express purpose of viewing a piece of architecture whose 

 character is so remarkable, on account of the exceedingly important 

 share which sculpture has in it. The artist employed upon the last 

 has performed his task with more than ordinary ability, and has 

 produced what will bear deliberate examination as a work of art — as 

 something more than so much ornament, intended merely to aid the 

 general effect. Whether what has been here done by a private indi- 

 vidual will have the effect — either general or partial — of introducing 

 sculpture into architecture, as a more important feature in it than 

 it has hitherto been made in this country, it would be as hazardous to 

 prophecy as it was to predict the London earthquake. 



III. It is justly remarked by the writer of the " Spirit of Archi- 

 tecture," that the engineer — and, he might have added, the builder — 

 is now treading upon the heel of the architect. Well, let us then hope 

 that those who bear the latter title will feel spurred on thereby, and 

 endeavour to rouse themselves from their lethargy — from the drowsy 

 system of giving us literal copies of a few of the forms or parts 

 belonging to the style professedly adopted. At the best they show 

 themselves no more than mere copyists, unable to think for themselves, 

 or to get on at all vvithout incessant prompting: nor is itunfrequently 

 they betray how utterly ignorant they are of the real character of the 

 style they profess to follow. In fact, as far as they study style at all, very 

 many seem to have no other notion of doing so than merely by piece- 

 meal, and in fragments. They can pore over its separate bits — they 

 have its alphabet tolerably well by heart ; but farther than that they 

 are either quite unable to get, or too itidolent to strive to advance. 

 They take no grasp of any style ; they do not attempt to make them- 

 selves masters of it. Perhaps, after all, no wonder such should be the 

 case ; for if the study requisite for attaining a comjilete knowledge 

 of style, composition and effect, be not felt to be a delightful pursuit, 

 it must be felt to be a confounded bore. The bored or wooden-boards 

 will content themselves— what a virtue is content! — with what they 

 can pick up out of " Stuart," and other works of that kind. But they 

 would also do well to reflect — if only because it may touch their own 

 pockets — that they are not exactly the patentees of the works they 

 make use of so very liberally, and study very scantily. The engineer 

 and the builder can take a leaf out of them, just as well as themselves, 

 and thereby become every inch as chtssical. Little occasion is there 

 for an architect for such things as the York and the Nelson column, 

 when an engineer would do quite as well, perhaps even better. Little 

 occasion, too, is there to employ a sculptor, when anything rough- 

 shaped into the form of a man will serve for the statue that is to be 

 hoisted up to such a height as to render seeing it out of the question. 

 rV. It is somewhat singular, that while polychromy has been 

 adopted at Munich for one or two buildings, the Ionic monopteral 

 temple in the "English Garden," the Post Office, and Great Theatre, 

 the throne-room of the palace should be entirely white and gold ; 

 although a very good opportunity was there offered for trying the full 

 effect of polychromic architectural decoration precisely after the 

 antique fashion, by decorated colouring and painted enrichments 

 applied to the mouldings and surfaces of the various architectural 

 members. Probably the monochrome or achromatic style of embel- 

 lishment adopted for this apartment was intended to contrast with the 

 rest, all of which are painted with subjects in fresco ; which last cir- 

 cumstance, and that of the rooms being throughout of nearly the same 

 size and shape, occasion a degree of monotony that it would have 

 been better to avoid. No "Episodes of Plan" are to be found in 

 the Neue Residenz at Munich, though the throne-room itself admitted 

 of being rendered a rather striking one, since its purpose admitted of 



