336 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[October, 



NOTES ON EARTH-WORK. 

 Account of a Machine called a Tippler, used on the Southampton 

 Railuay. 

 To the most casual observer it must be apparent that the limitation of the 

 quantity of earth-work capable of being executed in one day, occurs at the 

 battery or tiphead, and not at the face of the cutting. The excavation he.ng 

 almost unlimited, whereas the width of embankment limits the teaming, the 

 greatest number of men that can be employed at one tip, being from 10 to 

 1" and the maximum quantity teamed in one day, being 800 wagons, and 

 for the twentv-four hours, 1000 wagons. Side wagons from quitting their 

 load at the side, are much used to facilitate tipping, and the return of the 

 empty wagons from the battery to the excavation. Of the many attempts 

 made to facilitate this operation, one of the first was used on the Carlisle 

 and the Hartlepool railways, by Mr. Grabamsley; and the following testimony 

 will shew the importance in which the attempt was held by the profession. 

 Mr Vignoles sent a man to the Carlisle line, who reported that it was not 

 worth adopting; Mr. R. Stephenson sent Mr. Copeland and Mr. Noel, 

 contractors, to the Hartlepool line, for the same purpose; both reported it 

 would not answer; Mr. Locke said that if found practicable, it must be for 

 the interest of the contractor to adopt it, finally I believe it was not found 

 to answer. Mr. Buck tried another plan on the London and Birmingham 

 Railway at Watford, viz. projecting balks of timber over the tip, and after 

 the first wagon was learned, it was puihcd forward until a second was tipped, 

 and both returned together; it became useless on new embankment, and was 

 abandoned. The ordinarv disposition of temporary ruads is generally as 

 follows viz. two lines of road are laid down called the empty and full bne, 

 and where the batterv head is approached, the road diverges into branches 

 or spurrings to as many teaming places as the breadth of the embankment 

 will allow : a horse being employed to draw the empty wagons into a sidmg. 

 until a full set is empty, and to run the full wagons out of the full siding to 

 the tip head. I have not seen any plan of Grahamslcy's machine, excepting 

 the account given in evidence on the Southampton Railway in the Appendix 

 to Brees' Railway Practice. The accompanying sketch is made from a rough 

 sketch sent me by a frieud who saw the tippler in operation. The frame A 



-v^ 



in front, which is perpendicular and supported on two trucks with iron 

 wheels, is provided with a screw B, to raise or lower the cross rail c, to suit 

 the inequalities of the ground. The four balks D are in the direction of the 

 railway ; one end of the balks rests upon the brackets E and the cross rail o, 

 the other ends are supported on the embankment already formed ; these 

 balks are for supporting the rails of the full and empty roads ; the balks D 

 are tied to the brackets F with wrought iron ties jointed ; the two transverse 

 balks with rails G are to support a low truck, having rails laid on the top on 

 a level, and in the same direction as the rails of the two roads, the full and 

 empty: so by a side motion the low truck tranfers a wagon on the top from 

 one line of rails to the other parallel to it, thereby avoiding the delay of 

 horsing as described above. A very similar arrangement is shown in the 

 Journal, Vol. IV, p. 250, in the description of the Paris and Versailles Rail- 

 way, for the purpose of saving the expence of a turntable opposite each pair 

 cf rails, for transferring the carriages from one line of rails to another. I 

 raav also mention that a precisely similar plan is in use at the Nottingham 

 station of the Midland Counties Railway. There being no account published 

 of this machine, perhaps your doing so may elicit further particulars, al- 

 though there is not much facility given to publish failures. 



Yours truly, 

 St. Anne's, Neit-castle-on-Tyne. 0- "• 



CANDIDUS'S NOTE-BOOK. 

 FASCICULUS XLL 



" I must have liberty 

 Wilhal, as large a charter as the w nds, 

 To blow on whom 1 please." 



I. If it was the intention of the architect of the Alliance Office to show how 

 completely an order may be made to lose its character, not by any alteration 

 of, or 'tampering with' its proportions or details, but by perverse and 

 tasteless application of it— he must be allowed to have succeeded admirably. 

 With the Bank immediately facing bis own building, be has ventured to make 

 use of the very same oider, so introduced, that every point of difference is most 

 decidedly for the worst. Instead of being placed upon a simple stylobate, 

 the columns are raised upon a basement, of such exceedingly poor and or- 

 dinary design in its.lf, that were all the lest perfectly unexceptionable, the 

 lower part of the building would greatly detract from the general eflTect. 

 As it is, however, the insignificance and anti-classical taste there displayed, is of 

 little consequence, for the upper part of the fa?ade is also poor ; therefore, so 

 far, the whole would be tolerably of a piece, where it not that what is of excel- 

 lent quality in itself, has been dragged in so as to lose its own value, without 

 conferring any on the other parts. That the columns have been forcibly 

 dragged into the design is evident enough, for not only are they introduced 

 without motive, but quite contrary to it ; and in such manner, as to occasion 

 glaring and offensive improprieties. It mu.t be confessed, that in the oppo- 

 site facade of the Bank, columns are employed only for the sake of eflfect ; 

 but then, there they do produce efTect-eflTect of a more than ordinarily 

 picturesque and tasteful kind. There is nothing that interferes with them, 

 or to mar the gracefulness of columnar composition-in which so very 

 much depends upon that sort of proportion, which is, as often as not, wholly 

 disregarded by those who afl-ect to be most scrupulous as to proportions of 

 detail The architect of the Alliance Oflice, for one, has certainly not at- 

 tended to the proportion alluded to, for he has put his columns so far apart, 

 that thev serve chieflv to produce a straggling effect; and yet. owing to the 

 windows' between them, the whole has a very disagreeable, crowded, and 

 squeezed up appearance. The centre intercolumn, containing two treple 

 windows, one over the other-an arrageraeut which it is hardly possible by 

 any means to render tolerable, is so wide, as to amount almost to a gap in the 

 composition. Of course this was occasioned by the gateway below, which 

 is in itself so wide, that it also forms a gap, and seems to require columns 

 to support its lintel or architrave ; therefore, unless intended for carriages 

 to pass through-wl.ich does not appear to be the case, bad the opening, 

 been a little contracted by two columns being placed so as just to clear the 

 piers, the effect would so far have been better, and the passage through the 

 building would have been just as wiile as at present. 



II. Professor llosking is not the only one who has expressed a very con- 

 temptuous opinion of Vitruvius ; for a writer in the " Aunales des Bat.mens 

 has spoken of that - venerable authority " in terms that must ■"^^;^» J"^" 

 mireas absolutely shudder. He does not scruple to apply to the Father of 



