Jan. 20, 1887] 



NA rURE 



275 



being abandoned. At the same time the temporary 

 appropriation of the Western Gallery, D, to the Portrait 

 Gallery and the examination-rooms, will give them an 

 advantageous increase of accommodation, Hence, by 

 this first instalment of the new works, a considerable 

 improvement on the present state of things will be 

 effected : but the space will still be much below what has 

 been estimated as necessary by the Committees who have 

 investigated the matter. 



38. The next portion to be undertaken may be the 

 building with fai;ades at the eastern end, marked m' on 

 the drawing, and coloured red. This is estimated to cost 

 54,183/., and it will furnish 33,75° square feet of additional 

 lloor-space. 



When this is built there will be, in all, 113,75° square 

 feet available, i.e. enough not only to accommodate the 

 present collections, with some increase, but also to re- 

 ceive the Portrait Gallery, and to provide examination- 

 rooms, if required. 



At this time, therefore, there will no longer be any need 

 to hire from the Commissioners of 1S51 the Western 

 Gallery, D, and thus an expenditure of 2000/. per annum 

 will be saved. 



39. The accommodation can afterwards be extended 

 from time to time, as and when means may be voted for 

 the purpose, by the erection of the other portions shown 

 on Drawing No. II., as follows : — 



.\dditional space 



obtained 



Square feet 



Estimated 

 rost 



Interior building at the east end, marked 



n', and coloured brown 28,350 32,93° 



Building with facades at the western end, 



marked M, and coloured red 37,95° 59,24° 



Inlerior building at the west end, marked 



N, and coloured brown 28,350 32,930 



40. The entire floor-space gained by the new buildings, 

 when completed according to Drawing No. 11., will be 

 157,100 square feet. To this must be added the space 

 in the existing southern galleries, which will be assumed 

 still to remain available. They contain, at present (as we 

 have already stated), 51,500 square feet ; but, in the pro- 

 cess of building the new erections, a portion of the old 

 ones will have become absorbed therein, and the space 

 will be reduced to 41,818 square feet. The total available 

 space will therefore amount to 198,918 square feet. 



The total estimated cost of the new work shown on 

 Drawing Xo. II. is 222,803/. 



41. In submitting this Report to the Treasury, we 

 desire to state to their Lordships that one of the principal 

 considerations guiding us has been to prepare a plan 

 which admitted of being executed in parts, but which, 

 when completed, should suffice for as long a period as we 

 think it necessary to foresee. We have taken as our 

 starting-point the demand of 160,000 square feet of area, 

 and we have shown how it may be provided without more 

 than a strictly temporary use of the Western Gallery, 

 which does not belong to the Government. 



42. We have been invited to express an opinion as to 

 whether there would be space, in the completed plans, to 

 provide for the collections now housed in the Museum in 

 Jermyn Street, and the instruction now given there. We 

 believe that there would be space for the purpose. 



We have the honour to be, Sir, 



Your obedient Servants, 



Frederick Bramwell 

 William Pole, Lingen 



Secretary, J. F. D. Donnelly 



Westminster, July 27, 18S5 



P.S. — Mr. Mitford dissents, for the reasons appearing 

 in a separate Report handed in by him on the 4th ultimo, 

 which, with other documents relative to it, is inclosed in 

 the letter covering our Report. — F. B. ; L. ; J. F. D. D. 



TRANS.MISSIOX OF PO WER B Y COMPRESSED 

 AIR 



A MOST interesting experiment is about to be tried in 

 Birmingham. A Company, whose engineer is Mr. 

 J. Sturgeon, has obtained Parliamentary powers to supply 

 power from a central station by compressed air through 

 pipes laid in the streets. The application to Parliament 

 was supported by the Birmingham Corporation, and the-' 

 powers extend over an area of between four and five; 

 square miles. It is at first intended to restrict operations 

 to about one square mile and a half. This area will 

 include twenty-three miles of main pipes. The central 

 works are designed for the production of 15,000 horse- 

 power, of which the engines laid down at iirst will supply 

 6000 horse-power. The authorised capital expenditure 

 for the whole is 276,800/., of which 1 50,000/. will be spent 

 at once for the initial 6000 horse-power. In this journal 

 we have nothing to do with the financial aspects of the 

 project, but we mention these figures to show that within 

 a short time the system may be expected to be in opera- 

 tion on such a scale as will very fairly test its mechanical 

 efficiency. At a recent meeting of the directors it 

 was determined to start clearing the ground and com- 

 mencing the foundations for the central station at once, so 

 that by next summer we may see considerable advance 

 made towards the realisation of the project. 



This is the first time that an experiment of this kind has 

 been tried in Britain. Power is distributed from a central 

 station at Hull by the hydraulic system, but transmission 

 by air has hitherto only been tried in small installations 

 at mines, quarries, in sinking piers, as at the Forth Bridge, 

 and in tunnel-boring. In mmes and tunnels it has very 

 evident advantages, in that it keeps up a continual supply 

 of fresh, cold air where ventilation is very much needed ; 

 and therefore its undoubted success at the St. Gothard 

 works does not demonstrate its certainty of success for the 

 distribution of power on a large scale to the workshops of 

 a town where the atmosphere is bearably pure More- 

 over, the pipe systems of these small installations have 

 not been sufficiently long and complicated to test in any 

 severe sense the liability to loss by friction, leakage, and 

 variation of temperature. 



The results of the present experiment will therefore be 

 of the utmost scientific value to engineers, and will be 

 watched with corresponding interest. No fairer field for 

 such an experiment could be found than in Birmingham, 

 which is marked out from all other towns by the enormous 

 number of its small workshops requiring minute amounts 

 of driving-power, and the total turn-over of each of which 

 is too small to enable the owner to afford skilled tendance 

 to his boiler and engine. In these small shops the power 

 is required only intermittently throtighout the day. At 

 times the engine may actually stand altogether for an hour 

 or two, while it is only rarely that it is called to exert more 

 than a comparatively small fraction of its full power. 

 Meanwhile the large loss due to furnace and boiler ineffi- 

 ciency—that is, to waste of heat by radiation and by hot 

 gases passing up the chimney— goes on steadily at a pretty 

 uniform rate. Under such circumstances, the advantages 

 of generating the power at a great central station are so 

 evident as not to require demonstration. The question of 

 chief technical interest is really as to whether the best 

 means of distribution is by air, by water, by electricity, or 

 by cheap gas to be used in gas-engines. That question 

 can only be finally settled by expensive experiment. In 

 passing, the writer may indicate his own opinion that there 

 lies in the future a magnificent field for enterprise on the 

 part of the gas companies of large towns in supplying 

 cheap gas for heating and the production of mechanical 

 power, and it is most decidedly their interest to improve 

 the efficiency and lower the prime cost of gas-engines. 



The site of the central works is a triangular plot of 

 ground adjoining Garrison Lane, at the intersection of the 



