38 The Manchester Ship Canal Works. 



made in the various concrete walls that are being erected by the 

 contractor, but in these concrete works the exact amount of 

 lime and the exact amount of sand, with a proper quantity of 

 water, are mixed together, and an artificial stone is made, in 

 many cases far superior to that formed by dull nature ; — and thus 

 we see how chemical science aids man, who uses the dust-bin of 

 nature to make hard stone walls that increase in hardness with 

 age, and are superior to quarried stone for many purposes of 

 construction. I think I have been more impressed with the 

 splendid concrete work of the contractor, than with any other 

 evidence of his great work as a captain of industry. Indeed, 

 the whole work is a triumph of the discipline of force." 



Mr. Jaffe moved a vote of thanks to the reader. 



Professor Everett — I have very great pleasure in seconding 

 this motion. The lecture gives us an intense respect for the 

 men who engage in these vast campaigns against the brute 

 forces of nature. I consider this a much better way of spending 

 millions of money than spending ^8,00,0000 in fighting the 

 Abyssinians, or ;^i 5,000,000 in fighting the Afghans. We 

 get a result which will be permanently useful, and which will 

 tend to unite men in closer bonds instead of making them 

 enemies. I think we could not have had the condition of the 

 works, and the operations that have had to be performed, more 

 clearly placed before us than they have been placed this 

 evening. 



Professor FitzGerald — Mr. Jaffe has moved and Professor 

 Everett has seconded a vote of thanks to Mr. Rayner for the 

 extremely able paper he has given us on the subject of the 

 Manchester Ship Canal, and I think that no words of mine are 

 necessary in order to strengthen your impression of the value 

 of such a picturesque and powerful account of that work. I 

 think with Mr. Jaffe that it is hardly possible but that the 

 result with the Manchester Ship Canal will be very much the 

 same as with the Suez Canal, so that I should be less surprised 

 at the Manchester Ship Canal being found in the course of the 

 next 20 years to be only about half as large as was necessary 



