ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION AND RAINFALL. XXXIII. 



ENGINEERING CONSTRUCTION IN CONNECTION 

 WITH RAINFALL. 



By J. I. HAYCROFT, M. Inst. C.E.I., Assoc. M. Am. Soc. C. E., Assoc. M. Can. Soc. 

 C.E., M.M. andC.E. 



[Bead be/ore the Engineering Section of the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, 

 ' June 15, 7898.] 



It is proposed to divide the subject into three parts, firstly, 

 as applied to Road or Railway Engineering ; secondly, City or 

 Municipal Engineering ; thirdly, Water Conservation. The latter, 

 however, will be dealt with only sufficiently to show in what 

 respect its consideration differs from that of the other divisions. 



The manner in which rainfall affects the railway engineer 

 renders this branch of our profession the most liable to censure 

 on the part of the general public. This has been the rule, and 

 probably always will be, until either the law regulating rainfall, 

 if such exists, be understood, or engineers be entrusted with 

 sufficient capital to build absolutely safe structures; then, if 

 qualified men are employed as engineers, the world will cease 

 to hear of loss of life and property due to bad design in provid- 

 ing insufficient waterways under or in place of banks. 



The Engineer who is called on to lay out a railway in settled 

 country, such as the United Kingdom or the Continent of 

 Europe, where maps showing the natural features of the country 

 exist, is much more favorably situated than one who has to 

 explore the country before even laying down a trial line, such as 

 is the case in parts of America and Australasia. The latter is 

 also naturally ignorant of a most important factor necessary to 

 render his line a safe one, viz., the amount and duration of the 

 maximum rainfall of the district through which the line is to 

 run ; he has, for instance, no reliable means of deciding the size 

 of required culverts at any particular place. The possession in 

 a settled country, of all necessary information, enables a line to 

 be designed with regard to ultimate cost, more cheaply than 

 where that information is wanting. The ultimate cost includes, 

 not only the first cost of construction but such additional cost 

 as arises subsequently from accidents happening after the line 

 has been opened to traffic. 



