268 
The  late  C.  E.  Amos , C.E. 
matured  a scheme  years  before  the  steam-engine  was  thus  used, 
and  which  was  to  have  been  introduced  at  the  joint  expense  of 
himself  and  Lord  St.  John.  He  patented  improvements  in 
the  Appold  Pump  for  the  reclamation  and  draining  of  fen-land, 
used  not  only  in  this  country,  but  on  West  Indian  sugar  estates; 
in  reclamations  in  Holland  ; in  the  dockyard  at  Portsmouth, 
and  elsewhere. 
It  may  be  only  an  act  of  justice  to  enumerate  a few  of 
the  principal  public  works  and  other  matters  which  have  been 
benefited  by  his  industry  and  skill,  such  as  general  hydro- 
statics ; the  theory  of  the  flow  of  water  through  very  long 
mains,  and  the  working  out  of  rules  as  to  the  influence  of 
varying  land  contour  and  main  contour  upon  such  flow  ; the 
supply  of  towns;  the  Government  waterworks  in  Trafalgar 
Square.  He  was  connected  with  the  arrangement  of  the  hy- 
draulic machinery  for  raising  the  tube  structures  of  the  Conway 
and  Britannia  bridges,  which  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  firm 
by  his  friend  Robert  Stephenson  in  1846-50  ; the  erection  of  the 
Royal  Albert  Bridge  at  Saltash  ; the  arrangement  of  the  cable- 
laying machinery  for  the  old  Atlantic  cable  in  1857,  and  em- 
ployed on  H.M.S.  ‘ Agamemnon  ’ and  the  U.S.  frigate  ‘ Niagara.' 
He  was  the  originator  of  the  system  of  placing  the  paying-out 
drums  in  duplicate,  so  as  to  form  a self-fleeting  windlass,  a 
principle  which  he  had  employed  some  years  before  in  the 
Rhyl  swivel  bridge  on  the  Chester  and  Holyhead  Railway. 
The  dynamometer  for  the  Atlantic  expedition  was  also  entirely 
due  to  Mr.  Amos,  and  this  system  has  been  almost  universally 
employed  in  succeeding  submarine  telegraph  expeditions.  He 
introduced  some  special  features  in  the  machinery  for  the  ship- 
elevator  at  the  Thames  Graving  Dock,  Victoria  Docks. 
In  conjunction  with  Mr.  Francis,  manager  of  the  Penrhyn 
Slate  Quarries,  he  patented  a peculiar  form  of  three-cylinder 
hydraulic  engine,  actuated  by  the  fall  from  the  Lake  Ogwen, 
working  a set  of  deep-well  three-throw  pumps,  draining  the 
lower  adits  of  the  mine ; also  a machine  for  dressing  slates, 
used  first  at  Penrhyn,  and  since  largely  in  other  slate-quarries ; 
also  he  made  improvements  in  machinery  for  the  manufacture 
of  lead  pipes,  in  conjunction  with  Mr.  Hanson,  of  Huddersfield. 
Mr.  Amos  formed  one  of  the  knot  of  engineers  who,  snatching 
a few  hours  as  often  as  their  own  avocations  permitted,  assisted 
Mr.  Brunei  and  Mr.  Scott-Russell  with  suggestions  for  the 
ultimately  successful  launch  of  the  ‘Great  Eastern’  steamship, 
the  firm  of  Eastons  and  Amos  having  lent  all  the  hydraulic 
presses,  jacks,  &c.,  which  they  could  command.  In  addition  to 
his  engineering  business,  he  was  at  one  period  of  his  life  a large 
paper-maker. 
