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Before closing this paper—already, I fear, too long—I desire to do justice to a gentleman, Mr. James Samuel, who, when engineer to the Eastern Counties Railway, successfully put in practice on that line very much the system of locomotive which I advocate now for metropolitan and branch lines. Mr. Samuel worked his invention for some time between London and Nor wich, not only efficiently, but with very great economy. The economy was so striking as to be hard of belief. Why his system was discontinued I am not able to say; but of this we may be sure, that if the directors of that company had per severed with it, their shareholders would not to-day be mourning over an unproductive property. We should appreciate the man who in those early days was the first to remedy the monstrous disproportion between the paying and unpaying load of the trains, and it is satisfactory to be able to show you the drawings of Mr. Samuel’s invention of that day. I have thus endeavoured to bring before the Society a prac tical means of insuring the cheap construction and working of railways. To the noble Marquis in the chair, who is so con stantly engaged in practical measures for the development of Irish prosperity, I flatter myself this must be a subject of pecu liar interest. It will, I venture to thick, create an impression in his mind that the Irish railway system may be completed with comparative ease, and that it cannot fail to prove remune rative. Ireland has no truer friend than the noble Marquis ; and it would not be difficult to prove that as a statesman and a resident landlord he has devised practical measures for the substantial advancement of the country which have had the merit (something of a novelty) of commanding almost perfect unanimity. My plans may not command uniform assent, but at all events they are practicable. They may be opposed in some respects to established notions; but they effect the great object of giving all countries what they need in the way of intercourse at the cheapest possible expense. I submit them as in some degree a remedy for the errors of the past and of the present in financial mismanagement, and as a security against the evils of competition. With regard to Ireland, the noble Marquis will be the first to admit the advantages of sub stituting locomotive power for horse labour in bringing producers and consumers together. This is one of the main elements in agricultural progress. There is no reason in the world why the locomotive should not reach the remotest parts of Ireland. It depends upon surface lines worked by engines such as I have described. Sheep and cattle will increase in value ; and the products of the field will never be deteriorated and wasted by distance from their markets. All Irish industries will be stimu lated, and new careers opened for labour and capital, beneficial alike to those who engage in them and to the country. THE RELATIONS OF GEOLOGY WITH ARCHITECTURE. The following is a report of the discussion which took place at the Royal Institute of British Architects upon Professor Ansted’s Paper on “ The Relations of Geology with Architecture it will be read with interest. Mb. Benjamin Ferret, said,—Professor Ansted calls attention in an early stage of his lecture to the subject of slates. He says, “ slates once thought to be crystalline rocks, have been produced from clays by mechanical pressure. The fissile character can be given to wax, or any other substance whose particles are sufficiently minute: and all varieties of colour and texture, all degrees of fissile nature, all the peculiarities of hardness and resistance may be distinctly traced to the mechanical cause of the phenomenon.” Now, slate is a substance which in course of time is liable to disintegration altogether, and being a material formed by compression only, without any chemical cementing medium, it may in course of years become a dangerous material to use indiscriminately for building purposes. Slate has not been introduced largely till comparatively recent times. Its use is now chiefly limited to such purposes as cisterns, landings of staircases, staircases, and sometimes for columns bearing great weight. It would therefore be a serious matter if at any time (we cannot say how soon or how remote) this material should, from causes inherent to the nature of the slate itself, fail. In speaking of the subject of the weathering and protec tion of stone—and it is a very important one indeed—it has been well remarked by the learned Professor, that the value of stone must depend upon its power of resisting the weather. He remarks, “ whatever be the colour, texture, or aspect of a stone, however easily it can be pro cured, however cheaply it may be worked, its value must depend on * See ante, page 57. its power of resisting the weather. Thus the architect must study stones in the field and in the quarry, if he would know how they will appear after a few years in his building.” Now, a great deal of the stone used in London is powerless to resist the weather. The feeble constitution of the Bath stone generally used is such, that it soon becomes affected by the deleterious action of the London atmosphere, and after a very short time perishes; but if some coating could be devised by which this stone could be protected from the action of the whether, no doubt it would be as well for its purpose as any other kind; and it has this advantage, being a soft material easily worked, it presents itself favourably to the con sideration of all persons engaged in building. Several processes have been suggested for protecting Bath stone, as well as other descriptions of stone. They have been described by Professor Ansted—some of them as being trustworthy, others perhaps not so. There is one, however, which I would mention, on account of its extreme simplicity and cheapness. It is a simple process of the application of soap and alum. I know this has been mentioned several times before, though I fear it has found yet little favor, but I cannot see why such an application should not be made use of, because it is extremely cheap ; and though nobody can at present say it will last for a quarter of a century, still I believe it would remain efficacious for many years. As far as my own experience has gone, it has been effect ual for five or six years, and I think if the stone were to be coated over occasionally with the simple material of soap, in the first instance, and then with alum, it might have the effect of protecting buildings very materially against the ravages of weather. Then with regard to the other descriptions of stone that might be introduced, the great difficulty is the question of expense. Nobody doubts that we might introduce other stone into London and use it, if we could afford to do so. There are sand-stones, such as that from the neighbourhood of Morpeth—a very capital material, which I used myself twenty-five years ago in London, and the arrises are as sharp now as when they were first wrought. Cefn stone is another, as also the Ruabon, from North Wales: neither of these stones are expensive to work: they work freely, and no doubt would be extensively used but that the cost of procuring them acts as a prohitation to their use in London. I think the railways might offer greater facilities in this respect than they do. If, instead of placing a heavy cost on the weight of the material they would bring it to London at a cheap rate, I have no doubt many lasting kinds of building stone would be introduced largely into the London market. That is one difficulty we have to contend against. Now, with regard to the tests, Professor Ansted says, “ It is our duty to find out stones which will resist the effects of the London atmosphere, and those which will not.” But what are the tests ? There are difficulties attending them which we hardly know how to meet. We can find out defects in quality in the field or pit, and can find out those stones which are trustworthy, and avoid those which are not trustworthy. But we have little certainty that the stone selected in the quarry will be sent to London, unless some person is on the spot to watch the quarrying, and see that the particular stone selected has been actually despatched to London for the purposes required. Unless we have some security of that sort, I do not see how we can be certain that the stone we use will prove to be a safe material. We may have a stone of approved character, but if it does not come from the particular beds specified we may find to our great regret and sorrow that that which we expected to be a lasting material proves to be anything but desirable. Another point of importance is the mode of bedding stones; with some laminated stones it is evident that unless they are placed on their natural beds they will rapidly decay; but in the case of other kinds of stones it is very difficult to tell which is the right way of the bedding; and there again we must depend a great deal upon the persons who use them. The subject has been so exhausted by Professor Ansted that there is nothing more I desire to add. Professor Donaldson, Past President.—It was with great interest I listened to this paper by Professor Ansted. It has overturned some of the theories I had been taught when in the class room as to the form ation of the crust of the earth, and those systems whith hitherto have been accepted amongst geologists with regard to the mode in which the crust of the earth has assumed its present form. The late Dr. Buckland published a very graphic section of the earth’s crust as illustrative of the theory discussed by him. We know, in the first instance, the formation of the crust of the earth used to be attributed by Werner to the action of water, that the several strata of the crust are deposits of substances which have been disintegrated, and these formed the various beds. Hutton did not deem this theory satisfactory; for he considered that fire formed part of the constitution of the several beds of which the crust of the earth is composed. At last geologists seemed to consider it was not due entirely to one or to the other action, hut a combination of the two; first that the primitive or lower rocks were to be considered as igneous unstratified masses, and the others were to be considered as stratified deposits produced by the influence of water. It was supposed also that these masses of unstratified matter decomposed, and that then the three series of deposits called the primary, the secondary and the tertiary, were formed of the particles. They are of different epochs, and in
