410. M. Dupin on the Public Establishments of Great Britain. [Dec. 1, twenty-four to Plymouth, the most distant of all the public establishments: But notwithstanding this rapidity of communication, the telegraphic stations can carry on a much quicker correspondence between the Admiralty and all the naval depots. These telegraphs, till lately, consisted of large square compartments in a frame, by which various signals were made. At present our Semaphore is adopted, with some alterations made by Rear-Admiral Sir HOME POPHAM, who has made great additions to the art both of land and sea signals. — He himself explained to me the nature of his ship-telegraphs, or code of signals. The Admiralty issues general orders respecting the Navy, makes appointments, grants rewards, and orders Naval Courts-Martial. The Lords of the Admiralty go out with the ministry. The duty of the Navy-office is to direct the execution of the works ordered by the Admiralty. Provisioning the ships, arming and disarming, and in short, all that relates to the particulars of the Navy come within its province. The Commissioners of the Navy are not removed on a change of ministry. This department, at once independent and subordinate, appears to me to be a chef-d'œuvre amongst the English institutions. The Victualling Office, which since the peace, has been united to the Navy Office, has under its controul whatever relates to the procuring of food for the Navy. The principal depot of this department is at Deptford, where by the grandeur of its edifices, it seems to form a town of itself. Biscuit is baked there daily for the supply of from 24,000 to 30,000 men. Similar bakehouses are established at all the grand naval arsenals. What struck me most pointedly in these bakehouses was, the division of the labour, and the rapidity with which it is performed, as well as the means of discovering at any time negligence or fraud, whether on the part of the workmen or the overseers. The English Government would regard not merely as an act of barbarity, but of wickedness, any saving obtained at the expense of men who devote their We never wish to lose sight of the courtesy due to a liberal and ingenious foreigner; yet we cannot yield to M. Dupin's countrymen the invention of the Semaphore. This invention is unquestionably due to a man who is too rich in valuable contrivances to be obstreporous in his claims for the honour of this-Colonel PASLEY of the Royal Engineers. strength and life to the defence of the country. Every thing with which they are furnished is therefore abundant, wholesome, agreeable to the taste, and I might almost say delicate. When I assert that a ship's crew frequently breakfasts on chocolate, I shall perhaps cause the superficial observer to laugh; but those who have profited by the lessons of Hannibal, know how much effect physical strength, added to moral influence, has in deciding the loss or gain of battles. Next to the Victualling Office at Deptford, is the Naval Dock-yard in the same town; but it is the least extensive, and the least important of any. Yet the place deserves notice, for it was here, in a private dock near the arsenal, that PETER THE GREAT came to learn the art of ship-building. Continuing along the right bank of the Thames, you arrive at Greenwich, where Charles II. endeavouring to imitate Louis XIV. in his errors and his weaknesses, built a magnificent palace, in or der to withdraw the festivals of his licentious court from the gates of the capital. Soon afterwards, William and Mary, also imitating LOUIS LE GRAND, converted this palace into an asylum for invalid sailors. The celebrated Observatory, from which the English seamen compute their longitude, is built on Flamstead Hill, in Greenwich Park. It takes its name from the astronomer who first had the direction of it, and rendered it famous from the very time of its erection.* An establishment little known, but not less worthy of being so, than any of those of which we have spoken, is the Naval Asylum, a school in which are gratuitously brought up the sons of sailors and sub-officers of the Navy, who have fallen in fighting for their country. It is situated between the Observatory and the Hospital. The Dock-vard at Woolwich deserves Flamstead was born at Derby in 1646. In 1674, his friend Sir Jonas Moore, then Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, and one of the greatest promoters of mathematical and nautical science which England ever possessed, obtained for him the appointment of Astronomer Royal, and in 1675 the foundation stone of Flamstead House was laid. Hence it happened that the situation of Astronomer Royal was under the supervision and pay of the Board of Ordnance; and so we believe it has continued till the last year, when an attempt, we think a successful one, was made to place it under another depart ment. 1818.] M. Dupin on the Public Establishments of Great Britain. 411 much greater attention than that of Deptford. Ships of the largest size have been built there, from the time of the famous Harry by the grace of God, built by Henry VII. to that of the Nelson, a first rate, of 120 guns. In this arsenal, I saw a machine, invented by Mr. Hookey, for bending wood. It is sufficiently strong for bending the pieces that form ship's knees; it appeared, however, to me, that too little use was made of this interesting invention. Mr. RENNIE is now building at Woolwich Dock-yard, a forge, all the implements of which are to be moved by a steam engine. They make here the largest anchors. The establishment altogether is incontestibly the first of its kind in England, and perhaps in Europe. About two or three years ago, experiments were made on a great scale, to impregnate timber with a mineral solution, which was to preserve it from rotting. For this purpose they employed a high pressure steam engine, that the gas might penetrate more easily between the fibres of wood expanded by heat. But the heat and compression were so much increased, that one day the whole apparatus blew up, by which several persons were killed or wounded, and much serious damage was done in the vicinity of the explosion. It does not appear, that any subsequent attempt has been made to repeat the experiment. At Woolwich is the principal establishment of the Ordnance Department, which includes the military engineers, and the land and sea artillery. In this last point of view, the arsenal of Woolwich became to me an object of special attention. It contains a great number of machines, well worthy of being studied; but I shall confine myself to speaking of the saws and hydraulic presses. In my work on the English artillery, I have described in detail, the hydraulic engines of Pascal, as improved by Bramah, and particularly their application to the planing of wood. A horizontal wheel is armed with thirtytwo equi-distant gouges, and has two planes at the extremities of its diameter. It is made to turn at pleasure, by a steam engine. The piece of timber intended to be planed, is made to move in a right line on a carriage, which is caused to advance uniformly by a hydraulic press, that is also set in motion by the steam engine. Thus while the timber proceeds under the wheel till it has made half its revolution, sixteen of the gouges make on it as many distinct ruts or indentions, about the breadth of a centimetre (two-fifths of an inch). Immediately afterwards the fifteen light ridges that separate the sixteen incisions or ruts, are carried off by a cut of the plane which follows the sixteen gouges. By this apparatus, in less than a minute the sides of the largest pieces of timber used in gun-carriages can be planed. A particular hydraulic press serves to elevate or lower the vertical axis of the wheel that contains the knives, so that it may be made to reach the wood whether more or less thick. Mr. BRUNEL has erected at the Woolwich arsenal, a mill of long saws, which move by the steam-engine. It is remarkable, that the whole apparatus is made of scarcely any thing but iron and copper, and also because the action and suspension of the movements are performed with great precision and simplicity. These saws act with great rapidity, and the labour they perform is immense. The Ordnance Department liberally rewarded Mr. BRUNEL for this invention; for besides the stipulated remuneration, he has received a considerable pension. After enjoying this pension for some years, Mr. BRUNEL wished to sell it, and was permitted to do so. I mention with pleasure this noble and generous manner of treating men of science. Such facts confer more credit on a government than the most refined compliments or pompous eulogia. It was at Woolwich that Dr. HUTTON made his experiments on the ballistic pendulum, which have been continued on a much larger scale by Dr. GREGORY and Colonel MILLAR, who invented a very ingenious small saw for turning. In my work on Artillery, I have given a description of the excellent apparatus used for these ballistic experiments.* The *We believe that besides Dr. GREGORY and Colonel MILLER, whom M. Dupin mentions, another artillery officer, Colonel GRIFFITH, took an active part in the recent ballistic experiments at Woolwich. ballistic pendulum, we learn from good authority, weighs more than 7,000 pounds, yet oscillates with all the smoothness, freedom, and regularity of a clock pendulum, Balls of 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 pounds weight, have been fired against the wooden block of 800 to 1,700 feet per second, and the velothe pendulum, with velocities varying from cities accurately ascertained. Among the curious results of these experiments of which we have heard, we can only here mention one, viz. that when balls are fired with high 412 M. Dupin on the Public Establishments of Great Britain. [Dec. 1, The Royal Military Academy, which was heretofore within the arsenal, is now separated from it. If I were indebted to Sir JOSEPH BANKS, President of the Royal Society of London, for nothing but my acquaintance with, and the friendship shewn to me by Colonel MUDGE, the Governor of this Academy, it would be sufficient to lay me under an eternal obligation to that Macenus of the sciences in Great Britain. I am indebted to Colonel MUDGE, as well as to the professors and other officers of Woolwich, for materials as numerous as valuable; and I cannot express my gratitude too highly for the manner in which they exercised their hospitality in my favour. On descending the Thames as far as its confluence with the Medway, you arrive at the isle of Sheppey. This is a vast swamp, formed by the overflowings of the Medway, which circumvolves it by two branches. At the north-west point of this isle is the naval town and arsenal of Sheerness. It has been necessary to form, by means of the hulls of vessels sunk in the mud, an artificial soil, sufficiently solid for supporting the buildings of this arsenal. The old establishments are small, insignificant, and are falling to ruin; but the new buildings are grand and beautiful. The arsenal has been enlarged at the expense of the river on one side, and on the other at that of the town. They have erected here dry and wet docks, and circular quays. For the exterior walls of all these works, nothing is employed but granite, which is brought from Cornwall and Scotland, two of the extremities of Great Britain. The New Quay is built on piles, driven as much as 75 feet below the level of the lowest water-mark. In order to resist the drifting of muddy soil or other demi-liquid matter, of which the soil of the arsenal consists, the quay is backed by hollow and semicircular spurs, lined with brick-work, and filled with calcareous stones. For the wood intended for masts, submarine depots are formed, divided into as many floors as it is intended to have ranges of timber. Steam-engines, diving-bells, iron rail velocities, at 30 feet distance from the pcndulum, the moment they strike the anterior face of the wooden block, an irradiation is observed to proceed from the circumference of the circle of impact. This curious fact will remind our classical readers of some interesting passages in Lucretius and Virgil. ways-in short, all the inventions of art are brought into use for executing these grand works with as much economy as rapidity. The erection of the New Arsenal at Sheerness is, in my opinion, one of those undertakings which do the greatest honour to the experience and talents of Mr. J. RENNIE, Inspector of the Maritime Works of England. The execution of the plans of this celebrated engineer is conducted with much skill by Mr. THOMAS, the Resident Engi neer at Sheerness. The isle of Sheppey is, as I have said, only a vast swamp, washed on all sides by salt water. There is not on the whole island a single spring of fresh water; and a few years ago, the residents were obliged to send as far as Chatham for the water that supplied the garrison and inhabitants of Sheerness, as well as for the fleet stationed at the Nore. In the hope, however, of finding some potable water, they dug a well, 120 yards deep; and it was not till they got to this great depth that they found what they sought: but having got thus low, an abundant spring rushed up and filled the well to within about two yards of the surface. Afterwards the water sunk about 40 metres, but has not since decreased from this point in any considerable degree. What is astonishing, considering the nature and situation of the isle of Sheppey is, that this water is perfectly pure, and does not contain the least particle of solution of sea-salt. It is nevertheless extracted there in considerable quantities for the supply of the town, the arsenal, and the fleet. There has been found opposite Sheerness, on the other side of the Thames, which is in this part several miles wide, a spring, the rising and falling of which seems to correspond with those of the well at Sheerness. This interesting observation is worthy of being confirmed by others more precise and sufficiently extended. While I was at the Medway, I visited * Such of our readers as wish to acquaint themselves with the ingenious mechanical contrivances employed in the sinking of the wells at Sheerness, Landguard Fort, &c. will be gratified by the perusal of Sir Tнos. HYDE PAGE'S paper in the 74th volume of the Philosophical Transactions. We have always understood, and think it due to a most ingenious man to mention it here, that the principal expedients in sinking the Sheerness well were devised by Mr. JOSEPH WHIDBEY, the able superintendent of the works at the Plymouth Breakwater. 1818.] M. Dupin on the Public Establishments of Great Britain. the famous ship the Bellerophon, which lay near the arsenal, transformed into a hulk for convicts, who, instead of being sent to Botany Bay, are employed on those works. In the conduct and arrangement of this hulk, every thing has been adopted that the most refined humanity could suggest to render a floating prison supportable and even comfortable to its inmates. The convicts are lodged in little cabins, having large port-holes, closed with iron-gratings, which admit a sufficient quantity of air. The partitions of the chambers or cabins are formed of iron railings, at intervals, and are covered with simple curtains, which are drawn aside at certain times of the day to let a free air through the different apart ments. To each chamber is attached a privy, constructed beyond the side of the vessel, and yet so built as to prevent all possibility of escaping by it. Let not these details disgust our false delicacy. I appeal to those who have languished in ordinary prisons, to decide on what renders existence in them supportable or insupportable. On Sundays and holidays the convicts are collected together in a neat chapel, constructed at the foot of the mizen-mast, where it occupies the space between decks. On ascending the Medway from Sheerness to Chatham, you observe the river covered with vessels laid up in ordinary. Their fresh and brilliant painting affords a striking contrast to the hideous appearance of the old smoked hulls, which seem like the remains of ships recently destroyed by a conflagration. It is within these floating tombs that are buried alive the maritime prisoners of war, whether Danish, Swedish, French, or Americans. They are lodged on the main, middle, and lower decks. In the last-mentioned place, the unfortunate wretches only respire in day time through holes about twice the size of one's hand; and during the night they breathe an air which there is no means of renewing. In a hulk for convicts four hundred malefactors form the maximum which it is allowed to contain. The ordinary number of prisoners of war confined within the same space on board a prison-ship of equal rate, is from eight to twelve hundred. The British Parliament has decided on the quantity of cubic feet of air nessary for the health of young apprentices, working in manufactories purified by ventilators, by which fresh air and light enter in abundance, and whence these children go out three times 413 a day at full liberty. This quantity of air, supposed indispensible for children, is ten times greater than what, with regret I state it, is allowed to full-grown men who happen to become prisoners of war. On shewing what an immense difference is made in England between a convict and a disarmed enemy, I must presume to say, that I neither wish to appear as a vain declaimer, nor as a calumniator of a foreign power, too long our rival, and now our equivocal friend. Certainly I have no fear of, nor ever did fear giving offence, or of hurting our national prejudices by paying to the British government a sincere tribute for their humane actions and institutions; but I am far less apprehensive of offending British pride by speaking strongly of facts which cannot but wound it; and perhaps, in the eyes of impartial judges; the honest nature of my remarks will be my excuse, as I have found myself oblig * We are happy to be able, without difficulty, to free the British government from this stigma. It was never intended that prisoners of war should be permanently confined in prison-ships; but it was absolutely necessary that they should be so confined till suitable prisons, in healthy inland situations, could be erected for them on shore. Prisoners of war accumulated rapidly during the interval necessarily employed in those erections; but we will unhesitatingly affirm, that it was only during such an interval, and probably during only a short part of it, that prisoners of war were so thickly stowed as M. Dupin describes. In In the erections for French prisoners at Normancross, a space of more than thirty acres, on the brow of a hill, was occupied by the buildings, walks, and gardens devoted to the reception of from 3,000 to 5,000 men; and the space between the beds was greater than is allowed in ships of war. the prisons at Perth, the space assigned was equally calculated to promote health and comfort. In the prisons at Dartmoor, the site is still more elevated, and the space of ground within the walls proportionably larger: and we have no doubt, that in all our inland erections for prisoners of war, an equal attention was paid to salubriousness of situation, and to a sufficient extent of ground-space for active exercise and the consequent preservation of health. Should these remarks meet the eye of M. Dupin, we have an entire confidence that his liberal spirit will rejoice in the opportunity they will afford him of freeing the enlightened government of a generous nation (a nation not, as he suspects," equivocally" the friend of his), from an aspersion which he has been induced too hastily to cast upon it. ed to make them, out of regard for my (To be continued.) MR. EDITOR, A day or two after I had seen the humourous letter of your "propounding" correspondent "Cambro-Britannicus," (inserted in the last number of your entertaining publication,) I happened to be looking through Pennant's "Tours in Wales," when the following account of Tower, near Mold, in Flintshire, caught my attention. It may, perhaps, afford' "martial incident,' sufficient for a brace, or even a leash of duodecimos, and in the hands of a judicious writer, acquainted with the country, manners and customs of the inhabitants, &c. might form a tolerably interesting tale. The Cambrian Notices, inserted in your last, cannot but prove highly acceptable to general readers: for my own part, I sincerely hope you have many more numbers forth-coming. THOMAS AP THOMAS RICHARDS. Oct. 12, 1818. "The house (Tower) is small; but part of it is a true specimen of the borderhouses on the confines of England and Scotland; a square tower of three stories. In the lower, there still remains a staple in the ceiling; a memorial of the rudeness of the times. During the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, this place was inhabited by Reinallt ap Gryffydd ap Bleyddyn, one of the six gallant captains who defended Harlech castle on the part of Henry VI. He and his people were * Pennant gives the following account of the capture of Harlech Castle, which might, perhaps, be skilfully introduced in the tale. Camden, I believe, relates it also. "This place," (Harlech Castle,) says Mr. Pennant, "was possessed by Dafydd ap Jeuen ap Einion, a strong friend of the house of Lancaster, and distinguished as much by his valour, as his goodly personage, and great stature. He was besieged here by William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, after a march through the heart of our Alps, attended with incredible difficulties; for in some parts, the soldiers were obliged to climb; in others, to precipitate themselves down the rocks; and at length invested a place, till that time deemed impregnable. Pembroke committed the care of the siege to his brother, Sir Richard, a hero equal in size and prowess to the British mandant. Sir Richard sent a summons of surrender; but Dafydd stoutly answered, com [Dec. 1, in continual feud with the citizens of Chester. In 1465, a considerable number of the latter came to Mold Fair; a fray ensued between the two parties; a dreadful slaughter was made on both took prisoner Robert Bryne, linen-draper sides; but Reinullt got the victory; and Mayor of Chester, in 1461, whom he led to his tower, and hung on the staple in his great hall. was made afterwards to seize Reinallt, An attempt and two hundred tall men sallied fron Chester for that purpose. He retired from his house to a neighbouring wood, permitted part of his enemies to enter cover, fastened the door, and setting the building, then rushing from his fire to the place, burnt them without mercy: he then attacked the rest, pursued them to the sea-side, where those who escaped the sword, perished in the from Thomas, lord Stanley, lord of the channel. Reinallt received his pardon council of Wales, which was afterwards confirmed under the Great Seal by Edward IV. His actions were celebrated at the time, in poems still extant, particularly by Lewis Glyn Cothi, in an Lewis had married a widow of Chester, Awd, in praise of Reinallt. It seems against the consent of the inhabitants, who spoiled him of all his effects. This whetted the poet's satire; "who sumto his assistance; and pours a profusion mons the ministry of angels and of devils of curses on Caer Llean, and its people. He wishes water to drown, fire to burn, and air to infect the hated place, and that grass might grow in every part, except the sacred edifices, of this habitation of the seven deadly sins." The Tower in old times was called after the name of this hero. It was also named Bryn-coed, from the wood that he had kept a castle so long in France, that he made all the old women in Wales talk of him; and that he would keep this should talk of him. Famine probably subso long, that all the old women in France dued him; he yielded on honorable terms; and Richard engaged to save his life, by interceding with his cruel master, Edward IV. The king at first refused his request; when Herbert told him plainly, that his highness might take his life, instead of that assuredly place Dafydd in the castle, and of the Welsh Captain; or that he would the king might send whom he pleased to take him out again." * An Awdl consists of stanzas of different The old British name for Chester. |