Part 3

“THE CAPTAIN COOK MEMORIAL.—A monument to the memory of Captain Cook will be rather an expression of our admiration for his character and services than an enhancement of his fame. The last generation was filled with wonder at the narrative of his discoveries. The first quartos that record them display in most striking forms the scenes and objects he made known to the world. He visited many islands of the Southern seas, whose voluptuous and animated social life attracted as to a new-found Paradise. Subsequent experience scattered the illusions of fancy, but brought out more clearly the value of his labors. New South Wales presented to his view a land of savages, lowest in the scale of civilization, but it also offered a noble field for British colonization, perhaps less appreciated while America was still a dependency of England, but brought into notice a few years after that country ceased to belong to the Crown.

“COOK first landed at Botany Bay, on the 19th of April, and on the 23d of August, he took possession of the entire country in the name of the SOVEREIGN of England. The precise spot where he anchored is marked in the charts by a nautical symbol, and can thus be identified. On reaching the shore he found a spring of water ample for the wants of the ship, and tradition has reported that he bent his knees in adoration of the Supreme Being.

“The character of COOK as a navigator occupies the first rank in nautical sciences. It is to his high honor, that modern times, though they have added to his discoveries, have been rarely able to dispute them. Nothing is superfluous—nothing is obscure. The modern investigator starts from the observations made by COOK as undoubted facts. Every year displays more strikingly, not only the results of his discoveries and their value, but the almost prophetic foresight which presided over them.

“The history of Captain COOK is an example of the lofty position which may be taken by the humblest ranks when attended with high intelligence and superior moral qualities. The first step of his naval career was as a cabin boy. He rose to the command of an expedition which was suggested by scientific men, and their warmest hopes were more than fulfilled. They had seen with regret the blanks in the map of the world, and the ignorance which prevailed in reference to the true character and capabilities of countries partially known. The men of science who accompanied him on his voyage acquired for a time a scarcely inferior fame. Mr. BANKS and Dr. SOLANDER are names familiar to the readers of COOK’S Voyages, but the magnificence of his achievements leaves in the shade every inferior merit. He stands forth as the founder of a new era in nautical discovery, and as the revealer of a new world.

“Could Captain COOK have seen the spot on which it is proposed to erect his monument, and from thence, with superhuman knowledge, anticipated the events of this day, he would have been overwhelmed with awe.

“EDMUND BURKE delineated, while the struggle with America was still transpiring, the emotions of astonishment with which he supposes Lord BATHURST, then an aged statesman, might in the days of his youth have looked forward, under the guidance of some celestial instructor, to the events which had raised American colonization from insignificance to greatness. But what emotions would have stirred the heart of COOK, if, standing on this spot, he had foreseen the progress of colonization, the painful labors included in the first fifty years, and the immense prosperity of the last.

“Had such heavenly anointing enabled him to foresee all this, his grateful spirit would have been filled—with—what sacred joy! Still further extending his intellectual prospect, he might have foreseen the arrival of a vessel furnished with the results of science then unattained, advancing like some being, instinct with intelligence, from port to port, through billows over which he was tossed, and independent of winds for which he had to wait, arrived at a fixed hour at the haven of its destination. And still farther, he might have seen the great grandson of that monarch whose name he proclaimed as the lord of this territory—the son of a royal woman who has inherited all the virtues of her race, without its faults; and he might have seen that son, surrounded with a multitude of her subjects, standing over the first stone of an edifice to do honor to his memory.”—_Sydney Morning Herald, March 27._

“THE NEW POST OFFICE, SYDNEY.—The keystone of the central arch of the new Post Office, George street, was laid by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, on the 1st instant, in the presence of a vast concourse of spectators. A large platform was erected behind the arch, and on a level with the stone, access to which was obtained by carpeted stairs, springing from the northern side of the building.

“The stone laid by the Prince forms the keystone, archivolts and two spandrils of the central archway of the George street front. Upon the face are to be carved the Royal arms, and upon the coffered soffits the arms of the Duke. The dimensions of the stone are:—Length 13 feet 6 inches, width 4 feet 6 inches, and height 6 feet 6 inches—the whole being equal to 394 cubic feet. The weight is twenty-six tons. This stone is doubtless the largest yet laid by his Royal Highness, and it is probably the largest block of sandstone he will ever lay, for it would be difficult, if not indeed impossible, to get _sound_ blocks of sandstone of equal size from any quarry in England, or elsewhere. Few cities are so favorably situated for sandstone as Sydney, for in almost every direction blocks of this description of freestone may be obtained of almost unlimited dimensions, and without a flaw. The most casual observer of the new Post Office cannot fail to notice the massiveness of the stones used in the building, and the solidity of the structure is unequalled by any other erection in the city. The contractor has placed very powerful cranes in his quarries at Pyrmont, whence these immense blocks of stone are obtained, and great credit is due to Mr. C. Saunders for the workmanlike manner in which these blocks—far exceeding in size anything previously attempted in the colony—have been quarried. The difficulty of removing these heavy blocks of stone must be very considerable; and the stone laid by the Duke of Edinburgh was equal to the force of twenty-one horses, calculating a horse to draw about twenty-five cwt. Ordinary wagons or trucks usually carry weight not exceeding 5, or, at most, 6 tons; and as there are in this building many blocks of granite and freestone of 10 to 20 tons, the difficulty of carriage can easily be seen. In hoisting and fixing these large stones ‘travellers’ are used, which can move longitudinally and crossways; and as the lift is directly over the stone to be fixed, there is less liability of accident than by the use of cranes or other contrivances.

“The building progresses as rapidly as the elaborate nature of such work will admit. It is now to the height of the first story, twenty-five feet from the floor line, which is three feet above the causeway in George street. The works are being carried on under the superintendence of the Colonial Architect, Mr. James Barnet. The contractor has fixed all the polished granite columns on the work front facing the street, which is to be taken through from George street to Pitt street. They are exceedingly beautiful, and are resplendent with a lustre brighter than that of marble. The polish has been brought out by an elaborate process, and is, we believe, ineffaceable by atmospheric influences. Each column is polished by machinery—incessant friction continued for a fortnight being requisite to bring out the lustre. There are to be twenty-seven columns in the George street front, which the Government have also decided shall be of polished granite, material which for beauty and durability cannot be surpassed even in Europe. The building, when completed, will compare favorably with any structure erected for a similar purpose elsewhere.

“The blue granite used in the edifice is obtained by Mr. Young from his quarries at Moruya, about one hundred and sixty miles to the south of Sydney. The quarries are opened in the side of the hill—a mountain of granite in fact—and about half a mile of railway constructed across the swamp carries it to a granite jetty, which has been built in the river, into water deep enough to admit of vessels drawing fifteen feet of water loading alongside. The granite is sound—sufficiently so, indeed, to admit of two hundred feet lengths being quarried. A block has been got out for the front columns of the Post Office, which weighs nearly three hundred tons, and the dimensions of which are:—Length, 22 feet; breadth, 22 feet; thickness, 8 feet; total contents being 3,520 feet.”

BUILDING IN CONCRETE.

It is something to be wondered at, the slowness with which the advantages of concrete, as a building material, have been developed and accepted by practical men. As a foundation it is beyond all doubt the firmest, simplest, and most economical. But, its merit is not confined to underground operations; for, as has been repeatedly maintained during the last twenty years, it is capable of making walls of unsurpassing strength and durability, giving comforts which no other material will. It is true that certain parties have sought to astonish the world with securely patented _inventions_, by which Nature’s humble efforts at making granite were at once surpassed, and the old fogy way of the consolidation, by the tedious action of time, of grains of mica, quartz, and feldspar, set aside by the use of this invaluable mode of making as good an article with one man power at a rate fully equal to supplying the demands of all who want stone houses erected rapidly from the raw material!

All this is arrant folly, and should not be listened to, much less patronized. The making or undertaking to make stone in blocks is a step, aye, a long stride backwards.

The object of cementing together blocks, whether of brick or stone, is simply to produce one solid mass. And it is because we cannot conveniently carve out in a _monolith_ or mass together in one _tumulus_ the desired dwelling or temple, that we are forced either to break blocks of stone into fragments, or mould and burn earth into bricks. Now the idea of forming artificial stone into blocks still leaves the expensive necessity for cementing them together; and therefore instead of improving our condition, actually leaves us worse off, by giving us, as a substitute for Nature’s well-tested material, a most unreliable article, which has already too clearly proved its utter worthlessness. However, this should not cause the friends of progress to give up all idea of simplifying and economizing the mode of wall structure. On the contrary it should stimulate them to make that exertion in the right way, which has hitherto been so persistently and blindly made in the wrong.

In Europe they are taking this subject into serious consideration. In England, under the name of CONCRETE; in France, under the title of BÉTON. In the latter country, much has been done lately, and all arising out of the excellent work on cements given to the world by M. VICAT, whose name should be enshrined forever in the Temple of Fame, for the amount of good, present and prospective, which his earnest labors have done the Art of Building.

One of the most indefatigable and successful of experimenters in _béton_ is M. COIQUÉT, who has proved beyond all cavil the excellence of that composition when applied to the sustaining of weight or resistance of pressure.

In London we find Messrs. Drake, Brothers and Reed, under Her Majesty’s Letters-Patent, undertakers of Building in Concrete.

It is the machinery they use that is patented, we believe, and not the material; for there are many others in this branch of business. Mr. JOSEPH TALL, of London, has also a patent for a peculiar method of building in concrete, and has executed some contracts in Paris, where, in 1867, he took a prize at the Exposition.

It is evident, then, that concrete is forcing its way, and that it is not an unworthy subject for the inventive minds of our astute countrymen.

What we particularly need in order to give an impetus to construction in concrete is a well-systematized apparatus, movable and always available, and that men should be drilled to work to the greatest possible advantage; for it is the want of these requisites that makes concrete to-day a material so little known and so seldom used.

Let an active company, with sufficient capital, start the business in any of our large cities, and concrete will soon assert its excellence as a building material, and an investment will be secured, giving profit to its holders and satisfaction to a very large section of our population, to whom economy must prove the key to comfortable independence.

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The quarry companies in Connecticut were never doing a heavier business than this season. Three quarries now employ over one thousand laborers, seventy-five horses and one hundred yoke of cattle.

A REMARKABLE CENTENARY.

How few there are who pause for one instant from their plodding after the deified “Dollar,” to reflect that this present year, 1869, is the most remarkably commemorative of any yet on the Book of Time.

It is now one hundred years since HUMBOLDT, CUVIER, the first BRUNELL, JAMES WATT, Jr., and Sir THOMAS LAWRENCE, among the most eminent of the world’s civilians—and NAPOLEON the First, WELLINGTON, SOULT and NEY, among the most advanced rank of mighty military chiefs, had birth.

It is one hundred years since the elder WATT’S condensing steam engine was invented, and that invention which brought poverty with its production has, in these hundred years, revolutionized the globe, and made not alone individuals, but whole nations wealthy and powerful.

No nation on the globe owes more to WATT’S steam engine than does this of ours. Where now would Civilization be coiled up? Where now would Science be secluded comparatively unnoticed and unknown—were it not for that one invention?

The peoples of the world have been growing and multiplying, and where would have been the room, or the employment for the teeming millions, were it not for that happy thought which in 1769 became a palpable fact?

A wise Providence was over all, and the brain that worked out the idea of the condensing steam engine was but doing its special part in the great work of civilization and progress.

This Centenary is one which should not be allowed to pass unheeded, especially now that we have just drawn the extremes of the earth nearer, not alone to the ear, but to the eye itself.

* * * * *

“How fast they build houses now!” said H.; “they began that building last week, and now they are putting in the lights.” “Yes,” answered his friend, “and next week they will put in the liver.”

AUTOMATIC WATER ENGINE.

An important discovery connected with the raising of water is claimed to have been made by Dr. Bouron, a physician of some reputation, residing at Heverville, Seine Inférieure. It appears that by a very simple piece of mechanism he can raise a continuous stream of water to almost any altitude, without labor of any kind, and without expense, beyond that necessary for the first cost of the machine, and this is by no means large, considering the amount of useful work which it yields. Dr. Bouron states that the power of the machine is based upon a natural and immutable mechanical principle, and that by it there may be created a continuous current of water at the surface of the soil, wherever there exists, no matter at what depth it may be, a spring of water. The machine is intended to supersede all existing pumps, its construction not being more expensive, whilst it has the additional advantage that no expense is incurred for keeping it constantly and usefully at work, although other pumps, especially when the water is raised a great height, necessitates enormous expenses compared with the useful effect produced, and that, too, during the whole time they are at work. It must not be forgotten, however, that it is a stream and not a jet of water which the new machine produces, so that, although it would be well adapted to supply water to fire engines, for example, it could not replace them. It is claimed that the machine will yield the same quantity of water as that being produced by the spring to which it is adapted, (less, of course, the loss inseparable from the working of all mechanical apparatus), and at any height, whether it be one thousand metres, two thousand metres, or more. Dr. Bouron also observes that, however paradoxical it may appear, he has found “the greater the height to which the water has to be raised the greater is the power of the machine.” But the relative proportion of the power to the speed is quite in conformity with the principles of mechanics. The greater the height to which the water has to be raised, the greater the power and the speed that can be brought to bear upon it; but the greater the horizontal section of the column of water to be lifted, the more will the speed diminish.

REMARKABLE MASONIC INCIDENT.

The first masonic funeral that ever occurred in California took place in the year 1849, and was performed over the body of a brother found drowned in the Bay of San Francisco. An account of the ceremonies states that on the body of the deceased was found a silver mark of a Mason, upon which were engraved the initials of his name. A little further investigation revealed to the beholder the most singular exhibition of Masonic emblems that was ever drawn by the ingenuity of man upon the human skin. There is nothing in the history or traditions of Freemasonry equal to it. Beautifully dotted on his left arm in red or blue ink, which time could not efface, appeared all the emblems of the entered apprentice. There were the Holy Bible, the square and the compass, the 24-inch gauge and the common gavil. There were also the mosaic pavement representing the ground floor of King Solomon’s Temple, the intended tessle which surrounds it and the blazing star in the centre. On his right arm, and artistically executed in the same indelible liquid, were the emblems pertaining to the fellow craft degree, viz.: the square, the level, and the plumb. There were also the five columns representing the five orders of architecture—the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite.

In removing the garments from his body, the Trowel presented itself, with all the other tools of operative Masonry. Over his heart was the Pot of Incense. On the other parts of his body were the Bee Hive, the Book of Constitutions, guarded by the Tyler’s Sword, the sword pointing to a naked heart; the All-seeing eye; the Anchor and Ark, the Hour Glass, the Scythe, the forty-seventh problem of Euclid; the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Comets; the three steps emblematical of Youth, Manhood, and Age. Admirably executed was the weeping Virgin, reclining on a broken column, upon which lay the Book of Constitutions. In her left hand she held the Pot of Incense, the Masonic emblem of a pure heat, and in her uplifted hand a Sprig of Acacia, the emblem of the immortality of the soul. Immediately beneath her stood winged Time, with his scythe by his side, which cuts the brittle thread of life, and the Hour Glass at his feet which is ever reminding us that our lives are withering away. The withered and attenuated fingers of the Destroyer were placed amid the long and gracefully flowing ringlets of the disconsolate mourner. Thus were the striking emblems of mortality and immortality beautifully blended in one pictorial representation. It was a spectacle such as Masons never saw before, and, in all probability, such as the fraternity will never witness again. The brother’s name was never known.

NECESSITY FOR PURE AIR.

Those of our citizens who were “to the manor born,” and never left their native land, cannot form any idea of the comfort they enjoy as compared with the misery endured from birth to death by thousands of kindred humanity in the other parts of the world. Even in highly cultivated and brilliant England and her dependencies, we find enough to shock the feelings and make us ask ourselves “can such things be?”

In a pamphlet recently given to the world, DR. MORGAN, a Master of Arts, and a prominent member of the British Medical Association, repeats in print a paper which he read before that learned body at Oxford, in August last; and but for which publication we would have been in ignorance of the actual depth of misery to which so many good and faithful subjects of that proud and wealthy monarchy are condemned uncared for and unthought of.

“The author remarks that the housing of the poor, while beset with great difficulties, is most intimately connected with the future prosperity of the great mass of the people. In all our great cities, there are unhealthy quarters, where the death rate is exceptionally high, and the reason of this, after careful inspection of many such places, Dr. Morgan believes is to be found in this statement. Bad air, or too little of it, kills the people.

“Men will grow robust and vigorous, the author remarks, on very poor food, in very dirty cabins, and in very sorry attire, provided they enjoy a pure and bracing atmosphere, and the great physical development of the nations of the Hebrides and the western highlands of Scotland is cited as an example. In striking contrast to this, we find that in the Isle of St. Kilda, a small island, numbering about eighty inhabitants, three out of every five infants born alive are carried off a few days after birth by a convulsive affection allied to tetanus, the difference being apparently due to the huts having no smoke-hole in the thatch, and being rendered impervious to air by double walls filled in with peat and sods, the object of which is to prevent the escape of smoke, and in due time the soot is collected and used as manure.”

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DRINKING FOUNTAINS—This philanthropic movement which offers the grateful cup of Nature’s refreshing beverage to the parched lip of the passenger, is one that takes a high place indeed in the church universal, at whose shrine all bend in unison, and know no discordant thought, but love one another for the love of God.

LESSONS FOR LEARNERS.

PRACTICAL GEOMETRY.

We will not commence our instructions with the hackneyed “definitions,” but give our readers full credit for the knowledge of what is a _point_, _a right or straight line_, _a curved line_, _parallel lines_—and so forth, and proceed at once to practice.

There are some persons who think that with a drawing-board and square, they can, without fail, make all sorts of horizontal, perpendicular, or parallel lines, and that therefore any geometrical rules for such purpose are to them unnecessary. But, suppose the drawing-board, or the square is absent, or that neither can be had. In such an emergency the want of the following items of knowledge would be severely felt, and, therefore, the acquirement and retention of them is something desirable, and even highly necessary.

PROBLEM I. _To erect a perpendicular on a given right line._

A, B, is the given right line. From the point C, with a radius longer than the perpendicular distance describe the arc, or part of a circle, D, D. And from the points of intersection with the right line A, B, describe arcs cutting each other at C and E. Join C and E, and the perpendicular is obtained on either side of the right line A, B.

PROBLEM II. _To erect a perpendicular at the middle of a right line._