The Palace and Park: Its Natural History, and Its Portrait Gallery, Together with a Description of the Pompeian CourtLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
History
The Palace and Park: Its Natural History, and Its Portrait Gallery, Together with a Description of the Pompeian Court
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Crystal Palace (Sydenham, London, England)
In the North-east Galleries, on the garden side of the North Transept,
is a Naval Museum, which is intended to illustrate the naval
architecture of all countries. Here will be seen models of boats and
ships, from the first rude canoe to the patent collapsing boats; and
from the huge high-pooped ship of war of the time of Henry the Eighth,
and Philip of Spain, to the long screw steamer of the present day; or
the gigantic paddle and screw “Leviathan,” lately launched at Millwall,
together with various inventions for marine purposes. In the first
gallery, at the extreme north end of the Nave, a collection is exhibited
of engineering and architectural models, including those of bridges,
docks, viaducts, churches, and other structures.
Entering the gallery by the stairs from the garden end of the North
Transept, one of the first models we meet is in illustration of Mr.
Fergusson’s System of Fortification. The great principle of this system
is the power of placing in position on a fortified place a greater
number of guns than the enemy can bring to bear upon any point of it.
For this purpose, Mr. Fergusson proposes to erect simple mounds of
earth, bearing two or three tiers of guns, where the place is large and
the curve flat, and four or even five tiers, where the space is
confined. The model represents a small confined space surrounded by five
tiers; ensuring in his opinion, a superiority of fire over anything that
can be brought against it. Mr. Fergusson proposes to employ wet ditches
wherever water is available; but on dry or uneven ground, a ditch of
fifty or sixty feet, with a loop-holed wall at the bottom, not less than
thirty feet high, thoroughly flanked in every part by musketry and
artillery from the small bastions placed at intervals along its fronts.
The model represents upon its different faces, suggestions for various
methods of arming the ramparts and of flanking defences.
Amongst the various ingenious and beautiful objects in this part of the
gallery will be remarked models of the Kieff Suspension Bridge, the
original of which is nearly half-a-mile long, over the river Dneiper;
the Britannia Tubular Bridge; the Wrought Iron Bridge over the Wye, at
Chepstow; and one of a similar construction over the river Tamar, at
Saltash. Most of these, as also the fine Viaducts, of which many are
represented, are due to the giant enterprise which steam traffic raised
in our country. There are two crystal models here of the Great
Exhibition Palace in Hyde Park; one, the largest, by Mr. Dighton, of
London, on the scale of half an inch to the foot, is especially
beautiful and complete.
THE INDIAN COURT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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