by unworthy motives in expressing that opinion, it is not likely I should acknowledge the fact, and the denial of it would avail me nothing. The question is, simply, one of science; namely, whether is Braithwaite and Ericsson's boiler very liable to explosion, or not: my observations and experience lead me to the conviction that it is.-Ought I then, as the editor of a work on mechanical science (to whom a certain portion of the public look for information on such subjects), to join in the chorus which has been universally chanted in praise of this boiler, and breathe not one word of its design, in order to please the fastidious taste of "F," who seems to value an empty compliment, more than the public safety? Instead of dealing in insinuations, would it not be more creditable to " F" to treat the matter scientifically, and show by plain reasoning that my arguments are founded in error? Until that be done, I shall consider that I have both truth and sound sense on my side.

I am, Sir, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,
L. HEBERT.

20, Paternoster-row, Nov. 15, 1829.

REPLY OF MR. BRAITHWAITE TO
MR. HEBERT.

Sir, I regret that I feel obliged by the extreme disingenuousness manifested by Mr. Hebert, in your last Number, again to intrude myself on the attention of your readers.

I charged him with a gross misrepresentation, in stating that the boiler of "The Novelty" gave way in consequence of the application of a blast to the furnace. He now admits, or seems to admit, that he should have substituted for the word boiler the terms flue of the furnace. But being beaten out of this pretext for his censure of the engine, he now gives us to understand that if the furnace-flue had not given way, the boiler inevitably would. "Had it not been," he says, "that the pumps continued out of order, so as to prevent the water from rising, a very serious blow-up would, without doubt, have been the

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result." Now as the pumps were not always, but once only, out of order, it should follow, if Mr. Hebert were right in his assertion, that on each separate occasion, when the pumps worked well, and the boiler was kept fully supplied with water, there should have been a separate 66 very serious blow-up." It should follow, too, that the engine to which you, Sir, have alluded, in your last Number, as having been at work for many months at my factory, (the boiler of which I may observe, by the way, is of copper, only one-half the thickness of that of "The Novelty,") should have had so many very serious blow-ups," that it ought long ere now to have been blown to pieces. Need I ask your readers which is to be most regarded -Mr. Hebert's allegations of what would and should have happened— or the evidence we have before us of what actually did happen? Need I insist on the unfairness of thus shifting from fact to prophecy after the fact, and dealing in all manner of random assertions, in order to bring discredit on a mode of generating steam, which, as far as it has been yet tested by experiment, promises fairer than any other which has been brought before the public?

Mr. Hebert, it deserves to be kept in mind, never once disputes the great assistance which may be derived from a blast; he questions only the possibility of employing it with safety to the materials exposed to its influence. Now the ground on which the proprietors of "The Novelty" take their stand is, that they do employ a blast with perfect safety. The question is not one of argument, but of fact, and only in as far as facts bear them out in their pretensions do they hope for

success.

I have no wish to be drawn into a controversy with respect to the merits of any rival engine; but as Mr. Hebert insists on twisting some expressions of mine into an admission of the superiority of that of his friends, Sir J. Anderson and Co., I may be allowed to explain what it is I really admit. Mr. Hebert says," Mr. James's boiler is the only one I have hitherto seen, that is adapted to locomotion by steam power, whether in carriages or boats,

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66

on account of its perfect safety, there being no magazines of steam, which are more than about an inch in diameter." Now, it must be extremely obvious, that the working capabilities of an engine, and the degree of safety attending it, are two things as different as the poles are asunder. An engine may be well adapted to locomotion on account of its perfect safety," which is not adapted to it on any other account whatever. I admit, as every one must, that the smaller the steam-chamber the less the danger; but I must be allowed to maintain on the other hand, that this, like other principles, may be carried to such an excess as to be good for nothing in practice. How far Sir James Anderson and Co. have kept within the limits of practical utility remains yet to be decided. I have not presumed, nor do I presume, to predicate any thing of their engine: feeling well content to leave to others the ungracious task of undermining by surmises, and blasting by anticipation.

I remain, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
JOHN BRAITHWAITE

1, Bath-place, Fitzroy-square,
Νου. 17, 1829.

year have praise unbounded, to bestow on them, for the promptitude and cordiality with which all these faults had been remedied. Our readers may judge how deep our mortification must be, to find that all our admonitions and all the admonitions of our friends have gone for nought; and that the men we expected to see keeping steadily in the van-who took upon themselves the bonourable post of pioneers to the army of almanac-makers have shown them. selves just as backwardly inclined, as fond of skulking among the baggagewaggons, as the worst of their neighbours.

Of this early degeneracy we have a notable proof at the very opening of this year's almanac. At pages 5 and 6, we have a table of high-water at London, and an explanation of that table founded on certain theorems of Laplace. The history of the Society's efforts in this department grows more and more curious with the lapse of time. In the first almanac they published-they borrowed (we like soft phrases) their tidetable, with much other valuable matter, from the almanacs of the Stationers' Company, and for that year their fidetable was correct. When the Stationers' Company complained that it was rather too bad in the Society, to borrow so much from works, which they were at the same time in the constant habit of holding up to public derision for their utter worthlessness, the reply of one of their encomiasts and defenders was, "Oh! such computations as these are not worth talking about; they could be done for the reward of a guinea by any mathematical usher in any writingschool in the kingdom." Well, rather than borrow again from the Company's almanacs, the Committee had the tidetable for their second almanac compiled by some such "mathematical usher," whom, it is to be presumed, they so rewarded; and the notorious result was that the times of high water were for that year generally more than half an hour wrong. Good reason this was for trusting no more to ushers and guinea fees; and now the Committee appear to have bethought them of the old adage, that if you wish a thing well done, you should do it yourself." The charge of this department for the year 1830 was accordingly transferred to one of their own body,* who, as if it were not

The gentleinan certifies his labours by his initials only, "J. W. L."-but the reader can be at no loss, with the help of the List of the Committee, to supply the letters which modesty has kept concealed.

enough to confound all carpers, that he is a member of so learned a Committee, and a Fellow, to boot, of two most --learned Societies, makes his debut as a computer under the favour and protection of some theorems from the illustrious Laplace. What is now the result? We regret to say, only worse and worse. For once the adage has been falsified, and the Committee have done for themselves in more senses than one. It so happens, that the theorems of Laplace, which the computing member of the Committee has bere made use of to determine the time of high-water at London-bridge, were not intended to apply, and can never apply correctly beyond 50° of N. latitude. We shall not at present detain our readers with a demonstration of this easily demonstrable fact, but shall content ourselves with pointing out the practical blunders into which this employment of an inapplicable theory has betrayed the Society's computer. On the last day of 1829, it will, according to the Society's almanac for 1829, be high-water at London-bridge as follows:

That is to say, it will be high water on the 1st of January next a quarter of an hour earlier than the day preceding!!! But we shall be told perhaps that all this arises from the blunders of the discarded "usher," and that though the times for the 31st of December, 1829, may be wrong, it does not follow that those for the 1st of January, 1830, are wrong also. Granted. Let us compare, therefore, the times as given in the "British" with those given in any of the Company's almanacs most distinguished for their accuracy. The time of high-water on the morning of the 1st of January, 1830, will, according to White's Ephemeris," be 6h. 23m. and in the afternoon 6h. 53m.; that is, in the one case twenty-two minutes, and in the other twenty-seven minutes later than the times given in the "British!" Who can doubt which is right? Who would place more reliance on the computations of a novice, than on those of a work, long renowned throughout the world for its scientific correctness, and praised by none more than by Laplace

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himself? Neither are the Society's errors of the 1st of January solitary errors; for on almost every day of the year, the times of high-water, as given in their almanac, are nearly to as great an extent erroneous. The truth is, that had the French theorems, which have been employed for the computation of the Society's tide-tables, been even applicable to our northern latitude, they could have been of little use in the hands to which that computation has been entrusted. It is evident from the attempt which he has made under the head of "Explanation," to make the symbols of Laplace more intelligible than they are in the Mécanique Celeste, that he does not understand them. He has transformed very excellent philosophy into very precious nonsense; and this no one who knew what he was handling could well have done. A promise is given that the method of computation which he has adopted will be "explained at some length in the Companion to the Almanac (for 1830), and a "coincidence shown between theory and observation" which is truly wonderful." But this • truly wonderful" coincidence must of course have reference to past compatations and past observations. And what we would beg to ask, will volumes of such coincidences prove should it turn out in the teeth of them-as it most certainly will-that the writer's own computations for the future year do not coincide in one instance out of ten with the actual fact? Simply this, that though other computers have been able to turn the theorems of Laplace to good account, the computer for the "British Almanac" has misapplied them altogether. Goëthe says somewhere, with great truth, that whoever deals with symbols only to the neglect of the spirit of things, must either be a bungler or a charlatan; and we may rest assured, that the computer for the "British" will form no exception to the rule.

The "Weather" column of the "British" was another department of this almanac with which fault was very generally found last year, and in which there can be no doubt many useful improvements might have been made. But instead of any improvement being introduced, or even attempted, we have precisely the same information-word for word-under this column, which we had last year. Not a single error is corrected (though many were pointed out); not a single emendation made; not a single new fact added. If this be not obstinacy of the worst kind, what is it? It will be recollected, that the Society

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professed to furnish under this head merely certain averages" calculated for London," but averages which would "apply to a very large circle around." Why not then have presented us this year with some analogous remarks suited to some other meridian than London? Why not have made the circle of application still larger? It seems that very large" as that circle is, it is by no means so large as the language of the Society might lead people to suppose. A person has been writing to them from Woburn in these terms:"From my constant observations from the commencement of the year to the present day, I have invariably found your weather-table altogether wrong." The answer which the Society make to this blunt charge is such as, we dare say, the author of it little looked for. "It would appear scarcely necessary,' they say, "to impress upon any mind, acquainted with the commonest principles of science, that the computations which are given in the column of " Remarks on the Weather," are averages deduced from long observation," &c. "It would be less irrational, if he were to say to the inspector of Corn Returns,

From my constant notice of the price of wheat in Woburn market, I find your average prices quite inaccurate.' When people have been accustomed to believe in the absurdities of the weather prophecies, it is difficult to satisfy them with common sense. Now passing over the excessive civility of this answer-a civility so peculiarly becoming a body of men associated for the purpose of eliciting and disseminating truth-passing over also the question of the irrationality of supposing that a place 43 miles from London, might be included in the

very large circle around" it, to which the Society's calculations were said to apply (which is all the offence the Society's Woburn correspondent has been guilty of); let it suffice that we learn from their answer this important fact, that the "Weather Table" of the "British Almanac" is admitted by its authors to be confined in its application to a circle around London, which though called "very large," is, in truth, something of greatly less than 43 miles radius! In all other parts of Great Britain it can, of course, be of no practical use.

The same useless repetition which disfigures the "Weather" column of the British," is equally observable in its column of "Anniversaries." It was suggested last year to the Society, that the greater diversity they could introduce under this head, the more "useful

knowledge" they would diffuse;o and that there was no day in the calendar se undistinguished by great men and great events, as to make it difficult to give an entirely new list for every year. It was further observed, that there were a great many blanks in this column, which, as the Society does not profess to be one for the diffusion of waste paper, ought at least to be filled up-if even only once for all. Who can say there was aught but good sense and good feeling in these suggestions? Or differ from us in stigmatizing, as most blameable, the inattention which has been shown to them? The column of Anniversaries is, like that of the Weather, nearly, if not entirely, the same as it was last year, and there are still as many unoccupied spaces as

ever.

The paucity of astronomical information is another defect in the "British," which has existed from the first, and is still as remarkable as ever. The editors seem to be amazingly shy of every thing that would involve them in any new and independent computation of their own. They have ventured this year, with the help of a pair of globes, and of such other lights as are common to the sphere of seminaries for young ladies and gentlemen, to give, on their own authority, the positions of the principal stars and planets for each month; but for every thing of a more recondite description they have been content to have recourse to others. Of Eclipses which are to take place in 1830 they tell us but little, and that little is abridged from the "Nautical Almanac." Of occultations they say nothing at all. "Partridge' describes ten of these appearances; "Moore" five; the "Englishman" five; the "British" none. It would seem as if the editors of the "British" thought such phenomena beneath their notice; yet so differently is their importance estimated by the Astronomical Society, that they publish an anticipatory list of them monthly.

The astronomical information in the "British" is not only scanty but often inaccurate. The Tide Table, of which we have before spoken, is but one series of blunders; and the positions ascribed to the Stars and Planets are, like the times assigned for high-water, seldom more than distant approximations. But if errors of thirty or forty minutes excite our surprise, what shall be said of an error twenty times greater? in the position-not of any obscure planetbut of the Sun itself? At page 20, it is stated, that the Sun enters Cancer 21st