459. C. W. Siemens, Adelphi chambers.-Electric telegraphs. 3014. (Partly a communication.)

461. G. Collier, Halifax-Twisting fringes.

462. J. Keenan, Paris-Blocks for printing. (A communication.) 463. C. F. Bekaert, 10, Rue de la Victoire, Paris-Oxigenated oil. (A communication.)

464. C. Lamport, Workington-Ship-building.

465. J. Boydell, 65, Gloucester crescent, Regent's park-Hurdles and fences.

466. J. Elder, Glasgow-Marine engines.

467. A. Plantin, 25, Thayer street, Manchester square-Stopping, &c., trains.

468. W. E. Staite, Manchester-Preparation of madder and munjeet for dyeing.

469. F. Westbrook, Kensington-Cleaning of windows.

472. J.D.M.Stirling, Larches, Birmingham-Tubes and cylinders of 2119.

No. 70. Vol. II.] JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. [MARCH 24, 1854.

Journal of the Society of Arts.

FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 1854.

FIFTEENTH ORDINARY MEETING.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22 1854.

The Fifteenth Ordinary Meeting of the One
Hundredth Session, was held on Wednesday, the
22nd instant, WILLIAM BIRD, Esq., in the chair.
The following candidates were balloted for and
duly elected :-
Harvey, Henry

Rushton, Thomas George
Alfred

72,000l. worth were exported annually, and this has risen to the present time to the enormous sum of 1,717,8337. per year. It was in 1788 that cotton imported from the East Indies first made its appearance in the English market. By the time the Company's monopoly was relaxed, in 1814, it amounted to 4,000,000 pounds sterling, and it now averages from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy millions of pounds sterling, for the cultivation of which an area of 8,000 square miles is required.

The most extraordinary instance of the recent appearance of a trade of enormous magnitude of a commodity unknown to us is furnished by gutta percha. This invaluable substance first made its appearance in the home market in 1847. It is now used for almost every purpose of manufacture, the demand for the raw material being Manchester, Right Rev. the such as to threaten in a few years to extinguish the supply Lord Bishop of unless new sources be opened up, or new varieties of material be resorted to as a substitute. Oil seeds, many of which

The following Institutions have been taken have but recently made their appearance among our

into Union since the last announcement :

352. Cirencester, Permanent Library.

353. Greenside, (Ryton, Newcastle-on-Tyne) Library. 354. Wordsley, Library and Reading Association.

The Paper read was :

ON SOME OF THE UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES the manufacture in this country exceeds, I have great

OF INDIA.

many times as happy and wealthy as they now are were they only taught how profitably to exert themselves, and stimulated to exertion by the fruits of industry being rendered profitable to them.

exports, have of late years become large articles of merchandise, and from 30 to 40,000l. worth of linseed alone are annually shipped for England fro the single port of Bombay. Within the past ten years the manufacture of coir mats and stair-carpets has been introduced into this country. The raw material chiefly comes from Ceylon, and I can find no return of its value, but the out turn of reason to believe, 100,000l. a year. But it is not so much in the material we possess as in the enormous By GEORGE BUIST, M.D., of Bombay. amount of untutored and unemployed labour at our disposal, When the climate, geography, or government of India that India promises to become a field for productive are spoken of at home, it seems generally to be supposed enterprise. The wants of the natives are so simple and that the country is one of uniform character and moderate so few, and the supplies of food and clothing, such as they dimensions, compact, accessible, and well and uni- desire, so cheap and plentiful, that they require much versally known to us. It seems scarcely ever to be stronger incentives to exertion than they have hitherto recollected that this vast territory embraces an area of possessed before they will be induced to exert themselves 1,309,200 square miles, surrounded by a boundary line of as they ought,-a higher order of industry, a larger re11,260 miles, or nearly half the circumference of the muneration than they have been accustomed to, and a globe. Of this 800,758 square miles belongs to England, better means of transporting the produce of their labour 508,422 square miles to native states. It is close on the to a profitable market than they at present possess. The area of Europe, which is in all 2,793,000 square miles, happiness of human life mainly consists in the multitude less the wastes of Russia, Sweden, and Norway, or of incidents, and the amount of innocent excitement comwithout these 1,035,300 square miles. Over this enor-prised in it, and there is no doubt the natives would be mous country, stretching from 8° to 32° north, and rising from the sea level to an altitude of 28,000 feet, far within the region of the perpetual snow, in which every conceivable variety of climate, soil, and production prevail, there are in all about 60,000 Europeans to about 200,000,000 natives, of which about 50,000 are private soldiers or residents of the presidencies, and about 13,000 servants of the government, or one man of education and intelligence, to every thousand square miles. But, thus scattered and separated as they would require to be before this average was supplied, affords a most erroneous view of the state of matters as it actually exists. European are, in reality, massed together at the presidencies and principal military stations; they are never found in parties of less than four and five; generally they are in groups of many times this number, and over India at large so much as one station where any European of intelligence resides will scarcely be found in every 10,000 square miles requiring to be examined, the climate offering the greatest obstructions for man moving about in the day time in the open air. Every year, as might under these circumstances be expected, brings whole divisions of knowledge within a reach wholly new to us, and, as yet, we are only beginning to become acquainted with the grand features and vast resources of the country. As was well remarked by Sir Charles Trevelyan, in his evidence lately published, the produce of India yielding about twenty millions of exports annually, and the revenues affording nearly a similar amount, form but an inconsiderable fragment of what may be expected to be realised when proper means are adopted for their development. In 1778 the culture of indigo in Bengal scarcely covered its own expenses; thirty years afterwards

An excellent sketch has been given by Dr. Royle of the most productive of our existing known resources, so far as these have already been improved; to attempt a notice of those requi ing to be developed, or capable of profitable development, would be to assume an amount of information, to the possession of which no individual can pretend, and to aspire to the solution of a difficulty, time, experience, and investigation alone can solve.

On the grand scale, it will be allowed on all hands, that the three things mostly required are—1st, the opening up of the country by roads and railways; 2nd, the improveinent of its fertility, b. means of irrigation and improved methods of culture; and, 3rdly, the general enlightenment of the people, so that they may learn to see their way and think for themselves, to rely on their own reflection, industry, and resources, in place of following, as heretofore, the beaten paths of custom, or endeavouring perpetually to lean on the arm of Government for aid in things which they themselves were perfectly capable of accomplishing.

Limited in extent and short in duration as our expe rience in railway making has been, it has proved in the last degree encouraging to us. The vast physical difficulties, so often represented as all but insurmountable, have been found to vanish the moment they were faced, and to have been little better than creatures of the imagination. The natives, of all descriptions, have shown an extraordinary aptitude for the performance of almost

every kind of work, whether in the mere drudgery of
cutting and embanking, or in the most difficult depart-
ments of tunnelling, bridging, and wall building; and
the result has been, that the work has reached, or sur
passed, the highest standard of excellence the most
ambitions of our engineers had aspired to, and been
executed at a cost greatly below the sum estimated.
Nor is this all. Though only twenty-two miles of rail
have as yet been in use, and this for the space of no more
than ten months, the fragment betwixt Bombay and
Tannah having been opened on the 15th April, 1853, the
terminus being at a country village, yielding no goods
traffic whatever, the revenues from passengers and parcels
alone have been at the rate of nearly eight per cent. per
annum, on a total outlay of 7,000l. per mile; and as the
wet season,
which enormously reduces all kinds of traffic,
occupies half the summer six months, and only one-fourth
of the whole year, the gross revenues on the line for the
twelvemonths, of which the whole coming portions
is favourable to traffic, will probably be found to exceed
eleven per cent. on the year. The ordinary estimate for
working charges is 50 per cent. on the receipts, and this
will leave 5 per cent. for dividends, at the commence-
ment of the experiment, before any goods traffic can
come into existence, and probably not one-fourth of what
will by and bye appear, when the line is extended, has
made its appearance. Thirteen years elapsed betwixt
the time Mr. Vignoles recommended the construction of
railways all over India at the Government charge, and
that when the Governor-General, taking up the subject
in a spirit worthy of himself and of the age, gave the
weight of his authority for the immediate commencement
of a scheme on which heretofore years had been wasted in
correspondence. It has been stated in Parliament that
seven years were employed in writing about the Bombay
ragment, which was commenced and completed in a single
working season, at an expense of 7,000l. per mile, when
15,000l. were allowed by the consulting engineer of
Government. The superintending engineer of Madras
still maintains, that at our past rate of progress forty years
will be required before we reach the cotton country, and
probably two centuries will elapse before England is as
well supplied with railways as Austria, Prussia, Belgium,
and France already are.

The papers lately published by the most distinguished engineers under Government, show that the construction of canals of irrigation have scarcely ever yielded Government less than 15 per cent. in immediate return-that they have often afforded from 25 to 30 per cent., not unfrequently from 30 to 50 per cent.-and on several occasions hydraulic works have repaid themselves within a year or a year and a half of their construction; and it has been clearly proved, that there yet exist lands capable of profitable irrigation sufficient to increase the revenues of India from 5 to 15,000,000l. annually, were the whole money invested in the works to be bor rowed at 5 per cent. Col. Cotton estimates that the single work across the Gadavery, costing 50,000l., will Imost immediately yield 25,000l. a-year, and, when the cultivation of sugar is extended, will probably realise 50,000l. a-year; and that had it existed during the last twenty years more than 100,000 lives lost by famine would have been saved by it. There is no principle more generally allowed than this-that Governments should confine themselves, as far as possible, to the administration of the affairs of the country, committing public works to the hands of private enterprise, so often as this can be made available for the object desired to be fulfilled. A joint stock company is now in process of organisation, for the promotion of artificial irrigation in India on the same general principle on which railways have been promoted. To meet the want of confidence of capitalists where investments in India are required, a minimum guarantee will be asked for, and a restriction placed on the dividends, so that profits exceeding say 10 or 20 per cent. shall be made over to Government. The revenues will be looked

for solely from water rent, at so much per thousand cubic yards as at present, no interference whatever being made with existing territorial revenue or other public arrangements. In the vast sums just named there seems margin enough of profit both for Government and the copartnery; and the large amount saved by the dispatch insured by private enterprise, exerting itself under the strong stimulants of gain, compared with the delays which always attend all the peaceful operations of Government, would in itself be sufficient to fill a capacious treasury. Canals of irrigation go hand in hand with the construction of roads and railways, the latter furnishing the former with the means of transporting to market the increased produce they bring into existence, and which could only by some such means as this be made profitable, the former providing the latter with the traffic they most desire to increase. When it is considered how recent a thing it is for the Government of this country to pay any heed to the in ruction of the people in arts and manufactures, for the development of the industry and resources of the country, it will not be deemed very wonderful that the subject should in India be almost altogether overlooked. When it is seen with what assiduity it has of late years been taken up in England, and what gigantic results it promises to produce where private enterprise is of itself accomplishing so much, and stands comparatively so little in need of assistance, the fruits that may be looked for from it in India, where, in the midst of natural resources of unbounded promise, the slavery to custom is universal, and apathy and ignorance reign supreme, may be guessed at. I am so little acquainted with what has been done at the other Presidencies, and should probably do such inadequate justice to individuals, that I shall chiefly confine my remarks to Bombay, merely noticing the Engineering College at Roorkee, the Museum of Economic Geology at Calcutta, and the Economic Museum and School of Industry at Madras. The oldest of these establishments is that at Calcutta; it was brought into existence about twelve years ago, and placed under the charge of Mr. Piddington, formerly an officer in the Company's Commercial Navy, a man of talent, general accomplishments, and indefatigable industry, of late years celebrated for his researches of the " phenomena of hurricanes and storms." The museum contains specimens of the raw material-animal, vegetable, and mineral-of the manufactures and tools, and implements of manufacture, to be met with in India. I am not aware in what particular manner, or under what regulations, it is made available to the public. The Engineering College at Roorkee was brought into existence under the auspices of the distinguished Governor of the North-west Provinces, the late Mr. Thomason, when that splendid system of canal operations, which, during our wars with Affghanistan and Scinde, had been permitted to languish, was brought into activity by the late and present Governors-General. Forming the head-quarters of the works, and placed nearly at the centre of the principal operations then in progress, the object of the establishment was to provide instruction in all departments of practical and theoretical engineering, and their kindred arts and sciences, to the natives and Europeans likely to be employed in the work, while officers from all parts of India, whose tastes or talents lay that way, were encouraged to resort to Roorkee for instruction.

Full particulars of the establishment and its arrangements have been published by Government, and it seems to be answering to admiration all the ends expected to be fulfilled by it. The Museum and School of Industry at Madras seem to owe their existence to the zeal and ability of an individual officer, Dr. Hunter, of the Madras Medical Establishment, assisted by a brother medical officer of no less distinction-Dr. Balfour, and cordially patronised by Government. Instruction is given at the school in draw. ing, modelling, copper, wood, and lithographic engraving, in pottery and the plastic arts, sculpture, and carving in wood and stone, and a vast variety of other branches,

Government liberally assisting with European workmen, | familiarize themselves with any variety of goods or of and permitting their establishments to be laid under manufacture, without relation to the country from whence contribution for tools and other assistance. The Museum they came, might do so at once; and persons from one is on the same general plan as that of Calcutta. I am not part of India might carry home with them the improveprepared to enter into details. ment, and familiarize themselves with the processes found In 1844, an establishment was projected at Bombay, to prevail elsewhere. Native dealers were to be enunder the name of the Polytechnic Institute, having couraged to bring specimens of everything they sold for three great objects in view; first, the reformation, train- exhibition to the museum; the prices, and all that was ing, and maintenance of pauper children and juvenile known regarding each individual article was to be written delinquents taken up by the police-somewhat on the plan of the ragged schools afterwards brought into upon it. In each division a book was to be placed, wherein was to be written all the information already possessed, or existence in this country; secondly, the instruction of which in process of time could be gathered in reference to native workmen in the use of improved tools and implements, the locality, the qualities, the value, and the uses of each and the practice of the arts and manufactures, as known in individual commodity, in the hopes of producing a Europe; and, thirdly, for the establishment of an Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures for the East, such as economic museum, on a plan embracing the general might remedy the deplorable ignorance from which we features of the Adelaide Gallery, as it existed in 1840, at present suffer, in reference to almost everything that the School of Design and Museum of Economic Geology, most concerns commercial men trading with India. and the Great Exhibition. These things were intended The building was to be surrounded by a park and to be worked out by a private co-partnery, Government, gardens, planted with exotics or productions of economic in consideration of the reformatory part of the plan, value, and filled with models of steam-engines, hydraulic charging itself with the expense of the European super-machines, water and wind mills, telescopes, microscopes, vision and instruction. So desirable and so promising was and other scientific instruments, the inspection of it considered that native princes and noblemen from all which would afford amusement, arouse curiosity, parts of India contributed to its funds, and, long before it and impart information; so promoting the great subwas in full operation, workmen from the remote provinces stantial ends of education amongst a people nine-tenths of Rajpootana, Goozerat, and Kotah, in defiance of the of whom had no chance of obtaining it by other means. apathy and prejudices usually ascribed to them, resorted This scheme, though at present in abeyance, has never to it from places many weeks' journey off, and exhibited been lost sight of, and the slightest stimulant from home while they remained-which some of them did more than would, I feel confident, at present speedily bring it into twelvemonths- the utmost anxiety for instruction and activity. We should then, besides the other more imaptitude for improvement. A series of those delays and portant tasks we should be able to accomplish, be prepared interruptions known only to India, but which there are to supply the Society of Arts, or the Museum of Economic of ince sant occurrence, here made their appearance, and Geology, at a moment's notice, with any specimen of so wearied and disgusted the original subscribers, that Oriental produce, or any information regarding our prothey broke up the co-partnery, and divided the funds, ductions that might be desired; while we should obtain not, however, until the foundation had been laid for the from them in return information as to what was required reformatory school, as originally proposed as a fragment for the home market, and how we should best proceed to of the plan. The establishment, which is maintained by make what we had to dispose of known and acceptable. public charity, has been four years under my charge, and When these projects were first brought forward at is now eminently flourishing. In 1848, the plan of the Bombay, it was not known that plans for Museums, to a Economic Museum, to be found in the Transactions of the considerable extent similar to that described, though less Bombay Geographical Society for that year, and of the ambitious in their aspirations, unless perfect and systeAnnals of India for 1849, was laid before Government, and matic in their arrangements, had been under the conit was stated, that should it be favoured with an expres- sideration of the Royal Asiatic Society of London, and had sion of cordial approval from them, such as to signify an been strongly recommended for establishment in all the appreciation of its value, it would be brought into exist- districts to the Madras Government by General Cullen, ence and maintained by private contribution, without any resident at Travendrum; and I entertain no doubt that demands upon the public purse; the answer received was both Schools of Industry and Museums may be brought so frigid and disheartening that the whole was laid aside into existence, without material charge on the public until more auspicious days should arrive, and I have still purse, and with inconceivable advantage to the comin my possession a collection of several thousand speci-munity, were Government to take the matter in hand. mens awaiting some future time and opportunity for being turned to account. It was proposed to construct a spacious but inexpensive building, capable of indefinite extension and improvement, should circumstances and funds permit; in this were to be arranged specimens of all the raw produce, animal, vegetable, and mineral, of all the manufactures, and of all the tools, implements, and contrivances for conversion from a raw into a manufactured state, which the East supplied; these were to be arranged under a double system of classification, geographical and specific. Under the division, say of China, Bombay, Scinde or Zanzibar, the whole of the productions that any one of these localities supplied were to be arranged, so that any traveller proposing to visit the countries just named, might, by resorting to the museum, familiarize himself with all the products to be looked for there. The articles in the other sub-division were to be arranged in classes, somewhat in the following manner, viz. :— Pottery Tools and Materials.-Granites, felspars, alkalis, glazing, and colouring materials.

Potters' wheels and other tools, models of kilns, &c., &c.
Specimens of all descriptions of pottery, from all parts

of the East.

By this means parties desiring to purchase, or to

In March, 1853, Sir Jimsetjee Jhejheboy proposed to Government to make over to them a sum of £10,000 for the endowment of a School of Industry, to instruct natives in the higher departments of arts and manufactures, on the condition that Government should bring the establishment into existence, and provide for its superintendence; and I have strongly recommended that this be made the means of restoring the Polytechnic Institute to its integrity as originally intended, the whole divisions of the establishment being placed under one common head, the salary being kept conterminus to each other. The matter was still under consideration, and will remain such, until Sir Jimsetjee Jhejheboy, now betwixt 70 and 80 years of age, is gathered to his fathers, and his grant becomes beyond the reach of Government.

As a single illustration of ten thousand that may be offered, the present state of the paper market may be taken. Within the past few months the price of paper has risen one halfpenny per pound, and this, it is said, will occasion for the Times newspaper alone a loss of 10 or £12,000 per year. there appear to be upwards of 150,000,000 lbs. of paper consumed annually in the British Empire, the increase of price, small as it appears, will amount to

As