ting at each end, would obviate the necessity of a middle section, but neither, it is believed, would be altogether as satisfactory. We desire to be understood as suggesting the application of the preceding process only to those exact calculations, required by the Final Estimates of sections; for running estimates or those on lines of location, less accurate but more speedy methods will answer every purpose. Oldtown, Md., November 20th, 1839. TO THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. In the Railway Magazine, (London,) for August, 1839, I observed a formula for calculating the area of a cross section of excavation in, or embankment on, sloping ground. I shall feel indebted to any of your correspondents who will furnish me with a solution by which its correctness may be ascertained. Having the bottom width given, if excavation, (or top width, if embankcentre, on each side, = D and d re E ment,) E; the depth at - from the = 2 spectively; and the ratio of the side slopes = r; the following is the formula given, + E (D+d) =area. Erd2 + 2E+2r (D-d) Er D2 2 J. M. H. Philadelphia, Jan. 1, 1840. Telford Premiums to be awarded by the Institution of Civil Engineers of London.* The Committee on Publications of the Franklin Institute having received the following circular from the Institution of Civil Engineers, lay it with pleasure before the readers of the Journal, believing, that to many of them it will be a subject of interest. COM. PUBLICATIONS. Institution of Civil Engineers, established 1818, incorporated 1828. The Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers give notice that they will award, during the ensuing session, Telford Premiums to Communications of adequate merit on the following subjects: 1. The nature and properties of steam, especially with reference to the quantity of water in a given bulk of steam in free communication with water at different temperatures. 2. An account and drawings of the original construction and present state of the Plymouth breakwater. 3. The ratio, from actual experiment, of the velocity, load, and power, of locomotive engines on railways. 1st. Upon levels. 2nd. Upon inclined planes. 4. Drawings and description of the outfall of the King's scholars' pond sewer, and of other principal outfalls of the Westminster sewage; also, the *The premiums of this Institution are awarded to Foreigners as well as Englishinclination, dimensions, and forms, of the sewers, and the observed velocities of water in them. men. 5. Drawings and descriptions of the sewage under the commission for Regent street, especially of the outfall at Scotland yard. 6. Drawings and description of the best machine for describing the profile of a road, and also for measuring the traction of different roads. 7. The alterations and improvements in Blackfriar's bridge. 8. The explosion of steam boilers. - Especially a record of facts connected with any explosions which have taken place; also, a description, drawings, and details, of the boiler, both before and after the explosion. 9. Drawings, sections, and descriptions, of iron steam vessels. 10. The comparative advantages of iron and wood as employed in the construction of steam vessels. 11. The comparative advantages and disadvantages of hot and cold blast in the manufacture of iron, with statements of the quality and quantity of materials employed, and produce thereof. 12. The causes of, and means of preventing, the changes in texture and composition which cast iron occasionally undergoes when in continued contact with sea water. 13. The properties and chemical constitution of the various kinds of coal. 14. A memoir of Sir Hugh Middleton, with an account of his works. 15. A memoir of Arthur Woolf, with an account of his works. 16. An account of the various methods lately employed for preserving timber from dry rot, and other sources of decay. 17. On the best gauge for the width of railways, with the result of the experience furnished by existing railways. The communications must be forwarded to the House of the Institution, No. 25, Great George street, Westminster, on or before the 31st of March, 1840. It is not the wish of the Council to confine the Telford Premiums to communications on the above subjects; other communications of distinguished merit and peculiarly deserving some mark of distinction will be rewarded. Copies of this paper, and any farther information, may be obtained on application to the Secretaries. THOMAS WEBSTER, 25, Great George street, Westminster, June 25, 1839. Telford Premiums. } Secretaries. The Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers have awarded the following Telford Premiums: A Telford medal in silver and twenty guineas to John Edward Jones, for his description, plan and drawings of the sewage of Westminster. A Telford medal in silver to Charles Hood, for his paper on warming and ventilating buildings. A Telford medal in silver to Charles Wye Williams, for his paper on the properties and application of turf and turf coke. A Telford medal in silver to Edward Woods, for his paper on the forms of locomotive engines. A Telford medal in bronze, and books suitably bound and inscribed, of the value of three guineas, to Lieut. Frederick Pollock, Madras Engineers, for his description and drawings of the Coffre Dam of Westminster bridge. A Telford medal in bronze, and books suitably bound and inscribed, of the value of three guineas, to R. W. Mylne, for his communication on the well sunk by the New River Company at their reservoir in the Hampstead Road. A Telford medal in bronze, and books suitably bound and inscribed, of the value of three guineas, to John Buldry Redman, for his description and drawings of Bow bridge. The Council would take this opportunity of calling attention to the importance of making the Institution the depository of detailed drawings, descriptions, and models, of works and machinery actually executed; also of professional books, papers, and reports, which are of little value to the individual, but which, when collected and arranged in one place, would be of inestimable value to the profession. They trust that all who have such records at their disposal will consider the great service which may thus be rendered to the cause of the advancement of professional knowledge. Bibliographical Notices. Report on Education in Europe, to the Trustees of the Girard College for Orphans; by ALEX, DALLAS BACHE, L. L. D., President of the College. It is probably known to most of the readers of this Journal, that soon after the appointment of Professor Bache to the Presidency of the Girard College, he was deputed by the Trustees to visit those parts of Europe in which it was known that education had made the greatest progress, for the purpose not only of making the system of instruction therein pursued, better known to his countrymen, but especially that he might have more abundant materials and a broader foundation for a plan of education for the magnificent Institution over which he is to preside. He was engaged about two years in his visitations and inquiries, and no reader, we are persuaded, will venture to say, that his time was not most industriously and judiciously occupied. We have read the report with the deepest interest albeit an octavo volume of 666 pages, - and we make the unqualified acknowledgment that in our estimation Dr. B. has performed the task assigned him, thus far, with sound discrimination, and in the exercise of a judgment and good taste which will redound to his credit on both sides of the Atlantic. It was necessary in such an expansive survey of the educational institutions of different nations, to classify the objects of his investigation; not only to consider education in its threefold relation to the physical, the intellectual, and the moral nature of man, but to regard it in its aptitudes to the different classes into which human society is, in every civilized country, inevitably arranged, by age and condition in life. The importance of such a distinction was at once perceived by the author, and instead of giving a geographical detail of the schools and systems which he examined, he first describes the institutions for the education of orphans and destitute children in England, Scotland, Germany, Prussia and Holland; then the schools for infant instruction-primary or elementary schools in France, England, and other countries-schools of agriculture and industry-seminaries for the preparation of teachers, including the normal schools of France-secondary schools; and finally, superior schools, embracing all that is most worthy of notice under each of these heads in the different countries which he visited. VOL XXV.-No. 1.-JANUARY, 1840. 4 The report is indeed voluminous, but we could not easily point to the chapter, or even the page, that could well have been spared, considering that the task was assigned him of making a faithful exhibition of the most important institutions of Europe. We rather indeed regret that its needful limitations precluded the author from reporting upon the Universities of Great Britain and Ireland, and the older Institutions of the Continent, appropriated to the higher grades of classical literature and science. "They had their origin (says the author) in the wants of an early period of civilization, and have continued to be as necessary in its progress, requiring great changes, however, to enable them to keep pace with the times. Schools of arts, or polytechnic schools, have originated in the requirements of modern times, in which occupations have risen in standing and importance, or have been actually created, by the progress of science and the arts. Considered as special schools, the universities have very different objects from those which the founder of the Girard College intended as the aim of his institution, while the purposes of the polytechnic schools are strictly in accordance with those which his will points out for the highest department of his college. This being the case, a description of foreign universities would, I conceive, be out of its place in this Report. From the character of my associations, before leaving home, which naturally led to similar associations while abroad, I felt highly interested in this class of institutions, and it is with reluctance I have come to the conclusion not to give some description of them in my Report. While it is exceedingly difficult to judge of the results of university systems of different countries, especially so from the amount of talent arrayed in favour of, and even positively against, different systems, and I should make no pretensions to offer such a judgment, the institutions are by no means difficult to describe, so that a reader may conceive the form of the system, and endow that form with spirit, in proportion to the force of his own natural powers, and his experience. The differences between the university systems of Great Britain, France, and Germany, afford interesting subjects of reflection to those whose pursuits and dispositions lead them to efforts for the improvement of 'superior education." Considering these different systems as so many experiments made under different circumstances, the study of their results, and the modifying effect of circumstances, is no less interesting than useful. The field is, however, vast; the varieties in Great Britain alone would require much space for due description, as a few words will suffice to show. The Scotch and English universities differ very much in their organization, discipline, and instruction, and even the several Scotch universities are not alike. At Glasgow, and the academical institution at Belfast, founded upon its model, the pupils enter, in general, in very early youth. The lectures are, therefore, mixed with recitations held by the professors, which, however, the large classes at Glasgow prevent from being efficacious. The students do not reside in either of these institutions. At Edinburgh, the average age of the student is greater, and the medical department assumes, relatively to that of letters, an importance which modifies the character of the school. The lesser universities of St. Andrews and Aberdeen differ more from the others in the arrangement of discipline, resulting from the residence of a part of the students in the colleges composing them, than in the character of the instruction. In the larger English universities of Cambridge and Oxford, composed of colleges and halls, in the buildings of which the students gene. rally reside, the discipline of each college may be said to be its own, with a |