A Morning's Walk from London to Kew

by Sir R. Phillips

On the left I passed the entrance into the tastefully planned, but very useless, park of the justly esteemed Earl Spencer. It contains about seven hundred acres, disposed so as to please the eye of a stranger, but which, like all home-spots, soon lose, from their familiarity, the power of delighting a constant occupant. Why then appropriate so fine a piece of ground to so barren a purpose? Does the gratification of strangers, and the first week’s pleasure to the owner, counterpoise the consideration that the same spot would afford the substantial ornament of ten farms, or subsistence to three hundred and forty cottages, with two acres of garden and pasture? The superb mansion of Lord Spencer, with all necessary garden-ground and pasturage, would not less ornament the landscape, nor be less ornamented by such an assemblage of humbler happiness. Though a Repton might exhaust his magic art in arranging the still beauties of a park, yet how certainly would they pall on the eye after the daily survey of a month! Why then sacrifice to the pride of custom that which in other dispositions might add so much to the sum of happiness? Let the means of promoting the felicity of others constitute part of our own; and, with the aid of the ornamental gardener, both objects might be combined. He would so dispose of his white-washed cottages, so groupe his farm-yards, and so cluster his trees, that from every window of the feudal mansion the hitherto solitary occupant might behold incessant variety, accompanied by the pleasing associations growing out of prosperous industry and smiling plenty. Does Claude ever revel in solitudes? Does Poussin fascinate in exhibitions of mechanical nature? And when does Woollet enchant us but in those rich landscapes in which the woods are filled with peeping habitations, and scope given for the imagination by the curling smoke of others rising behind the trees?

On entering Putney Heath, my attention was drawn towards an obelisk which stands by the road-side, recording a wonder of the last age; and the liberal attention of the public authorities to a discovery which promised ulterior advantages to the community. Several recent Fires had led ingenious men to consider of the means of preventing similar catastrophes. One person improved water-engines, another suggested floors of stucco, and others contrived means of escape; but David Hartley, esq. a son of the illustrious writer who traced to their sources the associations of Ideas, and then a member of parliament, contrived to build a house which no ordinary application of ignited combustibles could be made to consume.

This house, still standing at the distance of a hundred yards from the obelisk, serves as a monument of the inventor’s plans; but, like every thing besides, it recently excited the avarice of speculation, and, when I saw it, was filled with workmen, who where converting it into a tasteful mansion, adding wings to it, throwing out verandas, and destroying every vestige of its original purpose. One of the workmen shewed me the chamber in which, in 1774, the King and Queen took their breakfast; while, in the room beneath, fires were lighted on the floor, and various inflammable materials were ignited, to prove that the rooms above were fire-proof. Marks of these experiments were still visible on the charred boards. In like manner there still remained charred surfaces on the landings of the staircase, whereon fires had been ineffectually lighted for the purpose of consuming them, though the stairs and all the floorings were of ordinary deal! The fires in the rooms had been so strong that parts of the joists in the floor above were charred, though the boards which lay upon them were in no degree affected.

The alterations making at the moment enabled me to comprehend the whole of Mr. Hartley’s system. Parts of the floors having been taken up, it appeared that they were double, and that his contrivance consisted in interposing between the two boards, sheets of laminated iron or copper. This metallic lining served to render the floor air-tight, and thereby to intercept the ascent of the heated air; so that, although the inferior boards were actually charred, the less inflammable material of metal prevented the process of combustion from taking place in the superior boards. These sheets of iron or copper, for I found both metals in different places, were not thicker than tinfoil or stout paper; yet, when interposed between the double set of boards, and, deprived of air, they effectually stopt the progress of the fire.

The House of Commons voted 2500l. to Mr. Hartley to defray the expences of this building; the sovereign considered it a popular act to give him countenance; and a patriotic lord-mayor and the corporation of London, to impress the public with deeper convictions of its importance, witnessed the indestructible property of the structure on the 110th anniversary of the commencement of the great fire of London. Yet the invention sunk into obscurity, and few records remain of it except the pompous obelisk and the wreck of this house.

It merits observation, that in modern-built Houses taste or accident has effected sufficient security against fires without any special preventives. Flame is only ungovernable when in its ascent it meets with combustible materials. Heat, as the principle of expansion, rarefies and volatilizes all bodies; and then, as the heavier give place to the lighter, so bodies subject to its action ascend, and carry up with them the principle, matter, or action of heat. A chief object therefore of man’s policy in economizing fire, in subduing it to his use, and in governing its decomposing and destructive powers, should be to prevent its finding fuel in the ascent. No connected timbers ought therefore to join an inferior floor with a superior, so that, if one floor were on fire, its feeble lateral combustion might easily be extinguished with a mop and a pail of water, provided no train of combustibles were extended to the floor above. Such is the language of philosophy, and such the slight process of reason, by attending to which the habitations of men may at all times be secured against the calamity of fire. How absurd however was the construction of our houses till within the last twenty or thirty years! Wooden staircases, exposed wooden balusters, and wainscotted walls, coated with paints composed of oil and turpentine, and put together more like a train of combustibles, than the habitations of beings calling themselves rational! The taste of modern architecture has, however, corrected the evil; and stone staircases, iron balusters, plastered walls, and lofty rooms, contribute to cut off the communication, though a fire may have seized on a flooring, or on any articles of furniture. This security might however be further increased by more strictly regarding the principle; by cutting off all contact between floor and floor, made by wooden pilasters, window-shutters, &c.; by the more liberal introduction of iron; and by the occasional use of Hartley’s iron or copper sheets.

By analogous reasoning it is suggested to us, that, if those females whose clothes have taken fire, and whose head, throat, breasts, and arm-pits, are consequently exposed to the increasing intensity of an ascending flame, were instantly to throw themselves into an horizontal position, their vital parts would not only not be affected, but the lateral flame would be so trifling as to be easily and safely extinguished. What in human life can exceed in horror, the circumstance of a woman in full health, often in the middle of her friends and family, being roasted alive by combustibles fastened to her person, from which it is impossible to escape till her most sensitive parts have been reduced to a cinder! What crime ever perpetrated by human turpitude could have warranted a more dreadful fate! What demons, contriving mischief and torments, could have invented a combination of miseries so terrible and heart-rending? The decorations of beauty—the gratification of pride—even the humble means of health and comfort, are thus rendered the unmerciful instruments of the keenest sufferings, the most frightful sudden deaths, and the most dismal domestic tragedies! Yet the entire evil arises from the principle of the ascent of all heat; from the flame meeting in that ascent with fresh fuel to feed on, by which its intensity is progressively augmented; and then acting at its summit on the head, throat, and sensitive vital parts of the agonized victim. The remedy therefore is simply to lie down, when the roaring flame of several feet high will be so reduced that it may be put out with the hands, with the other parts of the garments, or by any extraneous covering.

About a hundred yards from this fire-proof house, stands the Telegraph which communicates with Chelsea, and forms part of the chain from the Admiralty to Portsmouth and Plymouth. I learnt that there are twelve stations between London and Portsmouth, and thirty-one between London and Plymouth, of which eight are part of the Portsmouth line till they separate in the New Forest. Another chain, extending from London to Yarmouth, contains nineteen stations; and another from London to Deal contains ten stations; making in the whole system sixty-four telegraphs. The distances average about eight miles, yet some of them are twelve or fourteen miles; and the lines are often increased by circuits, for want of commanding heights. In the Yarmouth line particularly, the chain makes a considerable detour to the northward.

After about twenty years’ experience, they calculate on about two hundred days on which signals can be transmitted throughout the day; about sixty others on which they can pass only part of the day, or at particular stations; and about one hundred days in which few of the stations can see the others. The powers of the stations in this respect are exceedingly various. The station in question is generally rendered useless during easterly winds by the smoke of London, which fills the valley of the Thames between this spot and Chelsea hospital; or more commonly between the shorter distance of the Admiralty and Chelsea. Dead flats are found to be universally unfavourable; and generally stations are useless nearly in the proportion of the miles of dead flat looked over. On the contrary, stations between hill and hill, looking across a valley, or series of valleys, are mostly clear; and water surfaces are found to produce fewer obscure days than land in any situation. The period least favourable of the same day is an hour or two before and after the sun’s passage of the meridian, particularly on dead levels, where the play of the sun’s rays on the rising exhalations renders distant vision exceedingly obscure. The tranquillity of the morning and evening are ascertained to be the most favourable hours for observation.

A message from London to Portsmouth is usually transmitted in about fifteen minutes; but, by an experiment tried for the purpose, a single signal has been transmitted to Plymouth and back again in three minutes, which by the Telegraph route is at at least five hundred miles. In this instance, however, notice had been given to make ready, and every captain was at his post to receive and return the signals. The progress was at the rate of one hundred and seventy miles in a minute, or three miles per second, or three seconds at each station; a rapidity truly wonderful! The number of signals produced by the English telegraph is sixty-three—by which they represent the ten digits, the letters of the alphabet, many generic words, and all the numbers which can be expressed by sixty-three variations of the digits. The signals are sufficiently various to express any three or four words in twice as many changes of the shutters.