before going on to the subject of special engineering constructions.
The first thing that strikes the engineer from England is the primitive
simplicity of the working appliances, and the total absence of the
elaborate and costly plant judged necessary for executing great
works in Europe. Steam engines, steam cranes, steam pumps, steam
pile-drivers, tramways, even such things as hand-pumps, horses, carts,
and wheelbarrows are rarely used. This has arisen from the comparative
cheapness of manual labour, from the difficulty of procuring skilled
subordinates, and from the dearness of fuel. Now that the first two
causes are greatly modified, and the extensive works lately undertaken
have necessitated recourse to European appliances, the engineer going
out to India should devote special attention to this subject, for he
will often have to teach his subordinates the use of such things as I
have mentioned. Great works have, however, been constructed in India
without them, and will still be so for some time to come. Earthwork,
for instance, is constructed almost entirely with wicker baskets as
the sole means of carriage; yet few countries have had so many massive
embankments thrown up. Petty contracts are readily taken for this kind
of work, in which case the whole family of the workman, down to the
child of three years old, will help to swell the mass to be raised.
A system of payment at the rate of a _cowrie_ paid on the spot for
every basket of earth carried is very popular, several hundred cowries
going to a rupee. For such banks, the earth is almost always taken
from side cuttings to save the expense of a long lead, as the land
is comparatively of little value. The earth is dug with a _phowrah_,
the common native tool, which is at once a spade and a hoe, and an
excellent tool it is.
For getting water out of foundations, and for lifting water generally
either for irrigation or otherwise, several ingenious contrivances are
employed. For a lift not exceeding three or four feet, and where the
hole or excavation is not too small, a swing-basket covered with leaves
or matting is used as a bale, being swung by two men. I have often seen
water lifted in this way from 12 to 16 feet, in three or four stages,
by as many pairs of men, the baskets being swung together in exact
time, and the quantity lifted one stage being about 1800 gallons per
hour.
For higher lifts, there are three machines commonly employed—the
_paecottah_, or lever bucket, used in Bengal (the counterpoise on the
shorter arm of the lever being a heavy stone or a lump of clay); the
_churus_, or _chursah_, common in the North-Western Provinces, a large
leathern bag drawn up by bullocks; and the Persian wheel, or endless
chain of buckets, also worked by bullocks, and everywhere employed in
the Punjab, which has been in use in the East for at least 2000 years,
and is one of the most effective and ingenious water-raising engines
yet invented.
The native carts or hackeries are drawn by bullocks or buffaloes, and
are exceedingly primitive vehicles. They have no springs—often no iron
tires to the wheels—and, except the axle-pins, have generally no
iron at all in them. But the advantage is that they can go over any
rutted track that does duty for a road, and that if they do get broken,
the nearest carpenter can repair them. That, of course, is the real
difficulty in introducing English improvements into India, that if your
fine carts or pumps get broken, who is to repair them?[A]
* * * * *
I now come to a very interesting subject to the Indian engineer, which
involves several specialities, and applies more or less to all the
constructions we shall consider afterwards in detail—I mean the subject
of _Foundations_. Of course the general principles of constructing
foundations are the same everywhere, that is, you must secure, if
possible, a firm and unyielding substratum. If you cannot find this
naturally supplied, you must use artificial contrivances, either by
proper distribution of your weight to be supported, or by preventing
any lateral spreading, or undermining from the action of water. For
this purpose in England we have recourse to piling, or concrete, or
iron cylinders and screw-piles. How is it in India? Well, there, as
a rule, piles won’t do; first, because timber is scarce and dear;
second, and chiefly, because it is exposed to so many causes of decay
that it would quickly rot. Iron cylinders and screw-piles have been
a good deal used lately; but generally in India, both these and the
timber piles are superseded by the employment of Cylinders of Brick
masonry, varying in diameter inside from 3 to 12 feet, and sunk
either to a firm stratum below, or to such a depth as to be safe from
scour,—the weight being borne in this case by the friction against
the sides. A sufficient number of wells are designed to carry the
superincumbent weight, whether it be a house or the pier of a bridge,
and the whole series being sunk to the required level, and as close
together as possible, the tops of the wells are arched over, the arches
are all connected together by slabs of stone or other arches, and on
this artificial platform the superstructure is raised.
To sink a well, the _néemchuk_, or well-curb, a ring of wood from 9 to
18 inches thick, is laid on the ground, the masonry built upon it about
4 feet high, and left to dry. The sand inside is then scooped out, and
the well descends gradually, when another 4 feet are built up; the sand
is again scooped out; and so on, until the required depth is reached.
So long as there is no water met with, and the soil is sand, the work
is easy enough, the only care being to see that the excavation proceeds
regularly and evenly; but when the water is reached, and as it deepens,
the process is a slow one. A huge sort of hoe (called a _jham_) is
used, which is worked from above into the soil, and then hoisted up
with its load; a Persian wheel or a _churrus_ being also used to keep
the water down as much as possible. Sometimes blocks of wood or kunkur
are met with which impede the descent of the well, and then a diver
must be employed,—a man who descends without any diving apparatus, and
can stay under water an alarming length of time.
Since the construction of so many great railway bridges, in which these
cylinders have been sunk to a depth of 50 feet, various improvements
have been introduced. The wooden curb has been replaced by one of
wrought iron, with a sharp-cutting edge, into which are bolted below
several rods of inch iron running through the masonry, and connected at
intervals by flat iron rings, so that the whole cylinder is well bound
together. A Sand Pump has also been invented, worked by a steam-hoist,
to take the place of the old native _jham_. This, and another machine
for the same purpose, called Fouracre’s Well Excavator, you will find
described in the ‘Professional Papers’ and the Roorkee ‘Treatise.’
Sometimes, instead of a series of separate wells, the whole mass of a
pier has been built in a block, with hollows at intervals, and sunk
together by several parties of well-sinkers. In this way the piers of
the great Solani Aqueduct, at Roorkee, were constructed and sunk 20
feet; but this work requires very experienced men, and is subject to
such risks that, as a rule, separate wells are preferred.
Such work as the above can only be carried on when the river is low,
and the current very slack, and this may be a good place to speak of
the general nature of such Indian Rivers. I refer chiefly to such
streams as the Ganges, Jumna, Indus, and others, as there are few
things of more vital interest to the Indian engineer.
They rise in the region of perpetual snow, generally from glaciers
at a height of over 20,000 feet, and make their way to the plains
(receiving numerous affluents on the road), as great torrents with
numerous rapids, and quite unnavigable, except in particular places.
On emerging into the plains, which they do very suddenly, the bed
changes, first from boulders to shingle, and then to sand, and the
stream cutting deep into this soft soil, becomes more and more charged
with silt, especially as the lessening slope of the country checks
the onward velocity. Thenceforward, the river is a sluggish stream,
pursuing a tortuous course between low, flat banks, and full of shoals
and quicksands, until near its mouth, where it parts into numerous
channels, and forms a vast delta reaching to the sea. Owing to the vast
quantity of silt brought down by these rivers, which elevates their
beds and during the inundation season is freely deposited on both banks
for some distance inland, it follows that these streams, in the lower
portions of their course, often run on a ridge, and not at the lowest
points of their valleys,—just like the Po and Mississippi, which are
retained between artificial dykes.
These rivers are at their lowest in the cold season; and in December,
January, and February, their navigation is attended with the greatest
difficulties. From March to June, the increasing heat of the sun
melts the snow in the higher ranges, and the rivers rise rapidly. In
June, July, and August, the monsoon rains increase their volume to a
prodigious extent. Their banks are often inundated far inland, and the
yellow turbid waters carry down more silt than ever; the increased
velocity of the current, acting on the light sandy soil of the sides
and bed of the channel, cuts away the banks and scours out shoals in
one place, and then at the next bend a temporary check will throw down
enormous quantities of this silt, and the stream shoots off in a new
direction altogether. I have seen the whole of the Indus concentrated
in a not very deep channel 1000 feet across; six months later I have
been in a boat on the same spot, and was unable to see either bank from
mid-stream. In one year I have known it cut its way inland a full mile,
measured perpendicular to the thread of the stream.
It is these violent changes in velocity and direction, and the soft
and treacherous character of the soil, that make the question of
foundations in water a peculiarly difficult one in India. The sudden
shifting of a shoal may dam up the archway of a bridge, and the
increased velocity in the narrowed waterway acting on such soil, often
scours out a hole 30 feet deep in a single night. Almost every rainy
season in India sees failures and disasters on this score, and the most
carefully considered design may be a mass of ruins in twenty-four
hours. The Bengal mode of dealing with these difficulties is to carry
down every pier-cylinder, whether of masonry or iron, to such a depth
as either to rest in the firm soil below, or to be absolutely beyond
the reach of any possible scour, but to put no flooring or curtain
walls by which the stream can possibly be checked and incited to tear
up the bed. The Madras system is to be content with a much smaller
depth of foundation, but to provide, by means of a flooring and apron
walls, a compact dam of masonry solidly bound together, front and rear
and from shore to shore, which shall be proof against any action of the
stream. The subject is one which has excited much discussion, but is
too long to enter upon here. You will find it treated of in the works
already quoted.
* * * * *
I have now described the most important specialities of Indian
foundations, and have to ask you to follow me in the first section of
what I may call special engineering constructions, _viz. Buildings_,
or rather dwellings, such as houses, barracks, churches, and the like.
The subject is, of course, a very extensive one, and I only propose
here to draw attention to those buildings which the Indian engineer is
generally called upon to construct. First, then, let us take Indian
Barracks, that is, barracks for English soldiers in India, as they are
not only the most important buildings that you will have to deal with,
but there are many vexed questions concerning them which are still far
from settled, and which apply equally to all dwellings erected for
Europeans in an Indian climate.
In the earlier days of our Indian empire, the barracks constructed for
the European soldiers were often built on ill-chosen sites; the rooms
were low and a great deal too crowded, and drainage and conservancy
scarcely thought of; the consequence was a frightful mortality,
which often reached the high figure of 70 to 90 per thousand. As the
important subject of sanitation received more and more attention in
England, it was not likely it should be neglected in India, where a
tropical climate aggravated the results of neglect of sanitary laws,
and where every English soldier who died cost the Government a large
sum of money to replace him.
At the same time that attention was thus roused, the conquest of the
Punjab and the necessity of quartering a large number of troops in
that province to defend the most exposed frontier of the empire, made
the subject doubly important, while it gave a field on which to carry
out the results of recent investigations. Large sums of money were
accordingly spent on the barracks at Mean Meer, Sealkote, Nowshera, and
other new stations. They were all single-storied buildings—each company
of 100 men having a barrack to itself, consisting of six wards, each
48 by 24 feet, and 24 feet high, with double verandahs on both sides,
besides rooms for the non-commissioned officers. The men were to sleep
in the wards, and to dine in the inner verandahs. A reading-room was
also supplied at the end of each barrack. Wash-houses and privies were
arranged in separate buildings near the barracks.
These buildings were certainly a great improvement on anything
hitherto erected, and were decidedly not open to the charge of being
overcrowded. Unfortunately, however, the Punjab has a cold season as
well as a hot, and in the winter months the men complained that it was
almost impossible to keep themselves warm; while even in hot weather,
the high winds and dust found their way through the numerous doors and
windows, and the barracks were anything but comfortable residences.
Nor did they prove at all healthy, for cholera and intermittent fever
played sad havoc among the troops in more than one season at Mean Meer.
This was not, however, owing to any fault in the barracks, but to what
was an error in the choice of site for the cantonment; and attention
is drawn to it because the instance is instructive, and has more than
once been repeated. Apparently under the idea that there was something
in the very presence of vegetation which might engender malaria, a
flat, bare, dreary-looking site was selected, totally devoid of all
vegetation, and with water 40 to 50 feet below the surface; while, from
the presence of a kunkur or stony stratum a few feet below the top, it
has been found impossible to get a tree to grow to a respectable size.
It may be taken as a rule that the presence of healthy vegetation shows
a site favourable to human beings as well as to trees and crops, and
that such sites as that of Mean Meer should be carefully avoided in
future.
Several committees were subsequently appointed to consider the question
of barracks, and finally an officer of experience, under the title
of Inspector-General of Military Buildings, was appointed to collate
the various information collected, and to prepare standard plans of
barracks for the various stations at which the Government of India
had determined, on strategic grounds, to maintain a permanent force
of British soldiers. It should be remarked in reference to this
point that erroneous impressions often prevail in the public mind.
It is often asked, why are troops retained at stations which are
notoriously unhealthy? Why are the British troops not all kept at
the hill stations, where they enjoy a European climate all the year
round? Now, the first use of having troops at all is unquestionably
that they should be ready for action at the points where trouble is
likely to arise; those points are the great cities where, in the East
as in the West, the _mauvais sujets_ of the empire are generally found
congregated; and all our principal cantonments have been located with
this view. It is true that the railways have done much to abridge
distance in India, as elsewhere. But not to mention how easily a
railroad is disarranged in time of war or revolt, the railway system
must be extended at least five-fold before it could help us much
on this point, while to allow revolt to rage unchecked, for even
twenty-four hours, in such cities as Patna, Benares, or Lucknow, until
troops could be brought by rail from the nearest hill station, would be
a frantic proceeding.
But the fact is that it is very questionable whether a continued
residence in the hills would be beneficial to the health of all English
soldiers, while there is no doubt that the hill stations are not at all
popular with the men themselves. Private Tommy Atkins is insensible to
the poetry of mountain scenery; he dislikes the incessant rain from
June to September; he hates being unable to take a walk without having
to go up or down hill; and he misses the excitement of a large native
city. There is no doubt, however, that, as _occasional_ residences,
the hill stations are most valuable, and the Government has shown its
appreciation of this fact by the large expenditure now being incurred
on the two new Himalayan stations of Chakrata and Raneekhet.
You will find plans of the most approved forms of barracks, as at
present sanctioned, in Vol. II. of the Roorkee Civil Engineering
Treatise. These buildings consist of a single main ward, with one
verandah all round, and are to be double-storied as a rule; the upper
story being used as a dormitory, the lower for day-rooms. Separate
rooms are provided for the sergeants, and separate sets of quarters,
of course, for the married men. In the plains, space is to be provided
at the rate of 7½ running ft. (of wall), 90 superficial ft., and 1800
cubic ft., per man, the wards being 24 ft. high. These buildings are
constructed of brick or stone, as the case may be; the roofs are iron
girders with brick arches between for the verandahs, and iron trusses
covered with a double layer of tiles for the main wards.
Several ranges of barracks on the Government standard plans have been
erected at Allahabad, Saugor, Jullundur, Peshawur, and other stations;
but it cannot be said that the results have been at all commensurate
with the large cost incurred. The heat and glare are greatly complained
of, and in more than one instance it is believed that a return to the
old temporary thatched barracks was urged. Nor have the new barracks
apparently proved more healthy than the old ones; cholera stuck so
closely to them at Allahabad that for some months they were absolutely
deserted, and it is understood that Peshawur is no better off. Of
course, it is not meant to suggest that the new barracks engendered
cholera, but merely that a site unhealthy in itself has not been made
less so by the erection of large and expensive buildings.
In the station where I have been quartered for eight years, the
barracks were little more than temporary sheds run up just after the
Mutiny, and which have not been replaced by regular buildings because
it is not thought necessary to retain troops there permanently. Yet in
these crowded sheds, troops have been healthier than in any station in
the country.
To understand the special difficulties attending the construction
of Anglo-Indian dwellings, it is necessary to revert again to the
characteristics of the climate of Northern India, in which by far the
largest number of our troops are quartered. The seasons of Northern
India (say from Benares up to Peshawur) are the cold, the hot, and
the rainy season; or, more exactly, the cold, the dry-hot, and the
moist-hot seasons. In November, December, January, and February, though
the sun is always powerful, the temperature of the air is pleasant
during the day, and not too hot for a long day’s cricketing or shooting
on foot; the nights are really cold, and occasionally even frosty. A
good deal of rain also falls in the Punjab generally about February,
and fires are required in the house often all day long.
In March, the hot winds begin to blow; strong breezes from the west,
often rising to gales, bring up clouds of dust, and the atmosphere
has the temperature of a glass furnace; from 7 A.M. the wind blows
often up to midnight, and the temperature of the outer air at night
varies little from that of the day. I have often known it 100° at
Lahore at _midnight_. This lasts till the middle of June, when
thunderstorms usher in the south-west monsoon, or rainy season; rain
falls in torrents, the air is saturated with moisture, and though the
thermometer falls several degrees, the languid, moist heat is far
more trying to the constitution than a higher temperature when the
air is dry. The rains end in September; October is generally fine,
the mornings and evenings are cool, and then follows the cold season
already described.
Now to apply these facts to our subject.
As a mere question of comfort, it has been found that a building
constructed with walls of mud or sun-dried brick, with a good verandah
all round, and with a thick roof of thatch, is certainly the most
comfortable. It is cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter, and a
good thatched roof is perfectly water-tight. But such a roof is always
exposed to danger from fire, and both roof and walls require perpetual
repair in the rains; while those Indian pests, the white ants, besides
snakes and other vermin, increase and multiply to an alarming extent
in such a building. Stone is scarce and expensive, except in a few
localities, so brick is the material usually employed for permanent
buildings, and the thatched roofs are replaced by tiles or concrete.
Such buildings, however, become insufferably hot during the day, and
numerous doors and windows are provided to allow a sufficient volume
of cool air to enter during the cooler hours of the night; they give
rise to one of our chief difficulties, for, during the whole of the hot
weather, these openings must be kept closed for ten or twelve hours
at least, to exclude the heated external air, and if so closed, some
special means of ventilation ought certainly to be provided.
It is not, however, easy to effect this, for the simple reason that the
air inside the building is cooler, and therefore heavier, than that
outside, and thus will not pass out easily by apertures above, which
also generally admit quite as much dust as fresh air.
As these numerous doors and windows evidently give access to a great
deal of heat, even when closed, it seems desirable to enquire whether
fewer openings would not be a better arrangement, and there can be
little doubt that this would be the case, if a proper system of
ventilation were at the same time contrived by blowers, or otherwise,
as will be hereafter noticed. It is also probable that thicker walls
of hollow bricks, or even double walls, would be a great improvement
over the present thin walls of solid brick. But brick-making machines
are still in their infancy in India. The tiled roofs are also doubtless
a great cause of the heat of these barracks. And as thatch is out of
the question, it seems very desirable to find some non-conducting,
non-inflammable substance, which should be interposed between the tiles
and joists.
It may be noted that, amongst the natives, underground apartments are
not uncommon, to escape the great heat of the summer. In the fort at
Lahore, an extensive system of such _tykhanas_ (as they were called)
was found on our capture of the place, and they were certainly much
cooler than the rooms above ground; but the difficulties of providing
proper ventilation and light would be great, and they would probably
not be healthy for Europeans.
The subject of what is the best description of building, both as to
design and materials, for Europeans in such a climate as India, is
indeed still an open one, and admits of great discussion. Neither our
barracks, churches, nor private houses are as yet satisfactory, and
as to their architectural appearance, the less said about that the
better. The Gothic churches generally built in our Indian stations are
insufferably hot. In that at Mean Meer, it was not uncommon to hold the
service, even in the early morning, outside the church and under its
own shadow! Most of the private houses in the various cantonments are
simply hideous, and even the best of our public buildings, law courts,
town halls, &c., are anything but adapted to the climate. Imitations of
Classical, Italian, and Gothic architecture are plentiful everywhere,
but few attempts have been made to adapt any of the features of
Oriental architecture to our Western requirements. Yet who can gaze on
the beautiful domes and minarets of the Taj Mehal or the Jumma Musjid,
or the graceful arches and bold cornices of the Motee Musjid, without
admiration and envy? It is much to be desired that the whole subject
should be taken up and carefully studied; but so long as we have so
little originality even in England, we must have patience in India.