The Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, with General Inquiries on Beams and on the Properties of Materials used in Construction

Gate Street, Lincoln's In Fields. and 59 High Holborn, London: Day and Son. and John Weale, 1850. First Edition . Hardcover. Very Good +. Elephant Folio - over 15 - 23" tall. CLARK Edwin HAWKINS George. 2 * large paper text volumes with 18 plates. Plus the folio Atlas with 46 pls, a total of 64 lithographed plates (6 of which are tinted views after George Hawkins). Complete. Text volumes (274*180 mm) in contemporary quarter purple morocco over embossed purple cloth, corners brushed. Spines, gilt titles, blind tooling, worn slightly. Internally, Vol 1, 1850, tipped in errata, half title, frontis, [5], (vii-xii), [1], 2-466 pp, 9 pls (including frontis), numerous tables & illustrations within text. Vol 2, 1850, half title, frontis, [5], (vi-vii), [1] pl list, [1], 468-821, [2], (iv) list of subscribes, 9 pls. Numerous illustrations and tables within texts, yellow endpapers, t.e.g. Vol 3, the Atlas, modern dark quarter maroon morocco, gilt & blind tooling, over contemporary embossed cloth, tips rubbed, (626*460 & 610*443 mm), 1850, 2ff (title & pl list leaves), followed by 46 pls (1* Double & 1* triple, includes 6* tinted), small bookbinder label tp fpd, with a loose advert for a print. Yellow endpapers, plates are remarkable clean, (Allibone 333. Anderson 346. Ottley 2699). Vol 1 contains a History of the Design. Section II. The Preliminary Experiments. Section 111. General Principles of Beams. Section IV Specific Experimental Inquiries and numerous tables and sketches within the text block. Volume 2 contains Section V. History of the Design. Section VI Details of Construction of the bridges. Section VII The Construction and Erection of the Bridges. Section VIII Strength and Deflection of the Tubes. Section IX The Tides followed by an Appendix, which goes into the Contracts and Cost of the Bridges, Persons Employed in the Works and the Index plus numerous tables and technical sketches amongst the text blocks. Edwin Clark (1814-1894), after acting as mathematical master at Brook Green, and then as a surveyor in the west of England, went to London in 1846 and formed the acquaintance of Robert Stephenson, who appointed him superintending engineer of the Menai Strait Bridge, which was opened on 5 March 1850. In that year he published The Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges (3 vols., the third an atlas). In August 1850 he became engineer to the Electric and International Telegraph Company, and three months later he took out the first of several patents for -electric telegraphs and apparatus connected therewith-. From then on he divided his time between electric and hydraulic engineering. On 4 February 1856 he took out a patent for -suspending insulated electric telegraph wires-, but most of his patents were for improvements in dry docks and floating docks, in the methods of lifting ships out of the water for repairs, and for constructing piers. He was elected a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 3 December 1850, and contributed many papers to their Proceedings, being awarded a Telford medal in 1866 for his paper -On the hydraulic lift graving dock-, and a Watt medal in 1868 for those on -The durability of materials-. Two years' residence in Buenos Aires, Paraguay, and Uruguay, provided material for his Visit to South America (1878). (ODNB)