The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-05 00:00:00

New Pontoons.

Yesterday a committee of Royal Engineers from
Chatham, consisting of Col. Simmonds, C. 8., Col.
Fisher, Col. Browne, and Col. Lennox, met at the
gardens of the Royal Horticultural Gardens, South
Kensington, to investigate the merits of some new

light infantry pontoons, invented by the late Capt.
Fowke, R.E. A guard of honour of the Ist Mid-
dlesex Engineer Volunteers, by whom also the ex-
periments were performed, attended under the com-
mand of Capt. Webber. The operations commenced
soon after 7 o'clock by the construction of a bridge
50 feet in length, formed of these new pontoons, and
throwing it over a piece of water. Each pontoon
when extended is eight feet long and two feet six
inches wide, but when folded as it can be into the
shape of a carpet-bag the width of its extended
shape becomes its length when thus contracted. The
weight of each of these pontoons is only 501 b—of
which 291 b. is allowed for the lower part of the ar-
rangement, while 211 b. represents the weight of the
superstructure. It will be seen, therefore, that to
form a bridge of 50ft. in length, only 20 of these
pontoons are required. The weight of this whole
erection, each pontoon—as we have shown, weigh-
ing 501 h.—would amount only to 1,0001 b., or some-
what short of 9cwt. A bridge of this length and
weight was thrown over one of the basins in the
Horticultural Gardens yesterday by 40 men of the
Middlesex Engineer Volunteers in the space of two
minutes, and was immediately after separated into
its component parts in a minute and a half. This
experiment was repeated several times with singular
success. The peculiar advantage, however, of these
pontoons, as indicated by those who are endeavour-
ing to promote the adoption of their use into the
service, is their capability of being employed in cross-
ing ditches and moats in sieges, for which the old
structures have never been made available. To
show their excellence in this respect a bridge formed
of the pontoons was let drop from one of the balus-
trades of the gardens into one of the basins. This
was not done, however, without difficulty, and some
of the covering of the pontoons got torn, so much so
as to permit the water to enter the inner part of the
construction. This apparent mishap only tended
to exhibit prominently another peculiarity of the
invention. Each portion consists of six water-tight
compartments, and even though five of these are
injured, the remaining one has sufficient flotation
power to sustain the complement. In this case,
then, though considerable damage was done to the
bridge which had been formed on the ground, there
was no apparent decrease in its buoyancy and
strength. Another distinctive feature in the new
arrangement is that the superstructure can be erected
before thebridge is cast on the water ; whereas when
using the old pontoons it is necessary to make the
roadway after the under portion has been launched.
The three points, therefore, on which the promoters
claim a superiority for this new and apparently suc-
cessful adaptation are lightness in weight, economy
in time, and manageability in cases in which the use
of the old instruments were found impracticable.
The committee, who, we may add, were appointed
by the War-office, did not express any definite opi-
nion on the results of the experiments, but there is
every reason to believe their report will be favour-
able to the adoption of the new invention.

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