RENDEL, JAMES MEADOWS, a distinguished civil engineer, was born at a village on the borders of Dartmoor, in December 1799. His professional talents were early developed by various commissions which he received in his native district. Telford, the famous engineer, employed him to lay down considerable lengths of turnpike roads in Devonshire. The Earl of Morley entrusted him with the construction of a cast-iron bridge across the Lary, an arm of the sea within Plymouth harbour. An order was given to him to build a floating steam-bridge for crossing the estuary of the Dart near Dartmouth. He was soon engaged in surveying nearly all the harbours on the S.W. coast of England. It was in 1838 that Rendel settled in London, and began to take a high place in his calling. He was soon recognised as a man of accurate observation, sagacious judgment, great professional knowledge, and unwearied energy. The success with which he continued to execute his numerous commissions brought him more and more into repute. At length, in 1843, his engagement to construct the projected docks at Birkenhead was the occasion of bringing him prominently before the public. The enterprise met with opposition; the case was laid before the legislature; and he was summoned as a witness before the parliamentary committees. His learned and lucid evidence, and the able and successful manner in which he maintained his own views, established his reputation as one of the first engineers in the land. From that time he was constantly engaged throughout the country in projecting and conducting large public works. Among his most important enterprises were the dock at Great Grimsby, and the harbours of refuge at Holyhead and Portland. Nor did his talents fail to be appreciated beyond the limits of Great Britain. The Brazilian, the Prussian, and the Sardinian governments in turn employed him to make certain surveys and reports. The viceroy of Egypt appointed him a member of the international commission for examining into the practicability of a canal across the isthmus of Suez. The city of Hamburg too, the year before he died, engaged him to find out some plan of preventing the bed of the River Elbe from being choked up with mud. Rendel, at his death in 1856, was a fellow of the Royal Society, and one of the council of the Institution of Civil Engineers.