RELATIONS OF CIVIL ENGINEERING 557 



It is impracticable to draw hard-and-fast lines between the various 

 branches of engineering, because, as before indicated, nearly all large 

 constructions involve several specialties; consequently no specialist 

 can confine his attention to a single line of work to the exclusion of 

 all other lines. For instance, the bridge engineer encounters mechani- 

 cal and electrical engineering problems in designing movable bridges; 

 railroading in approaches to bridges; river improvement in the 

 protection of piers and abutments; highway construction in the 

 pavement of wagon bridges; architecture in the machinery houses 

 of swing spans; hydraulic engineering in guarding bridges against 

 fire; and chemistry and metallurgy in testing materials. The rail- 

 road engineer encounters architecture and structural engineering 

 in depots, roundhouses, and other buildings; hydraulic problems in 

 pumping-plants and bank protection; mechanical engineering in 

 interlocking plants; and electrical engineering in repair-shop machin- 

 ery. The mining engineer invades the field of mechanical and elec- 

 trical engineering in his hoisting, ventilating, and transporting 

 machinery; deals with civil engineering in his surveys; and en- 

 counters chemistry and metallurgy in testing ores. Similarly it 

 might be shown that all branches of engineering overlap each other 

 and are interdependent. 



It was the general opinion among scientists not many years ago 

 that engineering was neither a science nor a profession, but merely a 

 trade or business; and even to-day there are a few learned men who 

 hold to this notion some of them, mirabile dictu, being engineers; 

 but that such a view is entirely erroneous is now commonly con- 

 ceded. He is an ill-informed man w r ho to-day will deny that civil 

 engineering has become one of the learned professions. Its advances 

 in the last quarter of a century have been truly gigantic and unpre- 

 cedented in the annals of professional development. It certainly can 

 justly lay claim to being the veritable profession of progress; for the 

 larger portion of the immense material advancement of the world 

 during the last century is due primarily and preeminently to its 

 engineers. 



It must be confessed that half a century ago engineering was little 

 better than a trade, but by degrees it advanced into an art, and to- 

 day, in its higher branches at least, it is certainly a science and one 

 of the principal sciences. 



The sciences may be divided into two main groups, viz., "Pure 

 Sciences" and "Applied Sciences." 



The "Pure Sciences" include: 



(1) Those sciences which deal with numbers and the three dimen- 

 sions in space, the line, the surface, and the volume, or in other words 

 "Mathematics." 



(2) Those sciences which deal with inorganic matter, its origin, 



