124 EARL DE GREY'S ADDRESS. [May 28, 1860. 



its various branches and continuations ; the Ilungerford Suspension 

 Bridge ; the Tuscan portion of the Sardinian Eailway ; and the 

 Hospitals on the Dardanelles, erected during the late war with 

 Eussia. 



The President of the Institute of Civil Engineers in his address 

 remarks : " In his professional career, it appears to me that full 

 justice has not been done to the memory of Mr. Brunei. I allude 

 more especially to his exertions in accelerating the progress of 

 Oceanic Steam Navigation. The Great Western was a brilliant 

 example 'of the correctness of his conceptions in this point. It 

 must be conceded, that he was the first clearly and practically to 

 conceive the advantages to be derived from augmenting the size of 

 steamers, with a view to increased speed and to the extension of 

 their voyages. Looking back, therefore, to the period of the con- 

 struction of the Great Western steamer, she must be admitted to 

 have been an absolutely successful experiment, mechanically and 

 commercially; and the names of Brunei as the engineer, of Pat- 

 terson as the shipwright, and of Maudslay and Field as the con- 

 structors of the engines, can never be omitted from the records 

 of Oceanic Steam Navigation. The next step was the Great Britain ; 

 and so far as regards the construction of the hull, the efficiency of 

 that vessel, even to the present day, bears ample testimony to the 

 skill of the design ; whilst her having endured a whole winter's 

 buffeting of the waves in Dundrum Bay, testifies to the strength 

 of her construction, and to the powers of resistance of which iron 

 vessels are susceptible. It must not be forgotten, that it was to 

 this vessel that the screw-propeller was first applied ; and it should 

 be stated, that by Mr. Brunei's exertions in experimenting upon 

 the Archimedes^ the introduction of that mode of propulsion was 

 greatly accelerated." He was very early distinguished for his 

 powers of mental calculation, and not less so for his rapidity and 

 accuracy as a draughtsman. His power in this respect was not 

 confined to professional or mechanical drawings only. He dis- 

 played an artist-like feeling for and love of art, which in later 

 days never deserted him. He was elected a Fellow of this Society 

 in 1852, and showed his interest in it by a frequent attendance at 

 our evening meetings. 



In the death of the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone the Society 

 has lost one of its earliest and most distinguished Fellows. He 

 was bom in 1779, and repaired at an early age to India, in the 

 civil employment of the East India Company ; and gradually 



