ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING. 33 



of Biscay, and to a depth of nearly three miles. But, though their 

 existence is proved at these enormous depths, they love best the rock- 

 bound pools left by the retiring tide and the shallow water which 

 fringes our islands and continents ; and there they probably attain 

 their greatest beauty and most perfect development. 



Their distribution in time reaches back to the earliest dawnings 

 of life upon our globe. The Graptolites of the Lower and Upper 

 Silurian, the Hydroid Medusoe of the Jurassic, the Hydractinea of the 

 Cretaceous, Miocene, and Pliocene, the Serturella of the Pleistocene, 

 and the numberless forms of the present day, are the representatives 

 of this family in geologic and historic time. 



Like other humble forms of life, it shows a marvelous persistency. 

 It has lived, almost unchanged, while great dynasties of higher or- 

 ganisms have one after the other risen, develoj)ed, and perished, or 

 left only a few meagre representatives among the fauna of the pres- 

 ent day. The fragility of their chitinous envelope and the perishable 

 nature of their protoplasmic flesh would, of course, render it impos- 

 sible that any full record of their existence should ever be found in 

 the rocks of the primeval would, but the fragments which have, here 

 and there, left their impress on the various geologic strata, show 

 them to have been the contemporaries of the oldest forms of life 

 which inhabited the Silurian seas, and to have quietly existed in the 

 depths of those ancient waters over which the great fish and saurian 

 dynasties lorded it through so many centuries. 



4 



ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING. 



By Sie JOHN HAWKSHAW, F. E. S. 



) 



TO those on whom the British Association confers the honor of 

 presiding over its meetings the choice of a subject presents some 

 difficulty. The presidents of sections give accounts of what is new in 

 their departments ; and essays on science in general, though desirable 

 in the earlier years of the Association, would be less appropriate to- 

 day. Past presidents have discoursed on many subjects, on the mind 

 and on things beyond the reach of mind, and I have arrived at the 

 conclusion that humbler themes will not be out of place on this occa- 

 sion. I propose to say something of a profession to which my life has 

 been devoted a theme which cannot stand as high in your estimation 

 as in my own, but which I have chosen because I ought to understand 

 it better than any other. I propose to say something on its origin, 

 its work, and kindred topics. 



' Times's summary of Inaugural Address at the Bristol Meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation. 



VOL. Tin. 3 



