IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 17 



a satisfactory report of the experiments. This report includes several dis- 

 tinct things, and is genei'ally arranged under heads as follows: 



1. Object of the experiment. 



3. Metiiod to be employed in attaining it. Under this head is placed the 

 derivation of the fundamental formulae for the experiment. 



3. Description of apparatus. This includes all apparatus, principal or 

 accessory. The description is often assisted by sketches. 



4. Describe the experiment. Every operation having direct or indirect 

 bearing on the results. 



5. Give numerical data. These are usually taken on printed blanks and 

 afterward copied on similar blanks for pasting in the note books. 



6. Derive results. 



7. Draw conclusions. 



When the student has the results obtained from the above experiments 

 upon the pages of his note book he has a valuable store of knowledge to 

 draw upon in his future work. For the tests of the materials of construc- 

 tion he finds certain constants. Experimenting with lubricants shows him 

 that the value of an oil for lubrication depends upon many properties. 

 Testing the transmission of power by various devices opens his eyes to the 

 extent of the friction losses, resistance of the air, etc. The calibration of 

 instruments, calorimetry, flue-gas analysis are essential in establishing the 

 value of the efficiency tests; and from these efficiency tests, he learns, above 

 all, the value of accui'acy in each and every step and the importance of 

 perfect honesty in the recording of observations. 



With the exceptions of the tests ui)on materials, the numerical results of 

 much of this work are far from correct because of the Inexperience of the 

 experimenters and because also of the variability of conditions peculiar to 

 engineering problems. The exactness of the physical and chemical 

 laboratories are unusual in the engineering laboratory. But education and 

 not figures is the result sought by the instructors. Professor Carpenter, in 

 charge of experimental engineering at Sibley College, Cornell University, 

 says "The undergraduate laboratory should be equipped so as to demonstrate 

 in a practical and convincing way the principal laws or facts that the 

 student must master in order to finish his course. Its course of instruction 

 should be such as to i-equire systematic work of the student, teach him how 

 to observe, how to use apparatus, how to deduce conclusions from his mass 

 of data and finally how to make a neat and systematic i-eport of his work."* 



Having completed, or nearly so, the above outlined work, the student 

 takes up the second kind of experimental work which is offered to him 

 chiefly in the form of thesis work. That "there's nothing new under the 

 sun" cannot be said of man's knowledge. And in engineering there are 

 countless problems still unsolved for the lack of evidence which those 

 actively engaged in professional work have not the time to gather and the 

 technical schools are expected to help by contributing facts. Hence the 

 necessity for original work in the technical schools. This can almost alwaj's 

 be accomplished by assigning it to students as thesis work and the results of 

 so doing when the instructor can give personal supervision to the work are 

 good. Educationally, the results are good because the student is thrown 

 largely upon his own resources and because in opening the gates to the new 



♦Engineering Laboratories, K. 0. Carpenter. Science, November 3, 1893. 



