Aiuiiuil Report of tlic Council. xlv 



School of Technology in connection with the University of 

 Manchester he was appointed the first professor of Mechanical 

 Engineering, a position which he held until his death. 



Although the routine duties of his Chair occupied a large 

 amount of his time, Professor Nicolson's energy led him to 

 undertake a number of important and extensive original investi- 

 gations. He made detailed experiments on rapid-cutting steels, 

 in which he showed the relations between the cut and speed 

 and the durability. The results of these investigations were 

 published as a report by the Manchester Association of Engineers 

 in 1903, and were well received by the engineering profession. 

 As was characteri.stic of Prof. Nicolson, he immediately applied 

 the experimental results to the improvement and design of 



machine tools. 



During the last few years of his life he took up the question 

 of the transfer of heat to boilers. The late Prof. Osborne 

 Reynolds had predicted in 1874 on theoretical grounds that 

 the rate of transfer of heat from a gas or fluid to a solid surface 

 should increase with the velocity of movement. This was con- 

 firmed for fluids by the experiments of Dr. Stanton in 1897. 

 Prof. Nicolson, in an elaborate series of experiments, showed 

 that the same result held for gases. He then applied this idea 

 to the design of boilers and condensers, the essential point 

 being that the heated gases were driven at a high speed through 

 the tubes of the boiler, the water circulating in the opposite 

 direction. As the result of an extended trial of a 60-h.p. boiler 

 over sixty days, it was found that the efificency of such a com- 

 bination was considerably greater than that of tlie ordinary 

 boiler. There has been much difference of opinion among 

 engineers as to the practicability of this idea, but Prof Nicolson 

 himself had the strongest belief in the greater overall efficiency 

 to be obtained by his methods. 



The training of Prof. Nicolson fitted him admirably to fill 

 the position of a professor of engineering, for he had not only a 

 wide scientific outlook, but took a keen interest in the practical 

 side of his profession. This is shown by the promptness with 



