TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 177 
undismayed by repeated failures, and heedless of warnings, which, where there was 
no science, were without force, struggled on till the project came to an end from 
exhaustion. Some of the parties were ruined, while all lost the capital they had 
embarked in the speculation. 
| One of the objects of the Mechanical Section is to prevent such disasters, and no 
_ doubt to a certain extent this has been effected. Another object has been effected 
also: the importance of engineering science in the service of the State has been brought 
_ more prominently forward. There seéms, however, something still wanting. Science 
_ Tay yet do more for the navy and army, if more called upon. 
A few years ago, in sailing through the harbour of Portsmouth, as the boat pro- 
ceeded along, the sailors gave a little history of each ship laid up there; they said, 
That ship has been but once at sea, and it rolled so it was almost impossible to keep 
masts in her; she is not likely to go to sea again. There is another ship which sails 
so badly that she can neither chase nor run away. There is a ship which can scarcely 
__ beat to windward, and if it was blowing hard upon a lee-shore, she would have but little 
_ chance. Other ships had other defects. Strange uncertainty : who could avoid asking 
the question, is naval architecture really guided by science? About that time a little 
book came out which solved the mystery. It is called ‘ Lectures on the results of 
the Great Exhibition :’ the lectures are by first-rate men. In it there is a lecture by 
Captain Washington, ‘‘On the Progress of Naval Architecture,” an officer of high 
scientific attainments, now Hydrographer to the Admiralty. After mentioning the 
well-known historic fact, that during the late great war our best ships were copies, 
- and not always very successful ones, of foreign models, he proceeds to say, that all 
who served in the blockading fleets were painfully alive to the fact that our ships 
were inferior to those of France and Spain in speed, stability, and readiness in man- 
euvring. That much loss of life might have been spared if our ships had been in 
form more on a par with those of our opponents. He attributes their inferiority to 
the fact, that while in France and Spain, and other continental countries, the aid of 
science had been called in, and the greatest northern nations had turned their atten- 
tion to ship-building, the only English treatise at all of a scientific character was 
published by Mungo Murray, who died a working shipwright. That England has not 
to this day one original scientific treatise on Naval Architecture. He further states, 
_ that of the forty-two men who were educated in the School of Naval Architecture 
_ Which had been established in 1811, and after a few years suppressed, but five had 
_ to this day risen to stations of responsibility, and that the sight might have beet seen 
_ of men familiar with the differential calculus, chipping timber in the dockyards in 
_ eoihpany with common mechanics. Cruze, in his article on Naval Architecture in 
_ the ‘ Encyclopzedia Britannica,’ makes similar statements. 
It has been objected, however, that the powers of engineering science have been 
overrated ; that they had been brought to the test during the late war and had but 
_ little strengthened our hands. People seemed to think that scientific invention should 
have carried all before it. Inventions, however, do not come forth at our bidding ; 
_ and are we sure there has been much to attract highly cultivated inventive powers to 
the science of war? Have we never heard a whisper of official prejudices and official 
“discouragement? Moreover, if you invent, the invention soon falls into the hands of 
_@ Vigilant enemy and you have achieved nothing. 
__ It was not by little inventions that the engineering powers of England could have 
been brought to bear effectually in the late war. If, when war was imminent, civil 
“engineers had been consulted in conjunction with military engineers and naval men, 
“means perhaps would have been found by which the gigantic engineering resources 
of this country would have been rendered available. It was going a little too far when 
it was said that Cronstadt could have been taken by contract. Of this, however, there 
could have been no doubt, that a certain thickness of wrought iron would have resisted 
the heaviest ordnance then in use; that the sea could have carried the weight; and 
that no stone walls could have long resisted the close fire of large guns. Moreover, 
ere were actually French experiments made a few years before, which, in the absence 
new experiments, would have afforded tolerably accurate data for the necessary 
culations. 
_ Let it not be said that engineering science was almost powerless in the late war, 
Lit can be shown that it had a fair trial,—that its aid had been called for at a proper 
time and in a proper manner. 
1857. 12 
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