SOME REFINEMENTS OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE." 



By Amrbose Swasey, Cleveland. Ohio. 



As we open this, the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the American 

 Society of Meclianical Engineers, the history of the society for a 

 quarter of a century comes before us, and it is an occasion when it is 

 especially appropriate to nuike some mention of the growth and 

 progress of the society since it was organized. 



At the beginning of the society who would have dared to predict 

 the wonderful advance that has been made in mechanical engineering. 

 There was indeed a great field for work for just such a society. The 

 long list of meetings which have been so fully attended and so valu- 

 able to the members; the transactions, with their records of addresses, 

 papers, and discussions by men of experience in nearly every branch 

 of mechanical engineering, and the constant growth of the society 

 until at the present time it has a membership of nearly 2,000, all go 

 to show that from the beginning it has been an earnest and pro- 

 gressive organization, and a most important factor in the progress 

 of mechanical science and of the mechanic arts. 



Not only those of us who were counted among its first members, 

 but those who from year to year have been added to its membership, 

 may well feel proud of its splendid record. 



The scope and influence of the society, which has been constantly 

 increasing in the past, will surely continue, and never was its future 

 brighter than at present. 



For the subject of my address I wish to speak of a few of those 

 methods and mechanisms which have been developed and perfected 

 to such a degree of refinement that they may be considered as almost 

 beyond the practical, and yet were it not for such refinements they 

 could not possibly be made to serve the utilitarian purposes which 

 make them of such inestimable value to us all. 



The division and the measurement of time is to-day, as it has been 

 for ages, among the most important of the subjects affecting the wel- 

 fare of mankind, and as time has rolled on and there has been a better 



n rresidenf s address, Anierican Society of Mechanical Engineers, December 

 0, 1904. Reprinted from author's corrected copy. 



141 



