FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS 541 



Secondly, we can train the mind of the student to work easily along 

 lines of scientific thought; in fact, we can do much to form the 

 scientific mind. 



It will now be seen that, so far as we have considered it, techno- 

 logy is really a process of education a secondary science a 

 process which has been described by Ellis as an entire system of 

 education by new methods to new uses. He tells us, at the same time, 

 that the first use of the word technology, apparently, was made in 

 connection with the professorship just mentioned, in that Dr. Bige- 

 low, who, for ten years, held it with marked ability and success, 

 published his lectures under the name of the Elements of Technology. 

 We find, however, that technology, as now taught, embraces a 

 third department of a completely different character, and one which 

 has arisen out of the working of the third conception to which I have 

 called attention, namely, that in the attempt to utilize the natural 

 laws, there would certainly be revealed more and more of the infin- 

 ite possibilities of our environment. 



So indeed it has proved. It happens that certain investigations 

 into the chemical and physical properties of matter, into the dynam- 

 ics of steam, electricity, etc., have been made by the engineer rather 

 than by the physicist and the chemist, because these investigations 

 have been required by the practical work of the engineer, and because 

 they have sometimes to be carried out on a scale inconsistent with 

 the more delicate experiments which are the chief occupation of the 

 physical laboratory. So it has come to pass, as a matter of conven- 

 ience mainly, that engineering, besides being a profession, has been 

 made directly responsible for certain scientific work, and may in this 

 light be looked upon as containing within itself a pure science. 



Numerous examples might be quoted as illustrating this statement 

 from any good engineering laboratory, and I will just refer to one or 

 two which I have taken from our own experience at McGill Univer- 

 sity. Callendar and Nicolson, with the platinum thermometer and 

 ordinary steam-engine, were able to deduce laws of the utmost im- 

 portance relating to the cylinder condensation of steam. The experi- 

 ments of Adams and Nicolson, and subsequently of Adams and 

 Coker, have thrown new light on the flow of rock-masses under high 

 pressures and temperatures, and further developments may be hoped 

 for, as generous provision for the purpose has been made by the 

 Carnegie Institute. By means of specially designed extensometers it 

 has been possible to study, within the limits of elasticity, the lines 

 of stress in beams under transverse loads, and much progress has 

 been made in the solution of many hydraulic problems, notably in 

 the determination of coefficients and the critical velocity. 



This department of technology, which is daily assuming more 

 importance, has hitherto been little emphasized, and it naturally 



