1010 



RUSSELL, JOHN SCOTT, F.R.S. 



RUSSELL, JOHN SCOTT, F.R.S. 



1020 



Hornsby, one of hia predecessors in the Savilian chair of Astronomy, 

 and the first Radcliffe observer, whose family readily restored them to 

 the University. They were now edited by Professor Rigaud, together 

 with other documents collected from various sources, and published 

 in 1831, under the title of 'The Miscellaneous Works and Corres- 

 pondence of Bradley,' forming a work which will over be regarded as 

 a moat valuable record in the history of Astronomy. To it, he after- 

 wards added an interesting ' Supplement ' on the astronomical papers 

 of Harriot [HARRIOT, THOMAS] which contain the earliest records in 

 existence of observations of Jupiter's satellites and of the solar spots, 

 though their author was not the discoverer of either series of objects. 

 In 1838, Professor Rigaud published some curious notices of the first 

 publication of the Principia of Newton ; and he had also projected a 

 life of Halley, with the view of rescuing the memory of that great man 

 from much of the injurious obloquy to which it has been exposed, 

 having, in 1834, communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society 

 some biographical particulars of Halley, contained in a manuscript 

 memoir preserved hi the Bodleian Library ; he had made extensive 

 collections also for a new edition of the mathematical collections 

 of Pappus [PAPPCS, ALEXANDUINUS]. He was the author of many 

 valuable communications to the Ashmolean Society of Oxford (of 

 which he was one of the originators), and to the Royal Astrono- 

 mical Society, as well as to the later Journals of the Royal Institution, 

 to the ' Edinburgh Philosophical Journal ' aud ' Journal of Science,' 

 to the ' Philosophical Magazine ' when united with the latter, and 

 other scientific periodicals, on various subjects connected with 

 mathematical, physical, and astronomical science. There was probably 

 no other person of his age who was equally learned on all subjects 

 connected with the history and literature of astronomy ; as a mathe- 

 matical antiquary and bibliographer he was unrivalled, at least in this 

 country, until the gradual adoption of similar pursuits by Professor 

 Do Morgan. One of his later productions, on a subject not historical, 

 was a valuable paper ' On the relative quantities of land and water on 

 the surface of the terraqueous globe,' published in the sixth volume of 

 the ' Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc.' 



Professor Rigaud was a man of most amiable character, and of 

 singularly pleasing manners and person, as the contributor of this 

 article can bear witness. The warmth of his affections, his modesty, 

 gentleness, and love of truth, as well as the great variety of his acquire- 

 ments and accomplishments, had secured him the love and respect of 

 a large circle of friends, not merely in his own University, but among 

 men of science generally. The qualities just alluded to were charac- 

 teristically evinced by the part he took in the discussions which arose 

 in the year 1836 (occasioned by the publication .of Mr. F. Daily's 

 account of Flamsteed), on the characters and mutual conduct of that 

 astronomer, and of Halley and Newton. He died in London on the 

 16th of March 1839, after a short but painful illness. 



At the time when he was thus suddenly taken from his labours, he 

 was engaged in editing and printing a selection of the letters of 

 scientific men of the 17th century, extending from 1706 to 1741, the 

 autograph originals of which, formerly in the possession of the father 

 of Sir William Jones, had been supplied by George, fourth earl of 

 Macclesfield ; the publication having been undertaken by the univer- 

 sity. But the printers declaring themselves unable to work from the 

 originals, Professor Rigaud transcribed the whole correspondence (now 

 occupying nearly 1000 pages in octavo) in modern orthography. He 

 had printed the first volume, and, after his decease, his eldest son, 

 STEPHEN JORDAN RIGAUD, entered upon the work with the second, 

 and published both in 1841, under the title of ' Correspondence of 

 Scientific Men of the 17th Century, including letters of Barrow, 

 Flamsteed, Wallis, and Newton.' Professor Rigaud married, on the 

 8th of June 1815, the eldest daughter of the late Gibbea Walker 

 Jordan, Esq., F.R.S., Barrister, of Portland Place, London, colonial 

 agent for the Island of Barbadoes (author of three memoirs on the 

 allied subjects of the inflections of light, the colours of thin plates, 

 and the Irides ;or Corona; seen around the sun, &c.). By this lady, 

 who died in 1827, he left seven children. His eldest son, already 

 mentioned, the Rev. Dr. Rigaud, formerly Fellow and Tutor of Exeter 

 College, afterwards in succession second master of Westminster School 

 and head-master of Ipswich School, Suffolk, was Mathematical Exami- 

 ner in 1845, and became in 1856 one of the select preachers of the 

 University. In November 1857 he was appointed to the colonial 

 bishopric of Antigua. 



* RUSSELL, JOHN SCOTT, F.R.S., the eminent civil engineer, is 

 the eldest son of the Rev. David Russell, and was born in the Vale of 

 Clyde in 1808. He was and educated at Edinburgh University, where 

 he graduated in 1824. While a mere child he had shown great fond- 

 ness for mechanical pursuits, and his father having encouraged his 

 inclination, he early acquired considerable mechanical dexterity, and 

 during his residence at Edinburgh sedulously studied dynamics and 

 the connected branches of mathematical and physical science. So 

 highly were his attainments estimated, that on the death (in November 



i32) of Sir John Leslie, professor of natural philosophy in the 

 University of Edinburgh, he was called upon to deliver in his place 

 the usual natural philosophy course of lectures. Mr. Russell was for 

 some time at the head of a ship-building yard in Greenock, and after- 

 wards of an engineering establishment in Edinburgh. He removed 

 to London iu 1844, The construction of steam-carriages for running 



on common roads was occupying much attention, and Mr. Russell 

 invented one which ran regularly for some time between Glasgow aud 

 Paisley : a paper in the ' Foreign Quarterly Review" for October, 1832, 

 on Steam-Carriages was understood to be written by him. The con- 

 struction of ships and boats of iron led him to pay attention to the 

 forms of vessels, and a project which was started for running swift 

 passenger boats on a canal induced him to consider more particularly 

 what form a boat should take so as to produce the least ' swell' in 

 passing through the water, and he accordingly made numerous expe- 

 riments on the oscillations produced in the waters of the canal by the 

 passage of vessels along it. He embodied the results of his inquiries 

 and experiments in a paper which he read before the British Associa- 

 tion at the meeting held at Dublin in 1835. Great interest was 

 excited, and he was requested to continue his experiments, Sir John 

 Robinson being associated with him in the conduct of them. These 

 experiments and inquiries which Mr. Russell chiefly directed, and to 

 which he gave all their value by his fruitful deductions were extended 

 over a long course of years, and made in an immense variety of forms 

 in small pieces of water, in canals, in tidal rivers, in actuaries, and 

 on the ocean with small and with large models, with boats constructed 

 for the purpose, with steamers and with sailing ships. In all, some 

 20,000 distinct experiments were made. From year to year Mr. Russell 

 reported to the British Association the course of his experiments and 

 the laws which he educed from them. 



Very early in the course of these experiments he discovered or 

 observed what he termed ' the Great Solitary Wave,' or ' the Primary 

 Wave of Translation,' and conceived the idea that it was possible so 

 to adapt the form of the hull of a ship as to cause the least displace- 

 ment of an adverse wave, and to obtain the largest assistance from the 

 wave of translation which it produces in moving rapidly through the 

 water ; and hence he arrived at the conclusion which he stated in his 

 paper read before the British Association in 1839 " That in a voyage 

 by a steam-vessel in the open sea, exposed to adverse as well as favour- 

 able winds, there is a certain high velocity aud high portion of power, 

 which may be accomplished with less expenditure of fuel and of room 

 than at a lower speed with less power." In order to obtain this 

 advantageous result, he conceived that the vessel should be constructed 

 of such a form that the lines or curves of the bow should bear a 

 definite conformity with the curves of a ' wave of translation,' whilst 

 the Hues of the stern, in like manner, should conform to what he 

 termed the ' wave of replacement.' He called this the ' wave princi- 

 ple,' and a vessel constructed according to it he described as ' the 

 solid of least resistance.' Vessels were early constructed on this prin- 

 ciple. The first appears to have been the Fire King yacht, which was 

 found to be swifter than any other of its size in the kingdom. Next 

 some steamers were built with equal success. It was adopted by Mr. 

 Brunei when he built the Great Western, the largest steamer then in 

 existence. Professional prejudices prevented the general adoption of 

 the new system, but it steadily made its way both in this country and 

 America, and now all vessels intended for swift sailing, including the 

 noted American clippers, and the great sea-steamers, whether propelled 

 by screw or paddle, are built with a more or less close approximation 

 to the 'wave form.' The consummation of the principle, according 

 to its author, and that which will most fairly test its correctness, will 

 be found in the ' Leviathan,' the construction of which, under the 

 direction of Mr. Russell, has excited such general attention during the 

 last three years, but especially during the last few mouths. It was 

 ' On the Mechanical Structure of the Great Ship ' that his latest paper 

 read before the British Association (August 1857) was written. This 

 enormous ship is built on lines laid down by him in strict accordance 

 with his wave principle j the form therefore is that of Mr. Russell : 

 the constructive principles are those of Mr. Brunei, the most remark- 

 able feature being the application for the first time in a ship of the 

 ' cellular principle,' which was employed with so much success in the 

 Britannia (tubular) Bridge across the Menai Strait at Bangor. As Mr. 

 Russell stated in the paper above mentioned, " When a vessel was 

 about to be built, intended to attain a certain speed, from ten miles an 

 hour upwards, reference to the table of the wave principle informed 

 them of the length which the bows and stern must be, and of the 

 peculiarity of construction necessary in order to procure the desired 

 result. According to this principle, it was necessary, in order to 

 acquire the speed which this vessel was to attain, that the length of 

 her bow should be 330, the length of her stern 250, of the midship 

 120, which, with ten feet for the screw propeller, gave her an entire 

 length of 680 feet " [the figures, it will.be seen, exceed b'SO]. He inferred 

 therefore that, " while increasing the carrying or paying power of the 

 ship to an immense extent, its mode of construction was such that the 

 increase in tho resistance of the water was in a much lower ratio, so 

 that the vessel, notwithstanding its enormous size, could be worked as 

 economically as a smaller one." 



Mr. Russell, having read a paper on his investigations before the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1837, was awarded the Society's large 

 gold medal, and elected a Fellow of the Society. In June 1849 he 

 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He was for 

 some time secretary of the Society of Arts, and, in connection with that 

 society, was one of the originators of the Great Exhibition of 1851. 

 He was also one of the nine gentlemen who purchased the building 

 with a view to its re-erectioa at Sydenharn. 



