ROTARY CLUB 



67 1 5 



ROTATION 



About 300 acres had been re- 

 covered from the sea, and the sea- 

 wall had been constructed by sink- 

 ing huge concrete monoliths to a 

 firm bed in boulder clay or rock, 

 each 40 ft. square and each weigh- 

 ing many thousands of tons, and 

 shod with steel cutting shoes, 

 weighing 50 or 60 tons. In 1913 

 3,000 men were employed, and 

 work went on night and day. The 

 plan included the building of 8,000 

 houses for the seamen and dock- 

 yard workers, and the expectation 

 that the whole establishment would 

 j be completed by 1916 was fulfilled. 

 I Additional shops and offices were 

 planned in August, 1914, and work 

 was in active progress during the 

 first years of the war. The resources 

 were increased in the light of the 

 new and enormous requirements, 

 and provision was made for the 

 docking, refitting, and repairing of 

 ships of every class. A large coal- 

 ing station was established, with 

 very extensive oil tankage, and 

 every equipment for rapidly sup- 

 plying ships. 



The great basin extends for 

 about three-quarters of a mile 

 from E. to W., and about half a 

 mile from N. to S., and the sub- 

 marine basin is on the E. East- 

 ward of the dockyard the Firth of 

 Forth was dredged to a width of 

 600 ft., and at low tide the water in 

 the fairway is over 36 ft. deep. In 

 the latter part of the war, the main 

 elements of the Grand Fleet were 

 transferred to Rosyth from Scapa 

 Flow. See Dockyard. 



Rotary Club. Movement 

 among business men which takes 

 for its motto " Service, not self." 

 The idea of the Rotary Club 

 originated with Paul Harris, a 

 Chicago lawyer, who in 1905 

 sought to establish a little club of 

 men, each representing a different 

 trade or profession, for the inter- 

 change of opinion on business and 

 other matters. Religion and poli- 

 tics were excluded from discussion. 



The first Rotary Club was a 

 luncheon club, but in a few years 

 the number of Rotary Clubs was 

 200, and in 1911 the institution 

 took root in Great Britain. During 

 the Great War the British Rotary 

 Clubs devoted themselves to many 

 kinds of special war service. Rot- 

 arians gradually evolved 'an ethic 

 of their own, founded on their 

 motto, " Service, not self," and are 

 establishing a kind of modern 

 Freemasonry, without its formali- 

 ties and secrecy. 



In June, 1921, the 12th Annual 

 Convention of the International 

 Association of Rotary Clubs was 

 held in Edinburgh, and was at- 

 tended by over 1,000 business men 

 from American Rotary Clubs. It 



was stated that there were then 906 

 affiliated clubs, including 31 in 

 Great Britain, and rotary member- 

 ship is estimated at 65,000. 



Rotary Engine. Type of steam 

 engine. In the ordinary steam en- 

 gine the first movement is recipro- 

 cating the piston and its rod 

 move to and fro, and the direction 

 of this motion is reversed in every 

 stroke. But this to-and-fro motion 

 must in nearly all cases be con- 

 verted into rotary or circular mo- 

 tion, in order that it may be con- 

 veniently utilised. A certain loss 

 of power and complication of parts 

 arise from this conversion, and it 

 has long been the aim of inventors 

 to make an engine which would 

 give the necessary rotary motion 

 directly, precisely as it is given by 

 a water-wheel or water turbine. 

 Such engines are called rotary 

 engines. The earliest form of steam 

 engine of which we have any 

 record, that devised by Hero of 

 Alexandria, 130 B.C., and the most 

 modern form, the steam turbine, 

 are both of this type. 



Murdock's Engine 



William Murdock devised a 

 rotary engine in which motion was 

 produced by passing steam between 

 the teeth of two cog wheels fixed 

 on parallel axles and enmeshed 

 together and enclosed in a case, 

 the effect of the steam being to 

 turn the wheels round, of course, 

 in opposite directions. Eighty 

 years later Dudgeon, an American 

 inventor, improved on Murdock's 

 design, but did not make a satisfac- 

 tory engine, the waste of steam 

 escaping by the sides of the wheels 

 still remaining excessive. 



Another idea which has been 

 much studied is based on the 

 movement of Hooke's joint. The 

 idea is applied in the form of disks 

 fixed angle-wise on revolving 

 shafts and enclosed in steam cylin- 

 ders. Steam is introduced between 

 the disks, and causes them to re- 

 volve with their axles, from one of 

 which the power is taken. In their 

 revolution the disks make con- 

 tracting and expanding chambers. 

 An engine of this type, known as 

 the Bishop disk engine, was used 

 for some time to drive a part of the 

 printing machinery of The Times, 

 but was discarded in 1857. A more 

 modern form of disk engine was 

 devised by Beauchamp Tower, and 

 a number were made in Manchester, 

 but again the difficulty of keeping 

 the working parts steam-tight 

 proved serious, and the engine did 

 not come into general use. 



Another type is known as the 

 radial rotary, and has come into 

 extensive use for aeroplanes, par- 

 ticularly a French design, the 

 Gnome. This engine consists of a 



number of cylinders, usually seven, 

 arranged radially in a plane at 

 right angles to the shaft which is 

 to be rotated. The connexion is 

 made by means of a o:ank and a 

 " master " connecting rod screwed 

 into the base of one of the pistons, 

 the other connecting rods being 

 attached to the head of the 

 " master." The cylinders are all 

 rigidly attached to a common 

 frame, which revolves round a 

 stationary crank and shaft. 



While all these types of engine 

 may be called rotary, it will in 

 most cases be found that they are 

 not purely rotary, but depend on 

 some more or less veiled recipro- 

 cating movement. The first strictly 

 rotary engine to attain practical 

 success was the one devised by the 

 Swedish engineer, de Laval, which 

 in effect consisted of a disk which 

 was blown round by jets of steam 

 directed against its periphery. This 

 has been eclipsed by the steam 

 turbine introduced by Sir Charles 

 Parsons. See Aero-engine; En- 

 gine; Turbine. 



Rotation. Auction of moving 

 round a centre or of turning round 

 an axis. The axis round which a 

 body revolves is called the instan- 

 taneous axis of rotation. Rotation 

 may also be defined as the change 

 of direction of a vector (q.v. ). In 

 plants the flowing of protoplasm 

 within the cell wall is called rota- 

 tion. Any return or succession in 

 a series is also called a rotation, 

 e.g. rotation of the seasons. 



Rotation. Term much used 

 in agriculture for crops, grasses, 

 etc., which are grown in turn. 

 Rotation grasses are quickly 

 growing, short-lived species of 

 grasses and clovers grown as a 

 " seeds " crop in a rotation, to 

 stand as a temporary ley for one, 

 two, or three years. For a one- 

 year's ley ordinary red clover may 

 be grown alone, being sown at the 

 rate of 12 to 16 Ib. per acre. The 

 following are typical seed-mixtures, 

 the figures giving the number of 

 pounds per acre : For 1 year : 

 Italian rye-grass 6 ; red clover 8 ; 

 alsike 2 ; white clover 2. For 2 

 years : Italian rye-grass 4 ; peren- 

 nial do. 6 ; cock's-foot 2 ; Timothy 

 2 ; cow-grass 6 ; alsike 2 : white 

 clover 2 ; trefoil 2. For 3 or 4 

 years : Italian rye-grass 6 ; peren- 

 nial do. 12 ; cock's-foot 2 ; Timothy 

 2 ; cow-grass 4 ; alsike 2 ; white 

 clover 2 ; trefoil 2. 



This temporary grass crop, or 

 the first year of the same, follows 

 a cereal, and is often broadcasted 

 among this after it is up, and then 

 covered in by a horse-rake or seed- 

 harrow. It may also be drilled and 

 rolled in. Clovers are sometimes 

 sown before the cereal appears 



