84 THE- ADDRESSES, LECTURES, ETC., OF 



Although a man of science of the highest order, Rankine was 

 professedly and essentially a mechanical engineer. His deep 

 researches into the constitution of matter in the three aggregate 

 conditions of solids, fluids, and gases, are of a strictly mechanical 

 nature, involving as they do the mechanical laws according to 

 which the particles are moved by heat, which is the greatest 

 potential force in nature, essential alike to the constitution and to 

 the outward motion of matter. The very numerous published 

 investigations by Professor Rankine prove, more than words can 

 convey, the breadth, energy, and profundity of his mind ; his 

 manuals on engineering science will ever be regarded as standard 

 works, teeming with sound information for the student who is not 

 deterred by the rather formidable array of mathematical expressions 

 with which they are somewhat overcharged. As a consulting 

 engineer, Rankine's advice was sought on many important ques- 

 tions where exact appreciation of mechanical principles was in- 

 volved. He leaves no great actual works executed by himself, 

 because his mind was less remarkable for inventive faculty or 

 practical resource than for power of working out the true balance 

 between cause and effect when presented to him in the form of a 

 problem. All who knew Professor Rankine intimately will bear 

 testimony to his moral rectitude, his genial nature, his kind- 

 heartedness, and the filial affection with which he clung to his 

 aged parents, whom he survived only a few years. His profound 

 knowledge of the mechanical nature of things did not prevent him 

 from appreciating also the poetry of nature ; he was a thorough 

 musician, and could compose a humorous song, including the 

 words, and sing it himself in a genial and unaffected manner. 

 Whoever heard him sing his "three-foot rule " or his railway song 

 will not easily forget the pleasing effect produced. Having been 

 on terms of intimacy with the deceased, I may be excused for 

 speaking of his personal as well as his scientific merits, the com- 

 bination of both being necessary in order to produce the truly great 

 man that he undoubtedly was. His death is keenly felt by his 

 friends, by the University in which he, the worthy successor of 

 Professor Lewis Gordon, had filled the chair of civil engineering 

 for seventeen years, and by the world of science at large. We, 

 the members of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, deplore 

 the loss in him of one of our most enlightened and important 

 members. 



