Jan. 23, 1890] 



NATURE 



281 



MR. DANIEL ADAMSON. 



A S a mechanical engineer and a metallurgist, Mr. 

 -^~*- Daniel Adamson must always maintain a foremost 

 place, for he was in the van in the industrial progress of 

 the century. He was born at Shildon, in the county of 

 Durham, in 1818, and apprenticed to Mr. T. Hackworth, 

 locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darling- 

 ton Railway, with whom he remained from 1835 to 1841. 

 He then held various stations in the same railway until 

 1850, and in 1851 he began business on his own account 

 as an iron-founder, engineer, and boiler-maker. 



From this time forward until quite recently Mr. Adam- 

 son has brought out many highly successful inventions 

 in connection with the manufacture of boilers and the 

 application of steam. The first of these was a flange 

 seam for high-pressure boilers, patented by him in 1852, 

 and well known as Adamson's flange seam. In 1856, 

 Mr., now Sir Henry, Bessemer, read a paper before the 

 British Association at Cheltenham describing his steel 

 process, and one of the first to apply it was Mr. Adamson. 

 Having satisfied himself by experimental trials of the 

 quality of steel, he determined to use it for the manu- 

 facture of boilers ; and Sir Henry Bessemer, when 

 on May 9, 1888, he presented the Bessemer Medal to 

 Mr. Adamson on behalf of the Council of the Iron and 

 Steel Institute, referred with satisfaction to this circum- 

 stance, as being the turning-point in his own career, and 

 as having given a start to the use of steel for general 

 engineering purposes. Later on, when open-hearth steel 

 was introduced by the late Sir William Siemens, Mr. 

 Adamson made trial of it for boiler use, and was for 

 years an upholdei of the merits of steel. He wrote a 

 comprehensive paper " On the Mechanical and other 

 Properties of Iron and Mild Steel," which was brought 

 before the Paris meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute 

 in 1878, when it gave rise to a most interesting discus- 

 sion. This paper is looked upon as a standard one on the 

 subject of steel. 



Mr. Adamson's inventions appear to have been all 

 intimately connected with his business. In 1858 he 

 applied hydraulic power for the riveting of steel structures, 

 and in 1862 he brought out an invention for building 

 steam boilers, the rivet holes being drilled through the 

 plates when these were in position. He was entirely 

 opposed to the punching of steel plates ; he de- 

 scribed it as a barbarous mode of treatment, as it 

 tore the fibre of the material ; and he would never allow 

 it to be used in his own works. The important feature in 

 all Mr. Adamson's work was its thoroughness ; all the 

 material used was subjected to chemical and mechanical 

 tests, so that he obtained a reputation throughout the 

 world for the soundness of everything he turned out. 



Mr. Adamson was one of the first to show the superi- 

 ority of compound engines. This class of engine had 

 already been introduced by Mr. John Elder, of Glasgow, 

 but to Mr. Adamson is greatly due the credit of the em- 

 ployment of triple and quadruple expansion engines. In 

 i874he read a paper at Manchester, in which he maintained 

 that pressures of 150 pounds on the square inch could be 

 as safely applied as pressures of 50 pounds by a careful 

 extension of the compound system. As far back as 1861 

 he patented and brought out a triple-expansion engine, 

 and in 1873 a quadruple engine. In the paper to which 

 we have just referred Mr. Adamson gave expression to 

 the opinion that the consumption of coal per horse-power 

 per hour should not exceed from I to li pounds of coal, 

 whilst at that time 2| pounds per horse-power per hour 

 was considered a very good result. 



Besides these inventions, Mr. Adamson took out patents 

 in connection with the manufacture of steel by the 

 Bessemer process, with machinery for compressing steel, 

 and for testing machines, as also improvements in guns 

 and armour. 



No account of his work would be complete without a 

 reference to his connection with the Manchester Ship 

 Canal. He was of an enthusiastic temperament, and this 

 was made specially evident in connection with this great 

 undertaking. A Manchester man, and thoroughly con- 

 vinced of the benefit which would accrue to the sur- 

 rounding manufacturing towns, Mr. Adamson set to 

 work to effect what others had proposed. It is more than 

 65 years ago since it was proposed that Manchester 

 should be connected with the sea by a ship canal, but it 

 was Mr. Adamson's invitation to various persons to meet 

 at his house on June 27, 1882, that really started the 

 project. The proceedings then initiated resulted in the 

 incorporation of the Manchester Ship Canal Company in 

 1885. Mr. Adamson's work in connection with inter- 

 national progress, and his labours to make Manchester an 

 ocean steam port, will not readily be forgotten. 



In September and October last he was engaged on an 

 examination of the iron mines of the inland of Elba, and 

 he embodied the results in a report to the Italian Govern- 

 ment. About two months ago he caught a cold on his 

 Flintshire estate of Wepre Hall. He returned to his 

 home at Didsbury, and died there on Monday, the 

 13th inst. 



Quite recently Mr. Adamson was elected President 

 of the Iron and Steel Institute. He was a member 

 of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of the Institution 

 of Mechanical Engineers, and of the Iron and Steel In- 

 stitute, and to the proceedings of these Societies he 

 presented many papers containing the results of his 

 inquiries as to the properties and treatment of metals,, 

 especially iron and steel. 



NOTES. 



At a meeting of a Committee appointed by the Council of the 

 Royal Society to set on foot a memorial to the late James Pres- 

 cott Joule, held on November 30 last, at Burlington House, it 

 was unanimously resolved that a fund should be raised for a 

 memorial of an international character commemorative of the 

 life-work of Joule. This memorial will have for its object the 

 encouragement of research in physical science. It is proposed 

 also that a tablet or bust shall be erected to his memory in 

 London, a Manchester Memorial Committee having already 

 taken steps to ensure a suitable monument in his native city.. 

 Joule's discoveries were of such commanding importance that 

 there can be no doubt as to the success of this movement. The 

 Committee feel coniident not only that men of science will gladly 

 contribute towards a fund to do honour to Joule's memory, and 

 to assist others to follow in his footsteps, but that those who 

 devote themselves to the practical application of scientific 

 principles will also be anxious to aid in the promotion of a 

 fitting memorial of one whose work has exerted so great aa 

 influence on industry. 



We regret to announce the death of Gustave-Adolphe Hirn,, 

 the eminent physicist. He died at Colmar on January 14, ia 

 his seventy-fifth year. 



Mr. Roonev, who accompanied the late Father Perry on the 

 solar eclipse expedition to the Salut Isles, has arrived in England,, 

 bringing with him the plates successfully exposed during the 

 totality of the eclipse by Father Perry and himself. Mr. 

 Rooney has put himself in communication with the Astronomer 

 Royal, and the plates will be handed over to the Royal Astro- 

 nomical Society to be developed. 



The Forth Bridge was tested by the engineers on Tuesday as 

 a preliminary to the passage of the first train over it on Friday. 

 The following is the official report : — " Sir John Fowler and Mr.. 



