Sept. 6, 1888] 



NA TURE 



441 



vast are the advances which have been made in electrical com- 

 munication of intelligence, by land lines, by submarine cables 

 all over the world, and by the telephone ! Few will be 

 prepared to deny the statement, that pure electrical science has 

 received an enormous impulse, and has been advanced by the 

 commeicial application of electricity to the foregoing, and to 

 purposes of lighting. Since this latter application, scores, I may 

 say hundreds, of acute minds have been devoted to electrical 

 science, stimulated thereto by the possibilities and probabilities 

 of this application. 



In this country, no doubt, still more would have been done 

 if the lighting of districts from a central source of electri- 

 city had not been, since 1882, practically forbidden by the 

 Act passed in that year. This Act had in its title the facetious 

 statement that it was "to facilitate electrical lighting" — ■ 

 although it is an Act which, even modified as it has been this 

 year, is still a great discouragement of free enterprise, 

 and a bar to progress. The other day a member of the 

 House of Commons was saying to me: "I think it is very 

 much to our discredit in England that we should have allowed 

 ourselves to be outrun in the distribution of electric lighting 

 to houses, by the inhabitants of the United States, and by those 

 of other countries." Looking upon him as being one of the 

 authors of the " facetious " Act, I thought it pertinent to quote 

 the case of the French parricide, who, being asked what he has to 

 say in mitigation of punishment, pleads, " Pity a poor orphan " — 

 the parricide and the legislator being both of them authors of 

 conditions of things which they affect to deplore. I will say no 

 more on this subject, for I feel that it would not be right to take 

 advantage of my position here to-night to urge political 

 economy views, which should be reserved for Section F. I will 

 merely, and as illustrative of my views of the value of the ap- 

 plication of science to science itself, say there is no branch of 

 physics pursued with more zeal and with more happy results 

 than that of electricity, with its allies, and there is no branch of 

 science towards which the public look with greater hope of prac- 

 tical benefits ; a hope that, I doubt not, will be strengthened 

 after we have had the advantage of hearing one of the ablest 

 followers of that science, Prof. Ayrton, who, on Friday next, has 

 been good enough to promise to discourse on "The Electrical 

 Transmission of Power." 



One of the subjects which, as much as (or probably more 

 than) any other, occupies the attention of the engineer, and 

 therefore of Section G, is that of (the so-called) prime movers, 

 and I will say boldly that, since the introduction of printing by 

 the use of movable type, nothing has done so much for civiliza- 

 tion as the development of these machines. Let us consider 

 these prime movers — and, first, in the comparatively humble 

 function of replacing that labour which might be performed by 

 the muscular exertion of human beings, a function which at one 

 time was looked upon by many kindly but short-sighted men as 

 taking the bread out of the mouth of the labourer (as it was 

 called , and as being therefore undesirable. I remember re- 

 visiting my old schoolmaster, and his saying to me, shaking his 

 head : " So you have gone the way I always feared you would, 

 and are making things of iron and brass, to do the work of men's 

 hands." 



It must be agreed that all honest and useful labour is honour- 

 able, but when that labour can be carried out without the 

 exercise of any intelligence, one cannot help feeling that the 

 result is likely to be intellectually lowering. Thus it is a sorry 

 thing to see unintelligent labour, even although that labour be use- 

 ful. It is but one remove from unintelligent labour which is not 

 useful ; that kind of labour generally appointed (by means of 

 the tread-wheel or the crank) as a punishment for crime. 

 Consider even the honourable labour (for it is useful, and it is 

 honest) of the man who earns his livelihood by turning the 

 handle of a crane, and compare this with the labour of a smith, 

 who, while probably developing more energy by the use of his 

 muscles, than is developed by the man turning the crane-handle, 

 exercises at the same time the powers of judgment, of eye, and 

 of hand in a maimer which I never see without my admiration 

 being excited. I say that the introduction of prime movers as a 

 mere substitute for unintelligent manual labour is in itself a great 

 aid to civilization and to the raising of humanity, by rendering it 

 very difficult, if not impossible, for a human being to obtain a 

 livelihood by unintelligent work — the work of the horse in the 

 mill, or of the turnspit. 



But there are prime movers and prime movers — those of small 

 dimensions, and employed for purposes where animal power or 

 human power might be substituted, and those which attain ends 



that by no conceivable possibility could be attained at all by the 

 exertion of muscular power. 



Compare a galley, a vessel propelled by oars, with the modern 

 Atlantic liner ; and first let us assume that prime movers are 

 non-existent, and that this vessel is to be propelled galley-fashion. 

 Take her length as some 6co feet, and assume that place be 

 found for as many as 400 oars on each side, each oar worked by 

 three men, or 2400 men ; and allow that six men under these 

 conditions could develop work equal to one horse-power: we 

 should have 400 horse-power. Double the number of men, and 

 we should have 800 horse-power, with 4800 men at work, and at 

 least the same number in reserve, if the journey is to be carried 

 on continuously. Contrast the puny result thus obtained with the 

 19,500 horse-power given forth by a large prime mover of the 

 present day, such a power requiring, on the above mode of cal- 

 culation, 117,000 men at work, and .117,000 in reserve; and 

 these to be carried in a vessel less than 600 feet in length. Even 

 if it were possible to carry this number of men in such a vessel, 

 by no conceivable means could their power be utilized so as to 

 impart to it a speed of twenty knots an hour. 



This illustrates how a prime mover may not only be a mere 

 substitute for muscular work, but may afford the means of 

 attaining an end that could not by any possibility be attained by 

 muscular exertion, no matter what money was expended or what 

 galley-slave suffering was inflicted. 



Take again the case of a railway locomotive. From 400 to 

 600 horse-power developed in an implement which, even includ- 

 ing its tender, does not occupy an area of more than fifty square 

 yards, and that draws us at sixty miles an hour. Here again, 

 the prime mover succeeds in doing that which no expenditure of 

 money or of life could enable us to obtain from muscular effort. 



To what, and to whom, are these meritorious prime movers 

 due ? I answer : To the application of science, and to the 

 labours of the civil engineer, using that term in its full and 

 proper sense, as embracing all engineering other than military. 

 I am, as you know, a civil engineer, and I desire to laud my 

 profession and to magnify mine office ; and I know of no better 

 means of doing this than by quoting to you the definition of 

 "civil engineering," given in the Charter of the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers — namely, that it is "the art of directing the 

 great sources of power in Nature for the use and convenience of 

 man." These words are taken from a definition or description 

 of engineering given by one of our earliest scientific writers on 

 the subject, Thomas Tredgold, who commences that description 

 by the words above quoted, and who, having given various 

 illustrations of the civil engineer's pursuits, introduces this 

 pregnant sentence : — 



" This is, however, only a brief sketch of the objects of civil 

 engineering, the real extent to which it may be applied is limited 

 only by the progress of science ; its scope and utility will be 

 increased with every discovery in philosophy, and its resources 

 with every invention in mechanical or chemical art, since its 

 bounds are unlimited, and equally so must be the researches of 

 its professors." 



" The art of directing the great sources of power in Nature 

 for the use and convenience of man." Among all secular 

 pursuits, can there be imagined one more vast in its scope, more 

 beneficent, and therefore more honourable, than this? There 

 are those, I know— hundreds, thousands— who say that such 

 pursuits are not to be named as on a par with those of literature ; 

 that there is nothing ennobling in them ; nothing elevating ; 

 that they are of the earth earthy ; are mechanical, and are 

 unintellectual, and that even the mere bookworm, who, content 

 with storing his own mind, neither distributes those stores to 

 others nor himself originates, is more worthily occupied than is 

 the civil engineer. 



1 deny this altogether, and, while acknowledging, with grati- 

 tude, that, in literature, the masterpieces of master minds have 

 afforded, and will afford, instruction, delight, and solace for all 

 generations so long as civilization endures, I say that the pur- 

 suits of civil engineering are worthy of occupying the highest 

 intelligence, and that they are elevating and ennobling in their 

 character. 



Remember the kindly words of Sir Thomas Browne, who 

 said, when condemning the uncharitable conduct of the mere 

 bookworm, "I make not, therefore, my head a giave, but a 

 treasure of knowledge, and study not for mine own sake only, 

 but for those who study not for themselves." The engineer of 

 the present day finds that he must not make his "head a grave," 

 but that, if he wishes to succeed, he must have, and must 

 exercise, scientific knowledge ; and he realizes daily the truth 



