336 



NATURE 



\Ang. 26, 1875 



Inaugural Address of Sir John Hawkshaw, F.R.S., 

 President. 



To those on whom the British Association confers the 

 honour of presiding over its meetings, the choice of a subject 

 presents some difficulty. 



The Presidents of Sections, at each annual meeting, give an 

 account of what is new in iheir respective departments ; and 

 essays on science in general, though desirable and interesting in 

 the earlier years of the Association, would be less appropriate 

 to-day. 



Past Presidents have already discoursed on many subjects, on 

 things organic and inorganic, on the mind and on things perhaps 

 beyond the reach of mind, and I have arrived at the conclusion 

 that humbler themes will not be out of place on this occasion. 



I propose in this Address to say something of a profession to 

 which my lifetime has been devoted — a theme which cannot 

 perhaps be expected to stand as high in your estimation as in 

 my own, and I may have same difficulty in making it interesting; 

 but I have chosen it because it is a subject I ought to under- 

 stand better than any other. I propose to say something on its 

 origin, its work, and kindred topics. 



Rapid as has been the growth of knowledge and skill as 

 applied to the art of the engineer during the last century, we 

 must, if we would trace its oriijin, seek far back among the 

 earliest evidences of civilisation. 



In early times, when settk d communities were few and isolated, 

 the opportunities for the interchange of knowledge were scanty 

 or wanting altogether. Oiten ihe slowly accumulated results of 

 the experience of the wisest heads and the most skiliul hands of 

 a community were lost on its downfall. Inventions of one period 

 were lost and found again. Many a patient investigator has 

 puzzled his brain in trying to solve a problem which had yielded 

 to a more fortunate labourer in the same field some centuries 

 before. 



The ancient Egyptians had a knowledge of Metallurgy, much 

 of which was lost during the years of decline which followed the 

 golden age of their civilisation. The art of casting bronze over 

 iron was known to the Assyrians, though it has only lately been 

 introduced into modern metallurgy ; and patents were granted 

 in 1609 for processes connected with the manufacture of glass, 

 which had been practised centuries before.' An inventor in the 

 reign of Tiberius deviled a method of producing flexible glass, 

 but the manufactory of the artist was totally de.-troyed, we are 

 told, in order to prevent the manufactuie of copper, silver, and 

 gold from becoming depreciated. * 



Again and again engineers as well as others have made mis- 

 takes Irom not knowing what those fiad done who have gone 

 before them, and have had the same difficulties to contend with. 

 In the long discussion which took place as to the practicability of 

 making the Suez Canal, an early objection was brought against 

 it that there was a difference of 32, ieet between the level of the 

 Red Sea and that of the Mediterranean, Laplace at once 

 declared that such could not be the case, for the mean level of 

 the sea was the same on all parts of the globe. Centuries 

 before the time of Laplace the same objection had been raised 

 against a project for joining the waters of these two seas. Accord- 

 ing to the old Greek and Roman historians, it was a fear of flood- 

 ing Lgypt with the waters of the Red Sea that made Darius, 

 and in later times again Ptolemy, hesitate to open the canal 

 between Suez and the Niie.^ Yet this canal was made, and was 

 in use some centuries before the time oi Darius. 



Strabo* tells us that the same objection, that the adj ->ining 

 seas were of different levels, was made by his engineers to Deme-' 

 trius,^ who wished to cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth 

 some two thousand years ago. But Strabo * dismisses at once 

 this idea of a difference of level, agreeing with Archimedes ttiat 

 the force of gravity spreads the sea equally over the earth. 



When knowledge in its higher branches was confined to a few, 

 those who possessed it were often called upon to perform many 

 and various services for the communities to which they belonged ; 

 and we find mathematicians and astronomers, painters and sculp- 

 tors, and priests called upon to perform the duties which now 

 pertain to the profession of the architect and the engineer. And 

 as soon as civilisation had advanced so far as to admit of theaccu. 



' Layard's " Nineveh and Babylon," p. 191 ; Beckman's " HLstory of In- 

 ventions," vol. ii. p. 85. 



^ Pliny, Nat. Hist., bk. xxxvi. c. 66. 

 3 Ibid., bk. vi. c. 33. 

 ■* Sirabo, c. iii J 11. 



5 Demetrius J., King of Macedonia, died 283 b.c. 



6 Strabo, c. iii. § 12. 



mulation of wealth and power, then kings and rulers sought to add 

 to their glory while living by the erection of mag.iificent dwelling- 

 places, and to provide for their aggrandizement alter death by the 

 construction of costly tombs and temples. Accordingly we soon 

 find men of ability and learning devodng a great part of their 

 time to building and architecture, and the post of architect be- 

 came one of honour and profit. In one of the most ancient 

 quarries of Fgypt a royal high architect of the dynasty of the 

 Psammetici has left his pedigree sculptured on the rock, extend- 

 ing back for twenty-three generations, all of whom held the 

 same post in succession in connection with considerable sacerdotal 

 offices. ^ 



As there were in these remote times ofTficers whose duty it was 

 to design and construct, so al.so tl^ere were those whose duty it 

 was to maintain and repair the royal polaces and temples. In 

 Assyria, 700 years before our era, as we know from a tablet 

 found in the palace of Sennacherib by Mr. Smith, there was an 

 officer whose title was the Master of Works. The tablet I allude 

 to is inscribed with a petition to the king from an officer in 

 charge of a palace, requesting that the master of works may be 

 sent to attend to some jepairs which were much needed at the 

 time. * 



Under the Roman Empire there was almost as great a division 

 of labour in connection with building and design as now exists. 

 The great works of that period were executed and maintained 

 by an army of officers and workmen, who had special duties 

 assigned to each of them. 



Passing by those early attempts at design and construction 

 which supplied the mere wants of the individual and the house- 

 hold, it is to the East that we must turn it we would find the 

 earliest works which display a knowledge of engineering. 

 Whether the knowledge of engineering, if we may so call it, 

 possessed by the people of Chaldsea and Babylonia was of native 

 growth or was borrowed from Egypt is, perhaps, a question 

 which cannot yet be answered. Both people were agricultural, 

 dwelling on fertile plains, intersected by great rivers, with a soil 

 requiring water only to enable it to bring forth inexhaustible 

 crops. Similar circumstances would create similar wants, and 

 stimulate to action similar faculties to satisfy them. Apart from 

 the question of priority ol knowledge, we know that at a very 

 early period, some four or five thousand years ago at least, there 

 were men in Mesopotamia and Egypt who possessed consider- 

 able mechanical knowledge, and no little skill in hydraulic 



engineering. 



Of the men themselves we know little 



happily, works often remain when the names of those who con- 

 ceived and executed them have long been forgotten. 



It has been said that architecture had its origin not only in 

 nature, but in religion ; and if we regard the earliest works which 

 required mechanical knowledge and skill, the same may be said 

 of engineering. The largest stones were chosen for sacred 

 buildii.gs, that they might be more enduring as well as more im- 

 posing, thereby calling lor improvement and invention of mechan- 

 ical contrivances, to assist in transporting and elevating them to 

 the position they were to occupy ; for the same reason the hardest 

 and most costly materials were chosen, calling for further im- 

 provement in the metal forming the tools required to work them. 

 The woiking of metals was luither perfected in making images 

 of the gods, and in adorning with the more precious and orna- 

 mental sorts the interior and even external parts cf their shrines. 



The earliest buildings ol stone to which we can assign a date 

 with any approach to accuracy, are the pyramids of Gizeh. To 

 their builders they were sacred buildings, even more sacred than 

 their temples or temple palaces. They were built to preserve 

 the royal remains, until, after a lapse of 3,000 years, which we 

 have jeason to believe was the period assigned, the spirit which 

 hid once animated the body should re-enter it.^ Although built 

 5,000 years ago, the masonry of the Pyramids could not be sur- 

 passed in these days ;all those who have seen and examined them, 

 as I myself have done, agree in this ; moreover, the design Is 

 perfect fur the purpose for which they were intended, above all 

 LO endure. The building of pyramids in Egypt continued for 

 some ten centuries, and from 60 to 70 still remain, but none are 

 so admirably constructed as those of Gizeh. Still, many con- 

 tain enormous blocks of granite from 30 to 40 feet long, weigh- 

 ing more than 300 tons, and display the greatest ingenuity in 

 the way in which the sepulchral chambers are constructed and 

 concealed.* 



I "Discoveries in Egypt, Ethiopa, &c.," by Dr. Lepsius.'and edit. p. 318 



' Smith's (G.) " Assyrian Discuveries," 2nd edit. p. 414. 



3 Fergusson's " History of Architecture," vol. i. p. 83 ; Wilkinson 

 "Ancient Egyptians," 2nd series, vol. ii. p. 444. 



* Vyse's "Pyramid's of Gizeh," vol. iii. pp. 16, 41, 45, 57- 



