472 



NATURE 



{Sept. 15, 1887 



back as i866 were desirous of establishing a colony in the 

 Transvaal. But Germany now has to cast about for unoccupied 

 territory, and has chosen a piece of useless territory on the 

 western coast of South Africa, whereas with a little foresight 

 Prince Bismarck might have obtained on easy terms the whole 

 of the French colonies in the Gulf of Guinea and north of the 

 Congo, which France had actually abandoned as worthless. 

 Germany would thus probably have held the position of France 

 with reference to the reversion of the Congo State . 



By the Treaty of Frankfort it was intended that all German- 

 speaking villages were to be ceded to Germany, but the boundary 

 as originally laid down, for want of geographical knowledge on 

 the part of German employes, left several German villages near 

 Metz in possession of France, and it was necessary subsequently 

 to rectify the error. 



As a Section of the British Association we are interested in 

 the development of geographical knowledge in the world gener- 

 ally, but more particularly in our own Empire, and it is only by 

 unceasingly calling attention to our shortcomings with regard to 

 the science which causes us to meet here to-day that we may 

 hope for that progress to be made which will enable us to 

 maintain the proud position we at present hold among nations 

 owing to our practical skill and energy. Hitherto we have 

 possessed so many other advantages that we have been able to 

 dispense with a good system of instruction, but owing to many 

 causes other nations are gaining upon us in various ways, and 

 we in our turn snould use every effort to successfully grapple 

 with a subject which if properly taught must affect our welfare 

 as a nation so deeply. 



SECTION G. 



MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



Opening Address by Prof. Osborne Reynolds, M.A., 

 LL.D., F.R.S., M.lNST.C.E., President of the 

 Section. 



At a meeting of the British Association in Manchester the 

 subjects of interest to the members of this Section are sure to 

 be numerous, and the attendance of those members whose 

 opinions on the various subjects presented the Section will like 

 to hear is sure to be such that every moment of the time at the 

 disposal of the Section will be well occupied. It is also particu- 

 larly undesirable to prolong the sittings, and so reduce the 

 opportunities of visiting the Exhibition and numerous works 

 which abound with things which cannot fail to be of intense 

 interest to members of this Section. 



For these reasons I feel extremely unwilling to occupy the 

 time of the Section with more than the briefest remarks by way 

 of an address. Indeed, were it not that when in this chair in 

 1872 Sir Frederick Bramwell laid down the rule that for the 

 President to break the custom of an address would be to show 

 disrespect to the Section, I should have felt justified in consult- 

 ing my inclination and proceeding at once with the regular work 

 which lies before us. 



It is now twenty-six years since the last meeting of this Section 

 was held in Manchester, and it certainly seems fitting that in an 

 address on this occasion something should be said as to the 

 achievements in mechanical science accomplished in the interval. 

 I wish sincerely that the task had fallen to some of you, gentle- 

 men, whose far greater experience and power of expression 

 would have enabled you to do justice to the subject. But under 

 the circumstances I can only ask you to take it as a mark of my 

 extreme respect for the Section, and proof of the appreciation in 

 which I hold the honour conferred upon me in placing me In 

 this chair, that I venture as a matter of duty to make a few 

 remarks, of the inadequacy of which I am only too conscious. 



It is always difficult to arrive at a just appreciation of the 

 relative importance of the events of our own time ; and in any 

 endeavour to review or take stock of the mechanical advance 

 of the last quarter of a century, during which time things 

 mechanical have divided the attention of the civilized world 

 with matters political, it seems very necessary to remember that 

 as the mechanical age gets older its relative activity is not to be 

 gauged by the relative number and importance of such epoch- 

 marking mechanical departures as compared with those which 

 have distinguished past periods. 



If you recall — and again, to quote Sir Frederick Bramwell, 

 the only purpose of an address is to force you to recall what 

 you already know — in 1861 not only had we railways, ocean 



steam-ships, including the Great Eastern, still the giant of the 

 tribe, a complete system of machinery for cotton and textile 

 fabrics, besides the steam hammer, Armstrong's accumulator, 

 and types of all machine tools, but also one attempt had been 

 made to lay an Atlantic cable ; the Suez Canal was in course 

 of construction ; if not perfected, the Bessemer process was in 

 use ; as were steam ploughs, steam threshing-machines, reap- 

 ing-machines, and other agricultural machinery ; we had also 

 monster ironclads and rifled ordnance. 



As new departures since 1861 which have already established 

 themselves we have the telephone, the incandescent electric 

 light, the dynamo and the secondary battery, the gas-engine 

 and sewing-machine, not to mention the bicycle. We have also 

 the tin can and freezing-machine and roller mills, as well as the 

 machine gun and Whitehead torpedo. 



One of these departures, the telephone, both from its useful- 

 ness and from the scientific interests which surround it, as 

 affording, like the telescope, a means of directly increasing the 

 power and range of one of our senses, must for ever remain 

 recognized as a step in mechanical science for the introduction 

 of v.'hich this period will be distinguished. 



The sewing-machine, too, though little calculated to attract 

 notice, in its influence on the welfare and appearance of all 

 gi-ades of society yields in importance to few, if any, previous 

 mechanical steps. While the process of preserving food by 

 means of the tin can and its more striking contemporary, the 

 freezing-machine, direct results of the discoveries of Pasteur, 

 have already opened up the food-producing resources of the 

 whole world for the supply of the few chosen spots, and in doing 

 so created a most welcome demand for further advance in the 

 application of steam. 



Great things have been and still are hoped from the electric 

 departures which have interested us so much during the last few 

 years ; also of the gas-engine, which has most usefully occupied 

 ground for which the steam-engine is not well adapted ; and as 

 to the importance of machine guns and torpedoes many will 

 think the less the better. 



However high or low an estimate we may form of the 

 probable future importance of some of these inventions, and 

 however much disappointment we may feel at the non-success 

 which has attended some of the boldest and apparently most 

 promising departures, such as the Crampton process for substi- 

 tuting a blast of coal-dust for the ordinary furnace, or Sir Henry 

 Bessemer's endeavours to prevent distressing motion at sea, 

 there is still no ground for discouragement. 



For whether or not this period be henceforth remarkable for 

 what, to borrow language from Section U, may be called the 

 origination of new mechanical species, is a small matter com- 

 pared with the fact that it has undoubtedly been remarkable for 

 unprecedented achievements in the development of higher states 

 of organization in those mechanical sjiecies which were already 

 in existence. 



There has never been a time in which mechanical revolutions 

 have folio i^ed one another with such rapidity. In all the main 

 departments of practical mechanics progress has been so rapid 

 that appliances have been superseded long before reaching the 

 term of their natural existence. There are some steamboats like 

 the steel mail-boats between Dover and Calais still on the same 

 service as in 1861, but very few, and only such as were then 

 much in advance of their time. The Atlantic fleet of Royal 

 mail-steamers has twice undergone complete revolution. Not 

 only have the paddle-boats which constituted the Cunard line in 

 1 86 1, and which included the Seotia, then new, entirely disap- 

 peared off the line, but the iron screw-steamers which displacecj 

 them have given place to the steel boats with compound 

 engines — Servia, Aurania, Etruria, and Umbria. 



In railway appliances the iron road has given place to that 

 steel, iron tires and locomotives to steel, the block system ha 

 become general, as have continuous brakes ; while the carriage 

 in which members have spent four hours and a quarter on theil 

 way from London to this meeting, although mostly still of thJ 

 English plan, are very different in size and ease from those iq 

 which five hours and a half were spent in 1861. 



In the works and mills the change is not less complete, 

 is, indeed, the change here that has not only rendered possible! 

 but forced on, the revolution in our means of communicatioE 

 The great step in the production of steel was already taken id 

 1 86 1, and great results were then anticipated ; there were, howl 

 ever, doubts and difficulties, and it was not for some years tha 

 sufficient mastery was obtained over the detail of the manufacl 



